The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,28

he walked away, scattering loose dirt and dry grass as it moved across the land. A short while later, a meadowlark landed on the newly planted cross, waiting out the wind gusts before taking back to the skies. As it perched precariously on the cross piece it started to sing. It was the only song to be sung over the gambler’s passing.

The Quest For Truly Fine

Sweetgrass Junction was an odd name for a town that couldn’t grow weeds, let alone prairie grass. But the name was no more out of place than the people who inhabited it.

At the beginning of the small town’s inception, someone had decided to set the first building on a knob of red clay that was so barren it didn’t even throw a shadow. That building became the way station for the westbound route of Hollis Freight Line that ran out of Lizard Flats.

When the second building went up, which happened to be a saloon—aptly named the Sweetgrass Saloon—it only stood to reason it would be built near the first. A saloon was a necessity in a land where the population of varmints outgrew the population of man. It was also the ultimate proof that man was never far from beast. Man needed a drink now and then, if for no other purpose than to howl at the moon.

As is usually the case, people followed industry. A house or two was built. The owner of the saloon needed a place to sleep and Nardin Hollis, who owned the freight lines, had been farsighted enough to make certain that his horses had proper care, thus, a livery was erected on the spot nearest the freight line office. And so it went until Sweetgrass Junction boasted a population of sixty-five—except once every two or three months, when Miles Crutchaw, a miner, came down out of the mountains. Then there were sixty-six.

But ever since Truly Fine had come to the Sweetgrass, Miles’ visits were more frequent. He could have waited a lot longer than a couple of months before restocking his provisions, but it wasn’t food that brought him down out of the Rockies and east across the prairie to Sweetgrass Junction. It was the recent acquisition this past year of a new female named Truly Fine, formerly of Lizard Flats, and now residing at the Sweetgrass Saloon while taking nightly appointments for her favors.

At forty-four, Miles Crutchaw had a commanding presence and an abundant head of curly, brown hair. His features were far from being handsome, yet manly. His face more nearly resembled a half-finished bust that some sculptor had abandoned in favor of a different project. It was craggy—all angles and planes set off by a pair of clear blue eyes and a beard that grew as wild as the man who wore it.

With a bath, he would have been as fine an escort as Miss Truly Fine ever saw, except for one undeniable defect. Miles—Snag, to all his friends—had less than half a dozen teeth left in his head. Four to be exact. It was the one small flaw that Truly could not bring herself to ignore.

And so it was on a hot day in June, while sitting in the lap of a gambler who was fresh from Dodge City, Truly happened to look up and see Miles coming through the door of the saloon for his monthly visit.

“Oh no.”

It was the way she said it that stilled the gambler’s hand upon her breast. And it was unfortunate for the gambler that it was his dealing hand with which he was playing fast and loose upon Miss Truly Fine, because it was the first thing Miles grabbed.

“Christ all mighty!” the gambler yelped, and broke out in a sudden sweat as the mountain man forced his hand to bend in the wrong direction. “Let go, you ox! You’re gonna break it.”

“Maybe if I do, you’ll remember next time not to put it upon a lady in such a disrespectful manner,” Miles growled.

In spite of the pain, the gambler stared—first at the mountain man—then back at the woman in red. Lady? Not where he came from she wasn’t.

Truly shrugged at the gambler, as if to say, ‘it’s out of my hands’, and as she did, the blue-black feathers around the neck of her dress fluttered against her pearly-white skin like the tail feathers of a pissed-off rooster.

Miles glared, his eyes burning with a sense of injustice that Truly Fine seemed incapable of feeling.

The way Truly looked at it,