Chapter summary: A stranger rides into town, looking like trouble. The problem, however, was that sometimes a rider coming in from a storm isn't just passing through.
Fair warning: Dear reader, the language used in this story is historically accurate. If blatant racial slurs offends you, then this story will be very offensive to you. The characters use the 'N'-word frequently and callously to describe themselves or to insult others. You have been warned. Or, those old Westerns you watch with your parents? The lily-white West? Do you actually believe that? Do you know how the West was won? Not by John Wayne, for the most part.
It was a dark and stormy night.
Heat lightning had struck earlier in the evening foretelling a big, bad storm coming.
The stranger pushed through the night instead of breaking to make camp, even though each flash of light in the dark and the soft ensuing rumble spooked the horse so.
Turned out to be a good decision. The temperature dropped thirty degrees in a matter of minutes, then the rain came down hard, pummelling the horse and rider with rain: sheets of it came down, straight across the plains, like ocean waves breaking on the shore.
By dawn the stranger was cold, drenched and just about ready to shoot any and everything in sight.
Fortunately, that cold, clear, crisp morning, nothing was in sight. Just plains and scrub and silence. The stranger pushed forward cold and wet, the long riding overcoat heavy and soggy on the stranger's back.
The journey had been hard. The stranger had been riding hard through the night and then all morning, hell! more like two weeks of solid, hard riding. The stranger was tired and ornery, and to look under the brim of the sombrero would be to look at a pair of blood-shot eyes that held pure determination and a very tightly contained fury.
But up ahead there were signs of civilization: buildings, fences, even a dirt road. The stranger looked down at a marked map, and looked up at the town ahead, nodded, then nudged the horse forward.
The horse, wearied from all the travel, moved forward slowly, but then its ears pricked forward. A town meant a stable, and feed, and warmth, and protection, and care, even, perhaps, and two hard weeks of being ridden over the plains can take a lot out of the rider, yes, but a horse can get tired, too.
Rider and horse cantered into town.
The people of Belle Fourche, South Dakota had no idea what was headed their way.
...
It was mid-afternoon when the stranger strode, wearily, into Lonesome Pete's. The watering hole in these here parts. The bar was mostly empty, a few patrons, perhaps on a mid-day break, getting fortified for their evening, or, perhaps like so many around the country, looking for work, and not successfully finding any, just waiting for the next day to roll around to look for work again. A couple of hookers looked disinterested over the shoulders of their johns as they played poker, several men were at the bar, drinking or talking. One patron speaking to another bored one about how Penicillin was right now being tested as a possible cure for the clap and syphilis, and that experiments were now going on in Tuskegee on the niggers there with promising results.
"Think of it, Jan," the man speaking said loudly, slurring his words, "all sorts of problems and ills that worry us this day will soon be ..."
His friend, Jan, tapped the man's shoulder and looked significantly toward the entrance of the saloon.
The speaker turned around, and now everyone was staring openly at the stranger.
The stranger looked around the establishment, casing the joint, but then just didn't care, striding up to the bar and leaning over the bar and back onto a stool.
"Beer," the stranger said to the bartender.
The bartender looked at this person: mud caked the long coat and boots, and, when the stranger removed the hat, hair looked thick, black, bushy, and positively wild. There was no face, hardly, just mud.
Trouble. This stranger was definitely trouble for this town.
"I take cash," the bar tender answered.
The stranger reached under the long coat and got out a coin-purse.
Underneath, the light glinted off two holstered six-guns.
The stranger pulled out a silver dollar and pushed it to the bartender.
The coin disappeared, and a beer was pulled.
"... 'll get your change," the bar tender said, pushing the beer over the bar to the stranger.
"Keep it," the stranger growled back. "This beer's my first."
The stranger took the mug and took a long, slow swallow, nearly draining a third of the beer before returning the mug to the bar.
The whole bar was quiet, watching the exchange.
The bar tender regarded the stranger coolly. "Look, miss," he said finally, "You lost? We don't want no trouble here."
The stranger looked up from her beer and regarded the bartender coolly. "Not lost, and I ain't looking for no trouble, neither. Riding past this town, stopped by, getting a beer or few, then ridin' on. Any problems with that?"
She glared balefully at the bar tender who remained silent.
"Thought not," she said, and took another long swallow of the beer, emptying the mug.
"That's good," she sighed contentedly. "Another," she ordered.
The bartender pulled her another beer and set it in front of her.
