The Chili Queen (4 page)

Emma chuckled. “There’s something to be said for ugly,” she replied, smoothing her own skirt.

“Oh, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s all right. I never paid much attention to clothes before. Perhaps I will now. Is there a dress store in Nalgitas?”

Addie snorted. “No dress store, no bonnet shop, just a general store with a shelf of calico, red mostly. I myself shop in Kansas City.” Addie liked the way that came out. It made her sound cosmopolitan, and she repeated it. “I buy in Kansas City. They got nice stores.”

Emma stretched her arms then stood up and said it was her turn to forage for food. As Emma walked down the aisle, Addie took in the woman’s slim waist and hips, wishing she herself weren’t spread out in back like a cold supper. Emma returned in a few minutes with two apples and a handful of walnuts.

Addie hadn’t seen them at the train butcher’s the night before and asked where Emma had acquired them.

“Off a track worker. They were in his dinner pail. He wouldn’t sell his sandwiches or the pie but said he’d take a dollar for the rest. They’ll have to last us to Nalgitas, I guess, since the train butcher’s out of food,” Emma said. She took the scissors from her bag and gave one of the walnuts such a sharp crack with the handle that Addie’s head jerked back. The nutmeat inside was withered. “Well, damn!” Emma said.

Addie smiled at the swear word, but Emma didn’t notice because at that moment the train jerked, then jerked again and began to creep down the tracks. Addie ate her apple, then fell asleep again against the window. She slept most of the day until, in the late afternoon, Emma nudged her to say the train was approaching Nalgitas—six hours late.

Addie squirmed, then stretched, letting her arms hang in midair when she saw Emma. The woman sat rigidly in the buttoned-up black suit. The brooch was pinned to the neck of her shirtwaist, the watch secured to the jacket. She looked just as she had when Addie first saw her—except for the pink hat on top of her head. Addie stared as she slowly lowered her arms.

Emma’s face turned the color of the hat. “Do I look too bold?” Emma asked.

“Oh, no.” Foolish, addle-brained, Addie thought, but not bold.

“I’m a plain woman, as plain as homemade soap. I wanted to make a good first impression.”

“It’s a nice touch,” Addie told her. She was too good-hearted to tell the woman how silly she looked. Instead, Addie retied the bonnet strings so the bow was on the side of Emma’s face, not under her chin. And she adjusted the hat to sit on the back of Emma’s head.

By the time Addie was finished, the train was slowing. Addie tried to see the town through Emma’s eyes. It was mud brown, dusty—the streets, the storefronts, the houses. Even the cottonwoods seemed dirty, their leaves listless in the still air. The two blocks of false-front buildings that made up the main street needed paint. Several structures were boarded up, a few ready to fall down. Spread out from the street were blocks of squat houses, many of them made of adobe bricks and plastered with dirt. Addie found them homey, but she thought Emma would not be impressed. She’d prefer the frame houses with curlicues of sawn lumber for trim, although they were shabby, their paint peeling from the sand that blew against them. Addie looked for The Chili Queen and felt such a touch of pride when she spotted it, off by itself, close to the railroad station, that she pointed it out to Emma. But Emma was distracted, scanning the faces in the depot, as the train slid to a stop.

“You see him?” Addie asked.

Emma shook her head. “All I have is the picture. But he’ll recognize me. My photograph is a better likeness than his.”

“Maybe that one.” Addie pointed to a man who stood off on one side. “Kind of short, isn’t he? Is your gentleman short?”

Emma looked startled. “I don’t know.”

Addie rolled her eyes, and Emma blushed. “I guess you’ll find out soon enough,” Addie said.

She stood up, but Emma touched her arm and nodded at a man leaning against the depot. “Do you think he’s Mr. Withers?”

