Whippoorwill (27 page)

“What the hell did you do to him?”

She thought about crying but changed her mind, although her voice was shaking. “I didn’t do nothin’ to him that I don’t do to any other man. How was I to know he was goin’ to croak on me?”

Eulis felt bad. He hadn’t meant to upset her none.

“There, there.” He patted her shoulder. “I’m sure it couldn’t a’been helped. I always say, ‘when it’s a man’s time to go, it’s his time to go.’” He grinned through a drunken fog. “Besides, I can’t think of a better way to die than gettin’ a little of the good stuff on the way out.”

Letty hit him up aside the head. “Don’t make jokes. This is serious.”

Eulis grimaced and rubbed at the side of his face where she’d smacked him. “Not for him it’s not. He’s past worryin’ about anything.”

Letty bit her lip as she confessed her sin, although saying the words made her belly quake. “That there’s the preacher everyone’s been waiting for.”

Eulis gawked. He looked from the mound of flesh beneath the spread, to Letty, and back again.

“You killed the preacher?”

At this point, she began to shake and moan, wondering if it hurt much to hang.

“Oh hell, now, let’s don’t start that all over again,” Eulis muttered. “We’ll figure somethin’ out.” The sounds coming out of her mouth were giving him a serious headache.

Letty blew her nose on the skirt of her dress. “We’ve got to hide the body.”

Eulis stared at the mound of man beneath the spread. “That might take some doin’. He’s right portly.”

She rolled her eyes and then punched Eulis on the arm. “You aren’t telling me anything I don’t already know. I lay odds you have never been humped by something the size of a buffalo.”

Eulis considered the fact and had to agree. And then he thought. “We could bury him.”

Letty’s face brightened. It was the first sensible thing Eulis had ever said in her presence.

“Where?”

“I done dug a hole for that trapper they’re waitin’ to plant. Maybe I could dig it a little deeper and put the preacher-man in first. If I cover him with a few inches of dirt, no one will be the wiser when they drop the trapper in on top. Hell, the old trapper smells so bad now that I doubt anyone will even come to watch the buryin’, save maybe his partner who brought him into town.”

Letty’s eyes widened as she considered the notion. With one last sniff, she clasped her hands beneath her bosom in a prayerful gesture.

“Oh Eulis! If you help me do that, you can poke me free forever.”

Even though his pecker was useless, he brightened at the thought.

“All right then,” he said. “Help me wrap him up good. We’ll drag him out the back door and into Will’s wagon. I’ll have him at the cemetery before you can say amen.”

Reverend Howe would have been highly incensed at the casual way in which his earthly body was handled. He was rolled, thumped, and bumped down a single flight of stairs, then dragged up a plank and into the wagon with little ceremony.

The only snort of disapproval came from the horse pulling the wagon. And it was not at the manner in which the body was being handled. It was because he was still hitched to a wagon, rather than a feed bag.

But Letty was borderline hysterical, and Eulis was on a mission. The horse’s meal would have to wait. Together, they made it out of town and up the hill to the cemetery then did what they had to do. Later, still hidden by the shelter of darkness, they re-entered town a weary, but calmer, pair than when they’d left.

“I need a drink,” Eulis muttered, as he unhitched the horse and bedded it down in a stall.

Letty’s eyes narrowed. She had other plans for Eulis—plans she’d been concocting while he’d been digging a deeper hole.

“What you need is a bath.”

Eulis shrugged and brushed at the dirt on his hands and clothes. It mattered little to him. There was so much of it that one more layer of grime hardly mattered at all. Besides, if he could stand himself, why should anyone else care?

“Naw, I’m fine.” Eulis combed his dirty fingers through his long hair and beard to prove that it was so.

“Not if you’re going to preach tomorrow,” Letty said, and started pulling him toward the door.

“Not if I’m gonna what?”

Letty was too busy guiding him toward the back stairs that led up to her room to answer. Her bath tub was full and waiting for her to crawl in, but tonight it was going to see better use.

More than once, Eulis tried to run, but Letty had him by the beard, and it hurt too much when she pulled.

“Dagnabit you witch! Turn me loose or else,” he warned.

“Or else what, Eulis Potter? Who are you gonna tell? And what will you say? That you helped a whore hide a dead body? That makes you an accomplice. They can hang you as high as they hang me. You’d best remember that.”

