Thomas guided his horse into the crowded stream of the thoroughfare. He and Dilly were just one of many making their way through the mud, despite the late hour of the evening. The horse's gait was slow and cautious against the unstable bodies going this way and that.
Lanterns hung from the rafters of the timber buildings that buffeted the path, their golden light emitting fuzzy halos in the purpling dusk. In the windows of some of the stores flickered individual candles, beckoning patrons to come inside and spend their money.
A few finer dressed ladies, with handkerchiefs tightly clutched in dainty fists covering their mouths, travelled separately along the wooden boards paralleling the store fronts lining the path. Even from the middle of the thoroughfare, where the mud rushed up to greet its travellers, Thomas could tell the difference in wealth of these women dressed in vibrant frocks from those women dressed in subdued browns who brushed close past Dilly.
It was slow moving, Thomas competing with fellow travellers for space as they made their way deeper into the heart of the small settlement. Without complaint, Thomas watched those passing him with a sly eye. The throng of faces afforded Thomas a shroud of anonymity that was an unusual luxury; both the strong angles of Thomas' pale face and the shiny, ebony of Dilly's coat drew more eyes than was welcome on most days.
The powerful suction of mud pulled Dilly's shoes deep into the messy quagmire, making each step a tedious struggle. Beneath him, Thomas sensed her displeasure for such an activity, the horse preferring the dry grasses of the trails.
Thomas knew they shouldn't be in such a town, where so many people could see his face. But their path, however dirty and uncertain, was unavoidable. For as much as he valued the clandestine shade of the trails, Thomas couldn't bear the loneliness they sentenced for another night longer. There came a time in a man's life when the sole company of his horse on a cold night spent on the hard-packed dirt no longer held the same appeal as it once did. It had little way for conversation, between Dilly and him, and cold once the fire dwindled to embers. Thomas spent too much of the night staring into the flames until his face was tight and eyes burned.
Farther down the main artery of town, Thomas spotted what prompted him to detour through this shanty town – a warm place where he could drink and possibly put his head to a pillow. Carson's stood taller than any of its neighbouring buildings, boasting three floors, the last of which featured a wide balcony. Through the night, Thomas could spy a tall man with a protruding belly bracing his arms against the railing, surveying the street below. Only an imposing man could cut a silhouette like that.
The saloon itself was radiating sound and light out into the path, a beacon of warmth in the chill of the night. Thomas tied Dilly to the post before it, for now, not wanting to wait to find a livery stable to house her. She eyed the water trough that sat before it – her tail swishing twice fast when the murky brown colour of it revealed several blowflies bigger than flattened dollars floating listlessly across its surface. Thomas considered it barely fit to dampen a fire, but for now it would have to do.
"I am sorry, Dilly," he said as he looped the final knot of her reigns. They both knew it did not compare to the cool rivers from the trail. Thomas brushed the length of her nose, "I promise I will make it up to you."
Dilly flicked her eye up to his with a look that could not be mistaken for anything other than you better. She once stamped her forefoot into the mud and looked away, dismissing Thomas to leave her to sulk in her own situation – a poor and becursed animal.
Knowing she needed no help in pitying herself, Thomas left her to wallow, making his way up the creaking steps and through the doors of the saloon.
Tinny and out of tune notes trampled their way from the upright piano position in the corner of the saloon, opposite to where Thomas now stood in the door. Raucous laughter leaving unclean and gaping mouths accompanied its ragtime and created an oppressive clamour that Thomas did not care for. Through the murky haze of smoke refracted in the lamps' glow, he saw that the tables were full of wind-swept and dirty men whose backs, bent from years of labour under a hot sun, did not inhibit their ability to drink, to play cards, or to be objectionable in a general sense. Carson's was popularised by patrons that Thomas usually steered clear of – those driven wild in the foolish attempt to work gold from the nearby rivers.
Thomas' bad temper weighed heavily at the corners of his mouth. It was a cantankerous feeling brought on by having expectations dashed and could only be solved by drink.
Finding an empty stool at the bar, Thomas relieved his hat from his head and sat heavily upon the seat. He shifted, figuring he had more sand in his underwear than could be found in the trails.
A greasy woman with a strange plume of curls adorning the top of her head, dressed curiously in trousers and a vest, stood behind the bar. She turned from her hushed dealings with another patron - one far dustier and malnourished than he – and looked at Thomas with the poorly concealed disdain that came naturally only to bartenders. Though it was clear Thomas was new to his seat and without drink, she made no rush to serve him. Thomas eyed the pistol decorating her hip, its meaning obvious, something telling him her draw would rival the best hired guns in California.
She finally moved towards him with a succinct economy of movement and gave him a look.
"A mysterious stranger, hailing from only God knows where, has seated himself at this humble bar, looking – I might add – cooler than hot, polished shit. To what do we owe the pleasure."
Her tone was unsavoury, halfway lost between aggression and jest, and just heard over the crowd. The false comradery forced upon Thomas, like he was an old friend returning from a long journey, was just another offence Thomas had to endure at Carson's.
"Whiskey, please."
"Straight to the point, I can appreciate that in a man," the bartender said as she slammed a cloudy glass in front of Thomas, filling it with an amber liquid from an unmarked bottle, "No need for a man to monologue determinedly when all ears are closed to such natterings."
