should eat them beans.”
I tried to pay her, but Nell said, “How’d it look if I charged for his grub?” To Bill she says, “I was saving that steak for you, Billy, but it was going bad, so I et it.”
“Goddammit,” says he, and of course she don’t chide him for the language. “That was a prime piece of beef: I stole it at Jake Shroudy’s when he went out to look at somebody getting shot in the street.”
She winks at me, over the head he lowered to the beans, and says sweetly, “Tenderest I ever tasted, dearie, only a little high.”
I took my leave of them two lovebirds and went down to No. 10, which was crowded at midday as always, by which I mean a dozen or so persons, for it wasn’t spacious. A game was in progress with three players, one of them occupying Wild Bill’s favored place, that which had a view of the front and back doors and only wall behind it. Carl Mann, part owner of the joint with a man named Jerry Lewis, was one of the men at the table, and a gent called Captain W. R. Massie, who like old Sam Clemens had been a Mississippi riverman, was another.
I went back outside and leaned against the raw boards of the wall. As I said, I found it a real relief to know my brother had a girlfriend, even if I was baffled as to what she saw in him, her with a successful business, and him not even washing unless I made him, but I was disinclined to examine the teeth of a gift horse. I begun to think now that if Bill had Nell to look after him, then I might be in the clear to go ahead and find a deal for myself. If I performed in the current part-time employment to Colorado Charley’s satisfaction, then maybe he would promote me to something better in his express operation. My luck had turned up on running into Wild Bill Hickok.
Who I now saw coming along the street, looking real tall and stately in his sparkling clean-looking linen (which he must not have worn to bed in the wagon), Prince Albert coat, and wide sombrero, walking the confident way he had in the old days when he was the most feared man on the frontier, with eyes like an eagle.
But he never recognized me now till he almost reached the door of No. 10.
“Hoss,” says he, blinking, like I appeared out of nowhere. “I been looking for you. Step over here for a spell.” He moves to the corner of the building. When I gets there he says, “I ask you to do me a favor.”
“Anything at all, Bill.”
He reaches into an inside pocket of the tailcoat, where I remember he often carried a hideout gun useful if there was trouble when seated at the poker table and it was awkward to draw a weapon from the belt, but what his fist come out with now was not a pistol but a roll of paper money, which was not awful popular with men of the West at that time, especially card players, who preferred coin, which you could bite to see if it was silver or lead.
Glancing around to see if we was being observed, he slips me the roll in his closed hand, saying, “Put this away before anybody sees it.”
So I did as asked, without counting, though I pointed out that having no armament I could hardly give it effective protection.
“Nobody’d think looking at you that you was carrying that kind of money, hoss,” says he.
“I’ll do a better job of protecting your cash than you can?”
He stares down at the rough wood boards underneath us, an uncharacteristic thing for him, for there was nothing significant to see at our feet. “I got this feeling my days are numbered. I can’t shake it off.” He raised his head and looked at the high and cloudless sky on that August day in Dakota Territory, which reminded me some of the one in June over the Greasy Grass, and he said, “If your number’s up, you’ve got to go.” He shrugs. “Now that wad I been keeping aside. Even Charley Utter don’t know about it. If I get mine any time soon, as I think I might, I ask you to take enough from this roll for the train fare to Cincinnati, Ohio, and back, and
I tried to pay her, but Nell said, “How’d it look if I charged for his grub?” To Bill she says, “I was saving that steak for you, Billy, but it was going bad, so I et it.”
“Goddammit,” says he, and of course she don’t chide him for the language. “That was a prime piece of beef: I stole it at Jake Shroudy’s when he went out to look at somebody getting shot in the street.”
She winks at me, over the head he lowered to the beans, and says sweetly, “Tenderest I ever tasted, dearie, only a little high.”
I took my leave of them two lovebirds and went down to No. 10, which was crowded at midday as always, by which I mean a dozen or so persons, for it wasn’t spacious. A game was in progress with three players, one of them occupying Wild Bill’s favored place, that which had a view of the front and back doors and only wall behind it. Carl Mann, part owner of the joint with a man named Jerry Lewis, was one of the men at the table, and a gent called Captain W. R. Massie, who like old Sam Clemens had been a Mississippi riverman, was another.
I went back outside and leaned against the raw boards of the wall. As I said, I found it a real relief to know my brother had a girlfriend, even if I was baffled as to what she saw in him, her with a successful business, and him not even washing unless I made him, but I was disinclined to examine the teeth of a gift horse. I begun to think now that if Bill had Nell to look after him, then I might be in the clear to go ahead and find a deal for myself. If I performed in the current part-time employment to Colorado Charley’s satisfaction, then maybe he would promote me to something better in his express operation. My luck had turned up on running into Wild Bill Hickok.
Who I now saw coming along the street, looking real tall and stately in his sparkling clean-looking linen (which he must not have worn to bed in the wagon), Prince Albert coat, and wide sombrero, walking the confident way he had in the old days when he was the most feared man on the frontier, with eyes like an eagle.
But he never recognized me now till he almost reached the door of No. 10.
“Hoss,” says he, blinking, like I appeared out of nowhere. “I been looking for you. Step over here for a spell.” He moves to the corner of the building. When I gets there he says, “I ask you to do me a favor.”
“Anything at all, Bill.”
He reaches into an inside pocket of the tailcoat, where I remember he often carried a hideout gun useful if there was trouble when seated at the poker table and it was awkward to draw a weapon from the belt, but what his fist come out with now was not a pistol but a roll of paper money, which was not awful popular with men of the West at that time, especially card players, who preferred coin, which you could bite to see if it was silver or lead.
Glancing around to see if we was being observed, he slips me the roll in his closed hand, saying, “Put this away before anybody sees it.”
So I did as asked, without counting, though I pointed out that having no armament I could hardly give it effective protection.
“Nobody’d think looking at you that you was carrying that kind of money, hoss,” says he.
“I’ll do a better job of protecting your cash than you can?”
He stares down at the rough wood boards underneath us, an uncharacteristic thing for him, for there was nothing significant to see at our feet. “I got this feeling my days are numbered. I can’t shake it off.” He raised his head and looked at the high and cloudless sky on that August day in Dakota Territory, which reminded me some of the one in June over the Greasy Grass, and he said, “If your number’s up, you’ve got to go.” He shrugs. “Now that wad I been keeping aside. Even Charley Utter don’t know about it. If I get mine any time soon, as I think I might, I ask you to take enough from this roll for the train fare to Cincinnati, Ohio, and back, and
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