Posted November 16, 2020 | Clara Redmond | With: Charlie
"My mother taught me quite well, thank you," she replied, "So, you have to lead then? Tell me, do you know how to even do this particular dance? So that you can lead?"
"Yes, I know it, and you're right, I really don't know you just as you really don't know me."
Charlie took a deep breath, "Why is it that every time we meet we end up..." He stopped as he didn't quite know the answer himself. To him, Clara was fragile in the terms of you had be careful what you said around her. She was somebody who seemed determine not to let anybody get too friendly. Earlier, he mentioned something about being truthful, maybe now was the time.
An exasperated look appear on his face, "I try to be civil when I'm around you Clara but you almost always make it very hard to do so."
Posted November 16, 2020 | Mike Wentworth | With: Addy and Jay
"Good ta see ya, Mike. Been a while, but then, I ain't been out yer way in a time." She hooked her arm into Jay's. "Jay here's from Whitefish, settled here after th' trouble. He's been helpin' out here an' there...smithin', mostly."
"Good to see you as well, Miss Addy. The boys back at the ranch were wondering when you were coming over. I think one or two of them are still trying to work out that card trick you showed them the last time you were there."
Mike turned to Jay, "I enjoy some poetry but it depends on what the subject. I'm a bit partial to Tennyson, the one who wrote that particular line."
He briefly glanced over in the direction Quentin had gone and saw that he had finally caught up to Harriet. A smile crept on his face, with the knowledge that there might be another wedding at the ranch before next winter. It was already a given that Shade and the school marm would be taking a trip down the aisle soon.
Turning back to Jay, he nodded, "Jay...seems I remember my brother mentioning a fellow who did some repairs on the hotel a few weeks back. Matt was very impressed with your work."
Want... dolls!
Posted November 16, 2020 | Bridget Monahan | With: Emeline, Barnabas
“Dang” He responded. “Sorry to hear that, me, I ain’t real good at it either, al’ays steppin’ on the lady’s feet.” Which was a untruth meant to comfort the woman. He actually loved to kick up his heels, and yes, time to time he did step on the lady’s feet. Not that his were immune, consequence of the dance.
"He's done well, tonight," she confirmed, "only stepped on me once!"
Bridget gave a sort of hiccupping laugh at this, which she immediately stifled by covering her mouth, almost shocked at herself for making a loud noise. But she continued to grin about it. She liked these two: Pie Lady and Shiny Badge, they seemed to go together like two pieces of a jigsaw.
Laughing, Emeline hooked her arm into Bridget's, urging her toward the edge of the dance floor. "We don't have to do the same dance as everyone else, as long as we stay out of the way...and I don't even know this dance."
Even before the dance had begun, there seemed to be arguments going on and partners giving each other orders, Bridget took one look at the squabbling, worried looking dancers and leaned to Emeline “They don’t neither.” she observed. Indeed, as she had said to Brendan, she wasn’t a dumb as she looked.
"So, you like Brendan?" she asked quietly, smiling. "He's a handsome boy. And quite the dancer, too!"
She nodded, with a happy sad smile both illuminating and clouding her face. She did like him, more than that, she loved him. At this exact time, she loved him wholly with all her soul, and she didn’t have the experience or knowledge to know that such a strong emotion might just be the whim of a moment, which might be forgotten come the dawn.
He seemed to like her, too, from what she could tell. But there was something he didn’t know about her. She looked over to where Arabella was talking to him. Her heart thumped. Her happiness crumbled.
She shook her head.
“Can’t dance.” She said simply, but out loud this time.
She looked up at Mrs Blakesley and then over at Mr Pike. They were so kind, and meant so well: they deserved to be lucky and find each other. They fitted together so well, and in a way that she knew, in her heart of hearts, that she and Brendan never could fit. She took Emeline’s hand and this time led her: led her gently away from the confused throng of dancers.
Her first dance, she now knew, must also be her last.
Posted November 16, 2020 | Brendan Connolly | With: Arabella
“C’mon Mississippi! I want that dance yer promised me!" Arabella appeared out of nowhere, latching onto one of his arms and almost spinning him around with her momentum. But Bridget, who was still holding his hand, yanked them both to a stop until Arabella pleaded with her. “Oh tarnation Bridg’! Let go o’ him! I needs him fer this dance! I’ll bring him back to ya in one piece, promise!"
