Текст книги "Paradise Sky"

Автор книги: Joe R. Lansdale

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

There was a general store, the Long Branch Saloon, a dry-goods store, and all manner of business buildings along both sides of the street. It was a much more organized and better arranged line of buildings than Deadwood, none of it built in such a way as to be treacherous. The street was wide and hard enough there wasn’t any mud puddles, only a few holes here and there, most likely made by herds of cattle being driven through. There was lots of cow pies in the street and flies to go with them.

Bronco Bob said, “When I first come through Dodge it wasn’t nothing more than a line of tents and a handful of cows. Look at it now.”

“It still smells like shit,” I said.

We arrived at the livery, unsaddled our horses, turned them into a corral, took off our guns, and gave them to the liveryman, a short little guy wearing a wool cap—which had been home to some moths at one time—and loose red gallusses that could be seen when he moved and his blue-jean coat swung wide. He appeared to have some Mexican or Indian blood in him, way his skin was colored and how his eyes was dark, but I figured his bald head was all Irish. He gave us what he called claim checks; it was a piece of paper with our names written on it and a brief description of our weapons. It matched the papers that was tied to our guns.

Bronco Bob said he and Red was going to the saloon where he intended to buy Red his first beer and maybe a whiskey. Then they might go whoring. Knowing Red’s upbringing was in good hands, I chose to find a place to sleep.

Thing that was different in towns out there on the plains was that a colored could occupy any hotel if the owner was willing to room him. There wasn’t no law against it, as there was in the South. I can’t tell you it was all even out there for people my skin color. I can only say it was more so.

I got a room in a hotel run by a fat white man. I was given a key. I felt strange about it and very good. In that moment I had been accepted as an equal, if for no other reason than I had the price of a room. I thought that was fair enough.

It was midday, and I was as tired as if it was midnight. I paid out for a tub and some hot water and retired to my room until the bathwater was brought to fill the tub, which was already there under one of the windows. I pushed up the windows to let some air in, being used to the outside those long weeks, and the smell of cow mess sailed in on the breeze like birds. I finally pushed the window closed except for a crack and sat down in one of the two chairs that was there. It was thick with cushion and comfortable.

The bathwater come in trips delivered in steaming buckets, carried a bucket at a time by a very nice-looking colored girl who gave me a friendly eye.

Had I wanted, I surely could have had a sweet night with her, but I didn’t act on it. I wouldn’t do that to Win. I pretended her beautiful face and dark brown skin was of no allure to me, and when the water filled the tub and she left, I stripped down and soaked, washing my long, wild hair. Drying off, I fell into bed without a stitch on, and even with the light shining in through parted curtains I fell into a deep sleep in the nicest and softest bed I had ever spent a night in.

I didn’t wake until the rest of the day had passed, the night had journeyed, and late morning arrived and crept on well past first bird’s song.

I dressed, went downstairs, and had breakfast, which was two pickled eggs, toast, and coffee. I asked the fat man at the desk where a colored man like myself could get his hair cut.

It was a tent at the back of Main Street, and when I stepped inside I saw at least four colored men ahead of me. The barber was a big, dumpy, coffee-colored man with a bald head. Bald barbers make me nervous.

Some chairs was provided, so I sat and read a dime novel that was laid there for the purpose. It was the biggest batch of balderdash I have ever read, as it had to do with Wild Bill Hickok, and the personality of the character in that story wasn’t anything like Bill, but it was pretty entertaining once I made up my mind it wasn’t no true-life story.

When my turn came, I had to lay the book aside right when Bill was about to have a shoot-out with a dozen men. I never did learn how that come out, but I had a pretty good idea. I sat in the chair and had my long hair cut short and shaved at the neck and powdered. It might have been nice had the barber run the razor over the strop a little more before he went about his work. There were times when it dragged over the back of my neck like a plow over solid rock.

I threw in another coin to have myself shaved. It was done quick and rough, and I was only cut twice. The barber gave me a mirror to look in. Without all that long, thick hair, my ears really stood out. I had almost forgotten about them.

I paid up, strolled over to the dry-goods store, and bought me a fresh shirt.

I went back to the hotel and put on my new shirt, which was bright red, and waited around for what I didn’t know. What I needed to do was start asking around about Ruggert and Golem, but I was a little uncertain where to start until the obvious hit me. I walked over to the livery and asked the liveryman, who was currycombing Satan as I got there.

