West Winds' Fool and Other Stories of the Devil's West

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “Why did you come here?”

  She’d never asked, before.

  Ree didn’t say anything for the longest time, and Izzy thought maybe he wouldn’t, until he did. “Nothing where I started, for me. Nothing out there for me. Here? Something.”

  She chewed on that a little, while she turned the dough into its resting bowl, covered it, and set it on the shelf. Nearly all the folk who came to Flood were looking for something, but most of them didn’t stay. The town had a blacksmith, and a saloon, and they had a storekeeper and a doc who had two sons who did the grave-digging when needed.

  If you stayed, Izzy thought, it was because the devil had need of you.

  Manners were, you never asked what someone came for, and you never asked what they paid. She had gone as far as she could, and still be polite.

  “Was it worth it?” The question slipped out anyway, like she was still a little girl who didn’t know better.

  Ree chopped a handful of carrots, shoving them off the board into the stewpot, every motion focused on what he was doing. If she had been rude, he didn’t seem offended. “You deal with the devil, know what you want, and what you can pay. He don’t ever take more than you’re willing to give. ”

  How did you know? She wondered. How could you know what you were able to pay, and what did you offer when you had nothing of value except what he already owned?

  Flood was his town. He owned everything—and everyone in it. Including her.

  For one more day.

  Her hands clean and dried, Izzy left the bread in its rising bowl, and wandered out to the window. Every room in the saloon had a window, except the back rooms, where the girls took customers. This one was small, and opened to the back alley; Ree tossed scraps out for the dogs, when he thought no-one was looking.

  “What’s out there?”

  He didn’t take her literally. “Beyond Flood? More towns. More people. Go East, there are cities. Lots more people.”

  “How many more?”

  Ree looked at her, his eyes dark and unblinking, until Izzy started to feel nervous. She had known him all her life, it seemed, but just then he was a stranger.

  “More people than you have ever met. More people than in all of the Territory, north to south. Too many people.”

  She had no basis for ‘too many people,’ the words were only words. “Have you seen a city?”

  He shuddered. “No. No desire to.”

  She ran her fingers along the frame of the window, and looked out into the alley. If she wanted to, she could go to a city. Chicago, or all the way to Boston, or New York.

  And do what, once there? Being a saloon girl—serving drinks and rolling cigarettes for the players, running errands for the older women who danced and fucked—was respectable here, but everyone said it was different outside of Flood, where the devil had a lighter hold. Nobody would protect her, out there. Nobody would care.

  Ree sounded scared, by cities. Izzy couldn’t imagine anything that frightening.

  The saloon officially opened at 11, serving up coffee and whiskey to the men—and some women—who wandered in. The older women were still sleeping, but the male employees and the saloon girls were awake and ready, if they should be needed.

  That morning, cool with early spring, the saloon was empty of customers. Christina, at ten the youngest and newest saloon girl, was sweeping the floor, while her brother, Christopher, polished the brass railing of the bar. They’d come over the winter, half-starved and terrified, dropped off by a stern-faced man with a marshal’s badge. Their parents had been outlaws, and nobody else would take them, certain the twins would be trouble, too.

  The boss had promised to beat it out of them before they were fourteen.

  The Law respected Flood. Flood respected the law, in return.

  Izzy sat on the catswalk that ran along the second floor of the salon, where the working girls lived, her feet dangling over the edge, watching the activity below. The boss had beaten her, once. She had been their age, and mouthed off to a customer. The boss had laughed, in public, but that morning, when the saloon closed, she had been summoned to his office. Gavin, who had run the day to day saloon business back then, had assigned her chores to keep her standing up, that day.

  Every now and again a preacherman came to Flood. He’d set up outside the saloon—never coming in, despite the boss’s own invitation—and would preach for hours, sunrise to sundown, about how the devil was evil, the devil was wrong, the devil was a risk to their immortal souls, and ruining these lands, beside; that without him, the deserts would be green, the rivers lush, and no-one would ever die of hunger or thirst or Indian attack.

  She had never been sick, never gone hungry, never been threatened by real danger—at most, a customer might tug at her braid, or pat her backside, until one of the older girls distracted him, took his attention back where it belonged.

  She thought about that, and about what little she knew of the cities back East overflowing with people, and the lands even farther West, where the Queen of Spain held the coast, and kept the devil and settlers out, equally.

  Her thoughts were still tangled, but she was starting to sort the threads.

  Outside, the sounds of the town filtered in; voices raised in greeting, the occasional clop of hooves or rattle of wagons, a horse’s neigh or dog’s bark. Inside, it was hushed, the occasional scrape of a chair or clink of a glass, and the sound of cards in the boss’s hands.

  She looked down on him sitting at his favorite table, his hair gleaming dark red even in the dusty light, slicked back and curled, down to the turn of his collar, a neat goatee trimmed close against his cheek, his skin pale or dark depending on when you looked at him.

  He knew she was watching him.

  “What should I do?” she asked, not raising her voice a bit.

  “Your cards, your call,” he said, slicing open a new deck and spreading it out underneath his hand. “All I can do is wait and see how they’re played.”

