Renegades and Pretty Women

Chapter Ten

"If I'm bettin' on a loser, I'm gonna have the devil to pay, but it's the only game I know to play, it doesn't matter anyway. I'd bet it all on a good run of bad luck." Clint Black 'Good Run of Bad Luck'

Joe cursed her luck as she came out of the livery that night. Not a single fur trader was still open and that meant spending the night in a hotel, selling her furs in the morning and not getting out of Barbadine until whenever she got done.

Joe really wasn’t looking forward to a night in this town. There were too many people, too much chimney smoke and too much noise.

“Hey, Joe!” Joe saw Bart running toward her and she sighed.

“Howdy, Bart.”

“Ya still know how to play poker better than any other woman I know?”

“And most men.” Joe agreed causing Bart to laugh loudly.

“Well come on to the saloon with me then and let’s show them boys how it’s done.” Joe nodded and followed Bart down the dark street to the brightly lit, saloon.

The lanterns and light filled the dusty air inside with brightness. A staircase led up stairs to bedrooms and Joe saw a scantily clad woman leading a man up them. A piano toward the back of the room was filling the saloon with music while a woman wearing a black lacy skirt and matching corset, leaned against it singing softly.

The crowded saloon was full of tables and men drinking, laughing, talking and playing poker. Cowboys, drifters, rovers, trappers, outlaws, farmers and family men all just trying to forget their troubles and have a good time.

“I’m gonna get me a drink first.” Joe said to Bart and the man nodded. They made their way up to the scarred up bar with a thick wooden top and Joe tapped it with her finger.

“I need a beer.” she called out. The bartender, a man with sleepy brown eyes, a square head and black mustache simply nodded and began to fill a dirty glass.

“What’s a tiny filly like you gonna do with all that beer?” A man down the bar asked. Joe met his gaze. He was dirty, but so was she, and he grinned a crooked toothed grin at her from beneath his tattered hat.

“I’m gonna drink it o’course.” she replied before taking a big swig. The man walked toward her slowly and then leaned his forearms against the bar as he stood beside her.

“Where did a filly like you learn to drink like that?” the man asked with a smile and a wink just before he reached out and squeezed Joe’s backside.

Joe sensed Bart tensing beside her as her own jaw tightened almost painfully as did her grip on the glass mug of beer.

“I reckon it was the same damned place where I learned to do this.” she snapped and then she turned and caught the man hard in the jaw with her clenched fist.

His head snapped back as the saloon fell silent. The man stumbled backward several steps, his tattered hat falling to the scarred up wooden floorboards.

He glared at her, his dark eyes narrowing as he wiped a bit of blood from his split lip.

“Why you little…” he charged toward her but stopped suddenly when the tip of the twelve inch blade she carried was suddenly pressed against his stomach.

He stared down at the knife and then back at Joe’s face and she smiled at his fear.

“Who in the hell do you think you are?” he whispered in a shaky voice.

“I think I’m the damned woman gonna gut you like the hog you are if’n you so much as breath the wrong way toward me again. You think just cuz I ain’t got a pecker ‘tween my legs you can come pawin’ all over me like a ruttin’ buck? Well I got news for you mister.” Joe put her knife back in the holster on her leg and pointed toward the swinging doors. “Now get yer ass on outta here.”