Saddle Dust

Chapter 5

Nearly two hours and two bottles of beer (or in Casey's case, a brimming cup of coffee) later, Casey and Anita trot their new ponies down a side street towards a line of stores selling what Casey calls keep-you-alives on their way to pick up a few items that will, well, keep them alive on the road.
The ponies Chadwell sold them at a significantly reduced price are small, compact quarter horses with a lively, quick step. They are stolid creatures not easily frightened and have both the speed and stamina needed for Casey and Anita's purposes. Anita's horse is reddish brown with a white piebald face and electric blue eyes. Its brown tail is trimmed long and twitches excitedly from side to side as it trots. Casey's horse is smaller than Anita's and has a brown and white paint coat with a closely cropped tail and mane.
Casey and Anita draw their hoses to a stop outside of a store marked simply with the initials M.J.S and the descriptor of Dry Goods. They tie up their hoses and head inside the small store.
Light strains its way in from grime coated windows and illuminates an army of dust particles seeming to consume the air in a haze.
"This is just like where Harry gets the groceries, except there seems to be some form of organization here."
Casey nods. "Yeah. Seems like it. Dad above it seems like it's only been a few hours since I'd last been in here."
Casey and Anita walk up to the counter where a tired looking middle aged man stands labeling a can of peas for sale. He looks up from under a pair of spectacles and greets them wearily.
"Hello. How can I help you two ladies today?"
"Oh, um we're just here for two bedrolls, a few cans of whatever you've got, and a good hunting knife if you have one. And a length of rope." Casey adds.
The cashier raises his eyebrows at them.
"Alright."
He turns, slowly, and fishes around under the counter for a box which he pulls out and sets carefully on the counter. He takes a knife out of the box and holds it up for Casey and Anita to see.
"Will this do?"
Casey nods and the cashier puts the knife back in the box, setting it to the side. He folds his hands on the counter for a moment before walking out from behind the counter. He takes a handful of cans and several packs of biscuits from one shelf and walks back to the register setting them down. He scribbles a few notes on a receipt and walks out from behind the counter again.
Casey and Anita watch this slow progression of collecting the items they ordered with no small amount of patient annoyance. The cashier disappears momentarily down an isle with bedrolls and horse blankets and Anita turns to Casey.
"What do you do with all of the money you get from robbing places?"
"What?" Casey is mildly surprised at Anita's question.
"Well, it's not exactly a secret that you and the gang made it big over the years. What did you do with it all? How do you spend all that? Or do you just store it away?"
Casey smiles and rolls her eyes.
"Oh. Sure, we did quite well but the thing is when you're traveling with several other outlaws who also drink and gamble, it goes fast."
Anita raises her eyebrows.
"Tens of thousands of dollars? Just on gambling and whiskey and probably women?"
"Well, no. Not exactly. Most of it was spent on things like that, especially the first night out of harm's way after a successful robbery. Celebratin' and shooin' off I guess you could say. We always divvied up the pot, each of us gettin' a cut with the leader of that particular hold up gettin' the largest chunk. We always left a cut for the camp in general. For supplies and bullets and food. I guess we did have a small stash of money off East somewhere, but it was mostly a joke 'just in case' fund for any of us that was caught off the wrong side of Butch. He could get pretty mad sometimes. I guess I could go after it an' see if there's anything left of it, but I doubt it. It wasn't hid very well and I wouldn't be surprised if Bill or Laura didn't get to it already."
"But what about when it was just you? You've still made a name for yourself so you must've done at least decently."
A box hits the floor loudly sending a small storm cloud of dust into the air. Casey and Anita look over to check that the cashier is still occupied in one of the isles. He is.
"Decently? Sure, I guess I did alright but not near as good as when I was with the rest of the gang. You can't exactly hold up a whole train when it's just you, though I've managed to hit two or three cars on a single train on my own a handful of times over the years. Before I really got to drinking, I had a nice little stash that I carried around with me. Spent some of it on cards, though I never really took to the habit, and some of it on, well, you may find this hard to believe but I'm partial to keeping up with my own wardrobe."
Casey chuckles at herself and Anita smiles, raising her eyebrows in mock disbelief.
"Really? I wouldn'tve guessed since you came into my saloon wearing something a stray dog wouldn't take for its own bedding."
