The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,172

sad when a good man dies,” she muttered.

“Yes, ma’am, that it is,” Fannie said. “I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done.”

Letty shrugged. “Trust me, honey. It was nothing.”

“I wish there was something I could do for you in return,” Fannie added.

“The only thing I need is to get this smell off my skin,” Letty said.

Fannie frowned, and tried offering some advice. It was the least she could do, considering the advice Sister Murphy had given her.

“I don’t know how much faith to put in the remedy, but there’s an old trapper who used to come into my father’s barber shop a couple of times a year. I remember him talking about taking a vinegar bath once to get rid of such a smell.” Then Fannie blew her a kiss and hurried away.

Letty sat back down on the bench with a plop, refusing to look up toward the heavens for fear she’d see God frowning down on her.

“Vinegar, hunh? Do you reckon it would work?” When God didn’t send her a sign, she quickly added. “I didn’t lie to the girl,” she said under her breath. “It is always sad when a good man dies. I just didn’t bother to say the good man wasn’t mine now, did I?”

She sat for a moment, waiting for a clap of thunder, or possibly a lightning bolt to come shooting out of the sky and strike her dead.

A cat trotted by, paused to sniff at her feet then hissed and ran away.

She frowned.

“Everyone is a critic,” she said, and made her way across town to the boarding house.

Maybe she’d send Eulis to the mercantile for some vinegar. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to give the remedy a try.

Eulis knocked briskly on Letty’s door and then entered without waiting for her to answer. She was lying flat on her back on the bed with a wet cloth draped over her face. Eulis frowned.

“Are you ill?”

“I didn’t say you could come in,” Letty muttered, without removing the cloth.

Eulis looked crestfallen. He’d been so excited about his news that he had forgotten about her extenuating circumstances.

“Sorry. I’ll come back later.”

Letty flung the cloth into the floor and sat up.

“You’re already here, so talk,” she said.

Eulis frowned. Danged if he would ever understand women. The wedding will be tomorrow.

“I’m marryin’ the owner of the saloon to the barber’s daughter. It’s the talk of the town.”

“I can only imagine,” Letty said. “They’re hardly the perfect couple.”

“Oh, that’s not all,” Eulis said. “Up until a few days ago, she had been engaged for some time to a local rancher. Story goes that her old man paid off the rancher to propose, and then promised him a big dowry to boot. Only the fiancé wasn’t being true to his woman. While he was waiting for her father to announce the proper time, he was messing around with one of the whore’s… uh, women… at the saloon. The bride-to-be got wind of it and had herself a fit. Broke the rancher’s nose, blacked his eyes, and ran him out of her house. Then they say she shot at her father and ran him out, too.”

By now, Letty was open-mouthed and in shock. The meek and somewhat homely little woman who’d been asking advice about sex hardly seemed the type who would have pulled such a stunt. Suddenly, she was smiling.

“Way to go, lady,” Letty muttered.

“What?” Eulis said.

“Nothing,” Letty said. “What else?”

“Not much, I reckon,” Eulis said. “Somehow, between that incident and today, she got herself engaged to the saloon owner, and now I’m gonna marry them tomorrow before noon.”

“Two? She had two fiancés?”

“Almost,” Eulis said.

I would be happy with just one. “That’s hysterical.”

“I guess,” Eulis said, then pointed to the wet cloth she’d flung in the floor. “Are you sick?”

At heart? Yes. “No, just sick of smelling myself, which reminds me. Someone told me that a vinegar bath would help take away this smell. I want you to—” Then she caught herself. The demanding tone in her voice wasn’t right. “I’m sorry. I meant to say… would you mind going down to Mercer’s Mercantile and see if they have a jug of vinegar? I’m willing to give anything a try.”

“Yeah, sure,” Eulis said, and patted his pocket, feeling the coins jingle as he did. “Which reminds me, Myron Griggs, the future bridegroom, was so happy to see us that he’s sort of gone overboard on payment.”

Letty’s eyes narrowed. “How so?”

“Well, someone told him about the mule and the blind mare, so