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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 2192164" data-attributes="member: 8530">Chapter 110, “Another Busy Morning”, Thursday, January 12th, 1882:Early Thursday morning Ruby lies draped over Jake, awake but with her eyes closed, taking in the moment. Jake’s wakes up and tries to quietly slide himself out of bed but Ruby opens her eyes and watches him. Before he can get out of bed she puts her hand on his thigh to stop him.  “Do you have to go to the bank?” she asks sleepily. “Yesterday morning was so nice, I don’t want you to go, I want you to stay…” Ruby sits up and throws her arms around Jake from behind, letting her long hair fall over his shoulder. She whispers in his ear, "What can I do to make you stay here with me?" "I don't have to go to the bank." Jake leans back so they both fall over back into bed. "But I told you yesterday I'm trying to get Chester a job there so I can quit. I'd like the Condon brothers to think I'm a good guy. They have money and control much of the town. So me getting out of bed is an investment. One that pays off in not having to get out of bed in the very near future." Jake worms his way around to face Ruby. "I do hate getting up early. And more so hauling my ass out of bed with you in it." He struggles through the bedclothes a bit to get his arms around her. "Look, I'm not accustomed to building so many relationships in a town. It takes a little time and effort. It wouldn't matter how late I stayed in bed if I was going to bolt from this little spot of depravity in the next couple of weeks. It appears, however, that I need a different way of operating than I am accustomed to." He notices the confused look on her face. "I need to get up one or two more times early so I don't have to anymore." He says with a smile. "I'll explain it again when you wake up."   “That’s the problem, you’re not going to be here when I wake up. I’m going to be alone.” Ruby gives him a halfhearted smile. “Why do you need a different way of doing things? You can still do what you want.” "That my dear Ruby West is an excellent question." Jake extricates himself from the bed. "The silver mine is worth significantly more if I hang around for some extended period of time." As he is putting on his clothes. "If I keep behaving like I have in the past, I'll need to move on in a few months or even weeks. I think you understand that. Give me some time to sort this out." He pulls his boots on. "If I need to blow this town, well... I've never run with a woman before. And we've not talked about it." He stretches his arms and yawns. "Hermes save me woman, give me a little time to sort this out first." He gives her a smile and a kiss on the head before he picks up his gun belt and throws it over his shoulder. Jake sees a flash of surprise cross Ruby’s face. “You would take me with you if you had to leave here?” "Uh, well, not if you're kicking and screaming' against it. If you wanted to come..." Jake doesn't finish the sentence.   Ruby relaxes and smiles for real. “I would go with you Jake,” she whispers then pauses. “Alright, alright I’ll give you time to sort things out. I won’t ask you to stay again.” As he kisses her on the head Ruby smiles wider and gives a slight purr. “You just make sure to let me know that even though you have to leave me you really don't want to.” “Now since I am already awake I am going to get up and get something done today.” She drags herself out of bed and gets her stuff together. “Have a good day, I’ll see you later.” Ruby gives Jake a kiss then with a smile she starts to slip out the door but he grabs her arm and pulls her back in. "Er, there is something you ought to know about the Lone Star." Jake scratches his beard. "Grumpy Tom asked me if I wanted to buy the whole thing, not just partner. He and his father have no intention of leaving Maggie behind. Now Maggie may have other ideas." Jake rubs some more sleep out of his eyes. "I figure either way is not a problem for you. You could be a partner if you want, or you could let the chips fall where they may. If all the Whipples go back to Denver, they'll be an opening at the Comique. So even if the Lone Star burns to the ground you can work if you want to. Tom didn't want me to tell anyone, not that I give a rat's tail about him. But they have it in for Maggie I think, to make sure that she doesn't look able to manage the place so they can drag her home." He straps on his gunbelt and finishes. "Look, I'm willing to help you or Katherine to some extent if you really wanted to own a saloon, but I'm no saloon manager. I'd hate to see Katherine fail at ranching because she was tied up trying to run a saloon. So I didn't say anything last night." He grabs his hat and drops it on his head. "And I'm not going to say anything today. Now if Ruby hears something, somewhere about the Whipples selling the whole saloon and wants to convince Jake with her womanly ways to help her with that saloon..." He grins and opens the door for her. "...we can talk later." “The whole thing, huh?” Ruby gets lost in thought for a moment then snaps back. “I’m not worried about a job, I can find one anywhere. I don’t have any particular love for Maggie myself but Kate does… I’m sure those men think she can’t do it just because she is a woman, and that’s not very fair. Although like I said, I haven’t seen anything from her to prove otherwise and I don’t want to be Maggie’s babysitter.” Ruby furrows her brow, “Where would we get all that money from? Maybe Tom knows someone