Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. I am only writing about them
for fun and I am making no money from this enterprise.
The main street had looked, for a moment, like a river silvered by moonlight. Then a cloud rolled over and shut off all the beauty of the scene. Frank eased Hidalgo forward, looking for somewhere he could stay the night. There were no lights showing – it was later than he had thought.
Something startled Hidalgo, making him lose his stride. The cloud passed and the moonlight was back, strong and strange, and Frank, seeing something lying on the roadway, reined in and stepped lightly down. He approached carefully – even with half a flask of whiskey in him he kept enough sense to be wary.
It was a boy. About ten or twelve, maybe, though it was hard to tell. Bundled up in a coat and a blanket and apparently sleeping, right there. The stink of cheap alcohol told Frank all he needed to know. He hunkered down, picked the boy up and put him over his shoulder. But where to take him?
The last building of any size in the street was a livery stable. Though it was closed up tight he hammered on the door and shouted till a tousled, sleep-drenched old man came, opened the door and calmly told him to be on his way, although not in those exact words. Frank blinked at the profanities the old man used to lend weight to his words and quietly, but insistently, made his case.
He could be persuasive when he wanted to be, even with old men who were not anxious to have his business.
He eased Hidalgo into a more or less clean stall, still carrying the boy over his shoulder.
"You know him?" he asked, turning his back on the old man so that the boy's face could be inspected.
"Yup. Lives with his mama on the edge of town. She'll be drunk herself by now. He can sleep here, if you don't mind him snoring."
"Kind of you," Frank said, setting the boy down carefully in the straw. The wind mourned outside and there were piercing draughts, so that it was hardly better than being outside. "You got a couple of blankets, maybe?" He unsaddled Hidalgo, placing the saddle carefully over the top rail of the stall. He then pulled off his saddle blanket and laid that over the rails too. It effectively blocked the cold from that direction.
The old man, taken with Frank's simple notion, went and fetched two more blankets, and between them they made a place where the heat from the horse could be trapped. That, and the coat and blanket the boy was already wearing, would be enough to keep him warm. He already looked less blue. Frank rubbed the boy's hands but couldn't get him to wake.
"You sleeping here too?" the old man asked.
"I had me an idea that a bed'd be comfortable. But seems like everyone's already gone to theirs."
"The saloon has beds – upstairs, you know. Depends how much money you got. Maybe a little female companionship?"
Frank grimaced. He didn't like that sort of matter being organised for him and he was in no mood to foist himself on a woman of easy virtue. Maybe, at the end of a race, when he was feeling good about himself, maybe then he was worth getting to know. But not now, not feeling like this. However, he was a determined man, and a stubborn one, and the idea of a bed had struck his fancy in a way he couldn't let go too easily.
"Well, maybe I'll pay for a room of my own, if they've got one. Thanks."
"Go round behind the place. They'll still be up, in the back room, playing cards or something. Tell them Old Joe sent you."
"You look after my horse now. If you do anything to him, he'll tell me in the morning." Frank grinned at his little joke, his blue eyes smiling too. He took his saddlebags, checked the boy once more and then headed out into the cold again.
He pulled his hat down more firmly and his fur collar round his ears. It truly was bitter, as if the wind had travelled over a land which had sucked all the heat from it. Round the back of the saloon he went, his long steps covering the ground quickly but he was still half-frozen in the process. It was darker there in the alley and Frank used all his senses to keep himself safe, and he reached the door without mishap. A little light oozed its way past a blind. He knocked, then let himself in.
It seemed that saying "Old Joe sent me" was a passkey to a room, a bed of his own, and a full bottle of whiskey, all of which he paid for up front. He carried the candle they had given him up the narrow staircase and booted open the door to a room before stumbling inside. It was no warmer in there than it had been by his fire. Whatever comfort he had hoped for was slipping away from him. He took a long pull from the bottle in his hand.
He looked longingly at the bed, with its very nearly clean sheets and at least three good blankets. It looked oddly lumpy and sagged a little, but it would have to do. He pulled off his spurs and his boots, set his hat on the nightstand, then dragged back the sheets and prepared to fit his lanky frame into the iron bedstead.
