Departure Read Free Page B

climbed down from the wagon. He drew himself up to his full height, worked his neck. Then he ambled behind the wagon and ordered the boy and girl to stay where they were. He came back and patted the horses, and the woman looked at him fondly. He grinned at her, and said:
    â€œMaybe this here’s where our luck turns, Martha. Seems we had just about enough bad luck to last folks a lifetime.”
    â€œYou go get that water.”
    As he turned to the saloon, the door opened, and two men came out—one short, bowlegged, small of face, wearing blue jeans, booted; the other larger, heavier, better dressed. Both were armed. Both grinned as they looked at the heavily loaded wagon. They came down the steps and stood by the water trough, grinning.
    The shorter one said: “Mister, that’s a fine load you’re packing there.”
    The other one: “Mister, you buying junk or selling it?”
    The woman stared straight ahead of her. If any change came over her face, it was a tightening of her lips, a finer etching of the little lines of pain, of hope, of anxiety about her mouth.
    From the shorter one: “Mister, them nags of yours had just about enough water, wouldn’t you say? You don’t want them to drink the trough dry.”
    â€œJim—” She left off her words and still looked straight ahead of her.
    â€œI never yet been begrudged water,” he muttered, shifting uneasily from foot to foot, conscious of the old, patched wagon, conscious of his dirty brown overalls.
    â€œMaybe we begrudge a lot of things to your kind,” the taller man said. “Maybe we don’t like your kind nice enough to be perlite. Maybe this is cattle country an’ not for groundscrapers.”
    She saw the stiffening of her husband’s body, and she said, quickly: “Jim, we got to get goin’.”
    â€œI’ll get the shaver a drink of water,” he said softly. Then he walked up the wooden steps into the saloon. The two men glanced after him, turned slowly, and followed.
    She waited, and it seemed to her that she waited a long time, but actually it couldn’t have been more than four or five minutes. Further up the street and across from her was a sign which said CLOVER CITY EXPRESS. It hung over the front of a store, and now, as she watched, a man stepped into the street, and stood under the sign, mopping his brow, a short, stout man in his vest and shirt sleeves. He looked up the street, and then down at the wagon. He met her eyes and nodded.
    She felt cold, in spite of the heat. She felt an ominous uncertainty, as before a thunderstorm.
    â€œI’m thirsty,” the boy said again.
    She heard her husband’s voice from behind the saloon door. She unclasped her hands, and they were clammy with sweat. She climbed down from the wagon, instructing the boy, “Sit there—don’t you stir.” Walking around the wagon, she saw the boy and girl on the tailboard, leaning back and halfasleep. The girl smiled at her, drowsily.
    Then she made up her mind and went into the saloon.
    A big place, almost empty, tables and a high, raftered roof, a long bar. She stood just inside the door, her heart throbbing, her hands wet, afraid for herself, afraid for her husband, remembering how he had grinned and told her that their hard luck was broken. She recalled the stretch of their hard luck, the child dying, her husband breaking his leg, the farm taken away from them, their long, painful journey westward.
    Her husband stood at the bar. There were about a dozen men at the bar now, men in jeans, booted, armed, their hats tilted back, men somehow different from her husband. At first, she couldn’t understand the difference, why it made her afraid; then she realized that they were not men who had ever worked with their hands for a living, not farmers, not cowpunchers.
    Her husband was saying: “I came for a cup of water, an’ I aim to get it.”
    The bartender was