else who knows something about running a saloon to partner with us and they could run it.” Ruby straightens Jake’s gunbelt and tugs on his jacket. “You know, it occurs to me that we do a lot of talking,” Ruby smiles at him. “I hope that there are some other qualities that you like about me too…” Ruby stands on her toes and gives Jake another kiss. “I’m off. I hope we have time to talk about it later before I have to work.” Ruby start walking away then stops, "Oh and I think convincing Jake with my womanly ways has become my specialty..." Ruby gives him a glance over her shoulder as she walks down the hallway. "Heh." Jake says to himself watching her saunter away to her room. He shakes his head, "I'm doomed." He goes down stairs whistling, mangling one of the songs from last night. He burns himself on a cup of coffee and has a quick bite of breakfast before stumbling over to the bank a bit bleary eyed. He pushes his hat down closer over his eyes, the morning sun feeling a bit too bright. "Where is that Chester Martin, I need to talk to him before the bank opens." Chester wakes up bright and early as is his habit. He cleans and reloads his rifle and revolver. If I'm going to stay around here, I'll need a more permanent place to live. It's not fair for me to take up a room that the Gonzalez's can rent out to someone else. But first, I'll try to keep a job for more than one day. The ex-soldier washes his face and changes into some of his working clothes. Time to check on the horse. Still need a name, though. He straps on his gun belt as he walks down the stairs. In the common room, Chester catches sight of Jake. "Good morning, Mr. Cook. I hope you had fun at the party. I sure enjoyed myself." "Easy Chester, don't talk so loud. And quit being so damn cheerful." Jake replies with a wince. "Listen, I put a good word in for you with Morand Cartage. They will be needing some security help on the Fisk Mountain run. It's up to you if you are interested." Jake stretches and flexes his arms. "Yah, I did have a good time. I've got to lose this job so I can sleep in. Anyway, I was saying... If you play your cards right with Morand you could probably convince him to have you handle security. Maybe even start your own little service. Up to you though. I don't give a rat's tail either way. You figure out how to juggle between the bank and that, or pick one over the other. You're a big boy." Jake rubs his hand across his eyes, "I could use a drink. That'll have to wait though, first my business with Condon."  Then Jake gets sly grin on his face, "The available women at the cantina are getting taken up quickly. Seems like you are missing out." He gives the solder a gentle punch in the arm.Ruby gets back to her room and starts getting ready for her trip. She puts on a travel skirt and shirt and covers it with her long, black velvet jacket. She quickly pins her hair up and adds a hat that has a long piece of material hanging from the back, to try to hide her hair a bit. She looks at the time and hurries down the stairs. She grabs an apple and a muffin from Dorita. As Ruby grabs her breakfast on the run from Dorita she hands her a small package "Sonoma thinks you may need this and so do I. Make a tea 1 teaspoon of leaves every morning and drink it... it will keep unwanted packages from showing up at your door"Ruby makes her way to the stage office to buy a ticket to Tombstone. She purchases her ticket and waits for the stage to be ready. Ruby adjusts her dress and walks over to the stage to get on. Chuck Nevers holds the door open for Ruby and she steps inside. She is the first passenger to board. Two more people, apparently a couple, enter behind her. The man is around thirty with long dark hair and a pockmarked face. The woman beside him is around the same age, chubby, missing a few teeth and has unkempt hair. Both are wearing tattered clothing and smell as though they have not bathed in weeks."Thanks Mr. Nevers," says Ruby as she climbs on board.  She tries to keep from making faces at the smell coming from across the aisle and makes sure to sit near the window. One more person enters. The door is no sooner shut when the stage begins to move, getting off a little later than scheduled. Ruby immediately recognizes him as Deputy Marshall Morgan Earp. He also recognizes Ruby and has a semi-panicked look on his face. He starts to sit beside the couple but his sense of smell rules out and he gets back up and sits beside Ruby instead.Ruby extends her hand to Morgan.  "Mr. Earp, how nice to see you again," she says with a mischievous smile. "And you Mrs. Cook," he states. He adds "I appreciate what you and your husband did for me the other day. I wouldn't be alive today otherwise." A brief flash of annoyance crosses Ruby's face before she regains her composure and gets the smile back and says, "Jake Cook is not my husband."Earp replies, "He isn't? But I thought....ah, I get it. Baxter was too drunk to get it right yet again. I'll be glad when Clum runs that guy out of town."  She says, "Do I look like the type of girl who would be married? But never mind that. I am also NOT a prostitute in case you still had questions. Yes that drunk Baxter got the entire story wrong.  But I will take the thanks for helping you the other day." Ruby looks him straight in the eyes. "Katherine Kale is really the one you should be thanking.” He turns his head slightly so that he is no longer looking Ruby in the eyes and says "Well, be sure to thank her for me then."Ruby says with a snip, "Tell her yourself. Although I am not sure you should even try to talk to that woman with all the rumors and all..." Morgan doesn't respond to Ruby's quip and she thinks she should leave it at that.   