A Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters - Martin Harry Greenberg [4]
“Ricardo told me I should ask for Maria,” Prudence said as the young woman escorted her to a good table.
The young woman smiled. “I am Maria. I will take good care of you here. The stove is a little cold, but I can do something with fresh eggs, bacon, tortillas, maybe some beans if you can wait just a little.”
“Is there a place I can wash up while I’m waiting?” Prudence asked.
“Oh, yes, if you don’t mind coming back to the kitchen. The boss is resting, but he wouldn’t mind, probably.”
Prudence pumped her own water and carried it to a little room off the kitchen. A short while later, face washed, braids coiled into a loose bun rather than looped at the base of her neck like she wore them on the road, dusty shirt and vest replaced with a clean blouse, she looked almost respectable—as long as no one looked under the table.
When Prudence re-emerged, Maria was doing something wonderful-smelling with not only the promised eggs and beans, but with onions, chiles, and cheese. Prudence nodded and went back to the dining room. There she chose a seat where she could overhear the conversation in the adjacent bar.
As Ricardo had indicated, there weren’t many customers. Except for Prudence, the dining room was empty. In the bar, three men were playing a lazy game of cards. The bartender was chatting with a fat man with printer’s ink staining his fingers.
They all noticed Prudence when she took her seat, but after she pulled out a Bible and began to read, they went back to their other activities.
Jake had taught her the Bible trick. The Bible wasn’t the kind of reading matter a “soiled dove” would favor. Nearly as good as having crossed eyes or spotty skin to keep the men away.
Jake . . .
This time the Bible didn’t work. Prudence smelled printer’s ink. Then a shadow spilled over the pages. The fat man was standing beside her table.
“May I join you?” he asked, and slid out the chair across from her without waiting for her reply.
He had the mellifluous tones of a professional preacher, squint lines around his eyes as if he did a lot of reading in poor light, and nothing of the unctuous manner Prudence had come to dread from the hucksters who went from town to town, pretending to be holy men.
“Mr. Eli at the mercantile said you were asking some mighty strange questions,” the fat man said.
Maria came in and set Prudence’s plate of eggs, bacon, and beans in front of her. She gave the fat man a fleeting smile.
“Coffee, Reverend Printer?”
“Yes. Black as night, sweet as sin,” the man answered, rolling his words with gusto, “and hot as hell . . .”
Maria giggled. Prudence guessed this was an old joke between them.
She rolled some of the bacon, beans, and eggs into a flour tortilla and took a bite. Heavenly. She ate another bite.
Maria looked inquiringly at Prudence.
“If this is what you do on the spur of the moment,” Prudence said, “I’m coming back when you’re ready. I’ll join the gentleman in a cup of coffee, and put his on my bill.”
“I thank you,” the man said, when Maria had left, “for your hospitality. I started poorly. Let me introduce myself. My name is Gerald Holman. I am an ordained Lutheran minister, but I am also the editor of the local newspaper.”
“Thus the nickname,” Prudence said.
“As you say. As editor of the local paper, I was interested when a prominent local citizen told me a curious tale.”
“Did he bring it to you?”
“No. I stopped in for some supplies. Eli was still trying to figure you out.”
Prudence smiled. “Good luck to him. I’m Prudence Bledsloe, by the way.”
“Of?”
“Currently, that stand of cottonwoods down by the stream, if no one objects.”
Reverend Printer’s eyebrows rose. Prudence knew her choice of doss would create comment, but comment was what she wanted.
“No one should object,” Reverend Printer said. “Now, Eli said you were asking about . . .”
A loud, almost human scream from outside interrupted him. Prudence’s table was next to a window. They leaned forward as one to get a better line of sight.
A muscular, stocky man was walking down the middle of the street, leading two