Al kept to the shadows of the balcony overlooking the bustling thoroughfare. The strange couple weaved between mules and miners, the redhead holding her skirts above the muck. He smiled as he noticed the changes in Mrs. Adama's posture. Her lush curves were more constrained and she didn't look happy. He watched her jerk at Adama's arm to slow his pace towards the Gem, her lips barely moving as she muttered something too low to be heard. Al drained his teacup and was glad he hadn't been the one to personally convince that woman to harness herself into a corset. He was pretty sure his first impression had been accurate. She was clearly a handful.
He set the cup aside and walked back into his office. He swore as he realized his steps, apparently of their own accord, still avoided the worn area in the middle of the floor. When the lights burned low, he sometimes imagined he could still see the faded bloodstains; they were there, mocking, bleeding up from under the wood as soon as the soapy water dried.
Deliberately retracing his steps, he trod over the floorboards, now feathery in spots from repeated scrubbings on sleepless nights. Jewel had heard his grumbling once as he knelt with the brush and bucket at two in the morning. After she dodged the brush he threw at her head, she never volunteered again to help with this particular task.
As he sunk into his chair, he pondered the moodiness of the Gem's inhabitants this evening. Al knew he wasn't the only one remembering the grim choices of the previous year. In a way, he envied the Adamas being strangers to Deadwood, at least tonight. Wherever they were from, he doubted their own kind looked at them and saw monsters. He shrugged and straightened the papers on his desk, waiting for the knock.
Laura paused at the top of the steps. Between the snug fit of her corset and the fog of liquor fumes, smoke and sweat hanging thick in the upstairs air, her breathing had become so shallow she felt light-headed. As other, muskier scents wafted her way, she thought it might be a blessing that she couldn't breathe too deep.
The Gem was packed tight with rowdy miners and whores catcalling and singing off-key while the piano player tried to keep up. Bill had kept a protective arm around her waist as they cut through the crowd. She wondered if he could feel the outlines of the metal stays under her clothes. Her question was answered when he ran his fingers over the lacings at her back, almost strumming them like she was a stringed instrument.
"You okay?" His low rumble at her ear blocked out the confused racket below them.
She braced a hand on the banister and sucked down a deeper breath, her ribs pushing against metal. "I'm fine. I just needed to catch my breath."
She glanced at Dan Dority, poised with his fist raised at Al Swearengen's door. He tilted his head in a Hurry up! motion. She shrugged at Bill as she murmured, "I think I'm ready. Let's go." She hated to admit it, but she was still unsettled from finding signs that their room had been searched. Hearing Bill's account of being followed had added to that feeling.
Dan had knocked hard and gotten a muffled "Yeah!" from inside by the time they reached the door, Laura's fingers tight on Bill's arm.
Whatever else he might be, Laura thought, Swearengen was certainly a born politician. After a flurry of thanks, cordial greetings, and insisting that they call him "Al," he had offered her a seat on a padded leather settee to his right, leaving Bill the wooden chair in front of his desk. She realized the probable purpose was to keep Bill in Al's direct line of sight and her out of the way. She wondered if he noticed she now had an unobstructed view of both men.
She smiled to herself. After he had examined her from head to toe, with considerable lingering over her breasts, his eyes had turned indifferent. It was almost clinical; he wasn't admiring her body, she realized, as much as he was checking to see if his instructions had been followed. As he turned his full attention to Bill, she thought that it was probably good, even enviable in this place, to be ignored by this man.
Swearengen leaned back in his chair and nodded at her. "You're looking well, Mrs. Adama. I trust your sojourn in camp has been bearable thus far?"
Before she could speak, Bill replied for her, "She's fine. Your man said you wanted to meet with us. We're here."
Laura couldn't help but think of two alpha dogs suddenly shoved into the same pen. She watched the two men bristle for a second before standing down to an alert, watchful calm. She made herself relax as far as the corset would allow and settled into her seat to see what would happen next.
Swearengen opened his bottom desk drawer, pulling out a bottle and two glasses. He motioned towards Laura, eyebrow quirked up in question. At Bill's nod, he found a third glass.
"You have a testy tone, Adama. Something the matter?" He poured out three shots and set the bottle aside.
Bill reached for his drink with a steady hand. "You had me followed today. You had someone, probably Farnum, search our rooms."
