Free (1986) Deadwood by Pete Dexter

Agnes's dispositions," he said. "How do you talk to her?"
    "What's that matter?"
    "The way to write letters to somebody," Charley said, "is the way you talk."
    Bill was embarrassed. "What kind of sweethearts do you send Matilda?" he said. "I'd like to see one of those letters."
    "I don't put down anything personal," he said. "I write business letters. Everything I ever said to Matilda she took three different ways, and wondered what did I mean by each of them. I don't say anything I don't have to, and I sure as Jesus don't put it down on paper. There is such a thing as looking for trouble."
    Bill looked at the paper in his hand. Charley said, "Of course, I've been married a long time."
    Bill said, "Me and Agnes never started out from the same place. That makes it harder. I can't live like a paper-collar in St. Louis the rest of my life, and I can't bring her here. She isn't used to a place like this."
    In the street, the Methodist was asking God for protection. Bill and Charley listened to him a few minutes. The letter to Agnes was still in Bill's hand, between them. "Did you know that preacher left his wife behind too?" Bill said. "Jack Crawford told me that. He came out here to find gold and left his wife and four babies back in the States. Sends them every cent he earns at the sawmill, and lives off what he makes standing on that packing crate."
    "A minister that works?" Charley said. He looked at the Methodist closer and noticed he was preaching with his eyes shut now. And Charley loved God for many things, among them not calling him to the ministry.

    Boone May slapped himself awake, he could have slept all morning, even with the snoring, but Jane Cannary had rolled in her sleep and come to rest with her mouth next to his ear. As she snored, she blew, and the breath in his ear felt like insects to Boone, who reached out in his sleep and slapped himself across the side of the head. The hand was cupped and caught his ear, and there was an empty, numb feeling inside there, along with a sort of ricochet noise that he associated with the sound of going deaf.
    He opened his eyes and saw calico-pattern walls. Half the tents in town had the same walls, it was the only material you could get at Farnum's until there was a new shipment. The tent was open, and he looked out to the street, thinking of how easy he could of got robbed in the night.
    He sat up at the thought, and began looking for Frank Towles's head. His guns and pants were beside him on the ground, but the bag was gone. He got his underwear on and crawled out from under his blanket. He picked up Jane's pants and then her shirt and then her boots, throwing everything out the front of the tent. Nothing.
    He didn't want to, but he pulled the cover off Jane and looked underneath that too. Her skin was pale and bruised and old. She was a big-boned girl, but fat. Spindly legs, soft-looking arms, no chest to her at all. He had never seen a woman black and blue so many different places. It looked like they'd dragged her all the way from Chicago. And she was as ripe as a live body gets.
    "Whatever you got on your mind," she said without opening her eyes, "furget it."
    He looked at her face then, a man's face. Not a man you'd want to know. Flat eyes, no lips to speak of, she had a nose similar to the outlaw Big Nose George. Boone stuck his head out of the tent and took a few breaths of fresh air.
    "It wouldn't hurt nothing," he said when he came back in, "you was to visit the bathhouse once."
    "I give it a bath once," she said, pulling the blanket back over her body, "and a Cheyenne peeder come floating out." Boone felt himself getting sick.
    "Where is Frank Towles's head?" he said. "You're the only one could of took it."
    "The buck was about twenty-two years old," she said, "handsome for that breed. He was desirious to make a papoose with Calamity Jane, and it wasn't till the last minute I changed my mind. But shit, a lady's got a right to change her mind." The Indian story was