Like as not he hadn’t got a good sight of Kerosene Kate while she was doing her killed husband act before supper; or, maybe, it was her being dressed up so tidy made a difference. Anyways, he didn’t at first ketch on to her being about the freshest-made widow he’d ever tumbled to in a 194 dancing-party. But he got there all right when the square dance was over, and José flourished his fiddle and sung out for the Señores and Señoritas to take partners for a valsa, and the Hen brought up Kerosene to foot it with him––telling him she was the organist who was going to play the melodeon when they got it, and he’d find her a nice partner as she was about the best dancer they had.
When he did size her up he was that took aback he couldn’t talk straight. “But––but,” says he, “isn’t this the lady whose husband was––was––” and he stuck fast.
“Whose husband met with an accident this afternoon,” says the Hen, helping him out with it. “Yes, this is our poor sister Rebecca––but the accident happened, you know, so many hours ago that the pang of it has passed; and––as Mr. Green, the gentleman who shot her husband, was shot right off himself––she feels, as we all do, that the incident is closed.”
And then Kerosene put in: “Great Scott, mister, you don’t know Palomitas! Widows 195 in these parts don’t set round moping their heads off all the rest of their lives. They wait long enough for politeness––same as I’ve done––and then they start in on a new deal.”
The little man likely was too mixed up to notice Kerosene didn’t talk pretty, like Santa Fé and the Hen knowed how to; and he was so all-round jolted that before he knew it––Kerosene getting a-hold of his hand with one of hers, and putting the other on his shoulder––he had his arm round her waist kind of by instinct and was footing it away with her the best he knowed how. But while he was a-circling about with her he was the dreamiest looking one you ever seen. Kerosene said afterwards she heard him saying to himself over and over: “This can’t be real! This can’t be real!”
What happened along right away after was real enough for him––at least, he thought it was, and that come to the same thing. He was so dizzied up when Kerosene stopped dancing him––she was doing the most of it, she said, he keeping his little fat legs going 196 ’cause she swung him round and he had to––all he wanted was to be let to set down. So Kerosene set him––and then the next act was put through.
Bill Hart and Shorty Smith come up to Kerosene right together, and both of ’em asked her polite if she’d dance. She said polite she’d be happy to; but she said, seeing both gentlemen had spoke at once for her, they must fix it between ’em which one had the call. All the same, she put her hand on Hart’s arm, like as if he was the one she wanted––and of course that pleased Hart and made Shorty mad. Then the two of ’em begun talking to each other, Hart speaking sarcastic and Shorty real ugly, and so things went on getting hotter and hotter––till Kerosene, doing it like she meant to break up the rumpus, shoved Hart’s arm round her and started to swing away. Just as they got a-going, Shorty out with his gun and loosed off at Hart with it––and down Hart went in a heap on the floor.
“AND DOWN HART WENT IN A HEAP ON THE FLOOR”