by Ann Parker
Inez turned, brandy bottle in one hand, snifter in the other, and leaned toward Mark with a smile that would seem to indicate sweet words were coming. “Our agreement,” she said softly into his ear, in a tone of poison, “was that you were not to intrude on my living quarters. Which are upstairs.”
“Ah, but surely that does not include the office, wherein business is regularly conducted by you, me, and Abe,” he responded, with a smile of equal charm. “A washbasin, a few minutes, and I’ll be done. At no time will I breach the wall to your boudoir, on my word as a gentleman.”
A fellow at the bar, the dust of the stagecoach still on his coat sleeves, interrupted their low-toned exchange. “Pardon, ma’am. If I might.” He pushed a half-dollar toward Inez. “Four bits’ll cover it? I have a powerful thirst. ’Twas a long trip from Chicago to Leadville.”
Realizing it was neither time nor place to engage in a marital tiff, Inez turned her back on Mark, and said, “Of course, sir,” to the traveler. “And how do you find our fair city in the clouds?”
After that, time speeded up and Inez’s focus narrowed to the faces on the other side of the bar. She took orders, exchanged libations for lucre, accepted enthusiastic salutations from Friday night regulars, responded to queries from newcomers about the weather (pleasant, for October), the state of the silver market (most excellent), and the opportunities for investment in the City in the Clouds (never better).
“Excuse me, ma’am.” The voice to the left was exceedingly polite. Inez, who was in the act of slicing up a lemon for a hot Scotch whiskey sling, paused, knife in hand, and looked up. Spectacles flashed in the lamplight on the wall behind the bar.
The undertaker from the train.
Still dressed in his formalwear from earlier in the day, the undertaker waited patiently, hat in hand, seemingly unaffected by the jostling and press of men around him. Slightly behind him hovered a tall, thin man, almost a living cadaver, with gentle eyes and sunken cheeks. Add a chin curtain and a stovepipe hat, Inez thought, and he would be a dead ringer for the late President Lincoln.
“I am looking for Mr. Jackson,” the undertaker said. “I understand he works here. It’s important that I speak with him. Is he by chance available for a few minutes?” At this, Inez’s attention focused on the undertaker. Behind the glasses, his eyes were a startling green. His face was lined with a lurking sadness, whether induced by his choice of vocation or perhaps some other reason, it added to the overall sense of gravity and empathy he exuded. He added, “Pardon, I should have introduced myself. I am Mr. Burton Alexander.” He turned to his angular companion. “And this is Dr. Gregorvich.”
Inez offered a polite smile. “And I am Mrs. Stannert, owner of the Silver Queen Saloon along with Mr. Stannert and the aforementioned Mr. Jackson.” She held out a bare hand, having set her gloves aside for her bartending duties. After a pause, Alexander gingerly took her fingers with his hand, which was gloved in immaculate whiteness. Dr. Gregorvich limited himself to a single nod.
Marveling as to how Alexander could possibly keep his gloves so clean in a city that prided itself in measuring its financial well-being by how impenetrably the industrial smoke and ashes filled the air on any given day, Inez said, “Mr. Jackson is tending center. I’ll take you to him.” Then, recognition of the name dawned. “Mr. Alexander. Are you the owner of Alexander’s Undertaking? Françoise Alexander is your wife?”
“Françoise.” The name was breathed out, seeming instinctive almost in pain. “Yes, yes. And we are here to…” He stopped and glanced at Dr. Gregorvich. Some invisible communication passed between them. Mr. Alexander shook his head, and then continued, “This is a matter I should discuss with Mr. Jackson directly, as it is somewhat private in nature. However, you have my measure, madam. Alexander’s Undertaking, that is my business. I am located on Harrison, next to Dr. Gregorvich’s offices. That happenstance has turned out to be a situation that encourages superstition and jest, but has allowed us to become well acquainted, to the benefit of all.” He smiled briefly, then said, “If we might talk to Mr. Jackson now?”
“Of course.” Inez moved toward Abe, keeping an eye on Alexander and Gregorvich to be sure they were able to navigate through the crowds successfully.
