The mustached man got back to his feet in a rage. He tried to rush Sam, who deftly stepped out of his way with a feline grace rather unexpected from a man of his age and build. The mustached man ran square into Howard, who swiveled his entire upper body into a right cross that nearly skewered the man through the gut. He fell in a fetal position, in too much pain even to make a sound. Howard glanced around wild-eyed, then he turned back to the mustached man and kicked him in the back.
“Kick me, you son of a bitch?” he shouted. “You kicked me? You God damn kicked me!” The man coughed and made a feeble motion to protect himself. Howard slammed his foot into his back once again, causing a sickening sound in the man’s flesh.
“Kick me?” Howard shouted again. He pulled his foot back, this time to kick the man in the head, but before he could, Sam grabbed him and swung him up against a wall. Howard was in such a blind rage he didn’t even seem to notice what had happened to him.
“Son, that’s enough!”
Still overwhelmed by his rage against his attacker, Howard struggled momentarily to free himself from Sam’s grip.
“These boys are licked,” said Sam. “We done knocked the fight out of ‘em.” His sincere, calming tone soothed Howard back toward regaining his composure. Sam patted him gently on the shoulder and released him. “Son, you okay now?”
Howard wiped the sweat from his brow. “Yeah. I guess so.” Sam smiled and extended his hand. “Name’s Sam. What’s yours?”
“Bob. Bob Howard.” He shook Sam’s hand.
“Much obliged, Bob.”
Howard’s mood was immediately softened by the genuine friendliness and sincerity that radiated from Sam. Howard smiled sheepishly back at him like a second grader who’d just been praised for his penmanship.
Leaving a small crowd of onlookers who had gathered to watch the fight, Lovecraft approached, watching the shaggy-maned Sam dutifully helping the three injured roughnecks to their feet. Sam lined the three men up side by side and pointed them at the cafe down the street, where the waitress and the cook were standing outside the door.
“You boys go on over and get some coffee, hear?” Sam yelled down at the waitress, “Penny, give these boys some coffee on the house!”
“Sure, Sam!”
“And give ’em some aspirin, too!” He firmly nudged each of the roughnecks to start them staggering toward the cafe.
Howard bent down to help the redheaded woman, who was kneeling to gather up her scattered belongings. It was mostly underclothing, and Howard didn’t realize it until the thing he picked up unfolded, and fell open into a brassiere. As his eyes went wide with embarrassment, his gaze met the redhead’s. His face immediately flushed red, and he handed her the bra so hastily he nearly dropped it. The woman smiled warmly, with just a touch of amusement at the corners of her full lips. Howard quickly turned his attention to Lovecraft’
“Bob, are you all right?” asked Lovecraft, casting a furtive glance over at the kneeling woman .
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Howard said, rubbing his elbows. “A little banged up is all.” When he turned back, Sam had helped the redhead to her feet.
“’Scuse me son, I’ve got someone who’d like to thank you,” said Sam. “Bob Howard, this here’s Miss Glory McKenna.”
She smiled and extended her hand rather formally. “Thank you, Mr. Howard. It was very brave of you to step in and help Sam like that. I hate to think what would have happened if you two hadn’t…”
Howard hunched his shoulders and shifted from foot to foot, his head hanging like a little boy both proud and uncomfortable with praise. “Wasn’t nothin’, Miss,” he said.
“Nothin’s about what anybody else would’ve done for the likes of me in this town.”
Now Lovecraft stepped up to join them, his eyebrow raised with puzzlement at Glory’s remark.
“Bob,” said Sam, “aren’t you gonna introduce us to your friend here?”
“Oh, this is HP. Uh, Mister Howard Phillips Lovecraft.” He gestured to Sam and Glory. “HP, this is Sam and, and—”
“Miss McKenna, if I recall.” Lovecraft, ever the gentleman, tipped his hat in deference to the lady. “I am delighted to meet you both. I wish the circumstances could have been more pleasant ones.”
Sam extended a huge paw of a hand and shook with Lovecraft, who winced at the pressure of the man’s grip until he realized his error and quickly relented. “Pleasure’s ours,” said Sam. “Don’t see many strangers the likes of you in town.”
After the episode with the waitress in the cafe, Lovecraft couldn’t fail to see the double meaning in Sam’s words, even if they were not intended that way. He thought it best to leave quickly. “Well, Bob,” he said “I suppose we really should be on our way.”
“You two headed up toward Vernon by any chance?” said Sam. “Yeah,” said Howard. “We’ll be passing through on our way up to 66.”
“Bob, Howard, I hate to impose on you like this seeing as how I just met the both of you an’ all, but do you think it would be too much trouble to give Glory a lift up that way?”
Glory was embarrassed. She could see that the two men were obviously reluctant. “Oh, Sam, that’s really not necessary.”
Sam ignored her protest. “See, way things stand, I really think it’d be best to get her out of town right away. The bus ain’t due here for another hour an’ a half yet. ”
Howard and Lovecraft remained silent. Sam turned to Glory. “When those fellas start to sober up, and’ they’ve had a chance to lick their wounds, they’re liable to be lookin’ for you’”
“I’ll be long gone, Sam.”
“The bus ain’t exactly famous for bein’ on time, Glory.” Sam turned to the men. “Hell,” he said, “I’d take her myself, but my damn truck just busted a clutch this mornin’.” He waited for a reply.
Lovecraft, giving in to the stalwart gentlemanly air he’d cultivated for years, was about to say yes, but Howard stopped him with a tap on the shoulder.
“Excuse us for just a moment,” said Howard. He drew Lovecraft a few paces away, out of earshot, and whispered, “We can’t do it.”
“I don’t relish the idea either, but I pride myself on being a proper gentleman, Bob. Besides, it’s only twenty or thirty miles to Vernon, isn’t it? We’d only have to be inconvenienced by her company for an hour at most.”
“That ain’t the point.” Howard seemed hesitant to speak his mind about what was really bothering him.
“Then what, may I ask, is the point? You have rescued this woman from ruffians, but you are now loath to offer her a lift?”
Howard finally summoned his resolve. “She’s a harlot, HP.”
Lovecraft wasn’t able to contain his surprise. He looked over at Glory to see if there were any telltale signs in her appearance that would corroborate what he had just heard, but he saw none. She was hardly dressed like a saloon girl, which is how he imagined a prostitute out in the West; nor was she garishly made up in rouge and lipstick.
Indeed, in his perception, she was not dressed the least bit provocatively and looked very ladylike, except for the men’s boots she wore under her dress. And that, in Lovecraft’s mind, seemed a perfectly rational bit of expediency. “And how did you come upon this lurid revelation?” he asked.
“The fella at the gas station told me as much.”
Lovecraft frowned dramatically. “You mean to tell me that the fine upstanding fellow there, covered in automobile grease, the fellow with the delightfully yellow dentition which points to the four quarters of the compass?”
Howard had no quick reply to offer in defense of his accusation. Lovecraft took the silence as victory and stepped back toward Sam and Glory; Howard followed grudgingly, close behind.