The Last Kind Words Saloon: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

third saloon she tried. He did not appear to be drunk but had not shaved for several days. There was a glass of whiskey on the table in front of him, but at the moment he was playing solitaire.
    “Your family owns a famous saloon—at least the sign is famous. Why are you drinking in this stinky dive when you could be served by your own wife?”
    “If she’d serve, it can be touch and go,” Wyatt said. Annoying as Nellie could be, there was no denying that she was pretty. Bearing a number of children had not spoiled her figure. If anything she was higher-breasted than Jessie.
    “Why the hell should that concern you,” he said. “In fact I like the smell of this place.”
    “What’s the real reason?” Nellie asked. “If I were guessing I’d say it’s Jessie. She’s probably trying to restrict your whiskeys in hopes of keeping you healthy.”
    “My health is better than Doc’s—the two of you are welcome to leave me alone,” he said.
    “I will presently, but Bill Cody would like to have a talk with you—and your brother Morgan was looking for you too.”
    “Cody? I know you’re in love with the old windbag, but why would he want to talk to me?”
    “Who I’m in love with is a matter for conjecture,” Nellie said. “You’re too surly to discuss it with. I’ll go get Bill. He’s always looking to improve his show, you know,” she said. “I think he wants to add a gunfighter skit.”
    “A what?” Wyatt asked.
    “Gunfighter, a gunfighter skit,” she said. “Billy the Kid shooting all those people over in New Mexico has made gunfighting real popular with the public and Bill Cody’s the best there is at giving the public what it wants. Now that Bill Bonney’s dead I guess Bill figures that you and Doc must be the best there is—he always seeks the top talent.”
    “That’s wrong, though, Nellie,” Wyatt said. “Top what?” Wyatt asked. “I may have winged a couple of card sharps, up in Dodge, and I’ve whacked quite a few rowdy cowboys, but I’ve never done nothing like what happened in New Mexico . . . and neither has Doc.”
    “Wyatt, it’s just acting,” Nellie assured him. “You can pull out a pistol and shoot off some blanks, can’t you?”
    “And the pay might surprise you,” she added. “Bill’s no cheapskate. And mainly he’s just looking for fast draws.”
    “Fast draws with what, Nellie? Most of my life I don’t go armed. You can scare off a lot of cowboys just by looking mean, I guess.”
    Though Wyatt wanted to tell Nellie Courtright to go jump in the lake, he didn’t. In the end he agreed to see Cody, and even promised to bring Doc along, if he could find him. Doc tended to gamble all night and sleep all day, often in a foul hole containing an even fouler woman. Doc was not particular.
    For a time Wyatt sat on the porch of the Last Kind Words Saloon and watched the dignitaries file back into the fancy private cars and head back to where dignitaries lived, in Kansas City and elsewhere where they came, summoned to a remote spot by English money.
    As the source of the English money, Lord Benny Ernle was still toasting and probably boasting—though Wyatt couldn’t hear the toasts or boasts.
    The sun began to set—once again, on the prairie, there was the squeal of bagpipes. Lord Ernle did not intend to be without his pipers.
     

 
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    “You mean stage a holdup?” Doc said. “I’d be wary of it. What if some fool forgot to put blanks in his gun?”
    “No, no—no risks,” Cody said. “We’ve done the big fight scenes—Custer’s Last Stand for example—hundreds of times with no mistakes. We’re experienced show people.”
    “Maybe you are but I’d want to see all the damn guns,” Wyatt said.
    “Fine, you can load them yourselves,” Cody said.
    Wyatt and Doc looked at one another.
    “Probably be pretty safe,” Wyatt said. “Neither one of us can hit a barn with a pistol, anyway.”
    “This will mainly involve practice drawing,” Cody