“That tart back in Boise stick your sabre up your ass?”
“Virgil.”
“Jesus. You didn’t do her at all, did you? You wasted my money and didn’t do a damned thing.”
“She appreciated your money, not me,” Harcourt said, wryly.
“I paid her triple,” DeVille said. “She claimed she would make you so happy you’d be singing for a week. She had this thing she did with her-”
“I didn’t ask you for your help in getting a woman.”
DeVille muttered, “If you’re not careful, your cock’s going to dry up and fall off.”
Harcourt remarked, “Yours will wear out first. And remember, hands off the widow.”
The Widow Larimer did not look as if she needed protection. It was clear she would repel seduction attempts with the shotgun she cradled competently and lovingly against her incredible bosom. A second shotgun leaned against the porch railing beside her. She was a veritable goddess. DeVille moaned softly.
She called out, “I don’t need that fool gambler. I don’t care how cheap he is.”
“Boudicca!” DeVille rhapsodized. “Penthesilea! Mrs Bridger the Sunday school teacher back home!”
“Quiet,” Harcourt growled out of the corner of his mouth. To the widow, he said, “An extra gun can never hurt, ma’am.”
Austin stepped into view, cradling a rifle. “With all respect, ma’am, you sent me for some extra hands, what with everybody gone over to Destiny for the dancing.”
The widow snorted audibly. “You keep them out of trouble, boy. And they’re sleeping in the barn.”
DeVille murmured to Harcourt, “He’s got a pretty face. Can’t be more than twenty-five. Wonder if he needs someone to teach him the wonderful ways of the world?”
Harcourt eyed him sourly. “Hands off the wrangler, too.”
Austin didn’t hear their exchange, too busy wondering if the two men were going to be more trouble than they were worth. At least they had guns. And the coloured man was right, more guns were better; though he looked like, alone, he could whip his weight in wildcats. Austin would have bet a month’s pay he’d been in the war. What Harcourt was doing with a dandy like DeVille, Austin couldn’t fathom. Perhaps he was DeVille’s bodyguard. If DeVille was anything like Austin’s daddy had been, he would have a lot of reasons to need one, but it wouldn’t help him in the end.
Austin watched the visitors quickly care for their horses. The horses liked them, and they didn’t stint on the work. Even knowing some men cared more for their horses than for other people, Austin relaxed a little.
DeVille glanced over as he gave his gelding’s nose a final stroke. “How’d you come to work for Miz Larimer?”
He probably had his eye on the widow, or at least on her ranch. Since a gambler didn’t seem likely to have money, maybe he was hoping his nice teeth would recommend him. Austin said, “How’d you come to be a dandified flatterer?”
DeVille said, without seeming to notice the insult, “Some are born to glory. I, however, am the son of the worst ruffian in Holmestown, New Jersey, saved from disgrace only by the good offices of Captain Harcourt.” He plopped down on a hay bale.
“The archangel Michael couldn’t save you from disgrace,” Harcourt said.
His tone was familiar and absentminded, as if this sort of remark was common to him. They were friends, then, and not employer and employee? A strange pair. Austin said, “Don’t let Miz Larimer hear you blaspheming. If she’s your goal, that is.”
Harcourt said, shortly, “I have no interest in the lady.”
“She’s rich,” Austin said, testing.
“Is she?” DeVille asked. “Rich and a warrior queen. I think my heart just might leap out of my chest.”
Harcourt thumped him on the back of the arm. “Later,” he said.
A pistol slid into each of DeVille’s hands. “Yessir,” he drawled. “I’ll take the cookhouse, sir, and cover the back. Austin, you coming with?” He smiled and winked. Austin startled; the smile charmed, and the wink had looked almost seductive. Some men would go after anything that moved, true, but surely not if it moved in pantaloons.
“I’ll take the well,” Harcourt said.
Outside, Austin settled with one hip braced against a water barrel while DeVille paced endlessly up and down the side yard between house and cookhouse, talking endlessly as well, his voice clearly audible across the yard.
“Speak up, I don’t think they can hear you in town yet,” Austin said.
Cheerfully, DeVille replied, “The widow seems to have an itchy trigger finger. I can’t enjoy my money if she accidentally blows my head off.”
“And Harcourt?” Austin asked. The other man was only just visible as a dark bump on the well house, if one knew where to look. It was too bad he wasn’t over here, chatting. Austin had never seen anyone like him before. “Why’s he hiding, then?”
“He’s in reserve in case things get difficult,” DeVille said. “So, Austin, you like poetry?”
“No!”
“Well, how about this one? You might like this one, it’s better than you think.” And, without letting Austin interrupt, DeVille charged into a recitation and then another and another.
Just after midnight, the attackers ran into the yard, whooping and firing pistols. Austin had never heard more than a single gun firing at once. The noise was bone-shaking.
DeVille appeared unaffected, apart from dropping Alexander Pope in the middle of a rhyme and plastering himself against a corner of the house. “How kind,” he said. “They brought friends. At least they’re not on horseback.”
“Miz Larimer,” Austin said, from behind the water barrel.
“Hush,” DeVille said. “Stay hidden.”
“I thought hired guns were supposed to be brave.”
“Only an idiot nominates himself to get shot.”
The widow’s voice rang out. “Get off my property or I’ll pump you full of buckshot.”
A foul reply from the yard was followed by her shotgun blast. Shouts and pistol cracks, and more shotgun blasts, covered any more dialogue. Austin followed DeVille’s slow creep around the corner and was nearly knocked down by a reeling, brawny figure wielding a flaming branch in one hand and a pistol in the other. The intruder swung the pistol at the side window; Austin leaped at him, wrestling for the torch before he could shove it through the hole in the glass and set the house afire. The torch went flying into the yard, but the big man still had his pistol. He shoved Austin backwards and aimed.
“Down!” DeVille yelled, and leaped. Both landed on the ground. Austin struggled free and sat up. The attacker fled, along with two others Austin hadn’t seen, in a confusing melee overflowing with drunken curses.
“Cowards!” the widow yelled.
Harcourt stepped into view, rifle to shoulder. A hat flew into the air as if jerked on a string; its owner kept running.
“Great shot!” Austin said, feeling strangely euphoric.
“I was aiming for his-Virgil, you all right?”
In the sudden silence, DeVille’s voice trembled. He still lay on the ground. “I can’t believe, after all I’ve been through, some brainless lickfinger son of a bitch-”
Harcourt shoved Austin to the side and yanked open DeVille’s coat. “No blood,” he said.
“Jesus Christ, something sure hurts. Right here.”
The Widow Larimer loomed over the men with a lantern. “Do not take the Lord’s name in vain, for if you died right now, you would surely go to the fiery pits of hell.”
DeVille squinted up at her. “I don’t think I like you any more.”
Events came together in Austin’s mind. “Miz Larimer, I think he saved my life.”
Harcourt produced a dented silver case from DeVille’s coat. “And this saved his. Virgil, you don’t smoke!”
Austin took the case and examined the bullet mashed into its tooled surface. The case would barely prise open. It held, not rolling papers at all, but pornographic playing cards. “Captain Harcourt, do you think they’ll be back?”