Honeyville. Daisy Waugh

returned with brandy. A single serving, for Inez – until her husband sent her back for the bottle and three more glasses. I took mine, swallowed it down and felt better at once. Inez took only the daintiest of sips, and continued to whimper.

      I told her she’d feel stronger if she drank the thing down in one. She looked at me directly, I think for the first time, and immediately did as I suggested. The alcohol hit the back of her throat and she shuddered. The three of us looked on, intrigued, as the brandy continued its internal journey, until at length she looked up at the three of us, considered us one by one, and grinned.

      ‘Thank you all so much. I think, perhaps …’ She belched, and I laughed. Couldn’t help it. She glanced at me again, uncertain whether she dared to laugh too, and decided against it. ‘I think I should probably head home.’

      ‘Excellent idea,’ Mr Carravalho said.

      His wife looked at her doubtfully. ‘It’s set to turn pretty mean out there. You want my husband to escort you?’

      ‘No, no!’ Inez said, though she plainly did.

      ‘Well if you are certain,’ he answered quickly.

      I took her empty brandy glass and placed it with my own on the counter. I said, ‘We can leave together if you like. Just until we’re through the craziness. It’ll be much quieter on the other side of Main Street.’

      There was an embarrassed pause.

      ‘Well I’m sure I don’t think … Honey?’ muttered the wife, looking at me suspiciously. But Mr Carravalho was apparently too busy to notice. ‘I really don’t think,’ she muttered again.

      ‘What’s that dear?’ He was locking up, counting notes. Protecting the business.

      Inez ignored them and turned to me. ‘Which way are you headed?’ she asked boldly, and immediately blushed. ‘That is to say, I am headed east. Perhaps. I mean, for certain, I am heading east. And I don’t know – if maybe we are headed in different directions?’

      ‘I dare say we are,’ I said. ‘But we can walk on up to Second or Third Street together. It’s sure to be quieter up there.’

      Inez glanced through the window. The sheriff had arrived and an angry gaggle had mustered round his motor, making it impossible for him to get out. It looked menacing.

      ‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘if it’s all the same to you, I think that would be just daisy. Thank you.’ As she stood up, she seemed to totter a little. Carefully, eyes closed in concen- tration, she straightened herself. ‘Shall we get going?’

      ‘You know I really don’t think …’ Mrs Carravalho murmured yet again, sending baleful looks at her husband.

      ‘Well, unless you want me to leave you here alone,’ her husband snapped at last, ‘with all the trouble brewing and the store unguarded, and the week’s takings still in the register, and you, no use with a handgun …’

      ‘Well but even so,’ she was saying.

      We left them squabbling and stepped out into the teeming street, Lippiatt’s blood still damp between the bricks at our feet.

      We had hardly walked a half-block before she stopped, grasped hold of my shoulder.

      ‘Hey, what do you say we sit down?’ she said. Her face was whiter than ever.

      ‘You want something more to drink?’ Truth be told, I didn’t feel so hot myself.

      She nodded.

      We might have stopped at the Columbia Hotel, just across the street. Or at the Horseshoe Club, ten doors down. Or at the Star Saloon at the corner. There was no shortage of choice. But we stopped at the Toltec. At the moment she grasped hold of me, and I was convinced she might faint right away, it happened we were right bang beside its entrance. So we turned in, and plumped ourselves at a table at the end of the room, as far from the hubbub as possible.

      The Toltec was plush and newly opened then; a saloon attached to a swanky hotel, both of which, I knew, were popular with visiting Union men. It was a saloon much like any other, maybe a little more comfortable. There was a high mahogany bar running the length of the room, an ornate, pressed-tin roof, still shiny with newness, and a lot of standing room. We sat beneath that shiny ceiling and ordered whiskey. A bottle of it. And for a while the bar was quiet.

      ‘Everyone’s out on the streets,’ the barman told us as we settled ourselves at the table.

      ‘Making trouble,’ Inez said.

      ‘Depends on your way of looking at things,’ muttered the barman.

      We filled our glasses and turned away from him. ‘But you know everyone I know agrees,’ she told me, sucking back on her whiskey. (She may not have been accustomed to liquor, but I noticed she had taken a liking to it fast enough.) ‘These anarchists come into town with their crazy ideas, and then they infiltrate the camps and stir up the miners. The men were perfectly happy before the Unions came in. And now look where we are! Death on every doorstep! Murder at the drugstore!’

      ‘To Captain Lippiatt,’ I said, to shut her up. I didn’t want to talk politics – not with anyone, and least of all with her. ‘May he rest in peace.’

      She stared at me, whiskey glass halted. ‘Captain Who?’ and then, ‘You know his name? You mean to say you knew him?’

      ‘Hardly very well. But yes, I guess knew him.’

      ‘How?’ And then, in a rush of embarrassment, and without giving me a chance to answer: ‘Oh gosh but never mind that!Did I tell you already – I work at the library. Do you ever go in there? You should. I’ll bet there are plenty books I could show you that you might enjoy.’

      ‘I love to read,’ I told her. ‘And I am often in the library. I’ve seen you in there before.’

      ‘It’s quite a thrill you know,’ she skipped on (I imagine the library was the very last thing she wanted to talk about). ‘I mean, once you get over the shock of it, and all. It’s quite a thrill to be here in this saloon. I’ve been walking past saloons all my life, never even daring to peep in. And now here I am,’ she beamed at me, ‘in a saloon! With you! It feels like the greatest adventure.’

      ‘I suppose it is,’ I said. ‘For you and me both.’

      ‘Do you suppose your friend Mr Lippiatt—’

      ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say he was a friend.’

      ‘No. But do you suppose he had a wife? Or children? Or anything like that? Maybe a mama. I think I should go visit them. Don’t you think I should?’

      I laughed. ‘Whatever for?’

      ‘Whatever for? He and I, we looked at each other. Don’t you see the significance?’

      ‘Not really.’

      ‘Well, mine was probably the last human face, the last decent human face, not in the process of slaughtering him, which that poor gentleman ever laid eyes on. And then – Pop! He was dead.’ She sniffed. Picked up her glass. Glanced at me. ‘Y’know this is silly. Here we are, you and me, drinking in a saloooon together.’ She rolled the word joyfully around her mouth. ‘And I don’t even know your name. I am Inez Dubois, by the way.’

      ‘How do you do.’

      ‘I live with my aunt and uncle. Mr McCulloch. You’ve probably heard of him? Have you?’

      ‘No,’ I said automatically. Whether I had heard of him or not.

      ‘Mr McCulloch is my uncle.’

      ‘So you said.’

      ‘Well, he’s one of the old families. Ranching. Cattle. That’s where his money comes from. So he’s got no business with the coalmines, thank blame for that …’ She glanced at me. Already,