Page 34 of My Heart Will Find You

“He ain’t here,” she said.

“You could have told me that. When will he be back?”

“About an hour. Old man Tucker died. He has to take care of it. You gonna wait for him downstairs?” Her smirking insinuation was clear. Was Max going to visit one of the girls in the saloon?

He put his hat back on. “I’ll come back in an hour. See that he stays here.”

Max left and closed the door behind him. “Her husbands probably ran away,” he muttered as he went down the stairs.

Out of habit, he headed toward the saloon.Might as well have a drink, he thought, but then he turned and went in the opposite direction. The Red Dog was his favorite, but it’s where his wife’s “friends” worked. It’s where they knew him and would ask lots of questions. He walked down the street to the Blue Moon. It was a sleazy place with a filthy floor covered in straw caked with years of tobacco spit. It stunk, but right now it suited his mood.

He ordered a whiskey then looked about the place. There were three tables with lowlife cowboys playing cards. Max knew they’d all been fired from every job they’d had. Stealing, laziness, quick temper. They deserved what they got.

There were a couple of “girls,” but they were leftovers. Worn out from years at the higher end places. They looked at Max with hope. He gave a polite headshake, and they turned away.

As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw a man in the far corner. It was the preacher. This morning he’d told Max to hurry up as he had a lot of things to do. Looked like getting drunk was at the head of the list.

In spite of his better judgment, the woman’s words rang in his head. She’d said this man could do accounts. For a moment Max struggled between his pride and his absolute hatred of all forms of paperwork. The thought of getting rid of the numbers won.

He downed a shot of the rotgut whiskey then picked up a second one. “I got a problem,” he said loud enough to be heard next door. When everyone in the place turned their attention to him, it felt good. After all, he was the second biggest landowner for miles around. Only old man Kecklin beat him. With the day Max was having, he liked being respected. “I’m having trouble with my accounts.”

Half the men looked back at their cards. Accounts were of no interest to them.

“I can’t figure them out,” Max said. “I’ve got twelve pounds of peaches at three for a dime, eight pounds of coffee at twelve cents a pound, four calves, two fifty each, and six and a half yards of calico at ten cents a yard.” He looked at each person, but they turned away. “Who can figure that out?”

Finally, he looked at the preacher, bent over a whiskey, being the gloomy man he always was.

He said nothing.

Max shot back the second whiskey, put on his hat, and started to leave.

“Twelve dollars and a penny.”

Everyone turned toward the dark corner. The preacher didn’t look up. “Is that right?” the bartender asked Max.

“How the hell would I know?” he snapped. “Bottle.”

The bartender handed Max a bottle of whiskey and two glasses that were relatively clean.

He took them to the table in the back and sat down across from the preacher. “How come my new wife knows you can add and subtract?”

The preacher poured himself a large whiskey from Max’s bottle. “Is this the woman I married you to this morning? Why are you here and not with her?”

“None of your business. Why are you getting drunk and not taking care of that church we built for you?”

“Nobody likes my sermons.”

That was so true that Max nodded. “So how does she know about you?”

“I have no idea. I never met her before today. Maybe somebody told her.”

“Who knows to tell?”

The preacher poured himself more whiskey. “How would I know that? This could go on all day, back and forth. Don’t you want to get back to your bride?”

“She likes me as much as the town likes your sermons.”

“Ah,” the man said. “That’s a problem. Good women want tolikea man. You better stay with the girls at the Red Dog. I hear they like you a lot.”

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