Addie squinted at the big man who stood with one foot braced against the wall. “Not likely. That’s Charley Pea. He’s the blacksmith. He’s got him a wife. I know it for a fact. Mayme’s her name.” Charley had taken a trip to Texas the year before and had returned with a bride, who’d put on airs, pretending to be a lady. But Addie had told it around town that Mayme was a whore from Ft. Worth, a hussy so depraved she’d been thrown out of the whorehouse where Addie’d worked—for corrupting the other girls. Mayme had picked a fight with her once and had broken Addie’s nose and pulled out a chunk of Addie’s hair. Although the fight wasn’t Addie’s fault, she’d been docked by the madam. So Addie had been all too happy to expose Mayme, although Addie had paid for it. Now she had to take her horses twenty miles away to be shoed. The blacksmith still fairly hated her. In fact, when Addie passed him on the street not long before she went to Kansas City, he had spit tobacco juice on her skirt. And he was the one who’d thrown two kittens down her well. Addie was sure of it.

Addie and Emma made their way down the aisle and onto the platform, which was crowded with men dressed mostly in rough clothes. Ranchers and miners stood beside the freight cars, waiting for shipments. Mexicans silently moved around them as they unloaded barrels and boxes. Men and a few women milled about the tracks waiting for passengers or just watching the train to see who got off. Addie knew some of them, but it wasn’t wise to greet customers in public, so she merely looked them over, raised an eyebrow at one, smiled at another. She touched Emma’s elbow and pointed her head at a neatly dressed man holding a hat in his hand and smiling in their direction. But just then, a woman made her way past them and joined him.

Emma’s eyes darted about, and she seemed to lose her composure. “He’s not here,” she whispered.

“Oh, you don’t know that. Maybe he’s inside, waiting for folks to leave. He might be shy,” Addie replied. “Or he went to the saloon for his dinner. Train’s awful late, you know. Now, you go sit on the bench in the shade and wait for him. He’ll be along directly.” If Emma was sitting in the shadows of the depot, the man might not see right off how old she was.

“Will you wait with me?” Emma asked.

Addie was tempted, since she was curious to see this Mr. Withers. But she didn’t fancy having the man recognize her and explain to Emma that she’d been keeping company all night and day with a whore. That wouldn’t bother Addie so much, but she didn’t see any reason to turn the woman into an enemy. And if Mr. Withers were as upright as Emma believed, he wasn’t likely to approach Emma with Addie sitting beside her. Besides, it was late—and a Saturday night, Addie realized with a start. She had to find out what had gone on at The Chili Queen since she’d left. She wanted a tub and her supper before customers arrived. So she shook her head. She tipped the stationmaster to store her trunk until one of the Mexicans could deliver it to The Chili Queen, then picked up her valise. “Luck to you,” she told Emma.

Emma was too distracted to reply. Addie squeezed her arm. Then she started down the road to The Chili Queen. When she looked back, Emma was sitting on the bench beside the depot, the pink hat in her lap. Except for Charley Pea, who was still watching the train, she was alone. There but for the grace of God, Addie thought.

“
Where you been? I darn tired of looking at
whores,” Welcome said by way of greeting as Addie came through the kitchen door. “You was supposed to come home two days ago. I skillet the ham and pan the biscuits when I heard the train whistle blow that day, but you didn’t come, so I ate them myself. I thought maybe you got kilt.” The big woman grinned as she used one hand to lift a huge cast-iron wash pot and set it on top of the stove. Addie couldn’t have hefted the pot with both arms. The servant woman was strong enough to play marbles with a cannonball.

“You certainly don’t live up to your name, do you?” Addie asked.

“I hired on to cook and wash, and I work early and quit late.

But I never agreed to tend three whores,” Welcome said.

“Two now. Miss Broken-Nose Frankie ain’t here.”

“What?” Addie dropped her things on the floor and slumped into a chair.

“Miss Broken-Nose run off. That leaves Miss Belle Bassett and Miss Tillie Jumps. They’re upstairs sleeping. Might be they’re fixing to leave, too, and you’d have a whorehouse with no whores.” She laughed. “Ain’t been nobody come around looking for work, neither.”