"I've got that," the man who was talking about penicillin piped up.
The stranger regarded him coolly, then took a swig of her beer. "Already paid for, Mister, but thank you for the thought."
"Then I can get you your money back," the man said. "I know these days money's hard to come by, and I've got some to spare."
The stranger grimaced, frowning. "Your name, sir?" she said.
"Bill," he said. He was an older man, his eyes watery from the hard weather and hard life out on the plains. "Bill Hansen."
"Bill," the girl nodded to him. "The form is for me to be obliged to you, but that's not going to happen. I'm going to pay for what I drink, and I'd appreciate you leave me to my drink in peace."
Bill frowned back. "You're not exactly friendly, are you, miss ...?"
The stranger looked back at him, not offering her name. "No, I ain't. So I'll just ask you to go back to you're own business, and let me mind mine."
Bill didn't like that, but he tipped his hat to the stranger and turned back to his friend.
The saloon came back to life, slowly. The regulars didn't like the stranger, but she wasn't giving them anything more to talk with or about her anymore, other than her taciturn nature. The poker game resumed, and a low susurration, a grumble of men at a saloon, replaced the dead silence.
The stranger signaled to the bartender. She spoke quietly with him for a moment, finished her beer, got her change, then pushed off from the bar and stomped tiredly upstairs.
The stunned silence around the saloon, then the angry murmurs that followed her, did not phase the stranger one bit, or if it did, she didn't show anything other than contempt in the stiff posture of her back for the patrons down below.
Bill nodded to the bartender. "Did she just go upstairs ... to the bordello?"
The bartender just kept cleaning out her mug. He knew better than to talk about anybody behind their backs. He sold drinks; that's all he did. He didn't want to get involved anymore than that. It was just good business not to be nosy. Good business, like life insurance.
...
"Can I help you ... miss?" The madame looked at the stranger with surprise. It wasn't the oddest thing she's ever seen, a woman coming upstairs to the bordello, but it was up there.
That the stranger was a nigger, too, wasn't odd at all. Not around these parts. Black men had needs just as much as white men. But a black girl?
"Yeah," the stranger said. "I've been riding hard since God knows how long, and I would kill for a bath right now, but, more importantly to you, I'd pay for it. You got a private place for your girls to relax and freshen up, doncha?"
The madame frowned. "Yes, but our bath is for our girls, not for customers. I'm sure if you wanted to go to the barber's or get a room for the night, they have facilities."
The stranger swayed slightly on her feet. "Ain't stayin' the night, and I ain't gonna pay no hostel rates for a bath, and ain't lettin' no man eye me in no barber shop. I want a bath, bad, and I'll pay. Game?"
The madame considered. "How much you pay?"
"How much you askin'?" the stranger shot back.
"Five bucks?" Madame offered.
The stranger smiled without humor. "A shave and a haircut is how much at the barbers, with a bath?"
Madame shrugged. "Four bits."
"And I'm just askin' for the bath," the stranger said. "That's all. I'll pay a ha-dollar for the bath."
"A dollar," Madame said. "This is my turf, and my girls' private bath. A dollar."
The stranger nodded and fished out another silver dollar. She paused before handing it over.
"Full service," she demanded.
Madame's eyes narrowed. "That'll cost you a lot more, miss. None of our girls swing that way."
The stranger glowered. "Do I look like a fuckin' dyke? I need me a girl for the bath, not for the fuck. A dollar covers that."
"Okay," Madame said, but then added: "you get frisky, though ..."
The stranger waved dismissively. "Whatever. Look, can I get my bath? I feel like shit, and this coat weighs a ton."
Madame took the money.
"Let's see your girls," the stranger said.
It didn't take them long to assemble, they had been spying the whole conversation, the novelty attracting them faster than flies to honey ... or shit.
The stranger looked over them all.
"Ladies," she nodded. She looked to Madame. "These all your girls?"
"Yes'm," Madame said, not liking the stranger's tone of entitlement. She was just a young girl, a mulatto, by what rights did she think she could walk up here and demand service like she owned the place?
"Really?" the stranger said. "You got no other girls workin' for you? No offense to you fine ladies," she added, "but I was looking for something a little more ..."
She didn't finished her statement, she just shrugged her shoulders dismissively.
Madame said. "I got the girl working the books in my office, but she's not a ..."
"Bring 'er out," the stranger said. "Lemme get a look at her."
