"Miss Florence was just helping me with some accounting frippery." And turning to his orally talented bookkeeper, asked, "Weren't you?"
"Yes I was, and you are disturbing us - do go away, Sally!" Flo commanded imperiously.
The slighter girl looked unhappy, but giving Mr Priest one last lingering look of concern, nodded and left the room.
Unbeknownst to those in the room, the horrifyingly brutal security man from the mine, Big Jim Henry, was lumbering his way up the stairs from the saloon floor and heading for his morning meeting with Priest.
Sally, thinking still of Mr Priest and the strange Circe-like power that Florence Patterson Forde held over him, didn't look where she was going and, turning onto the top of the staircase, smacked straight into Henry, that horrible man from the business meeting with the horrifying visage and the careless hands.
"Ooof! Oh... oh I'm sorry!" the slight waif-like girl stammered, falling back a little from the big, bald brute who towered over her.
"Jonah, Glad you're here, this is Mister Shintaro Takahashi, my newest Deputy. he is Japanese, and well, new to these parts." Speed introduced, "Now I'm sure one of these trouble makers will appreciate your attention, and maybe Phin, who got a knot on his head before he did something stupid." Speed explained, by way of an introduction.
"I was not about to do anything stupid. I was going to put a forty-four ball through the numbskull's empty head, try and have his way with Miss Tully Nevada, not on your life! Phin growled. Something needs to be done about Fortner and Priest's miners. Damned streets wouldn't be safe for women to walk before too long!"
"I intend to head over there and have a discussion on this very issue, Phin. We can't have this town devolve into some rowdy, lawless mining camp. It'll get bad enough with the coming railroad!" Speed stated. "We need to get a lid on this before it does get out of hand, not that Fortner or Priest care."
At Doctor Laurant's mention of killing Wheeler, Sis became agitated and tried to sit up despite the pain in her wounded shoulder this caused her.
"I wouldn't ha let Love kill the baby!!" she bellowed "That's why I tried to get him. I had t' protect the baby but Missus Pike woul'n give him me, she thought I was gonna harm him but I was gonna save him..."
When she fell back against the pillows, it wasn't through pain or exhaustion, it was through a horrible and depressing realisation that had at last penetrated her inch-thick skull.
"Oh no, people'r gonna thing I'm a baby hurter, what'm I gonna do Mrs Lady?" the young giantess asked the Doc with tears starting to brim in her eyes.
As Barnabas left the room, Angie returned her attention to Sis. "I am. I was hired at the hospital that is under construction. And I had never been out to this ranch either, so first for me and you, I assume." She explained. "I am from Chicago in the state of Illinois. Many miles east of here. It was a long trip by train and then by wagon to get here. I imagine you have traveled quite a way to get here as well, at least from what you said."
"I doubt that this Tom fellow is a very nice person, or that he treated you and your brother very well either. It would seem that he was using you both to get at Mister Pike for one reason or another, and I believe he meant you both harm. I do believe he meant to kill the two of you, Missus Pike and the baby Wheeler in the bargain, if not Mister Pike as well." She paused, "If you can help these people, I believe they would be grateful. Mister Pike, I understand, was a deputy Marshal until recently, so he is a lawman, not an outlaw. He is a man you should help if you can."
"I suppose that Leah Steegrave has one or two of your creations, and Anæsthesia Orr, of course." A case of the nerves had her in its grasp.
A conflicting series of emotions cast their shadow on Wus's phiz.
"Ahem, Miss Steelgrave has formally had her dresses made in Helena, but has promised me her next commission..." but, remembering their conversation in the Town Council meeting, wanted to add, 'but only because she wanted something from me!' "As for Miss Orr, I make them for her, but she designs them herself..." which explained why the girl swanned around town looking like a pink and white, very sickly and sweet, wedding cake!
"If you wish to see my true art, you might observe Miss Mudd. I know the girl is a little bit...erm... well... but I design and create all of her clothes now, she provides a sort of ambulatory advertisement for my craft, you understand. In fact, once we have the first rough cut of your dress made up, I'll have her in to model it for you - you have similar figures." he said.
"I will trust your judgement, Mister Pettigrew." She said.
"You are a wise young Lady, Miss Fletcher" he responded as he lay out some of the latest fashion plates from Paris on the occasional table.
Sis listened to Mr Pike talking. He said he was sorry he shot her. There were a lot of questions about Love, but all of that seemed so far away now. Maybe it was the loss of blood making her head swim or maybe it was that stuff what the doctor lady give her, but she felt oddly euphoric lying here: up to now her life had been one long drudge of hardship and humiliation, being shown off as part of a freak show: now, well, she didn't know what her life was, but it was different, she felt sort of free. Like an idiot savant, she lived not in the trappings of the past or the uncertain fears of the future, but with the odd comfort of the present.
Mr Pike announced his departure.
"That sounds fine. I'd like to sit with her a bit longer." Angie said.
The big girl looked at her, the statuesque lady who had cared for her, with wondering eyes.
"You're a stranger here, like me, aren't yuh?" she asked, she didn't figure it out, she just felt it instinctively. Being a stranger put people on their guard.
"Well, there's Worchester Pettigrew," Walter replied, "His place is here on Main Street. You can't miss the place as it's the only dressmaker here in town. Pettigrew doesn't do much in the way of gentlemen's clothing."
Leaning forward, he continued, "In fact, if you ask me, he could do with some competition...if that's what you're looking to do."
Turning the ledger around to face the man, "Now, will that be a double or single room?"
@ [Flip
"I didn't mean..." Well, it was too late for that, and he really wasn't sure what to make of a gal who was willing to get all nikked in front of a man, but maybe...well, he wasn't really sure. He hadn't actually intended to insult her, but what was done was done.
"Don't know what th' future will bring," he observed, "but we can do things ta turn it th' way we want." He shrugged. "We both done that, an' got th' chance ta do more. Now ya put me thinkin' on it, I'm gonna ask Mr. Pike if there's some sorta woodwork ta do around the place." He took a swig of the wine, then shrugged again. "'Course, th' place is all new, so there ain't much fixin' ta do."
While gunfire wasn't particularly unusual in town, it still was something to be concerned about in the middle of the day, especially when it was mid- payday for the cowboys and the miners. And as much as Jonah wanted to write the shots he'd heard off as drunken frivolity, he knew he had to go check it out.
Excusing himself from the mercantile, and asking the clerk to hold his items, he stepped warily onto the boardwalk, looking around for the source of trouble and quickly spotting it. He recognized Speed and Mr. Wentworth, and once they seemed relaxed, he started over that way. There were apparently some injuries, as there were bodies in the dirt, he just hoped it wasn't anything bad.
"Gentlemen." He nodded to the men still standing, giving the oddly-dressed man a quick look-over, then noticed Tully. "And lady. Is anyone in need of my services?"