Inez reached Abe first. “Abe, two gentlemen want to talk to you. One is Mr. Alexander of Alexander’s Undertaking.”
Abe paused in the act of counting money into the box beneath the counter. “You mean…?”
“Yes, I do believe I mean. Ah! Mr. Alexander and Dr. Gregorvich, here is Mr. Jackson.”
Alexander’s mouth twitched, and he glanced around the saloon nervously. “I apologize, Mr. Jackson. I need to talk with you, somewhere private, if I could. I assure you, it will not take long.”
Abe nodded back and glanced around the saloon, before settling brown eyes on Inez. “Can you two hold the fort for a bit?”
Inez gave him a nudge. “Go. The office is available. Or the gaming room.”
Abe removed his apron and said, “Gentlemen, follow me.” The three men proceeded up the stairs. Inez followed them upstairs with her eyes, then looked at Mark. He raised his eyebrows. She nodded, pointed at him and drew a line that went from his far end to the center of the bar. He nodded back, and moved to cover more territory while she slid over to do the same.
Soon after, a faded red cap bobbed up just above the level of the bar and she heard a determined voice say, “’Scuse me sir,” the three words running together in a single breath. Inez leaned over to see what was transpiring on the other side of the mahogany slab. What she saw was the young black-haired newsie with the striking eyes sliding an emptied spittoon snug up against the rail.
“Tony?”
He looked up from under his red cap, eyes shadowed and wary.
“What are you doing here?”
“Emptying the spit-pots. Mr. Jackson said that tonight was gonna be busy, and you could use the help.” Tony glanced at Abe, who was coming back downstairs with Alexander and Gregorvich. After nods all around between the three, Alexander and Gregorvich appropriated a table near the kitchen door. Abe came back behind the bar, mouth set in a tight line beneath his grizzled gray mustache, but that was the only sign that something had transpired during the conversation. Inez was dying to know what had been said, but resigned herself to waiting.
She turned to Tony, while pulling out a fresh rag from beneath the counter. “Mr. Jackson said, did he? Well then, you’d better get busy.” Tony touched his cap and said, almost as an afterthought, “Thanks, ma’am. Mrs. Stannert.” He turned and wiggled back into the crowd, heading toward the back tables.
Inez saw a spate of top hats jostling her way, heralded by distinctive and familiar, “Pardon. Bloody pardon. We’re perishing from lack of spirits and refined company. Damn it all, let us through, we’re good friends and business associates of the Stannerts and we…Well, hullo, Mrs. Stannert.”
The Lads from London jostled up to the bar, with Lord Percy acting as point man of the patrol. Once he’d attained the bar, his compatriots spread out to either side, sliding the drinks before them to make room. The displaced patrons eyed the group sourly and there were some grumbles, but the evening was young, and as yet no one was itching to start a fight. Epperley slid in next to Percy, looking more bitter and tight-lipped than usual. Inez knew the young hotelier and manager of the Mountain Springs Hotel as a non-smiler, but his fair-haired visage seemed even darker than usual. “Damn it, Percy.”
“Shut it,” said Lord Percy loftily. “You’re simply envious that you weren’t able to partake of such a unique investment opportunity. Poor bugger that you are, having all your funds from now to eternity pouring into that white elephant of a hotel. I told you, once summer season’s over, the debts would overrun any profits. You should’ve listened. If you had, you would’ve had a chance to throw in with me. To think, silver nuggets, lying around on the ground.”
Alarm pricked Inez. “Percy, what are you talking about?”
“Met this fellow, just as we left you last, a prince of a man. Showed me papers, for his claim, Lady Luck. Offered to sell. Couldn’t refuse.” Percy’s words dissolved and he sputtered, “Absinthe, neat, Mrs. Stannert, if you please. I have a serious need to ‘smother the parrot’ and get half-rats.”
“You have a serious need of a bloody solicitor who can dig you out of the worthless hole you just bought into,” snapped Epperley.
Tipton guffawed. “You just want him to pour his inheritance into the worthless hole you call a hotel and health resort in Manitou.” He pointed at the highest shelf on the backbar. “Brandy for me, Mrs. Stannert. Best you have.”
