"Connie Willis - One-Eyed Jack" - читать интересную книгу автора (Willis Connie)

them." She noticed the single holster slung low on his right hip, empty sleeve
dangling above it. "There's somebody in 'Frisco I owe, but it's not what you'd call
personal. Old Chinaman there fixed me up about as well as anybody could, after
the train crew got me that far. I couldn't pay him right then, but he seemed to
think my reputation was guarantee enough." He twitched his shoulders to adjust
the fit of his shabby black coat. "Amazing what those pig-tailed doctors can do,
what they've got, dried stuff hanging on the walls, pickled stuff in bottles, live
things in big jars and baskets. Truly amazing." He avoided her eyes; she figured
those memories must be hard to handle.


"I'll see your debt paid," she assured him. "I might go to San Francisco myself,
one of these days. Once I know Rigby won't be carrying out his threats against
my place and my girls." She let her peignoir fall open, and was only mildly
disappointed that her rose-and-ivory charms sparked no interest in Jack's dark,
single eye. His focus should be on the coming confrontation, the bizarre, balletic
ritual wherein men could kill with honor, publicly, face to face in the dusty arena
of Main Street under the blazing sun of high noon.


"Go on down and have breakfast with the girls, Jack, while I take my bath," Miss
Lily said. "Slow Joe won't let anybody in, and I have men outside on watch."


"Just some of that coffee I smell, Ma'am," Jack said. "That's all I'll need. But
thanks, Miss Lily. Thanks for everything."


Then he was gone. Miss Lily listened to the uneven thumps of his progress down
the stairs. When the dining room door swung shut she crossed to the bureau
and opened his unlocked case.


A strange, musky odor, not unpleasant, rose from the interior. Maybe some
oriental perfume. The single revolver-shaped niche was empty, but the case
could hold a good deal more, and clearly had. A channel coiled through the
jade-green satin lining, looping around the perimeter and inward toward the
center. A perfect whip-case, she thought automatically, not big enough for a
standard bullwhip, but fine for her own customized instrument. Was that why he
wanted her to have it? If he didn't survive?


She bathed and dressed slowly and meticulously. Jack had no expectation of
surviving. She knew that. Remembering last night, the tears as well as the
delight, she was more than willing to call the whole thing off, find another way to
deal with Rigby; but Jack's own rage for vengeance drove him now, holding him
together just long enough to satisfy it.
Any aftermath would be Miss Lily's to deal with. She smoothed the lines of her
long, elegant skirt, arranged the lace at her neckline to reveal just the right swell
of bosom, and hung her neatly coiled whip from the belt that cinched her waist.