Caleb’s ears were ringing as the stagecoach pulled to a stop in Fort Griffin. Compared to the quiet of sleeping under the stars for the last few nights, the rattle of the stage’s wheels and thunder of its horses made him feel as if he’d been put into a sack and shot out of a cannon. Judging by the way Doc looked as he stepped down out of the coach and onto the muddy street, he felt much the same way.
Jenny and Colleen couldn’t get out of the coach fast enough and began climbing down well before Doc turned to offer them a hand. Colleen took the help with a quick smile and Jenny soon followed.
“It will be nice to have some fresh air,” Colleen said. Despite the politeness in her voice, her actions spoke twice as loud. She and her sister both hurried away from the coach without so much as a glance over their shoulders.
“What the hell was that about?” Caleb asked.
Clearing his throat, Doc said, “They’re from St. Louis. I find people from there tend to be a bit more excitable.” Stretching his arms and legs, Doc strolled toward the nearby boardwalk. After working a few of the kinks out of his neck, he took a look around. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I checked the schedule and saw the stage was due to stop here for a bit on its way to Denver. Thought it might be a good spot to say hello. Also, the horse I bought wouldn’t have made it another day before keeling over.”
Doc smirked and patted Caleb’s shoulder. “Did you at least get a chance to pay Sarah a visit?”
“Sure did.”
“And?”
“None of your business.” Craning his neck to get a look around before Doc could respond, Caleb said, “Jesus Almighty, will you look at this place?”
Fort Griffin was teeming with so many sights and smells that the place felt as if it had a pulse all its own. The ground rattled under Caleb’s boots thanks to the constant flow of horses and people making their way from one place to another. There was music coming from several different angles, and though none of it was particularly good, it beat the ruckus that had filled Doc’s ears for the last one hundred and fifty miles or so.
Doc’s eyes quickly turned upward to the balconies that were almost as crowded as the streets below them. Several men in suits leaned against rails like kings overlooking their domain, but most of the space on those balconies was occupied by women of all shapes and sizes in varying stages of undress.
“What about her, Doc?” Caleb asked as he nodded toward a plump woman with long dark hair who wore her blouse open more than enough to expose her generous breasts. “Do you think she’s from St. Louis?”
“If she is, I’ll have to seriously reconsider visiting that place.”
Both men laughed and made their way to the closest saloon like two leaves drifting along the same current. They were stopped by a gruff voice calling from directly behind them.
“Hey,” the stagecoach driver said. “Don’t wander off too for. There’s another stage coming through that’s bound for Denver. It’ll be leaving in a few hours.”
“If you could tear yourself away from a place such as this in just a few hours,” Doc said, “then you are more ill than I will ever be.”
The driver winced at that and hopped down to the street. Before he could say anything, he caught a glimpse of the generous breasts swaying more or less over his head. “You got a point there, mister. No need to hurry off so soon.”
“That’s the spirit!” And with that, Doc strode into the saloon he’d chosen simply because it was first in his line of sight.
Caleb remained outside for a few moments to take a better look up and down the street. In the space of those few moments, he spotted more and more gambling halls, saloons, and bordellos than he’d ever dreamed could be crammed into a single stretch of land. A few gunshots rang out in the distance, but they weren’t followed by much commotion, so he assumed they were fired at the sky rather than at anything with a pulse.
Gunshots or no, Caleb couldn’t help but smile at Fort Griffin. And he wasn’t the only one to find something of interest there. As far as he could tell, the place had swallowed up the stagecoach driver along with every one of its passengers. The driver was gone and the sisters from St. Louis were nowhere to be seen. A few words of caution came to mind, but it was too late to say them now. All Caleb could do was hope those two ladies knew when to keep their heads down.
Feeling like a fresh gust of wind had just filled his sails, Caleb headed into the saloon that had already claimed Doc. As soon as Caleb stepped into the place, he was quickly shoved right back out again by the slender dentist.
“No gambling tables in there,” Doc said as he brushed past him. “Let’s take a look at what else there is.”
“Don’t you at least want a drink?”
“Already got one.”
“Well, I didn’t. Where the hell are you headed, Doc?”
“I just remembered a friend of mine might be around here somewhere. Fellow by the name of Owen Donnelly.”
Before Caleb could ask who Owen Donnelly was, he realized that he didn’t much care. “You go on ahead. Just be sure to find your way back to the stage before it leaves.”