Inez raised her eyebrows but held her tongue, gathering glasses and bottles to prepare the potations. She knew Mark had held discussions with Epperley while they’d lingered in the Springs. She knew Epperley had been looking for investors, and while she privately thought there was potential, the seasonal uncertainties caused her to caution Mark against it. “Too many of these resorts overextend for the summer crowd, and then, come winter, the crowds disappear.”
Mark had shrugged. “Sometimes, darlin’, you need to take a chance. Back the dark horse.”
“Not with my money,” she’d said with some asperity.
Mark had smoothed his mustache, considering. “Not our money, then.”
At that point, she’d privately congratulated herself for keeping certain of her private funds—profits from business investments that Mark knew nothing about—apart and separate.
One of the regulars who had been squeezed to one end finally abandoned his post to claim a chair vacated close by.
His space was immediately taken by a vaguely familiar figure in a blatantly checked sack coat. A repetitive squeak-squeak caused Inez to pause and lean over the counter to see what it was he was hauling with him that made such a racket. He was maneuvering a trunk that was nearly as tall as he was, hauling on its leather handle. Fastened to the two lower corners of the trunk were a cleverly mounted pair of wooden wheels. The whole was obviously engineered to make it easy to haul the trunk and contents while walking over dirt and uneven pavement.
Inez removed a grouping of dirty glasses that had been shoved aside by the Lads, pulled a clean towel from the working bench beneath the counter, and wiped the area before him clean of spills. “Welcome to the Silver Queen, stranger. What’s your poison?”
The newcomer, who was not particularly tall, draped his arm atop his large trunk as one might around the shoulders of a dear, but slightly inebriated friend. “I’d jump at a sherry and egg.”
“Whole or yolk?”
“Whole.”
Inez pulled a clean whiskey glass, poured a small portion of sherry, barely enough to slick the bottom, hunted down an egg from the sawdust-filled ice box under the back bar, and cracked it into the glass, making sure the yolk stayed whole. She handed it to the customer along with the bottle of sherry wine. The unbroken yolk glistened in the glass, cradled by the liquor layer. As he removed his rust-brown hat and set it atop the case and measured a tot of sherry into the glass, Inez took in his overall appearance with a professional eye. He had russet hair, slightly tousled, merging into side-whiskers. Combined with a sharp chin, copper-colored eyes, and restless hands, he put Inez in mind of a woodland fox. The face was unfamiliar, but the rumpled burgundy-and-tan checked jacket was the definitive tell.
“Didn’t I see you at the train station?” Inez asked.
The newcomer placed his coins on the counter, then lifted his glass in a half-salute to Inez. “To Cloud City, where trains run on time, the road traffic is infernal, and wealth and possibilities abound.” He drank, the yolk sliding from cup to mouth, disappearing under the mustache.
“You missed your train,” Inez persisted.
He smiled. Teeth gleaming. “I had no idea I made such an impression on such a lovely lady.”
“You arrived late and your carriage cut us off,” she said calmly. “While we were trapped in the ‘infernal’ traffic, we witnessed your…tantrum.”
“Ah.” He sounded regretful. “It’s the curse of a choleric temperament, as passed down by my father and his father before him. Ofttimes gets the better of me. Apologies if I offended.”
“No offense taken. Missing the train is easy to do, if one doesn’t know alternate routes that avoid traffic.” She retrieved the sherry bottle and now-empty glass. “So what business brings you to Leadville and apparently keeps you here a while longer?”
“The name’s Woods.” The sherry and egg seemed to have added an extra sparkle to his eyes. “As for my business, a lovely personage as yourself need only ask, although I’m certain being a woman of perception you know the answer.” He gave his trunk a paternal pat. “I’m in the sales business.” He leaned toward her. “Ladies’ unmentionables. Corsets and stockings, the finest of materials, only.” Although his voice was confidential in tone, it was loud in volume. Nearby heads swiveled instantly in their direction.
