Friends (25 page)

After a bit she shook her head. "No, I better not," she said. "You're likely to get shot and if I'm with you, I might too. No, I'm going back inside the Bird. And don't you follow me, neither. Nothin' personal, but I don't want to see your face again. And don't go saying who told you about him." She turned on her pretty heel and went back inside.

I just stood there a minute and collected my thoughts. I considered finding that Gem place that Clete and Bullock had went to, but figured they'd probly left there by then. After a time I walked on down the street, just taking in the sights and listening to all the music spilling out of the different saloons. Most of it piano music, but I could hear a banjo twanging away and somewheres else a guitar and a gal singing along with it in a high, sweet voice. It struck me I remembered that song from somewheres. I walked across the street to see where that singing was coming from and right then, even before I stepped inside and saw her up on a little stage they had there, I knowed who it was.

Mandy was all slicked out in a shiny-bright yeller dress with black lace on it, a little yeller hat to match, playing that beat-up old guitar of hers and singing one of them songs she had sung me as we rode double along the Bad.

Mandy didn't see me, of course. There was fifty or sixty people, men mostly, listening to her, but some was laughing and talking to women. Lots
was
listening, though, for her voice was sweet as an angel's, and her face, even if some might of thought it too dark, was still the closest I seen to an angel's since I saw her last. You couldn't tell how tall a woman she was, either, for she was sitting on a stool so she could get at her guitar good. Beside her, on a gangly three-legged affair, was a sign with her name painted on it, only they'd spelled it wrong. Her last name they spelled B-o-u-d-o-i-r. I wasn't exactly sure of what the
right
spelling was, but at least I knowed there wasn't no
R
at the end of it. It surprised me she didn't get it fixed.

I sat down in the back and wondered what'd happened to her that night in them Badlands, when it'd started to pour and her just gone and me not able to find her for anything. I listened and thought on that and watched, such a sight she was.

She was looking at the crowd there, singing right to the folks who was paying the most attention to her and after awhile her big dark eyes come on to me. She didn't seem to see who I was at first, though she was looking right at me. The smile on her face slipped a little then and after a few seconds it got even prettier than it was before. She stumbled over the smallest part in her song and for a time she sang without thinking the words, you could tell-just beaming at me from up there on that little stage. My, she was a picture.

She finished her music on a long high note, clear as a hermit thrush, and then the crowd clapped and hollered and stamped their feet, but all the while she looked just at me.

After a minute she raised her hand and they quieted down. "This next song I sing for a good friend of mine who has just come in, Mr. William Goodwin." She nodded at me and everyone turned to gawk. Most was surprised at what they saw when they seen me, from the looks on their kissers.

Mandy began on that rooster song she taught me while we rode double along the river. The first verse she done in American, but for the rest, the parts that was a little bawdy, she sung it in French. Made me remember real clear how nice it was sittin' at the table eating supper with her back at her folks' soddy out on the prairie. And then I remembered the night we had later on down the trail, under all them stars. I guess my face reddened at that and I wondered if she could tell what I was thinking. From time to time some of the men there turned in their seats in order to take me in-most just curious, I guess, but many looked madder than hornets at me, so it seemed like. Damned if I knowed why. I paid 'em little mind and just enjoyed my song and my remembering. When Mandy finished, the clapping wasn't so loud as before, but it was still pretty strong. She put aside her guitar and come down theiteps to where the tables was and then straight back towards me.

"Willie!" she called out when she got near. "I have been so worried over you."

"You? Why I was-"

I had stood up and she flung her arms about me and give me a big kiss-right there with everyone watchin'. That whole crowd laughed and cheered and hollered and whistled and made such a ruckus! Mandy turned me loose and hauled me toward the doorway to the bar, where it was a lot quieter and not nearly so full.

"I am so glad to see you, Willie," she said, standing close. "So many times I wondered what had become of you."

"you
wondered? Why, I searched way into the night to find you. I come back, like I said I would, but you was gone."