But Doc was already making his way down the street and was almost out of sight. Caleb watched him disappear and shrugged to himself. He knew Doc could handle himself, and if he couldn’t, it wasn’t Caleb’s job to do it for him. Besides, Fort Griffin was a place that deserved to be soaked in, and this saloon was as good a place as any to start.
The front of the saloon was tall and narrow. While some places seemed bigger on the inside than they looked on the outside, this wasn’t one of them. It was every bit as narrow as it appeared to be and was even more cramped due to the fact that its upper floor was closed off and only accessible by a narrow set of stairs. Lanterns swung from hooks at odd spots along the walls, giving the place a dim glow.
Standing at the bar, there were mostly cowboys being tended to by working girls sporting velvet ribbons tied around their upper arms. Caleb quickly found the stagecoach driver being romanced by a little brunette with her hair tied into a braid.
When he spotted Caleb at the door, the driver lifted his drink and shouted, “Hell of a town, ain’t it?”
Caleb put on a smile and walked over to the driver’s side. Leaning in close to the man’s ear, he said, “Keep an eye on your valuables. Looks like your new lady friend is doing the same.”
Immediately, the driver’s hand shot toward the pouch that had been slung over his shoulder since the beginning of the ride from Denison. And, twice as quickly, the brunette’s hand slipped out from where it had just made its way beneath the pouch’s flap.
Since he was too slow to feel the woman’s hand where it shouldn’t have been, the driver smirked and chucked Caleb on the shoulder. “I think I’ll keep an eye on this pretty lady’s valuables, if it’s all the same to you,” he said.
“Suit yourself.” With that, Caleb tipped his hat to the working girl and let her get back to her job. If some men were too stupid to take care of themselves, they deserved whatever they got. All concerns he might have had for the driver losing more than just his shirt flew out of Caleb’s mind once he got a look at the small table in the back corner of the saloon.
Caleb couldn’t see much, but he could just make out the pretty face of a redhead sitting on one side of the table. She was looking out and smiling at four other men who were sitting across from her. Between them, on the table itself, was a faro layout where all sizes of bets were being placed.
“You want to buck the tiger, mister?” came a voice from Caleb’s left.
Considering what was going through Caleb’s mind at the time, he didn’t put that phrase together with playing faro right away. He chuckled and forced himself to look away from the redhead so he could see who’d asked the question. The man he found was as tall and narrow as the saloon itself and displayed a smile as crooked as the game to which he was referring.
“I thought there wasn’t any gambling in here,” Caleb said to the barkeep.
The barkeep’s smile wavered a bit as he asked, “Who told you that?”
“A friend of mine who was just in here.”
“You mean that skinny fellow with them fancy clothes?”
“That’s the one,” Caleb said.
“He was asking about poker. Didn’t seem to want to hear about faro, but we do have plenty of that.” Leaning forward on his elbows, the barkeep added, “I see you took a shine to Lottie over there. She deals a straight game and looks even prettier up close. Why not take a look for yourself?”
“Actually, I thought she was someone else.”
“If there’s another one as pretty as Lottie around here, I’d like to meet her.”
The fact of the matter was that Lottie was a whole other animal compared to the redhead that had shared Doc’s stagecoach into town.
“Lottie, huh?” Caleb said under his breath. “Maybe I will introduce myself.”
“You want to talk to her, you gotta have a drink.”
“Didn’t my friend buy enough whiskey for the both of us?”
Although the barkeep didn’t seem too happy about it, he soon started to nod. “Yeah, you’re right. Go on ahead.”
“Come to think of it, I am a little thirsty,” Caleb said. “How long ago did you brew your beer?”
“Just this morning,” came the practiced response. After he saw a critical glare from Caleb, the barkeep said, “Actually, you may want to try something else. This morning’s batch don’t exactly taste so fresh.”
“Why? Because it’s been sitting around for a few months?”
The barkeep didn’t say anything, but he did roll his eyes just enough to answer the question.
“Thanks for the warning,” Caleb said. “I’ll have a whiskey.”
“Coming right up.”
When he got his glass full of whiskey, Caleb carried it across the room toward the faro table. He sipped the liquor and felt it burn down his throat. Once the taste hit him, it was much easier to bear when he was jostled enough for more than half of the whiskey to be spilled onto the floor.