That didn’t surprise Addie. In the past year, Nalgitas had slumped, and bad times didn’t bring hookers looking for work. She sighed. It was Saturday night, and if business were decent, she would have to pitch in. Her bones ached too much. “Any other good news you got for me?”

“The window’s broke out in your bedroom. Don’t ask me who done it. I’m not allowed to sleep in the house.” There were three rooms for girls upstairs. Addie’s room was off the kitchen, which was connected by a hallway to a large parlor. Welcome had a shack out back, a converted chicken house.

“You can take Miss Frankie’s room if you’ll help out. You know what I mean. There’s more than one man that’s asked about you. Most places don’t charge the same for dark meat as white, but that doesn’t go with me. I always did like a Negro man as much as a white one. I guess that goes for a woman, too. You can keep half, just like the other girls.” Addie didn’t know if the men who’d inquired about Welcome wanted her because she was a Negro or because she was a big, bold woman. They might not even know Welcome was a Negro, because her skin was the pale brown of dried prairie grass.

“I’m not much more Negro than you are,” Welcome said. “But no matter. This old flesh and bones is a Christian woman, and I won’t share my tender parts for pieces of silver.”

Addie wondered why her employees always talked back to her. The servants were brash, the girls uppity. She sighed. “Well, fix my supper then and heat up water for a bath. I expect you could smell me coming from the station.”

“Yes, ma’am. I could.”

Welcome built up the fire in the cookstove, then she pumped water and poured it into a kettle. She set a place for Addie at the kitchen table, and went to the icebox, peering inside. “We had purty plenty to eat two days ago when you was supposed to be here. Now we got just leavings,” she said. “I guess you’ll be wanting your bath first.” Welcome went outside and fetched the little tin tub from the back porch, and by the time she hauled it into Addie’s bedroom, Addie had taken off the silk dress and thrown it onto the bedroom floor. She was wearing only a wrapper.

Welcome picked up the pile of yellow satin and held it out at arm’s length, wrinkling her nose. “It looks ruint, but I’ll see if it’ll clean up.” She tucked the dress under her arm. “The money from the customers is in your bottom drawer. I was going to hide it away in your Bible because them girls weren’t likely to look there to steal it, but I could not find your Bible.”

“Most likely I took it with me.”

“Most likely.” Welcome snorted. “You got more than one hundred dollars. That’s after I took out for going to market. And I paid myself ten dollars extra for running things while you was away. Those whores wore me out good.” She left the room, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll fetch you a glass of whiskey before I heat up the hot water.”

Addie sighed and rubbed her face. Then she examined her fingers. The nails were broken and the cuticles raw. But that didn’t bother her as much as the backs of her hands. There were half a dozen brown spots on each one, and the veins stuck out like meandering streambeds. She was fortunate customers didn’t pay much attention to hands.

Welcome returned with the liquor, and Addie took a long sip. It was the first good thing that had happened to her since Kansas City. With a bath and supper, she might make it through the evening. As she set down the glass, she heard a sharp ring of the front doorbell and sighed. It looked as if the fooling around would commence early that night. “You get it,” she told Welcome. “Tell him we don’t open till nine. If he’s here at nine sharp, he can have his pick of the girls. Don’t tell him we got only two.” She glanced at the clock on her bureau and was surprised to discover it was nearly eight. “And get those girls up and bring me my bathwater.”

“You want me to black the stove and fix a turkey dinner while I’m at it?” Welcome asked, as she shut Addie’s door and went to the front of the house.

Addie finished the whiskey and was about to get the hot water herself when Welcome banged the door open.

“Is he coming back?” Addie asked.

“He’s a she. Somebody asking for you.”

Addie brightened. Perhaps life was looking up. “A girl? She could start tonight, and then I wouldn’t have to help out. Is she a looker?”

“She’s no likely-looking girl for you. If you ask my opinion, this one’s hustling for the mite society.”

