The 1st Chapter Of My Noveltte Of The Old West, - "Sexy Texy & Blue"...

     We don't get a lot of strangers in our town, and this one blew in like a hot West Texas wind, sudden and hard to ignore.  Yep, and that's where I was born, West Texas, in the Pecos country, a gritty little polecat hole of a place that could make you itch like you had chiggers and not be able to sit still for the misery of it.  I sure as hell didn't.

     I got my name changed plenty of times since I lit out from Satterfield Flats.  Ezra Arnold, the whiskey drummer, the old darling, used to call me Sexy Texy.  Madame Bess called me Cherise, that bright reddish-pink color that's so popular in Paris now, I hear, because she said a pretty, buxom Texas born redhead was like a ruby, but my real name is Charlotte.  Saloon girl at her place was my last wicked job, in the Golden Slipper of New Orleans.  It was one of the few types of jobs open to a shanty-poor like me and the Golden Slipper was a real classy place.

     Sure, I'd thought of doing other work, but the jobs open to an unlearned girl are basically maid or wife, and, well, dammit, neither of those pay enough.  Some women can pass as a man, bind their little apple breasts close to their chests and go working for stagecoach lines as drivers or shotgun up top, be soldiers and wranglers.  I even knew a girl who was a mule skinner, a powerful stinky job, but she said it was something she could do and it paid pretty well.

     I'm tall, but could never pass for a man.  No strips of cloth could be tied tight enough to to keep my chest from pooching out.  So, when my evil sot pa threw me out for the last time I hiked myself to the nearest saloon and eventually made my way to brash, hoity-toity New Orleans.  I worked there steady in the Golden Slipper, becoming a favorite.  I liked wearing those form fitting silk and velvet dresses slit to my knees with feathers and rhinestones in my hair and fancy sliver buckle and rhinestone shoes.  Men fought to buy me drinks, to dawdle me giggling on their laps until one crazy night two of them got in a big ruckus over me.  I got between them, worst luck, and one cut me bad across the face with a broken whiskey bottle.

     Then, my days of being a saloon girl were over.  Doc Reisner sewed up the long slash as best he could, using very fine stitches, but my face was ruined anyway.  Madam Bessy cried and cried when she saw the damage.  She was a good sort, a former whore, as most madams are, a right sweetie with "a heart of gold".  I wasn't so upset when she said she had to let me go.  That bad scar traveling across my face was a blessing in disguise.  It forced me to lead a decent life.

     I wanted to get far, far away from naughty old New Orleans.  Bessy said that if she were me she'd head for the west coast.  She laughed in her free and easy way, saying I might even catch a rich gold miner or big rancher husband out there.  I answered her that I'd sure find plenty of smelly men who'd need their clothes washed and wanted a laundress to do it for them, a good laundress like me.

     So, I boarded soot-belching trains and liver-rattling stagecoaches until at long last I stood in the dusty streets of Claypool, California.   I knew from experience that a saloon is one of the best places in town to advertise you're looking for work.  On the wall of the bar I nailed up my notice:  "Wash taken in---maid service---reasonable, by the day, the week, or whatever you need.  See Charlotte Beacon at the Silver Star Hotel."

     Yep, I got a room in the Silver Star for a seventy five cents a week, breakfast included.  But, eventually, I was able to rent a rickety cabin at the edge of town.  I was hired to clean the Mustang Saloon, to wash dishes and to sweep and mop the sticky, filthy floors of food, whiskey and cigar butts and to empty the spittoons.  It was a gusty, rainy night when I met the Doctor.  I was mopping the floor, swinging the mop in a figure-eight, back and forth, back and forth, almost lost in the rhythmic motion of the swishing water on the old wooden boards and the "dance" of the sopping rag at the end of the handle when a hand roughly grabbed my shoulder, spinning me around.

     The man who had me in his grip was pig-eyed and plug-ugly.  He licked his fat lips greedily as he ran his eyes over hourglass me.  I pulled back from him, automatically.  "Not so fast, Gal", he snarled.  "You seem just right for me.  I don't fancy any of these cheap tarts, but you...  At least you look clean."

     "Take your mussy paws off me!"  I hit his wrist bone sharply with the handle of my mop.

     He yelped and slapped me across the face.  I tasted blood in my mouth, but I've been hit much harder than that.  I simply put a hand up to my lips to rub the sting away.  I backed further toward the edge of the bar.   Pig-eyes followed me, leering,  "You're what I want, Gal!  Upstairs, now!"  He narrowed his eyes and glanced to the stairs in the back of the saloon.  "Only a little tumble.  Won't take a minute.  I'm fast, and you maybe'll like it.  Hell, I bet I'll have you mighty pleased and whinin' for more!"

     "No!," I shouted.  "Never!"

     "She doesn't want to go with you.  You heard the lady," a soft, deep voice said.  It was a man I came to know as the Doctor.

     Pig-eyes swung around toward the sound.  He laughed.  "She ain't no lady."

     "She is until she's proved not to be, and then...  Frankly, there's no right way for a man to hit a woman."

     "Oh, yeah?  Who asked you to mess with me and this gal?  I likes redheads, and she's as red as I've seen."

