THE ROAD TO PURGATORY (A Tale of the Old West)
Chapter One (continued)
The room in the back of the jailhouse smelled like old onions and feet. It was small, with barely enough room for the decrepit old bed that was against the wall. It was claustrophobic and airless with no windows. But Laurie didn’t mind. Compared to the foundling home where she shared a bed with three other girls, this room was paradise. Even if it was small and smelled like feet. In Purgatory.
Wihakayda the cat didn’t have a problem with the tiny room either. She jumped up on the ancient bed, tamped her paws down into the lumpy mattress, kneading it until she was satisfied, turned around a couple times before curling up and closing her eyes.
Sheriff Bogardus stood in the open doorway as the small curly-haired girl leaned the bow against he wall by the bed, along with the quiver of arrows.
“I knowed you just had to have some Injun blood in ya,” he said. “Even before ol’ Waddie said what he did. I could tell. You got that way about ya.”
From Under the Wandering Stars
“You just have to have Injun blood in you.” Laurie Benteen had heard that practically her entire life. Or words to that effect. It’s like she had a sign on her back. “HALF BREED” in big red letters. People just knew. Even when she wasn’t carrying her bow and arrows. Even on those rare occasions when she got herself all dressed up in the hand-me-downs the charity people brought to the foundling home. People knew. Maybe it was the way she carried herself. Maybe it was the fact that she rarely spoke, that she would silently look at you with those solemn blue eyes and unsmiling face, like she was looking deep inside you to your soul. It put people off. Made them feel all uncomfortable.
Laurie wasn’t always like that. When her Papa and her Ina were alive, she was always chattering away, smiling and laughing. Her Ina used to say that she loved to see her baby girl smile, her sparkling blue eyes would shine like the cool clear water of the mountain lake. But her Papa was closer to the truth. He would proclaim, “My Laurie’s eyes twinkle like the wandering stars in the night sky.”
If any person in Purgatory was born under a wandering star, it was Laurie Benteen. She was the daughter of Gabriel Benteen, a former Indian agent, and Wild Corn Woman, a Lakota Sioux girl he fell in love with and married in 1858. Gabriel lost his job when word reached Washington about his marriage and the young couple went to St. Louis where his family lived. The welcome they received was less than friendly and it became even colder when Wild Corn Woman gave birth to their blue-eyed daughter in August of 1859.
Finding work in the bustling city with an Indian wife and daughter proved to be very hard for Gabriel, who discovered that prospective employers, strangers and even his family and friends did little to hide their prejudice and animosity. So they returned to the Dakota Territory, living with the Lakota for a while as the tribe moved from place to place. Little Laurie would study the braves as they practiced shooting their bows day after day. One afternoon the then five year-old girl surprised her parents, the tribe elders, the braves and the other children when she picked up an ash wood bow that was almost as big as she was, carefully inserted a wild turkey feathered arrow like she’d seen the braves do, pulled back the bowstring as far as her small arms could manage and released. The arrow only flew about a foot before it hit the dirt. The watching adults covered their smiles as they saw the frustrated disappointed look on the little girl’s face. The next day, old Drifting Away, Wild Corn Woman’s father, began making a much smaller bow for Laurie. When he finished it, he taught his granddaughter how to shoot, how to care for her bow, how to make arrows. Laurie practiced religiously, shooting at trees and old buffalo hide targets, under the careful eye of her proud grandfather.
Waddie Travers discovered just how good a shot the little girl grew up to be. Lounging insolently in his cell in the Purgatory Jail, he looked over at the door as it opened and Sheriff Bogardus walked in, followed by Laurie and the cat. Waddie sat up and a leering grin appeared on his ugly pockmarked face, which was made even more ugly by the nasty scar across his crooked nose. He spat on the floor, scratched his balls and let out a raspy laugh that turned into a phlegmy cough.
“Well, that’s mighty white of ya, Sheriff,” the prisoner cackled. “Bringin’ me a li’l comp’ny to pass th’ time with. Now why don’tcha jus’ let her in here an’ then leave us be fer a spell?”
Sheriff Bogardus shot him a quick annoyed glance. “Shut yer hole, Waddie. You’re a by God embarrassment to mankind.”
“Aw, shit, Sheriff, don’tcha go an’ get a mad on jus’ b’cuz I’m more man than you’ll ever be an’ that’s a fact!”