He turned and seen me, said, “If I remember correct, this here is your horse.”

“It is,” I said.

“He is one fine animal—a little too lean, I figure, but well taken care of.”

“He is a little lean,” I said. “We been traveling.”

“Few days’ grain, and he’ll fatten up,” he said.

“Sir,” I said. “Might I ask your name?”

“Cecil Jenkins,” he said, like it was a title akin to captain or governor.

“There are two men I’m trying to find, and I was wondering if you might have seen them.” I then went on to describe them.

“Should I tell if I have? You sound like you don’t like them much.”

“Do I?”

“You do.”

“You haven’t seen them, no problem. If you have, it’s up to you if you want to tell me about them or not.”

He hesitated for only a moment. “I have seen them. They quarreled right here in this livery.”

“Quarreled?”

“They did. Big one decided he didn’t want to go with the scarred fellow, and I think it had to do with money.”

“So he don’t think he’s a mud monster so much he can’t worry about money,” I said.

“What’s that?” Cecil said.

I waved it off, saying it wasn’t important.

“I don’t suppose you have any idea where either one of them is now, where they went?”

“The big man’s horse is still here,” the liveryman said, “and he is paid up through the week, so my guess is he’s in town. As for the other, he said he was going out with some cattle drovers, got a job as a cook.”

“Do you know where the drovers was going?”

“To get some cows, I reckon.”

“He told you all this?” I asked.

“Nope. He told the big man. I’m an eavesdropper of the first order. I was also paying attention to them because I didn’t like the condition of their horses. I can’t abide a man that mistreats horse flesh. That’s why I’m telling you about them. I usually keep a tight lip, but anyone that mistreats a horse—rough-rides it, doesn’t feed it, or doesn’t curry it good—they get a special place on my shit list.”

“Do you know where the drovers are going to get those cows?”

“Texas. That’s where they always go. Pretty sure the scarred one said he was going on his own when they reached Texas, or maybe he said before he reached Texas. I was listening in, but I wasn’t writing it down.”

“If I tell you the hotel where I’m staying and promise you a full dollar for letting me know if the big man comes for his horse, will you do it?”

“I will,” he said.

I thanked Cecil for the information and how well he was treating my horse, then decided my next step was to find Golem. Golem was an odd duck and hard to figure, but my first thought was he might be at the saloon. I started over to the Long Branch, as it stayed open pretty much around the clock due to all the cowboys that passed through town at all hours. If Golem was there, even without a gun, he would be a handful, but I needed to know if he was still in town and where he was. If he saw me, things could go south quick, so I was thinking how I might just peek in the saloon then slide out and figure from there. I hoped I could hold my anger back enough to be sensible.

I was crossing the street, considering on all this, when who should I see coming out of it but Bronco Bob. He was heading my way. He hadn’t put on fresh clothes. His hair was matted where it hung down from under his hat, and his beard was so tangled an owl could have nested inside it.

He seen me, and I noticed he was taking some time to look me over before deciding I was in fact Nat Love with a haircut and a shave. When he was satisfied it was me, he come to me with his hands waving. “Nat. What a set of ears. And with that shirt, you look like a robin redbreast.”

“Thanks for noticing the ears,” I said. “I never do.”

“Nothing by it, Nat. They are manly. I want to tell you something. I’m worried about Kid Red.”

“Who?”

“Red. We got to drinking, and he got to drinking more, and he played cards and had a knack for it, and by the time I cut him off from my money he had gambling money of his own. He got really drunk, and the boys in the Long Branch started calling him Kid Red on account of his hair, and by early this morning he was so drunk you could have laid cucumbers on him and they would have pickled. He borrowed some fellow’s horse and a rope, roped that cannon at the fort, and dragged it along the street. They found him at the far end of town, having fallen off the horse, asleep by the cannon. I think he had taken his boots and pants off, but he had managed to keep his shirt and hat. The law come and got him, and he’s in jail.”

“Goddamn it, Bronco, he shouldn’t never been allowed a drink. He’s just now learning how to eat food. That’s why I don’t drink, all that kind of foolishness.”

“You may have a point there, Nat.”