Brendan felt badly for leaving Bridget, especially since she had actually talked to him, but it wasn't as though he had much of a choice with Arabella tugging at him. He had time to waggle his fingers in a quick wave at the redhead before he was back on the dance floor.
"Hold your horses, Arabella," he said, glancing back to where Bridget was talking with Emmeline before looking back down at the gregarious girl, "I don't know this one. If you know it, you'd better give me a real quick lesson. Otherwise we won't get back in one piece 'cause I'll have stomped on your toes too much."
It couldn't hurt to admit that to Arabella. She wouldn't laugh at him, and if she did, it wouldn't be in a way that hurt. Dances were a place where you could almost make a fool of yourself and get away with it, but Brendan wasn't drunk enough to want to start making a fool of himself this early.
It looked like Clara was having some sort of lesson with the man she was dancing with too, but he couldn't tell who was doing the learning and who was doing the teaching. He didn't envy her dance partner if he was the one who didn't know what he was doing.
"Everybody can feather their nest, but it's not just anybody that can lay an egg!"
Posted November 16, 2020
"Hold your horses, Arabella," he said, glancing back to where Bridget was talking with Emmeline before looking back down at the gregarious girl, "I don't know this one. If you know it, you'd better give me a real quick lesson. Otherwise we won't get back in one piece 'cause I'll have stomped on your toes too much."
“Course you don’t know it, nobody knows it! Those mean rattlesnakes in the band chose it just make folk look foolish.” She pointed to a brace of couples who were high-tailing it off the dance floor at top speed. “Look at ‘em go, they’re runnin’ away faster than the Yankees at First Manassas!” she cooed. “But we’re Southerners, Mr Connolly, we’re used to fightin’ agin the odds fer lost causes.”
She turned to face him for a quick lesson in dance floor signaling.
“Listen, when I say ‘Jig’ we just jig about facing each other.” She lifted her skirts and cut a few capers to illustrate the thing.
“When I say ‘Circle’ we do this…” she held his right hand up in the air with her right hand and walked around him, Brendan had to do the same or get a strained wrist. “Good, you’re picking it up.” Arabella complemented him.
“When I say ‘Walk’ we walk side by side toward the opposite couple, and boy, they’d best git out of our way, use your elbows if you have to. We’ll dance a little and then walk back the way we came. When I say ‘Dance’, that’s just the regular kind o’ polkerin’ but … you’ll have to hold me real tight and close, so you can feel the direction I’m takin’ us in!” she added coquettishly.
She ran through the dance in her head, swaying slightly as she re-lived it.
“Oh heck, there’s that skippin’ part at the end! That’s like ‘strippin’ the willer’ but in a circle. Don’t worry about the fellers, they’ll all be lost and wanderin’ around in a daze by then, but if you see some woman headed at yer like a Ironclad ploughin’ down the Potomac, feint left and then dart right: you get extra points if you manage to touch her hand.”
She thought hard.
“That’s about it. But listen, Pard, this thing's gonna get real ugly real quick, so use your elbows, ‘member to smile and like they say in the boxing matches, protect yourself at all times!”
Posted November 16, 2020 | Clara Redmond | With: Charlie
"Yes, I know it, and you're right, I really don't know you just as you really don't know me."
"I think that much is obvious. Yet you choose to say I lacked manners because my mother died," Clara pointed out.
Charlie took a deep breath, "Why is it that every time we meet we end up..."
An exasperated look appear on his face, "I try to be civil when I'm around you Clara but you almost always make it very hard to do so."
There were now enough dance couples assembled and lined up that the music could start, no where near as many people as for the opening waltz but then that wasn't surprising. This one required more no how. Speaking of which.
"For crying out loud, simply answer my question. Do you or do you not know how to lead for this kind of dance?" Clara repeated her inquiry yet again just as the music started. The world wasn't going to wait for them.
Posted November 16, 2020 | Matilda Devereau | With: Jonah
"Yes, that's the plan...it's in the works." Jonah smiled, "Especially since Whitefish is no longer habitable, some of the citizens think a hospital is a good idea, and I do as well, after all, we're a long way from anything like that."
"Oh, I think so too, it is a capital idea," Matilda nodded.
He shrugged. "I use rooms at my house as a clinic and for overnight patients, but I don't really have the proper means for that." Then he added, "There is an orphanage in the works, too, if we can get the approval and support we need."
"An orphanage? Do we really need one of those, the town is not that big?" Matilda was puzzled, big cities had orphanages in her mind.