Bogardus shook his head, muttered a curse, ambled over to the small stove and poured hot coffee into his battered tin cup. Waddie stood up and shuffled to the cell door, leaning on the bars.
“Now don’t be shy, li’l filly. Come on in here an’ lemme prove it to ya.”
Laurie continued to ignore him. She looked around the room, petting the purring cat cradled in the crook of her arm. Her eyes stopped on a Wanted poster tacked to the wall. She studied it, looking at the ugly scarred face, then turned her head to give a sidelong glance at the leering man in the cell.
“Yeah, it’s me,” Waddie grinned, showing his greenish-yellow teeth. “I take a real fine pitchure, don’tcha think?”
“Bounty hunter brang him in here three days ago,” Bogardus explained. He was now leaning back comfortably in his chair with his feet up on the desk, his tin cup resting on his round belly. “We’re waitin’ on the circuit judge, should be here day after tomorra.”
Laurie nodded and continued to move around the room.
“Hey,” Waddie hollered, his voice edgy and mean. “I’m talkin’ to you, bitch! Answer me, damn it!” She deliberately turned her back to him. This made him even madder. “What’s a’matter? Can’tcha speak English? Know what I think? I think ya can’t! I think you’re a fuckin’ Injun! An’ I fuckin’ hate Injuns!” He rattled the cell door in a rage. “You’re fuckin’ damn lucky ya got these bars between us b’cuz I’d show ya jus’ how much I fuckin’ hate Injuns!”
“Shut yer damn hole, Waddie!” Bogardus snapped. “I ain’t gonna tell ya again!”
“Fuck you, Bogardus!” Waddie glared at the small curly-haired girl as she put down the cat. Wihakayda rubbed against her leg and then slowly moved around the room, exploring the new surroundings with curiosity. “Hey, Injun bitch! You better hope an’ pray I don’t never get my hands on yer mangy cat! I’ll snap its fuckin’ neck an’ eat it raw, don’t think I won’t!”
Laurie’s blue eyes suddenly went ice-cold. As Bogardus would tell the story later, “It all happened so damn quick. One second, she’s turning her head ever so slow to give him a look. Then, before I knowed it, she had her damn bow up an’ a arrow in it. I though, sure as shit, ol’ Waddie was a goner. But, instead, she let that damn arrow fly at that Wanted poster on the other side of the room.”
Waddie Travers stared, open-mouthed, at the slightly quivering arrow embedded in the picture of his face on the poster, right smack dead-center in the scar on his nose. Without another word, he turned around, skulked back to his cot and laid down again facing the wall.
In the early spring of 1866, when Laurie was seven, two men from Washington arrived at the Lakota encampment in the Black Hills with a small military escort under a white flag of peace. After a calumet was smoked and gifts were exchanged, the two men said they were looking for the white man, Gabriel Benteen, who had married the daughter of the respected elder Drifting Away. They were heading down to the high plains area of north Texas to broker a treaty between the tribes and the U.S. government. They needed a reliable interpreter and, since Gabriel’s past records showed that he could speak a number of Indian languages fluently, the Washington men offered him the position, with the possibility of him returning to his old position when the Texas mission was done. Wanting desperately to provide for his family, Gabriel accepted. He left the Lakota camp with the men the next morning.
Two months later, the Canadian coureur de bois, Phillippe Bouchard, a trusted friend of the Lakota, arrived at the camp with sad news. He was returning to Canada with the few pelts he had trapped and had stopped in Denver for supplies.
“That is all everyone was talking about,” he said in halting Lakota as he sat in Drifting Away’s tipi. “The Indian attack in Texas. Makes them afraid, you know. It happens in Texas, it can happen here too.”
Phillippe went on to relate how a war party of Kwahadi Comanche had ambushed the Washington delegation in the middle of the night, by the bank of the Brazos River, near the town of Palo Pinto, killing them all, including Gabriel Benteen. The Indians took the news in stoic silence. Even Wild Corn Woman, the young widow, betrayed no emotion after her initial sudden quiet gasp of shock. Suddenly little Laurie burst into the tipi looking for her grandfather, impatient for the day’s archery lesson. She stopped in her tracks when she saw the looks on the faces of the adults. Something was wrong, she could tell. But what?
