Bloody Confrontation in the West (Preview)

Chapter One

Maude Mott brought the tray of plates to the two tables near the front door of April’s Place. She set the bowl of elk stew in front of Emmett Johns, who looked up at smiled through his rotting teeth.

“Thank y’much, Miss Maude.”

“You eat up, Emmett, you’ll need your strength for working that claim.”

“An’ fer later tonight at the Blue Angel. I’ll see ya then?”

“Sure you will…see me.”

“An’ that’s all?” Maude nodded and patted Emmett’s shoulder, his wool shirt dark with stains of various sorts.

Maude turned and set the prime rib in front of Samuel Ballard, sitting upright in his waistcoat, cravat neatly tied around his collar. He nodded his thanks and looked over the plate of roasted vegetables and a fine slab of pink meat and white fat.

“Looks delicious,” Samuel said. “Rare, just the way I like it.”

“I have mine the same way.” But Maude meant that she rarely ate such a prime cut of meat, despite having worked in the restaurant for almost two years. Maude weaved through the other tables of the restaurant that was about half-filled with twenty customers or so. Conversations rose up around her, and Maude could feel their eyes comb her body as she walked past. It was nothing crass or unseemly. And while Maude never wanted to encourage the men’s eager glances, she knew there were a lot of worse things that could happen to her or anyone in Custer or anywhere in South Dakota. Her brown hair and green eyes were attractive to men, her slender figure making her seem weak and vulnerable. That could be dangerous, so she had to be tougher than she looked; that could be dangerous too.

The café kitchen smelled of stew as she pushed through the swinging door, even stronger as Maude approached. “Stew’s a tremendous success, Bella, as always.”

Bella stood near the stove, her red curls limp over her pale skin. “We’ll see if they come back for it after the morning!” They shared a chuckle.

April Abernathy herself stepped up to the kitchen door to join Maude and Bella. “You girls jawin’ again? Bella, I’d fire you flat…if’n you weren’t so sweet to come here and cook fer nothin’.”

Bella shrugged. “Idle hands are the devil’s playground. Your Son Zachary and his Laura keep you busy, don’t they?”

“Not with grandchildren!” April looked around the kitchen. “Still, it’s nice to cook for a big group, it’s…it’s like Thanksgiving every day.”

The sadness of Maude’s friend’s losses matched the sorrow of her own. They had different ways of handling them, as all people do. But she was proud of both Bella and April. Bella seemed like an older sister, April an adopted mother; both were sometimes exasperating, sometimes delightful, always wise, and certainly a blessing.

“What about you,” Bella asked, reading Maude’s mind. “When will you ever cook Thanksgiving dinner for your own family?”

Maude had heard the question from Bella before; she’d asked it herself. But she had no ready answer for either party.

“When God wants it to be,” was Maude’s answer, one of many that had a similar timbre.

“Perhaps God would want to see you in church more often then,” Bella said with a knowing glint in her eye. “There you could find the man that God had set aside for you.”

Maude cracked a knowing smile. “My mother thought the same thing. But that was a man set aside by the devil himself.”

“I know, Maude, I know, but…you can’t live in the past forever.”

“But I’m not, Bella, I’m …. I’m looking toward the future.”

After a tense little pause, Bella asked, “And what lays in that future?”

“Independence,” Maude was quick to answer. The more she thought about it, the clearer it came to her mind. “A vote, maybe.” After a roll of Bella’s eyes, Maude said, “Well, maybe. But certainly rights; to make a living, to be her own person! I don’t need some man taking care of me, seeing to my every need.”

April watched as Maude and Bella shared a knowing glance.

“I’m not suggesting that you need anything for yourself,” April said to Maude. “But…to have a family, a woman needs a husband, doesn’t she?” The thought was hard to argue with, though there were particulars Maude might contest.

She chose not to, and Bella went on, “You’ll find a better man in church than at the Blue Angel.”

“That may be,” Maude said, the sad truth rising to the front of her mind. “But Bella, a lot of the men who go to the Blue Angel on Saturday night turn up walking down the road to church the next morning. And as to the…the stricter-minded men of the church, one always has to wonder where their hearts and minds are…not to mention other parts of—”

“Maude!”

“I’m sorry, but it’s true!” After an awkward pause, Maude went on, “You might do well to come and visit the Angel yourself, Bella. I mean, it’s no sin to have a little bit of fun every now and again.”

“Is that really your kind of fun?”

The words hit home. Maude’s time at the biggest saloon in town had a lot of ups and downs. But the money spent, that was for sure.