Eulis groaned. He had just remembered why he’d become a drunk. It had been a woman who’d driven him to the bottle, and she’d been too much like the one who now had him by the balls—and the beard—to argue with.

The door slammed, and they were suddenly alone. The tub beckoned although the steam had long since quit rising from the water.

“Take off your clothes,” Letty ordered.

Eulis groaned. He was some sober, but not enough, he feared, to do her any good.

“Not for that, you ass,” Letty muttered, and started ripping at his jacket and shirt. The rotting garments fell away in her hands. “Get in the tub. By the time I get through with you, you won’t recognize yourself.”

Eulis was feeling too sick to argue. He needed a drink, but from the look on Letty’s face, he wouldn’t get the time of day unless he did as he was told. He crawled into the water with the reluctance of a drowning man. The tepid water shriveled his privates to an embarrassingly small state.

“I’ll get some more warm water,” Letty said, and bolted out of the room. She was back within minutes, having snitched the big pot of water off the stove that Will kept ready for the making of coffee. When she tilted it into the tub and poured, Eulis started to shriek.

“Christ all mighty!”

“Preachers don’t curse,” Letty muttered.

“I’m going to be sick.”

“You do, and you’ll be bathing in it,” she warned.

He swallowed the bile and took the soap that she offered.

Two hours later, he stood before her mirror, a shorn and saddened man. His own mother would not have recognized him. He was, as near as Letty had been able to create, a passable recreation of Reverend Randall Ward Howe, right down to the part in the middle of his hair, and the clean-shaven face and double chin.

Letty handed him the preacher’s clothes. “Try them on,” she said.

“He was fatter than me,” Eulis argued.

“Your beer belly will hold them up. You can belt in what sags.”

Letty was still holding the scissors she’d used to cut off his hair and beard, so Eulis figured an argument of any sort would be a lost cause. Reluctantly, he began to dress, and when he finished, stood back to view himself.

All told, he didn’t look as bad as he’d feared. He even pranced and preened a bit at Letty’s instructions, trying to mimic the walk of the man whose final act on earth had been a sin. By the time dawn arrived, Eulis had been coerced into a plan of collusion that could fall apart at any given moment. Neither of the culprits had any notion of whether Banker Worthy or Widow Hollis had known the reverend on sight. If they did, it was all over. But, Letty and Eulis were counting on the fact that they had only known him by name. So, if Eulis didn’t go and get himself drunk before the ceremony, they’d be home free.

Letty pushed a sweaty lock of hair away from her face. “It’s nearly daybreak. I’m gonna clean myself up, then we’re both going down and pretend nothing is wrong.”

Eulis grinned. His mouth was dry. And he would have killed two snakes for nothing stronger than a smell of cheap whiskey, but he was starting to enjoy himself. He looked real good in these fine clothes. And Letty didn’t know it, but he’d been raised on the Good Book. He knew plenty of passages to get him by the worst of it.

What he didn’t know was if he could keep a straight face. In the years that he’d spent in Lizard Flats, he’d been kicked aside, ignored, or spit at on a daily basis. This was too good to fathom. He kept thinking of Sophie hitting him with her umbrella and the trouncing Alfonso Worthy had given him while he’d been sitting in Pete Samuel’s trough. Now Eulis was going to perform their marriage ceremony and it wouldn’t be worth a hill of beans. It was the best sort of vengeance a man could ask for. Bloodless, but binding, nevertheless.

By breakfast, he was in full swing, bestowing compliments on women who, yesterday, wouldn’t have let him sweep the dirt from beneath their feet, and blessing babies as if he’d brought them into the world himself.

Letty watched from a safe distance away, horrified by the monster that she’d created, yet unable to turn him off for fear of ruining herself in the process. There was nothing left for her to do but ride out the day with as little panic as possible.

No sooner had she sworn to react with calm, than Alfonso Worthy entered the dining room adjacent to the saloon with his fiancée, Sophie Hollis, in tow.

“Reverend Howe, I presume?”

Eulis grinned. Yesterday Alfonso Worthy had stepped over him like a dog turd. Today he was fawning at his feet. Justice had never been so sweet.

“That’s me. I mean… yes, I am he… uh, him,” Eulis stuttered. He had to remember to talk fancy. “And this must be your charming bride-to-be.”