The short trapper stood up. He knew the family needed its privacy at a time like this. Phillippe smiled at the little girl but his eyes were sad. He ruffled her curly hair, gave her a hard sweet and murmured, “Elle est une jolie petite fille.” Then he left the tipi.
Years later, when she was older and on her own, Laurie Benteen traveled down to Texas, to that spot along the bank of the Brazos River, near the town of Palo Pinto, where her father had been murdered, his body riddled with bullets. She could still see the scars in the large rocks from where the wildly flying bullets had struck them on that horrible night. That horrible night when Gabriel Benteen died under the wandering stars in the night sky, the same wandering stars that his daughter’s eyes twinkled like when she laughed.
Jenn Peccavi had just about reached the end of her patience. The committee of concerned citizens of Purgatory had filled her ears and her office with a non-stop litany of complaints for close to an hour. To her credit, the Australian woman had let them jabber on, with barely a word in reply. But the smile that was frozen on her face tightened, her eyes started to glaze other and she fought the impulse to ball up her hands into tight fists and pound away on her hard desk or their hard heads.
“We’re just asking for trouble, you’d better believe it!” Mrs. Tudball proclaimed. “Why, just you wait till word gets out that we brought in three girls to keep the peace, every dirty degenerate desperado in the whole territory will come running to Purgatory! We’ll be overrun in a week!”
Miss Peccavi lightly drummed her fingers on her closed ledger book before answering the tall bony angular woman in black who hovered over her desk like the angel of death. Mrs. Tudball owned the Mercantile and rumor had it that she hadn’t cracked a smile in thirty years. Apparently there had once been a Mr. Tudball but no one in Purgatory had ever laid eyes on him. Whether he had lit out for parts unknown years ago or was dead and buried in the basement was anybody’s guess.
“We had to take what we could get,” she said finally. “I’m sorry but Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson were otherwise engaged.”
Wagging her bony finger inches from Miss Peccavi’s face, Mrs. Tudball shot back, “You never should’ve put that advert in the papers in the first place!”
The others nodded in silence. Every single one of them.
Her face getting red, Miss Peccavi stood up. Mrs. Tudball’s beady eyes widened behind her spectacles and she took a step back from the desk.
“Don’t you ever wave that finger in my face again, Elmira Tudball, unless you’re prepared to lose it!” Mrs. Tudball paled and dropped her hand down behind her bustle immediately. Miss Peccavi addressed the room in general. “All of you … Every single one of you sat right here and said we needed help for Sheriff Bogardus.”
“Well,” Mr. Gill from the bank piped up timidly, “Maybe we were a bit too hasty. I think the Sheriff is doing just dandy.”
Miss Peccavi cut him off. “Sheriff Bogardus couldn’t find his arse with a lantern and a map and we all know that!”
“Why didn’t you send these girls on their way? Tell them we already hired someone?” Mrs. Tudball found her voice again, her hand still hidden behind her.
“Seeing the way they’re dressed, I never would’ve guessed they’re girls,” Reverend Primm said quietly from his chair in the corner.
“They don’t even ride like girls,” Mr. Gill added. “Did you see ‘em in their saddles when they came into town?”
“And one of them is part Injun!” Mrs. Tudball said in a shrill voice dripping with hate. “She actually had the nerve to set foot in my store!”
Laurie knew it probably wasn’t the smartest idea she ever had when all conversation stopped and every eye in the Mercantile focused on her the second she stepped through the door. But the pull from that beautiful white satin dress with the chiffon and lace ruffled sleeves displayed in the window was just too powerful. It had stopped her dead in her tracks on the boardwalk and she just stood there, staring at it, hypnotized and mesmerized by its exquisite splendor. She had never seen anything so beautiful in her entire life. It felt like it was calling to her, inviting her to come in, to touch it, to let her fingertips run along the silky smoothness of it, to maybe even try it on. Without even being aware of it, Laurie felt her feet moving to the door, her hand reaching out for the knob, her fingers turning it and pushing the door open and there she was, inside the store, with everyone staring at her. Bringing her crashing back into reality.
Mrs. Tudball briskly strode over to intercept the girl before she could venture anywhere other than the doorway. The tall gray-haired woman looked down at Laurie, her eyes narrowed, her thin lips pursed in a sneer of contempt and disgust.
