Read Online Rio Loco by Robert J. Conley - Free Book Online

said. “She had bought some soap, but said you needed a tub. Here’s the soap. I brung it along.”
    â€œWhere’s Polly?” I said.
    â€œShe’s still a-shopping,” Bonnie said. “You give her a long list.”
    â€œIt weren’t all that long,” I said.
    â€œShe had to stop at the Hooch House,” Bonnie said, “and at the general store. I seen that list. It was long.”
    â€œAll right,” I said. “I guess it were.”
    I didn’t want to get into no fight with Bonnie right there in front a’ all a’ my depitties and even ole Owl Shit, so I just agreed with her and shut the hell up. “Well, anyhow,” I said, “I don’t need that damn thing. I just had me a bath.”
    Bonnie looked over at me and smiled, a sickening, sweet smile, and I give her a grin in return.
    â€œYou can hang a blanket up on the bars there,”she said, “and it’ll be almost like having a private bathroom. Where you keep your blankets, Barjack?”
    â€œIn the back room,” I said.
    She waddled back there and come out in another minute with a stack a’ blankets in her arms, and she went over to the cell and went to hanging them up. And by God, she was right. She damn near made a private bathroom right there in my jailhouse. Then she reached down between her great big tits and hauled out that bottle a’ bubbly stuff and went and poured some in the water.
    â€œNow,” she said, stepping back out into the office, “I suggest that you nasty ole men wait till Miss Polly returns and let her use the water first. Then you can take your turns.”
    â€œThey’ll wait,” I said.
    â€œI had me a bath just a few weeks ago,” Butcher said.
    â€œYou’ll get another one today,” said Bonnie.
    Butcher looked at me with a kinda pleading look, and I looked back at him kinda sternlike and I nodded my head. Well, here come Polly, and she hollered out her name and come on in and put the stuff all on my desk. Bonnie told her that her bath was ready and showed her into the cell. Well, Polly were pretty damn thrilled. Then Bonnie tuck a chair and set her ass down on it right where someone coulda walked to take a peek around the blanket that was a-hanging there, and she pulled out her little Merwin Hulbert thirty-two caliber what I had got for her.
    â€œThe first man what walks over thissaway,” she said, “is going to get shot.”
    Ever’one moved back the other way. Whenever Pistol Polly final got outta the tub and got herself dressed up again, she tuck the shotgun back from Churkee and told him to take a turn in the tub. He never had to be told twice. He went right in there, and then Bonnie and Polly went to fixing us up some good sandwiches with part a’ what Polly had brung back from her shopping trip. She even tuck one in to Churkee so he could eat while he was in the water.
    By and by, he come out and he was all dried and dressed. I looked at Butcher. “Harvey,” I said, “I think it’s your turn now.”
    â€œAw, Barjack—”
    â€œGo on,” I said, and so he stomped his ass on into the cell behint the blankets.
    â€œIt ain’t fair, you calling me that name when you won’t even tell me what yours is,” he yelled. I heared him splashing into the water.
    â€œThere ain’t nothing wrong with Harvey,” I said. “It’s a perfect good name. I think I knowed someone else who was called by that name once. Harvey.”

Chapter Seven
    We all of us slept around in the jail that night except for either Happy or Butcher, one of which had to stay up on the roof at all times. I didn’t want none of ole Chugwater’s boys a-sneaking up on us, so I made ’em do that all night. It musta been somewheres around midnight when I and ever’one else was awoke rudely by a loud and raspy voice a-calling out, “Hey, in there. Don’t