It was his night for finding sleeping drunks. Only this one didn't appear to be drunk. But she was definitely sleeping. Hadn't woken even when the bed had tilted with his extra weight, though she was beginning to shift around. Frank decided it was the cold air that was disturbing her. She had been completely under the covers – the puzzling lumpiness of the bed was now explained. He threw the covers back down and was about to go complain to the management about the way they left strange women in people's bought and paid for beds when a sleepy voice enquired what time it was.
"Ma'am, I have no idea. That's my bed you're sleeping in."
"I knew it. Soon as I got myself into this bed I said, some cowboy will come and buy it from under me."
Frank held up the candle, his eyes widening. "Ma'am?"
A pair of large, sleepy, green eyes looked at him from a small, white face. There was the ghost of a smile on lips from which the paint had been carelessly wiped. "Well, way I see it, we can do one of three things. I can move out of this bed, which I just got warmed up. I can stay in this bed and you can sleep in that chair, which would be a shame for you. Or we can share this bed and both keep warmer than if we sleep separate. Your choice. No obligation. You can owe me money in the morning if you want, or not. Don't make no never mind to me."
Frank considered the proposition. The woman – for woman it was, at least thirty and looking none too pretty with her hair in rag curlers – amused and bemused him by turns. He was beginning to think another drink might help him make up his mind when she spoke again.
"Make a choice, cowboy. I need my beauty sleep."
He shrugged, pulled his coat round him tighter and pulled the sheet to one side again, then sat down and swivelled round, settling himself as comfortably as he could. It was wide enough to accommodate them both, without one touching the other. She made no move towards him, but lay on her back, her eyes closed. He blew out the candle.
He woke abruptly to someone shaking him. It was still dark, and he was sweating and trembling.
"Mister! You was dreaming, and it wasn't good. You all right?" She was holding a candle, whose flame was trembling. He had scared her.
"Sorry, ma'am," he muttered, knowing full well he wasn't all right. The dream, the nightmare, was going to rob him of part of another night's sleep. "I'll sleep in the chair. I'm liable to wake you again otherwise."
"No – it's all right. I'll be asleep again soon enough. Lie down. Go on. What's your name, now we're both awake?" She turned away from him to set the candle down on a chair on her side of the bed. Its faint light gave her a touch of something like prettiness, which he hadn't noticed before.
"Frank T Hopkins, ma'am. Pleased to make your acquaintance."
"August Lil, that's me." She put out a hand, and he shook it. "So called because ..." But she stopped before she gave him the old line, the one about heat in August, which had amused many men. She frowned. "Lilian. Lilian O'Donnell."
"I think maybe I had better sleep in the stable, ma'am. My horse is used to my dreamin', it don't wake him any more."
She grimaced. "And here was me, warmer than I've been in a month, and you're threatening to take that with you to the stable? Stay put, cowboy. But maybe you'd like to take that coat off ..."
Frank hunched back to the edge of the bed warily. He was in no fit state – no mood – no, he was too drunk. Truth was, he was too full of the sadness from the dream to catch at any moment's pleasure, even this.
She grinned, disarming him. "It's all right, cowboy. I was only thinking, it looked a warm coat and maybe if you spread it over the bed it'd keep us both warm?"
He was suddenly, desperately shy of her, of the whole situation. He had to find some way out of it without hurting her feelings.
"You want the coat, ma'am, you take it. I can sleep without it. Here." He pulled at the sleeve and tugged the coat partway off. But he saw her shaking her head.
"Over the bed or you keep it, Mr. Hopkins. I won't have it any other way."
So he gave in, throwing the coat over the blankets and then he lay back and tried to stay awake for what was left of the night.
The Ghost Dancers stayed away for an hour or so, until it was beginning to show some light outside the window and he could justify getting up and leaving. He had thought he'd been awake but when he turned to look for the woman whose bed he had shared, she was gone, leaving the faint impression of herself in the mattress. Something inside him was sorry about that. Some human companionship, someone who smiled at him and shared something of his. Well, he had been given that, for a few hours, and it would have to be enough.
