The Homesman by Glendon Swarthout

Author:Glendon Swarthout
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

THE

HOMESMAN

But they had no corn at the livery, so he ordered both animals a big feed of oats and a damn good currying and then, leaving his cowcoat and slinging saddlebags over a shoulder, stepped down the darkening street. He was worn to a fare-thee-well. He entered the Hutchinson House. There seemed to be nobody about. He noted one counter and six cubbyholes and six keys in them and no furniture. After a wait, he brought a fist down on the counter hard enough to wake the dead, and immediately a girl of fifteen or so gawked through a door from out back somewhere. Briggs was disgusted. The company of men, hell.

“I need a room,” he growled.

“Yes, sir.”

“Best one in the house.”

“That’ll be No. 5, sir, upstairs.”

“Well aired.”

“Yes, sir. Two windows.”

“No ticks.”

“Oh, no, sir. And how long’ll you be with us, sir?”

“As long as may be. How much’ll you soak me for the room?”

“Dollar a night, sir.”

“I’ll want meals.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who’ll cook?”

“My mother.”

“She don’t seem to draw much trade.”

“She’s a very good cook.”

“I’ll be the judge, young lady. Let’s go.”

The girl lit a candle, took the key, and led the way upstairs. Briggs observed she was barefoot. The room was decent enough, supplied with a small table and chair, a whiteware pitcher and washbowl and soap and towels and mirror, a high-post bed, a peepot under it, and lace curtains at the windows. Briggs dropped saddlebags on the bed, threw up both windows as far as they would go, and sat down on the bed to test it. With her candle, the girl lit one on the table.

“Bed’ll do,” said Briggs. “I want a hot bath. Where is it?”

“Down the hall. Fifty cents for the bath, sir.”

“Start heating water. After that, serve me supper in here. I’ll have a side of beef, a hill of fried potatoes, half a loaf of white bread and butter, and some coffee. Real coffee.”

“That’ll be seventy-five cents, sir.”

Briggs gave her a sergeant’s scowl and, in so doing, actually saw the girl for the first time. He was shocked. His eyes began to sting as though there were tears in them. Double her age, darken her hair from auburn to black, put shoes on her to get a couple inches of height, and add forty pounds of flesh, and Jesus—Mary Bee Cuddy alive and breathing. Right now she was thin as a rail, all knees and elbows and backbone, but her shoulders were wide and her face plain as an old tin pail and her eyes looked through you to your shady side. He could see her someday riding a horse and teaching school and good with a rifle and living alone, no man man enough to marry her, and yes, God help her, one day brokenhearted and hanging from a tree.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Tabitha Hutchinson.”

She wore a faded muslin dress with short puffed sleeves, clean enough but frayed at the neck and two sizes too small.

“Hutchinson. Tabitha. All right, Miss Hutchinson, you have your marching orders.

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