January 24, 1870

Georgetown. 

This morning Flutter, the female dog that had followed Manipi around, wandered over to me. She followed me as we went for a walk and checked the mailbox at the offices. There was nothing new and I dug around Sam’s desk in the Pinkerton’s office for an old baseball. I found a folder stuffed with sheets about previous cases from Pinkerton files. 

“Wow, Sam really needs a secretary or something huh, girl?” I asked the dog, who just wagged her tail in response as I sat down at the desk and found a tonne of more files in the drawer. Flutter lay close to the door and watched, as if she were guarding me while I worked. 

“This is gonna take forever to organize,” I muttered, but I was up for the challenge and started getting to work, putting the files in order by date. 

A few hours later, Flutter and I walked around town again but all was quiet. I found a man that I’d met named Stacks and talked to him. Duke came over and he was walking normally again.Stacks wandered on and I introduced Duke to my dog. 

“So you’re walkin’ again... I have some news for you too,” I said when we were alone on the street again. “Have you met a man named Vito before?” 

“Nope.” 

“He agreed to ‘take care’ of Icca for us. Without a badge to restrict him from the method in which he did it. So we’ll see how that works out,” I said and he nodded, listening. “Well I think I’m gonna get to the office, I’ve got some more things to sift through. I’ll talk to you soon, Duke.

***

This evening I walked over to the saloon and talked with Sugar about boys. I told her about the talk about going to Wyoming where I’d helped Canna after she’d got shot down by Icca. I told her that Vito was going to take care of Icca in his own way. I told her that then, the Natives would maybe understand that we were serious about getting Icca behind bars and maybe they wouldn’t be so hostile towards us, though things had been peaceful as of late. 

“Well, I know he has some strange ways about him.. Icca does,” Sugar said. “Really strange ways.” 

“You don’t have to tell me that twice. You know Icca and I go way back..” 

“He’s got a secret door on the left side of his building, goes into the prep room.” 

“I’ve been in there,” I nodded. “I noticed that door the other day actually. He keeps heads and such 

back there.” 

“Heads? Yeah, I saw once under a glass jar, a two headed baby, embalmed.” 

“I believe it,” I nodded. 

“Of course, I think he likes feet... but I don’t know much about that.” 

I shuddered at the memory of going back there to see the body that wasn’t actually Dutch Solo and suddenly felt the desperate need to change subjects. “So anyway.. I’m just glad I’ve got Chet around... I trust him. He’s a wise man. He wants me to be safe and he’s personally going after Icca. He doesn’t like the fact that Icca shot me down in Wyoming.” 

“Well that’s the best thing.. let him and Vito handle him.. or the indians.” 

“Chet’s really amazing that way, Sugar... When we were attacked by that bear in here… He was so much more concerned about how I was doing than himself, and he got pretty hit hard too.” 

“Well, that’s a real man for sure.” 

“Not to mention he’s a danged good kisser,” I winked at her. 

“Well that counts even more..” she grinned. 

“How about you, Sugar? How are things in that department for you?” 

“Oh just great.. Justyn should be trying to get here the later half of the show,” she referred to the musician that was coming to the saloon soon. 

“Oh really? I haven’t seen him in a while.” 

“We spent last Saturday together cause it had been a long time since we had time to ourselves. Sometimes you just gotta have to together time.” 

“That’s true. I remember when I dated James back in Amiville.. We’d spend weekends in Louisiana together. Wonder where I could take Chet…” I started to think. 

“I love the peace of the night,” she mused after some silence.

I nodded in agreement and said, “So you said that the Mexican was coming tonight? Tell me more about this guy.” 

“Oh well he’s from down south of the border, he’s a ’trader’ he says, deals in all sorts of ‘goods’.” 

“And he plays guitar?” I nodded. 

“Well yes, that’s what he does, but he’ll play anything.” 

“Looking forward to meeting him,” I said. 

“Well speak of the devil,” Sugar said as we looked over and saw the man walk in. He had a guitar slung around his back and wore a sombrero on his head. 

Sugar introduced us and he went up on the stage to warm up. More people filtered into the saloon and we listened as the Mexican performed. Sugar asked if anyone had any adventures they wanted to share so I told them about getting attacked by the bear and how Ahawi had taken it on as her pet. 

I decided to move closer to downtown and went with the help of some friends to move my furniture from the big house on the hill to the small apartment above the newspaper office. The rent would be cheaper and it would be a lot quicker for me to get to work, both at the news office and the Pinkerton’s office down the street. 

After moving everything over to the new apartment, I rejoined the group at the saloon and told Sam about how I’d started sorting through his unorganized files in his desk. He said that sounded like a good plan and then we talked about a woman who wanted to be a teacher in town. The pastor walked in and blessed the group and we continued to banter with him as we talked about Vito and his sister looking for a house. Vito and his sister came in then and we continued to talk about their house search. Narcisa said they’d found a place and we talked about me visiting them at their new home soon. I talked with them about how I’d moved above the news office as it was more central and continued to roll my eyes about the pastor going on about peace, which I hadn’t seen in the area in a long time. 

When the crowd dissipated more, I decided to head home and settle into my new apartment.