“You know how it is with us, Bella. We women have to work ten times harder to get half as far. All I’m doing is what I have to do to get by. When the time is right, and the man is right, well …”

Bella shrugged, stirring the pot of stew. “Time goes by, Maude. You’re already twenty. Don’t miss out on your best years, that’s all I can say.”

“Just don’t run out of the café too soon,” April said. “The way the customers fawn, I could hardly get along without you!”

“I’m sure you could find better,” Maude said.

“I’m sure you’re quite right,” April said. “But I’d much rather not!” All three shared a chuckle, but a worried pallor fell over the three. It was a troubled country in a troubled time, just a few short years after the War Between the States, a civil war that was bound to be recorded as history’s bloodiest of any kind. There was promise on the horizon, but danger could come creeping up from behind and on each side. Maude knew this and the worry followed her every day. And she would learn it more and more as the days went on.

“There some problem yer lookin’ t’solve somewheres on my face, statue man?”

Maude and Bella and April looked over to see Emmett Johns look sideways at dapper Samuel Ballard.

“Aside from your stench, do you mean?” The whole room went quiet. Johnny shook his head.

“That’s the smell o’ hard work, you dandy.”

Samuel stood up. “I’ve cut down men twice the size of you, you cretin.”

Emmett stood up too, thrusting out his stained, wool-clad chest. “Darken my stream anytime, waistcoat, and we’ll see what kind of color the stream carries down to the other miners. Maybe gold…maybe red.”

Maude stepped forward, but April stopped her. “No, hon, this is my place…this is my job.” Maude strutted across the room, weaving through the increasing quiet of everyone’s riveted attention.

“I work hard, friend,” Emmett said, “but that ain’t nothin’ you’d know nothin’ ‘bout.”

“Isn’t it? I’ve created a thriving sundries shop, and I’m a pillar of the community!”

Emmett leaned forward to say, “Sundries? Pillar? I don’t even know what them things mean!”

“Exactly,” Samuel said, raising his nose at his grimy counterpart. And the gesture wasn’t lost on Samuel.

But by then April had arrived at the space they were sharing between their tables. “Gentlemen,” she said to quiet them and demand their attention, her hands on her hips. “Is there some problem with the food or drink?”

“Ain’t that,” Emmett said. “This fancy pants keeps tryin’ to stare me outta this cafe!”

“It’s only that I’d strongly recommend that you properly bathe yourself before entering such an establishment. Your stench makes this fine prime rib taste of muck and sweat!”

“You outta had yer share of both,” Emmett said, “or you’d’a know’d not to turn yer lip t’me!”

“Shut yer mouths, both of ya,” April said, loud enough for all to hear the snap of authority in her voice. “I don’t cotton t’this kinda guff in my place, that clear?”

Emmett said, “But, Miss April, this—”

“No, Emmett,” April said, glaring the miner into submission. She turned to Samuel to say, “I’ll thank you to keep your eyes to yourself, Mr. Ballard.”

The dapper fellow scoffed, huffing into his cravat. “Well, I never …”

“Maybe that’s your problem,” Maude said, stepping away from the kitchen and toward the tables. She had a tingling feeling in the back of her mind that she should remain quiet, but there was another voice that told her to let loose. It was almost another side of her, another part of her which she found harder and harder to deny. She’d rarely been able to deny it, but that became more difficult as she entered her twentieth year.

“Gentlemen, this is no way to settle your differences, wouldn’t you say? Not that I think you have any real differences; not that I can see in any case. You’re both strong men, hard-working fellows who contribute to the community, albeit from…differing positions, let us say.”

The room went quiet as Maude took her ground and held it, supporting her good friend and boss and the restaurant which gave them both shelter.

“One man works the earth, the water, the grains of gold. And that’s what drives this economy, that’s why we’re here at all!” The customers began to nod and mumble their agreement. “This man is the foundation of America. He’s the man America knows best. It’s a hard life, filled with toil and misery and loneliness.”

The crowd nods and grumbles louder, telling one another and Maude that she was heading in the right direction. Even April and Bella were watching with respectful silence.

“He digs into the ground,” Maude said, “he pierces her loins and pulls from her that most sacred spice.” The crowd gasped, then quieted quickly. “He is the bridegroom of this very nation, and we…we all are just guests at their wedding day, and we should be respectful of their privacy!”

The crowd threw up a mumbled cheer, April and Bella looking on with sisterly pride. It didn’t escape Maude’s notice. “But this is no story of heroes and villains, my friends, no! Don’t cheer for our friend here…without looking upon the other.”