Madame suddenly hated offering the information. She didn't like this stranger at all. She was just bad news and looked like she brought bad luck with her, just like the storm she rode in on.
"Look," she said, "she's just a goddamn kike. I'm sure one of my girls will be much better helping you with your bath than the little shit in my office, 'cause she ain't good for nothing but doing the books."
The stranger was unmoved, shrugging tiredly. "Lemme decide that. 'Ts my money I'm paying for the service. 'Less you wanna give it back and I'll just be on my way."
Madame frowned then turned on her heels, angrily addressing her whores. "Ain't you got nothin' better to do than stand around gawking?"
They didn't. It was still early in the day for customers to come a-calling, but they didn't want their mistress' ire, either. They scattered, twittering amongst themselves, barely hiding their open curiosity as they dispersed. One of them whispered, a bit affronted: 'The nigger wants to see the kike!' and a burst of giggles followed that slur.
Madame blew out an angry sigh. Discipline was always an issue, she'd deal with her girls later. That is if the stranger complained. She stormed off to her office and got the stupid little shit in the back closet, pulling her out by the ear without explanation.
The girl just followed along.
The stranger looked at the girl. She was smallish, dark hair, dark eyes, dark circles under her sickly pale skin, rail thin, starved, even. She was dressed in a simple cotton frock, nothing so fancy as the other girls were dressed in with frills or sequins or lace. She wasn't gussied up to be shown off for anybody. Nobody wanted her. She was a kike, a Jesus-killer. You fuck one of them, your dick'd fall off. She had more chance of being stoned or hung than she'd have of getting a kind word, so she just stayed in the little closet-room behind Madame's office and did the books, wasting away, ignored except when she was insulted for being an idiot with the books when she didn't hide the profits well enough.
The girl didn't look back at the stranger, she just looked at the stranger's muddy boots, just wanting to go back to her little box so she could hide from Madame's wrath, and maybe even get supper tonight, if she were lucky.
The stranger put her hand under the girl's chin. "Hey," she said. "What's your name?"
"Helena," the girl said, trying to look back down. "Helena Rosenzwieg."
The stranger nodded. "Huh," she grunted, "not chatty are you?" It wasn't really a question. Then she looked to the Madame. "This one'll do."
She sat down heavily on a chair in the hallway, kicking out her feet. "Lemme know when the bath's ready."
Madame nodded and dragged off the girl.
When they got to the bathing room she turned on little Helena. "You listen to me, girl, and you listen to me good." She shook the girl hard. "That there is a paying customer, and why she chose you, I'll have no idea why, but what she wants, she gets, and if I hear just one complaint from her, one bad word, I'll have you watch your face get taken off with a belt sander, you understand me, you little shit?"
"Yes'm," Helena said dully. There was no life in her eyes.
Madame glared. "Get the bath ready, and see if you can do just that one goddamn thing without fucking it up, you shit."
Madame stormed out of the room.
Helena looked about her. She was so ... dead to the World, but if she didn't do as she was told, she was sure she would actually, really be dead before the night was over.
Being in this business, a girl had a life expectancy of about nineteen years of age.
Helena would be lucky to see her seventeenth birthday, and she wasn't even a hooker.
She sighed and prepared the bath. The works: bath salts, scented oils, everything.
After all, this was a paying customer, not a little shit fuck-up like herself.
The bathroom filled with clouds of steam and a lovely lavender scent.
...
The stranger cast off her coat. It fell into a heap with a heavy thud onto the floor.
Instead of being relieved, the stranger looked even more tired. She peeled off her shirt, a black sweater that stuck to her skin, still wet from the rain.
The stranger projected a hard air, but beneath her sweater, her skin was perfectly smooth, a lovely milk-chocolate color.
If she smiled and simpered instead of snarled and glared, men's hearts would've been melting as their knees gave way. But the stranger was not the simpering kind.
She kicked off her muddy riding boots, unbuckled her belt and threw it with her brace of six guns over a chair by the bath. Then her rust-colored riding pants came off. She had to peel them over her hips, and they fell off her with a wet squelch onto the floor.
Her legs were muscular. Her hips her curved but not wide. She wasn't buxom, as many of her kind were, instead she was toned, a sword ready to strike and kill.
She was as beautiful as she was deadly.
She peeled off her knickers and looked down at her bush.
"Shit!" she muttered. "Master's not gonna be happy about this."
Helena looked up surprised. "'Master'?" she gasped.
The stranger glared at the girl, then went over to her belt and pulled out a pistol.
