25

THE UNDERTAKER REPAIRED the dead man enough for us to display him outside the undertaker’s shop. People came to look at him and before noon we knew who he’d been. His name was Peter Lussier. Worked on a spread ten miles down the Paiute. No wife. No kids. He’d been on his way into town to buy supplies for the cook shack.

“Wonder why that Indian spent so much time showing himself to us?” Virgil said.

“Don’t know,” I said.

“Them red beasties can be strange,” Virgil said.

“They ain’t as strange as we like to think they are,” I said. “They got reasons for what they do, just like us. Except sometimes they don’t.”

“Just like us,” Virgil said.

“Yep.”

Virgil drank some coffee.

“Every morning,” he said, “Allie comes down here and makes us coffee and leaves, and we throw it away and make some new coffee.”

I nodded.

“Whadda you think of that?” Virgil said.

“Better than drinking hers,” I said.

“A’course,” Virgil said. “But don’t you think there’s something wrong with it?”

“Sure,” I said.

“But she’s trying to translate herself,” Virgil said. “You know, make herself different?”

“Transform,” I said.

“That’s right,” Virgil said. “She’s trying to transform herself.”

“And you don’t want to tell her it ain’t working,” I said.

“Well, maybe it is,” Virgil said. “Except she can’t make coffee.”

“Or sew or iron or wash clothes,” I said. “Or cook.”

“Hell,” Virgil said. “She can’t sing and play the piano, either, but she been doing it for years.”

“I thought you liked her piano playing,” I said.

“God, no,” Virgil said. “You?”

“No,” I said. “Singing, neither.”

It was still raining, and the water ran down the windows in the front of the office, changing the shape of everything moving in the street. Virgil sipped his coffee and looked at the rain.

“She used to be fun,” Virgil said. “Now she working so hard to make it up to me, she ain’t fun anymore.”

“She is pretty drab,” I said.

“Drab,” Virgil said.

“Sorta no color,” I said. “Boring.”

He nodded.

“Drab,” he said. “That’s her. Drab.”

“Maybe if you was to say something to her.”

Virgil shook his head.

“Know the only thing she’s good at?” Virgil said.

“Not firsthand,” I said.

Virgil nodded.

“She’s good at it,” Virgil said.

I nodded.

“Built for it,” he said.

“I notice she’s filled back out, since we come here,” I said.

“She has,” Virgil said.

“But…” I said.

“Ain’t ready yet,” Virgil said.

“Why not?” I said.

“Got to think it through,” Virgil said.

“You love her?”

“That’s what I’m thinking through,” Virgil said.

“We come all the way down here looking for her,” I said. “And killed four men to get her out of Placido, and you don’t know if you love her.”

“Thought I did when we come down here,” Virgil said.

“But?”

“But I can’t seem to get past what she done yet,” Virgil said.

“The men or the running off, or both.”

“Understand the running off,” Virgil said. “She felt shamed. But the other men.”

“It didn’t work out for her,” I said. “You seen where we found her.”

“No,” Virgil said. “And I don’t have no problem with the whoring when she didn’t have no choice. Feel bad for her. But I don’t have no problem.”

“Bragg?” I said.

“Him, the other men, when she had a choice.”

“Maybe she thinks she didn’t,” I said.

“Then what she transforming for?” Virgil said.

“Please you?”

“It don’t please me.”

“And you ain’t talked about it,” I said.

“Can’t,” Virgil said.

I nodded.

“Neither one of us,” Virgil said.

I nodded again.

“Yet,” Virgil said.

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