The room went quiet again as everyone looked at the dapperly dressed Samuel, huffing and twitching in his well-tailored waistcoat.

“Our friend Samuel Ballard,” Maude went on, “a good man, a man who has worked as hard any of us and has earned every cent of what he has. What man could hope to say as much? Which man among you?”

The crowd sank their heads, some of them shaking and others dipping them.

“We’re all striving toward the same thing, to be the best men and women, the best Americans, that we can be. But that means men like Samuel Ballard!” The crowd hushed. “Have any of you never been to his shop, taken advantage of his generosity? I have, I’ll be the first to say. And I can see at least ten among you that I’ve seen in that shop myself! Our town of Custer would be nothing without such a man!”

The crowd kept nodding in their new humility until they had nothing more to grumble about. “He may not till the soil or work the streams,” Maude went on, “but he’s no less a part of the whole than any of us! He may have his luxuries, for which he worked and for which we pay! But he brings us luxuries of our own! Where would you buy you mustache wax, Dal During? What about your wife’s perfumes?”

The crowd hushed even further.

Maude asked, “Who among you has done as well? Surely not myself, but I’m trying!” Maude could feel that red-hot demon rising in her, a temper she could not control. “We need men like Samuel Ballard as much as we need men like Emmett Johns! Both men should be respected …” Maude turned to glare at both Samuel and Emmett to add, “And the two men should respect each other!”

Maude turned to the silent room. “How long have we gone on disrespecting ……brothers and sisters? Didn’t we just survive the struggle of our times to decide this fact? Hasn’t our nation been torn asunder to a degree that it can hardly stand?” Only silence answered her. “We need to restore the balance!”

“How,” somebody shouted out, “and why?”

Maude repeated, “How? To try, to strive, to march forth into the future, that’s how! Though these two men seem different, one poor and one rich—”

Emmett Johns said, “Hey!”

But he didn’t have the chance to say any more before Maude went on, “Both work hard, both contribute, both have different goals with the same outcome, and that’s to make their lives better and their world better!”

The room rose up in a communal cheer, April and Bella along with them.

“So dirty or clean, upright or not, we are still Americans, and as Americans, we must stand together! No matter who is rich or poor, this or that…does any man or woman deserve to be treated as lesser, or of less worth, or even as worthless? No, I say!”

The crowd rose up in a loud cheer, but some of the men shared dubious glances. Maude went on, “So you two fellows can step out of this café right now, or else be subject to the wrath of my own whip!”

The crowd gasped and jumped back before Maude went on, “Go ahead then, make your play!”

The two men stared each other down. Both were clearly embarrassed by the attention, looking at the crowd as they all turned to him. Samuel finally cleared his throat and said, “I only wish to eat my dinner in peace.”

After a long, tense silence, Emmett added, “If’n he weren’t glarin’ at me like he was, I wouldn’t care less.”

“Looks or not,” Maude said, “this way or that, April won’t have her place disrespected in such a way!” More respectful silence responded to Maude’s declaration. “Sit down and eat,” April went on, “or leave them and go…and never come back!”

The two men looked at each other, obviously feeling the disdainful attention of the rest of the room. Each slowly began to sit down at their respective tables to partake of their meals, which had transformed from elk stew and prime rib of beef into two full portions of humble pie.

Chapter Two

John Singer looked into the fire, crackling and hot, natural and pure. It had a simplicity he always admired. It gave warmth and cooked the rattlesnake meat to crispy, succulent perfection. It kept the predators away. It had given birth to civilizations, John always reasoned, little as he knew of the history of his own species. But when man invented fire, he began the long journey which had brought John to the Black Hills.

The real question was where he’d go from there, from that night, from his place among William Wagner and his brothers’ gang.

“We go in fast and hard,” William said, taking a hit off the whiskey bottle before passing it off to his brother, Thomas, younger by only one year. “Gun down the guard, grab the safe, and go.”

His brothers muttered and shrugged, Shamus silently skeptical. John knew Shamus as well as he knew his older brothers, but he was closer to Shamus. The youngest of the four brothers seemed to share John’s perspective on things, a more humane point of view. Of the four, Shamus was the man John was proud to call a friend.

When he looked into Shamus’ brown eyes, already wrinkling even in his mid-twenties, John could see a reflection of himself; both living a hard life in hard times, and living it a hard way. Each had tried to integrate into society a bit more than the others, taking jobs on ranches, in saloons. But there was always a better take riding out on a robbery. Killing bad men wasn’t a bad thing, to John’s reasoning, nor to Shamus’. To the other Wagner brothers, killing wasn’t a bad thing no matter who they killed. For John, that was a big difference.

