Kate pushed through one of the batwing doors, which squeaked on its swiveling hinge. A piano played, the music coming soft and slow, the notes being like warm sunshine on a cool day. Cigar and pipe smoke clouded heavy above the green felt tables, islands of mustachioed men playing cards. Sporting women, with bright hair and bright dresses, slid about the aisles holding trays of amber filled glasses. The orchestra of conversations, jokes, and flirting droned like a river.
Kate let the batwing go. It flapped on the hinge before it finally rested. An older man sitting at the head of an octogonal table had a direct view of the entrance and he stared right at her. He wore a vest and a ribbon tie and his white shirt was bleached and starched. His silver hair was well trimmed. He held a fan of five cards and puffed on a sleek pipe, his mouth lazily opening and closing on the stem. He kept looking at Kate, making no sign even as she nodded a greeting toward him. A subtle grin crept along his clean shaven cheek and he leaned in over the pot of chips and dollars there in the center of the table.
He must’ve been respected, for all the other seven men at the table, without hesitation, leaned their heads as well. The pipe smoking man whispered to them, his eyes still fixed on Kate, and when he was finished, leant back in his chair and puffing his pipe, all seven men turned their faces toward Kate and eyed her like she was livestock, their eyes traveling up and down her frame, taking her all in.
She stepped towards them. “I’m looking for a Mr. Hazeleton.”
The song on the piano came to an end and some folks clapped. A man toward the back of the saloon hollered the name of a ditty. The piano man began to play. Boots stomped. Folks clapped. Two sporting women skipped up to the piano, climbed up onto the upright back (with the aid of a couple of chairs and eager men), where they soon sat with their legs crossed, kicking their dainty feet, smiling with ruby red lips as they began to sing. Men whistled and hollered. But, the seven men kept staring at Kate.
“Y’all are a heap of trash,” she shouted, however the song drowned out most of the thrust of her voice.
The seven men frowned and turned back to the cards as Kate marched over to the bar. Most of the fellows at the bar were clapping and singing along, not paying any mind to the one armed woman scanning each of their faces. Still, there were other fellows who didn’t pay the music any mind and sat on their barstools, all hunched over their tumblers of liquor at the bar like hogs at the trough. She stood on tiptoe to glimpse over their shoulders or, if their elbows rested on the bartop,ducked low to peek through the space below their armpits. She tapped a couple of them on the back and they side-eyed her, only to huff and return to their drinking.
Kate herself huffed, pressing her lips up against the septum of her gargantuan snout, annoyed that she hadn’t found Bart Hazeleton. That’s when she spied the pipe smoking man.
He was up from his table, squeezing and excusing his way through the rollicking clientele, making his to the back of the saloon, whereupon he ascended a staircase (visible from the bar) to a mezzanine balcony where the Amador’s rooms were located. She watched him pass by a couple of doors till he stopped and knocked on the third.
“You must be Big Nose Kate?”
A man stood at the bar, his back to her, spying her in the reflection of the giant mirror on the wall behind the bar. His long brown hair was slicked back and draped over the shoulders of his buckskin jacket. He worked his little comb into a tin of wax, making motions like he was spreading butter over bread. Then he pursed his lips, gazed at himself in the mirror and combed the wax into that pencil thin mustache. He then smiled and said, “You need not answer. Your claim to fame is right there on your face.”
“I’m looking for Mr. Hazeleton.” She shouted over all the merry making.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, snapping the tin of wax closed. He stowed the little comb in a pocket of his buckskin jacket as he spun around to face her.“Read about you in the papers. Quite the escapade there with the Esau Slayer. Nothing like any of my episodes out in California, but daring nonetheless.”
“Mr. Hazeleton has a purple handkerchief in the front pocket of his jacket.”
“My name is Stick, perhaps you’ve heard me?”
The music stopped and the loud singing dwindled back down to a calm babbling. “I have not,” Kate said.
“Well, we can rectify that now.”
“Have you seen Mr. Hazeleton?
“I don’t know Mr. Hazeleton,” Stick said. “But, I am eager to make acquaintance with Dr. Magnus. He sounds like a fascinating fellow.”
Kate grit her teeth.
Up on the mezzanine, a pretty redheaded woman in blue came up to the railing beside the pipe smoking man. She chewed on a cigar, her hands gripped the rail, and when the pipe smoking man pointed down toward the bar, her emerald eyes locked on Kate.
Kate, though she fought against the notion, squirmed, and stepped up to the bar, squeezing in between Stick and another fellow so fat that the legs of the barstool bowed. Stick pivoted around to face the bar. “Care to buy the next round?”
“I will not be purchasing any alcohol for you,” Kate said.
Stick stared blankly at her a moment before he suddenly rapped his knuckles on the bar to a tune that only he could possibly interpret. “Ma’am!” He shouted and flashed a self-righteous smile. “Your slight is forgivable.”
“My slight?” Kate scoffed, sneaking a glance up at the mezzanine, but the redhead in blue still stared down at her. A smile on her pretty face. Kate flinched, averting her eyes, acting like she wasn’t trying to spy out the mezzanine.
“For two reasons,” Stick held up two fingers. He folded them down as he continued. “One, you’re a woman and, two, your rudeness must be rooted in ignorance.”
“I suspect you will enlighten me.”
“Of course. My adventures have carried me far and wide. I’m a man of the world and I’ve learned a thing or two. See, saloons possess an etiquette all their own, ma’am,” Stick said, looking into the mirror, fixing his long brown hair so that it draped with balanced thickness on each shoulder. “An etiquette that you’ve infringed upon. It’s customary for the new arrival at the bar to purchase her neighbor a drink.”
