Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 3053397" data-attributes="member: 8530">Chapter 165, "Story Telling", Sunday, March 26th, 1882, 12:15 AM Kate says, "So, what are we doing tonight?"   "Drink, poker, tell stories, drink, have sex. How does that sound?" Ruby giggles.  Kate blushed rosy red and said, "I don't think the last one is on my agenda for the night, but I can play cards and tell stories." While everyone is relaxing and chatting Jake opens the wrapped package that Ruby accepted from Helen for him.   Kate mentions that Minerva may only be able to stay an hour or so.  "Even if she won't give us an hour or so, we'll take one." Jake chuckles. "OK, so I'll start." He grabs Ruby off the table and deposits her on his lap.  Jake tells about drinking a bit too much at a saloon in a small town in Missouri. "I don't even remember its name. I had a couple extra dollars in my pocket from poker and as usual there were whores hanging around the winners. One of them talked me into going back to her place."  "Only one, darling?" Ruby comments with a sly smile, "You must not have been doing too well that night."   He continues, "Ahem... Anyway, sometime before dawn this woman shakes me and is saying, 'I heard the door! Its my husband!' I rolled out of bed, stumbled around and pulled on my pants just as the bedroom door opened. This man just about roars and starts to draw his side arm. My guns and other stuff were across the room so I just panicked and dove out the window. As I hit the porch roof I remembered we were on the second floor. I did manage to grab a gutter and swing down before I broke my neck. The woman's rose bushes didn't fare so well though when my bare back landed on them." Jake winces. "Luckily it was dark and I couldn't see his face so I guessed he couldn't see mine. I went into town and bought some used clothes before going back to his house early." Jake shakes his head up and down in response to the looks of incredulity. "He had my Colt! So I show up pretending to be a tough looking bounty hunter. 'Heard you had a break in last night, I'm looking for an outlaw named Billy Bronson,' I tell him. Then I describe myself. He is embarrassed but before he can deny it, I offer him $5 for Bronson's stuff as evidence and clues to help me find him. I let him negotiate up to $10 for my gear and money; he asks me to keep the break in quiet. He hadn't searched through my clothes very well, so hadn't found my money stash. I hadn't planned on spending $10 on a whore, but I also didn't count on her husband collecting the fee for her." Ruby laughs, "I'd pay $10 to see you drive out the second story window. That must have been funny. Except for the murder of the poor woman's rose bushes of course."  Kate ignored her blushing and hoped everyone else would too. Kate says, "I'm afraid I don't have any stories quite that...exciting. This happened shortly after Papa returned from the war. We were all just getting used to him being home again, and speaking English again," she laughed. "While he was gone we all spoke French. Anyway, it was the first party my parents had given since Papa came home, and the first I was to be allowed to attend. I was seven years old at the time and so excited to be allowed to go to dinner and watch the dancing, even for a little while. So Maman got me dressed in my pretty blue dress with my little polished shoes and white stockings and a matching blue ribbon in my hair. It was very long then, down to my waist and curly but lighter than it is now. Well, a servant came with some emergency or another and I was left alone in Maman and Papa's room. A minute later my brother Henry came in. He was about ten years old at the time and chafing at the fancy clothes he had to wear. He dug in Papa's drawers and pulled out the boot-black. He wasn't supposed to do it himself, but just the fact that he wasn't supposed to made him want to do it. I, of course, started giving him a hard time about it. He had a cloth in one hand and a blacking brush in the other, and when I'd pushed him just a bit too far he flung the brush at me. Henry always had good aim, and the back of the brush smacked against the back of my head, rolled and slid down my hair, leaving it all black and sticky with polish. Of course I started to cry. Henry ran over and hugged me and said "I'll fix it Jacqueline, I'll fix it." Maman has always called me by my middle name and the boys had picked up the habit. Anyway, Henry sat me down and started brushing, thinking he could get the polish out. He tried dumping just about every bottle of anything Maman had on her vanity on it. I must have smelled like a bawdy-house, and I was still sticky. Finally Henry dug in a drawer and came out with a pair of scissors saying "I'm afraid it's going to have to come off." Oh, it was awful. Poor Maman came back to find all my pretty curls on the floor, her bottles empty, and her eldest son wielding a pair of scissors like a mad barber. Neither of us went to that party that night, and my hair never was curly again. It's gotten a little wavy again over the years, but sometimes I miss those curls," she laughed.Harry and Maria had already left for bed. Jeff Mills was still around, having checked