"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows" - Helen Keller
"Do you know... We met by chance, Sweet Jenny?"
Despite the solemnity of the occasion, the blind girl could not help laughing "Oh Mister Smith! And do you not know that that is the exact same tune I was playing when you came in here?!" she reached out her hand and, finding his, gently touched it once more "I am sorry, I know that your mind is far, far away from here; it is no wonder you did not notice. You will get me a reputation for having a limited repertoire, but I will gladly reprise the melody, this time just for you and with my good wishes for you in my heart as I play." she smiled, more sympathetic than laughing now, for she was a little ashamed of her former mirth.
He belatedly fished into his pocket for a coin, and laid it upon the counter audibly so that she might hear it. Requests ought to be paid for, surely?
She almost objected to such a hefty sounding coin, but instead turned to her left and spoke into space. "Oh, Mr Flandry, please could you bank Mr Smith's generous tip for me immediately? I dare not have such a large gold doubloon in my tiny, tinny little spittoon."
She felt her way back to the piano and began to play the melody again; somehow the sentimental strain was now filled with an unbearable added layer of sadness and melancholy as she thought about poor Roland and his plight. She followed it with a comic March called 'The Mulligan Guard' to cheer everybody up again.
When Caroline returned, he smiled at her. She settled in and smiled back.
"You saved people from harm today," he said, "and that is a very good turn. If no one else mentions it, I thought I should."
"Why...kind of you ta say so, thanks!" she did appreciate it.
He nodded to his stew, "Now, we were going to share this, and you were going to tell me the news of the town while I was away this past week."
"Oh, I only brought one spoon, you start on it and I'll try ta answer yer question then," she suggested.
"Well,we got us a newly elected mayor, same fella as owns the big fancy hotel. I don't know him all that much, he's way above my station," she started with some boring politics, "Talked ta him once though on the street and he was civil enough but I could just tell he didn't wanna much talk ta me. Me bein' what I am n' all."
"Then there was shootin' right out on the street, daughter of the town barber up and shot him. Not much of a loss in my opinion as the man was known as a bully and widely disliked. The daughter was doin' the barber work to be honest. Well, she's up and disappeared now. So guess the menfolk in town will have to grow their hair and beards long,""
A good person is like a good gun: Reliable to the Last.
"That loved coquettish glance, Bestowed on me so kindly, the time we met by chance..."
Roland's eyes moistened as Miss Grimes proceeded to repeat her repertoire. Perhaps the song had entered his mind because he'd caught its dying notes when he'd walked in. Regardless, he could not help but think of himself and Zenobia as the words washed over him. Such was the way with music. Whatever its intent, the mind and heart re-forged its purpose to serve some melancholy or celebratory need.
For Roland, it was Zenobia's fiery glance. Her little fists pounding his chest in a plaintive plea for rescue, though even she did not know it at the time. Her bold and sharp flirtation that ran a razor wit across the strop of buried passion. And then she'd cleaved close to him, relishing in her smooth passage against his roughness. A pleasure she dare not acknowledge, even to herself. She'd cast him away- once and twice- but Roland didn't believe for a second that she held no care for him.
Care had certainly snuck up within his chest. For who could make love to a woman without loving her, at least a little?
Perhaps some lads were built that way. Not Roland Smith.
Gradually, Miss Grimes' melancholy romantic tune became a new energetic one, and Roland felt the joyful notes prying doors of happiness which were padlocked away.
"We shouldered guns and marched, and marched away. From Baxter street we marched to Avenue A..."
His thoughts shifted to his recent bloody adventure with Maura Walsh. And his previous showdown beside Addy on the road from Oakdale. Remarkable women, both in their own way. And remarkable events. Such had been the two primary ingredients in the tumultuous stew of his life since setting out from London. Before this year, he'd done precious little of worth or substance. Perhaps he was too full of self-pity, and not aware enough of how his fortunes had changed.
One had to find a love before one could lose a love. And if he also found himself at deadly odds, it meant that he'd found dragons to slay.
Real dragons, and not hapless rumor-mongers bloviating with friends at a saloon. Some men went their whole lives without knowing the temper of their manhood. Finding the truth of that was its own treasure.
Lifting up his most recent glass, he spoke to the air before him.
"Here's to you, Zenobia. May you fare well, wherever you fare. Find joy. Find love. Find a life that doesn't have you battering hapless men at the newspaper office."
And maybe have a little girl with some kind and patient man, because I like the thought of another Zenobia in the world, absent the tears and scars you've endured. I think it would surprise you how good of a mother you could be.
He smiled softly, but a little less sadly, as he downed the drink.
What is Good, and what is Legal, are not always the same.
"...me being what I am and all..."
Eric had spooned some stew into his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully for a moment.
"A handsome woman," he asked at last, "a kind soul, and brave besides? An honest citizen, earning honest wages? Which of these things troubles the new Mayor, I wonder?"
