Amiville.
As morning dawned yet again in Amiville, I made my way to the saloon for my morning coffee. I met a girl named Cricket and spoke with Serxjo and Gramps while we began to wake ourselves up. I asked Serxjo if he could maybe help me with my Spanish as it had become rusty over the years and he said that he could indeed help me improve. Before long more people came into the saloon and we spent a few hours chatting about the town gossip and what everyone had been up to lately. I explained my story to Serxjo about how I became a reporter through the investigation of Dutch’s murder. I told Sara about how Nate, one of the US Marshals in town, had been assigned to keep me safe and how James was spending more time with me so between the two of them I would be plenty safe.
Before long Serxjo asked me to dance and we moved around the floor effortlessly, as if we’d been dancing together forever. I knew that a dance didn’t really mean anything in the long scheme of things, but it was a good way to get to know the men in town and thus solidify future sources for stories in the paper. Serxjo continued to teach me some basic Spanish and we talked about how I often went to Kansas to visit with a Native tribe out there.
That afternoon, James walked into the saloon and I smiled, glad to see him. “James! Join us! We’ve got drinks!”
“Sure cannot deny such a lovely invitation,” James smiled and sat down beside me at the table.
“Trin, have you been able to make arrangements yet for your friend?” Tessa asked me then and I sighed.
“It’s in Richie’s hands. I’m not sure what’s been decided.” I hadn’t heard from the mayor about a service in days and wondered if it would actually happen. Not wanting to talk about Sayler I turned to James and asked, “So how are you doing?”
“One of those days you’d rather avoid to have,” James sighed.
“What’s going on?”
“Some joker shot my horse.”
“What!? When?”
“Possibly overnight. Went to the livery this mornin’ and what do I see? My horse with a bullet through the head.”
“James... That’s terrible!”
“If I get that prankster he’ll need to pay me good money,” James threatened.
“Are you so sure it was a prank, James?”
“A bad one on top.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t an intended hit? A warning?”
“Guess you’re a little bit over-cautious,” James reached over and put a hand on my knee.
“Well they don’t call it Outlaw-ville for nothing,” Sean put in.
I held out my hand to point at Sean and said, “See?”
“If it was a message I coulda have ended with its head within ma bed,” James said.
“But still, James... He targeted your horse... for some reason. People don’t just randomly go shooting horses for no reason.”
A man came in and asked about a robbery that had just happened in the daylight but we hadn’t heard of anything yet. I sighed, thinking that there was never a dull moment in this town. He asked us to tell him if we heard of anything and we said we’d let him know.
When the man left James leaned forward and put a hand on my wrist. “By the way, would you like to go to Louisiana again once I have a new horse, Trin?”
“I would love to, James. How about tomorrow?”
“Don’t think I’ll get a new one that fast,” James chuckled.
“Alright, guess we could take a stage horse or something...”
“Shall we stay the whole weekend or just for one day again?”
“How about we stay ‘till Sunday? Make an adventure of it.” I looked over to my editor who was sitting with us and asked, “We can come back and then edit the paper on Monday, Sean? Print it hopefully Monday afternoon?”
“Sounds fine to me,” James nodded and Sean agreed that it would be no problem.
Cathy and Mai came into the saloon then and Fritha came into the saloon and handed me a sheet of paper with her first article about the events going on in the clinic. Nate came in then and tried to arrest Cathy and I told James I wanted to watch the interaction. Nate and Cathy had moved down the street so James and I moved down the street. We recognized Nate and the other lawmen from across the street but we went up to the balcony of the newspaper office where we could watch.
“Looks like Nate got her indeed,” I observed, seeing Nate with his hands on Cathy’s wrists. Another man, Jack, was with him.
“I sure have a bad feeling here,” James said then.
“You do?” I looked at him. “Seems they got it taken care of though...”
“Still...” James shook her head.
All of a sudden, we watched as Jack let Cathy go. Nate yelled at him for letting her go and he insisted that he was just trying to get her. We noticed them moving down the street and followed from a distance.
“Can we trust Jack...?” I asked, following James closely.
“Don’t know. The fact that he let her run is suspicious.” James put a hand on my shoulder and said, “Guess we should get back inside.”
“But I...” I stepped out into the street a bit more. “Something’s not right, James.”
“I’ll explain later.”
“You’ll what?” I asked, turning back to him. “What do you know?” James stepped back and I stepped closer to him. “Talk to me.”
“Did you notice that woman that passed us a few minutes ago?” When I nodded he said, “She was at the saloon with Cathy and it also seemed they knew each other.”
“Okay...?” I looked at him.
“She was also around earlier when Nate wanted to get her imprisoned. Not sure where she fits but I’m sure it’s nothing good.”
“What about Jack?”
“Also the fact Jack let her run.”
“I’ve never been too sure of him,” I nodded.
“Might imply he’s involved in one way or another.”
“I want to know what’s going on,” I said.
“Wouldn’t wonder me if Cathy returns with her other so-called friends.”
“Bill’s probably not far behind,” I nodded in agreement.
“That’s my guess.”
“I’m not afraid of him, James. He can’t stop me from doing my work.”
We decided to go to the saloon as there wasn’t much happening anymore and danced together. I told Sara what happened and she said that she saw them fighting. I hoped that Nate would tell me what was going on when he came back from wherever he’d disappeared to and Sara agreed that she’d seen the other woman in the saloon who was apparently close to Cathy. As we danced, I looked forward to our weekend away to Louisiana.
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