"Right on both counts." Al downed his shot, putting the empty glass down with a thud. "How big of a problem is that for you?"
Bill turned towards Laura with a long solemn look, then turned back to Al. "I—we can live with it, once. More than that, it becomes unacceptable."
He drank as Al nodded his understanding.
"You're new here, to the camp and the Hills. Not castin' aspersions on your ability to protect yourself, but I thought it prudent to have Dan keep you under a watchful eye."
His genial smile faded at Bill's raised eyebrow. "And I wanted to know for myself how much truth was in your story of wagons and runaway horses."
"What was your conclusion?" Bill's measured tone was casual, but Laura could see the muscles in his forearms tensing as he waited for an answer. Al poured more whiskey.
"I conclude that you've got some kind of traveling coach the likes of which my man had never seen. He sounded like a Sioux tryin' to describe the sight of his first train, but he did so well enough for me to believe you're tellin' the truth, as far as being here by misfortune rather than design. As to the particulars"—he shrugged—"the reports of the day leave me reassured, my most pressing concerns having been addressed and nullified."
Laura chewed on that statement. If their Raptor had been seen, it apparently had been dismissed as not being a threat or anything worth stealing. So far, so good.
Al smoothed his moustache, looking past both of them for a few seconds before continuing.
"It's nothin' to me, other than simple curiosity, where you hail from, whether it's Cincinnati or the center of the Earth, long as I don't perceive either of you as a threat to my interests. So far, that's the pew you're sittin' in." He turned up his glass and emptied it. "That situation comes to any meaningful change, I might be motivated to further inquiry. Satisfied as I am right now that you aren't fuckin' Pinkerton agents, nor in George fuckin' Hearst's employ, nor otherwise pose a potential threat to my balls, I'm inclined to leave well enough alone."
He refilled the emptied glasses again.
"Mrs. Adama, from what I can tell, you're adequately earnin' your teacher's wages. I hear the children like you and that Mrs. Bullock likes you as well." He gave a half-smirk as he looked towards the louvered doors separating his office from what seemed to be his bedroom. "Fuckin' Bullock that's her husband don't seem too friendly towards you, but these days I'm hard-pressed to find anyone he looks on with any kindness. And I note that you and your man took my request for a nod to propriety to heart, as far as the fuckin' corset."
He frowned at Laura's untouched glass. "Somethin' wrong with your drink? I can get Jewel to brew up some tea, but it'll stretch this out for an extra hour, time she makes her way up here with that gimp leg."
"No, it's…this is fine." She took a sip, realized it was smoother than what they kept in their rooms, and sipped deeper. Lighter than the Tauron liquor Bill preferred, it had a smoky-sweet aftertaste and a soothing warmth. She licked the last traces off her lips, savoring the flavor, and felt herself blush as Al raised an eyebrow at Bill.
"Your woman—pardon me, your wife—seems to enjoy my special stock. Remind me before you go, and I'll send some of that over."
She watched Bill's face turn stony. A hint of frost in her voice, Laura said, "That won't be necessary. We've got what we need in our rooms."
Expression neutral again, Al nodded. "All right. Adama, time to earn your pay. What do I need to know?"
Laura had seen Bill move into this posture before, when he had to take military observations and translate them into a sit-rep that civilians could understand. She supposed she did the same thing when she needed to explain political considerations to an impatient Admiral: open body language, serious expression, honest eyes. She looked over at Al and recognized his posture as well: serious, not unfriendly, ready to hear whatever Bill had to say. She'd taken on that role plenty of times during the first few months after the attacks.
Well, at least we all know how to play our parts, she mused, as she sipped her whiskey again.
Swearengen sat still as stone, eyes hooded, as Bill went down his mental list.
"You and the Chinese boss, Wu, are tight."
"Yeah. We're fuckin' hang dai,"he said, crossing his fingers.
"Does he have men that report to him, work under him, like you have?"
Swearengen turned thoughtful. "I'm thinkin' that he must, as I've no doubt he keeps as much of a rein on his area of things as I do mine. What's your point?"
"If you had to act together again, which of his men would meet with yours to work out deployment and strategy?"
