A Practical Man

I had a notion something was wrong when Housty tidied up the house this morning. Ain’t the fact that she was doing housework; I’m used to seeing her scurry around, pin sharp and particular and grunting at every little exertion, but I sure ain’t used to her doing things in silence. Hell, I didn’t know she could keep her mouth shut that long. Then, when she’d done acting wifely, she went outside without saying a word. And that’s when guilt crept in and I started wondering what the hell I’d done… or not done, that maybe I should have.

She’d been gone awhile before I got to breathing a little easier. I figured if she was in the outhouse then maybe she was constipated and if she was, then I was blameless. I opened a bottle of whiskey to celebrate but even then, I couldn’t rest easy. 

Housty wasn’t in the outhouse. Wasn’t in the barn either but even as I scratched my head, I spied her through a knot hole. Mooching around behind the barn, she had the look of an orphaned pup. Something was troubling her but what, I wondered, as I crept back to my whiskey.

‘Valance, we need to talk,’ she said, when she finally came in.

‘Something wrong, Sugar?

‘My family has disowned me.’

‘For shacking up with me?’

‘Why doesn’t matter; all that matters is I’m broke.’

‘Don’t worry about it; I got a little put by. Ain’t much but it’ll keep us awhile if you don’t blow it all on candlesticks and other things we don’t need.’

‘Like whiskey and tobacco?’

‘Whiskey and tobacco is essentials.’

‘Alright, but we still need money from somewhere. Why don’t we rob a bank? We could do it, I know we could. Together we…’

‘Are you crazy?’

‘No, I’m not. It’s just an idea I had, that’s all.’

‘Well you’d better think of a better one.’

‘I already have. Don’t move till I come back; I’ve got something to show you.’

You gotta admire the girl’s spunk, but robbing a bank? Sheesh! I should never have told her about the old days.

‘Well, what do you think?’ she said, when she came back in the sweetest honeymoon outfit I ever saw. ‘Cecile got it for me. She says a get up like this will get me a job in any saloon, anywhere. I might even try The Parlor. I hear Cordelia pays well.’

‘Hmm’

‘Is that all you can say?’

 ‘Well, a job’s a job and we gotta eat, same as anyone else, I reckon.’

‘We gotta eat?’

‘Sure. You don’t think I’d let you go hungry if I had a job, do you? It makes a lot of sense, ‘cause while you're out earning money to keep us, I'll be at home protecting our interests.’

‘Oh, then you don’t care if I get ogled, or worse, by other men? Well I guess that’s settled then.’ 

I figured Housty was bluffing about The Parlor. I didn’t care for the idea of her working in a saloon either, but sometimes a man has to be practical.


With thanks to Houston A W Knight