Eulis rose to the occasion by standing, then bowing over Sophie Hollis’s hand before bestowing a gentle kiss upon the knuckles of her right hand with princely grace.

Sophie giggled and blushed as Alfonso announced his news. “We came to inform you that the wedding will be held in exactly one hour… if that meets with your approval.”

Eulis pulled a small book from the pocket of the preacher’s coat, and pretended to consult it for several moments, as if checking a schedule which was actually nonexistent. Howe hadn’t been in town long enough to do anything but die.

Finally, he raised his head and nodded in a pleasant, and what he hoped was, a benign manner. “That will be fine. And where, pray tell, is the ceremony to be held?”

Letty rolled her eyes in disgust at the flowery words Eulis was spouting. If he wasn’t careful, he’d outrun his own wind and blow himself down.

“We’re holding the ceremony at dear Sophie’s house, of course,” Alfonso said, and smiled as Sophie blushed.

She’d been all over him like a cat after fleas for the better part of a week. Alfonso would get the ceremony out of the way, and then get Sophie in bed or know the reason why. Going from the front parlor, to the upstairs bedroom, seemed the simplest and best way to accomplish both.

“I’ll be there promptly in one hour. A man of God always keeps his word,” Eulis said.

Alfonso nodded, content that he’d done his part in satisfying propriety. Once he satisfied Sophie Hollis in bed, he would have it made.

Sophie pranced and giggled. “Do hurry, dear Reverend. I just don’t like to be kept waiting a minute longer than necessary to call this wonderful man my husband.”

Eulis nodded, burped and took another sip of his spiked tea. The weakened whiskey settled his queasy stomach just enough to get him by. It was one thing to become a preacher overnight. It was another thing altogether to get religion and go on the wagon at the same time. Some men might be able to do it. Eulis Potter knew his limitations better than most. He’d do what he must, but he’d do it with a glow, or not at all.

The moment the affianced couple was gone, Letty rushed to his table and snatched the cup from beneath his mouth and sniffed it.

“I should have known,” she hissed. “You’re drinking whiskeyed-down tea. You get drunk on me, Eulis Potter, and I’ll hang you myself.”

“Reverend Howe, to you, my dear. And hadn’t you better get changed? We don’t want to be late for the ceremony.”

“What’s wrong with my dress?” Letty grumbled, smoothing down the red silk with sweaty palms.

“It reveals too much of your, ah, womanly charms.” He waggled his eyebrows and leered at her breasts for effect. “Don’t you agree?”

He had her over several barrels and they both knew it. Unable to argue, Letty raced to her room to dress. In her panic, she tore both the underarms of her only decent dress and had to cast it aside. She ran to the window, as if looking for answers, then started to grin. There was a blue-sprigged muslin in the window of Matt Goslin’s store that had been hanging on a store dummy for the better part of three years. It was sun-faded in the front, and stained in the back from the time the roof had leaked and wetted down everything in the front of the store. But it was high-necked, and long-sleeved, and by God, it would hide everything—including her damned neck, if she buttoned it just right.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN

It looked as if the entire population of Lizard Flats was in Sophie Hollis’s yard, ogling for a view of the ceremony about to take place upon her front porch.

Matt Goslin, storekeeper and rejected suitor, glared from a place near the steps. If Alfonso Worthy was going to snatch up his sweetie, he was going to see it as up close and personal as he could get.

Letty Murphy had picked her place early. She was less than five feet from the spot where Eulis, the drunk-turned-preacher, had taken his stance. She figured if he got out of hand, she should be as close as possible to try and prevent a disaster from occurring.

And while she waited, she tugged at the neck of her new dress, not for the first time, wishing she’d worn one of her own and said to hell with propriety. It was no wonder that the upright women of Lizard Flats often had pinched expressions about their mouths. These high-necked, long-sleeved dresses were uncomfortable as all get out.

Letty fidgeted beneath the stares of the guests milling about the yard. She supposed it was because they’d never seen her dressed in such a fashion, when in fact, they were curious as to why her dress was faded to a near-white in front and still bright blue in the back. No one recognized the dress as having come from Matt Goslin’s store. What they did notice was that the dress was about a size and a half too small, and that Letty’s ample charms were pressing with prominent persistence at the boundaries of the buttons running down the front of the dress.