lope off toward Rita BlancaâPercyâs pace was far too slow for Mr. Imlah.
âCome see me at the hide yard,â he suggested. âI can usually find work for a stout young fellow like you.â
Jackson, I could see, was about to burst out with thank-yousâbut I had other plans for my little brother. Working with hides was smelly and I couldnât hope to stay upwind of a brother all the time.
âThatâs most kind, Mr. Imlah,â I said. âYouâre a true gentleman. But the truth is, Jacksonâs already secured employmentâI believe Sheriff Bunsen means to make him his deputy.â
Aurel Imlah was hard to surprise, but Jackson Courtright had his mouth so wide open a bat could have flown into it.
âIf this mule donât fail us my brother hopes to start work tomorrow,â I continued.
âThat is fortunate ⦠I consider Sheriff Bunsen a fine man,â Mr. Imlah said.
Then he tipped his cap to us and rode off east.
âWhat are you talking about, Nellie?â Jackson asked. âI havenât been offered a position with Sheriff Bunsen.â
âNo, but you soon will be,â I assured him. âHave a little faith in your big sister.â
With that, we pointed Percy east and got started.
4
P RUDES AND OTHER censorious folk might consider it a bad sign whenâas was the case in Rita Blancaâthe most impressive building in town happened to be the jail. The founding fathers of this little community knew what they were doing in that respect, at least. The jail was a sturdy two-story building built of thick, mud-colored adobe. A lynch mob would have had to chisel half the night to break through those muddy-looking walls.
There was a long platform extending out from the second floor, boasting a well-built gallows, from which the more serious miscreants could be efficiently hung.
Rita Blanca, at this stage of its existence, was a disorderly straggle of buildings, perhaps twenty at most. Some of these had already been abandoned and were in the process of falling down. Beauregard Whelessâs general store was a happy exceptionâit was a sprawling frame building, in good repair, with a small undertakerâs office off to one side. Beau Wheless, the father of Hungry Billy WhelessâJacksonâs one friend in Rita Blancaâwas the busiest merchant in town. When he wasnât selling firearms, or dry goods, or hardware, he was usually in his carpentry shop, hammering together coffins as fast as he could in order to keep ahead of the deaths, no easy task in a place where life was cheap.
âI see Hungry Billy,â Jackson said, as Percy plodded doggedly into town. âHeâs wasting time, as usual.â
Hungry Billy Wheless had once got lost while on an antelope hunt. He had been forced to wander the prairies for three days, living on grass and weeds, or so he claimed. When he finally located Rita Blanca he eased his hunger pains by eating a whole goat, which, had it been asmall goat, would have been no special feat. Locally there was much disagreement about the size of the goat. Those who couldnât stand Hungry Billy claimed that it had been merely a tiny kid; but others, such as Sheriff Ted Bunsen, who liked to keep in with the Whelesses, claimed that it had been a fairly hefty specimen of the goat tribe. I suppose people in remote communities need things like that to quarrel about. Anyway, the nickname stuck.
A central feature of downtown Rita Blanca was its three dilapidated saloons; the three were crammed together right across the street from the jail, which was convenient for Sheriff Ted Bunsen when it became time to collar the drunks.
In fact, when we rode up to the front of the jail, Teddy Bunsen was just in the process of releasing his catch of drunks from the previous night. Most of them still had sleep in their eyes, although it was nearly noon, and three of the men only managed to stumble a few steps
Gene Wentz, B. Abell Jurus