Thomas eyed this strange bartender coolly as he took a sip of his drink. He swished the rotgut despite its burn to dislodge some of the more tenacious grit that had collected from the day's ride.
The bartender could heed her own advice.
"As you can see, this saloon is full of men who are not interested in the words of others, unless they glimmer with the shine of gold assured to be soon in hand."
A shriek pierced over the din, and Thomas turned to see a dusty man with a giggling whore half his age over his shoulder climb a set of rickety stairs.
"Or glisten with the promise of pussy." The way the bartender shrugged, easy and unperturbed by these happenings, soured Thomas' stomach.
Hoping to fill at least one emptiness for another, Thomas downed his drink, "Another, please."
"I have to admit you have me hooked, mysterious stranger. What's your name?" She poured and leaned against the sticky bar, untroubled by the liquid seeping into her vest, her voice still as bored as it ever was.
Thomas couldn't help stiffening at the question, hand halted halfway between the bar and his mouth. He swirled the amber liquid and stared into the glass, playing off the movement's hiccup as intentional. It would not be wise to disclose his name.
"Kent," He used the name of a man he once knew. Now gone, somewhere in Montana, Thomas felt his absence just as sharply as the first time the hard, cruel tip of Kent's colt jabbed into Thomas' ribs, just as tenderly as the last time the chapped, chaste lips of Kent brushed Thomas' own. His eyes raised to meet the woman's, at once daring her to question it and insisting it was true.
She didn't blink, "And what brings you to Carson's, Kent?"
His second glass went as quickly as the first, and Thomas could feel it pooling hotly in his stomach, slowly draining into his extremities until it dripped thick as molasses through the muscles of his calves.
"Business, miss," Thomas sneered into his now empty cup, "is what brings me to this sorry excuse of an establishment. Business – none of which – is yours."
Thomas chose not to tell her of his ties to the Crawleys or the circumstances that necessitated his immediate evacuation of Downton. Likewise, he kept his plans to head towards Sacremento before following the Siskiyou Trail north into Oregon and possibly as far as the Yukon to himself.
"No, it won't due to call me miss here; you'll be laughed out of town. The name's O'Brien."
"Then, Ms. O'Brien, if you would kindly leave the bottle for the remainder of the evening, I will gladly pay you for the damage I make unto it."
His bid for solitude had no effect, accustomed as she was to the crude and sullen, and she remained before him, appraising. A gleam of a dollar sign in her eye. "We have darts and cards, for which I can deal you in, if it isn't above your sad sack's sorry disposition. Or, if you need relaxation of a different kind, I can always point you in the right direction."
Clumsy though it was, Thomas could tell her lines usually worked, easy as it was to inspire debauchery in the heads of drifters – desperate and made stupid from long periods of time alone wrestling with Nature.
"I will partake in none of what you offer and ask only that I be left alone."
"Well, you can't blame me for being hospitable," she pushed away from the bar, her irritation only showing in the quick twist of her mouth as she turned to her other patrons.
Thomas was glad to be rid of her, her sharp eyes seeing too much and her bored tone revealing too little.
A third and a fourth drink were knocked back, and eventually the scowl loosened from his brow and his body warmed. Tip-toeing the line of drunk, he let his glass remain empty for the time being, enjoying the peace afforded by cheap whiskey – his mind quieter than before. The noise behind him had distorted softly, as loud sounds usually do after long exposure.
Thomas could think it half-way decent, if it weren't for the ever present smell of sweat hanging in the air.
He felt before he saw a mass of indistinguishable shape drop into the seat next to him. Swivelling his head to the side, he had to let the room catch up with a rolling blink before he could assess his neighbour. Thomas immediately noticed the way the man sat turned in towards him, as if already in conversation. The stranger had sandy blonde hair – straw thin – that was brushed back from a strong brow and dark eyes that skittered between the bar and O'Brien before they found Thomas' own. A naturally upturned mouth smeared dusty pink across an otherwise tanned face.
Unlike Thomas, who took pains to dress in a linen shirt covered with a vest and suit jacket, clean despite the hard travelling, his seatmate wore a dirty set of blues and his hands were discoloured with work.
It suited him.
"You're new," the man said, his voice much deeper than Thomas expected. His eyes flittered across Thomas' form, from head to toe.
Despite himself, Thomas could feel his lips curve upwards, and he turned bodily towards the stranger with a nod.
"That your horse out front?" he asked with a gesture towards the door, his fingers starting to tap out frantic rhythm against the bar.
When Thomas nodded again with a bemused smirk, the man huffed and swivelled towards the bar.
He ran his dirty hands through his hair once. Losing an internal debate within himself before he turned back, eyes narrowing.
"All you cowboy types are the same. All style and bravado, caring little for anything but yourself and the source of the next gold piece," he pushed himself off of the stool, "I should hope someone steals her from you."
With a final rap against the bar, the stranger turned and made his way towards the door.
Thomas watched him go, paying particular attention to the fit of the man's slacks. He had a peculiar gait, as if the stranger wasn't meant for the hard labour he wore like a set of armor. With a private smile, Thomas picked up his glass before remembering he had yet to fill it. He slugged back one more shot quickly before he signalled for O'Brien, miraculously only having to wait just a moment before she deigned to move before him.
"Are there any beds to rent tonight—free of company?"