The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard - Elmore Leonard [205]
“I never heard of him.” Brady started to turn.
The shotgun barrel came up. “Keep your eyes straight!”
Brady shrugged. “I know what you look like anyway.”
“Fine, then you don’t have to be gawking around.”
“Your head’d come up to about my nose,” Brady said. “You look more boy than girl, but you got a pretty face with nice blond hair and dark eyes and eyebrows that don’t match your hair.”
“Albie told you that,” the girl said. “You talk just like him.”
“Miss Glennan, I’ll take an oath I don’t know any Albie.” He cleared his throat before saying, “My name’s Stephen J. Brady of the Hatch and Hodges Company come here to see your dad with the agreement—”
“You don’t have any clothes on!”
Brady turned in the saddle to look at her and this time she said nothing to stop him. Her lips were parted and her eyes held him with open astonishment. He had time to take in details—the dark eyes that looked almost black, and her face and arms warm brown against the whiteness of her blouse and her hair that was pale yellow and combed back and tied with a black ribbon—seeing all this before the shotgun tightened on him again.
Brady said, “You’ve seen men’s underwear before. What’re you looking so shocked for?”
“Not with you in them,” the girl said.
“I thought maybe I could borrow a pair of your brother’s pants—”
“How’d you know I had a brother?”
“You got two. The little one, Mike, is in school down in Bisbee. The big one, Paul, whose pants I want to borrow till I get up to Rock of Ages and buy my own, is in the Army. Farrier Sergeant Paul J. Glennan, with the Tenth down to Fort Huachuca.”
The girl’s eyes narrowed as she studied him. “You know a lot about my family.”
“More’n Albie could’ve told me?”
The girl said nothing.
“I told you I was with Hatch and Hodges,” Brady said. “A while back a man took my clothes, guns, and papers, and that’s why I’m sitting here like this. But I can still prove I’m from Hatch and Hodges, and here to see your father.”
“How?”
“All right,” Brady said. “Your father’s name is John Michael Glennan, born in Jackson, Michigan, in… 1837. Same town your mother’s from. Your dad served with the late George Custer and was wounded in the Rock Creek fight at Gettysburg. Your brother Paul was born in ’62. You came along in ’65; then six years later your dad brought the family out here. You first settled up north near Cabezas, but there weren’t enough trees there to suit him, so you came down here and been here ever since.
“Your dad’s raised stock, but it never paid him much. Twice he wintered poorly and another year the market was down; so now he’d like to just raise horses and on the side, for steady money, run a stage line stop. Paul’ll be out of the Army in six months; Mike out of school in a year. Your name’s Catherine Mary Glennan and every word my Uncle Joe Mauren said about you is true.”
“If it’s a trick, it’s a good one,” the girl said. “You knowing all that.”
“Sister, I’m trying to do my job, but I can’t do it without my pants or my papers. Add to that your dad’s not here anyway.”
“How do you know that?”
“The stable door’s open and your team and wagon’s gone.”
“They’ll be back soon,” the girl said quickly.
“Then I’ll wait to talk to him.”
“But I don’t know when.”
“You just said soon.” Brady watched her. “Look, if you’re worried about being alone with me I’ll move along; but all I got to say is your dad must not want this franchise very much, else he’d be here.”
“He does want it!” The girl moved toward him. “He had to drive my mother over near Laurel. There’s a lady there about to deliver and Ma’d promised to help. But my dad said if you came, to explain it to you so there’d be no misunderstanding, because he does want to have that… whatever you call it.”
“So you don’t know when he’ll be home.”
“Probably tomorrow.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that before?” Brady said. “ ’Stead of this business about he’ll be back soon.”
“Because I didn’t know who you were,” the girl said angrily. “In fact, I still don’t. All I’m sure of is you’re a man sitting there in