She stalked right up to Helena and grabbed her neck in a chokehold and put the pistol to her temple.
"Can you keep a secret?" the stranger asked Helena.
Helena's eyes were round with fear.
"'Cause," the stranger continued, "if even a whisper of this gets out, you're gonna get to see what a pretty picture your blood and brains make against whatever wall I slam you against before I pull this trigger, you got me?"
Helena was shaking with fear in the stranger's unbreakable grasp, and she couldn't swallow around the tight grip. She nodded jerkily, terrified.
"Good girl," the stranger said, relaxing her grip, glaring at her, then letting her go. "Now," she said, "go get your mistress. Turns out I have need of some additional services. Oh, and fetch me a shaving razor on your way back."
Helena stumbled out of the bathroom and almost ran to the office.
"Madame," she gasped, out of breath.
Madame looked up from her desk, looking for someone to kill. Madame was in a bad mood, as usual.
She didn't ask. The girl'd better have a good reason for the interruption, or else.
"The ... the ..." Helena stuttered. Then she stopped, she didn't know what to call the stranger.
"Well, what?" Madame snapped.
"She wants to see you for sommnin'" Helena finally got out.
Madame sighed and rose, storming past the girl, nearly knocking her over in her wake.
The stranger lounged on the chair by the bath, naked, totally at ease with her body. Madame didn't even deign to notice. Modesty wasn't a highly-valued commodity in her profession.
"What can I do for you, miss?" Madame asked, her tone clipped but polite.
The stranger waved to the pile of her sodden clothes. "I need those just ... gone. Burn'm, whatever; I don't care. And, I need three sets just like'm, ridin' clothes, not frilly-girl shit, to replace them ... and ... a fifth of corn whiskey to go with the bath."
Madame appraised the stranger. "This all is gonna cost you, you know that."
The stranger nodded. "Yeah, tally it up. I'll pay, but you charge me fair this time, none your exorbitant bath-price shit. I know what all those cost. I ain't no rube, and I don't sweat money, ya hear me?"
Madame nodded, not surprised, but not pleased with this turn, either.
So much for draining this cash-cow dry.
"Anything else?" she asked.
The stranger put her hand to her eyes and squeezed, hard.
"Fuck! I'm tired," she muttered.
She looked over at Helena appraisingly, then back to the Madame.
"Looks like I'm gonna hafta stay the night, after all. Fuck. Fuck'n fuck it. God damn it, I wanted to be out of this town tonight. Fuck! Shit." The stranger paused, thinking. "Nothing for it," she said finally. "I need to be set up for the night, so I need me a room at whatever shit-hotel you have around here, and ..." she pursed her lips then nodded to the girl. "I'll take her for the night."
Helena gasped.
Madame looked at her runt kike then back to the nigger.
"Fifteen dollars."
The stranger laughed. It wasn't a pleasant sound. "Good one. I didn't ask to buy her, I'm not even asking to fuck her, I just need a warm body next to mine to sleep this ride off."
"Don't make no difference to me what you have her for," Madame said. "You take her for the night, it's fifteen dollars."
The stranger smirked. "You offering me fifteen bucks to take her off your hands for the night?"
Madame didn't deign to reply to that.
The stranger waved dismissively. "Eh. You think I'm the Queen of England or somethin'? Never mind."
"Five dollars," Madame said.
The stranger snorted. "I didn't say, 'I want to pay for her.' I said, 'I'll take her for the night.'" Then she answered Madame's offer: "No."
Madame glowered. "Can't do that. Can't just give a girl out for nuthin', even though she's a worthless shit that I'm positive you are not gonna be happy with, anyway."
"And she's making you how much a night now?" the stranger countered.
"That ain't the point," Madame said. "It ain't business, and you know it. She's an uppity cuss, more pain than she's worth, which is nothin', but you have to pay something for her. Can't let her go otherwise."
"One dollar," the stranger offered.
"No," Madame said. "For a whole night? Five dollars."
"Ain't got no five dollars," the stranger answered. "One dollar, or nothing. That's it."
"What?" Madame scowled. "How you gonna pay for the clothes and whiskey?"
The stranger shrugged. "One dollar for three sets of clothes. Need undergarments, too, another dollar. Ha-dollar for the whiskey. Two-fifty total, another buck for the girl, and you're walking away from this on the winning side of the bargain, I'm thinking, and I'd be right in thinking it, and you know it."
Madame glowered, undecided.