She says, "So, what business do you have in Tombstone today Marshall Earp?" she says with a flip of her hair. She glances at the couple across from her. They haven't done anything suspicious... yet.  He says, “My brother Virgil called for me. There's been some trouble there that he needs some help with." While they talk the couple sitting diagonally across the stage begin conversing with each other in a language that Ruby suspects in Russian.   She answers, What kind of trouble? Anything I should be concerned about since I'll be spending the day?  Ruby keeps her eyes on the smelly Russians.   Morgan says, "Nothing you're not already all too familiar with. The Cowboy Gang went after another stagecoach. You managed to be on stages that outran them twice but this one they caught. Virgil has a pretty good idea who was involved and asked if Wyatt could spare me to help out." 'Who do they think was involved?" she asks.   He replies, "I'll find out when I get to Tombstone. Something like that Virgil wasn't going to put in the note."  She says, "Interesting. So that doesn't even have to be the real reason you were called to Tombstone." Ruby looks out the window. "I hope you find whomever the real bad guys are, Marshall Earp." Ruby decides she's had enough with the questions so she keeps looking out the window and only occasionally glances at the Russian couple. Katherine rose in the morning and dressed in a dark red dress. She styled her hair simply, leaving it to hang loose behind her back and using the clip from Mr. Gonzales to pull back the front. A matching hat and black gloves finished the ensemble. She picked up her small purse and went downstairs.  "Have you seen Ruby this morning?" she asked Dorita.  Dorita replies, "She's already gone out, in quite a hurry." Kate says "Oh. Well. I guess I'll see her later then. Thank you."  Kate started across the room. "Katherine, you've had no breakfast," Dorita called from behind her. Kate just shook her head and waved as she slipped out the door. If she stopped to exchange words Dorita would have her sitting with a plate in minutes. She hurried toward the land office. After that she would have to go see Mr. Berg, and then head over to the Long Branch. If that went well she'd have to ride out to the ranch, and still be back for her lessons that afternoon. There was no time to dawdle. Katherine walked into the land office.  "I'm sorry to disturb you Mr. Winston, I know you're busy."  The man looked up a bit distractedly. "Mrs. Kale. Your deed won't be ready until tomorrow."   She replies, "Yes, I know. I hoped I could ask you about another matter. Do you recall anything strange about the transfer of land between Hamilton Fisk and Flint Greymountain?"He goes to his books and looks up the transaction. "Can't really tell you about it. Fisk handled that himself, I just recorded it after the fact." "That's quite unusual isn't it? When I spoke to Mr. Greymountain yesterday, he was under the impression that Hamilton Fisk was the land officer. I suppose it could have been just a misunderstanding. But I'm fairly certain Mr. Fisk wasn't confused when he charged $100 an acre for the land. I don't suppose Mr. Fisk was serving as the local land officer last March?"Winston says "Fisk is a lawyer. Any lawyer licensed in the Territory can handle the legal paperwork for a land transaction, he and Berg both do it fairly regularly for out of town investors. But I have to do the actual filings.   As to a selling price, land around here used to go for only $ 1.25 an acre due to the Desert Lands Act of 1877. You could buy up to 160 acres at that price. That didn't last for long around here, since silver was discovered in Tombstone back in '77 as well. The Territorial Governor sensed a land rush so he quadruped that price to $ 5.00 an acre for the four southeastern counties. Most of the rest of the state you can still get for the lower price.  Fisk bought all the hills to the southeast near town around two years back. He's free to sell them to whoever he wishes at whatever price they'll pay.""Of course he is. But Mr. Greymountain told me that he and his partner had bought their land, unclaimed, directly from the Arizona Territory. But of course, the possibility that Mr. Fisk claimed to be the Deputy County Recorder doesn't change his legal right to sell the land at whatever price he chooses.  Thank you for your time, Mr. Winston. We made our deposit yesterday. I'll be back for the deed tomorrow. Good morning." Kate turned to leave the office.Kate left the land office a bit disappointed. She hadn't really expected Mr. Winston to know anything, but she thought he'd at least be upset at the idea the Fisk had been masquerading as the County Recorder. But he was very busy, after all, with other things on his mind. She made her way to Mr. Berg's office and went inside.  "Good morning. I'm Mrs. Katherine Kale. Jake Cook dropped off a deed for you to look at yesterday, I'm here to inquire about it."Berg replies, "Oh yes, Mrs. Kale. I saw you testify two days ago in court. Yes, I've looked over the deed. It's legit, issued by the Arizona Territory Land Office. So, have the owners managed to find anything on the land?"  