We went over to the jail. The town marshal was a fellow named Deger. He was built near in the shape of a box and had a mustache like a resting caterpillar. He said the kid was in the back and had thrown up all over the cell. A man he was sharing it with took to beating him so bad they had to pull the kid out and put him in a cell by himself, which was not a thing they liked to do, their jail being stuffed pretty tight with troublemakers and drunks.

“It was pretty funny, though,” said Marshal Deger. “He pulled that cannon through the streets, and when we brought him in, he said he did it so he could take it back to Deadwood and fight the Indians.”

“He’s never been drunk before,” I said.

“That’s true, Marshal,” Bronco Bob said. “I gave him his first taste of liquor.”

“He looks mighty young,” said the marshal.

“He’s nineteen,” Bronco Bob said, lying with an authority so strong I damn near believed him.

“Well,” Deger said, “he damn sure put a wet one on.”

The short version was Bronco Bob paid a bit of money, and the sheriff went back and got Red, or Kid Red, as he had been called by the saloon boys. He had his pants on, and we pulled his boots on him, and we hauled him out of there. Pretty much toting him by the arms, we took him to the hotel where I was staying. Bronco Bob got himself a room, having spent the previous night in saloons, mostly the Long Branch, and in a bordello, where he had met what he referred to as a temporary fiancée.

“She was a honey,” said Bronco Bob. “I told her I would take her away and make her my wife, and it seemed like a hell of a good idea at the time. But when I woke up this morning and realized what I said, on sober reflection I decided against it. I snuck out while she was asleep. That’s when I realized I had lost Red somewhere. I found out about him when I went over to the Long Branch.”

I had some coffee sent up, a whole pot, and we went to work having Red drink it. It took another pot to get Red so he could at least uncross his eyes. He had taken a pretty good beating in his cell. He had a knot on his forehead, both eyes was blacked, and his lip was cut open. The jacket Bronco Bob had given him was stained up, and his shirt was torn. When we pulled off his boots, we found the derringer in one of them. He had either forgotten to check it or had chosen not to. I was surprised it hadn’t been discovered when he was arrested, him having pulled his boots off and all.

“Good thing he forgot about that,” I said. “Or someone might have gotten shot.”

“I would agree with that,” Bronco Bob said.

The coffee may have uncrossed his eyes, but it didn’t do much else, so we finally stretched him out on my bed and took ourselves downstairs to have a meal. I was eyed a little uncomfortably, but people in Dodge didn’t want to insult someone who might be part of a team of drovers and free with money and had friends with pistols, so I was let in without incident. We was put at a table in the back, so as to keep my colored face from shining too bright near the front door. Still, for me, it was a real change being able to eat with everyone else. I enjoyed it.

Bronco Bob, being better-heeled for money than I was, ordered us both steaks and taters and bread. He ordered himself a warm beer and me a warm sarsaparilla, there not being any ice on hand.

“I take credit for foolish choices,” Bronco Bob said. “I thought a boy that hadn’t never done anything and had lived from hand to mouth might deserve a good night on the town. It got out of hand.”

“I’ll say.”

We ate a few bites, and I said, “Golem is in town, and Ruggert is headed toward Texas.”

Bronco Bob paused a fried potato on its way to his mouth, said, “Where’d you learn that?”

I told him.

“Do you know where Golem is exactly?” he asked.

“Not yet,” I said. “I was going to start the search when I come across you.”

“Without a gun, you will have hell to pay,” Bronco Bob said.

“Already thought about that,” I said.

Bronco nodded. “If you need me while you’re here, Nat, if you come across him, I am your man. But after that, I’m sticking with Dodge. I think I can manage some card games and may even go back to shooting matches a bit. I’m sick of riding and being out in the wilds. I think I’ll encourage the boy to stay with me as well. I might try and get some newspaper work here until I can write books about you and me and our adventures. Some of them will be true.”

“I understand,” I said.

We bought some biscuits with meat in them, wrapped them in a red-and-white-checked cloth they gave us, and carried those back to the hotel. On the way up to our room, we ordered and paid for another pot of coffee. In the room we found Red sitting up on the side of the bed, holding his head like Atlas holding up the world.

“I feel bad,” he said.

“You and Bronco Bob had quite a toot,” I said.

“If that means we drank a lot, that’s what happened,” Red said. “I think I even got some pussy. Though I’m a little shaky on the memory.”

We gave him the biscuits, and he went to wolfing them down and drinking more coffee. About the time he got to the second biscuit, he paused in midbite, said, “Hey, wait a minute.”

