Comanche Moon

Old Ben was violently jealous of the Madame and her lusts. Once, years before, in a moment of anxious weakness, Inez Scull had pulled Ben's pants down in a closet and coupled with him then and there. "You're an ugly old thing, Ben," she told him, after the brief act was over. "I don't fancy men with liver spots, and you've got 'em." Ben Mickelson was a little crestfallen. Their embrace, though brief, had been passionate enough to dislodge almost every garment hanging in the closet. He thought he might expect a compliment, but all he got was a comment about his liver spots.

"I expect it's the climate, Madame," he said, as Inez Scull was fastening her bodice. "I never got spots when we lived in Boston." "It's not the climate, it's all that whiskey you drink," Madame Scull said, whereupon she left and never touched Ben Mickelson again. For days and weeks he lingered by the closet, hoping Madame Scull would come by in a lustful state again--s lustful that she would be inclined to overlook liver spots. But what had occurred in that closet, amid ladies' shoes and fallen dresses, was never repeated. Years passed, and Ben Mickelson got bitter. Jake Spoon, not yet eighteen, with his dimples and curls, baby fat still in his cheeks, would not likely be liver-spotted, and that fact alone was enough to make Ben Mickelson hate him.

Jake looked at Felice, as he stood at the foot of the stairs, but Felice would not meet his eye. He thought he saw tears on her cheeks, though--he supposed she still ached from the beating.

Felice turned and took up her broom, so old Ben wouldn't see her tears. Old Ben had to be watched and avoided. He was always poking at her with his ski

She had begun to want to see him behind the smokehouse--but that was lost. When Jake came back down the stairs, he would be different. He would have the Missus's smell on him. He wouldn't be sweet to her anymore, or help her carry water or feed the chickens.

As Felice swept she felt old Ben following her, getting closer, hoping for a pinch or a grab. It filled her with fury, suddenly; she wasn't going to have it, not this morning, when her new feeling for Jake had just been crushed.

"You scat, you old possum!" Felice said, whirling on the butler. The anger in her face startled old Ben so that he turned on his heel and went to polish the doorknobs. It was a hard life, he felt, when a butler wasn't even allowed to touch a saucy yellow girl.

When Jake approached Madame Scull's bedroom he felt a deep apprehension, a fear so deep that it made his legs shaky. At the same time he felt a high excitement, higher than what he felt when he managed to snatch a kiss from Felice. It was a little like what he felt when he visited one of the whore tents down by the river with Gus McCrae, a treat he had only been allowed twice.

But this excitement was higher. Madame Scull wasn't a whore, she was a great lady. The Scull mansion was finer by far than the Governor's house. Jake was conscious that his pants were ragged, and his shirt frayed. To his horror he saw, looking down, that he had forgotten to wipe his feet: he had muddied the carpet at the head of the stairs. Now there was mud on Madame Scull's fine carpet.

Then he noticed Inez Scull, watching him from the bedroom door. She had the same sun-flushed look on her face that she had had when she put her hand in his pants.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, I tracked in mud," he said. "I'll get the broom and clean it up for you." "No, hang the mud--don't you be ru

Then she smiled at him. She had put on a gown of some kind, but it had slipped off one shoulder.

""Come to my parlor,"' said the spider to the fly," Inez said, thinking how glad she was that Inish had had to leave to chase red Indians. The Comanche might be an inconvenience to the ragged settlers, but they were a boon to her, the fact being that her husband's embraces had long since grown stale. Austin was a dull, dusty town, with no society and little entertainment, but there was no denying that Texas produced an abundance of fine, sturdy young men. They were hardly refined, these boys of the frontier, but then she wasn't seeking refinement. What she wanted was fine sturdy boys, with curls and stout calves, like the one who stood before her at the moment. She walked over to Jake--he had tracked rather a lot of mud up her stairs--and took up where she had left off, quickly opening his pants, confident that in a week or less she could cure him of embarrassment where fleshly matters were concerned.

"Let's see that little pricklen again," she said.

"You scarcely let me touch it the other day." Jake was so shocked he could not find a ^w to say.

""Pricklen,"' that's what my good German boy called it," Inez said. "My Jurgen was proud of his pricklen, and yours is nothing to be ashamed of, Jakie." She began to lead Jake down the long hall, looking with interest at what had popped out of his pants. His pants had slipped down around his legs, which meant that he couldn't take very long steps. Madame Scull led him by the hand.

"I expect I'd have my Jurgen and his pricklen yet if Inish hadn't hanged him," Madame Scull said casually.

At that point, hoping he hadn't heard right, Jake stopped. All he could see was the hang noose, and himself on the gallows, with the boys standing far below, to watch him swing.

"Oh dear, I've given you a fright," Inez said, with a quick laugh. "Inish didn't hang my Jurgen for this! He wouldn't hang a fine German boy just because he and I had enjoyed a little sport." "What'd he hang him for, then?" Jake asked, unconvinced.

"Why, the foolish boy stole a horse," Madame Scull said. "I don't know what he needed with a horse--he .was rather a horse, in some respects. I was quite crushed at the time. It seemed my Jurgen would rather have a horse than me.

But of course Inish caught him, and took him straight to the nearest tree and hung him." Jake didn't want to hang, but he didn't want to leave Madame Scull, either.

Anyway, with his pants around his ankles, he could hardly walk, much less run.

They were near a big hall closet, where coats and boots were kept. Jake noticed that Madame Scull was freckled on her shoulders and her bosom, but he didn't have time to notice much more, because she suddenly yanked him into the closet. Her move was so sudden that he lost his balance and fell, in the deep closet. He was on his back, amid shoes and boots, with the bottoms of coats hanging just above him. Jake thought he must be crazy, to be in such a situation.