Gaffney, Patricia Read Online Free PDF

who liked dangerous men and would go to amazing lengths
to get them. After the money, they were the second-best thing about being a
gunfighter. Or at least they had been in the beginning, when he hadn't wasted a
minute taking advantage of their breathless interest in him. Lately, though, it
was starting to wear thin. It wasn't that flattering anymore. It was like getting
a compliment on your hair when you were wearing a wig.
    "Want to sit down and have a drink with me?" Glendoline
purred, pointing to an empty table for two. "You could show me your
gun." Her china-blue eyes were innocent as a doll's, so he decided she meant
the suggestion literally.
    "Why not?" he said in the gravelly whisper, which made
her roll her eyes in ecstasy, and turned to follow her. Her skinny, sashaying
butt was a cute distraction, but he glanced away from it to see if Cady was
watching.
    She was. But she looked away quickly, slapping cards down hard in
front of her customers, pretending she couldn't care less. Everybody was
playing a game, Jesse philosophized pleasantly. He was just playing a bigger
one than most people.
    He made a big deal of taking the chair facing the door so he could
sit with his back to the wall, which almost sent Glendoline into a swoon.
Another girl, a plump, buxom redhead named Willagail, was serving drinks to the
customers at the next table. What kind of a place was this, it occurred to
Jesse to wonder. If his new friend wasn't a whore, he'd eat his hat. So... did
that mean McGill was, too? Well, God damn. No, she couldn't be.
    Why not? Just because a girl had freckles didn't mean she couldn't
turn tricks. He sat down slowly, peering at her across two tables of poker
players, trying to picture her in the role of madam. It was hard, but not
impossible. What did he think of that? He had, as they said, mixed feelings.
He'd been thinking about her and him together in his big feather bed since
approximately the moment they met. Now, for some reason, it needled him to
think that all he might have to do to get her there was pay her.
    He bought Glendoline—"Call me Glen, honey"— a drink,
then another drink, then another. It went without saying that the bartender was
watering them down, but still, for a skinny girl she sure could put away the
booze. She asked him the usual questions, how he'd become a gunfighter, how
many men he'd killed, what it felt like to shoot somebody, and he avoided them
with the usual sinister stares and enigmatic grunts. Glendoline wasn't too
bright, but under the bloodthirsty curiosity she seemed sweet. He missed her
when she went off to "see about something." After all those drinks,
he was pretty sure what she was seeing about was the privy behind the saloon.
    Something bumped his leg. Looking down, he saw a little black boy,
a miniature version of the bartender but with hair, squatting at his feet,
halfway under the table. He had a whisk broom in one hand and a cigarette-filled
dustpan in the other.
    "Howdy," said Jesse. The boy jumped, never taking his
scared, white-rimmed eyes off him. "How's it going? You like that job? How
much they pay you? I had a job cleaning out horse stalls once. I was about your
age, twenty, twenty-one," he teased—the kid looked about seven. "Paid
diddly squat, a quarter a week. Which is worse, you think, raking up horse
manure or cigar butts and spit? Hm? Who's dirtier, horses or cowboys?"
    "Horses," the boy ventured, scuttling out a few inches.
    "I don't know," Jesse said thoughtfully, rubbing his
jaw. "Some old boys are mighty damn messy."
    "Yeah, but they don't do they business on the flo'."
    "Well, that's true, that's surely true. That is a very good
point. Cigarette? So tell me, what's a smart fella like you doing in a
god-awful place like this?"
    "This a good place." His huge black eyes went
wider still. "Why you think this a god-awful place?" He came all the
way out from under the table, and when Jesse casually pulled Glendoline's chair
out for him, he perched on