I was pouring a cup of coffee. “What?” I said.

“That Jew fellow. He was in the jail with me. He was the one hit me.”

I put the cup down. “You mean Golem? He was back there in the jail?”

“I forgot about it until just now. My head ain’t right. My brain is all twisted. But he was back there. Had that ash mark on his forehead. I know it was him. I seen him around Deadwood before. I think what happened is I knew it was him, said something to him about how he was a big coward and a backjumper. I got sick on him, and he beat me up. I’m not really sure in what order all that happened, but it happened.”

I put on my hat. “Guess I’ll go over and see him,” I said.

“No,” Bronco Bob said. “You can’t go in the jail and try and kill a man with your bare hands, Nat. That is frowned on by law officers, and in the long run, considering his size to yours, foolish.”

It was all I could do not to rush out the door, but of course he was right, and I wasn’t stupid, no matter how bad I wanted to kill Golem. If I was going to go back to Win with all my parts, I had to play it wise.

“Tell you what,” Bronco Bob said. “I will go over and check and see what Golem’s status is, make sure the kid here didn’t dream it.”

“I didn’t,” Red said.

“When I know what the situation is, I will come back, and we can lay plans. Maybe I can go his bail and get him back on the street, and then you can kill him.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

Bronco Bob went out, and Red said, “I forgot I had that derringer in my boot. I should have shot him.”

“Against a man like that it would be like trying to knock a mountain over with a well-thrown rock,” I said. “It’s best you didn’t shoot him with that. He might have killed you.”

I quit talking and sat down in the stuffed chair, but now it didn’t seem so comfortable. I looked at my hands resting on my knees. They was shaking. Not from fear. I was too mad to be fearful. They was shaking with anger.

It seemed like I sat there for hours, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. Bronco Bob come in and said, “He was there, but he’s been released. He sobered up and paid his own fine. I had to shoot shit with the marshal and pretend Golem was an old pal and I was looking to buy him a beer and some such story line, but he didn’t know where he went. Just that he paid up and left. My thoughts are he has gone out to take a nip of the hair of the dog that bit him, to get over that hangover.”

“Maybe that’s what I need,” Red said.

“No,” I said. “You don’t.” I turned to Bronco Bob, said, “Listen here. How about one last favor, and then you are out of it. Go over to the Long Branch and peek in and see if he’s there, check the other saloons if he ain’t. I would be noticed a lot quicker by him than you, as you have grown in the hair and beard department, and you aren’t wearing your show clothes.”

“That’s a for sure good thought,” Bronco Bob said, and went out.

Well, that time an hour or so did actually pass before he came back in and said, “I looked in all the saloons and didn’t see him. He may have found a place to sleep last night off.”

“All right,” I said. “From here on out this is my problem.”

“I told you I was game to stay with you as long as you were in town,” Bronco Bob said.

“I’m in for whatever comes,” Red said.

“I know, and I appreciate it, but I’d prefer neither of you got involved. That hasn’t worked out for them that’s been friendly toward me in the past. Red, you stretch out on my bed and rest some more. You wouldn’t be of any use like that anyway. And Bob, you look like hell yourself. Sleep some, and then get you a bath, or in the other order if you like. Me, I’m going to take a walk around town.”

“I don’t feel good letting you do that, Nat,” Bronco Bob said.

“You look out on your feet,” I said. “You wouldn’t be of much help.”

“That might be true, but let me sleep a few hours, and we’ll go out together.”

“All right,” I said. “You two stretch out and rest, and we’ll talk it over then.”

“Now you’re using your head,” Bronco Bob said.

Bronco went to his room, and Red stretched back out on the bed, and in spite of all that coffee he was out right off. I closed my eyes thinking to relax a moment, but I went out like a candle in a high wind.

When I awoke it was to noise in the street, and it was dark.

I looked at the bed, and I could see Red’s shape. He was still asleep and snoring loudly. I got up, went to the window, and looked out at the street, which was lit up with flickering streetlamps and the lights from the saloons. The street was full of folks, a lot of them obviously drunk.

I slipped the derringer from Red’s boot, and with it tucked in my coat pocket, went downstairs and asked if the liveryman had left me a message, but he hadn’t.

