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Didn’t it seem pleasant in there? Lighting the lamps? The smell of all the brand-new goods?’
    Charlie shook his head. ‘I would go out of my mind with boredom. That mute girl would come rushing out of her hole for the hundredth time and I’d shoot her dead. Or I would shoot myself.’
    ‘It struck me as restful industry. I’ll wager that old man sleeps very well at night.’
    ‘Do you not sleep well at night?’ Charlie asked earnestly.
    ‘I do not,’ I said. ‘And neither do you.’
    ‘I sleep like a stone,’ he protested.
    ‘You whimper and moan.’
    ‘Ho ho!’
    ‘It’s the truth, Charlie.’
    ‘Ho,’ he said, sniffing. He paused to study my words. He wished to check if they were sincere, I knew, but could not think of a way to ask without sounding overly concerned. The joy went out of him then, and his eyes for a time could not meet mine. I thought, We can all of us be hurt, and no one is exclusively safe from worry and sadness.

Chapter 14
    We set up in a drafty, lopsided hotel at the southernmost end of town. There was but a single vacancy and Charlie and I were forced to share a room, when we typically kept individual quarters. Sitting before the washbasin I laid out my toothbrush and powder and Charlie, who had not seen these before, asked me what I was doing. I explained and demonstrated the proper use of the tool and afterward smacked my jaws and breathed in deeply. ‘It is highly refreshing to the mouth,’ I told him.
    Charlie considered this. ‘I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘I think it’s foolish.’
    ‘Think what you like. Our Dr. Watts says my teeth will never rot if I use the brush dependably.’
    Charlie remained skeptical. He told me I looked like a rabid beast with my mouth full of foam. I countered that I would prefer to look like one for minutes each day rather than smell like one all through my life, and this marked the end of our toothbrush conversation. My talk of Watts reminded him of the stolen numbing medicine, and he retrieved the bottle and needle from his saddlebags. He wanted to try it on himself, he said, and I watched him inject a goodly amount into his cheek. Once the medicine settled in he began to pinch and wrench his face. ‘I will be goddamned,’ he said. He beckoned me to slap him, which I did, lightly.
    ‘I feel nothing,’ he said.
    ‘Your face is hanging like a griddle cake.’
    ‘Slap me again, but harder,’ he instructed, and I did this. ‘Remarkable,’ he said. ‘Slap me again, one last time, only do it hard as you please.’
    I pulled my arm back and slapped him with such force that it stung my hand. ‘You felt that one. Your hair jumped. I could see the pain in your eyes.’
    ‘A recoil from the blow, but no pain,’ he said in wonderment. ‘A smart man could make use of this.’
    ‘Perhaps you could go from one town to the next, inviting frustrated citizens to clobber your head for a fee.’
    ‘I’m being serious. We have in this bottle something which makes the impossible, possible. There is a profit in there somewhere.’
    ‘We will see how you feel about the miracle solution when the effects wear off.’
    His mouth was slack and a stringy length of spittle ran down his chin. ‘Makes me drool,’ he said, sucking this up. Shrugging, he put the bottle and needle away and said he wished to cross the street to the saloon. He invited me along, and though I did not much want to watch him grow hoggish with brandy I likewise did not wish to spend my time in the hotel room by myself, with its warped wallpaper, its drafts and dust and scent of previous boarders. The creak of bed springs suffering under the weight of a restless man is as lonely a sound as I know.

Chapter 15
    I awoke at dawn with a nagging pain in my head, not so much brandy-sickness as general fatigue, though the drinking had not helped the situation. I dunked my face in the water basin and brushed my teeth, standing beside an open window to feel the breeze against my skull.