“Well, I possess two reasons as to why I will not be purchasing any alcohol for you,” Kate held up two fingers herself. “One, your deplorable etiquette only perpetuates the sins of sloth and drunkenness, which I cannot in good conscious abide, and two, you’re just a plush-lined toilet seat looking for a handout.” Kate watched the redhead in blue as she walked across the mezzanine and down the stairs into the main area of the saloon.
Stick stopped looking at himself in the mirror and pivoted to face Kate. “I ain’t going to take that sort of talk from a woman. Especially one ugly enough to scare a buzzard off a gut wagon.”
“I have heard that one before.” Kate quit the man, moving to leave the area of the bar, but then the redhead in blue caught her eye. She was walking her way, toward the bar through the card tables of men. Through the haze of smoke that lingered about her shining face. Men, hunched over their poker hands, straightened their necks, lifted their heads as she passed, but the redhead took no notice. Her eyes narrowed in on Kate. The redhead walked coolly, yet every move, from the placement of her heel, to the swing of her left arm, to the slow raising of the cigar to her red lips, even the slow draw were not at the mercy of any untamed desire or spontaneous thought, but governed by an icy will of a predatorial discipline. The pipe-smoking man followed like a dog.
Kate stood there at the bar, pushing her knees forward, so that she could stand as straight as her humped back would allow. She tilted her head a little, aiming her big nose toward the ceiling at a very slight angle.
Stick grabbed her arm. “We ain’t finished, lady.”
“Let go of me.”
“Not till you apologize.”
“I will not,” Kate struggled against his grip on her left arm. A barstool fell. The piano man stopped playing. All quieted in the saloon to a whispered murmuring. “Let go of me!” She kicked at him, but Stick shook her like she was a rat and he was a terrier. “Not till I learn you some manners!”
The redhead slapped Stick right across the cheek. Stunned, his grip weakened and Kate snatched her arm free, stumbling a little as she moved to the redhead’s side. Stick went to pull his pistol, but there another revolver had already been pulled and cocked by the pipe-smoking man. Stick froze.
“I was surprised.” His voice trembled and as he flashed a nervous smile. “Surprised is all. You can’t blame a man for being a little jumpy.”
The redhead had a hand on her hip. She drew on the cigar then parted her lips, letting the smoke drift out of her mouth on its accord.
“You pulled your pistol after being struck by a woman,” the redhead said. “And I am unarmed.” She bit the cigar as she performed a mock curtsey. The saloon rumbled from the quiet laugh of the men at the tables.
“I wasn’t pulling on you, ma’am,” Stick said, slowly holstering his pistol. The pipe smoking man’s gun lingered a moment longer, still aiming at Stick’s face, before he too uncocked the hammer and eased it against the cylinder. Doubt left Stick’s eyes and they glazed over with a slimy confidence. He smiled at the pipe smoking man, working his tongue against the inside of the cheek that was smacked. Then, he blinked and his eyes shifted, focusing on the redhead. He rubbed his red cheek, still holding on to that weasley smile. “The beautiful Cora LaRouche.”
“Yes?” The redhead said. She held the cigar in her left hand, while her right remained on her hip. Kate stood behind Cora, perceiving the little silver revolver in the fancy holster located on the small of her back. But, only out of the peripheral of her vision. She didn’t move her eyes, lest she draw Stick’s attention. The fingers of Cora’s right hand, as far as Kate could tell without giving it away, crept closer and closer to the little pistol.
“I didn’t realize she was one of yours,” Stick said.
“Don’t talk so comfortably with me,” she said. “We ain’t familiar.”
“A man reads the paper. I’ve been in a few articles myself.”
She smiled. Her arm moved imperceptibly, as she wound her fingers around the grip and nestled her palm against the handle. “So, you’re another dude after fame and money.”
“I’m no dude. I’ve killed seven men. All fair fights.”
“About as fair as the one you were picking here with a one-armed woman?”
“She insulted me!”
Kate stepped forward. “Only after you tried to swindle a drink from me.”
The men in the saloon grumbled.
“I was only having a bit of fun with her,” Stick shouted so all could hear, but the faces on the men were nothing but scowls. Even the women standing out amongst them were wrinkled with anger.
“I think it’s time you leave, brother,” the bartender had come up. He stood opposite of Stick behind the bar. Stick glanced over his shoulder at him and then turned his sneer back on Cora. His eyes shifted toward the spitoon there between the stools under the bar. He worked his mouth and pursed his lips, aiming for the spitoon, but then he swiveled his face and spat, so the wad splashed between Cora’s shiny leather boots. “Sorry, ma’am,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “I missed.”
He stepped forward to leave, but Cora stopped him with the little pistol in her right hand. She pressed the barrel into his chest. “It’s only gentlemanly to buy a lady drink.”
Stick growled.
Cora drew on the cigar. The embers sizzled. She blew the smoke into his face. “I can assure you. I won’t miss.”
Stick fetched a quarter out of his pocket.
“Don’t forget Ms. Kate,” Cora said.
Kate raised an eyebrow.
“All I have else is a silver dollar,” Stick said.
“That’s awfully generous of you.” Cora grinned.
He slapped the dollar on the bar. “I won’t forget this.”
“Nor I,” Cora said, and she dropped the pistol from his chest.
He stared her down, then the pipe smoking man, and, lastly, Kate, before he stormed out of the Amador Saloon. The batwings flapped behind him as the piano began to play and the men at the tables turned back to their cards.