The stranger smirked. "And, put it this way: it's one night you don't have to deal with the girl, and that actually sweetens the deal, don't ya think?" And she left that hanging.
Madame turned abruptly and left.
She had been in the business too long to lose her cool and scream 'fuck!' as she left.
But her body said what she didn't.
Madame was furious. She wasn't furious for making a pretty penny on the deal. After all, almost five dollars from an out-of-towner was a very profitable night. No, she was furious because she felt she had been played somehow, and she hated that. She was supposed to be the player, smiling as she took her marks' money. She wasn't supposed to be played by a player who knew the game as well as she did.
Helena looked at the door Madame had closed, very firmly, behind her.
She knew she would be paying dearly for this later. Big time. She knew she would be paying for this for days and days and weeks and weeks in ways unimaginable to human suffering.
Because she couldn't repay it in money. She had none. She didn't need any, according to Madame. Every day she drew breathe was her salary. She had been locked away in Madame's office for years: four long years away from the rest of the World. Only madame and the girls knew she even existed anymore, and that was a good thing, actually. To the rest of the world, she was just one of Madame's girls, if they even knew of her at all.
She had witnessed her parents drug out of their house, hung and burned, just because they were Jews, and she only escaped with her life because the mob of angry white Christian men didn't see her hiding inside the seamless compartment under her parent's only bed. They ransacked the place, taking everything of value, but they didn't fire it afterward.
Lucky for her. Or: not so lucky. Her parent's suffering was over. Her's was just beginning, and her life had been a nightmare under Madame's thumb since.
The stranger looked to the girl. "Ya got the razor?" she asked tiredly.
...
The shaving had been a disaster for Helena. Her hand shook so badly that the stranger grabbed her hand and pried the razor from it, then shaved herself. Completely.
Helena tried not to stare, but couldn't help her mouth hanging open as she watched the stranger shave her pubic area completely clean.
Her fixation was noted. "You see somethin' you like?" The stranger was piercing her with an amused glance.
"S-sorry, miss," Helena stammered. "I just ain't never seen nobody do nothing like that."
The stranger's eyes were dancing. "First time for everything, isn't there, kiddo, hey?"
Helena had nothing to say to that and looked away, blushing.
The stranger snickered. "Rinse me down, now, girl. I want this caked mud off me before I get in the bath."
Helena did as ordered. As she circled the stranger, she couldn't help but notice how God-like the stranger's body was to hers. Helena was underfed, seldom got rest, just sleeping fitfully when exhausted and waking up to another terror-filled day, day after day, and her body showed the psychological costs she suffered.
The stranger, on the other hand, was in excellent health and had an amazing physique. She was a head taller and held herself erect proudly. Her musculature was well-defined and her body ...
She was woman: a woman's woman. She had full, generous breasts, curved hips that did not betray but complemented her athletic build. She looked like an Olympian of old.
Some would say her only curse was the mark of Cain: her black skin, but it wasn't black-black, it was a chocolate-moccha color that, if anything, was much more beautiful, much more natural, than Helena's sickly pasty-pale skin tone.
Helena admired the stranger as she washed the caked dirt off her, and her admiration was a sad thing. There was a woman that Helena would never be.
"What's your name again, girl?" the stranger asked.
"Helena," the poor girl said.
"'Helena,'" the stranger repeated. "I won't forget."
The stranger paused, then asked casually: "Go by anything else?"
Helena shrugged. "'Shit-head'? 'Fuck-up'? 'You there, ya kike'?"
"Not what I meant," the stranger said.
"No," Helena said. "Just 'Helena.' I had a friend a ways back, one of the girls here, she called me 'Leena.' I liked that, but then one day she was gone." Helena shrugged sadly. "Ain't nobody nice to me since, so ..."
Her words just drifted off.
"Huh," the stranger grunted.
Cleaned, she stepped into the tub and was almost instantly completely submerged with the exception of her head: she sank into the tub so quickly.
"Holy fucking God!" she exclaimed, her voice filled with an ecstatic relief. She was finally clean and whole after weeks of hard riding on the Plains. The bath was almost a shock to her system, it felt so good.
She just laid there, her head resting against the back of the tub basin, breathing slowly and deeply.
Helena edged up out of the seat by the tub.
The stranger opened her eye. "Where're you goin'?" she demanded.
"Uh," Helena gulped. "I have to get back to work, or Madame'll ..."
"Do you believe in the afterlife?" the stranger interrupted.