Another was that John would rather not have killed anyone at all. To that end, he’d guided the Wagner gang to robberies instead of killings. Money was only money to his way of thinking.

But some money was more dangerous than others, and bank money was the most dangerous of all.

“Safe’s too heavy to carry out of there,” John said, attracting the eldest brother’s attention. “Why not hit the stagecoach instead? We can ride it right off like we did with the last job.”

William sneered at John and took a step toward him. “That last coach didn’t pay out much more’n a bunch of letters and a load of men’s socks!”

“I’m glad to have those socks,” Thomas Wagner said, third in age and sharing his brothers’ brown eyes and hair. But a stern glare from his brother quieted the younger man.

William said, “We have ‘em open the safe, we empty it out.”

“That’s a lot of time,” John said. “The longer the job …”

“Maybe it ain’t about the job,” William said, letting a long silence follow. “Maybe it’s about you an’ me.”

John kept his cool. He knew the gang leader was right, but he wasn’t ready to face all four men. Death loomed with every word, even the howling coyote in the distance seemed to know it. “Just wanna keep us all alive.”

Only the fire had any response to that, burning away as a silent witness to the human clash around it. The fire seemed to mock them all. The fire was ready to die, it understood the natural cycle of life, the part it played as a passerby through the mortal realm. But the men had no grace, they would live forever if they could.

And they’d kill in order to do it.

Shamus seemed to sense the tension, holding his hands out between John and the eldest Wagner brother. “What I think is that we been out in the hills too long. Let’s go to Deadwood, or Custer even, blow off some steam.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” John said, looking straight at William. “Yer brother makes good sense.”

“I’m the one makes good sense around here,” William barked back, the tension between the two men thickening.

“Even so,” Ralphie said, “William, maybe…I could use some time in town. There’s a redhead in Custer I’m partial to.”

“I know the one,” Thomas said. “You and yer redheads.”

“I like blondes,” Shamus said.

John gave him a wink. “We all do, buddy.”

“All right, all right,” William said, yanking the bottle out of John’s hand. “We’ll go to Custer, come the dawn.”

The men nodded and mumbled while John took a moment to think things through. “That’s a good idea, William.”

But William stared John down. “If it was my idea, then yer damned right it was a good un.” William kept the whiskey bottle and turned to step away. William and Thomas shared a glance and went into a muttered conference that John couldn’t hear. But he was keen to know what they were thinking.

The two middle Wagner brothers were more troublesome to John in the end, he knew that. Shamus had proven himself to be a good enough man, willing to lean to the side of the right if necessary. His eldest brother had no interest in leaning any which way but in his own favor and would spurn any man who thought otherwise.

Thomas was the next in age, and that fact seemed to weigh heavily on him. John had only been riding with the Wagner gang for eight months, but they’d been telling of each man. John had learned much of the Wagner family history, the death of their parents in a house fire. The trauma had affected each man differently, according to his temperament. But that wasn’t even the question on John’s mind at the time. He had suspicions of his own about who had started that fire and why, and what that man might do at any time to anyone. But even that was not uppermost in John’s mind.

It was the disposition of the two middle brothers that pulled at his conscience. Thomas resented William because he was the eldest, and he lorded it over Thomas and the other two. William had a boisterous birthright which rankled his brothers, Thomas most of all. John could see in the second-eldest brother a brewing contempt, the toxic knowledge that he could have and perhaps should have been the eldest, the leader, but for a fluke of birth. Every minute of his life seemed to be informed by the fact that he was not the one, but that he could be.

John knew that was a vulnerability of the gang’s leader, William. But there was also the third brother in age, Ralphie.

Ralphie was a wild card, seemingly ready to say or do almost anything at almost any time. A crack shot with a hair-trigger, he could explode in a murderous rage at the drop of a hat. And he didn’t share Thomas’s resentment of William’s leadership. Ralphie didn’t seem to care about very much at all; not life, not death, not anything.

So as John looked ahead at what he knew would be a coming conflict with William, the middle brothers would be decisive. Thomas could be turned, Ralphie could not. There had to be some other resolution, John knew. They’d stand united as brothers against him; he’d be outnumbered and outgunned.

Doomed.

And it only seemed a matter of time.

John turned to Shamus, who was just then rolling a cigarette and licking it closed. “You know how a bank job’s gonna go, Shamus.”