“You see that picture there?” Mrs. Tudball pointed a crooked bony finger at the framed photograph hanging on the wall behind the counter. It was a tintype portrait of a handsome young man in a cavalry uniform, posing solemnly with a light saber in his gloved left hand. “That’s my nephew Orrin Mayes, one of the finest young men ever to walk God’s green earth. Your -- people -- murdered him along with General Custer and those other brave souls at Greasy Grass Creek. So you’re going to have to forgive my store policy when I refuse to do business with savages and halfbreeds.”
Laurie felt a rush of blood to her head. Her face first went pale and then suddenly flushed. Her tiny hands quickly clenched into tight fists and she fought the impulse to lash out and punch the nasty old witch right in her sneering mouth. It wasn’t easy but she managed to resist the temptation and, without saying a word, turned and left the Mercantile. Her heart raced as she hurried down the boardwalk, her blue eyes filled with tears of anger and frustration. She darted into a gap in between two buildings, leaned against the wall and let the silent tears flow.
There were times in the past when Laurie Benteen gave into those feelings of rage, fueled by a hateful comment or dirty look or physical confrontation. Her mind would switch off, go blank, and she would lash out with a feral attack, pummeling her antagonist with fists, feet, knees, elbows, fingernails, even her teeth. When her Ina Wild Corn Woman and grandfather Drifting Away died from cholera two years after Gabriel’s killing, Laurie was sent to a foundling home in Yankton. Fights came quick and they came often. Other girls, boys, older, younger, it didn’t matter. Almost all her opponents were bigger than she was. It made no difference. Just about anything would set her off and fists would fly.
She stopped smiling, hardly ever spoke, grew sullen and withdrawn. The other foundlings treated her like an outcast and she was just fine with that. Even when she was forced to share a bed with three other girls, there was always an invisible wall around her that wouldn’t allow anyone to ever get close to her. Ever again. This remained true even after Laurie left the foundling home and set out on her own. She drifted from place to place, all over the territory, with her only companions being her black-and-white paint horse and the ever-wandering stars. Sometimes the stars would tell her to move on from a place, sometimes they would tell her to stay. But they always led her true.
It took time and patience but Laurie finally was able to control her temper. The violent outbursts rarely came anymore. But she would always remember the last one. Because it ended up changing her life.
Julesburg, Colorado. 1886. It had been raining non-stop for three days. Not a torrential downpour, just a never-ending hard drizzle that grated on everyone’s nerves and turned the thoroughfare into a practically deserted muddy bog. Laurie had been in town a day and a half. There was no telling when the damn rain would let up and she was lucky enough to be close to Julesburg so she wouldn’t have to set up camp out in the open. Her tired paint was fed and dry in the stable and Laurie had cajoled the livery owner to let her stay there also, in exchange for cleaning out the stalls and laying out fresh hay.
She was returning to the stable with an apple and a carrot she bought for her paint with a couple of the few remaining pennies in her pouch. She had just stepped off the boardwalk into the mud when she heard a pitiful little cry of pain coming from the alley. Laurie turned in time to see a fat slovenly young woman, with wild unruly red hair and wearing a dirty peasant dress, kick a tiny kitten with her bare foot, knocking the poor thing head over heels into the mud with a splash. The kitten righted itself and tried to scamper back under the overhanging boardwalk but the woman blocked its escape path with her foot and kicked it again.
“Get outta here, ya little shit! Scat!” she hollered in a slurry voice.
The little cat had courage and was determined to return to the shelter and safety of its sanctuary under the boardwalk. It braced itself for another charge and the blowsy woman reared her meaty leg back in anticipation.
“Leave it alone.”
The words were quietly said, but filled with such determination that the surprised angry woman whirled around to face the speaker. What she saw didn’t impress her in the least. She saw a drenched half-breed in her twenties, with curly brown hair plastered down from the rain, icy-cold blue eyes and high cheekbones, wearing a homemade elk skin blouse and britches. She saw a girl who was a good head shorter than her and who she outweighed by at least fifty pounds.
“Fuck off, breed!”
Dismissing the smaller girl, she turned her attention back to the kitten, which was about ready to make its mad dash. Then she felt a firm hand on her arm.
“Leave it alone, I said.”