He washed up, then got some coffee downstairs in the kitchen, where a young woman flirted with him and took pity on him for his hunger, making him ham and eggs in return for a few of his precious coins. He talked to her for a while, about the weather, and the town, the way it was dying on its feet. He even, in a moment of weakness, asked the dark-eyed, dark-haired girl what she knew of Lilian. But she smiled, and avoided the question. He couldn't put off leaving any longer.
The girl came to the door to wave him away, wiping her hands on her apron first then fluttering her hand at him. He lifted his hat to her, then took a deep breath of the cold air and headed back to the stable. Despite the odd night he felt refreshed, and calmer than he had done in a while. The whiskey bottle in his saddlebags was untouched, too, for the first time in a few mornings. He began to hum quietly to himself as he trudged towards the stable.
"Morning, cowboy. Old Joe says you helped Mrs. Gibson's boy last night." It was Lilian, dressed more soberly than he had expected, and riding a black horse which looked old but still hardy.
"Nearly walked over him in the dark. Just took him into the warm is all."
"He didn't make it through the night, Mr.Hopkins. But at least he was comfortable."
Frank stopped dead, his mouth falling open in shock. He could barely croak out a question. "He died, ma'am?"
"Lilian," the woman corrected, looking at him closely. "You all right? You need to sit down?"
"He died?"
"Yeah. He's been ill for months – just gave up last night, I guess. It wasn't anything to do with what you did."
Nothing to do with what he did? How many people had told him that. He felt ill and stumbled into the stable, head down, anxious to get on his way. He knew she was talking to him, then jumping down off her horse to come to his side but he shrugged her off and hurried to get Hidalgo ready to go. He couldn't hear her words. His horse wouldn't stand still as he communicated his haste and anxiety to him but he managed to get all his gear on Hidalgo's back, pay Joe, who was hovering nearby, and get up on his mustang's back.
"Thanks, Joe. And you, ma'am," he muttered, not knowing what he was thanking them for, then he started Hidalgo forward. Maybe they said something to him, maybe not. The world was a blur.
"Wait up, Frank T!"
He heard her clear shout but ignored it. It was no good getting attached to anything. Rely on yourself, that was best.
He rode out of town, travelling east, and only two people noticed him go.
The main street had looked, for a moment, like a river silvered by moonlight. Then a cloud rolled over and shut off all the beauty of the scene. Frank eased Hidalgo forward, looking for somewhere he could stay the night. There were no lights showing – it was later than he had thought.
Something startled Hidalgo, making him lose his stride. The cloud passed and the moonlight was back, strong and strange, and Frank, seeing something lying on the roadway, reined in and stepped lightly down. He approached carefully – even with half a flask of whiskey in him he kept enough sense to be wary.
It was a boy. About ten or twelve, maybe, though it was hard to tell. Bundled up in a coat and a blanket and apparently sleeping, right there. The stink of cheap alcohol told Frank all he needed to know. He hunkered down, picked the boy up and put him over his shoulder. But where to take him?
The last building of any size in the street was a livery stable. Though it was closed up tight he hammered on the door and shouted till a tousled, sleep-drenched old man came, opened the door and calmly told him to be on his way, although not in those exact words. Frank blinked at the profanities the old man used to lend weight to his words and quietly, but insistently, made his case.
He could be persuasive when he wanted to be, even with old men who were not anxious to have his business.
He eased Hidalgo into a more or less clean stall, still carrying the boy over his shoulder.
"You know him?" he asked, turning his back on the old man so that the boy's face could be inspected.
"Yup. Lives with his mama on the edge of town. She'll be drunk herself by now. He can sleep here, if you don't mind him snoring."
"Kind of you," Frank said, setting the boy down carefully in the straw. The wind mourned outside and there were piercing draughts, so that it was hardly better than being outside. "You got a couple of blankets, maybe?" He unsaddled Hidalgo, placing the saddle carefully over the top rail of the stall. He then pulled off his saddle blanket and laid that over the rails too. It effectively blocked the cold from that direction.
The old man, taken with Frank's simple notion, went and fetched two more blankets, and between them they made a place where the heat from the horse could be trapped. That, and the coat and blanket the boy was already wearing, would be enough to keep him warm. He already looked less blue. Frank rubbed the boy's hands but couldn't get him to wake.