The dance was now over so the couple joined the rest in retiring off the floor. It had been fun, refreshing even. The doctor was a better class of man than most of her saloon customers, who were more rough and tumble and certainly less educated, proper. No matter though, the saloon was her world and she loved it.
"I do suppose we have more children than normal right now who lost people in the Whitefish disaster. I have taken in a young girl of ....I think 14 or 15 though she doesn't look it. She is quite the handful and here I thought I was a firecracker at that age. She came from Whitefish," Matilda revealed.
Storyteller / Shared NPC
Posted November 16, 2020 | Wyatt Redmond | With: Weedy
"A water trough? That ain't swimmin'," Wyatt was bemused by the mental picture of Weedy even trying, Wyatt had a tendency to take things quite literally as Clara was always warning him about.
Weedy definitely agreed not to tell any of their plans to adults, too big a risk they'd spoil all the fun plans.
"I won't tell. Maybe we can ask tonight and I can go home with you?"
"Well, I reckon but we sure can't go swimming. It's too cold out, we'd freeze in that lake now. I meant like when it got to be summer, nice and hot, you know," Wyatt pointed out.
He peered over the railing at Addy. "She seems kinda sweet on Jay, don't she...doesn't she? Maybe she'll be happy, so she'll say yes?"
Wyatt looked too, "He stayed with us for awhile when Whitefish got wrecked. He seems nice. I don't really know Addy much but Pa sez she is a hard worker. You probably know this but.... when they all went hunting that big bear, she was the only woman along and she was the one who ended up baggin' him. Clara was so happy to hear that you woulda thought she got it. "
"Say 'yes' to what?" he suddenly asked, clueless.
"The law is the law."
"Mining's not everyone's choice of hobbies, it just happens to be mine."
Posted November 16, 2020 | Speed Guyer | With: Leah
As the first dance ended, Speed should have been amazed at how Leah seemed to glide though the movements of the waltz, how easily she followed his lead, but he wasn't. A veteran of many balls in the east before and after the war he felt he was an accomplished dancer, yet, he could not remember a woman who was as fluid in her movements as Miss Steelgrave. He was glad he had thought to ask her to the dance.
While he held some admiration for the daughter of a man that was held in disdain but most everyone in town, there was nothing to suggest any further interest in her. As he had said, he thought her presence might actually give her a chance to discuss her plans with some who would be able to back her idea and support her exchange proposal.
He walked her toward where the punch bowl sat “Care for a glass of punch?” He asked already dreading that some well meaning person had already spiked it, as often happened at such events, and would eventually happen at that one.
“Delighted. May I call you Henry?” She responded in question.
As he filled her cup he smiled, “Speed, please. It’s what everyone calls me, and Marshal is just to formal.”
“Well, Speed, you are a very fine dancer, my toes remain in tact. Seriously, thank you. I needed to get away, if only for the evening.”
“My pleasure, and I am glad you accepted. There are people here whose backing could be instrumental for the success you plans. Even if it’s not discussed, your presence invites discussion, I believe it shows that you are available for such.” He explained. “Yet it also provides us both some relaxation and entertainment, I should think we both need, at least I know I do.”
Leah laughed, something few had witnessed with her. “And the two men outside? What of their entertainment?” She asked coyly.“I appreciate their devotion on your behalf, whether anyone else does or not. And they are welcome to come in, if they like. I would suppose they would be asked the shuck their guns, and I would also suppose they would return to their vigil.”
Leah merely smiled. “You don’t miss much do you, Speed?” She asked.“Well, I try not to.”
Retired Characters and NPC Writer.
Posted November 16, 2020 | Jay
"You haven't heard the right kind of poetry." Jay smiled at his companion and the asked the man. " Am I not right?"
In England learning poetry was part of the good tone unlike in the West.
The man actually made him a compliment, which made Jay avert his gaze. Hearing sonething nice about his actual profession only made him feel ashamed because for a while he thought being a black smith wasn't good enough.
"Thank you. But that was an easy fix."
He did not contradict when Addy told him that he was from Whitefish. It was better if she saud so because noone would doubt her.
Without paying attention he had placed his own hand on hers, which was holding on to his arm.
If the dance had been better, he would have asked her in order to escape the conversation before it got more intimate.
"What do you do?" He tried to get the focus of himself.
That's when he spotted the girl, who had had a hissy fit at the saloon.
Better stay clear of her.