Deadman's Crossing (22 page)

“Are you usually correct about these sort of matters?” she said.

“As a matter of fact, I am. And since I say they have to suckle,
and she no longer has tits—”

“Or a head. Didn’t never have no feet that I could see.”

“Yes. So, it is over.”

“What about the little fellas?” Flower asked.

“They will die off, if they have not already. She is their source
of power. She dies, they all die. All that’s left of them by now is the
dark down there. They are done, Flower. At least they are in this
small part of the world.”

They spent the night at Flower’s rigged-up home. The dog lay
silent at the back of the cave, and the lantern was out. It was nice
and cool and dark and comfortable. The Reverend drifted slowly
off to sleep.

In the middle of the night, Flower called out to the Reverend,
awakening him.

“Reverend?”

“Yes.”

“Did I save your life?”

“You did.”

“Is your life valuable?”

“Of course.”

“So that means I done a good thing, don’t it?”

“It does.”

“Do you kind of owe me?”

“A debt I can never repay.”

Flower was silent for awhile. “You know what?”

“What?”

“There’s a way you can pay off some of it.”

“How is that?”

Flower lit a lantern. The Reverend looked. She flipped the
buffalo robe off of herself. She was nude, and with Flower, that
meant really nude, because there was a lot of her. In the lamplight,
except for her head and arms, she looked pale as biscuit dough, a
tuft of darkness between her legs.

“How about since I saved your life and you wouldn’t be layin’
there wasn’t for me, you get over here and pay a bit of that debt
off.”

The Reverend hesitated for only a moment. Thought: What
the hell? I do owe her.

A little later, lying in the crook of the sleeping, snoring, Flower’s
arm, he thought: Damn. That was not half bad. Not after you got
past the stink. And that was nothing a good bath couldn’t fix.

Next morning the Reverend rode away from there, and when he
was half a day out, he heard a noise behind him. He looked back.
It was Flower on a mule, her big black dog trotting behind them.
The Reverend waited and let her catch up.

“What are you doing, Flower?”

“Well, now, I don’t want you to think I come to get you to dip
your wick again, though I didn’t mind it none at all, but I did
figure on askin’ if I could be your ridin’ companion for a bit. I
think me and that ole mine and that town back there have done
played out on one another.”

“Of course, Flower. You are welcome. As long as I do not have
to attend to your dog’s tensions.”

“Naw, I can do that. I don’t mind.”

“Where did you get the mule?”

“Stole it.”

“All right,” the Reverend said.

They began riding.

The Reverend said, “Long as you and I are riding together, and
I owe you for saving my life, for the next few days, before we get to
wherever it is we are going, how about you let me work off some
more of my debt.”

Flower grinned at him. “Hell, Reverend, that sounds like one
hell of a fine idea.”

The Reverend winked at her, and the two of them, followed by
the big black dog, rode on across the landscape.