Comanche Moon Read Online Free PDF Page A

Maggie. Augustus McCrae, an indiscriminate whorer, would never think of approaching Maggie, although he had long admired her looks and her deportment. Indeed, Gus had often urged Woodrow to marry Maggie, and end her chancy life as a whore, a life that so often led to sickness or death at an early age.
    Woodrow had so far declined to marry her but lately he had been more helpful, and more generous with money. Now he sometimes gave her money to buy things for her room, small conveniences that she couldn't afford. It was her deepest hope and fondest dream that Woodrow would someday forbid her to whore; maybe what they had wouldn't go as far as marriage, but at least it might remove her from the rough traffic that had been her life.
    Woodrow's argument, the few times they had approached the subject, was that he was often gone for months on hazardous patrols, any one of which could result in his death. He felt Maggie ought to take care of herself and continue to earn what she could in case he was cut down in battle. Of course, Maggie knew that rangering was dangerous and that Woodrow might be killed, in which case her dream of a life with him would never be realized.
    She never spoke of her life as a whore, when she was with Woodrow; in her own mind her real life was their life. The rest of it she tried to pretend was happening to someone else. But the pretense was only a lie she told herself to help her get through the days. In fact it .was her who opened her door to the men, who took their money, who inspected them to see that they were not diseased, who accepted them into her body. She had been a desperate girl, with both parents dead, when she was led into whoring in San Antonio; now she was no longer a girl, but the desperation was still with her.
    She felt it even then, as Jake Spoon stood there in her room, drunk almost to the point of nausea, with his pants open, pointing himself at her and waiting sullenly.
    Woodrow didn't know about her desperation-- Maggie had never told him how much she hated what she did. He might have sensed it at times, but he didn't know how hard it was, on a morning when all she wanted to do was sit quietly and sew, to have to deal with a man so drunk that he had to crawl into her room. Worse than that, he was a ranger, the same as Woodrow; he ought to have known to seek another whore.
    "Why are you standing over there? I'm ready," Jake said. His pants had slipped down to his ankles; he had to bend to pull them up, so he could dig into his pocket and come out with the coins.
    "But you're sickly, Mr. Spoon--y can barely stand up," Maggie said, trying to think of some stratagem that would cause him to get dressed again and go away.
    "Don't need to stand up and I ain't sick," Jake said, though, to his dismay, the act of speaking almost caused his stomach to come up. He swayed for a moment but fought the nausea down. It was the whore's fault, he decided--she hadn't come over to help him with his clothes, as a whore should.
    He fumbled again for the coins and finally got them out of his pocket.
    Looking at the whore, who had closed the door behind her but still stood across the room, staring at him, Jake felt his anger rising. Her name was Maggie, he knew; the boys all said she was sweet on Woodrow Call, but Woodrow Call was far up the plains and the warning meant little to Jake. All whores were sweet on somebody.
    "Come here--I got the money!" he demanded.
    In his mind, which swirled from drink, was the recent memory of the wild games he had played with Inez Scull--acts so raw that even whores might not do them. He didn't like it that the whore he had chosen was so standoffish. What of it if she was sweet on Woodrow Call?
    Maggie saw there was no way out of it, without risking the sheriff, or a worse calamity. In another minute the young ranger would start yelling, or else do her violence. She didn't want the yelling or the violence, which might lead to her having to move from the room she had tried to