"Um." Helena didn't know how to reply to that.
"'Cause if I fall asleep in this tub and drown 'cause you're not here, I will so come back to haunt you for the rest of your life." The stranger glared at the girl. "Your job, Helena, is right here. I paid for you now, and until tomorrow. You got nowhere else to be but with me, you got it?"
Helena bit her lip.
"Besides," the stranger continued. "You want to go back to her? Who scares you more, her or me?"
"You do," Helena answered truthfully.
The stranger chuckled. "Better the devil you know?"
"Miss?" Helena asked, befuddled.
The stranger laughed at that. "Never you mind. Pour me a finger o' whiskey, will ya?"
Helena did as she was told, carefully, feeling the stranger's eyes on her.
"Pour yourself a shot while you're at it," the stranger commanded.
"No, thank you," Helena said. "I don't drink."
Helena gave the stranger the shot-glass of whiskey.
"You don't, huh?" The goddess in the tub downed the whiskey in one gulp and held out the glass. "Well, then, pour me another one, I'll drink it for you."
...
The stranger was drunk.
After dressing in fresh clothes — "Goddamn!" she exclaimed putting on the clean clothes, almost moaning in pleasure at the feel of the new, soft cloth — she saw to her horse, that it had been stabled, fed, watered, rubbed down and hooves cleaned.
The animal was in horse-heaven.
The stranger tramped off to the hotel, Helena following along uncertainly, fearfully, too afraid of what might come tonight, but too afraid to say anything about it.
They got to the room. It took three tries for the stranger to fit the key to the lock to open the door. She shedded her shit from her body, her saddlebags, her boots, her gun belt, her clothes: her shit, like a snake shed its skin and then fell into bed, heavily.
"Uh, ..." Helena muttered. "Uh, ... miss, I ain't never... that is, I haven't ..."
The stranger chuckled. "Sweetie, you shy thing! You are one pretty little bird, you know that?"
"Uh, ..." Helena gasped fearfully. "Uh, no, miss. No, I didn't ... I don't know that. Ain't nobody never said that to me."
"Then everybody else are idiots and blind fools. But you do not need to worry your pretty little head about what Coco's gonna do to you, 'cause I'm just too goddamn tired to do anything but sleep and sleep. I just need you in my arms for the company, yeah, but I figure you'll wake up and scream your head off if somebody comes by here thinking they got an easy mark to rob and murder, am I right?"
"Oh," Helena said. "I didn't see it that way."
"Yeah," the stranger said, "you didn't see it that way 'cause you prolly ain't never been out of your own town, have you, little Leena, am I right?"
Helena blushed at her nickname being said again after so long. Her insides warmed, and she felt like crying at the pain of feeling something other than callousness and neglect for so, so long.
"Yes, miss," Helena whispered.
The stranger patted the bed. "Git yer ass in here next to me. Now."
The girl dithered.
"What?" the stranger demanded. "I don't bite." She paused, smirking behind closed eyes. "Well, not hard, most ways."
"Uh," Helena gulped, shaking. "That didn't help none."
The stranger snickered. "Wasn't meant to. Yer jus' too goddamn cute not to tease. Now, c'mon now." She held the blanket open for Helena, who crawled in reluctantly.
The second Helena's body touched the bed, the stranger wrapped her in a bear hug, completely encircling the girl in her arms. Helena eeped! in surprise which elicited another chuckle from the stranger, but no further physical attack followed, so Leena, bit by bit, relaxed into the stranger's powerful arms.
But Leena didn't fall asleep, protected as she was, in the stranger's arms. Her body was cocooned, but her mind was alive and restless.
"Your name is 'Coco,' miss?" Leena queried tentatively.
"Yup," came the lazy reply.
"Coco ...?" She left the question hanging.
"Jus' Coco," the stranger replied. "Ain't got no last name that I remember, not that it matters, anyways."
"'Cause ..." Helena offered shyly, "'cause you got a master?"
She voiced this question incredulously.
Coco sighed. "I thought you was smart enough to leave well-enough alone."
Leena cringed. "Sorry. I'll be quiet. I'm sorry."
She was quiet for a moment, then she could help herself. "You do know slavery's been outlawed like, fifty-sixty years now, is all, right?"
"Leena, Leena, Leena," Coco sang softly.
"Sorry!" Leena cringed.
Coco snickered. "Yes. I know. I ain't stupid, neither. But who's the slave here, little girl? My master, he pays me. I got my own money, and it ain't no nothin', neither. You get paid, I'm wondering? You got your own money?"