     Pig-eyes", licked his blubbery lips and the Doctor hit him, a nice, hard uppercut that slammed Pig-eyes against the rim of the bar.   He went down with a thud and laid sprawled in the puddles of soapy water on the floor.  But, now three friends of his stepped up to the Doctor.  Still, the Doctor didn't move, just fixed the men with his steely bright blue eyes, eyes that were almost as blue as Texan blubells.   Then, he punched the nearest man in the stomach and two of them turned on him.

     Yep, the Doctor was one hell of a good fighter, but when the third man hit him on the skull from behind with a whiskey bottle he dropped hard.  One of the men reached down, grabbing the Doctor by his shirt front, hauling him, half-conscious, to his feet.  Wham, wham, wham, they hit the Doctor again and again in the stomach and across his face, arms and legs as they held him upright.  They gave him quite a beating.  Then, they rammed his black wide brimmed hat onto his head and dragged him out through the saloon's swinging double doors, throwing him on his face into the slimy street.

     The ruffians slapped each other's backs and laughed and laughed as they re-entered the saloon.  I made a face of disgust at them, but they'd quickly forgotten about me.  They poured each other drinks and guzzled them.  I got my wrap from the coat hooks on the wall and silently went out to where the Doctor lay.  He had rolled over on his back and was groaning, his eyes closed, squinted tight.

     "I know, I know, it hurts something fierce," I whispered to him, as I got a shoulder under one of his arms and helped him to stagger to his feet.  His high boots scrambled a bit in the mud, but eventually he stood.  He opened those blue, blue eyes and looked down, bleary, at me.  The Doctor was a tall man, very tall, and what is called rangy, like the tough cattle who live all their lives on the sparse grass of the Western range.  It seemed like there was no surplus of flesh on his bones, but his arms and legs looked strong; his shoulders were wide and powerful.  He pointed to his hat.  I picked it up and gave it to him.  He nodded.

     "Come on, big guy" I told him.  "My cabin isn't far from here.  I'm taking you there."

     He nodded again.  We made slow progress through the dark, rainy night.  I was panting by the time we reached my porch.  I got him into the house.   Keeping a clean house, it's not easy in the Wild West where mud is mixed with a lot of manure.  We left a trail of it across my nice, polished floor.  The Doctor didn't fuss when I pulled off his boots and socks, took the long, slim knife out of his right boot.  I stood the boots by the warm stove; I'd brush the mud off them once they dried.  I pushed the Doctor's back a little forward so I could remove his black coat and blue-striped shirt.  Hmmm...  There was a gold stud with a sparkling clear stone in the center of it holding the top of his shirt closed,---a diamond?  And, there were matching studs in his cuffs.  He was a bit of a dandy and, tarnation, --- rich enough to afford wehat was maybe diamonds!  Mighty interesting...  It was harder to take off his pants and belt, but he helped me a little by raising his hips from the chair seat.  I removed his gun belt and gun, taking it out of it's fancy tooled holster.  It was beautiful, pearl-handled with scroll engraving all down the barrel and well-taken-care-of, the cold blue metal of it heavy and deadly.  I dropped it on the table with as much disgust as if it was a copperhead.  I hate guns.

     I regarded the Doctor again.  He was wearing the usual long johns that men in the West wear, but new bright red ones.  Well, those came off too.  His head was against the chair's back, his nape at it's edge.  I frowned; I hate violence, more so because as a saloon girl I've seen way too much of it.  Those nasty hombres had beaten him pretty bad.  There were big purple bruises on his upper arms and across his stomach, the tops of his thighs, on one hip.  A corner of his wide, pink mouth was split, a dribble of blood on it. The Doctor wore his hair longer than most men do, a little past his shoulders.  He was probably about thirty.  It's hard to tell age in the West where the sun is harsh on skin and there are hard times too, people worrying all the time, scared they're not going to make it, not going to be able to live even another few days.  Well, that aside, the Doctor sure was a very handsome with the sort of long face that's all manly angles and planes.  His beard was about a quarter inch grown out.  I touched it gingerly; it was like the plush, stiff horsehair of an expensive couch.  His lips parted then, showing rounded, white and even teeth.

I looked down at the dirty clothes on the floor.  Ugh!  They would have to be washed well and then pressed.  I needed to clean the mud from his hair, face and hands too.  I got a few dippers full of warm water from the pan on top of the stove and ladled them into a basin.  With a towel I washed the Doctor, wiping the cloth gently over and over him, over the sparse hair decorating his chest and down the line of it to his abdomen, wringing it out, again and again, replacing the water as it got dirty.  He was barely conscious.  I sighed.  It had been a long time since I'd had a man in my bed.  Well, I was going to have one now, like it or not.  I just couldn't have left him cold and muddy, lying in the rainy street, especially, after he'd gallantly saved my honor and, just maybe, even my life.  That rotten pig-eyes would have used me bad, I'm sure.

I sighed again, got my shoulder under one of the Doctor's arms and helped him to the bedroom of my cabin.  He fell heavily, and strangely graceful, onto my bed, his long arms and legs flopping, and I covered him.  I frowned, putting my knuckles on my hips.  Oh, damn, damn, damn and bother!  It's been my experience that all men, no matter how sad and vulnerable they might seem when they're hurt or when they're far drunk in their cups, are a hell of a lot of trouble, in one way or another.