Dreadful Skin Read Online Free PDF Page B

that it?”
    “I believe so, yes.” He rose to get a set of glasses. From under the bar, he retrieved a square glass decanter with a glass stopper that looked like a doorknob. He poured me a splash, and then poured a bigger one for himself—a big drink for a big man.
    “It won’t be much longer now,” I told him, accepting the glass and taking a swallow of its contents. “It’s not much farther to Chattanooga. That’s where you’ll be leaving us, isn’t it?”
    “It is,” he assured me. “I have some business to attend to there, and then in a few weeks, I’ll be off for Denver.”
    “Big card game? That is how you make your living, isn’t it?”
    “Nothing gets past you, eh?”
    “Not much. Oh, that’s not true, really.” I had to amend myself, since the purpose of my little river trip occurred to me, reminding me that I was a long way from as sharp as I needed to be. “All the wrong things get past me, or so it seems sometimes.”
    Christopher sat forward and took a big swallow from his glass. “Wrong things like what? Like missing a sermon about the evils of gambling?”
    “Very much like that,” I fibbed outright. “It’s a pity, I must have slept late that day. I missed the ban on smoking too, though I maintain I can’t find a verse for it in the Bible.”
    He gathered the hint and pulled a cigarette case out from the pocket just north of his watch. I accepted one, and leaned in for him to light it off a match. He held the flame steady in his palm and said, “I think there’s one about treating your body like the temple of God, isn’t there? Or did I dream that during Sunday school, too?”
    “Very good, Mr. Cooper. Paul said so, in Corinthians.”
    “A very fine observation, ma’am. I couldn’t have named a book for it if my life depended on it.”
    “That’s a shame,” I told him. “‘Christopher’ is a good Christian name. You should have listened closer at your lessons.”
    “Good Christian name, eh? Why, does it mean something?”
    “It’s from the Greek. It means ‘Christ-bearer.’ You’re named for a Catholic saint, did you know that?”
    He laughed again, for the wine always made him jolly like that. “I had no idea, and I assure you that my good protestant parents had no earthly idea either. It’s probably best they’re both passed on now, so I don’t get the chance to tell them. But a saint, eh? So I’m saintly? What’s in a name, after all? Roses and holiness for me, I suppose.”
    “As you like, Christopher. He is the patron saint of travelers, and people like ourselves—on long trips—often wear a medallion to invoke him for assistance. I have one on me, in fact, if you’d like it.”
    “You’d give it to me?”
    “If you want it. I have others, you know how it is. It’s only a little pewter thing, but if it would mean something to you, I’d like for you to wear or carry it.”
    The smile on his face told me that he felt like this was a furtive, naughty thing. “Sure, I’ll take a magic charm off your hands. It’s not like those beads you carry, is it? I’ve seen you sitting on the deck, praying with them. They’re very pretty.”
    “No, this isn’t like the beads. And thank you. They were a gift from my father when I entered the convent.” And I’m not sure why, but I pulled them out from my pocket and handed them to him, just to show him.
    He turned them over on his hands, stringing them through his fingers as if he might use them to make a cat’s cradle. “Ebony?” He guessed, and I nodded. “And this on the back of this space, here? What’s this? A wolf?”
    “A wolf,” I confessed. I hadn’t expected the question. I wasn’t thinking about it—the small silver link that held the rosary in the shape of a “Y.” On the back was a tiny piece of art to remind me of home, and to remind me how the universe thinks in puns and patterns. “It’s for my family, the Callaghans. Our crest has a wolf on it.” I tried to say it with a