“And I said, FUCK OFF, BREED!”
The fat girl turned quickly and punched Laurie flush in the mouth with her free hand. Laurie flew backwards, landing on her ass in the mud with a loud sticky splosh. Grinning sadistically, the bigger girl advanced, fists up. The kitten, seeing its chance, took off like a shot back under the boardwalk where it curled up in the shadows to watch the action with wide eyes.
A male voice not very far away, piped up, “Aw, shit, crazy Anna Mae Smuntz is fightin’ ag’in!”
Another voice, this one sounding bored, answered, “I’m goin’ in fer a beer.”
“Don’tcha wanna stay an’ watch?”
“Fuck that! It’s rainin’ too damn hard. B’sides, it’s Anna Mae! She’ll prob’ly be fightin’ ag’in t’morra!”
“I ‘spect you’re right. Wait fer me!”
During this exchange, Anna Mae bore down on Laurie and reared her leg back, probably figuring that it didn’t matter who or what she kicked, as long as she got to kick something. But Laurie didn’t wait. She quickly stretched her own leg out and hooked the big girl’s ankle, knocking her off-balance and sending her into the muck, squealing like a frightened sow. Laurie scrambled up to a half-crouch and launched herself at the prostrate Anna Mae but the redhead showed she could be cunning when she needed to be. She waited till the last second before bringing both legs up toward her head, causing Laurie to dive onto her hard knees instead of her soft belly. Laurie let out a gurgled cry and rolled off the big girl, curling up clutching her ribs.
Anna Mae roughly pushed Laurie onto her belly and fell on top of her, using her weight to crush her smaller opponent. Her fingers were clasped and she pressed both hands down on the back of Laurie’s head, pushing her face deep into the oozing muck. The frantic girl thrashed wildly as she was being suffocated. She bucked and twisted her body as much as possible with the fat girl on top of it. She flailed her hands up blindly hitting at the face and head of her panting tormentor. Luck happened to be with her. Her flying thumb found a great target: Anna Mae’s left eye. The big girl bellowed in pain as the thumb pushed into the eyeball and the thumbnail slashed the cornea. She took her hands off Laurie’s head to cover her wounded eye and the smaller girl was finally able to pull her face out of the sludge, coughing and gasping for air.
Anna Mae was still lying on top of her so Laurie jerked her head up and back, driving it into the redhead’s face with a sickening thud. Anna Mae rolled partway off Laurie’s back and by twisting her body and flailing her elbows back into the big girl’s soft body, Laurie was able to push her all the way off. Anna Mae rolled away in the sticky muck, blinking her stinging eye wildly and rubbing it with the back of her muddy hand. Laurie scrambled up to her knees, took just enough time to breathe in some much-needed air, and then she tackled the hefty redhead as she started to get up.
With animal-like snarls and cries of pain and rage, the two fighters rolled around in the alley in a flailing swirling blur of muddy arms and legs, punching, kicking, scratching and gouging each other, with no regard for their own welfare. All that either of them cared about was to beat the hell out of the other one. It wasn’t long before what was left of Anna Mae’s peasant dress was torn and tattered, completely drenched and covered with mud, and stuck to her body. Her breasts were almost completely exposed and both bore the marks of Laurie’s cruel assault. The tender flesh was covered with evil red furrows made by the small girl’s sharp nails. Laurie herself wasn’t much better off. Her fringed elk skin blouse had been yanked off her body by the crazed redhead and was lying in the mire by the boardwalk. Her bare back and small breasts were covered in cuts and scratches.
The big difference in their size was painfully obvious to Laurie as they were locked together in this life or death struggle. The times that Anna Mae was on top of the smaller girl were longer and a lot more frequent. Her strategy was to use her substantial heft to wear Laurie down and it was working. But Laurie was finally able to kick herself free and began to crawl away on all fours. Anna Mae made a wild grab for her foot but missed and ended up doing a sprawling belly-flop into the ooze. She muttered a curse and struggled to stand up. Her bare feet slipped in the mud and she almost fell again. But she righted herself and lumbered after her foe.