  The devil, contrary to myth, didn’t cheat. He never had to.

  Izzy sat on the balcony, her legs dangling in the air, and watched him. Supple hands, strong wrists, his shirtsleeves pulled back to show the sinews moving under his skin.

  The working girls said he was a particular lover; only a few ever felt his touch, despite what the preachermen say. He liked women, he liked men. But he liked them adult, and willing. That was more than she could say about some of the men who’d come into the saloon. You knew them, the way they looked, the way they moved. You learned to tell, and evade, and not give them the chance to make trouble.

  If they did, the boss gave them what they came for, and they never came back again.

  “Tell me about my parents.”

  “They were young. And stupid.” He says it without condemnation; stupidity is a natural state. “In over their heads and looking for a way out.”

  “But there wasn’t one.” She knew the story by heart, but liked hearing him tell it, anyway.

  “No. There wasn’t. They’d planted themselves in Oiwunta territory without asking permission, built themselves a house and had themselves children, and never once thought there might be a price to pay.”

  Everything had a price. Every resident of Flood knew that. Everyone who survived a year in the devil’s west knew that. “And then the Oiwunta came.”

  “They came back from the summer hunting grounds, and found a cabin in their lands, where the creek turned and watered the soil, and the deer had roamed freely. “ He set aside the deck of cards, and slit open another pack, fanning the posterboards easily, frowning as he did so.

  The backs of the boards were dark blue, pipped with silver. The last pack had been pipped in gold.

  “They would have been within their rights to kill everyone within, burn the cabin down and steal all that was within.” He paused, fingers splayed over the cards. “Although it’s easier to steal, then burn. You never know what an Indian might do, though.”

  The natives
didn’t come to Flood, mostly; the boss said they had their own ways of getting into trouble.

  “But they didn’t,” she said.

  “They didn’t. They’d been watching, the Oiwunt had, watching what happened elsewhere when the white folk moved in, and they were smart—smarter than your parents, not that it took much doing. The whites could stay, but they had to pay tribute. Just once, but something that would tie them to the land, tie them to the welfare of the tribe.”

  “Their child.”

  “Me.”

  “You.” The boss shrugged, shuffled the cards and laid down a new hand on the felt, all his attention on the pasteboard. “They could have had other children; if they wanted to make a go of it out there they’d have to have other children, or hire help from somewhere else. But they were stupid, like I said. They refused. And the Oiwunta burned 'em out. Stole everything they had, but left 'em alive.”

  “And then they came here.” Rosie added, unable to resist adding her piece. Rosie had been here then. Rosie, Izzy thought, had always been here, like the devil himself.

  “To the Saloon?”

  “To Flood,” the boss said. “And, eventually, here.”

  Everyone who came to Flood came to the Saloon, eventually. To see, to deal, to press their luck, or to pay homage.

  “Nothing but the clothes on their back and a single horse—and you, little mite all wide-eyed and closed mouth. Didn’t say a word, even when your daddy handed you over.” The boss chuckled, looking up at her. “Thought I was getting a quiet one. Proof even I can be wrong.”

  She remembered that. Her father was a hard-handed blur in her memory, and her mother only a soft voice and tears, but she remembered being handed over, the boss’s face peering down into hers, and him promising that she’d never be sick, never be hungry, never be lonely, so long as she worked for him.

  The boss kept his promises.

  “What happened to them, after that?” She had never asked that question, before.

  “They took the money from your indenture, and they left town.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “West, to New Hispania. Or back East, maybe. No idea.”

  They weren’t his; he didn’t worry about them.

  “You thinking of following them?” Sarah was only twelve, and not a saloon girl; her mother was a working girl who’d decided to keep the baby, but Sarah followed the indentured girls around like a puppy. She’d come and sat down next to Izzy now, done with her day’s chores, and not old enough yet to work once the saloon was open.

  “Of course not,” Izzy said. “Why would I?”

  “They’re your parents.” Sarah’s eyes went wide when Izzy shrugged. Izzy liked hearing the stories, liked imagining the house she’d been born in, on the banks of a creek with fierce Indians lined up outside on painted ponies like she’d seen sometimes, when Army riders went through. But the people who had birthed her had less relevance than the farmers and gamblers who came through Flood, and had left even less of a mark on her life.

  “You gonna stay?” Sarah’s voice was hopeful.

  “I don’t know.”

  A day to decide. At the end of her birthday, she would be fourteen for real. The term her parents had sold her into would end, and she could choose to sign on as an adult, name her own terms … or she could leave.

  The possibilities taunted her. Stay, and her future was decided. She would never be ill, or lonely. She could even leave the Saloon itself—some did, running errands or carrying messages across the plains and mountains, riding the rivers under the devil’s brand, and the fact that she was a woman would make no difference—the devil had his fingers everywhere.

  Leave, alone … and everything was unknown.

  The ones who left, they never came back.