Swearengen cocked his head. "Always been mostly just me and fuckin' Wu, working that shit out on our own. Usually right up here, him sittin' where you are now, scribblin' stick figures with charcoal on an endless fucking flow of paper, me play-actin' my interpretation to ensure I take his meaning." He stood and poured liquor again, frowning at the bottle's lowered level. "Never gave much thought to them that are workin' for us comin' together on their fuckin' own. I don't know where you're from"—his pointed glance shifted from Bill to Laura and back—"but that much minglin'…it might be a hard sell to my boys."
"Maybe. But when you were preparing for an attack, he had close to a hundred and fifty men armed and ready, to your seventeen." Bill leaned forward as he made his point. "Your team and his team need to be able to work together or you won't have a militia. You'll have a couple of armed mobs and chaos." His deep blue eyes turned icy as his lips tightened to a thin line. "That won't end well."
Laura sighed and set her empty glass on the corner of the desk, holding her hand over the top when Al offered her another pour. She wished she had some index cards to rip up or a pencil to snap as she gathered her breath, mentally preparing her opening statement.
"Gentlemen, may I make a suggestion?" She smiled at them both, watching Bill for signs that she was overstepping. Taking his cautious nod as encouragement, she began.
"In my experience, expecting two different groups to immediately work together because they've been ordered to is naïve." She rose to her feet, gathering more air into her constrained lungs as she continued. "If there was a more natural way to integrate the different groups, you'd have a better chance of success." She began pacing, ignoring the curious looks from the men.
"There's talk from Mrs. Bullock of plans for a town library. If the needs of the Chinese population were to be taken into consideration—" Her words ground to a halt as Al shook his head.
"Not meaning to disregard your thoughts, Mrs. Adama, but I expect they've got whatever they think they need in that regard."
She nodded agreeably like the politician she was as she readied her rebuttal. "But you don't know that for sure, do you? What if the town offered space in the school building to start a small library until a real town library is built? Maybe obtain some educational writings in their language?"
Laura's smile was tinged with a touch of wistful imagining, thinking of library shelves packed with books and scrolls. "You'd be surprised at how literature can encourage people to overcome their differences." She turned so Al couldn't see the wink she aimed at Bill, one corner of her mouth turning up as she watched the slow flush rise from under his chambray collar and wash over his neck. She suspected she might pay for that sly reference later, but at least he had relaxed as she explained her idea, his mouth losing its tightness as he nodded in support.
Al looked thoughtful as he grabbed a toothpick off his desk and started to chew on one end. He looked at both of them in turn, expression unreadable as he narrowed his dark green eyes.
"I'd hear your thoughts on this, Adama," he said.
Bill met his look, the wrinkles around his eyes deepening as he turned the idea over in his head. "It's a good strategy. Alliances formed in peacetime have a chance to grow. People find out they can trust each other. Things get…crazy, trying to do that under fire. People make mistakes." He looked down at his hands fisted in his lap. "People die."
Laura had crossed the room while they talked, gazing out over the town through the balcony's French doors. The oil torches along the street jumped and guttered in the wind. Standing there, the pressure off her ribs, she could breathe deeper and wondered where the scent of oranges and fresh wood came from, brushed with a touch of musk…and sex. She smiled at her rippling reflection in the wavy glass panes. Not unexpected in a whorehouse, she mused, although this seemed fresher than the pungent layers of old smells downstairs.
Al's gruff baritone interrupted her thoughts. "Mrs. Adama, would you be willing to broach the subject of the school with Mrs. Bullock? I'd not go further along this line of thought without her endorsement."
She paused before turning around, surprised at the deference in his voice. The thought crossed her mind that Adar could have learned a thing or two about respecting teachers' autonomy from the rough-edged town boss. She glanced at Bill, waiting on his slight nod before agreeing.
"Done, then." Al thumped a gavel-like fist down on his desk before turning back to Bill. "What else?"
"I talked to Hawkeye like you asked. You've got some problems there." Bill's impassive gaze didn't waver at Al's sudden dark glower.
Laura moved to stand behind Bill's chair, one hand on the wooden back. She was familiar with the look Al wore. She'd seen it on Bill; she'd seen it in her own mirror. It was time to measure how much of a critical risk someone posed to the group. She closed her eyes for a second. It had felt good to be free from discussing life and death decisions for a while. She wished for Bill's sake it could have lasted a little longer.