HE WOKE TO FIND his book on the floor, but the pool of lamplight had been diluted by, then absorbed into, the wan light of dawn seeping in through the window. He blew the lamp out and dragged his fingers through his hair, then he tiptoed out to avoid waking Queeny. It was not until he was standing in the chill of the empty street that he realized his jacket was still on backward. As he was taking it off and putting it on right, he noticed that the spreading dawn light was strange… greenish and oily. And there was a dirty smell to the unnaturally still air. Back in Nebraska those signs would have meant that a big storm was on its way in. But the sky was bell-clear and the far foothills were gold-crusted by the first rays of an autumn sunrise. If there was a storm brewing, it was hidden behind the mountain that loomed over Twenty-Mile. He thought of Ruth Lillian, who must have gone up to the Livery before dawn, then started climbing the trail toward Coots as soon as it was light enough to find her footing. He could picture B. J. at his back window, watching for Coots to appear around Shinbone Cut, a pot of coffee simmering on the stove to greet him.
He eased open the back door of the hotel kitchen and crept across to peek into the barroom. Tiny, Bobby-My-Boy, and Chinky were not there. Upstairs, probably. Frenchy was sitting at a table by the wall, her head down on her arms. Mr. Delanny was near her, his back to Matthew, but there was something strange in his stiff, awkward posture. Lieder was in a chair tipped back against the wall, facing the bat-winged doors, a rifle cradled across his lap. Matthew could only see his profile, but his chin was down on his chest, and his breathing was deep and regular.
If only Coots was here right now with his pistol. He could get the drop on him and…!
But Coots wasn't there, so Matthew tiptoed back into the kitchen to light the stove and begin making breakfast, doing everything as quietly as he could, but each little unavoidable noise he made caused him to pull in his neck and suck air through bared teeth.
After carefully sliding the first batch of biscuits into the oven, Matthew sliced bacon and put it into a big two-handled frying pan on the middling-warm part of the stove, then he filled the tin pot with water, dumped in a good handful of coffee, and put it on the hot center ring. When the first batch of biscuits was done, he put them under the warming hood and started a second.
"Hey there!"
Matthew gasped and almost dropped the bag of flour he was pouring into the mixing bowl.
"Colder'n a witch's tit this morning!" Lieder said from the doorway to the barroom.
"I thought you were asleep!"
"I never sleep, boy. Just quick little catnaps. I don't seem to need sleep, like ordinary men do. And I never drink liquor. I require neither rest nor stimulation."
"I don't like liquor either," Matthew said. "Just the smell makes me want to urp."
"Speaking of stuff to make a body urp, please don't tell me you dipped your wick into that old whore I threw into the street last night! You can do better'n that, boy! Hell, even Old Lady Fist is better than that sorry old worn-out hole. And a hell of a lot cleaner, too."
The coffee boiled over, sending drops hissing and dancing over the surface of the Dayton Imperial. Matthew grabbed up a rag and dragged the big pot over to the edge of the stove. "You want a cup, sir?"
"A cup of coffee'd go down real good on a cold morning like this. The air smells like there's a storm brewing."
Matthew poured and passed it over, and Lieder sat down on the kitchen steps and took a noisy sip. Matthew put a couple of biscuits onto a plate along with an open tin of corn syrup and set them on the step beside Lieder, then he returned to mixing up the second batch of biscuits.
"So!" Lieder said, warming his hands on the speckled enamel cup. "You say you didn't ream old… whatshername?"
"No. I just brought her to my place so she wouldn't have to sit out in the cold."
"There you go! I told them you were just doing a good deed and not meaning to go against me. I admire kindness more than any other quality… except for patriotism. The only reason I threw that old hole out into the street was because I could see right off that she was nothing but dregs." Lieder dunked a biscuit into his coffee. "And I don't let my apostles accept dregs. You want to know why?" He held the dripping biscuit up and ate half of it from beneath to catch the drips.
"Why?"
"Because once a man starts accepting dregs, that's all he ever gets. For the rest of his life, it's nothing but dregs and leftovers that other people don't want! Shoot, even Tiny and Bobby-My-Boy didn't want to stick that jiggling pile of lard! And they've been inside so long that they'll stick 'most anything that's warm… even one another! Now ain't that a picture to gag a maggot!" He laughed and finished his biscuit.
Matthew concentrated intensely on dropping spoonfuls of biscuit dough onto the tray.
"Lord, that bacon smells good!" Lieder continued. "I been smelling it for a quarter of an hour, and do you wonder if my mouth's been watering? It's been watering."
Matthew slid the second tray of biscuits into the oven and closed it. "You really think you've been awake since I started the bacon?"
"Like I told you, boy. I don't need sleep like an ordinary man."
Matthew shrugged.
"I ain't lying to you, boy!"
"I didn't say you're lying, but people sometimes think they're awake when they ain't.
"I was awake! Don't you contradict-I heard you come into the kitchen, pussyfooting it. Then you stood at the door, looking around the barroom."
"But… how could you see me? You had your back to me."
"I can feel when people are looking at me. It's a gift been bestowed on me as a sign of favor. A kind of armor to protect me against my enemies so's I can fulfil my mission. Shoot, I can even see through closed eyes! You don't believe me, but it's true! Sometimes when I'm reading late at night, I get so sleepy that I can't keep my eyes open, but I can still read. Right through my closed eyelids! I spend a lot of time on one page, that's true, but I'm reading! I'm reading!" His eyes softened, and his tone shifted to one of gentle wonder. "Did you ever notice how a mess of bacon frying sounds like rain on a tin roof?"
"No, sir," Matthew said, his mouth suddenly dry, because if this man could see through closed eyes, it was a good thing Coots hadn't been standing there with him in the doorway of the barroom.
"Me, I notice things. Like how bacon frying sounds like rain on a tin roof. Poetic things like that. It don't hurt a man to be sensitive to the beauties around him."
"Have you thought about what you're going to do, sir?"
"What do you mean, do?"
"When the train comes and you find yourself facing all those miners."
Lieder leaned back on his elbows and blew out a long jet of breath. "Yeah, I been giving it some thought. And I've decided that maybe those miners ain't a threat. Maybe they're an opportunity."
"Opportunity?"
"I'll talk to them. Tell them about what's happening to this country of ours. Chances are they'll want to join my cause! Something brought me to Twenty-Mile. Maybe it was the opportunity to enlist those miners into my militia. Hey, wait a minute. Those miners are of Aryan blood, ain't they?"
"What's that?"
"People who come from healthy northern European stock. You can tell just by looking. Those Mediterraneans, they're mostly small and dark and shifty-eyed. And those slavs, they're mostly flat-faced, and their nostrils point right at you, like a shotgun."
"I don't know what kind of people the miners are. Just people."
"There ain't any Chinee among 'em, is there?"
"Not as I've seen."
"That's good, 'cause The Warrior has prophesied that the Chinaman is this nation's final enemy. The Yellow Peril. There's millions of them over there, all waiting to come swarming over in search of white women, 'cause they've killed so many of their own girl babies to keep from having to feed them that they're running out of women. Did you know that Chinamen cripple their girls by binding up their feet, so's they can't run away when they're raping them? It's true! And rich old Chinamen pay big money to have rhinoceros and tigers killed so's they can eat the horns and balls to make their withered old peckers strong enough to screw a few more times before they die. And if there's anything this poor old world doesn't need, it's more goddamned Chinamen! Well! Let's get to that breakfast!" Lieder turned back into the barroom and shouted, "Everyone up! Breakfast!" He pounded on the bar with the flat of his hand. "Everyone awake! Reveille! Reveille! Up and out!"