Something pricked at the back of Addie’s mind, and she rubbed her hands over her face. “What’s she look like?”

“I said it once, and I say it again: Not like no whore.”

“Does she have on black?” Addie paused. “And a pink hat the color of my backside?”

“Only smaller,” Welcome replied.

“Katy, bar the door!” Addie shook her head back and forth. “I don’t guess you sent her away.”

Welcome shrugged. “You said you was looking for a girl. You didn’t say you wanted a comely one. She’s setting in the parlor, just like a biddy hen.”

“Well, get her out of there. Put her in the kitchen. Tell her I’ll see her as soon as I get some clothes on.” Addie stood up and stripped off the wrapper, amused that Welcome averted her eyes. “And watch your tongue. Don’t tell her what kind of a place this is. She’s a maiden lady that thinks The Chili Queen is a boardinghouse.” Addie chuckled.

After Addie had wrapped her tired body in a house dress and brushed out her hair, pinning it sloppily on top of her head, she went into the kitchen, where she found Emma seated at the table, in the place Welcome had set for Addie. Emma had finished the piece of cold fried chicken and was wiping her mouth with a napkin. Addie wondered where the napkin had come from. Welcome never put out napkins for the residents of The Chili Queen.

Emma turned to Addie. The dirt on the woman’s face was tear-streaked, and her hair was snarly. The pink hat sat on a chair, the bonnet strings wadded up. “I didn’t know where else to go,” she said, a catch in her voice. “I mean, I don’t know anybody else in Nalgitas, and you were so kind on the train. I hope you don’t mind. After all, you said I could come here.”

Maybe so, but she hadn’t meant it. In fact, Addie minded considerably more than Emma could guess. The woman was just one more problem she’d have to deal with before she could open The Chili Queen. Still, Addie’s heart went out to Emma. Addie was nosey, too. She patted Emma’s black-gloved hand and said, “Well, dearie, let’s have it. Tell me your story.” She stopped when Welcome came to the table with a piece of pie and a glass of milk. Addie pulled her chair up to the table, but the servant ignored her and set the plate and glass in front of Emma, who picked up her fork. Heartbreak didn’t seem to affect the woman’s appetite.

“You can bring me my dinner now, Welcome,” Addie said curtly.

“I gave her the leavings from the girls, and that’s all there is. She got the last of the hereafter, too.”
Hereafter
was what Welcome called dessert.

“What about me?” Addie almost wailed.

Emma had started on the pie, but she put down her fork and shoved the plate toward Addie. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I thought since this was a boardinghouse, you had eaten, and I was having the leftovers. I wouldn’t want to rob you.”

Addie sent Welcome a stern look that she hoped would tell the hired woman to keep her mouth shut. She only fluttered her hand at Emma. “Go on. You eat it. Welcome will fry me up some side meat and eggs.”

Welcome seemed in no hurry and regarded Addie for a long time. “Yes, ma’am.” She didn’t move.

“Now.”

“Uh-huh.”

When Welcome turned to the stove, Addie asked again, “What happened?” As she leaned forward, she brushed her sore breast against the edge of the table and sucked in her breath. When she’d undressed, she’d noticed the bruise, now an ugly purple, that the train conductor had inflicted. She thought about asking Welcome for ice, but she guessed Emma might go distracted if Addie bared her breast, right there at the kitchen table. Besides, it was too late to do any good. So she ignored the throbbing. “Did he turn you down?” Addie realized that was the wrong thing to say, and she added quickly, “Or maybe you didn’t like him. Is that it? Tell me everything.”

Emma shook her head and began to sniff.

Addie hated whimpering, unless she was the whimperer. “Well, what was it?”

Welcome butted in. “You look like a plague of misery. You tell Miss Addie every and all the incidents.”

“What’s this got to do with you?” Addie asked, angry that Welcome seemed to be taking charge. “You work for me, remember?”