He tapped his spoon lightly against the bowl before seeming to have an epiphany. "Ah. He prefers the company of men. I knew some like that in the war. If a man does his duty, I try not to notice what else he does, so long as he does not do it to me." Eric smiled his odd smile at Caroline. It could almost be attractive in the right light.
Perhaps this was not the right light.
On the topic of the barber, Eric pretended not to know nearly as much as he did. "Well, bad men come to bad ends, sooner or later." That wasn't actually always true. Plenty of bad men lived to ripe old ages, fat on the rewards of their sin. But Eric was fighting for a better world, and his own sins had made that pursuit possible.
"Tell me, Caroline... is there a schoolmaster or mistress for hire in town? Or some educated person who does private tutoring? I am soon to be looking after the child of a... friend... who passed away. And I want to see them well-schooled. Maybe with better schooling than the local school might provide, and at hours that allow them to make other pursuits during the daytime."
The funeral business is dying, I tell ye, dying on its feet!
The swing doors swung, in and out, as they did all day and evening long.
If Roland was looking happier, perhaps this visage of death, Mr Malcolm Jolly, undertaker, might have reversed the feeling. Or maybe not. Jolly's grim sadness was a professional veneer, although tonight he had something to feel sad about. He nodded a polite enough greeting to the gunsmith who, as a fellow businessman of the burgh, he would always endeavour to be polite to, though he could not claim to know the man, just recognise him.
"My usual Mr Flandry, if you please." he uttered in that high, airy Aberdeenshire accent as he lay the money on the bar and peered at it, just to be sure he'd not overpaid, for his was a canny man with his brass.
As he waited for his whiskey, he shot a beady eye about the place. No Fortner. Good.
All of a sudden, out of nowhere, and not ostensibly aimed at Smith, though there was no-one else really in earshot, he sighed "Y'ken I buried yon Mister Matthews today." then added quickly "It was a pauper's grave, aye, a pauper's grave. And yet..."
He turned slightly and tapped a long boney finger on the bar top and one of his bushy eyebrows shot up as he turned a beady eye on Roland (so, he was talking to him!) "... there were expenses. A wee coffin of the cheapest wood in my store... cotton lining instead of silk, sewn up by wee Miss Mudd... and I didn'ee embalm the man, y'ken... the feller's just rotting, y'see... aye rotting in the ground."
He nodded thanks as Ralph served him the whikey and he sipped a wee dram of it.
"The boy Raymond couldn'ee pay, o'course. Not even fer that amount. Not on the wages I give him." he said, almost proud of his parsimony "But, er, he gave me these shares... that's all the man had to his name, y'see, these wee scraps of paper." He reached into his jacket and pulled out a few sheets of folded paper, put them on the bar, and smoothed them out. "I hear tell... Mister Smith... that you're the man who might just know if these shares to y'man Fortner's mine are... well... are they worth anything?" he asked, an avaricious glint in his rheumy old eyes.
@[Cuban Writer]
Caroline had to chuckle at his comment, "Well, I sure don't know if he prefers the company of men just more likely he does not want to be seen associating with the company of loose women. Which saloon girls are of course. Just ask the church ladies n' such. I don't care, it doesn't bother me none."
"It goes with the job, to not be liked by a lot of folk, long as my customers like me, I'm fine," she assured him.
The subject moved on to the recently deceased barber, dead by lead poisoning.
"Well, bad men come to bad ends, sooner or later."
Caroline was less confident about that, "Well, if you say so."
"Tell me, Caroline... is there a schoolmaster or mistress for hire in town? Or some educated person who does private tutoring? I am soon to be looking after the child of a... friend... who passed away. And I want to see them well-schooled. Maybe with better schooling than the local school might provide, and at hours that allow them to make other pursuits during the daytime."
Now that was a tougher question to deal with, Caroline had to give a few seconds pause while she thought on it.
"We do have us a school and a school marm. Never been inside it nor met the schoolmarm. I never been to a school in my life, my Ma taught me readin', writin', and 'rithmetic. I get by just fine," she took a deep breath then in further thought.
"I would think the school marm would expect this boy a yers should attend school when it's in session," she added, probably unhelpfully.
"As for others...you know there is this young gal at the diner, she's runnin' it now til the owner gets back which is God only knows when. But that gal has the most perfect speech you ever done heard. Talks like a book, she does. I believe she's smart as a whip. Oh and she used ta tutor the kids at the Lost Lake ranch or so I heard. If yer willin' ta pay her, she might just appreciate the money. Especially as she is in the womanly way if ya know what I mean?"
Caroline didn't wait for his answer but tacked on, "She's gonna have a baby."
A good person is like a good gun: Reliable to the Last.
Roland turned to look at Mr. Jolly, whom he knew primarily by reputation. He had only glimpsed him briefly before... perhaps most notably on the day of the incident which had pushed so many lives into gloom. Jolly was a gruesome ghoul who'd estimated the size of box for the dead before the body had even grown cold on the ground.
Well... that was unfair. Everyone had a job to do.
