Big Nose Kate, as might be reckoned from the name, was an ugly woman. 

It wasn’t just her nose, mind, though it was quite the sight. Such a sluice box of a snout. A beak longer than a corn cob. A schnoz whereupon three wood doves could perch, wing to wing. A sniffer shaped so much like a garden trowel turned sideways that if ever she did trip and fall face first in a well tilled field, she could, with one quick twist of her neck, plant a potato. 

But, her nose was only the mantelpiece of her loathsome appearance. The jewel on the gold ring. The full moon in the starry sky. 

Why, her forehead was so low she resembled a neanderthal. And her eyebrows were bushy as a deputy marshal’s mustache. And her hair (which was braided and bundled on the top of her head), not only was as coarse as a horse’s tail, its color was evaporating, for though the girl was only nineteen, the fiery auburn close to her scalp faded into smokey grays. 

She was short, too, barely an eighth of an inch taller than five feet, and bony. Scrawny. All knees and elbows. So skinny she could hide behind the pole handle of a rake. That is, if she could stand up straight. The poor girl was trapped in a perpetual stooped posture (which some may infer was the result of her many hours crouching under a thousand pounds or more of equine heft due to her position as a farrier, but that would be incorrect, for when she came wandering into the town of Esau from the desert three years ago, she already possessed the same deportment of a humpbacked mine goblin). 

But, boy, she could arrest a soul with those eyes. Like molten gold they were.

Swirling. 

Pouring. 

Dripping slow into a cast iron mold. 

Cooling into a hardened gaze. 

“Eat,” Jesup Doolin said, as he chewed on a corn nugget. Kate sat across from him at the table. It was dark in the kitchen and the only light came from the lantern between them. The flame flickered, deepening the shadows within the cracks of Mr. Doolin’s leathery face, while the gray stubble along his hollow cheeks and the sweat caught in the curly hair along his temples glittered. Kate tilted her head forward, her mouth hidden in the shade of her nose, her golden eyes gleaming with predatory intent. He looked down at his metal plate, picking up another corn nugget. “Eat, I said.” 

“I am not hungry.” 

“I can see the valleys of your ribs through your shirt. Besides, an apprentice ought to heed her teacher.”

“I no longer understand that to be the terms of our relationship.”

He gulped his un-masticated corn nugget, scrambling for a drink from his tin cup. “Then how would you define our relationship?” 

“We are business partners.” 

“Business partners?” 

“Yes, Mr. Doolin. Business partners.” 

“And when did this shift in your understanding occur, Miss Kate?”

“A year and seven months ago. That is when I received your last lesson, thus ending my apprenticeship.” 

“You have only been with me three years. There’s a lot more to blacksmithing and farrier work than can be taught within that amount of time.” 

“Nothing that experience and gumption cannot teach me.” 

“That is some gall.” 

“It is gall to think you still have something over me, Mr. Doolin.” 

“Why, you ungrateful…” 

“I am grateful for what you have done, but things have changed. And when charity is lorded over someone it shows that it was not charity at all, but an investment. But no longer am I the ignorant girl that did the chores and went to the store. I have become a blacksmith (thanks in part to you, Mr. Doolin). My work is respected and sought after and I retain a satisfied client base. In fact, it’s more and more folks that come asking for me instead of you.” Kate’s eyes shifted, looking at the green and purple bruise on Mr. Doolin’s forehead. “As you are more than aware.” 

The chair creaked under Mr. Doolin as he squirmed for it was only two nights ago that he came crashing into the open air shop drunk as a skunk, belt in hand, shouting, slurring his words, “Come out Big Nose Kate! So that I can put you back in your place!” Kate, though, had long retreated up into the hayloft of the neighboring livery stable and watched as the oaf’s britches fell, dropping down to his ankles, and, when he went to pull them up, hit his head on the anvil. It sounded just like a cracked church bell. He swore, of course, swore and swore, clutching his forehead, but then he started crying, and staggering, till he slumped in a corner, his britches still bundled around his ankles and sobbed into his hands. 

Kate pitied him. This was not like him in any way. Yes, he uncorked many a bottle, but he was always a loveable drunk. With a cherry nose and a song on his lips, he was a veritable Santa Claus. But the man was cracking now and all drink does is unearth what’s buried deep.  

“You have usurped me,” Mr. Doolin mumbled, breaking a corn nugget in two and eating a half. 

“It is the return on your investment. Your desire for freedom from this work has bestowed me with all responsibility. I am the Joseph to your Potiphar. And like Joseph, I have no further desire than to please you, Mr. Doolin. Because. Like I said. I am grateful to you.”

“Then why did you steal my cash money?” 

Kate drank from her cup, which was quite the novel sight, because she had to adapt to the magnitude of her nose. See, her nose stuck out so far that she could only tilt the cup up but so high before the rim contacted her septum, so in order to get gravity to do its work on the water in the cup, she had to tilt her head far back to an extreme degree. For hot coffee, she preferred to slurp from a spoon. 

“I did not steal it.” 

“Where is the money?” 

“Safe.” 

“It was safe with me.” 

“No. It was not. Your desire to escape this work…” 

Mr. Doolin slammed his fist on the table. Corn nuggets bounced off the metal plates. “I am sick of corn nuggets! I want steaks. I want fine cigars. I want a bed that does not have stalks of straw poking my backside. I want this dust out of my mouth. This daggum sand. I feel the grains grinding my teeth down with every dern chew of these God awful corn nuggets!” He slapped the plate, sending it flying, crashing into the wall. 