"You sleeping here too?" the old man asked.
"I had me an idea that a bed'd be comfortable. But seems like everyone's already gone to theirs."
"The saloon has beds – upstairs, you know. Depends how much money you got. Maybe a little female companionship?"
Frank grimaced. He didn't like that sort of matter being organised for him and he was in no mood to foist himself on a woman of easy virtue. Maybe, at the end of a race, when he was feeling good about himself, maybe then he was worth getting to know. But not now, not feeling like this. However, he was a determined man, and a stubborn one, and the idea of a bed had struck his fancy in a way he couldn't let go too easily.
"Well, maybe I'll pay for a room of my own, if they've got one. Thanks."
"Go round behind the place. They'll still be up, in the back room, playing cards or something. Tell them Old Joe sent you."
"You look after my horse now. If you do anything to him, he'll tell me in the morning." Frank grinned at his little joke, his blue eyes smiling too. He took his saddlebags, checked the boy once more and then headed out into the cold again.
He pulled his hat down more firmly and his fur collar round his ears. It truly was bitter, as if the wind had travelled over a land which had sucked all the heat from it. Round the back of the saloon he went, his long steps covering the ground quickly but he was still half-frozen in the process. It was darker there in the alley and Frank used all his senses to keep himself safe, and he reached the door without mishap. A little light oozed its way past a blind. He knocked, then let himself in.
It seemed that saying "Old Joe sent me" was a passkey to a room, a bed of his own, and a full bottle of whiskey, all of which he paid for up front. He carried the candle they had given him up the narrow staircase and booted open the door to a room before stumbling inside. It was no warmer in there than it had been by his fire. Whatever comfort he had hoped for was slipping away from him. He took a long pull from the bottle in his hand.
He looked longingly at the bed, with its very nearly clean sheets and at least three good blankets. It looked oddly lumpy and sagged a little, but it would have to do. He pulled off his spurs and his boots, set his hat on the nightstand, then dragged back the sheets and prepared to fit his lanky frame into the iron bedstead.
It was his night for finding sleeping drunks. Only this one didn't appear to be drunk. But she was definitely sleeping. Hadn't woken even when the bed had tilted with his extra weight, though she was beginning to shift around. Frank decided it was the cold air that was disturbing her. She had been completely under the covers – the puzzling lumpiness of the bed was now explained. He threw the covers back down and was about to go complain to the management about the way they left strange women in people's bought and paid for beds when a sleepy voice enquired what time it was.
"Ma'am, I have no idea. That's my bed you're sleeping in."
"I knew it. Soon as I got myself into this bed I said, some cowboy will come and buy it from under me."
Frank held up the candle, his eyes widening. "Ma'am?"
A pair of large, sleepy, green eyes looked at him from a small, white face. There was the ghost of a smile on lips from which the paint had been carelessly wiped. "Well, way I see it, we can do one of three things. I can move out of this bed, which I just got warmed up. I can stay in this bed and you can sleep in that chair, which would be a shame for you. Or we can share this bed and both keep warmer than if we sleep separate. Your choice. No obligation. You can owe me money in the morning if you want, or not. Don't make no never mind to me."
Frank considered the proposition. The woman – for woman it was, at least thirty and looking none too pretty with her hair in rag curlers – amused and bemused him by turns. He was beginning to think another drink might help him make up his mind when she spoke again.
"Make a choice, cowboy. I need my beauty sleep."
He shrugged, pulled his coat round him tighter and pulled the sheet to one side again, then sat down and swivelled round, settling himself as comfortably as he could. It was wide enough to accommodate them both, without one touching the other. She made no move towards him, but lay on her back, her eyes closed. He blew out the candle.
He woke abruptly to someone shaking him. It was still dark, and he was sweating and trembling.
"Mister! You was dreaming, and it wasn't good. You all right?" She was holding a candle, whose flame was trembling. He had scared her.
"Sorry, ma'am," he muttered, knowing full well he wasn't all right. The dream, the nightmare, was going to rob him of part of another night's sleep. "I'll sleep in the chair. I'm liable to wake you again otherwise."
