Jeeter bent to the sheet of paper again. “You can call me Jeeter if you want, ma’am. It’s just the two of us here.”
Ernestine glanced up sharply. But there had been no hint of impropriety in his tone. “And you may call me Ernestine if you so desire.”
“You are sure I won’t get you into trouble, coming here as I do?”
“That is the fifth time you have asked, and no, you will not,” Ernestine assured him. “Who I teach on my own time is none of anyone’s affair.” She laughed lightly. “Besides, Dodge has another matter to keep tongues wagging. From what I hear, there has been a steady stream of otherwise sensible citizens traveling to Coffin Varnish to admire your handiwork.”
Jeeter looked up, the tip of his tongue sticking out. “How’s that again, ma’am?”
“Haven’t you heard? The four men you killed are on display. They are quite the attraction. At a dollar a head, someone is making a lot of money.”
“Are you joshing me, ma’am?” Jeeter was astounded. He had been avoiding human contact, except for coming to the schoolhouse for his lessons, and spent his nights camped out on the plain.
“Why, no, Mr. Frost, I am not,” Ernestine said. “You sound upset.”
“Wouldn’t you be, ma’am?” Jeeter came out of the desk, or tried to. He had to wriggle some to unfurl to his full height. “I reckon as how I better pay Coffin Varnish a visit.”
“Not right this minute, surely?” Ernestine said. “You have only been here half an hour and we agreed on an hour’s lesson each day.”
“Yes, ma’am, but—”
“But nothing, Mr. Frost.” Ernestine got up and came over and put her hand on his arm. “Kindly retake your seat.”
Jeeter could not remember the last time a woman touched him. A woman he had not paid to touch him, that is. He quickly sat and picked up the pencil. “Whatever you say, ma’am.”
Ernestine returned to her desk. Her hand was hot where she had placed it on his arm, and she rubbed it against her hip. But it only became hotter. “Why would you want to go there, if you do not mind my asking?”
“I shot those men,” Jeeter said. “I should have a say in what’s done with them. And I say the decent thing to do is to bury them.”
Clasping her hands behind her, Ernestine composed herself. He was constantly saying things that surprised her, and this was one of them. “That is quite noble of you, Mr. Frost.”
“Shucks, ma’am, I wouldn’t know noble from buffalo chips,” Jeeter told her. “I just know I don’t want nobody I shot made a spectacle of.”
“Anyone you shot,” Ernestine said. “Or perhaps someone, depending on whether you intended the singular or the plural.”
Jeeter set down the pencil. “When you talk like that, Ernestine, my brain goes numb.”
Ernestine smiled. It was the first time he had called her by her first name. “What will you do if you go to Coffin Varnish?”
“Ask them, polite-like, to bury the bodies,” Jeeter said. “And if they refuse, I’ll ask again, only not so polite.”
“I imagine the whole issue will soon be moot,” Ernestine commented.
“What do cows have to do with it?” Jeeter asked.
“Cows?” Ernestine repeated, and giggled. She covered her mouth with her hand but could not stop.
“What is so all-fired hilarious?”
With an effort Ernestine smothered another giggle, and replied, “Moot is not the sound cows make. In the sense I used it, I simply indicated that going to Coffin Varnish would be pointless.” His confusion was so apparent that she added, “The deceased have become rather ripe. So much so, yesterday’s newspaper mentioned that the bodies were to be buried sometime today.”
“Oh.” Jeeter still felt an urge to ride to Coffin Varnish and give them a piece of his mind. “Then I reckon we might as well keep on with my lessons. If you want to, that is.”
“Mr. Frost, if I were not teaching you I would be grading papers, and I consider teaching you the more pleasant of the two.” Ernestine felt herself blush. That had not come out precisely as she intended, although, God help her, it was the truth.
Jeeter was so flabbergasted that for a few seconds he could not get his vocal cords to work. Finally he said, “That’s awful nice of you. I’ll try to make you proud of me.”
“Let us take a look at f,” Ernestine said.
Chester Luce rapped his hammer on the blanket on the counter and announced, “This meeting of the Coffin Varnish Town Council is hereby called to order.”
Present in the general store were Chester and his wife, Win, Placido and Arturo, Dolph Anderson, and Minimi Giorgio.
“Two in one week,” Winifred Curry said from a chair near the pickle barrel. “The world is liable to come to an end.”
“You will treat these proceedings with the dignity they deserve,” Chester said, and tried to square his round shoulders. “Now then, the purpose of this meeting is to discuss those corpses.”
“There’s dignity for you.”
Adolphina came around the counter and loomed over Win. “That will be enough out of you. This is serious business.”
“We buried them an hour ago, thank God,” Win said. “What is there left to talk about?”
Chester answered, “The money we made.” He pulled a leather poke from an inner pocket and opened it. “All told, it comes to three hundred and forty-seven dollars.”
Silence fell, until Dolph Anderson recovered enough to ask in barely understandable English, “How much that be again, Mr. Luce?”
“Three hundred and forty-seven dollars. It is not as much as I hoped, but it is nothing to sneeze at.”
“You wanted more?” Win marveled.
“A lot more,” Chester said. “Last I heard, Dodge has grown to about seven hundred people. Not even half paid us a visit, since some of the three hundred and forty-seven came from folks who came here twice.”
“Even so,” Win said, and whistled.
Chester began counting money out on the counter, making piles. “Let’s see. As we agreed, here is fifty dollars for you, Win, and fifty for the missus and me, and fifty for Dolph, and fifty more for Minimi, and fifty for Placido and Arturo—”
“Fifty each,” Winifred said.
“I don’t recall agreeing to that.”
Win smacked the pickle barrel. “Damn it, Chester. They kept those bodies in their livery longer than they should have, just to please you. Now their stable stinks to high heaven.”
“If I give each of them fifty, that will only leave forty-seven for the town treasury,” Chester protested.
“Which is forty-seven more than it’s had in a month of Sundays,” Winifred argued. “Fair is fair. Placido and Arturo both earned equal shares.”
“My wife doesn’t get an equal share and it was her idea,” Chester reminded him.
“Give it to them,” Adolphina said.
“Pardon me?”
“You heard me. Win is right. If anyone earned full shares, they did. Fifty to each and it is a shame we can’t give them more.”
“If you truly want me to,” Chester said.
“Do it.”
Reluctantly, Chester counted out another pile. The rest went into a tin on a shelf behind the counter.
Minimi hugged his share to him, saying, “Grazie, signore. Grazie. Lei e molto gentile.”
“Speak English, you silly Italian,” Chester said. “You are in America now.”
“I thank you, sir,” Minimi said, correcting his oversight. “You are very kind. I wish it was more.”
“Don’t we all,” Chester said.
Placido and Arturo came forward to accept their shares. “I, too, would like to thank you, Mayor Luce,” the former remarked. “It will take us a month to air out the stable, but it was worth it.”