Leena was quiet.
"My master," Coco said, "he feeds me, clothes me, boards me. Got my own horse, got my own gear: those pistols are mine, got my own work if I want, and he teach me. Latin, and Greek. Learning Arabic, too, and do I ever know it, my head hurts lookin' at it, but I'm learnin' that, and math, too. Ain't nobody teach me nothin' before except to lay on my back and take it. I got my own room, too. My own goddamn room with a bed and desk and books and everything. You see, my master, he loves me, and he don't whore me out. I used to be a whore, you know. I was born to a white whore, and I never seen my papi, and ... I don't know black except when I see it in people's eyes when they look at me. 'Nigger,' their eyes sneer. But my master? He white. He don't look at me like I'm no nigger. He look at me an' ... can't describe it, he be the only one that gave me a shake at living my life, and I just have to be his, forever, is all. Fair trade. Fairer than most, if people were honest. People Back East, working in factories, if they can find work, and they're way worse off than me. They more a slave to the Man than I am. And what about you, huh? Your Missus give you a fair shake? She look at you with love? Or does she sneer at you and call you the things she call you and treat you the way she treat you?"
Coco hooked her leg around Leena's legs.
"Well, anyway," she said, "guess I said enough. Guess I said too much. Whatever. Enjoy your sleep. I will. It's nice to hold onto somethin' warm for a change. You're nice to hold."
"Thank you," Leena said quietly. "I think."
Coco chuckled.
"But what're you doin' out here?" Leena asked, "If'n you ... belong to somebody else?"
"On a job," Coco said tiredly.
"Oh," Leena said. "What job?"
Coco snorted. "For somebody more scared'n me than your Missus, you sure found your tongue!"
Leena bit her lip. "Maybe you ain't so scary after all?" she ventured.
Coco had been nice to Leena so far, and that was something that she wasn't used to. She didn't remember anybody being nice to her at all except her friend, Sally, and Sally had met a bad end. Leena blamed herself for that. If Sally hadn't been nice to her, maybe she wouldn't have disappeared. That didn't make any sense, saying it to herself, but that just seemed to happen to Leena: everything always turned out badly, nothing had ever been good for her.
Coco was quiet for a moment. "Maybe you'd be more scared o' me if you knew I was a bounty hunter?"
"Really?" Leena asked surprised, maybe even a little bit excited.
"Maybe not," Coco said sourly, disappointed with the girl's lack of fear.
"What's your bounty? Is it for some famous criminal or something?" Leena asked.
"That's my master's business for me," Coco said. "And now I'm sorry for bringing it up, 'cause, girlie, I am fucking tired, and I don't want you yammering away until the morning, for God's sake!"
"Oh," Leena said, deflated. "Okay. I'll be quiet."
"Good girl," Coco said, and was quiet herself. She tightened her grip around Leena, almost possessively, her right hand on Leena's shoulder, her left arm wrapped around Leena's tummy.
Coco almost held Leena, the girl thought, like a lover would hold his beloved.
If Coco were a 'he,' which she ain't. Ain't she? So this was okay, right?
Less than a minute passed. "Coco?" Leena asked quietly.
There was no answer from the bigger girl, just even, deep breaths.
"Well, g'nite," Leena said, and slept.
...
"Leena."
A voice pestered Leena in her sleep. She moaned, trying to make it go away.
"Leena," the voice said, "c'mon, time to get going."
Leena sighed and opened her eyes.
It was pitch black. "What time is it?" she whined.
Coco was outlined in the non-light: a silhouette in the dark. "Time to get you home," she said, "Let's go."
Leena stretched and moaned and made her lethargic limbs obey.
This was the nicest wake-up call she had ever had, but she wanted to be greedy and sleep some more like this.
She had never slept like that before: warm, in a comfortable bed, not scared ... it was ... incredible. She didn't want it to end. She wanted that sleep, like, for the rest of her life, and, waking up, she was already missing it, knowing she'd never sleep like that again in her life.
She rolled over and sat up on the edge of the bed, sighing.
"Still dark," she mumbled petulantly. "Can't we just sleep a bit more, please?"
"Me," Coco said, "I gots to go. You can stay here, I reckon, and I can tell your Missus to come and fetch you since you didn't want to come with me..."
Leena was out of the bed, just like that.
Coco regarded her in silence for a moment.
