Patreon LogoYour support makes Blue Moon possible (Patreon)

Wooing in the Wild West {Nothing_Is_As_It_Seems & Mr Master}

Jacob Dunnaway had been the youngest cowpoke his trail boss had ever worked with when he’d first started out. That was a few years ago; Jake was now merely an unremarkable-looking young man, his trail experience not being the sort of thing that was visible from the outside. On his way back to Texas, he’d stopped off in Tucson; he needed a bit of a break, and he was still flush with his share of the cash from the San Francisco stockyards, so he decided to spend a little time in the town. Even got his brown hair cut nice and trim, kept himself shaved up, and lived like a regular townie for a little while, just to see what it was like, though he had a hard time feeling comfortable in one of those store-bought suits, so he kept to his usual trail outfits; he just kept them clean.

He started coming to the Donahue for one reason: a barmaid by the name of Victoria. He wasn’t usually shy about showing his affection for a pretty girl, but there was something about this Victoria that made his ears get hot and his tongue get all awkward and in the way. Most of the time he just kept his blue eyes on the cards that were usually in front of him, when she was looking.

Like everyone, he’d been interested in what was going on down in Tombstone. The Earps were well-known, Holliday was outright famous, and the Cowboy faction was large and reasonably popular. A conflict between all those people had people a-buzz, Jake among them. Unfortunately, some of the folks interested in the news didn’t have simple curiosity about current events in mind.

“Ain’t right,” said the man with the shaggy dark hair and beard, looking more like a lumberjack than a Cowboy. “Gunnin’ them down like that. Friends of ours; man ought DO something.”

The bronze-skinned half-breed at the table nodded, but the skinny man with the twitching mustache laughed harshly. “What do you expect to do, Kansas? Ride on down there and shoot ‘em yourself? You know the Earps are expecting something like that.”

The fourth man at the table was leaning back with his hat pulled down over his eyes; he looked like he was sleeping, despite the shot glass balanced on his chest. But he proved he was listening when he rumbled “Don’t mean it’s not a good idea.”
 
Jake eyed the table of Cowboy roughnecks as they talked with Victoria. She handled herself well, as she always did, but he didn’t like the surly foursome. They’d been hanging around Tucson about as long as he had, and they hadn’t acquitted themselves quite as civilized as he had. Many people out here rather respected those who belonged to the Cowboy faction, despite their outlaw tendencies, but the foursome in question weren’t respectable types.

Still and all, Victoria came away from them, and back to the bar, just as Jake sauntered up. He smiled at her and tried not to blush. “Another, if you don’t mind, ma’am,” he said softly, barely audible over the noise of the bar. He’d have spoken louder, but nerves did that to him, made him quieter, meeker. He supposed he was lucky he didn’t stammer.

Kansas John Tucker watched the pretty serving girl retreat back to serving yokels and yahoos at the bar, and muttered to his table-mates: “She’s got a point, though. If the Earps and Holliday hear tell someone’s coming, they’ll have their guard up. This thing we wanna do works best if it’s all secret. It’s a problem if anybody hears tell of our plans, even if it’s from a woman.”

The half-breed nodded, leaning in. “True,” he said, and fell silent.

After a moment, the slender man with the mustache (Kansas John’s cousin) stared at him. “A minute ago, you were talking a mile a minute with that girl, now you gone back to being all silent and enigmatical. What’s the matter, Two-Feathers, your partners ain’t good enough to talk to?”

Cherokee Dan Two-Feathers looked back at Bill “Two-Gun” Tucker and leered. “Partners won’t fuck me if I charm them with medicine words.”

“Be that as it may,” rumbled the fourth man, their ostensible leader, Tom Hickock (no relation), “Kansas John has spoken a truth. Our pretty waitress knows a bit more than I’m comfortable her knowing. We’ll have to take steps she doesn’t share her knowledge… one way or another.”
 
“Oh, it was quiet,” he said softly, blushing very slightly. He was aware that something was off about her approach, something slightly different about her smile, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. “Starting to get a little bit dull, though. I’m not usually in a town this long. How… how about yourself?”

This could shape up to be their longest conversation, if he could keep her from running off to her job and could keep himself from falling into an embarrassed silence.

His ears could have picked up the conversation from the other table, but he didn’t realize it was relevant. Shortly thereafter, however, the men all leaned together over their drinks and lowered their voices, perhaps aware that their previous comments were ill-advisedly loud. Their sudden attention to secrecy was as worrisome as what she had initially overheard.
 
“I, I, I,” Jake stammered for a moment, eyes wide, before clearing his throat and nodding. “I would be very pleased to be your traveling companion, ma’am,” he said. “When, ah, when were you thinking about heading out?”

At the table, four heads were held close together, so their discussion could be private. They’d already discussed whether they could just intimidate her, and rejected that course of action as being insufficient. Hickock shrugged. “Killin’ her would be safest. No whispers sneakin’ out.”