She dropped her eyes and looked real mournful, her dark lashes fluttering. "I am sorry, Willie. Truly I am. When you did not come back for so long and the shooting stopped, I thought the killer–" She left off talking of a sudden and looked at me square. "He is here! Here in Deadwood, the man we chased for so far. He was here at the Green Front only last night!"

"Yeah, I already heard he made it to Deadwood. Did he reconize you, do you figger? When he was here last night?"

Mandy shook her head and all that ringy hair of hers jumped around on her shoulders. "No, I don't think so. I was singing, and he looked at my body, like all the men do, but I do not think he remembered me. And he left before I finished. I believe he was looking for someone, because he paid more attention to the men who were here than he did to me."

"Well that's good. He don't reconize you then." Still, I looked around the bar some, feeling pretty rattlebrained for not doing so before. Then I took Mandy's arm and we stepped back into the room where she'd done her singing. I checked over everone pretty good, and even though I didn't know his face, I doubted that anyone I seen in there was him.

While I was looking that crowd over, a fellow in a checkered suit come out from behind the curtain, spotted Mandy, and charged down the steps and through the crowd. He was mostly bald, but what hair he had, a fringe around his ears and in back, was the same reddish brown color as his thin little moustache. And mad? That fellow was mad from the top of his bald head to the tips of his fingers, huffing and puffing his way toward us.

Mandy leaned close and whispered. "Jacobson, the owner here. I should go back now because-"

By that time he was up to us. "What the hell are you doing out here socializing with the customers?" he asked Mandy in a loud, sharp voice, his hands on his hips. Then he barged right ahead before she could answer. "I pay you to sing. Not to try and fuck every goddamn sonabitch with a cock between his legs and a dollar in his pocket. Now get-"

"Just you hold on there," I told him. "You might own this here bar but you can't talk to this lady like that and not get your nose busted."

He looked at me like I just stepped off the moon. "What did you say tome?"

"You heard me right. You clean up your mouth, talking to her, or Ill clean it up for you".

He inspected me good, his hands coming off his hips and making fists at his sides. "Maybe you don't know who I am, you God-damn idiot, but I'm gonna have my man beat the shit out of you. And then maybe you'll remember me the next time you think about sticking your nose in my business." He looked toward the door, for his bouncer I reckoned, but the big fellow there was jawing with a miner and didn't see Jacobson waving his arm.

"Whyn't you have a try at doin' it yourself?" I ask him.

"Willie, leave now!" Mandy said. "I will finish singing and everything will be all right. Go on!" She give me a little push and looked awful worried, but I was not going to back away from this Jacobson fellow, or his hired tough, who seen his boss by then and was headed our way in a hurry. A big, bearded, beefy pile of stones he was. Arms like hairy hams and legs the girth of tree trunks.

Jacobson turned and squinted. "We'll see whose nose gets busted now, you sonabitch."

A fellow I didn't notice before, wearing a low-crowned black hat and a black striped coat, took a quick step up close to Jacobson and pushed a snake-eyes derringer into the bar owner's paunch. "Can't this be settled more peaceably, Jacobson?" he asked real low.

Jacobson looked at the stranger's round, smooth face and then down at the weapon shoved into his belly and then back into the man's dark eyes. I looked too, and the derringer fellow had no look on his face at all. He was watching real close to see what would happen next, but there was neither fear nor anger writ on his smooth, even features.

Jacobson got even madder. "Why-why-" He kept sputtering like that, his eyes near to popping out, 'til the bouncer got over near us.

"Bettah tell your man to leave us alone or your funeral will be tomorrah," the fellow said, slow and even as anything.

Jacobson didn't say nothing, so flustered and mad he was, but he waved the bouncer away and stared at the man holding the snake-eyes to his gut.

"That's bettah," the stranger said after a minute. "Now let's just forget about this, shall we? Mandy will go change her dress for her next songs and we'll pretend you're a gentleman."

The even-featured man took a step back from Jacobson and put his little gun back in his vest pocket.

"She's fired!" Jacobson said. "And you get the hell out of my place and don't come back, you bottom-dealing bastard!"