  By mid-afternoon, half of the six tables were filled, a few locals passing time and gossiping, a handful of strangers with the look of professional gamblers come to test their luck against the devil, and two who sat shoulder-slumped, drinking too slow to forget but too fast to be calm. One woman among them all, wearing widow-black trimmed with purple. That meant she was nearly out of mourning, or was out but decided black made her look exotic. Her dust-veil was tucked back, showing wisps of sin-black hair and a pale, square face that had never seen the noon sun, not without a parasol, anyway.

  Men came to Flood for a hundred different reasons, the boss always said. Women only came for one reason: revenge. Izzy knew he would deal with her last, after the easier tasks were done.

  She waited patiently for Po to refill the glasses, then carried them to the main table where the boss held sway, his hands sorting and delivering cards with nonchalance, as though gold and souls were not on the table.

  Three men were playing that table, two sweating, one too cool. He was the one with the worst hand.

  “What do you think, birthday girl? What do you see?” The boss’s voice was scented with the cigars he carried but never smoked, and the lighter taste of the gold-colored whiskey he drank, a sip at a time.

  Izzy knew what he was asking. “She’s glad he’s dead. There’s something else she wants.”

  “A lover? Scorned, or unresponsive?”

  “Another woman.” Izzy didn’t know how she knew that; something about the way the woman’s head turned, the way she listened or simply how she wore her hat. “She hates another woman.”

  “Ah.” He had already known, of course. But she felt a flush of satisfaction hearing his voice confirm her suspicion. People were so easy to read, sometimes. She finished delivering the drinks, and turned to go.

  “And that gentleman, at the faro table?”

  And sometimes, they weren’t. Izzy studied the stranger from under her lashes, careful not to look directly.

  Despite that, he turned, and looked directly at her. His smile was sly and sweet, and promised things she knew that she’d like.

  “A charmer, that one. He’s winning, and doesn’t care.” Most men cared, very much. Whatever they brought to the table they clung to—until they gambled it away in a moment of passion, and then the devil had them.

  “Yes.” The boss agreed with her assessment. “Why is that?”

  It was a question, and an order.

  Izzy ghosted to the man’s elbow, her now-empty tray balanced on her palm, a saucy wink she’d stolen from Rosa in her voice. “You like a freshening?”

  “That’s all right, darlin’.” He had a soft voice, faded around the r’s and d’s, and he didn’t look up from his cards when she paused at his elbow.

  “I can get you something else, if you like?”

  He looked up then, and his gaze took her in, crown to toe. Izzy felt herself blush; there was no way not to, under such a look, but she made herself stand and take it.

  He wasn’t one of those men, but he looked his fill, anyway, and didn’t seem to mind what he saw. “Your boss send you over to distract me?”

  “If he wanted to do that, he’d send Molly, or Sue.”

  “Get me drunk then, drinking his surprisingly fine whiskey?”

  There was good whiskey and rotgut behind the bar; Po decided what you got, no matter what you paid.

  She let his wink go, and tilted her head at him, curious. “Why would he do that?”

  “Why indeed? Because I’ve got a tidy pile of his house’s money under my palm?”

  Izzy almost laughed. “He doesn’t mind that. The boss admires a man who takes chances, and plays them well.”

  “And to entice us in, he offers the only honest faro game in all the devil’s west.” His smile was cheeky, his dimples showing.

  “The devil’s house is an honest one.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  She had his measure now: a cardsharp, a professional gambling man.

  “You’re one of his girls. Young for it, aren’t you?”

  “Fourteen.” She put her hand on one hip, shifting her weight the way she’d seen Molly do, when she sassed a man.

  “Yo
ung,” he said. “But good bones, bright eyes, smart mind and a mouth that doesn’t say half of what that smart mind’s thinking. You’ll be a handsome woman, soon enough.”

  “Handsome?” Izzy’s pride was stung. “Not pretty?”

  “Handsome’s better than beauty,” he said, leaning back in his chair, the cards under his fingers not forgotten but put aside, for now. “Lasts longer. Does better. A handsome horse, a handsome woman, they’ll never give you grief. Pretty is heartbreak waiting to happen.”

  “That’s a man’s take on it. Beauty is power.”

  He laughed, and moved on his cards, proving he was watching what happened at his table, too. “Power is power. A good hand of cards, a bank filled with gold, a loaded gun, a pair of fine eyes and a bewitching smile … the trick isn’t what you’ve been given but what you accomplish.”

  He studied his cards, then studied her again with the same look. “A young girl with wits and looks could do well, beyond Flood.”

  “Is that an invite, mister ….”

  “Matt. Matthew Jordan. You’re a bit young yet for me to be offering any invites to, missy. But if you happened to be out front when I ride out, I would not be unwelcoming of the company. I’ve mentored before, not against doin’ it again, for the right rider.”

  Izzy stared at him, her hand still on her hip, all sass forgotten.

  “You mean that?”

  “If you want it, girl, take it.”

  “Isabel. My name is Isabel.”

  “Isabel, then.”

  She stood behind the boss while he finished a game, and waited while the players took their winnings or left their losings. In the brief space before new players came, she gave her report. “He’s a sharp, passing through. Wanted to see the how the devil’s house laid down the cards.”

  “And he is satisfied?”

  “Said you run the only honest game in the west.”

  “Hah. And so I do.”