The Fall of Abilene by Johnny D. Boggs

Author:Johnny D. Boggs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2019-04-30T19:35:11+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

How things happened exactly after that, I’m not certain. How things played out in my mind went something like this.

“Do you wanna take a hack?” Lavender asks as we watch Hardin and his “sweetie” ride off into the darkness. Gip Clements rides with them. The redhead said she knows just the friend for Gip.

I stutter, stammer, and try to think of something to say. Over the evening, I’ve had maybe one full beer and two shots of rye. I don’t know how Lavender keeps standing, but I sure like it that she is.

“I don’t reckon you can afford it … me,” she says.

That flusters me. “Well …” I start, but she presses herself against me, pulls me tight, reaches up, grabs the back of my head, and brings me closer. Her eyes glitter. She’s utterly beautiful.

“It’s all right, sugar,” she whispers. “It’ll be romantic, you know, us walkin’.”

She kisses me, gently at first, then harder, and once she pulls away, I’m practically flying down the boardwalks till there are no more boardwalks. She’s laughing, smoking a cigarette—I don’t recall her stopping to roll one—and we’re arm in arm, leaving Abilene proper and making a beeline to the Addition.

The streets are dark, but you can hear everything, including that earsplitting sound of tenpin alleys and gambling halls. The Devil’s Addition sure looks a lot different at this time of night. I’ve never been into this section of it. Suddenly, I hardly hear a thing. Rushing blood sounds like thunder in my head.

Lavender turns down an alley between grog shops, and we almost knock over a drunk who’s weaving back to the main street—if you can call it that.

“Hey, Willie!” she calls out, as she lets go of me and walks toward a shadow of a man standing by a flimsy building. The shadow smokes a cigar. After a few steps, Lavender turns, rushes back to me, kisses me on the lips, saying: “Don’t go nowhere, Talkin’ Boy.” She giggles. “That’s a cute name. I’ll be back directly.”

She heads back toward Willie.

I say: “It’s Counting Boy. Not Talking Boy. And I’m the Abilene Kid now. Just call me Abilene.” Lavender can’t hear me, though, and I can see Willie hand her a bottle and something else. He calls her Grace, which confuses me because her name’s Lavender. He says something that sounds nasty, and she turns back and calls him a bastard from hell, says she knows what she’s doing and doesn’t need any guff. He spits. She spits back.

I’m raised Texan. You don’t treat a lady that way, so I reach for the gun I don’t have. But that’s fine with me, because I figure I can stomp this Willie into the stink of this alley. I’m about to, when Lavender grabs my arm with her free hand, grins, and says: “Let’s go, Moses.”

Even in the dark she must be able to see my face, somehow, for she releases my arm, twists my cheek, and laughs. “Don’t worry ’bout Willie.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.