Leena looked down, ashamed. She saw that Coco saw her life under Madame, saw it all, that she had no hope, she just had to obey, and be punished for it, because if she didn't obey, it'd only be just so terribly worse.
Leena was ashamed that she was lower than a bug, and that Coco saw that, and she had nothing to defend herself with. Her life sucked, and that's all there was to it.
And since she was a Jew, her life would only get worse from here on out. That's what she had to look forward to: absolutely nothing.
Coco gathered her things, hauling her saddlebags over her shoulder.
"Let's go," she said coolly.
Leena nodded, and they left the hotel.
...
"Gonna check on my horse first," Coco said.
Leena followed.
They entered the stables in the black of the pre-dawn.
The darkest time of the day? Pre-dawn. It was blacker than black that early in the morning.
"Hey, Chester," Coco sang soothingly. "Hey, there, boy, how ya be?"
The horse heard his rider and nickered quietly. Perhaps a treat?
Coco produced an apple which the horse chomped into with gusto.
"Good boy," Coco cooed. "Good boy!"
Leena, watching Coco, saw a kinder side to the stranger than what she showed to other people, and she was almost jealous of the horse, of all things, even as she admired the ease and grace Coco showed around her animal.
"Hey, Leena," Coco said, "could you fetch me my saddle?"
"Okay," Leena said hesitantly, knowing nothing about horses and their equipment. She didn't need to go anywhere, and when she did, she walked. Horses were big and scary, and their gear was foreign to her.
She did know the word 'saddle' and what one looked like, however.
"Where is it?" she asked.
Coco pointed behind Leena. "It's the one over there, see it?" she said.
Leena turned around. There were several saddles hanging over one of the stall's fence.
"Which one?" she asked.
She never got an answer.
Instead, Coco stepped quickly behind her and slipped her arm around Leena's neck.
"This one," and pressed down firmly, sealing off the airway in Leena's throat.
If this were a joke, Leena didn't get it. She tried to look back at Coco to show her confusion, because she opened her mouth, but nothing came out, and nothing was going in, either.
When Coco didn't let go, Leena brought her hands up to Coco's arm, trying to move it away from her neck, but Coco had closed her arm over Leena's neck with a wrist-lock, and she wasn't letting go.
"You wanted to know who my bounty was for, Leena? It was for you," Coco said, her voice steady and calm: professional.
Leena, too late, started to struggle, but she couldn't. The darkness of the pre-dawn was rising up in her eyes, and her struggles were weak and ineffectual. Her arms and legs flailed, trying to get her away, trying to get a little space to suck in a sip of air, but her struggles did nothing, and her limbs became heavier and heavier.
"That's it, Leena," Coco cooed. "That's it. Go to sleep, sweetie. Go to sleep, and we'll be on our way."
Leena's struggles soon ceased, but Coco didn't let go of her neck. Not for a while. She made sure Leena was out, then bound her arms and legs and gagged her. Only then did she check Leena's breathing. It was shallow but steady.
Coco nodded: Leena was out. She saddled her horse, wrapped Leena up in her blanket and put her on Chester.
"Let's go, Chester," she said, "we got a long, hard ride home."
She mounted her horse and headed off. A very tiny blue-white glow limned the horizon to her back: the dawn. The Sun would be chasing her, but she'd be far, far and away before the townsfolk stirred to start a new day.
And when people started asking questions as to where the stranger had gone ...?
Well, what did it matter? The Madame might raise a stink, but who really cared enough to form a posse to hunt down one nigger and one little Jew who went in which direction, anyway? And how much of a reward would Madame put up for her bookkeeper-Jew? Five dollars? Ten dollars? Who would spend a day, several days, in a futile search for that pittance? But one hundred dollars for a Jew? That Madame would just have killed as an example anyway? Not likely.
They were as good as gone, and Leena's life back in town was over. If she ever did show up or was found, she'd be as good as dead.
Coco urged her mount forward, grim determination etching her face into a fearsome scowl.
A/N: This story takes place six months after the completion of my WIP "Sal and Caroline" story. But reading S&C will not make anything any more clear than mud here. Just go with it: Coco is here to collect Leena. She does just that. Why she does that and what happens next, ... well, that's what future chapters are for. It's just that your mother told you not to talk with strangers, why? Because you don't know their motivation any more than anybody in town knew Coco's, so I'm not going to spell out what she's on about to you in this note, either.
I will say Coco is one tough cookie, but you knew that already.