Missing?” She asked, snagging on a section of Taggert’s fur with her comb as attention lifted from hands to Clint in the doorway of her tent. The dog whined and Missy hushed at him, coaxing the beast’s still damp neck back into her lap to resume combing the tangles of dried blood there. At her side, she’d filled a small, wide-mouthed glass with water that had since been tinged a darkening shade of pink with each cleaning path she took across the animal’s mottled grey and white coat. Taggert whined, looked toward Clint with sidelong eyes and endured. “Well, where are they?”
“Dead, probably.” Clint replied, “don’t survive too long in a cave-in. Not the way a man’d want to.”
“Mm.” Added dismissively, her focus back on her work. The big man had been able to glean -third hand- from one of his men what had transpired in the town center in his absence. Three men, armed, had tried to rob he bank. Pretty standard Western fare, so far as he’d come to learn of the region. What did they expect with a retired fat man as their guard and the sheriff’s station tucked a short walk away? It was an especially ugly smudge on the town’s façade that he’d noticed almost immediately upon arriving. All of it -the entire town- had been thrown together with intent first and design last. Not entirely surprising, considering these towns usually lasted only as long the nearby mine was profitable.
Still. The amount of red being tracked in his mental ledger already far outweighed the blue. And they’d only been there a few hours. He’d rode back to the camp, following a bloody pair of tracks and what looked like boot prints that’d been skipped across the dirt more than they’d been walked. A tub, tipped over and wasted of its remaining contents, told him Missy had found her way back safely. He had wished for something aside from military canvas to knock upon when he inquired to her decency before entering. He’d found her, dog in lap, her own silvery blonde hair undone from its braid and flung over one shoulder. Draped only in a baby pink peignoir that she’d cinched tightly around the middle.
“There’s more. Reporters in town, two of them. Sisters, or so the one says. Unloaded a printing press in that rundown shop across from the saloon. Found one of them up at the mine, poking around.”
“Mm.” Missy replied again, tilting the dog’s chin toward her chest to begin combing along where jaws had made ribbons of flesh. She’d dip the comb in darker still water, tap at the rim and continue.
“That’ll be a problem.” He reminded her, grabbing a chair that’d been hastily unpacked and taking to sit beside a large, heavy case he’d grabbed from the armory car.
Missy shrugged, smoothing over the area she’d worked through and giving Taggert a swift pat on his rear. He sprang up and shook vigorously, spraying the blonde, Clint and most of the room with residual bathwater. She shrieked playfully and shouted for the him to leave. Looking to Clint with a hint of exasperation, she’d narrow her eyes as she poured through recent experiences with reporters and their ilk. Lessons imparted from a less than scrupulous -if not paranoid- father intact, she knew Clint was right. He usually was as it came to intercept the unforeseen issues that so often got by the impulsive young woman. A spark behind blue eyes should’ve gave him a touch more unease than it did.
“So, my dear, I suppose we should get around her, yes?”
Clint snorted. There it was. That unease. “You want me to take her out in the desert? Show her a hole before I put her in it?” He was half joking. Though, it hardly would’ve been the first time that questions asked resulted in permanent answers.
Missy huffed, glaring. “
No. I want you to …
convince her.
Get around her. A few well-placed words in a piece have never worked to undo someone’s image, yes? Make her an ally. So that
we control the story.”
The big man tilted his head to the side. “That’s not really how it works.”
"Oh, Daddy doesn't own the newspapers back home?" He caught a flash there, of the hard nosed indignance that had helped her father climb the ladder. "Of course he does. Of course he does."
Lifting to her feet, Missy gathered her loose-fitting garment and moved to a row of trunks that’d been stacked against the far wall of her tent. Kneeling, one hand still clutching at her middle, she spoke without looking. “Besides, I took a cold bath today,” flashing him a look of extreme sincerity over her shoulder. “We’re all trying new things. What’s in the case?”