Shamus nodded and shrugged. “Even if it ain’t a bloodbath, it’ll bring the law down on us, sure’s yer born.” He struck a match and lit the smoke, blowing out the long column of white smoke as he shook out the match and tossed it away. “But once my brother takes to a notion, it sticks.”

“That don’t mean we have to stick to his notions, Shamus.”

“Yeah, ‘at’s true ‘nough, but…well, y’gotta have structure, right? That’s how the government works, armies, everything, even the Indians. Someone’s gotta be in charge.”

“Sure they do, Shamus, sure they do. But…at some point, y’gotta ask yerself about the guy in charge, right? I mean, we elect a new president every four years, it’s not just whoever’s the oldest brother. That’s the way those limeys do it over there, that’s why we’re here, all of us! This is America, and that guy ain’t my brother.”

Shamus looked around. “Y’best keep it down with that kinda talk, John. You not bein’ his brother means you ain’t his brother neither. That ain’t good if’n William decides you ain’t good fer ‘im…or fer us.”

John knew his friend was right. He’d fallen in with the Wagner gang the same way a lot of people did such things; circumstance, mutual benefit. In this case, it had been tracking a rogue drunk who was murdering women, and it was a fast and easy dollar, one worth earning. After that, one thing or another had come along, enough to keep him among the Wagners.

The memories of their first stagecoach hit still haunted in John’s memory. It had taken all John’s cunning and cleverness to keep William from slaughtering the passengers. It was hard enough to arrange to send them walking the full fifty miles to Custer. William had a tendency to leave rather than lead, and John knew he could use that to his advantage.

He’d contented himself to governing the Wagner gang’s violent tendencies. Women went away unscathed, only the deserving were dealt out frontier justice. But the gang leader’s tendencies were slipping away from him. He seemed increasingly frustrated and desired more, and John knew why.

Life in the hills was challenging, the elements brutal. The Indians lingered and were a menace, though the migrants from the east and north were plentiful prey. The bear and cougar and other road agents only made life harder and shorter.

And while some men were suited to life in the hills, even glad to be away from the stench and grime of life in the modern camps, towns, and cities, some men just weren’t suited to it, and William Wagner was such a man. While some were eager for isolation and release from the scramble and crime and filth and fornication of any American town, William yearned for those very things. He was a man who envisioned himself as a power player in such a place, not an outsider but a pillar of the community, in his way. He’d rule with an iron hand, of course, and kill whoever he had to in his governance. But William knew well the benefits of working from the inside. He often talked about running a saloon, a network of road agents, control the local law and government. He was a man who wanted to wake up indoors, not out; he wanted to own the bank, not rob it.

But the realities of their lives seemed to tell William what John already knew was wrong; the bank meant money and money meant opportunity. It was always another chance to start again, a way to get William a stake toward a better life.

It was only going to get his face on a poster, along with the rest of them. John knew that, and he also knew that if he rode off on his own, the violence that the Wagner gang would bring down on the innocent people of Deadwood, Custer, or anywhere, would be terrible indeed. John had been riding with them long enough to be part of the gang. That gave him responsibility for what they did next, what they did in the future.

They’d also kill him if he tried to leave.

John knew the unwritten rules of the West, all men of his caliber did. He was part of a gang, that was a commitment, like a family, and in this case, it was a family. And, like a family, the association could only end in death. He knew their faces, their crimes, their plans. It would be a breach in their security, in any gang’s security, to let a man ride away.

It was always better just to kill him.

And it seemed to John like time was running out for him. He wasn’t ready to gun the others down, but he wasn’t about to back down from William Wagner either. John’s expert skills with gun, knife, and hand meant he didn’t have to fear any man. But he couldn’t stand against four brothers unless he gunned them down in cold blood, something else he simply couldn’t do. John knew that would make him no better than they or than any cutthroat murderer. John had compromised himself in some ways, he knew that; but he was no thug and he wasn’t about to become one. But his civility would soon cost him his life.

Still, he’d won them all a little time. They’d go to Custer for a spell, though John knew Deadwood’s bank would remain on William’s mind, and that the gang would be bound for that hardscrabble town soon enough.

But a lot could happen in a short period of time, the story of the West was comprised of such examples. John looked ahead to Custer as a pivotal opportunity, perhaps his last, to save not only the lives of innocent people in Deadwood and the Wagner brothers themselves, but his own life as well.

And time was running out fast.

