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CHAPTER 48

A Last Word With A Friend

      LUCY WENT downstairs blindly and headed outdoors, some deep-rooted instinct sending her toward light and fresh air.

      Two steps above the pavement she stopped and sank down onto the chill concrete, and put her head on her knees.

      Too much. Too much.

      There was no bitterness in her for Gallatin, and no anger toward Normalade. All she felt was a distillation of grief, as if her whole life and will had gone sliding away into the dark.

      She didn't consider what to do next. Didn't think about going home, or how she was going to make the long walk back to the bus station, or that it was getting late in the afternoon. She just sat there suffering. Despite all she had gone through in the past few months, until this moment, she'd never really known what despair was.

      She huddled there while February's early dusk began to settle around her. She never noticed, wrapped in an inner darkness of her own.

      "Miss? Are you all right?"

      Somebody touched her on the back. "Miss, do you need help?"

      A hand began to shake her shoulder. "Hey — wake up! Are you okay there? Are you sick?"

      Lucy lifted her head to tell him to go away. But as soon as she saw the size of him and the beard, she recognized him, even in the dim twilight. "Shark?"

      He said, very astonished, "Why Lucy! What are you doin' here. Is something wrong?"

      Then his face changed as if something had occurred to him, and he sat down beside her. He was not quite near enough for their shoulders to touch, but the whole pose of his body was now offering her shelter. "You got no business to be in a place like this," he said gently. "This is no place for a lady like you,"

      "Well . . . I am here, though," Lucy responded faintly. And now, as if for the first time, she looked around and became aware of the darkness. And, yes, this would be a bad place to be alone in, she thought. She glanced at Shark sitting there beside her. Without thinking about it, she was grateful to him for being there.

      "How'd you get down here," he asked.

      "On the bus. I came in around noon."

      "Ah," he murmured, as if this had confirmed his first thought. "You came looking for Miss Normalade — for Mrs. Vance, I mean. To bring her home."

      Lucy nodded indifferently. That was as good a reason to give as any. It could even have been true, if she'd guessed Normalade was here. In any case, she could hardly remember the real reason she had come.

      Without looking at her, Shark said, "And you went up there just now and you saw her. And she told you about her and Gallatin. And she was mean to you." It was a statement, not a question.

      "Yes." There was no point in trying to hide it. He could see from her face that she'd been crying. "I think she must hate me, Shark. I think she hates us all," Lucy said. "I never knew she hated us like that."

      "Aw, she was just being mean." He was not arguing with her, so much as simply thinking about it. "Maybe she just loves herself too much. Some people are like that."

      "Maybe so."

      He sighed. "You're not going to get her to go back with you, though. Short of tying her up and carrying her. She's stuck to Brother now like a goathead burr."

      A little bitterly Lucy said, "I'd guessed that."

      Shark gave her a slow look. "Aw, Ma'am, don't be too hard on him. He can't help it if women like him. And she had money when he needed money. And she wouldn't give it to us unless he took her along."

      That took a while to sink in. "Normalade gave him money?"

      Shark nodded. "I never knew she was so rich, until she showed us. Her pocketbook was crammed just full of money. Said she'd made up her mind that day to leave you — to leave Mr. Vance, I mean, and she'd already been to the bank."

      "Crammed full of money?" Lucy repeated.

      "Yes'm, stuffed with it. See, it was right after we'd finished saying goodbye to Fred and Ferd, and telling them about how Mr. White was going to help Gallatin make a record and get to sing on the radio." Shark looked up. "You knew about that, didn't you? About what Mr. White said?"

      Lucy nodded, and he went on without any prompting. "He was real helpful, Mr. White was. And although I myself didn't much like him, he sure knows a lot a people in the record business here. And we couldn't turn down an offer of that kind of help, no matter where it came from."

      "Of course."

      "Well, so while Gallatin and me were trying to figure out how we could pay for the gas to get us to Austin, Miss Normalade came and told Gallatin that if he'd bring her along she'd pay for it. So, Gallatin said we would."

      "And she paid for the gas . . ." Lucy murmured.

      "Yes ma'am."

      Lucy watched as the wind puffed a pile of leaves and gum-papers into the air and dropped them into the street.

      Then it was Normalade who took the money, she thought, not Gallatin. It made a kind of sense; Normalade had said over and over that she wanted money, that she wanted her share. And when she came in that night, angry and wanting to get away, there it had been, just waiting for her — at exactly the time when she wanted it most.

      It must have been easy for her to do, after Bobby was gone. She'd only had to step behind the bar while Swan was closing. And of course, Swan would never guess it had been Normalade. None of them would have guessed it.

      Shark captured her attention again. "When we got here, she said if we'd find the place, she'd share the room and pay for it. And of course — since we had no money to speak of, Gallatin and me — we did. And since then, she's been all over him. Miss Lucy. And maybe he didn't turn her down. But he sure didn't start it, either."

      He gave Lucy a timid look. "I don't mean to talk ill of her so much . . . only I know you, and — well, you'd kind of favored Gallatin. So I didn't want you to think he'd — that is, I don't want you to feel too bad. About him and Miss Normalade. You know?"