the weapons and been doing some cleaning up in the main room. He wanders over to the table and says "I have an embarrassing story from my youth if anybody is interested." The group asks him to sit and join them and Jake pours the big man a drink. He begins, "I've told my background to Mr. Martin but not the rest of you. I was born back in western New York State. My Great-Grandfather had helped to build the Erie Canal back in the 1820's. He settled down on a plot of land on the canal that he bought from the canal owners. He worked it for the rest of his life, using mules to haul boats and barges along the canal and my Grandfather and Father did the same. That's what they were still doing when I was born back in October 1853. One day in spring of '58 a barge with livestock arrived to be towed west to east along the property. Grandfather and I were along the western depot while Father was a few miles east towing another barge. But Grandfather was asleep and with all of the wisdom of a boy not yet five I decided not to wake him, that I could do it myself. After all, I had seen them hook up the mule team to the barges lots of times before and I also had Linley to help, he was a freed ogre slave who worked with us. However, the part of the operation Linley didn't know was the knot tying to the barges, Father and Grandfather always did that part. But I could tie my shoes so I just tied the ropes the same. We got maybe a half-mile when my knots came untied. The barge continued on under its own inertia, pulling away from the shore. It ran aground along the opposite side, but hit the shore hard breaking some of the fencing holding in the cattle, who then wandered off the barge. It took the whole family the better part of the afternoon to round up all the stray cattle, so last week when I said I hadn't herded cattle ever before I guess that wasn't altogether true. Father wound up not only giving that barge free passage but having to pay $ 2 for the damages to the barge's fence."Nanuet says, I have a story more along the lines of Jake's. In the time that I have left my home I have traveled quite a bit. At first I was not so familiar with uh... local customs as I am now. I had been in a town for a few days and had been taking all my meals at a local saloon. I noticed one of the waitresses had been quite friendly with me, day after day, so finally one day I bought her a drink.”  Nanuet pauses for a moment watching Minerva's reaction before continuing. “So, one thing led to another and she led me to a back room. Next thing I know she is asking me for money! Five dollars I think it was. Now mind you I have no idea what a whore is at this point and had no expectations to be paying for anything. Five dollars was more money than I was making in a week and I had no way to pay. Suddenly I found myself running down the street dodging bullets from the bouncer of the saloon. Thankfully unlike Jake I still had my clothes on. As I have said before, I just don't understand your white man ways!”Minerva enjoys listening to the stories and laughs along with the others. She says, “Well, since we are coming to the festival of Dionysus, I shall share with you my first experience celebrating His greatness.  When I was growing up I had this friend named Talia. The gods had given her special talents also and she was really the only one that I could talk to about my own cleric abilities. I was in the habit of sneaking out at night to meet with her to study and practice my god given talents. Anyway, one spring night, when we were about fourteen and she was spending the night at my house, we decided that it was absolutely necessary to give tribute to the god Dionysus.” Minerva gets a faraway look in her eye and a small smile comes to her face as she fondly remembers the event. “We snuck into papa’s cabinet and borrowed several bottles of wine. We made our way to the beach and built ourselves a little fire and consumed every one of those bottles of wine in honor of Dionysus. Well next thing you know, the power of Dionysus having taken over our spirits, bodies and our minds, we ripped off our clothes leaving them in taters and started dancing and singing, very loudly, under the moon. It was a wonderful feeling, being filled with the power of the god, and we were having such a magnificent time. Now sometimes the gods speak to you in a funny way and Talia and I got the idea in our young wine filled heads, that Dionysus wanted us to spread the word to all the people, so we hopped our horses and rode through the town, singing his praises, covered by nothing more than our long dark hair. It was quite late at night and, fortunately for us, not many people were about. Now mind you we had left all of our clothes on the beach.” she chuckles. “Before Papa retired for the night he checked my bed and when he didn’t find me and Talia he went out looking for us. When he finally made his way to the beach all he found was several empty bottles of his very best wines and our tattered clothes. Well naturally he thought that evil had befallen us and so gathered together a search party. Having spread the word as much as we could, without falling off of our horses, we went back to the beach laughing and hooting