The Kid

“And they hang you.”

“But I chore from soldjers! Ye think they owns the animals? Naw. Airmy property. So ye and I would joost be takin from them who’s back east in Washington City. Why they ginna hang me, like? They woon’t even know.”

Walking up between them was Windy Cahill, an Irish former Army private in Camp Grant and now the owner of the local farrier’s shop. Windy was a wide, muscular, gorbellied hooligan much heavier than the Kid, and he had a history of finding humor in rankling the teenager with shoves and slaps and throw-downs. And now just for fun he intentionally collided with him, knocking Henry into a stumble that Windy thought was a hoot. “Oops,” he said. “Blundered you akilter.”

“What is it with blacksmiths?” the Kid grumbled as he found his pace again.

Windy turned to Mackie. “Hello, John.”

“Ahwrite,” Mackie said.

The farrier leaned toward him and hushed his voice. “I need two saddles and blankets for Old Man Clanton’s ranch.”

“What kine? Nae Mexican, I hope?”

“Nah. The thirty-dollar kind.”

Mackie nodded. “See ye eifter.”

Windy told him he’d be in George Atkins’s cantina for just a nip and strode ahead so he wouldn’t be associated with them. Mackie and the Kid headed onward to the east side of Grant Creek and George McKittrick’s bagnio, called by Mackie a “big-no” and called by soldiers the Hog Ranch. The front was a saloon and dance hall filled with havoc and music, but upstairs and also behind in a long adobe bunkhouse were rooms for cavorting, each small as a sty.

Mackie eased up to a buxom madam in a frilled, ankle-length white apron and softly spoke with her. She pointed upstairs, and he headed there, stopping after four steps to turn to the Kid. “Ye comin?” he asked, for the Scot earned a fee for whichever newcomer he lured into harlotry.

The sixteen-year-old followed him up, his stomach queasy with his daring.

The upstairs hallway was lined with parlor chairs on which shy cowhands and soldiers were sitting primly, like schoolboys soon to be punished.

“Ye feel no weel?” Mackie asked the Kid. “White as a ghoost ye are.”

“The blood’s all gone from my face to my nether region.”

The madam huffed up the stairs to the hallway with a brass school bell, which she rang so close to the Kid that he ducked.

Six Cyprians soon crowded into the hallway and smiled at the men and lifted their long draperies thigh-high to show their hosiery and wares. Selections were made and the couples went off. In his shyness, the Kid instead stayed seated. A leftover Anglo who was less than pretty walked over to him. She waited for him to look up or speak, but he was finding intrigue in the hallway’s Axminster rug. She said, “You’re quiet as a shadow.”

Without raising his eyes he said, “I’m unacquainted with the process.”

“You have two dollars in your pocket?”

“No.”

She sighed. “One?”

“Just that.”

“Hand it to me.”

After he’d done that, she tugged him up to standing and took his forearm to guide him sideways into a narrow room with a hodgepodge of furniture. She smoothed a fresh towel on the patchwork quilt of the bed and hiked up her dress as she laid herself down and widened her legs. She wore no underwear, just knee-high white stockings.

The Kid was overwhelmed with his seeing. “You’re so beautiful!”

“No I’m not. But you are.” She glanced at his bulging. “You can’t stick it in me,” she said. “I’ll get pregnant.”

“What then?”

“Stick it between my thighs. They tell me it feels kind of the same.”

The Kid unbuttoned his jeans, excitedly got on top of her, and found purchase as she clenched him. “This is amazing!”