(1986) Deadwood Read Online Free PDF Page B

stepped back, suddenly finding him there. Boone was faster than he looked, that was where a lot of characters was fatally fooled. And Boone May never gave you a chance to fool him back.
    "You don't care what I brung you?" he said.
    She looked at him without sparkle. "All right," she said, "what is it?" It wasn't the way it was supposed to be, with her crawling all over him, begging.
    "Something from Cheyenne," he said. He saw an interest stir. Maybe she thought it was something to wear. Lurline spent every cent she made on clothes. She had four dresses that he knew of.
    "Well?" she said.
    "You got to find it," he said.
    She shrugged, then looked over at the pile of clothes on the chair. "It's in there," she said. Boone smiled at her, and she walked over, the heels of her slippers making hoof noises across the pine floor, and picked up his pants. There was pockets in back, and she reached in and come out with Harry Pine's front tooth. Boone had broke it off while he was looking for gold teeth, and kept it for good luck. He meant to have a piece of jewelry made with it.
    "What the hell?" she said.
    "That ain't it," he said. "Put it back."
    There was an oration in the street outside, then some clapping. She looked toward the window, forgetting what they were doing again. "I'm missing everything," she said.
    "It ain't nothing special," he said. She picked up his coat and put her hand in the pockets. She dropped the coat on the bed, beside his pants, and touched the leather bag. He smiled at her.
    She picked it up, interested in the weight. The bag was tied, and it took her a while to pick open the knot. "You ought not to chew your nails," he said.
    She got the knot loose and separated the pieces of rawhide. He stood still and watched her face. She opened the top and looked inside. "What is it?" she said.
    "Look and see," he said.
    She reached in, stopped, and then pulled it out by the hair. She held it up in front of her, eye to eye. He thought she was going to scream. "Shit," she said, "it's just Frank Towles."
    "It's his head," he said.
    She put it back in the bag and dropped it on the bed. "You been everyplace in the Hills with that head," she said. And then she walked around him, smelling like flowers, arid went out the door. Boone didn't stop her this time.
    He heard her slippers on the stairs and closed the door. He took Frank Towles's head out of the bag for a look. It wasn't true that he'd been everyplace in the Hills with it. He'd only had it three days. He'd tried to sell it to W. H. Llewellyn for $150, and save himself the trip back to Cheyenne, and he might of offered it for sale at the Green Front. That was all. Not everyplace in the Hills. It was strange, now he thought about it, how something could be worth $200 one place and not another. A head only had one value. A thing was worth what it was worth.
    He put the head back in the bag and tied it shut. Then he put on his pants and shirt and boots, and decided to move camp to Nuttall and Mann's Number 10 saloon, where the bartender— Harry Sam Young—was mixing the most expert gin and bitters in Deadwood. Pink gin was all Boone drunk, since he discovered it. It was Pink Buford's drink first, of course, he named himself after it. Besides owning the best dog in Deadwood, Pink might of been the best cardplayer too. He received visions at the card table. Boone admired Pink Buford for what he had, and wished there was a way to take it away from him.
    He put his gun in his pants and started out of the room. Before he got to the door, though, he looked at her dresser. He got on the floor and felt underneath. She'd hid the mirror in back, on top of a board. He saw his face in it once as he brought it out, and again in one of the pieces, after he'd broke it on the headboard of the bed.

    Bill and Charley had been in Deadwood four hours when the Mex rode into town carrying the head of an Indian. He held it up, away from the giant pieces of slop that were coming off his