Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove

The beer wasn't, however. Feeling that it was not appropriate to drink right out on the main street, the boys took ther liquor around to the back of the livery stable and fell to. At first they sipped cautiously, finding the beer rather bitter. But the more they drank, the less bothered they were by the bitter taste.

"Let's sample the whiskey," Ben Rainey suggested. The suggestion was immediately adopted. After the cool beer, the whiskey tasted like liquid fire, and its effects were just as immediate as fire. By the time he had three long swigs of the whiskey Newt felt that the world had suddenly changed. The sun had been sinking rapidly as they drank, but a few swallows of whiskey seemed to stop everything. They sat down with their backs against the wall of the livery stable and watched the sun hang there, red and beautiful, over the brown prairie. Newt felt it might be hours before it disappeared. He swigged a couple of bottles of beer and felt himself getting lighter. In fact, he felt so light he had to put his hands on the ground every once in a while-he felt like as if he might float away. He might float up to where the sun was hanging. It was amazing that a few swallows of liquid could produce such a sensation. It was silly, but after a while he felt like lying down and hugging his stomach and hugging the earth, to make sure he didn't float off.

Young Jimmy Rainey turned out to have no stomach for liquor at all. He started vomiting almost as soon as he started drinking. Pete Spettle drank freely, but only looked darker and more depressed, whereas Ben Rainey enjoyed the liquor hugely and guzzled considerably more than his share.

In no time, it seemed, they had finished off the beer. Somehow the sun had slipped on down while no one was looking, and the afterglow was dying. Stars were already out, and the four of them were just sitting behind a livery stable, drunk, and no closer to the whores than they had been when they first came to town.

Newt decided it wouldn't do. He stood up and found that he didn't float off-though when he tried to walk he found it no simple matter to put his feet down one after the other. It irritated him a bit, for he had never experienced any trouble in walking before and felt a resentment against his feet for behaving so peculiarly.

Still, he could make progress, in some fashion, and he started boldly for the back stairs of the saloon.

"I'm gonna meet one, at least," he said. He kept walking, fearing that if he stopped the whole project might slide to a halt. The others picked themselves up and began to follow, Ben Rainey bringing the whiskey bottle. This was unnecessary, because it was empty.

Newt made the stairs with no trouble and clomped right on up them. He had not really meant to seize the lead, and his heart was in his throat. He felt delicately balanced, as if his stomach might be in his throat too, if he didn't proceed carefully.

The stairs had seemed long and steep from the bottom, but in a second he found himself standing at the top. The door was slightly ajar and he saw that someone was there. All he could see was a large shape.

Then, before he could speak, he saw a woman with almost no clothes on come out of a room behind the shape. The woman's legs were naked, a sight so startling that Newt couldn't believe he was seeing it.

"Who is it, Buf?" the girl with the naked legs asked.

"I guess the cat's got his tongue," the shape said in a husky voice. "He ain't introduced himself."

"I'm Newt," he said, feeling uncertain suddenly about the whole enterprise.

The other boys were just making their way up the stairs.

The shape-it was a woman, too-stepped half out the door and surveyed the group on the stairs. She was a large woman and she smelled rather like Pea Eye had after he came out of the barbershop. Newt saw to his astonishment that her legs were naked too.

"It's a troop of little fellers," she said to her companion in the hall. "They must have just let out school."

"They better get on in here while we ain't busy, then," her friend said. "That is, if they can afford it."

"Oh, we got money," Newt volunteered. "We come up with a herd and we just got paid."

"I didn't know cowboys come this young," the big woman said. "Show me the money."

Newt pulled out his gold piece and the woman leaned in the hall to look at it under the light.

"I take it all back," she said to her friend. "It's a bunch of rich cattlemen."

Newt noticed that she didn't give him back his gold piece, but he didn't feel he ought to say anything. Maybe it cost ten dollars just to get in the door of a place where women went naked.

The large woman held the door open and he went past her, taking care not to stumble, for his feet were feeling more and more untrustworthy. The other boys sidled in after him. They found themselves standing in a bare hall, being stared at by the two women.

"This is Mary and I'm Buf," the large woman said. Her ample bosom seemed to Newt to be about to burst out of the gown she wore. In the light it was clear that she was not very old herself-but she was large. The other girl, by comparison, seemed thin as a rail.

"This one's paid," Buf said, putting a hand casually on Newt's shoulder. "I hope you other fellows are as rich as he is, otherwise you're welcome to pile back down those stairs."

The Rainey boys immediately produced their money, but Pete Spettle held back. He put his hand in his pocket, but instead of bringing out his money he brought his hand out empty, and turned for the door without a word. They heard him clump back down the stairs.

"These two look like brothers," Buf said, quickly sizing up the Rainey boys.

"You take 'em, Buf," Mary said. "I'll take the one that come in first."

"Well, maybe you will and maybe you won't," Buf said. "I seen him first, I oughta have dibs."

Newt almost began to wish he had followed the example of Pete Spettle. It was a hot night, and close in the hall. He felt he might be sick. Also, from listening to the conversation he realized they were the two whores Dish had described. The big one was the Buffalo Heifer, and the other one was the one Dish said treated him nice. The Buffalo Heifer still had her large hand on his shoulder as she looked the group over. She had a black tooth right in front of her mouth. Her large body seemed to give off waves of heat, like a stove, and the toilet water she wore was so strong it made him queasy.

"We got the whole night to get through," Mary said. "We can't waste too much of it on these tadpoles. She took Ben Rainey's hand and quickly led him into a little room off the hall.

"Mary gets the fidgets if something ain't happening ever minute," Buf said. "Come on, Newt."

Jimmy Rainey didn't like being left in the hail all by himself.

"Who do I do?" he asked plaintively.

"Just stand there like a post," Buf said. "Mary's quick, especially with tadpoles. She'll get you in a minute." Jimmy stood where he was, looking forlorn.

She led Newt into a small room with nothing much in it but an iron bedstead and a small washbasin on a tiny stand. A small unlit coal-oil lamp with no shade over the wick sat on a windowsill. The window was open and the rim of the prairie still red, as if a line of coals had been spread along it.

"Come far?" Buf asked in a husky voice.

"Yes, ma'am, from Texas," Newt said.

"Well, skin them pants off, Texas," she said, and to his astonishment, unbuttoned three buttons on the front of her gown and pitched it on the bed. She stood before him naked and, since he was too startled to move, reached down and unbuckled his pants.

"The problem with cowboys is all the time it takes to get their boots off," she confided, as she was unbuttoning his pants. "I don't get paid for watching cowboys wrestle with their dern boots, so I just leave the sheets off the bed. If they can't shuck 'em quick, they have to do it with them on."