I went along the streets looking for Golem, even glancing in the saloons Bronco Bob had looked in just in case he had shown up. I didn’t see him. I walked all over Dodge and back again but didn’t see my man. I went to all the saloons again, managing to be called nigger only twice, once affectionately. I even had some warm sarsaparilla at the Long Branch, but still didn’t see the son of a bitch.

Finally I slipped out of the saloon for a last stroll around town and had the same results. I was about to give it up when I decided I might amble down to the stockyards, take a look there. Closer I got to them, the stronger that cow shit smell became. There was a few cowboys in the area, but it was mostly just pens of cattle, the drovers having left their herds there and glad to be shed of them.

No Golem.

As I was crossing the street back to my hotel, I come across the liveryman, who was coming toward it. I called out his name, and after determining that I was who he thought I was, he threw up his hand in greeting and came over to me. He said, “I ain’t seen your man. He hasn’t come for his horse. But I thought I might tell you something of interest, if you can tell me why you want to find him so bad.”

“My plan is to kill him deader than a goddamn post, and I have my reasons. I’ll put them in a nutshell for you if you’ll stand for it,” I said.

“I will,” he said.

I told him what had happened, leaving out a bit of it here and there but giving him the story in a fairly honest manner.

“My God, man. No wonder you want to find him. But you ain’t even got a pistol.”

“There’s the law,” I said.

“If you’re going to break the law and kill him, you ought to have something to do it with. Come by the livery and let me slip you a pistol. Just one.”

“All right,” I said. “But wasn’t our agreement that I tell you what happened to make me want to find him, and then you’d tell me something?”

“It was, but let’s go to the livery to talk about it.”

There was a part of me that was concerned. He was, after all, mostly a white man, and he could have an arrangement with Golem to lead me into a trap, and all I had was the popgun. I reached in my pocket and gripped it, but not with confidence. It was like the fellow that grabs at a straw when he’s drowning.

The walk to that livery seemed the longest in my life, and when we got there he unlocked the door, which had been padlocked, and let us in. There was soft lantern light glowing inside, and it gave the place a pleasant look. There was some smell of horses and their leavings, but mostly it was a comfortable aroma, and it was warm inside. Golem didn’t jump out of the shadows and hit me with a rock or shoot me with a gun.

Fact was, Cecil guided me to a desk where he kept his business ledgers and took a bottle out of the drawer and got out two glasses. I didn’t say anything about not being a drinker of alcohol, not under the circumstances.

“I suggest just a swallow,” he said. “Enough to warm you but not enough to give you liquid courage, which could get you killed.”

I sat in a chair in front of his desk, and he sat in one behind it. I pulled my hand off the derringer, picked up the drink, and put it to my lips but didn’t drink it. I can’t even stand the smell of it. I put the glass back on the desk.

“He is about Mabel Jean’s business,” he said, leaning forward to take hold of his drink.

“Mabel Jean?” I said.

He downed the whiskey, poured himself another from the glass.

“She is a guide to peculiar interests, is how she describes herself, or maybe that ain’t exactly what she says. Something like that. She comes over here once a month, on Tuesdays, that’s today, and hauls my ashes for a free buggy anytime she needs it. It’s kind of a lease agreement.”

“She’s a madam?”

“Yeah,” said Cecil. “And a little more. Not all them she services want to get the standard piece of ass. I say she caters to peculiarities, more so than the China Doll brothel. It’s pretty much straight in and out there.”

I sat silent, waiting for him to get to the point.

“Thing this man of yours likes is different. He likes beating the whores, and Mabel Jean arranges it.”

“The whores know this? That he’s going to beat on them?”

“They expect a certain amount of abuse and a certain amount of extra dollars for it. He wants to hit them with whips, but Mabel Jean only allows cloth strips bound into a wooden handle. That way the whores get a sting, not a wound, and a man who likes that kind of thing gets his feelings settled. The man you call Golem, I’m sure it’s him, as he was described to me today by Mabel Jean during our moments of lease payment. She rarely mentions her customers, hers being a private business. But she’s scared of him. I think she thought I might do something, which I won’t. I’m not crazy. Not after what she told me. She said she was glad to come see me to get out of her place. Said your man used the handle of that cloth whip on her girls, and not just to hit them with it. He won’t leave. He’s tanked up on liquor and hasn’t paid for a drink or a fuck. And the two bouncers she’s got, both colored like yourself, they both got broken up by him. Went home in a hurry, one on a stretcher. When me and her finished our business, I locked up and was on my way to the hotel to find you or leave a note. I was hoping you might want to kill him. I figured that was your plan. It could work out all around.”

