sky, punished forever for using her daughter poorly. That’s the road for her, yes sir, toward Montana, toward the future, out of the world and into the black.
Snow White
Dances With Porcupine
Not too long before somebody picks up her trail. He has a name but it doesn’t matter. He has a job. That’s who he is. He’s a Pinkerton, but that doesn’t matter either. Who isn’t, these days? If you’ve got a gun arm on you, that is. If you’ve got a proclivity for hitting people until they do as they’re told. This dude, he come out from Chicago with a job in his holster. Don’t care who hired him; don’t care how long it takes. He gets his money every week by wire and that’s as good as being on the right side of virtue in his book.
It’s not the hardest job he’s ever done. Girl don’t really know where she’s going, see. It’s a long way to Montana. What she knows about long-haul travel she read in books and the man’s read those books, too. These runaways, they’re easy money. Wastrel trigger-punks with less sense than Dog gave a gopher. (This is how the dude appellates the good Lord for he does not abide blasphemy. The Great Good Dog in Heaven watch over your humble servant.) Those abandons are nothing but walking sacks of coin to him. They shin out like the world’s got room for them but it just ain’t so. Boys end up shot in some Babylon of a gold town. Girls go to ruin. This gives the dude a grand ticket to visit any brothel he passes, and the dude do like roostering himself up a spell. Once he’s got a bead on her. Once he smells her good and full. He got a late start, is all. Train from out east don’t make the trip in a blink. Pretty soon she’ll bake that crowbait horse into the ground and he’ll have her. Once she’s riding shank’s mare she’ll be easy as nickels.
The conditions of the job don’t bother him none. He’s done worse. Most runaway jobs don’t necessitate his gun or his knife, but it’s a bad old country out there these days. Folk want all sorts of loot for their trouble. The dude’s had to bring back ears, hair, fingers, even an union-man’s eyeball once. The eye was bright blue. Easier than hauling the whole body over three states, he’ll tell you that much for free. Sometimes he thinks the rich are so different from usual folk they’re more like wild beasts or fairies than men. If this fellow had a gentle stomach he’d have taken up some other business. He does everything a Marshal does but twice as hard, twice as dirty, and without the soft and cushioning arms of the government to wipe his tears.
The dude don’t see himself as a bad man. Way he sees it, he’s an angel for hire. He can gather in lost lambs from the four corners and kiss away their tears or he can shake a flaming sword. Up to his employers. St. Michael don’t question why when the Big Dog says git. Ole Mike, he just ties up his war-bag, thumps his golden road, eats his beans out the tin and when he sees his mark he gets to it no fuss. That’s the dude in a nut. There’s nights he don’t feel so fine on it, sure enough. But nobody likes their job sun out and sun in. Reckon there’s bankers back east right sick of the smell of money. Reckon they might like a change. But there comes a time when a man is who he is and not even a railroad spike through the chin can change it. That banker will be counting coin in his grave and come the great good day when righteous folk put on their white robes, the dude will still be a Pinkerton with an eye on his chest, minding Heaven don’t go apples up.
No, the dude don’t call himself a bad man.
But he’s got bad business to tend to.
Snow White
Shoots Antelope
By Means of
a Magic Arrow
Snow White’s pony bears up just fine. She never could abide the trussed-up old world high-steppers Mrs. H favored. Pintos, paints, and appies, accept no substitutes. Snow White helped the birth of this horse in particular. Shoveling horse shit and afterbirth beat laundering a household full of button trousers seven ways. Hell is a soapcake on Monday morning. She’d cleaned the blood