The Cold Millions by Jess Walter

Author:Jess Walter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2020-07-29T00:00:00+00:00

21

The frosty ground crackled as they walked quietly up the trail, Gurley first, then Rye, taking small steps, not daring to look back at the barracks or up the dark-shadowed hills on either side. They got a good thirty feet before Rye remembered to breathe.

“Bolin set us up,” Gurley whispered. “And where’s your friend Reston?” Hot anger emanated from her.

The hundred feet seemed to take an hour to walk, every tree a threat, the shadows terrifying, until they came over a hump in the dirt and there was Early, walking toward them from the cluster of buildings with a big woman who seemed all bosom and revolver.

“See,” said the woman with the gun. “I told you them boys wasn’t all bad.”

“No, you said not all the boys were bad.” Early Reston still had his hands in his pockets, as if nothing had happened.

“Well, that’s true, too,” the woman said.

“Where’d you go?” Gurley demanded.

“I ran after Bolin,” Early said, as if it were obvious. “Then I went to get help.” He tilted his head at the woman without removing his hands from his pockets.

“Where’s Al?” Gurley asked.

“He took off into the woods,” Early said. “I think he was in on it.”

The woman was named Effie and she was the madam at the brothel above the Swanson Bros Saloon. She brought them up the back stairs into what she called the parlor, a small bare front room with no furnishings save an old couch with torn upholstery. Early went out to make sure the signal was down for the next train to stop, and Effie sat Gurley down and tended to her eye. She had Rye gather some snow in a handkerchief and told Gurley to press it to her face on the train ride to Missoula. Then she took out a makeup brush and began applying her craft. “You’re a pretty girl,” she said.

Rye had never seen paint on Gurley’s face, and he ventured she didn’t need it, so drastic were those dark lashes and brows against her Irish pale.

“Don’t worry, honey, I’ve treated my share of these,” the woman said. “Shouldn’t raise a bruise. You were fortunate it was with an open hand. A fist is harder to hide.”

Gurley’s own hand came to her mouth then, and two tears made tracks in the coat of paint on her face, as if she’d just realized what had happened.

“Don’t go and do that,” Effie said. “That ain’t helpful.”

“I’m supposed to see my husband in Missoula tonight,” Gurley said.

Effie looked down the length of Gurley’s body. “Honey, are you pregnant?”

Gurley nodded.

“What are you doing out here?”

Gurley still couldn’t answer.

“What are you, about five, six months?”

Another nod.

“Well, don’t worry about that, neither. I seen girls fall down two flights of stairs couldn’t shake a child loose, once it gets hold up there.”

“I lost one before,” Gurley said, Rye surprised to hear this.

Effie kept tending the eye. “Well, like I tell all my girls, don’t go crying for a thing misses out on this business.” She turned to Rye next and put a bandage on his bleeding cheek.

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