“Who am I, did you ask?” she demanded, turning and fastening her insolent gaze on one unfortunate, cringing imaginary grand lady. “Why I am Madame de Pompadour,” she replied, in stately tones. “You know,” she added, giving her a wicked wink and jerking her thumb behind her, “the mistress of his majesty.”
“Pardon me,” said Edward Chance, who was leaning in the window of the soddy.
“Oh!” cried Lucia.
“I’m sorry,” said Chance, removing his hat.
“Go away!” said Lucia. She tried to untie the bustle, but her angry fingers knotted the ribbon. She began to cry. “Go away!” she said.
“I smelled the coffee,” said Chance.
“Go away!” said Lucia.
“All right,” said Chance.
His head disappeared from the window.
Lucia stood in the center of the soddy, jerking at the ribbon on her side. She heard the leather sound of Chance’s saddle as he put the weight in its stirrup, heard the brief snort of the horse, its movement.
Lucia jerked once more at the bustle, which now hung like a dead, gaudy bird at her hip. Then she laughed. She went to the window and thrust her head out.
“I’m sorry,” she called.
Chance, in the saddle, looked at her.
“There’s coffee,” said Lucia Turner.
Chance sipped the coffee. It was hot and fresh, and black and bitter the way he liked it.
The girl was across the table from him, working her fingers in the knot of the bustle.
“You startled me,” she was saying. “I didn’t mean to be impolite.”
“That’s all right,” said Chance. He wondered if she were wise, inviting a stranger into the soddy. He supposed she believed him to be working with the agency people. Certainly strangers seldom moved through the reservation.
“May I help?” asked Chance, awkwardly, watching her work the bustle knot free.
She dropped her head shyly, and blushed, as he had hoped she would. “I think not,” she said, but then she looked at him and smiled, “thank you.”
Then she had the ribbon undone and smoothed out the bustle and returned it to the muff in the trunk.
It seemed to Chance a strange place to keep a bustle.
The girl returned to the table and sat across from him, her hands folded in her lap.
It had been a long, long time since Edward Chance had been this close to a woman. She was plain to him, but not really. At least not objectionably so. There was a fragile thinness to her face, rather high cheekbones, soft, pale eyes, blue. The hair was burned shades lighter than it should have been. She should have worn a bonnet more. Her complexion was rough, chapped by the wind and washing with cold water. But she held her head well, and there was a fresh, honest look in her. She was obviously curious about him, but was too well-bred to inquire pointedly. Her speech was midwestern, except there was a trace of a refined, genteel accent, acquired probably in the Northeast, perhaps at some school. Chance decided, looking at her, that she was not really unattractive. No, Chance decided, not at all. If her hair were brushed and her clothes were better, and if it wasn’t for the soddy and the plank table, and if she had been pouring him tea, instead of coffee, at a table with a tablecloth, and in a house with wallpaper, she might even have been pretty. Chance decided, speculatively, that he might even have liked her. He supposed it was lonely on the prairie. He wondered why she was alone. She made good coffee, he thought. She was pretty. Yes. Not beautiful like Clare, but pretty. Prettier even than the woman he had paid for in Chicago, with the scarlet sheets and the black ribbon choker in the two-story yellow house on State Street. It would not do, of course, to tell her that she was prettier than that woman.
Lucia, her hands folded in her lap, was pleased that the stranger liked her coffee, pleased the way a woman is pleased when a man likes something she does.
He was a rather ugly man, Lucia admitted to herself, but he did not look unintelligent, nor did he look particularly coarse. His accent informed her that he was from somewhere in the South, but his attire and his presence on the reservation were ample evidence that his background could not be gentlemanly. His hands were rather clean, to Lucia’s surprise, and the nails were clipped short. They were long-fingered, nervous hands, not rough from handling rope or tools. He liked her coffee. He was asking her about herself and the school, and she was telling him. His eyes were gray, the hair black. He was fairly tall, but not overly so. He seemed polite. It made her a bit nervous how he looked at her. She wondered if he found her pretty. He looks lonely, she thought. I’m lonely, she thought. Then she was asking him about himself, to make conversation. He didn’t say he was married. He didn’t say he worked on the reservation. He was moving through. She wouldn’t see him again. He wore a pistol, low. Many men did. Especially now. He had liked her coffee, and she would not see him again. His name, she had learned, was Edward Smith. A plain name, for a plain man, but a nice man, well-spoken, courteous. Rape me, she thought, rape me.
“Would you like any more coffee, Mr. Smith?” she asked.
“No,” said Edward Chance. “I’m riding out now, but thanks very much.”
He would go through the door and she would not see him again.
“It has been nice meeting you, Mr. Smith,” said Lucia Turner. “If you pass this way again, please drop in.”
“Thank you,” said Edward Chance.
There was a slight noise at the door and Lucia’s half scream was stifled in her throat as Chance slipped behind her, his left hand covering her mouth, his right arm locked about her waist holding her helpless. “Don’t make noise,” whispered Chance. Lucia was too startled, after her first fright, to even whisper. She shook her head, yes. Who was this? What was he afraid of? He released her and she saw that the pistol had moved from his holster. She hadn’t seen it drawn but it was in his hand. “I’m sorry,” said Chance, softly. Then, curtly, he gestured toward the door. “See who it is,” he said, his lips more forming the words than his mouth spoke them.
Lucia, shaken, stared at Chance.
“You’re a criminal,” she said.
The barrel of the pistol gestured to the door.
Lucia went to the door. “Who is it?” she asked.
A boy’s voice answered. “They are coming,” he said.
“Go away, William,” said Lucia. “Go away.”
Then to her surprise the man in the room with her moved past her, dropped the gun into his holster and opened the door. He spoke to the boy briefly in Sioux.
God, thought Chance, already they’re here. The two men.
How far?
Not far.
The boy seemed sick. He was leaning against the plank doorjamb of the soddy.
I’ve got to get out, thought Chance, now.
“What’s wrong, William?” the blond woman was asking.
Chance moved through the door and, shading his eyes, stared into the distance.
A tiny drift of dust perhaps a mile or so away could be seen. They weren’t coming fast. He’d have maybe fifteen minutes’ start.
The boy had seen them from the top of the rise, and had apparently run to the soddy to warn him. He was covered with sweat, breathing heavily. And probably only because he had spoken a few words of the boy’s language, something that set him apart from all the white others.
Chance swung into the saddle.