Chapter Three

Maude was happy enough to tend bar at the Blue Angel. The only other job position there for a woman wasn’t to her liking, not in the least. She had friends among the working girls, of course, in fact, she quite liked almost all of them; twin sisters Flora and Fauna, the redheaded Roxie, lovely blonde Crystal. Maude worried for them all. The men they interacted with were the worst that Custer had to offer. And if the leering come-ons of a man like Emmett Johns were unpleasant, what the men doled out to Roxie and the others was more than Maude wanted to think about.

As the bartender, she didn’t have to. Big Jed was never far from the front door, a mountain of a man with arms crossed in front of his massive chest. He had a scraggly brown beard, a belly born of beer and brawling, and a reputation that could change a river’s course to keep clear of him. Nobody was going to give her a hard time in his presence, that was a stone-cold fact.

“Beer, Quigley?”

Morrison Quigley nodded as he took a seat at the bar. Maude poured the mug full and set it in front of him. Quigley dropped several coins onto the bar and lifted the mug to his lips. Quigley was a salesman, one of a growing number of such men to come through Custer and wind up staying. Quigley was a man on the come, and he elevated a town like Custer.

“Quigley, you rat!” Both Quigley and Maude turned from the positions on each side of the bar to see Mr. Pike Banner waddling down the stairs. Aging and plump, worn down by time and travails, Pike was still a fighter, still ready to take whatever came. His vest and shirt strained against the changing shape of his body. “Move from that stool and I’ll shoot you down!”

Quigley turned to face the aging man as he approached. “Pike Banner! If I’d a known this was your joint, I’d have run into the hills!”

“What hills would have you?” After a tense moment, the two men broke out in a familiar chuckle. “How goes it at the store, Quigley?”

“Well enough. Better if my customers didn’t spend all their money here!”

Maude looked at the two men, enjoying the smile on her face. There were terrible and terrific challenges to life in Custer, but among the great rewards were the people. Just two years after arriving from Boston, Maude was often amused and delighted with the men and women she met there.

And they’d accepted her, as much as she could tell. The ease of humor around her seemed to be infectious. Good spirits abounded in her presence, though Maude took no credit for that. It just seemed to happen, and when it did, Maude was always pleased. All people had gifts, blessings bestowed by God. Maude’s parents had taught her that. Maude’s gift included a way of making people more comfortable, even more willing and ready to be themselves; more of what they were otherwise. It was a strange kind of inspirational quality Maude never quite understood. She took it to be the natural response to a welcoming attitude. Good would beget good and evil beget evil, that was always Maude’s way of thinking. In that way, love would beget love, hate beget hate, and welcome beget welcome.

Welcome, Maude took a moment to reflect, a word so simple and yet used so rarely. When one thanks another, they are answered with a welcoming; a blessing, grace in a single phrase to reassure any traveler or person in need that they are welcome to ask again, that they may always reach out to their neighbor. That is what Jesus wanted of his followers, and while Maude was never ready to go to a nunnery, she was always mindful of the holy way of thinking and behaving.

It put her in a peculiar position, as the more devout women of Custer spoke of her working in a saloon. The women of Bella’s women’s group spoke of her being unmarried. But some in the Blue Angel thought of her as too lofty, even haughty for not throwing her skirt up over her head at the drop of a dollar coin.

Well, Maude told herself as she always did, let them think what they want. I’ll own my own home before any of them will, one which I’ll buy myself and not have left to me by my dead husband! Those snobby gadabouts can make whatever presumptions they choose! But I won’t pin my future to some man’s waistcoat! I won’t live under the thumb of any man. The only way is to watch out for one’s self, but that’s something they will never know.

Maude wiped down the bar, trying not to think about it too much. The chances were against her that the town would even sell to her at all. Women didn’t own property outside of inheritance, not there anymore than anywhere else. Women were disallowed most things that men enjoyed, including the right to vote. But just as freedom had come for the negro, freedom of a sort in any case, Maude knew rights would come to the woman as well. There would be limits, of course, but things would only change when people changed them; Maude always thought that and she always would. If each person changed one little thing, eventually a huge change would come. And for Maude, that meant living her own way, by the crook of her bonnet brim.

It also meant working and working hard. Women had always had that particular right, and it was used against them as a curse; it was theirs to slave and clean and serve in every particular. That was something they thought was a weakness, but Maude had discovered it to be a strength. It was a matter of perspective, and that was something no man or law could take away from her.

One part of that strength was to earn, and with two jobs and no expensive children, Maude was able to save her money. And money spoke louder than any man’s bluster, Maude knew that; money was the thing they truly loved and respected. That was the language they spoke, so that was the language she would speak.