By this time, Laurie was up on her knees, breathing hard. Anna Mae reached her, grabbed her muddy hair and kept the small girl there, kneeling in front of her. Then she savagely kicked Laurie in the middle of her chest, between her bare breasts. Laurie cried out as she pitched backwards into the mud. She felt like her chest had caved in; never before in her life had she experienced such horrible pain as this. Her eyes, blurry from tears, mud and the pouring rain, only saw a large dark shape looming over her. If she had clearly seen the insane look on Anna Mae’s face, her blood would have probably gone cold. Anna Mae was ready to end this. Right now. And maybe end Laurie’s life at the same time.
The big redhead cackled, “Told ya not to fuck with me! Now ya gonna pay for it, ya fuckin’ breed!”
Breed. One word. Sometimes that’s all it takes. One fucking word. It’s not like this was the first time she had ever been called that. Or the last, for that matter. But everyone has a breaking point. For Laurie Benteen, that breaking point occurred in the mud in an alley in Julesburg, Colorado.
It lit a fuse somewhere deep inside Laurie’s soul. Her body filled with the blind rage that she had kept bottled up for so long. The rage that overpowered the horrific agony in her battered body. The rage that triggered her brain to send a signal to her foot. A signal to drive that foot up as hard as possible right between the redhead’s legs.
Laurie’s foot found its mark. The expression of manic sadistic glee on Anna Mae’s face evaporated and was replaced by one of stunned shock and pain. She rose up to her tiptoes, then clamped her meaty thighs together wetly, staggered back a few steps and sat down in the mud. Her mouth was open in an almost perfect “O” but no sound was coming out.
Somehow Laurie willed herself to get to her feet. Her nerves raw, she was running only on adrenaline now. Her fevered brain was telling her: Finish it. Finish it now. There’s time to feel the pain later. When it’s all over. When it’s done.
Laurie flew at Anna Mae, knocking her flat. Her flailing flying fists rained a cascade of punches into the now pitifully sobbing redhead’s face and body. The big girl desperately tried to cover up as Laurie sat on her soft belly, straddling her, pounding away with punch after punch. Blood began to spurt from Anna Mae’s nose. Her head snapped from side to side. She had completely stopped trying to fight back. All she could do was try to block the relentless punches and, when that failed, she just covered her face with both hands and bawled even louder. The little half-breed had beaten the big bully bitch into complete submission.
Laurie finally stopped punching her helpless adversary and just sat there, resting on Anna Mae’s wildly heaving belly. The hateful fury was finally ebbing away. She was exhausted, her body was numb, her arms hung limply at her sides and felt really heavy. Other than the falling raindrops hitting the liquidy muck, the only sounds in the alley were sharp wheezing gasps of breath and trembling whimpers of pain.
Laurie rolled off of Anna Mae and slowly made it up to her feet. She stood there for a bit, trying to compose herself. The adrenaline rush had worn off and she was starting to feel the stabbing shooting bursts of pain throughout her battered body. I am really gonna feel like hell tomorrow, she thought to herself. She was shivering, her teeth were chattering, and she became fully aware for the first time that she wasn’t wearing her blouse. She spotted it in the mud and staggered over slowly, bending down with a little groan to pick it up. Anna Mae was still lying where she left her, on her back with one flabby arm draped across her face, her soaked cotton dress half-torn off and hiked up almost to her crotch.
It took a lot of effort but the small girl managed to smooth out her drenched mud-coated fringed blouse and put it back on. She limped over to Anna Mae, looked down at her with contempt and poked her in the ribs with her toe.
Laurie hawked a gob of spit and blood into the mud and hissed in a quiet but deadly voice, “Don’t you never let me see or hear of you kickin’ or hurtin’ that kitten ever again!” Then she reared her leg back and kicked Anna Mae hard in her fleshy body. The big girl let out a strangled yelp as Laurie continued, “Hurts real bad when it happens to you, don’t it?”
Laurie turned around and moved back to the boardwalk. She knelt down and looked under the boards till she spotted the kitten. In a soft cajoling voice, she started trying to coax the tiny animal out from its hiding place.
“Come on, Wihakayda,” she whispering, using the Lakota Sioux word for “little one”. “No one’s gonna hurt you no more.”
Meanwhile, Anna Mae had sat up finally. She glared over at Laurie who was kneeling by the boardwalk with her back to her. Trying to regain just a tiny shred of dignity after being beaten by such a much smaller girl, she called out in a voice of trembling defiance, “Th-This ain’t over, breed! You gonna pay for what you done!” Laurie continued to ignore her. The kitten had started moving out cautiously but scurried back in the shadows when it heard Anna Mae’s voice.
