Boon by Ed Kurtz (smallest ebook reader txt) 📗

The way she saw it, the setback put her farther away than ever. And, of course, whenever it came up, the whole caboodle was entirely my fault. Though I would admit to having had a snort or two from one of the bottles I kept stashed in my saddlebags prior to the Blind Dog fiasco, I for damned sure hadn’t shot that lantern out.

All the same, when she warned me about not turning Darling into that kind of mess, I only nodded by way of reply. She went into her room and me into mine, where I washed my face and neck at the basin—I wasn’t paying or waiting for any bath—and weighed the wisdom of visiting a barber. I wore a rascally beard, mostly white by then, though more from sheer laziness than choice. Would Boon mayhap treat me the smallest bit kinder if I had myself a trim, cleaned up a touch, and presented myself with a measure of self-respect?

I shrugged at the thought. Probably not.

It wasn’t my beard or anything else like it that made Boon the way she was. That went much, much deeper and didn’t have a thing to do with me. Or, at least, I hoped it didn’t.

After washing, I exchanged my filthy shirt for one that still clung onto something vaguely approaching cleanliness and made my way downstairs. As far as I could tell, Boon had already absconded by then. To where, only the Devil knew.

Runny eggs, limp bacon, and tepid coffee comprised my breakfast. I devoured it all and wished for more. Once I was done eating, I ordered a whiskey from the bar with a beer back and had a look at who was left in the place while I sipped. It was for the most part a completely different group of folks from the people I’d seen the first time, except for one old man hunched over a small table by the street-facing windows. He just seemed to be watching the world go by, which to me meant he might be likely to know a thing or two.

I brought both of my drinks over to where he sat and said, “Yearning for a little company and conversation, old-timer?”

“You don’t ’zactly look like a young’un yourself,” he said.

“Don’t let the white beard fool you,” I told him. “I ain’t but forty-one or forty-two.”

The old fellow narrowed his eyes at me like maybe he thought I was lying, but he dismissed it and me outright in favor of returning his gaze to the street outside. The only thing I’d learned from him was that he wasn’t any Englishman, as evidenced by his decidedly Texican accent. He didn’t sport any gold teeth, either. At least he wasn’t Arthur Stanley, so I didn’t have to worry about that.

“I was old afore I was thirty-two,” he said after a while, still looking out the window. “Way I reckon it, time ain’t the same all the time. Some folks get old a lot faster’n others. I can’t say as I can recall my right age, but I sure don’t recollect ever being young.”

I took the fact that he decided to continue talking to me as an invitation to join him, so I sat down across from him and pointed my nose at the same street he was watching. I was amused to find a young man on the east side of the street carefully drawing a rake over the dirt to smooth it out. I was far better accustomed to streets so sloppy with mud they had to lay down boards every which way for people to get around. Darling was a funny little town.

I said, “You ever hear tell of a country called Siam?”

“Can’t say as I have, since I ain’t,” he said.

“Way the hell on the other side of the Earth,” I explained. “Over near China, I think. Or closer to China than it is to Dallas, at any rate.”

“That right,” he said.

“Reason I ask is I used to know an old gal from there. Siam, not Dallas. Wondered if maybe she ever came through Darling.”

This was not the whole truth, since I had never laid eyes on Pimchan, but I never saw any harm in a little exaggeration to smoothen out a conversation.

“Knew a Chinaman once,” the old man said. “Up Dakota way. Thought he couldn’t talk one word of American for three years until one day he says clear as day he just don’t like me. And here I thought we was friends all that time.”

I wasn’t getting anyplace with the old-timer, who seemed only half aware of where he was or that I’d sat down with him. For half a second I had it in mind to ask about the Englishman, but instead I just downed what remained of the whiskey and got to work on the beer. It burned pleasantly in my throat while the old man stared at nothing in particular and I wondered what my next move ought to be. I got to looking over some of the other folks in the room, thinking on which of them might be better for talking to, when the old man said, “Looks like one of them China folks now, ’less that’s the other kind you was talking about.”

“Siamese,” I said out of habit, and I turned back to find just what it was that had piqued the old-timer’s interest.

It was, of course, my friend Boon. She was dragging a man by his hair out of a barbershop cattycorner from the rooming house. The man was screaming to wake up all the devils in hell, grasping at his scalp to keep Boon from tearing it clean off.

At least the Apaches used knives, I thought. Seemed like Boon didn’t need one.

“Oh, hell,” I said.

The old man said, “That the one you looking for?”

“Pardon me,” I said, and I excused myself from the table to make my way outside.

Chapter Three

He had called her a “half-breed.” The man Boon was dragging by the hair,