But there was only so much money could do for her, and Maude was not ready to sell herself, in body or mind or soul, in character or integrity, for any amount of money. If the lives Roxie and the others had chosen was satisfying for them, Maude was glad to help give them advice, guidance, and friendship. But she had other ways of making money, other plans.

“Hey,” one man called from a table in one corner. “Another bottle o’ whiskey!” Maude glanced at them, then at Big Jed by the door. He took note, Maude knew that, but he wasn’t ready to act against them until old Pike Banner told him to. And that was fine with Maude; she didn’t want to see the five men around the table get beaten half to death, especially not the handsome one who’d been glancing at her all night. He was tall, his brown eyes clear, hair well-kept. His posture was straight. He seemed different than the four men he was with, in a way Maude couldn’t quite place. They had faces that were similar to one another, a family resemblance. But the other was of a different line, Maude felt certain, and a different breed as well.

Still, she was the bartender, and the duty to bring the bottle was hers. And she’d do it without fear, without concern. She’d known ruffians her whole life, and Maude Mott didn’t shirk from anybody.

She set down the bottle in the middle of the table and turned to go back to the bar.

“Why don’t ya stay a while,” one of them said. Maude knew the men, though not by name. But she knew Roxie was one of their favorites, and that they were cousins or brothers of a sort. The man speaking to her was their leader, that was clear enough.

Maude asked, “Do I know you?”

“Don’t nobody knows none of us,” the man said in a vaguely threatening growl, though Maude had the definite impression the threat wasn’t directed strictly at her but at the other men.

Maude went on, “Well, if I don’t know you, why should I stay?”

“To get to know us,” the man said.

Another of the men said, “All right, let’s get back to business, shall we?” It was the handsome fellow, the one who seemed different than the others. But there was tension between the two men, Maude could sense that right away. They glared at each other, and the other three men seemed caught in the middle. Maude felt each was gauging what their own position would be. There was an unspoken complexity among the men, one Maude wasn’t at all interested in witnessing.

Maude turned, and the first man grabbed her arm to prevent her, Maude’s muscles instantly tense. “I said to stick around.”

“Mister,” Maude said with a half-smile, “you don’t wanna be manhandling me like this.”

“How’d you prefer I manhandle you then?”

“How ‘bout with a bullet in yer brain?” The man looked over to see Big Jed pointing a rifle straight at him. Every man in the room froze, all conversation coming to a clumsy end. A long, tense moment passed before the man nodded and let go of Maude’s arm. She stepped away and regular business in the saloon resumed, conversations rising up and the piano jangling.

Maude crossed back to the bar, Pike giving her a little smile. “You sure know yer business, Maudie.”

“Tricks of the trade, Pike, that’s all. If I didn’t have Jed to back my play, it’d had been another story.”

“Sure,” Pike said, “you’d’a smashed that bottle over his head.”

“And stuck the rest of it into his neck if that’s what I had to do.”

Pike shook his head. “Remind me never to cross you.”

Maude gave him a little wink. “I don’t think I’ll have to.”

“Excuse me.” Maude and Pike turn to the more handsome of the men, suddenly standing with them at the bar. “I just wanted to offer my apologies for my friend’s behavior. It was…unmanly in my estimation.”

Maude couldn’t fight the rush of satisfaction she felt just to hear it. And to hear it from that man and not one of the others only made it all the more satisfying. “Well, that’s…that’s very manly of you to offer the apology in his stead. Does the man fear humiliation?”

“Fear it? He breeds it!” The two shared a little smile. Pike glanced at Maude, and she felt she knew what he was thinking with his raised grey brows and with a gentle turn faded away from the bar. “Anyway, it was rude.”

“It happens,” Maude said. “Maude Mott, pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“John Singer. Beer?” Maude nodded and pulled a mug. “Thank you.”

“A man of manners,” Maude said as she drew the beer from the keg. “Rare enough in these parts…or anywhere.”

“You weren’t born here?”

Maude huffed and shook her head. “Is anyone? I was going West actually.”

John nodded as she handed him the beer. “What’s out West?”

Maude shrugged. “What’s back East?” John seemed to consider as he took a sip of the beer, a bit of foam clinging to his mustache. She went on, “You come in and out of town. What’s your business?”

John turned to glance at the other men, then turned back to Maude. “This and that.”

Maude knew just what that meant, and she wasn’t impressed. She knew the likes of the men this John Singer traveled with, she knew what kind of doings they could get up to. They were the kind of men who raised trouble in Custer, in towns across the United States. Maude was disappointed to learn that this man was riding with the others, that he was engaged in this and that.