Laurie said soothingly, “Don’t you worry none, Wihakayda. She can’t hurt you. Not when I’m around. Come on, baby.”
Furious at being ignored, Anna Mae blustered, “You gonn’ get locked up where ya fuckin’ belong! I’m tellin’ the sheriff, I am!”
“You ain’t doin’ no such thing now, Anna Mae Smuntz, and you know you ain’t!”
Both Laurie and Anna Mae whirled their heads at the sound of this new voice. Standing at the edge of the boardwalk under the overhang keeping out of the rain was a young woman, not much bigger than Laurie. She wore a burgundy coat and scarlet brocade vest over a frilled white shirt with ruffled cuffs. The top button of her shirt was open and, instead of a tie or cravat, a large lethal-looking yellowish crocodile tooth dangled at the end of a leather necklace. Tight black striped trousers and black boots. A well cared for Colt .45 Peacemaker rested in a holster on her right hip. Laurie didn’t know her name but recognized her as the gambler lady she’d seen over at the Square Deal Saloon. Laurie knew that she would never play cards with that girl even if she was running the last game on earth and her life was on the table.
“I am too!” Anna Mae blubbered. “You jus’ try an’ stop me!”
“You tell the sheriff, Anna Mae,” the pretty gambler smirked, “and the whole damn town is gonna know you got yourself whooped by a little spit of a girl. You really want that to happen?” Anna Mae clamped her mouth shut. Her face flushed. She looked down at the oozing mud. “No, I didn’t think so. This was a fair fight, you started it an’ you got beat. Let that be the end of it. Now haul your big fat bohunkus outta that mud, you look like a wallowing sow!”
Muttering under her breath, Anna Mae stood up and shot a quick glare at the gambler and at Laurie. Then she staggered away, her fleshy breasts flopping in full view for anyone to see. One who happened to get a very good look was a tiny blonde on horseback heading into town. She reined in her horse and watched in amazement as the half-naked woman staggered along the thoroughfare.
Marie Bouchard shook her head. You see all kinds of things in "civilized" places, she thought. One thing she hoped to see was part of the gypsy caravan she got word about when she brought her father’s body back to Sterling. Instead of going straight to Denver as planned, she decided to head north to Julesburg to follow this lead. After one final look at the retreating redhead, Marie continued on her way to the stable to bed down her horse for the night.
Above her, a small thin bejeweled hand closed the curtain of a second-story window.
“Chavula,” an urgent voice whispered, “Find Jessika! She is with Ponka and the woman Kayla Paige! Hurry!”
“Yes, Julianka!”
Jonica Bowdrie leaned against the wall under the overhang, watching the small woman finally coax the kitten out. Laurie stood up and started walking toward her with the purring kitten cradled in her arms.
“She won’t tell the sheriff,” Jonica smiled. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
“I wasn’t worried,” Laurie mumbled, her eyes down, looking at her fingers as they stroked the kitten’s head behind its ear. She continued to walk.
“I woulda given you a hand. But you looked like you were handlin’ things just fine.” Jonica laughed. “Besides, I don’t like cats.”
Laurie moved past her. “Didn’t need your help. An’ I couldn't give a rat’s ass what you like or don’t like.”
Jonica opened her mouth to respond but the sounds of approaching footsteps distracted her. A tall well-dressed beautiful brunette, flanked by a derby wearing little butterball in thick spectacles and a cadaverous-looking fellow with an acne-scarred face, was walking down the boardwalk. The two men pushed open the batwing doors of the Square Deal Saloon and the brunette swept inside in a rush of taffeta and lace, followed by her companions.
Ah, my pigeon awaits, Jonica grinned. She started to follow them into the Saloon.
“Hey.”
The gambler turned her head. Laurie had stopped. Her back was to Jonica and she stood there like that for a few seconds. Like she was fighting an inner struggle.
God, I am so alone!
Laurie turned her head. Her eyes met Jonica’s.
“Thank you,” she whispered. Then she hurried away into the night.
Jonica smiled and entered the Saloon.
Up Next: IN THE BEGINNING or How It All Started
TO BE CONTINUED
