“What time is it?”
“About five o’clock.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean what year?”
“Eighteen-ninety-eight. Say, do you have that amnesia or something?”
Well, why not? “I guess so,” I told her. “Anyway, I don’t remember what I was doing with that dynamite.”
“You remember your name?”
“Sure. Steve Victor.” I stuck my hand out by way of introduction.
“I’m Flame Boyant.” She patted her red curls.
“Apt.” I grinned.
“It’s a stage name,” she confided. “I thought it up myself. My real name’s Euphremia.”
“No kidding?” I grinned. “That was my grandmother’s name.”
“That’s a coincidence. It’s not a very common name. But then neither is Victor.” She studied my face thoughtfully. “Do you have a brother?” she asked.
“No. Why?”
“Well, of course, you wouldn’t know if you did.”
“Why not?”
“You have amnesia. Don’t you remember?”
“It’s coming back to me now. Wait . . . That’s right.”
“What is it?” Flame asked.
“I remember now. I have amnesia!”
“Are you pulling my leg?”
“I wouldn’t mind.” I admired her legs openly.
“You’d better come inside,” she said. “You’ll catch pneumonia out here dressed like that.”
I followed her into the dance hall. There was a stage at the far end, but it wasn’t in use at the moment. Girls dressed like Flame were dancing with tough-looking men. Other men were congregating around a bar. We crossed the dance floor and Flame led me up a flight of stairs. She turned into one of the rooms at the top and closed the door behind us.
“You need a bath,” she told me bluntly.
She was right. Yukon mud was caked all over me. I smelled like a shovel following in the wake of a team of unhousebroken sled dogs.
“You can take one here,” Flame offered. “This is my room. There is a tub in that closet and I’ll have some hot water sent up to you. You got some other clothes?”
“No.” I shook my head.
“You sourdoughs are all the same. Never a pot to rinse a kidney. Well, I’ll see what I can scrounge up for you.”
“Thanks. But why are you going to all this trouble?” I wondered.
“Maybe because when you threw that dyno you made me a wealthy woman. Maybe because I got the same name as your Grandma. Or maybe just because I’m a soft-hearted slob and you got amnesia and you look like something the puppy upchucked.”
She shrugged and left then, closing the door behind her. Somehow, I didn’t buy any of her reasons. Something in the speculative way she looked at me—almost as if she was trying to see through my clothes-—told me that Flame had some other interest in me. Perhaps I was being conceited, but it crossed my mind that it might be as simple as her finding me attractive.
My conceit was fueled further awhile later. Water had been brought, the tub filled, and I was just peeling out of my comic opera Russian duds when I happened to glance up and saw that the door to the room was ajar. A pair of eves was peeking through the aperture. They were deep green and I recognized them as belonging to Flame. Startled, I dropped my trousers and hastily lowered myself into the tub with a splash.
Everybody gets their kicks different ways, I mused. Maybe the redhead was a voyeur. I’d known other girls who got more jollies from peeping than participating.
Once I was in the tub, the door silently closed all the way. I lolled there a long time, alternately scrubbing the grime from my skin and luxuriating in the warmth of the bath. Finally I stood up and reached for a towel. Immediately, the door opened. I was facing it as Flame entered. Hastily, I covered myself with a towel.
“Real modest, ain’t you?” There was disappointment in her sharp eyes.
“You could have knocked.”
“It’s my room,” she reminded me.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. You just startled me.” I stood in the tub, dripping, feeling awkward, waiting for her to leave.
After a long pause, instead of leaving, Flame abruptly started circling the tub. I turned where I was so that I kept facing her. I had no idea what she was up to, but it was making me nervous. Whatever it was she was after, my maneuvering with her seemed to make her frustrated.
“Get dressed,” she said finally. “Come on downstairs and I’ll buy you a steak.”
She was waiting for me when I came down. We picked our way through the mud from the dance hall to a nearby saloon that served food. I was halfway through a tough chunk of beef when two men pulled a couple of chairs up to our table and sat down without waiting to be asked.
I recognized them. They were the pair who’d been guarding the gate of the Lucky Seven. Flame performed the introductions. The one with the half-beard was called Grubby. He could have been anywhere from forty to seventy years old. What was left of his beard was streaked with grey. That, plus the fact that his eyebrows were gone, gave him the look of a lopsided walrus. He was a stocky man and he attacked his steak like he was afraid it might bite back if he didn’t chew it to death first.
His partner was younger, around thirty, I guessed. He was called Belch. It was more of a definition than a name. Burping was part of his conversational pattern, and part of his silences as well. He expressed it as an inalienable human right and he expressed it proudly. He was a big man, tall and rangy, and he wore a Colt .45 strapped low on his hip like an old-time Western gunfighter.
“Had them nuggets assayed,” he told Flame. “Close on ninety percent pure strain.” Belch belched happily.
“Smartest thing you ever did was to grubstake us, Flame.” Grubby cackled. “You’re gonna be rich. We re all gonna be rich.” He chomped his steak ferociously.
“What I don’t get,” Belch belched suspiciously, “is why you threw dyno at the Lucky Seven anyway.” Hard eyes cased me.
“He did us a favor,” Flame pointed out.
“But maybe he didn’ mean it that way,” Grubby opined. “Chuckin’ dyno at a feller’s mine—now there’s some might say that ain’t right friendly even ifn it did come up gold dust.”
“It was an accident,” I told them.
“You got mighty careless ways, stranger.” Belch belched disbelievingly. “A feller hadn’t oughta go around blowin’ up folks’ mines lessen he got a reason. A feller could get hurt bein’ that careless. Might blow hisself up for one. Or might be folks take it unkindly an’ figger a feller that careless a reg’lar menace better off in a pine box.”
“It was an accident,” Flame interjected firmly. “He’s sick. Amnesia. Didn’t know what he was doin’.”
“You swallow that?” Grubby asked her.
“Yes. I tell you he’s okay.” Flame shot me a look that said she wasn’t as sure as she was trying to sound, but that she was protecting me for reasons of her own. “Now you two jus’ lay off him,” she ordered.
“Okay, Flame. We owe you a lot. You grubstaked us; If this feller’s a friend of your’n, he’s okay with me. Grubby held out his hand to me and I shook it.
“Me too.” Belch belched a comradely belch and wrung the blood from my hand. “I gotta get back to the mine and stand guard,” he added. “See you later, Grubby. He stood up, burped mightily and while the sound was still echoing around the room he left.
“I have to go too,” Flame said. “I’m due onstage. When you finished feeding your belly, see me over to the dance hall, Steve.” She followed Belch out the swinging doors.
A moment later they swung back the other way and a man’s bulk almost blotted them out altogether. He was a bear of a man, huge, legs like tree trunks, a chest like a keg stuffed with nails, hands like grappling hooks. A great black moustache that could have been used to steer a motorcycle bisected his face. It was a mean face, all scowling fangs and craggy jaw at the bottom, a nose that looked more like a fist separating tiny red eyes under a slaglike brow at the top. The brow continued up and around in a series of bald, bony ridges tinged with blue veins etching angry red patches of skin dipping to stretch over the valleys of his scalp. He stood there a moment, looking around the saloon. Then his eyes lit on Grubby and his bear face became even meaner.