Colleen pushed the sheets all the way down and stood up. Even through the hangover, Azul could see that her body was trim, not yet given over to the flabby softness of drinking with too many wandering drifters, of spending most of her life in bed. She pulled on a dress that was cut low at the front and high on her legs, not bothering with the underwear scattered over the floor. Not even bothering to fasten all of the hooks at the back.
‘You just wait there, Azul,’ she said. ‘I’ll be back in just a little while.’
He began to nod but then thought better of it. Instead, he stretched out on the bed, keeping his eyes closed as his head struck the pillow and fresh sparks of light danced painfully through his mind.
The opening door lifted him to his feet with the Colt cocked and ready in his hand. Colleen gasped as she saw the pistol, then smiled, heeling the door closed.
‘Don’t shoot me, sweetheart. Leastways, not with that weapon.’
Azul shrugged, lowering the hammer. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t say that.’ Colleen settled the tray on the bed. ‘Man like you doesn’t need to say he’s sorry.’
‘Just being polite,’ said the half-breed.
‘Being polite,’ said the whore, undoing her dress, ‘is never needing to say you’re sorry.’
‘Sounds like some old love story,’ grunted Azul. ‘What you get to eat?’
In answer she lifted the cloth covering the tray. The first thing Azul saw was the coffee pot. He grabbed it and poured a mug of thick, dark coffee. After that he looked at the food. Colleen watched as he forked bacon and eggs into his mouth, crunching biscuits and solid hunks of fried bread at the same time. He emptied the coffee pot and wiped his mouth clean with the napkin.
‘The bath ready?’ he asked.
The woman laughed. ‘Should be. Come on, I’ll scrub your back.’
She was very good. Azul did nothing except obey her instructions as she lathered his body and sluiced him clean. When she was finished she wrapped him in a towel and hurried him back to the room.
‘Well?’ she asked, laughing. ‘You feel clean now?’
‘I feel sober,’ he said. ‘What time is it?’
‘Around noon, I guess.’ She frowned. ‘Why?’
‘I gotta be moving on.’
He didn’t know why he said it. There was no reason he had to leave, no place he had to go. He could stay around San Jacinto and live high on the money in his saddlebags for a year or more or bank the money and settle down. Whatever, there was no reason he needed to hit the trail again. Except the one driving reason: the wanderlust.
He knew that he couldn’t stay happy in a town for long. A night or two, maybe, but after that he began to feel closed in, to long for the open spaces, for the mountains and high meadows that had been his home.
He tugged the saddlebags out from under the bed and delved inside, peeling off two twenty-dollar notes. Passed them to Colleen.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘For everything.’
The whore’s eyes got wide as she took in the size of the bills.
‘You sure you wanta give me this much?’
‘Sure,’ said Azul. ‘You helped me through the night.’
He got dressed and went down to the saloon.
He was mostly thinking about fetching his horse from the stable and moving further south. Drifting down to the Mogollons to check the Apache trails and maybe following the bands down into Mexico for the winter. But then the stink of the saloon hit him and his head swirled so that he felt like his belly was climbing up his throat to spew its contents out over his fresh-cleaned shirt.
He remembered something his father had told him, the first time they had drunk whiskey together. That had been in Santa Fe, when Kieron Gunn was still trading between the merchants there and the Chiricahua. He had taken his son into a saloon and bought a bottle without a label, filling both glasses and urging Azul to down the near colorless liquid. After five glasses, the boy had collapsed and his father had carried him to bed. In the morning, Azul’s head had felt the same way it did now, and his father had poured black coffee into him and forced a breakfast down his throat that he spewed up a few minutes later. When the boy had ended his vomiting, Kieron Gunn had taken him down to the saloon and ordered more whiskey.
We call it the hair of the dog, he had told his son. A man’s gotta learn to hold his likker. He needs to handle it an’ make it work for him, instead of against him. Best you learn that early.
Azul had. He had learned to recognize his limitations and learned also to live within them. He had never been so drunk again, until now. And now he felt he needed his dead father’s support.
He went over to the bar and called for a drink.
‘Hard night?’ The barkeep was totally bald, the only hair on his head and face the thin mustache spreading across his upper lip like a black caterpillar. ‘Colleen does that to a man.’
Azul nodded and tossed the whiskey down his throat.
It burned, and for a moment he thought his skull might explode, but then it seemed to settle someplace deep inside him and take control so that he could look at the light and move his head without hurting. He poured a second and downed it fast. More than anything, he knew he had to get clear of San Jacinto. Had to get out into the open country, away from saloons and whores and barkeeps.
‘Got the funniest goddam thing going yet,’ said the tender. ‘See him?’
Azul turned his head to follow the pointing finger. And grunted.
At the far end of the bar, where the front windows bled light into the gloomy place, there was a man sketching. Two other men sat across the table from him, heads up and hands proud on holstered hips. The artist was small in comparison, a diminutive man with over-the-shoulders hair and a long, drooping mustache. He was dressed in a gray Eastern-style suit, the vest unbuttoned, and the matching derby set on the table beside his paints.
‘Calls hisself Cal Backenhauser,’ said the barkeep. ‘Says he wants to paint the real West.’
Azul grunted and emptied his glass.
‘I’ll leave him to it. I’m going to find it.’