But it soon became clear that Mr. Jolly was not here merely to drink his own troubles away. No, he was here to talk to Roland.
About what? Did he want payment from Roland for burying the brute old man who'd beaten Zenobia?
Anger sparked in Roland as he considered that to be Jolly's play. But no... there was more afoot in this approach. Jolly had certificates of ownership in Fortner's mine! And of course he hoped they'd be worth something.
Roland considered how best to respond to this inquiry. Zenobia's brother... in all of his own grief, he'd completely overlooked Zenobia's brother. The boy was all alone, now. No father. No sister. However unintentionally, Roland has taken them both.
"That paper is a gambler's chance, Mr. Jolly," Roland said at last. "A tiny share in an unproven resource. It may prove to be worth little more than the paper at a privy."
Roland shook his head, "But despite their uncertain worth, it troubles me that the young boy's only family inheritance is lost to him."
His eyes, so recently moist with budding tears, now turned a hard look upon Mr. Jolly.
"I'll give you five dollars if you return them to the boy. Those papers may not be real wealth, but they at least represent hope for wealth. A fool's hope, perhaps. But at least a hope of some kind that may carry him through the difficult days ahead."
Roland fished into his pocket and took out a five-dollar Liberty Head coin, setting it upon the counter between them.
"Boys need hope. But men deal in cash. Is that not so, Mr. Jolly?"
Roland's hard eyes carried the unspoken suggestion that this was an offer that shouldn't be refused.
What is Good, and what is Legal, are not always the same.
Eric listened to Caroline recount facts about recent events, most of which he already knew about from his own angles. His eyes shifted briefly as Mr. Jolly entered the saloon, and chose a place at the bar next to Mr. Smith.
What was that about, he wondered?
But he did not gaze overlong at the distraction. Finishing half of his stew, he slid the rest across towards Caroline.
"It sounds as though this diner woman is precisely the sort I seek. Young, in need of coin for a growing family, and with experience as a tutor. Thank you, Caroline. You have been most helpful. I wonder if you might join me on a trip to the diner and make introductions? She'd feel better about meeting with a strange man about business, if a familiar woman brought him by."
He picked up his cup, adding, "Perhaps I could buy you dinner at this diner while we are there, in appreciation for your time."
The funeral business is dying, I tell ye, dying on its feet!
Roland fished into his pocket and took out a five-dollar Liberty Head coin, setting it upon the counter between them.
The coin span down to settle on the surface of the bar with a rapidly increasing beat then a click. The lustrous, almost greasy feel of the gold appealed to Mr Jolly, who always lived by the aphorism that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush.
"Boys need hope. But men deal in cash. Is that not so, Mr. Jolly?"
"Aye, you make a good point, Mister Smith..." the funeral director licked his lips and reached his gnarled white fingers toward the dully shining coin while struggling with his conscience: for he did have a conscience buried within his gaunt frame. He often struggled with it; and did not trust the better half of himself to always win.
Thus it was when his professional respect for the dead struggled with his strange desire to consort with Mrs Adams in the graveyard or even amongst the grisly denizens of his own funeral parlour; or when his fond recollection of his dear wife and his vow never to remarry was overcome by his workday proximity to the pert Miss Mudd, to whom, to his shame, he had proposed marriage several times, or his duty to young Raymond Matthews against his natural avarice and greed. He could... probably would... take the five dollars and never hand the papers back to the lad!
Guilt at his own recent misdeeds, his terrible misdemeanours against his own personal moral code, seemed to overwhelm him of a sudden:
"I'll take the money... but ye must give the papers to the lad yerself, Mister Smith! I can no be trusted! To ma shame I CAN NO BE TRUSTED!" he suddenly cried out loud with a wild look in his eyes - pushing the shares toward Roland, swigging back his whiskey and running with surprising speed out of the swing doors. He then ran back in, grabbed his top hat and ran out again.
"Goodnight, Mister Jolly!" Frances said happily to the retreating footsteps.
"It sounds as though this diner woman is precisely the sort I seek. Young, in need of coin for a growing family, and with experience as a tutor. Thank you, Caroline. You have been most helpful. I wonder if you might join me on a trip to the diner and make introductions? She'd feel better about meeting with a strange man about business, if a familiar woman brought him by."
He picked up his cup, adding, "Perhaps I could buy you dinner at this diner while we are there, in appreciation for your time."
"Glad I can be of help then," she listened as he pressed his case further, "Oh, I suppose I could do that although if you approach her there during business hours, I doubt she'd be alarmed. And you certainly need not be intimidated by her, why the girl is not even twenty, I'm sure of it. She is rather serious but she don't bite none."
The man sweetened the deal with an invite to dinner. It was kind of him but..............she paused to think a moment.
"Well, first of all I am working right now and I work until early hours of the mornin'. And by then the diner is long closed. And secondly....well, you should perhaps know I am seein' somebody now in my life. And I am not sure how he might take me acceptin' dinner invitations from someone other than him? So I must turn down your kindly offer, sure you understand, hon?"