"No – it's all right. I'll be asleep again soon enough. Lie down. Go on. What's your name, now we're both awake?" She turned away from him to set the candle down on a chair on her side of the bed. Its faint light gave her a touch of something like prettiness, which he hadn't noticed before.
"Frank T Hopkins, ma'am. Pleased to make your acquaintance."
"August Lil, that's me." She put out a hand, and he shook it. "So called because ..." But she stopped before she gave him the old line, the one about heat in August, which had amused many men. She frowned. "Lilian. Lilian O'Donnell."
"I think maybe I had better sleep in the stable, ma'am. My horse is used to my dreamin', it don't wake him any more."
She grimaced. "And here was me, warmer than I've been in a month, and you're threatening to take that with you to the stable? Stay put, cowboy. But maybe you'd like to take that coat off ..."
Frank hunched back to the edge of the bed warily. He was in no fit state – no mood – no, he was too drunk. Truth was, he was too full of the sadness from the dream to catch at any moment's pleasure, even this.
She grinned, disarming him. "It's all right, cowboy. I was only thinking, it looked a warm coat and maybe if you spread it over the bed it'd keep us both warm?"
He was suddenly, desperately shy of her, of the whole situation. He had to find some way out of it without hurting her feelings.
"You want the coat, ma'am, you take it. I can sleep without it. Here." He pulled at the sleeve and tugged the coat partway off. But he saw her shaking her head.
"Over the bed or you keep it, Mr. Hopkins. I won't have it any other way."
So he gave in, throwing the coat over the blankets and then he lay back and tried to stay awake for what was left of the night.
The Ghost Dancers stayed away for an hour or so, until it was beginning to show some light outside the window and he could justify getting up and leaving. He had thought he'd been awake but when he turned to look for the woman whose bed he had shared, she was gone, leaving the faint impression of herself in the mattress. Something inside him was sorry about that. Some human companionship, someone who smiled at him and shared something of his. Well, he had been given that, for a few hours, and it would have to be enough.
He washed up, then got some coffee downstairs in the kitchen, where a young woman flirted with him and took pity on him for his hunger, making him ham and eggs in return for a few of his precious coins. He talked to her for a while, about the weather, and the town, the way it was dying on its feet. He even, in a moment of weakness, asked the dark-eyed, dark-haired girl what she knew of Lilian. But she smiled, and avoided the question. He couldn't put off leaving any longer.
The girl came to the door to wave him away, wiping her hands on her apron first then fluttering her hand at him. He lifted his hat to her, then took a deep breath of the cold air and headed back to the stable. Despite the odd night he felt refreshed, and calmer than he had done in a while. The whiskey bottle in his saddlebags was untouched, too, for the first time in a few mornings. He began to hum quietly to himself as he trudged towards the stable.
"Morning, cowboy. Old Joe says you helped Mrs. Gibson's boy last night." It was Lilian, dressed more soberly than he had expected, and riding a black horse which looked old but still hardy.
"Nearly walked over him in the dark. Just took him into the warm is all."
"He didn't make it through the night, Mr.Hopkins. But at least he was comfortable."
Frank stopped dead, his mouth falling open in shock. He could barely croak out a question. "He died, ma'am?"
"Lilian," the woman corrected, looking at him closely. "You all right? You need to sit down?"
"He died?"
"Yeah. He's been ill for months – just gave up last night, I guess. It wasn't anything to do with what you did."
Nothing to do with what he did? How many people had told him that. He felt ill and stumbled into the stable, head down, anxious to get on his way. He knew she was talking to him, then jumping down off her horse to come to his side but he shrugged her off and hurried to get Hidalgo ready to go. He couldn't hear her words. His horse wouldn't stand still as he communicated his haste and anxiety to him but he managed to get all his gear on Hidalgo's back, pay Joe, who was hovering nearby, and get up on his mustang's back.
"Thanks, Joe. And you, ma'am," he muttered, not knowing what he was thanking them for, then he started Hidalgo forward. Maybe they said something to him, maybe not. The world was a blur.
"Wait up, Frank T!"
He heard her clear shout but ignored it. It was no good getting attached to anything. Rely on yourself, that was best.
He rode out of town, travelling east, and only two people noticed him go.