Ben Cartwright stepped off of the coach and looked around, slightly astounded by the sights of the one hundred and forty-one year old city he had just arrived in. If he had to admit it they were a bit, well, salty and sweet to a man just arriving from the Nevada Territory. There were people everywhere – soldiers, sailors, street merchants and shopkeepers, bankers, and lawyers like the one whose office he had just left. The city's inhabitants ran from the tender upper crust to the burnt bottom of the loaf and at the moment there was one of the latter making a beeline toward him.
Turning, the dapper man in the brown cutaway coat and charcoal gray cloak looked behind, sure the bundle of jingling coins and colorful tattered skirts was headed for someone else.
She was not.
The woman's hair was wild as a night on the Ponderosa, black as Adam's, and decorated with ancient coins that had been punctured and strung together to make a circlet. Several locks like polished prison bars lay in front of her eyes, partially but not wholly obscuring the piercing orbs beneath that were as chocolate-brown as his own.
"Excuse me, Madame," he said, fully aware that the term might indeed be the proper one for such a denizen of this rather nefarious part of the city. "I had no intention of blocking your way. Please," he said as he side-stepped, "be on your way."
Was that being polite, he wondered, or a hint?
A thin ancient arm appeared from out of a bright red waist-length blouse that was as threadbare as its owner. A finger, narrow as a spider's leg, crooked.
"Come."
Again, he looked behind. Then he pointed to the double-breast of his coat. "Who? Me?"
The mass of hair nodded. She was only chest-high to him. That was really all he could see.
"Come," she repeated.
Ben drew a breath. "Madame, I have no wish to be impolite, but I have no need of your...services."
The ancient woman began to shake. Then, she cackled. "You are a handsome man, monsieur, but you are not for me," she said as she pointed to a sign.
Madame Vadoma, Fortune Teller.
"Come," she repeated. "I will tell you what you want to know."
"What if there is nothing I want to know?" he asked with a slight smile.
"Ah! But how can you know if you do not know?" She pointed to her head. "Madame Vadoma knows."
Ben was about to decline, but then he took in the old woman's appearance. She was thin as a rail, emaciated, in fact, and looked like she hadn't seen a meal in weeks. For a moment he considered taking her somewhere to get one, but then decided – with chagrin – that perhaps being seen with Madam Vadoma the first night he was in town might start tongues wagging.
And with reason.
"How much?"
"For you, sir, it is free."
That threw him. "Madame, I would like to pay."
Those near-black eyes found his. "If you like what you hear, you can pay."
He laughed. "Agreed."
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Madame Vadoma's parlor or shop was...interesting. It was filled with a lifetime of unusual acquisitions, one of which claimed to be some sort of a mer-creature, made up of what looked like a monkey's torso and a fish's tale.
Which was probably what he would get from her.
Ben sat at the little round table she had. The woman took a seat across from him. She held out her hand and indicated with a nod that he should do the same. For a minute or two she scrutinized his palm with the acuity of a man searching rock for a vein of gold. An 'aha!" seemed to indicate she had found what she was looking for.
"You must be careful, monsieur. Today there is danger for you."
"Danger? For me?" He had expected her to tell him that today he would meet the woman of his dreams. This was unexpected. "What danger?"
"It is why I sought you out, monsieur. My ball," she nodded toward the crystal housed in an elegant silver stand on the table, "it tells me to find you and warn you. I saw you, at the corner of the street. There was a flash of black and red and you were down, under the horse's feet."
Ben blinked and sat up straighter. "You're telling me I am going to be run down by a horse today? On what street?"
She looked again at his hand, searching. "It is a corner, monsieur. I cannot see the name, but you must not go there. I see death, from a horse. I see a woman and red and I see you." She looked up. "There are tears on your face."
Ben rose abruptly to his feet. He reached into his purse and drew out a coin and slapped it on the table. "This is ridiculous, Madame. Please, take the coin. Get yourself something to eat. I am leaving."
She followed him to the door as he strode out of it and down the street past the Exchange and toward the house of the man he had come to the city to visit.
"Monsieur!" he heard her call. "It is a brown horse, with a white star of its nose!"
'What absolute nonsense!', he thought to himself, so much so that as he turned the corner onto Rue Royale he was paying no attention. If it hadn't been for the gypsy's warning and his heightened awareness, the reckless woman in a black riding habit with a red cockade mounted on a brown horse with a white star on its nose would have run him down.
If it had, it would have been a shame. He never would have made it down the New Orleans street to Marius Angerville's Academy to meet with the man and find out how to contact Jean Marigny's wife, Marie.