"Alright, alright, I got it. But yes. I spent a lot of it on trail and gunslinger wear. The extra I had I just sort of kept it in the saddle bag. I must've been riding around with several thousand just tucked away in my saddle bag or pockets. But most all that's gone now. A big chunk of it went down with Steadfast and most of what was on me was spent in saloons such as your own after that."
"Huh." Anita leans against the counter, mulling it over in her head. The cashier comes back with two bedrolls tucked under an arm. He sets them on the counter and walks behind the register, catching up with the order on his receipt paper. He looks up at them when he has finished.
"Will you be requiring anything else today?"
"No sir. Thank you kindly."
"Alright then. Total is twenty-three dollars, fifty."
Casey hands over the money and her and Anita pick up their new purchases and leave the store. They tie their bedrolls behind the saddles of their horses and try to balance out the food as evenly as possible between their saddle bags. Anita takes her new knife and puts it into a small pocket sewn on the inside of her dress. She had sewn in the hidden pocket on a recommendation made by Casey and was glad she had.
They mount their horses and start off in the direction of the saloon Casey remembers being an alright place to stay and get a good meal. They stopped at a gunsmith's on the way where Anita bought a shotgun for herself. The man behind the counter simply raised his eyebrows, shook his head, and took the money from Anita muttering to himself about 'damn uppity women with them pants and big ideas'. He had almost not allowed the two strange women to buy the gun, but the woman in the dress was pretty, and had winked at him and leaned over the counter more when he told her she was so. Once they had left the shop and were out of the man's earshot, Anita had cussed him blue and had to talk Casey down from going back inside and knifing his eyes out despite the fact that she felt like doing the same.
The small, tidy saloon Casey remembers going to with the Wild Gang is much the same now as it was when she last stayed. Even Duke, the owner, is the same ill-tempered (now an impressively aged septuagenarian) who was running the saloon nearly seven years ago when she last visited.
Casey and Anita tied up their horses on the rail out front, ate an excellent mutton stew (which both Casey and Anita were quite convinced contained a highly salty meat not even cousins with mutton), and talked for a long time with Duke about the best route and terrain of the surrounding area.
Duke, a retired coach fencer himself, was able to give them a list of names who would be more than willing to take their trophy off of their hands and would pay handsomely for it. By the end of the night, Casey and Anita feel they are so full of advice and knowledge of the area that they are more stumbling up the staircase to their room on the second floor of the saloon than walking.
The room is small but well-equipped with a mirror, candlesticks, and a wash basin. A single, very small bed stands in the corner of the room. Casey takes her duster, hat, and holsters off, piling them on the floor in a corner of the room. She tosses a bedroll on the floor and flops down on it, kicking her boots off almost as an afterthought. She lays sprawled out on the bedroll, sleep already taking fast hold of her limbs.
Anita stands over her, head tipped slightly to the side.
"You can have the bed, you know. I'll be just fine on the floor. You look like you could use a good night's rest and I should probably get used to sleeping in a bedroll."
Casey's head feels leaden and her vision is already swimming with sleep, but a handful of pokey, sluggish words manage to plod out of her mouth.
"Nno…'ssalrightt…I'm comfortable heereee…."
Anita just smiles and shakes her head.
"Alright then. Goodnight Casey."
"Gnighhhttt…"
Anita stoops and kisses Casey lightly on the cheek where her scar runs its widest sprint across her face. …She always says it's ugly but I don't think so…
Casey only manages to brush the side of Anita's own, unscarred, cheek gently with her hand before sleep arrests her remaining consciousness under the thick veil of night.
Anita holds her hand for a moment before placing it gently on her slowly rocking, sleeping chest. She stands up, and walks over to the mirror unknotting her bun and letting her hair fall loose. She slips out of her dress and climbs under the worn but clean sheets in her underclothes.
The sheets remind her of her bed back in San Dimas. This saloon reminds her quite a lot of her own, and she wonders faintly if some part of Casey thought she was walking into this very St. Louis saloon when she was, in fact, stumbling into Anita's.
Anita looks down at the sleeping form of Casey Long, and she shakes her head wondering not for the first, nor the last time, if it's all just a dream.
She falls asleep listening to Casey's gentle breathing and quiet snores.