Angus pulled the curtains over the windows at either side of the front door. “I’m sorry, Miss Witherspoon, but I have to help my ma here. If you want to leave, it’s okay.”
Martha Witherspoon set her shoulders firmly. “Such is the lot of the writer, dear boy. Your mother is perfectly correct. Good heavens, what was that?”
“A mouse, probably. Come out when he thinks everyone’s gone. Man’s been sick in the back, most likely. That attracts all sorts of vermin. Never mind, Mrs. Saunderson’ll take care of it when she comes in. Ma didn’t really expect us to clean it up. Are you feeling all right, Miss Witherspoon? You look slightly pale.”
Miss Witherspoon mumbled something about being perfectly fine and sank into the chair recently vacated by Angus’s mother.
“The sick isn’t so bad,” Angus continued. “It mops up easily. It’s blood that’s hard to get out. Soaks into the wooden floor, and there it stays. Ma tells me they have a fight every so often, and some guy’s usually on the floor, blood pouring out of his nose, before the bouncers can get to him. Mrs. Saunderson hates that. She’d rather have a puking drunk any day. Sure you’re okay, Miss Witherspoon?”
Miss Witherspoon tossed him a sickly smile. “I’ll lock this sack up.” Angus lifted the bag heavy with gold dust, jingling with coins, stuffed with bills of American and Canadian denominations and topped up with a good number of hefty gold nuggets.
“Sorry, ma’am, but we’re closed right now,” he said as a woman came in through the unlocked front door. She was small and skinny. She wore a plain brown dress, caked with mud at the hem, and an unflattering hat, slightly askew. Her pale eyes darted back and forth too quickly, and the skin under them folded over and over upon itself to form deep crevices. The look in her eyes made Angus think of sadness and of loss.
“Ma’am,” he said. “Can I help you?” He’d seen eyes like those before: change the colour from lifeless blue to unemotional brown and they could have been the eyes of the Indian women who’d stood perfectly still as they’d watched Angus and Sterling cross Moosehide village.
The woman shook her head. “Irene,” she said. “Where’s Irene?”
“Probably gone home,” Angus said. “The Savoy’s closed, you see.”
“You should leave also,” Miss Witherspoon said. “Off you go now.” She moved her hands in front of her as if she were shooing away a particularly pesky lapdog.
The woman made no attempt to move; she stood still, in the middle of the saloon, her eyes darting around, attempting to peer into all the dark corners.
“Light’s still on. Late for you isn’t it, Fiona? Mrs. MacGillivray?” Constable Sterling walked into the saloon. “Angus, what brings you here? Where’s your mother? I thought I’d better check, as she’s usually long gone by now.”
The woman screeched at the sight of the red-coated Mountie. She pulled a small-calibre gun out from a pocket in the depths of her dress and held it to Miss Witherspoon’s head. All before Sterling could exhale.