      "I . . . understand." It was hard for Lucy to say it, but it was only fair to acknowledge his kindness.

      And her thoughts kept moving.

      But that meant he hadn't been laughing at her after all. He hadn't toyed with her. Hadn't even — of course — he hadn't taken the money! He had never had his eye on Normalade; he'd simply accepted what was offered him. Done what he said he'd do.

      "He just wanted to get his chance," Lucy whispered. "He already told me that. I told him he was entitled to it."

      Shark regarded her solemnly. "You're a good person, Miss Lucy. You really are good. Gallatin says it too — he says you're the nicest lady he every knew."

      For a while, she didn't answer. Finally: "Shark, do you have your truck here?"

      "Yes'm. Right over there."

      "Then I'm going to ask a favor. Would you drive me back to the bus station, please?"

      "Oh sure — I still got lots of gas." He got up and offered Lucy his hand; she could hardly stand, she was so stiff from sitting on the cold cement steps. "You goin' home now?"

      "Yes, I am. For a while, anyway. Till we pay off the beer man."

      He opened the door of the truck for her like a gentleman. It was a hard door to open; he had step up on the fender and reach inside to do it. Watching him, Lucy said, speaking partly to herself, "But after that, I think I might go to El Paso and see a friend of mine. And maybe go to school there a while."

      "That's nice. For myself, I never much liked school, but many people seem to favor it."

      He had the door open now, and she gave him a sidelong glance in the dark. "You know, Shark, I can't pay you for the gas the way Normalade did." Her voice told him she meant it partly as a joke.

      "I wouldn't accept it if you did," he said seriously, as he handed her up into the truck. "I'm happy to be able to serve you, after all you done for me."

      "Well maybe you don't know it, but you did a lot for me, too."

      "I'd like to think that was true," he said. "Careful of that seat, now. Remember the back's broke and you got to be careful how you lean back."

      Then he closed the door and came around the truck and got in and started up the motor.

      On the way to the bus station, they didn't talk much. Lucy was thinking about things.

      She was going to let Normalade keep the money. For one thing, there was no way anybody could get it away from her, short of killing her.

      But there was also a better reason, a reason not to make trouble over it: Because even though Normalade had no real right to it, and even though it was going to be difficult to pay off the beer man, in an odd way, it seemed to Lucy that she was entitled to keep it. As if it really was her share. Of something.

      Bobby had broken the biggest promise a man could make to a woman. And Swan had stolen Bobby back, even though Normalade had tried hard to keep him. And Lucy really had made some promises to Normalade the night that little Bobby was born, and she'd broken those promises left and right.

      So it was right to let Normalade keep the money, Lucy thought. Let her make whatever kind of life she could with it. That was fair.

      After all, as Tagg had said, it was only money.

      Tagg was probably right about the beer company too — they'd be willing to wait a while, once Cowboy Bob's started paying them off.

      All through those thoughts, Lucy kept coming back to how nice Tagg had been to offer them his whole savings to give them a start on paying off their debt. And not to take no for an answer.

      She found herself remembering all the other nice things he had said and done over the years. She remembered his voice, and the things he said to her when he had picked her up and carried her the night she was hurt, and the way he had looked that morning in his apartment. And the way he had looked at her. She thought about those things so hard that when her mind came back to Normalade at last, the hurt that had been there was almost gone.

      Moreover, Lucy realized, even the thought of Gallatin was not as painful as it had been.

      Perhaps it was because the memory of him was no longer sullied by what Normalade had said. Perhaps because she could again believe that he had really liked her, Lucy discovered she could live without him now, even when she thought about how lovely they had been together those nights in the cold, when his arms around her were so warm. He had to follow his star, and Lucy had begun to see that his journey might take him places where she had no desire to go.

      He would always be a sweet recollection, she thought, but their nights together were really only a shadow — a beautifully-colored shadow of real love. "And I won't waste my life over it," she thought. "I don't have to; I've got a tender true love that's been waiting for me a long time. Maybe I only loved Gallatin because . . . he reminded me of what I wanted and had to turn down all those years ago."

      With that thought, her heart released him. Gallatin had been her sweet Valentine, but she would not die with his love's arrow in her breast. Let Normalade keep everything she'd taken. Maybe she'd earned it all, after all.

      The bus station was in sight now, ugly and ill-lit against the dark evening. When Shark pulled up, Lucy got out, and she and Shark shook hands. He said, "You'll get home okay?" And she nodded.

      "Take care of yourself, Shark. Don't let Normalade bother you; she doesn't mean half she says."

      He grinned. "Seems like I'm the one that told you that."

      "That's right, you did." She waved and went inside.

      Her bus left at nine. She paid for her ticket and sat down to wait.

      "I really will go to El Paso," Lucy said to herself, as she took out her last sandwich. "And I'll try going to school, just the way Rosana said. Because I'd like to learn a few things before I settle down. Maybe I'll even teach school a while after we get married."

      Or maybe she's marry Tagg right away and go to school later. She'd see.

      Those thoughts lent considerable savor to the stale, dry sandwich Lucy was eating. And they lit her all way home.

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