When she spoke onstage, Mrs. Jerrine Reed told the audience her husband had stayed at home to go over budgets and books. But no. Mr. Jack Reed was not at home counting horses.
At this point in the evening, it’s fair to say he had trouble simply staying upright in his seat. Luckily, he didn’t have to stand. His drinks were brought to him by Bertie Brown. All he had to do was lift the mug to his lips.
“Three eggs,” Jack Reed said.
He looked up to be sure Bertie Brown heard him, but who else could she listen to? Tonight, he was her only customer.
Bertie Brown sold the best homebrew in Montana and ran a small business, the Blind Pig. Calling it a bar seemed like a stretch. The Blind Pig was Bertie Brown’s home, a single-story log cabin on 320 acres. Bertie had proved up in 1912. The Bear Paw Mountaineer ran the notice in the paper, as was required for all claims to be legally recognized.
“Notice for Publication—Department of the Interior U.S. Land Office at Havre, Montana, Sept. 12, 1912. Notice is hereby given that Bertie Brown, Big Sandy, Montana, who on June 17, 1909, made homestead entry number 171891, has filed notice of intention to make Final Commutation Proof to establish claim to the land above described….”
The notice ran longer, but the rest didn’t matter much. Only her name, the dates of when she began the process and when it ended. And most of all, the fact that the U.S. Department of the Interior officially recognized this territory as hers. A proud day for any homesteader, but for a Black woman born in the last years of American slavery this feat amounted to a major historic victory. How had Bertie celebrated? By never tending her land again.
She built a still on her property and produced the finest liquor in the state. All of Montana knew Bertie’s Brew. Men, and women, rode down from Canada to take a jug home. You can’t simply sell your wares to such travelers and then shut the door. Not if you’re a good businesswoman. You let them in, offer a meal and some company. Then you charge for all three. That’s how you build a prosperous business.
A modest place by the standards of Helena or Butte maybe, but thirteen miles northwest of Big Sandy the Blind Pig had no equal: three outhouses behind the cabin; a corral large enough for six horses to shelter. The still sat alone, farthest from the cabin; if there was a fire—or an explosion—the only thing that would be bothered was the dirt and the wolves. And maybe Bertie if the damn thing blew up while she was tending it. But no one makes her own liquor without incurring a bit of risk. Bertie Brown had made this happen, all of it, and if she felt quite proud, then who could blame her?
“Three eggs?” she asked, repeating Mr. Reed’s words to him.
They both held a mug of Bertie’s Brew and had been drinking together since about seven o’clock, about the same time Mrs. Reed walked onstage back in town and welcomed all the women and children and even a few men to her show.
“That’s what I said she could offer to the audience as they left. Three eggs per household. That’s all I approved.”
Bertie sipped at her mug. She’d had as much as Mr. Reed. She wasn’t the type of hostess to sip water with her guests. Some might call this foolish, bad business, especially risky for a woman alone, but Bertie wasn’t alone. That’s why she could do it.
“And what do you think Mrs. Reed actually gave them?”
Mr. Reed leaned back in his chair. He didn’t look vexed. He grinned. “A dozen eggs. Per family. That’s my guess. Anything more would be madness.”
Bertie raised her mug but didn’t sip from it. “If I know Mrs. Reed…”
Mr. Reed looked toward the ceiling and laughed softly. “Potatoes. Just this morning she had a wagonful delivered.”
“And you didn’t guess?” Bertie asked, smiling.
“She told me she was preparing for the winter.”
“You don’t seem the type to be so easily fooled,” Bertie told him.
Mr. Reed looked back down at the table. “I can’t help it,” he said. “She always gets me.”
“I don’t think you mind it, if it’s her.”
“No,” Mr. Reed agreed. “I suppose every captain needs his North Star.”
To this they both raised their mugs and took a gulp.
“Call the Celestial back in, would you?” Mr. Reed said. “My cards are getting cold.”
Bertie’s hand wobbled and a bit of her brew spilled on the table. Fiona. That’s who he was talking about. Fiona Wong. Celestial was a common slur for the Chinese. A citizen of “the Celestial Empire of China,” but in the States the citizens of such an august-sounding nation washed laundry, cooked food, cleared land. What a laugh. A common enough slur that it had turned into a nickname. Call the Celestial back in.
Bertie set the mug down so she wouldn’t spill any of it. Then she turned in her chair and called out, “Will you come back to the table, Mrs. Wong?”
Mr. Reed had sent his driver with word the day before: I’m coming to drink and play cards. I’d like to play alone. “Alone” in this case meant no other men at the bar. Mr. Reed liked to come out and play his favorite card game with Bertie and Fiona, a game called Five Hundred. But it was a shameful bit of fun in the eyes of other men out here. A woman’s parlor game. Mr. Reed had to pick the times and places where he could play it. In thirty years of marriage, he’d never even told his wife how much he loved the game. Only Bertie and Fiona knew, and it happened nowhere else but the Blind Pig.
In walked Fiona Wong, the youngest of the three in the room. Short and barrel-shaped. She carried three fresh mugs of Bertie’s Brew and set them on the table. She took her seat again, glancing quickly at Bertie, shaking her head to say, Don’t make a fuss.
“Her name is Mrs. Wong,” Bertie said, because Bertie was the type to make a fuss if needed. “You know this, Mr. Reed.”
His small head wobbled as he looked from Bertie to Fiona. “Isn’t that what I said?”
His gaze shifted between the women and, for a moment, he seemed to realize that he sat alone in a cabin thirteen miles away from town. Far enough from his power and influence that he was, finally, stripped to his essence. A little sixty-year-old man whose right ankle often clicked when he walked, because of an old fall off a granary ladder. Bertie Brown was a thin woman in her forties, but he’d seen her wrestle ranchers out her front door, and Fiona Wong was all of twenty-five, but used to tossing full bags of laundry into the back of her wagon and hauling them from town back to the Blind Pig for cleaning. Which is to say he understood, briefly, that these two women could fold him up as easily as a bedsheet, so perhaps he ought to be more thoughtful about the next thing he said.
He watched them and they watched him.
“Shall we play cards?” he asked. “I believe it was your play, Mrs. Wong.”
The decision now was Fiona’s. The spark of chaos became hers to light. If she reached across the table and throttled this old man, Bertie would only douse the lamp so the deed would be done in the dark. She looked from Mr. Reed to Bertie, then back down at her cards.
“I believe you’re correct, Mr. Reed. Let’s play.”
So they did. And in time the mood returned to something that hovered between friendly and professional. Bertie and Mr. Reed continued to drink hard while Fiona sipped slow. Eventually, round about the time Mrs. Reed and the Busy Bees were singing along to the song playing on the theater organ, almost exactly when Adelaide hurried through the lobby and took Sam to the Grill Cafe, nearly precisely at the moment when Grace Price stopped Finn Kirby to ask him why he’d been so scarce lately, right then the rumble of a car engine played outside the Blind Pig.
“That’s a Maxwell,” Fiona said to Mr. Reed, peeking out the window through the curtain. “I saw an ad in the paper.” She returned to the table, gathering up the cards.
“Brand new,” Mr. Reed said, nodding slowly, speaking proudly.
“Expensive,” Fiona added, teasing him a bit, knowing a man like Mr. Reed would enjoy such a game.
And he did. The man giggled. Sounding as close to a child as he’d likely done for at least fifty years. He placed his elbows on the table, leaning toward Fiona.
“Would you like a ride?” he asked.
“It’s late,” Bertie said immediately.
Mr. Reed looked at Bertie quickly, then back to Fiona. “You would both come, of course.”
Fiona turned to Bertie, so clearly excited that the decision had already been made.
“Fine, fine,” Bertie said. Then, pointing at Mr. Reed, “But you can’t drive.”
Mr. Reed laughed loudly. “You are drunk, Mrs. Brown! My driver does the driving. And while you two are with me, I will sit up front beside him. You ladies will enjoy having the intimacy of the rear seat to yourselves.”
Was that some sort of innuendo? By this point, Mr. Reed was in such a state that nearly everything he said felt faintly lecherous. Nevertheless, they were both going. And, though she wouldn’t tell anyone else, Bertie planned on bringing her revolver, tucked under her coat. One never can be too careful.
“Come see our horses,” Mr. Reed said proudly, proclaiming, not asking. “Out at my stable. Six arrived just this week.”
With the decision made, all three rose; two of them needed to place a hand on the backs of their chairs for balance.
A knock at the door and Fiona went to greet the driver.
“I’m here for Mr. Reed,” he said.
“You’re the driver?” Fiona asked, feeling more at ease already. “You don’t look old enough.”
He stepped inside, removing his cap so he could tip it.
“I’m young but I’ve had some experiences,” he said.
Mr. Reed clapped for the young man. “He’s got a lion’s heart. I can tell you that.”
Fiona put out her hand and he shook it. “And who are you?”
The young man said, “My name is Joab. Like in the Bible. A man who serves a great king.”