Two-Gun nodded. “Been a long time since I killed a bitch, anyway. ‘Cept for redskins and Mexicans, of course.”

“Of course,” agreed Kansas Joe, “but wouldn’t she be better as our private piece? At least for a while. I mean, whores, you have to pay.”

Cherokee Bill smiled. “Fuck medicine always stronger not wasted on words.”

Hickock finally sighed. “All right. How about we wait till she’s going back to her rooms after closing, and we grab her and keep her as our fuck pet, but if she gives us too much trouble, we kill her on the spot. Work for y’all?”

The other men nodded. The nominal leader nodded as well, then glanced around against further eavesdroppers. “Now, soon as we got that settled, I say we ride on over Tombstone way before dawn, and…”

They began making some plans for their revenge against the Earp brothers, confident that Victoria wouldn’t pose any sort of challenge for their skills.
 
“Tonight?” Jake’s brow furrowed. “That’s mighty short notice. Is there… is there trouble?” He felt bad asking about it, but it was extremely suspicious. “I’m not opposed to it, I figure it’s all the same to me, but I just gotta ask why? If we’re gonna be traveling together, I ought to know what I’m settin’ my boots into.”

Now that he thought about it, she’d been acting a bit squirrelly, albeit an adorable one, ever since she came over to talk to him. It was only when she roused his suspicions of the situation that he recognized what he’d been seeing; he’d been too far inside his own head to put it together before now.

And she kept casting glances over at that table of Cowboys. He personally didn’t have much use for the faction; they were brigands, more often than not, and no amount of spreading the wealth or highfalutin’ airs would improve that. He actually thought that them taking the name Cowboys to talk about their little faction sullied the name of actual cowboys all over the West.

He didn’t focus on them; if there was indeed something up about them, he knew well enough not to draw attention. But he leaned forward and dropped his voice so only Victoria could hear. “They been threatenin’ you, Victoria?”
 
He watched her carefully. Once she put her drink back down, he leaned forward to get into her view, and when she looked at his face, he smiled gently. “I’m honored you thought of me. An’ I’ll try not to recognize that I’m the only likely guy in the bar tonight. But what’s important right now is planning. You don’t got on a trail ride without planning, as best you can.”

He summoned up his bravery and put his hand on hers, cupping it around her glass. “I was lookin’ to get a mite more active, anyway. Seems like a change in location until the heat dies down might be ideal.” He risked a wink at her. “I think you might want to just tell another waitress to tell your boss you quit, and head over to the boarding house and get your things. I just need to stop by the hotel, I can meet you at the livery stable.”

He heard chairs scraping against the floor, as the foursome in question rose and pushed through the remaining crowd toward the door, weaving just a little bit. No doubt to gather their own things before embarking on whatever lawbreaking they were going to do. He risked a glance over at the departing thugs, then leaned forward. “They’re leaving. If you go out the back, I can go out the front, and we meet at the livery. Agreed, Victoria?”
 
Her admission of … well, he didn’t see it as admitting fear so much as being properly cautious about the kind of villains and roughnecks that these Cowboys could be. But whatever one were to call it, her admission of her feelings suddenly cast him in the role of protector, and as such, he no longer had the leeway to be all nervous and skittish-like around her.

He took her hand fully in both his own, and said gently “Hey,” repeating himself until she looked him in the eye. “You got a hell of a problem staring you in the face. Ain’t nothing wrong with being cautious about it. I’d be happy to go with you. Safety in numbers being more important than speed, I’d think.” He paused and raised an eyebrow. “Though only by a nose.”

He let her go, and fished in his pocket for some coin to pay for his drinks. He didn’t want any debts to be hovering over his head when he left town. “You best tell someone you’re heading out. We’ll go… let’s see, the boarding house is up the street, and the hotel and the livery stable are down the street, so let’s go to your boarding house first. I’ll help you carry your bags.” His grin was meant to be reassuring. Mentally, however, he was counting how many reloads he had in his belt loops. He knew how to use a pistol, same as any range hand; he was even a decent shot. He wasn’t, however a gunfighter by any means, and he hoped they didn’t have to get into any gunplay, on their way out of town or ever.
 
"All right, then," Jake said. "Let's hit the trail."

Out in the night, his ears were alert to the smallest of sounds, and his palm rested on the butt of his pistol. He had his left arm proffered for Victoria, like a proper gentleman in town, but his right was free in case he needed his pistol. While he kept his eyes out for the four Cowboy men, he kept up a gentle patter in what he was hoping came off as a reassuring tone.

"Now, don't you worry none. We'll get out of town, and keep to the back country for a while. I've done ridden these cattle trails around here for near ten years, now; I know the way backwards and forwards. True, it's not cattle season, but that don't change the landmarks none. Have you ever been out to California? San Francisco is a sight to see, I tell you. There's talk of building a great steel bridge over the mouth of he bay, one of these years. Wouldn't that be something?"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom