Sundance by David Fuller Page B

strand of hair around a finger, turning her head to one side, then the other, as she imagined a different shape to her nose, holding her finger along the profile trying to see her sideways reflection. Years before, he had caught her doing just that, with total sincerity. Later she did it to tease, reminding him of his previous objection. He was fond of the shape of her nose.
    After washing up, he returned to his room and unpacked. In the process of placing his few belongings in drawers, he found items left behind by previous boarders. In a drawer a single man’s black silk stocking, in the wardrobe a lady’s hat, under the bed a book,
The Poetical Writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck
. He flipped it open and found the man in thrall to exclamation points. He went downstairs and did not see Abigail. He went into the street and followed her directions to the haberdashery.
    The sun was long off the streets, a victim of the heights of buildings. Electricity winked on, flooding the pavement with a light he had never before experienced, and there was such an abundance of lights that thesidewalks appeared to glow from within. This was inconceivable, all this illumination at night. He was used to the moon, which, once out of its sliver, reflected enough light to ride. Of course, cities he passed through on the train going east had lights as well, but not on this scale. He appreciated it with childlike glee.
    A young boy on a bicycle rolled down the sidewalk and swerved into an old woman and knocked her flat on her back. Longbaugh watched, surprised, as the boy, instead of apologizing, loudly berated her as if it had been entirely her doing. Other pedestrians paused to observe the drama, and had he been more alert, he might have made something of the fact that a handful of children slipped into the belly of the growing crowd. Bicycle Boy explored his vocal range with the bravura of a heldentenor, and Longbaugh wondered what made him so angry. He did not exactly feel the hand that moved to take his wallet, but some inner instinct alerted him and he grabbed a narrow wrist, bringing around a boy in his middle teens who faced him with a feral snarl. The boy yowled, and Bicycle Boy quit bellowing, grabbed up his bicycle and, looking over his shoulder, pedaled away. Longbaugh held up the thief’s hand and pointedly took back his wallet. The boy’s false yowl grew louder. Longbaugh looked around. The team of nimble-fingered youngsters side-glanced their targets to read their reactions.
    Longbaugh used the captured hand of his pickpocket to point out first one, then another of the boy’s cronies until the pedestrians understood they were being robbed. They turned on the boys, women battering children with umbrellas, men shaking them as if their stolen money would somehow pour out of them like granulated salt.
    Longbaugh twisted the boy’s arm behind his back, and the fake yowling stopped, replaced by a sincere “Ow!” Longbaugh held him that way long enough so the boy pickpocket got the point. Then he set him free. The boy stepped a few feet away, shaking his arm, and looked back at Longbaugh with baffled surprise. Longbaugh remembered he was wearing boots and a western hat, so he said, “Git, ya little varmint.” The varmint hightailed it.
    The victims all came over to shake his hand, one woman bemoaning that she had not been quick enough and her things were lost. Longbaugh nodded noncommittally, as he was not yet finished.
    He scanned the edge of the crowd and located the “drop bag.” If the drop bag was there, then at least one pickpocket was still at work. He picked him out in a moment. Longbaugh strolled to the corner and grabbed the shoulder of the boy holding the burlap sack. The boy wriggled silently, but Longbaugh’s grip was sure. He now caught the eye of the last pickpocket, the oldest of the boys, most likely their leader. The pickpocket froze to assess Longbaugh’s state of mind.