The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt Read Free Book Online

hands, patting and admiring it. He had drunk a third of the morphine and its powers had taken hold; his eyes were sagging at their edges and he looked pleased as a pig on holiday.
    ‘Headache’s gone, brother?’
    ‘No, she’s still there, but the medicine makes it so I don’t mind her.’ Flipping the boot to study its interior he said solemnly, ‘The skill and patience involved with the making of this boot humbles me.’
    I felt repulsed by Charlie then. ‘You make for a pretty picture.’
    His lids were rising and falling like a pair of blinds being lifted and dropped. He shrugged and said, ‘Some days we are stronger . . . than others.’
    ‘When do you want to get moving?’
    Now he spoke with his eyes closed: ‘I cannot travel in this state. Another day in town won’t matter. The woman mentioned a duel in the morning. We will leave just after that.’
    ‘Whatever you say.’
    He opened his eyes to slits. ‘What’s the matter with you? You’re acting differently.’
    ‘I feel the same as before.’
    ‘You were listening to me in the bathtub, weren’t you?’ I did not reply and his eyes fully opened: ‘I thought I heard you out there. Here is the fate of the sneak and the eavesdropper.’ Suddenly he doubled over, and a thin column of yellow bile poured from his mouth and onto the floor. His face was dripping when he raised it, his wet lips arched in a devilish smile. ‘I almost vomited in the boot! I was just about to vomit in the boot! Can you imagine how upset I would have been?’
    ‘I will see you later on,’ I told him.
    ‘What?’ he said. ‘No, stay here with me. I am not feeling well. I’m sorry if I made you feel badly before. They were just some thoughtless words.’
    ‘No, I would like to be alone. You drink your morphine and go to sleep.’
    I turned for the door but he, either not noticing this or pretending it was not happening, continued to speak to me. ‘There was some type of poison in that brandy, I think.’ He retched in his own mouth. ‘This is the worst I’ve ever felt from alcohol.’
    ‘I drank the same brandy and I am not poisoned.’
    ‘You did not drink as much as I did.’
    ‘There’s no percentage in arguing with a drunkard as per whom should be blamed.’
    ‘So I’m a drunkard, now.’
    ‘I’m through with you for the day. I must attend to my stitches and wounds. I will see you later on, brother. I advise you to stay away from the saloon in the meantime.’
    ‘I don’t know if I’ll be able, being so depraved a drunkard as I am.’
    He only wished to fight and cultivate an anger toward me, thus alleviating his guilt, but I would not abet him in this. I returned to the lobby (the candle, I noticed on my way down, had remained lit, the match untouched), where I found the woman behind her desk, reading a letter and smiling. Apparently this note brought welcome news, for she was in better spirits because of it and she greeted me, if not warmly, then not nearly as coldly as before. I asked to borrow a pair of scissors and a looking glass and she did not answer but offered to cut my hair for fifty cents, assuming this was my reason for needing the tools. I declined with thanks, explaining about my stitches; she asked if she might follow to my room and witness the gory procedure. When I told her I had hoped to spend some time apart from my brother she said, ‘That I can understand.’ Then she asked where I was planning to perform my minor surgery; when I admitted I had not thought about this, she invited me into her quarters.
    ‘Haven’t you some other pressing business?’ I asked. ‘You hadn’t a moment to spare, earlier this morning.’
    Her cheek flushed, and she explained, ‘I’m sorry if I was short with you. My help disappeared last week and I’ve been losing sleep hoping to keep up. Also there has been a sickness in my family that I have been anxious to know about.’ She tapped the letter and nodded.
    ‘All is well then?’
    ‘Not all