“I quit. You want me to quit? Almost am I ready to leave.” Welcome reached behind her back to untie her apron strings.

“Just fix me my supper.”

Welcome patted Emma’s shoulder and turned to the stove.

“Oh, dear, I’ve come between you and your hired girl,” Emma said.

Addie waved away the apology. “Tell me what he said,” she ordered.

Emma took a deep breath and let it out. She searched her bag, finding a handkerchief, which she held to her nose. To Addie’s relief, Emma didn’t cry. Instead she sneezed. She put away the handkerchief and sighed again. Then she said quickly, “He wasn’t there.” The admission wore her out, and she sank back into the chair as if done with the story.

But for Addie, that was only the beginning. For all the inconvenience she’d gone through for Emma, Addie was owed a good story. She reached for Emma’s hand and held it between her own. “I told you he was having his supper, or he could have got drunk and passed out. Maybe his horse bucked him off, and he had to walk to town.” She was warming up. “He could have got washed away in a flood and killed.”

“It ain’t rained since you left,” Welcome said from the stove. She cracked an egg on the side of the frying pan. It sounded like a shot.

“Well then, he might have been run over by a freight wagon or killed by outlaws—” She stopped because Emma was shaking her head back and forth.

“No. None of that,” Emma said. “He was there at the depot, all right. I didn’t see him, but he saw me. He left a letter. It wasn’t more than a few minutes ago that I thought to inquire for a message. And there was his dispatch, lying there.” Emma reached into her bag and took out a sheet of cheap paper that was folded in half, then folded again.
Miss Roby
was written on the outside. Emma straightened the paper, and set it on the table.

Addie snatched it up and began to read the pencil script to herself, nodding her head at each word as she sounded it out. Then she glanced up at Welcome, who was paying no attention to the skillet. “All right, you can hear it,” Addie told Welcome, and as Emma cringed, Addie read the salutation:
“Dear Emma Roby.”

Addie smoothed the paper on the table and pointed to each word as she pronounced it.

“You are older than your picture, and I believe you are not a suitable match for a man such as myself.”
Addie read each word distinctly, and when she got to the end of the sentence, she looked up at Emma, but Emma was staring stoically at the stove.
“I did not bargain for an old maid. I am not cruel but am a coward, so I will leave this with the station man. It is better if you go on back home and forget about

“Your faithful servant,

“W.W.”

Welcome set down a plate of fried eggs and fatty meat in front of Addie, raising an eyebrow. “She’s a mail-order bride,” Addie explained.

“No such a thing!” Emma said indignantly.

Addie shrugged. “She’s not a mail-order bride. She just came out here looking for somebody she never met to pick her off the platform at the depot and marry her.”

Welcome went to the cupboard and came back to the table with a fork, which she handed to Addie. The black woman had big hands. And her feet in their brass-toed brogans were big, too. Once, when a man had gotten rough at The Chili Queen, Addie had called Welcome, who came to the room, holding a frying pan in one hand, slapping it against the palm of the other. The man bolted before Welcome had a chance to use it. Addie wondered how many other men Welcome had taken on. Maybe she’d chunked around her husband when he went after her. The servant had told her she’d been married, but “we abided poorly, so I let him go. He whipped me for any misdemeanor dislikeable. I guess he’s in hell now, if the devil can stand him.” Addie had been a little afraid to ask Welcome if she had dispatched him there.

“I was to meet a gentleman here to get married. We had corresponded,” Emma explained to Welcome.

“For no reason you should be sorry you missed out on such a devil on earth,” Welcome said.

Addie was surprised at the outburst and waved her away. “It’s not your business. Don’t you have chickens to kill?”

“It’s too dark to kill chickens,” Welcome said. She withdrew into the shadows of the kitchen but didn’t leave. Well, Addie thought, if Emma didn’t mind Welcome listening in, why should she?

“I didn’t have any place to go. I thought I could stay here. You said I could,” Emma repeated.