One fellow in well-worn corduroys elbowed his way next to Woods, followed by someone who could have been his shadow, except his pants were of denim, but no less worn. “Whatcha got there, drummerman? Pretty lady things? Mebbe something nice I can bring on back t’ my Carole Jane? Ain’t seen her all summer, and this bein’ well into fall, I gotta make amends for my absence.”
The speaker didn’t look like he had a cent to rub against another, but Inez knew from experience that sometimes the shabbiest fellow was the one newly flush with riches. They came from the gulches and the hills outside of town, having worked hard all summer and itching to spend some of the gains before winter closed in.
With a grin, the drummer stepped to one side, flipped the latches on the trunk, and opened it from its standing position, as if revealing the contents of a magic wardrobe, revealing the contents to onlookers as well as Inez. Inez almost gasped in delight, as her initial skepticism dissolved before the corsets—washes of sky-blue, navy, orange, and scarlet in silk and satin, frothy with ivory lace. A rainbow array of silk ribbons, cords, and ties looped like small, tame snakes on hooks along one side, as if all that was needed was the sound of a pipe to bring them alive and writhing.
All conversation in the immediate vicinity had ceased. Men jostled each other to get a better look at the wares. Even Dr. Gregorvich and the undertaker abandoned their table in the back to join the crowd.
Woods took advantage of the pool of awed silence in his vicinity to launch into his patter. “All the way from the new and fashionable Coronet Corset manufactory, located in Jackson, Michigan, we have corsets such as the Madame McGee, the Ladies’ Favorite. From all I hear, it is the gentlemen’s favorite as well.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “All of which have many recognized points of superiority, are readily adjustable and conserve comfort, health, and convenience,” he gave that last word special emphasis, as he held one of the samples aloft for better viewing by those craning to see, “in every particular. Provides elegance of contour, without interfering with the freedom and comfort of the wearer.” He set a few items aside, continuing, “Also, I carry the celebrated Duplex corsets which have attained so wide a celebrity by reason of their vast superiority that it seems almost superfluous to more than mention them. Double bones and double steels, they are adjustable over the hips by strap and buckle and can be made to fit any form instantly. Then we have our specialties, imported from Paris, and I don’t mean Paris, Kentucky.”
The man in denim gripped his friend’s shoulder. “Corduroy Dan, I don’t think ya got enough to buy one a of them lady’s unmentionables for the missus. They look like they’d cost all your whiskey money and then some.”
Corduroy Dan shook off his friend’s grasp. “How much for that there blue one?”
Inez cleared her throat, and caught the drummer’s eye. “If you are planning to c
onduct business in the Silver Queen, we must first come to an…understanding.” She placed her elbows on the recently waxed surface, and leaned toward him.
Woods shut the case. A collective sigh of disappointment erupted from the crowd around him, and even Inez experienced a sudden twinge as the colorful array disappeared from sight. The drummer then placed a protective arm over the lid and leaned in toward her, copper-colored eyes anticipatory, waiting.
“Five percent of whatever you make while selling your wares in the saloon.”
“Ah, madam,” he sounded sorrowful. “You’ll send me to the poorhouse. However, I have heard good things about the poorhouse in Leadville. Decent victuals, and sermons on the Christian virtues of piety and hard work.” His smile reappeared. “Deal.” He flung the lid back up, and a frenzy erupted in his vicinity.
Inez immediately wished she’d asked for seven percent.
While Corduroy Dan began mining his pockets, extracting crumpled paper currency of uncertain denominations, other men crowded around, throwing out questions. “For any size?” “Got somethin’ in red, with all that there lacy stuff around the top?” “How about silk?”
Even Mr. Alexander seemed caught up in the fervor. He had somehow made his way to the front and was perusing the corset strings with great solemnity. Inez had a sudden vision of Mrs. Alexander in a black corset, gleaming silver laces crisscrossing up the satin back panels. She immediately tried to banish the image from her mind.
Lord Percy elbowed his way to the case. “You said you have offerings from the Continent?”
Woods twisted around and Inez thought his cheerful voice cooled several degrees. “That I do. Paris, as well as a few specialties from the renowned Marie Grochovska, from a Varsovie in Faubourg de Cracovie.”