and singing Dionysus’s praises. When we arrived at the water's edge, half the town was waiting for us”. Minerva laughs heartily, “I'll never forget the look in Papa's eyes. He put the switch to us that night. But I was never sure if he was more angry that we had scared him, that we had showed up naked or that we had drank all of his prize imported wine!”Jeff Mills lets out a loud belly laugh. He says "I had a similar experience with my encounter with alcohol, although in my case we kept our clothes on and it was with a keg of beer that belonged to my commanding officer. The punishment also included a visit to the woodshed and a switch. I was only eleven at the time."Kate says, "In my case we snuck out of boarding school. One of the girls had hidden a stash of sweets and wine out in the wilderness beyond the grounds. We climbed out our window in our nightclothes and had a grand party in the woods. I don't know how five drunk fifteen year old girls got back inside without getting caught. As it was, we only got punished for eating in bed, since we'd all crawled in with crumbs and such still on us. But I think the hangover was punishment enough.”   Minerva interjects, "Si, I do recall that the pain in my head the next day was far worse than the pain on my bottom!"Jake looks around at his friends and chuckles softly to himself. I don't even remember my first hangover. I don't even remember not being hung over. Good thing not everyone is like you Mr. Cook. Still it is nice to be able to have friends and not be run out of town. Jake reaches for his bourbon. "Here is to surviving hangovers. Seems like it takes more than that to slow this crew down."   Kate laughed. "I had a hangover for three months straight and still managed to do what I needed to. It does indeed take a lot more to keep us down."Jeff pours himself another glass of whiskey while Kate is talking and downs it. He follows up her comment with, "In my case seems like it is the entire United States and Confederate militaries who are still trying to keep me down, but I persevere. I want to thank all of you for accepting me for who I am . Other than Tom and Maggie Whipple you are the only ones since my folks died who haven't been wanting me just for their own selfish purposes."Jake says, "We are glad to have you, Jeff Mills. You are a stand up guy as far as we are concerned. Heh, the entire United States and Confederate armies have it in for you? Well you have done fine work there, a man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies, you know." Jake laughs and smiles at Jeff. "I don't think I can even top that one."Ruby says, "I hate to break the news to you Jeff, but we do have our own selfish purposes. You see, me and Mr. Cook here are very lazy, and if you weren't around then we'd have to do all that work ourselves," Ruby says with a huge smile on her face. She raises her glass, "To perseverance!" and downs it. Then she giggles, "That seems to be a common toast around here." "I suppose since we're telling stories about trouble I'll have to tell you mine too. Well, I mean, I have lots of stories about me and trouble, but I think this is a good one to start.  When I first left home I tried to play cards to make money. That way I didn’t have to have the schedule and responsibility of singing or dancing and could wander as I wanted to.” “Well one night I was sitting at the table in some town in South Dakota, I think it was anyway, and this group of cowboys came walking in the door. I kept my eye on them, guessing they would be trouble, but I didn’t have to look far. They came over and their leader joined into the game I was playing.” “We played about an hour when this guy started trying to bait people into making bets that were more than money. He bet one guy for his horse, another for his watch. Well when he got to me, he said ‘If you lose we sleep together.’ I laughed and replied, ‘I don’t sleep with anyone I’m not married to.’ She looks around the table at her friends, “Yes, yes, try to contain yourselves; I know the thought is ridiculous. Anyway, the game was nearing the end and I noticed this guy cheating. Regardless I had a really good hand so I wasn’t that concerned.” “Of course, I would come to regret ever stepping into that saloon on that night. His hand was better than mine and as I protested his cheating I heard the distinctive sound of guns cocking behind me. “He said… ‘Time to pay up on our deal ma’am’. I again protested, gently of course, that we had made no such deal but he wasn’t having my refusal. 10 minutes later we were standing at the priest’s door, who got the courtesy of a late night wake up call with a shotgun.” “Off to the church we went, the priest and I still at gunpoint. Kinda makes it hard to say no, if you know what I mean. So there I was saying ‘I do’ with a gun pointed at my head. He said, ‘I always wanted to have a little lady.’ I of course almost threw up. I had no idea what I was going to do.” “Next thing we know, another group of cowboys come barging into the church. Apparently they had some issues with my new husband. Shots were fired and the priest and I dove under the front pew. When the shots stopped we crawled out from the pew and as we rose off the floor saw the results of the fight. All around us were dead cowboys, including my new husband. The priest and I decided the best course of action would be to keep it to ourselves, that I said yes and that he preformed the ceremony, you know, under those circumstances. He said he’d take care of the wedding party. We shook hands and I got the heck out of town.” “I learned two lessons that night. One, I needed to get myself a gun, which I did. Two, I had better improve my card game, which I also did.” Ruby shrugs. “So that’s my story. You have to watch out for those cowboys and gamblers,” she laughs.   Mills pours himself another drink. "That's quite a story. I have no aversion to hard work Miss. Ruby, so you and Mr. Cook can continue to be as lazy as you would like."Ruby laughs. "Yes, I know, it IS quite a story. But trouble seems to follow me everywhere I go." She looks at Jake, her arms around his neck, trying to gauge his reaction. "But yes, Jeff, we are glad you are here." "And what a fun bunch of stories. Of course, at the rate we're going, we'll have LOTS of new stories to add."  Ruby pours herself and Jake another round of bourbon.Nanuet says, “I don't mind work either, and I am looking forward to getting started on that new addition. Maybe after the festival?   Ruby states, "Yes, we are starting soon. I already started speaking with Mr. Cassidy about the lumber. I have to talk to, what’s-his-name? About the bricks. My brain is slightly fuzzy at the moment."   Mills replies, "Sounds good Nanuet. The brickyard owners are Travis and Jem Calhoun. Travis plays at Job's table here on Monday nights. They haven't had any customers since we completed the third floor so they've just been making bricks for future sales. We could probably get not only a good price on the bricks but also get all four of their owners and employees to sign on to help us build."Ruby says, 'Well, perhaps we'll go visit them on Monday then instead of waiting until they show up here. Keep you boys busy and out of trouble!"   Kate laughs, "But if we keep them out of trouble, we won't get any more stories!"   Ruby laughs, "I'm sure both of them have plenty of stories! Besides no matter what we do, it seems the trouble finds us anyway." Jeff replies to Ruby's comment about visiting the brickyard, "That's probably a good idea given that Job said that you and he were swapping nights this week Mr. Cook. Travis didn't have a very good experience the only other time he played at your table. That was a couple of months back, when Job was in jail and Tom asked you to fill in. Tom asked you to let Travis win, so that he'd be in a good mood for the previous brick negotiation, but instead you beat the pants off of him. Boy, old Tomcat Whipple was fuming that night."Ruby says, "Thanks for the tip. I had forgotten about that. Although we should probably let Niles do the negotiating, he is supposed to be our business manager. Maybe we should let you do it Jeff, you're a smart guy." Ruby pauses. "I guess we keep you busy enough without adding more stuff for you to do." "Yeah, Tom was pretty pissy that week. I guess I don't blame him with all those personal problems and all."   Ruby says, "So, how about some cards then? Jake's got a nice new deck from Helen Barker, he needs help breaking it in."  Kate says, "I don't blame him either, but I'm still glad to have seen the last of him and his father. You dragged me right out of here that Saturday when he was looking at me, Ruby. I never understood why that made you so angry," Kate chuckled and shook her head. "I do miss Maggie though."   Ruby laughs. "Well, it had something to do with someone's hangover cure, a little green ball and repenting..." Ruby shakes her head. "I believe Dorita's tea works better."  "Ugh, that is a vile concoction, but it does work.  I'll head out to the ranch tomorrow and talk to Flint about contacting Naki-Yai.""Well just so everybody knows, after the sermon tomorrow I am taking Minerva with me and we are going to visit Kajika. Shouldn't be away long, I figure we will be back Monday, but no guarantees. I can go check out the small caves after that."   Nanuet fills his whiskey and offers to fill anyone else who needs it.  "While I'm up should I start the water for your tea Miss Kate?"   She replies, "Thank you Nanuet, that's very kind of you." Jeff says to Ruby, "Maybe Niles and you should both talk to the Calhouns, I've noticed how persuasive you can be at times."  Ruby says, "Why thank you Jeff, what a nice compliment. I think I'll take that advice, or maybe even send Niles after I go." Ruby thinks she smiles at Jeff, although it's no different from the smile that won't leave her face this night. "I'm very glad you joined us tonight. Some time soon you will have to elaborate on your past history. I am a very curious kind of girl, you know."   "Now let's play some cards for a while, shall we?" As Jake deals Ruby continues, "Kate, you don't waste any time getting your errands done, do you? Course, my assignments are more night time activities." They all chat and play cards for a while, no one really caring who is winning or losing. Ruby stays snug on Jake's lap, laughing and drinking and smiling at everyone.</blockquote>

Verification