“Since you married us,” Wyatt said and opened the door.
“I didn’t marry no ‘us,’” Allie said. “I married Virgil.”
Virgil grinned at her and took hold of her nose and gave it a little wiggle.
“And a goddamned good thing you did,” he said.
Then he went out the door after Wyatt.
They walked a block up to Allen Street. It was winter, and cold for the desert with the threat of snow making the air seem more like it had seemed in Illinois before a blizzard.
“Kinda hard on Mattie,” Virgil said.
“I know.”
“She’s doing the best she can,” Virgil said.
“So am I.”
They walked along Allen Street. You could see the breath of the horses tied in front of the saloons. The early evening swirl of cowboys and miners moved hurriedly, wrapped in big coats, hunched against the cold.
“She ain’t much,” Virgil said.
“No,” Wyatt said, “she ain’t.”
“Still, you took up with her.”
“Yep.”
Virgil put his left hand on Wyatt’s shoulder for a moment, then they pushed into the Oriental where it was warm and bright and noisy.
He liked saloons. He liked the easy pace of them, the way the light filtered in through the swinging doors and profiled the dust motes hanging in the still air. In winter he liked the warmth from the coal stove and the mass of men. In summer he liked the way the half-dark room was cooler than the desert heat. He liked the smell of beer, and the card games, and the sense of oneness with the men who, like himself, liked saloons. He liked the lazy undercurrent of trouble that always murmured just below the surface of things.
The only women who came to the saloons were whores. He liked the whores with their easy manner. Sometimes he went to a room with one. Sex aside, they seemed more like men to him, men who let things come to them and didn’t fret. There was comfort in a saloon, and possibility, and he liked to lounge at a table sipping coffee, and size up things as he rolled prospects around in his head. He always drank coffee, or root beer. Whiskey made him feel sick. One glass made him dizzy. Virgil had beer.