She says, "Nothing to speak of. Sadly, Mr. Greymountain's partner was killed last week. Stabbed by cattle rustlers whom he witnessed crossing their claim. Mr. Greymountain has decided to ranch the land instead. Myself and two partners have purchased 200 acres of adjacent land to combine with his claim. When we informed him of our purchase, he was surprised to learn that Mr. Hamilton Fisk was not the land officer. He believed that he and his partner had bought the claim directly from the Arizona Territory for $100 an acre. The land office shows the land being transferred from Fisk to Mr. Greymountain and his partner.  Is there any way Mr. Fisk can attempt to reclaim that land from Flint?"He answers, "No, your Mr. Greymountain owns the whole thing then fair and square unless his partner willed his half to somebody else." Berg shakes his head "And if you haven't figured it out already, Fisk is slime. I'm sorry to hear that he's taken advantage of your friend." "So was I." Kate took the deed back and tucked it inside her purse. "I just wish there was something to be done. There is no way to prove Mr. Fisk misrepresented himself as the land officer. It would be Flint's word against Fisk. Thank you Mr. Berg. What do I owe you?"  He answers, "Nothing at this point my dear. But if I ever have enough evidence to bring a real case against Fisk I'll want your and your friend to testify about this." Kate smiled. "Thank you. Perhaps some day Flint will be able to find his partners papers. They may be helpful." Kate offered her hand. "Thank you for your help."Kate left Mr. Berg's office and headed toward the Long Branch. This was the part she wasn't sure of. She hoped Conrad Booth might be there; then she could ask his advice before approaching Cole. Kate stepped inside the saloon and looked for Mr. Booth or someone who was employed there. The Long Branch is close to deserted. The only person around is a female wood elf who is washing down the tables. She tells Kate "The Saloon won't be open until noon." "I'm sorry. I should have realized. I'll come back later." A few blocks away, Jake had seen one of the Condon brothers approaching the bank and waved. "Here we go Chester, remember what I told you. And keep it to yourself." Jake and Chester head up to the door and wait for him. Frank Condon lets them into the bank. He shows Chester where two loaded rifles and two loaded shotguns are stored for easy access by employees but out of the sight and reach of customers. He then takes them into the vault. The large walk-in vault with shelves lined with bags. "We keep the money in here. There's always one open money bag for the tellers for easy access, but the rest of these bags are all dummies, with a few real bills on top and there rest dummy money, mostly confederate bills. There's a false floor under our feet and the bags of real money are usually stored beneath the floorboards, although we're a little shy of cash at the moment."Jake waits until Frank Condon has finished showing Chester Martin the bank routine and 'secrets'.  "Mr. Condon, can I talk to you a minute while Chester keeps an eye on things?" The two of them go over to a corner of the bank. "Mr. Condon, some substantial business opportunities have made themselves available to me and in order to pursue them I need to resign from your employment. You did me a favor by giving me this job, and I don't want to walk out on you and leave you stuck. I'll continue to make myself available to you while you try out Chester, or find some other suitable replacement. I hope we'll be able to continue to do business together, I believe I will continue to need the services of your bank. This probably works out as a good time seeing the risk to the vault is low right now. But that's between us."Condon replies, "I heard rumors about you being a partner in that new mine. Heard tell that your first ore load came to nine grand. Also heard that the First National got all of the banking. If you're inclined to move your share over here I'd be more than happy to let Mr. Martin help guard it.""So let me be clear, I'm not making my business with you contingent on having Mr. Martin over there," Jake points his thumb over his back, "being your bank guard." Jake gets a little closer to Condon. "I didn't pick the bank for the mining operation, that was done by the senior partners. I did see that Chester Martin knows how to shoot a gun and is fairly courageous. Beyond that, you decide who your bank guards are." Jake offers Frank Condon is hand in a handshake, "I have some money in your bank, and will soon have some more. Take care of it." He gives him a wink. "And let me know if you need some assistance while you figure out about your guard situation.""I have a question now that needs your banking expertise." Jake takes out a brand new $20 bill. "Do you bankers know what new bills you get by serial number. And perhaps what customer may have gotten them if you do?" He says "Yeah, but most new bills go to the other bank rather than here. They're the ones who trade assayed metal for hard currency with the Government. Let me check that one out." He heads over to a ledger book and checks the number. He looks back up at Jake and says "Close but no cigar. It's around a thousand higher than the numbers on the twenties in my last Government shipment from three weeks back. They delivered to both the First National and the bank in Tombstone on that same day so it was probably in one of their batches." "OK, thanks. I'll be around town." Jake walks over to Chester. "It's all yours soldier. Take good care of it. And only shoot the bad guys." Jake gives him a pat on the shoulder and heads out of the building to Morand Cartage.</blockquote>

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