The stranger smiled at Jacobson, but it wasn't what you'd call friendly. "Very well. Several others have already approached us about Mandy singing in their saloons." He turned toward her and his smile changed into a real one. "Come on, Mandy honey, you're about to step up some in the world. I'll send someone back heah later to get your things." He winked at her and she smiled back. Right away I saw there was something between them and I begun to feel tired and heavy in my arms and legs.

"That's a goddamn lie!" Jacobson snarled. "Who'd want her pissy-assed singing in their place? Hell, that nigger bitch doesn't even know any good songs, no dirty ones at all."

I felt bad for Mandy that he would say that with her standing there, about her color, but she didn't seem bothered by it. I guess it wasn't the first time she'd heard that word flung at her. She held her head high and looked like she was enjoying seeing that saloon man brought down a few pegs.

The stranger turned slow back toward Jacobson and eyed him flat. When he spoke his voice was calm and smooth. "If you were even half a man, I'd shoot you for that, but you're not worth the trouble-to her or to me."

That saloonkeeper must of seen then how close he come to dying, for fear flickered bright in his eyes. And being afraid for his life like that galled him worse than before.

"You get out of my place, all three of you!" Jacobson yelled, and the whole room got quiet. I don't think many people'd saw Mandy's friend pull his little snake-eyed pea shooter, or they'd of cleared out already. Jacobson turned and stomped off. Mandy and me and her new fellow headed toward the door. Going out I tipped my hat to the big man, but he just followed us with his eyes.

Outside, I drew a deep breath and tasted the sweet spring air. Mandy put her arms through each of ours and we walked up the street three wide. "This is Justin Thebideaux, Willie," she said real sugary.

"Pleased to meet you," I said to him.

"And this is Willie Goodwin, Justin. The man I told you about who helped me."

He looked over my way and smiled one of his good ones. "I am honored, Mr. Goodwin," he said. "I wish to thank you for the assistance you gave Mandy in crossing the flatlands."

I tipped my hat to him, just like I done to the bouncer-though Thebideaux didn't seem to take notice, and I wondered then if he knowed all the different kinds of
assistance
I give her traveling across that prairie.

"I saw that you came to Mandy's defense this evening, before I had the opportunity to do so. For which I am also grateful." He was a fancy-talking fellow like that, and he said his words deep and slow-even when he wasn't threatening a man's life-in a way that sounded a little like how Mandy spoke hers.

"No trouble," I said. "Just so long as you're looking out for her now."

He throwed back his head and laughed, which surprised me some. "Yes, indeed, Mr. Goodwin, I will take good care of her from now on. But she is her own woman, nonetheless, you understand."

Well, I had never heard no one say
nonetheless
like that, right out loud. The truth was I didn't understand-whatever it was he thought I understood, that is. I didn't want to seem stupid by saying so, so I just left it float.

"It was Justin who found me when I was lost," Mandy explained. "I was cold and wet and he got us a place to stay. Then we came here. And after I heard the women singing in the saloons, I wanted to sing in them too. Justin, he got that for me as well, and now we go to a better place, eh Justin?" She seemed cheerful and not at all scared, like she was when I rode off to help Clete.

"Yes, indeed we do, Chere," he said, mixing a chuckle in with his words. He was a smooth one, all right, in both the easy way he spoke and the way he looked. I could see how Mandy might like him.

"Soon we will go to Louisiana, Willie," she said, squeezing my arm and sounding as happy as a schoolgirl with a new dress. "Isn't that wonderful? Justin lived there and he says I will be the toast of New Orleans with my singing. Isn't that so, Justin?"

"Yes. it is," he said, nodding his head.

We had gone up the street a good piece and before long we come to the Grand Central. "This is where I'm staying," I told them. "And I'm ready to tum in for the night."

"Oh, no, Willie!" Mandy pleaded. "I have only just found you."

"Won't you have a drink with us?" Justin ask.

"Thank you, no," I told them. "' was in the saddle all last night and when I get sleepy-"

"Yes, I remember," Mandy said, cocking her head and smiling at me. "Get your sleep then, Willie, and we will see you another time, no?"