Kate’s eyes were big and rimmed with white, but she quickly regained herself. Inhaled sharply. Straightened (as much as her curved spine would allow) in her chair. “And you think prospecting will garner you quick riches?” 

“I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“And that is why I hid the cash money. Possessed by a strong discontentment of your current situation…” 

“Discontentment is a rather weak word for my current situation.” 

“You are not thinking clearly.” 

“That’s why you took my money? You doubt my frame of mind?” 

“You have spent nearly forty percent of our income. I have had to find more work and there are only so many horses in Esau.” 

“So you hid the cash?” 

“You are spending it hand over fist! And have you found any gold?” 

“You put it in a small chest…?” 

“For your own good, Mr. Doolin.” 

“And, for my own good, stowed that chest under the floorboards of the hayloft?” 

Kate’s jaw hung limp as a grin dug itself into Mr. Doolin’s cheek. 

“The frame of the padlock was well shaped, Miss Kate, and your work on the rivets impressed me. Those small bits ain’t easy to manufacture. But, if it were me,” and he said this as he stood up and adjusted his britches so the belt felt snug under the fold of his belly. “I would not have gone with the wrapped hinged barrel. Should have poked a hole in the shackle to house that hinge pin. Yep. That’s what I would’ve done. Makes a lock more secure. But, perhaps, you weren’t thinking too clearly when you hammered out that shackle.” He turned his back on her and walked away.

“You have the money then?” 

“Yes.” He stood at the door heading outside.  

The oranges surrounding the pupils of Kate’s eyes radiated out into the yellows of her irises, like the aureoles of a solar eclipse. 

“It’s my money, daggum it, and I will spend it how I dern well please.” He went outside, slamming the door behind him. 

---

There was a bench outside right next to the door. It’s where Mr. Doolin liked to sit and smoke his pipe, especially if it was a full moon night. Kate opened that door, but didn’t step out. No moon hung in the sky, but the desert flat gleamed underneath the light of a million stars. The cacti glinted like they were sculpted out of marble and the scrub bushes glittered like balls of tinsel. Frogs of the nearby river sang their evening songs.

“I earned us that money, Mr. Doolin,” Kate said. “And I live off that money, too.”  

He was a dark silhouette sitting there on the bench, leaning against the wall. He puffed his pipe and the tiny embers brightened. “Gold will bring us both more than enough money.” 

“Blacksmithing will earn us what we need.” 

“I have made up my mind.” 

Kate stepped all the way outside and folded her arms. 

“I hear a poorwill,” Mr. Doolin said. “Might get lucky and hear ourselves a spotted owl.” 

“Are you a bird watcher now, too?” 

“A man is more than his trade. He is many things. Non simplex natura, Miss Kate.”

“I do not know Latin.” 

“One night, I did hear a raven.”

“So? Ravens are a common enough bird.” 

“During the day. Not at night. They roost at night. Matter of fact, I heard it the night I saw you for the first time.” He pointed over toward the nearby Livery Stable, at the shadows of the carriages out in the yards. “You were crawling around on all fours. Naked. Trying to hide…” 

“That is what I am told of my origins.” 

“You really can’t recollect a thing before that?” 

Kate pursed her lips so that they brushed against the base of her wide septum, which was her want whenever she was embarrassed, or annoyed, or pondering. Mr. Doolin puffed on his pipe. “Do you know what a séance is?” 

“You cannot be serious.”

“You should read the testimonies in the paper.” 

She shook her head. “That is how you are going to spend our money?” 

“It’s only prudent to exhaust all avenues of research.” 

“He is a snake-oil salesman.” 

“The wool ain’t pulled over my eyes. And it ain’t the tincture I am after.” 

“Cornelius Magnus is a charlatan! Everything about the man is a sham. Even the name: Cornelius Magnus. I would be surprised to find out that his mustache is real.”

“Elmore found himself a little ounce nugget. Worth $20.” 

“And he found it where Cornelius Magnus told him to look?” 

He nodded, letting the smoke trail from his normal sized nose. “Under a rock near the outhouse.” 

“Odd place for a gold nugget. And how much did Elmore pay to receive that information?” 

“That’s besides the point. Dr. Magnus was right. His prognostication was valid.”

“He is most certainly not a doctor.” 

“You should come with me, Miss Kate. Perhaps I can get a two for one deal. A seal on our Future and an unlocking of your Past.”

“And how much, pray tell, is the cost of a séance?” 

“I believe I’ve smoked all the tobacco.” 

“Sit.” 

Mr. Doolin knocked the ashes out of his pipe. “He can find me an untapped vein. He guaranteed it.” 

“This is foolish. A waste of our money. Do not go through with this short-sighted plan.” 

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and stared at his boots. “I’ve already paid him.” 

Kate sighed which sounded like bellows when the air exited her nostrils. “How much?” 

“$59.33” 

“That was all we had!” She came down on him, slapping him about the head and shoulders. He pushed her and she fell to the ground. He stomped off to the door. Sniffled once, before he turned back to the sprawled figure on the ground, just as feral as when he first found her. Those molten eyes staring up at him. 

“The séance is tomorrow night. Come if you want.” He went inside. The door clacked shut. From out of the flatlands came the ‘who-whowho’ of a spotted owl. 

---