“He’s at the whorehouse now?” I said, half rising from my chair.

“He may well be,” Cecil said.

“Where is this place?”

I was shaking like a leaf in a storm as Cecil gave me directions, and a bloody haze was swimming before my eyes.

Cecil finished his drink, looked at mine, then at me.

I nodded.

He took my glass and downed it. He got up, got my guns.

He said, “I said one pistol, but I figure I’ll get in as much trouble for one as all of them. The rifle, too, right?”

I started digging in my coat for the claim checks, but he said, “Naw, I know what’s yours. Two of them is real interesting. That pistol with the shotgun load, that looped rifle.”

He tore the tags off and gave them to me. He said, “Marshal asks if you gave me your guns I’m going to lie, and if it comes down to me getting in trouble with the marshal, I’m going to call you a nigger and say anything I need to say to keep my ass out of the jail. We understood?”

“We are,” I said. “You keep the rifle here. It don’t work out for me, I don’t come back for it by tomorrow evening, then you can have it.”

I took a breath and put the pistols in my coat pockets, made sure they would pull free quickly. “You telling me about this to help me get my man or to get in good with the madam?”

“One thing helps another,” Cecil said.

I walked out of the livery and started up the street. It was a goodly walk. It was a building down below the stockyards and holding pens. I slid around back, seen there was lights at the back windows and some sliding out from under the door. There was a lantern with red glass in it hung over a long nail above the doorway.

Getting my grit up, I opened the door and slid in. It was a hallway, and on the walls there was cloth hangings of all colors and designs, and there was a painting of a naked woman riding a horse in a wide gold frame. She was lying sideways on it, and she had long blond hair and looked sleepy, like maybe she’d forgotten her nightgown and had gone riding not fully awake. To the left was a flight of stairs with the wall on one side and a railing on the other.

An older, meaty white woman with hair as rough-looking as a horse’s mane came sliding into the hallway from a wide opening that led into a room where I could see a fancy red couch, a blue chair, more paintings, and a broken-down piano. I took a guess right away that was the place where the bouncers got bounced. The woman was wearing a pink dress, and the right side of it was torn. A titty that looked like it belonged to an old milk goat was dangling out.

The woman said, “You got to be the one Cecil’s sending.” She tried to poke that wild titty back behind that ripped dress, but the rip didn’t leave it any place to go. It stayed free and in action.

I almost laughed. Cecil had set me up to do this job, just as I thought. The woman, of course, had to be none other than Mabel Jean.

“Unless you’re overrun with colored men with pistols in their pockets,” I said, “I’m the one he sent.”

“He’s up there,” she said gesturing up the stairs. “He’s got girls with him, and I don’t want them hurt. Some of them are still working off their room and board.”

I could hear him then, and I recognized that voice as surely as I would have recognized that of my mother. He was yelling about how they should arrange their asses, and he was saying, “Sing, you jezebel, sing.”

I could hear the girls start in singing “Buffalo gals, won’t you come out tonight.” Not a one of them whores could have carried a note in a bucket with the lid tapped on tight.

“You look smaller than my niggers, and they got broken up,” she said.

“This here pistol improves my stature,” I said, drawing my LeMat from my coat pocket.

“That’s what they thought,” she said.

“Them bouncers was armed?”

She nodded. “I think that big bastard got shot once, but nothing he took note of.”

“You don’t say?”

“I do say.”

I took that into consideration, put a foot on the stairs.

“Be sure and kill him,” she said. “I think he’s the unforgiving sort.”

“I’m not going up there with the intention of giving him a flesh wound,” I said, and continued up the stairs.

I was about at the top when I heard a smacking sound, like someone had slapped their hands together. Then one of the girls let out with a yip, and on behind that came a bloodcurdling Indian-style yell that I knew had come from Golem. It was so loud and surprising I almost filled my pants.

There was three doors along that upstairs hall, but he and them women was so loud up there I didn’t have any trouble knowing which door they was behind. There was also smoke drifting out of a wide crack at the top of the doorway, and I could smell that it was tobacco smoke, strong enough to be that of a cigar or a pipe.

I practically ran to that door, and, lifting my leg, I drove my boot into it.