Her father had been just such a man.

“You seem a woman of purpose,” John said, “a female bartender, of all things.”

“That surprises you?”

“It does, though I’ve seen you here before. Perhaps, well, some people, every time you see them, they seem brand new.”

“Is that so?”

John took another sip. “Isn’t it?”

“I can’t say I know what it means.”

“Doesn’t make it untrue.” Maude could hardly disagree, and she found the man’s obvious charm beguiling and amusing and also a little bit infuriating. He went on to explain, “Just odd to see a woman working, that’s all. I’d have thought, maybe, your husband might object.”

Maude knew with certainty what he was getting at. “If I had a husband,” Maude said, “he’d have enough respect for me to support me in any endeavor, be it to tend bar or bear children.”

“I’m sure he would and with a smile on his face. A woman of such pluck and audacity would make any man proud and pleased, I’m sure.”

“You’ll have to rely upon your imagination for that,” Maude said, inspiring in the man a knowing little chuckle.

“Those will be sweet thoughts to see me to sleep.” It was a bold comment, but Maude took no offense. He was quite gentlemanly in his manner, after all, not threatening or thuggish. If his comment had been less than jocular, that might not have bothered Maude at all.

“Aughtn’t you get back to your friends?”

John glanced back and huffed. “Friends,” he repeated with a weary sigh. “I’m no friends of the Wagner brothers.” The name rang familiar in Maude’s mind, but she didn’t want to reveal that. “I should get back, however. I just wanted to share my embarrassment at William’s behavior. Nobody should have to endure such a thing.”

Maude could not disagree with that, and she was grateful for the sentiment. But it was best to let the man John Singer turn around and return to his table, to the dreaded Wagner gang. Maude glanced at Big Jed, sitting near the door and shaking his head in disapproval. In another corner of the room, Pike Banner looked on with a glint in his eye. Both men seemed to see something Maude was eager to deny.

He’s just some fellow, Maude silently told herself, tall and handsome and seemingly a gentleman, though anybody can fake that for a while until the ruse is no longer necessary. Still, there seemed a feeling, a kind of energy…

Maude put it out of her mind and her heart.

Handsome or not, Maude reminded herself, he rides with the Wagner gang! How good a man could he be?

A chill ran through Maude’s body, hairs standing on end just to think about it. Rumors of the Wagners had begun to grow, though their faces had never been printed up on any posters. Maude had heard those stories and others, of other gangs roaming the Black Hills. But Paul Bunyan may as well have been roaming those hills for all the accuracy of the rumors and gossip floating around Custer, Deadwood, and other nearby places. In fact, the whole nation seemed to have been founded by giants and myths; from Davy Crockett flying in on a lightning bolt to John Henry’s grit driving down those railroad spikes. George Washington still loomed large over the nation, and recent martyr Abraham Lincoln would forever be revered, the Great Emancipator. America was a place of legend, and a legendary place even in its youth. It would only become more so in the years to come, Maude felt certain; and that was due to men like those, and women like her.

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“Bloody Confrontation in the West” is an Amazon Best-Selling novel, check it out here!

After almost a year of riding with the dreaded Wagner gang, John Singer decides that he wants to settle down and start a new life. When he gets seriously injured and the gang takes him for dead, he is convinced that this is the opportunity to escape from them once and for all. He has no idea though that the notorious criminals will find out he is alive and they will be thirsty for revenge for his shameful betrayal. Is John going to be prepared for the greatest battle of his life? Will he manage to enjoy a quiet and ordinary life and finally leave his troubled history behind?

While John is barely escaping death, a kind woman named Maude finds him and nurses him back to health. From that point on, John believes that luck is finally smiling at him. His life in the small town of Custer becomes even better when he finds a new job and realizes that there is a spark between him and the woman who saved his life. However, the smile will fade from his face when ghosts from the past return with evil intentions. What sacrifices will John have to make in order to save Maude and restore harmony in town?

Just when the Wagner Gang starts hounding the citizens, both John and Maude find themselves embroiled in a war with the past, where not everyone can be the winner. Will John manage to face the ruthless outlaws who are threatening to turn every single dream in his life to dust? Will he survive the dangerous undertaking and wipe the slate clean against all odds?

A pulse-pounding drama, which will make you turn the pages with bated breath until the very last word. A must-read for fans of Western action and romance.

“Bloody Confrontation in the West” is a historical adventure novel of approximately 80,000 words. No cliffhangers, only pure unadulterated action.

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