“Protection.” He paused, “you should’ve-“
She’d known what came next. The pause always preceded something he needed to say. “A weapon, I know, I know.” Pulling a silk blouse that bordered closer to silver than it did white, she’d begin searching for a new -not torn- pair of riding pants. Black, of course. She’d rather have been taken to the desert with that motley gang of bandits than be caught dead in petticoats or a dress. A point that had irritated her father to no end and one that Clint rather enjoyed about the girl. “I was anticipating this lecture. And I don’t know what you’re so upset about. I did just as you taught me, yes? Use what I have, don’t wish for what I want. Isn’t that it?”
He might’ve smiled then but said nothing.
Missy did, though it was more a smirk. Those who knew her personally would come to realize the two were virtually identical. “See? Turns out I do listen.”
“You’ve got that knife in your boot.”
“Hm,” turning to look at the blood and dust stained pair she’d kicked off. “Didn’t trust myself not to kill him.” Her false accent dropped a tone. “He …put his hands all over me.”
Clint’s mind went to a particularly forward suitor a younger Miss Huntington had been pursued by some years back. Hands must’ve coerced better judgement toward an area of her that sent the kid home with a broken nose and a missing front tooth. Clint hadn’t been there for the event. Only the cleanup.
“Heard you stomped him into the dirt.”
She giggled, cheeks flushing for only a second. “Taggert did most of the work. Now, shoo! I’ve got a luncheon I must attend.”
~
Whistling sharply -though nowhere close to the pitch Clint was able to hit- Missy began the walk to town. Followed closely by a now clean Taggert and two Huntington men; struggling with the case of whiskey between them. She found the saloon, dark and homey, bustling with a touch more patrons than her earlier visit. Only furthering her need to ingrain herself with the ever-stoic Miss Freeman and her seeming ability to stay alive even when everything around withered. She kissed twice and pointed, leaving Taggert to act as sentry for the Dusky Belle. A quick word with one of the elegantly dressed girls and she was behind the bar, through the halls and beaming at Victoria as she readied the kitchen. Sauntering in, as though she belonged, the girl hopped onto a counter.
With a heavy thud, the two Huntington men dropped the case and stood at attention. Missy, with a flourish of her hand, went to introduce them. “Miss Freeman, as promised. My lovely associates, a Mister Murphy and a Mister…” frowning slightly, she peered at the other man for a long while.
“
Higgins, Miss.” The man replied, not at all surprised she didn’t recall their earlier encounter.
“Yes, Murphy and Higgins here have volunteered to help finish whatever preliminary duties you have. So that we may chat more, oh, personally. So, please, consider them yours for the time being.” She clapped her hands twice and sprang from the counter. Clutching -gently- at Victoria’s arm, she’d take to loop her elbow with hers and tug politely toward the saloon front. Up a staircase they went, idling with her intent until she found a secluded table on a second-floor landing that overlooked the entrance. Crossing her legs, leaning back, Missy studied the woman with a cat-like intensity.
“You’re very good at that, you know. Your -erm modulation as it is.” Biting her bottom lip, she’d lean in, postured as though to divulge a secret. “Ya’ll,” she mimicked, “hush it! I could hardly tell the difference from you and, say, that one-armed man.” Not that she’d heard him speak directly. An educated guess as to what the noise a man like that made would’ve probably been closer to correct than not.
“So!” Folding her hands in her lap, she’d flash Victoria one last gleam of socialite charm. “Tell you what, you drop yours…” shedding the years of conditioning that’d been drilled into her in an instant, she’d pour a thick, southern drawl out from pink lips. “And I’ll drop mine. Figger it’s more honest this way."
Pleased with herself, she'd continue, "My daddy told me no one was ever gonna take me serious if I went around talkin' like this." She rolled her eyes. "And I said -'Daddy, everyone I know talks like this.' To which he said -'Yes, Missy. And everyone you know is a tiny fraction of the world.'" She released a long, wistful sigh. "He'd be over tha moon to know how right he is."
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