“Oh, I think you will,” Dancer said calmly, confidently.
“Please, Mr. Dancer, we don’t want any trouble,” Dooley said. “Why don’t you just let us apologize and we’ll go on our way?”
Dancer shook his head. “I’m afraid not, gents. You brought me to this ball, now it’s time to dance with the demon.”
Boomer and Dooley looked at each other, then, with an imperceptible signal, they started their draw. Though the two young men were able to defend themselves in most bar fights, they were badly overmatched in this fight. They made ragged, desperate grabs for their pistols.
So bad were they that Dancer had the luxury of waiting a moment to see which of the two offered him the most competition. Deciding it was Boomer, he pulled his pistol and shot him first. Dooley, shocked at seeing his friend killed right before his eyes, released his pistol and let it fall back into his holster. He was still looking at Boomer when Dancer’s second shot hit Dooley in the neck. He fell on top of Boomer.
Dancer stood there for a moment, holding the smoking gun. He put it back in his holster, poured himself another drink, then turned his back to the bar and looked at the four card players. Their faces registered shock and fear.
“Is there anyone who didn’t see them draw first?” he asked.
“They drew first, I seen it,” one of the card players said.
“Yes, sir, I seen it first too. They drawed first, the both of them.”
“Bartender, you saw it too?”
The bartender was staring down at the two young men who, but a moment earlier, had been laughing and joking with him.
“Did you hear the question, bartender?” Dancer asked.
The bartender looked up at Dancer. His face showed more sorrow than fear.
“You goaded them into that fight, Dancer,” he said. “They was just two cowboys mindin’ their own business, and you goaded them into it.”
“Did they draw first or didn’t they?”
“They drew first,” the bartender said. “But you prodded them until they did.”
Dancer put a silver dollar on the bar. “Give these boys a drink on me, and have one for yourself,” he said.
“A drink, yes,” one of the card players said. “Damn, do I need a drink.”
The four card players rushed to the bar. Dancer reached over and picked up one of the beers Dooley and Boomer had left behind.
A tall, silver-haired, dignified-looking man sat at his breakfast table reading the London Daily Times. Brigadier Emeritus of the Northumberland Fusiliers, Sir James Spencer Dorchester, Earl of Preston, Viscount of Davencourt, was wearing a wine-colored, silken robe. Over the left breast pocket was his coat of arms, a white shield with a blue mailed fist clutching a golden sword, placed at the intersection of a red St. Andrew’s Cross.
The remnants of his breakfast, the bottom half of the shell of a soft-boiled egg, was still in its silver cup. The rind of half a grapefruit and the crust of a piece of toast were pushed to one side.
A balding, older man wearing a morning coat and striped trousers came into the room. Stepping up to the table, he raised a silver teapot.
“Would you care for more tea, sir?” Terry Wilson asked.
Wilson, Dorchester’s valet, had served him for thirty years. Before that he had succeeded his own father in service to Dorchester’s father. In all, the Wilsons had been “in service” to the Earls of Preston for five generations. When Dorchester got ready to leave England, he gave his valet a choice. He would either find a position for Wilson somewhere else, or Wilson could come to America with him.
Wilson could not imagine serving anyone else, so he chose to come to America. Here, even though the trappings of peerage were removed, Wilson continued to maintain a “proper” separation between them. Dorchester would have preferred a less formal relationship between them, but he honored Wilson’s wishes.
“Thank you, Mr. Wilson,” Dorchester said as his valet poured the tea.
“Is there anything of particular interest in the Times today, sir?” Wilson asked.
Dorchester took a swallow of tea as he perused the newspaper.
“It says here that Mr. Dickens may come to America to do a series of lectures,” Dorchester said.
“That would be nice,” Wilson replied. “It would give Americans an opportunity to meet one of our really fine authors. I’ll just clear this away, sir.” Wilson took the empty plates and withdrew, leaving Dorchester to read the paper.
The newspaper was actually six weeks old, having made the journey from London to New York by ship, then from New York to Green River, Wyoming Territory, by train. The papers arrived every month in one big bundle, but Dorchester very carefully read them in chronological order, reading only one newspaper per day, and lingering over it during his breakfast.
For the one hour each morning that he devoted to his breakfast and the newspaper, he could almost feel as if he were actually back in England.
Five years ago Dorchester had been a man with a title, a 102-room manor house, and a dwindling financial base. His wife had just died, leaving him with a sixteen-year-old daughter and mounting debts. In a move that some called bold, but most called foolish, Dorchester sold everything he owned and came to America to start a cattle ranch.
Now, his ranch, Northumbria, was one of the largest in the territory, and his twenty thousand head of cattle had made him rich beyond his wildest dreams.
“Good morning, Father.”
Looking up from his paper, Dorchester smiled at his daughter. Pamela was twenty-one, tall and willowy, with blue eyes and dark hair. She moved with the easy grace of someone unaware of her own beauty.
“Good morning, my dear.”
“Did you sleep on it?” she asked as she took her seat. “Just toast and tea,” she said to Wilson, who stepped up to the table.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Did I sleep on what?”
“Come on, Father, you mustn’t tease,” Pamela said. “We talked about it last night, and you said would sleep on it.”
“Oh. You must be talking about your trip to Chicago.”
“Yes. May I go? It’s only three days by train. I’ll stay no more than a week, then I’ll come right back home, I promise. I’ll be gone for two weeks at the most. Please, Father, may I go?”
“I’ve thought about it,” Dorchester said with a stern expression on his face.
“And?” The expression on Pamela’s face was one of concern that he was about to say no.
Suddenly, a big smile spread across her father’s face. “You may go,” he said.
“Oh, Father! Thank you, thank you!” Pamela said. She jumped up from her chair and hurried around the long table to kiss him in appreciation.
Poke Wheeler and Gilley Morris stood in the parlor. Neither had ever been in a house this elegant before now. In fact, it had been some time since either of them had been in a house of any kind.
“Lookie here,” Poke said, running his hand over the back of one of the chairs. “You ever seen leather this soft? What kind of cow you reckon this here leather comes from?”
“I don’t know,” Gilley said. “Maybe they’s special cows that’s got skin like that.”
“Ain’t none that I ever seen,” Poke said. “And I’ve saw lots of cows.”
“Maybe it’s from the kind of cows they got in India or China or somethin’.”
Poke looked at Gilley. “That don’t make no sense. Cows is cows.”
“Not if they are over in China or India, or some such place,” Gilley replied. “The people is different over there. I mean, look at the Chinamen with their eyes and all. Why, I reckon the cows could be different too, and maybe one of the things is, they got real soft skin.”