Free That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx

MIXED HEIFERS . WING ANCHOR BRAND.
NOTIFY SHERIFF H. DOUGH, WOOLYBUCKET COUNTY .

    He ordered the special, chicken-fried steak with milk gravy. The waiter/dishwasher, a stout man wearing rubber gloves, brought the gravy-swimming plate and Bob asked casually if he knew of anybody who rented rooms.
    “Well, there’s Beryl. Beryl and Harvey Schwarm. They got a room they rent out sometimes . But usually to a lady . I don’t know, they might . They got the yellow house with the big porch on Wild Turkey Street. Worth a try, I guess . You a salesman ?”
    “No. Just visiting the area—a tourist, I guess. Like the looks of your town. Pretty nice.”
    “That’d be Beryl’s sister, Joni, she’s the one got the flower beds going, got them to build the bandstand. Got a band started up. They play every Friday night in the summer. Light classics, they say, but ask me it’s mostly old Frank Sinatra tunes. Nobody around here knows what classic means. There’s more and more people comes to visit . It would be handy to have a motel or a resort hotel here, but don’t look like it will happen tomorrow. Best we’ve got is the Schwarms unless you want to drive over to Dumas or up to Perryton. There’d be motels there .”
    “I’ll try the Schwarms. Thanks for the tip.”
    “ I’m the one supposed to get the tip, ” said the man.

    Mrs. Schwarm, wearing a blue chenille housecoat, answered the door, her nose swollen, face red and sprinkled with small yellow grains. Her hands were encased in rubber gloves and she held a wet facecloth from which water dripped.
    “I’m hoping to rent a room,” he said. “Someone told me you rent rooms?”
    “Who? Who told you that?” She sounded extremely annoyed.
    “Ah. The waiter at the café. A heavyset man…”
    “Big Head Haley. That fool. So dumb that just tyin his shoelaces gives him the headache. I can’t even have myself a facial without somebody poundin on the door and wantin a rent the room. He don’t know nothin about nothin and he don’t know I stopped rentin that room a year ago. If people come to Cowboy Rose they can stay with kin or bring a tent. I had trouble with a woman stayed in that room and I swore I’d never rent it out again. Come here from Minnesota and her ways was not our ways. Stay up late at night, sleep until noon and then want orange juice . She must a thought she was in Florida. I asked her to take her shoes off when she come in—I got white carpet on the stairs—but she never did and like to ruined the carpet.”
    “Mrs. Schwarm, I swear I’d take my shoes off. You would have no problem—”
    “No. I’m not havin no problem because I’m not fixin to rent it out. It don’t even have a bed in it now. My husband uses it for a hobby room. He makes wood ducks.” And she closed the door.

    He drove north to Perryton near the Oklahoma border, decorated with blowing food wrappers and old election signs. The traffic lights swung in the wind. Every vehicle was a pickup, his the only sedan, and heads turned to stare at his Colorado plates as he drove along the main street. All the motels were booked full. On the outskirts of town he found a sad, two-story building, the Hoss Barn. A large banner hung over the door reading HOSS BARN WELCOMES MARBLE FALLS BAPTISTS .
    “Are you with the church group?” asked the clerk, a young man with a skewed face and scarred nose. Bob Dollar guessed him to be an ex-convict.
    “No, I’m traveling on business.”
    “It’ll cost you the full rate, then—seventeen a night.”
    “That’s O.K.” In Oklahoma he had paid thirty-seven.
    The Hoss Barn sported a thin, filthy carpet on concrete stairs. Dixie cups and peanut wrappers lay in corridor corners. His room was small and shabby, with a powerful smell of perfumed disinfectant; a painted concrete floor, the television set chained to the wall, only one working lightbulb, several Bibles, including one in the roachy bathroom. Over the bed hung an enlarged photograph of