another try. She hadn’t jumped into the idea with both feet, but she hadn’t slammed the door on it, either.
When Prophet had mentioned it late one night outside Sor Magdalena’s cave and mapped out his plan about heading for Wyoming—about as far from Mexico and all the horrible stuff that had occurred there as one could get and not find himself hip-deep in a Canadian winter—she’d merely hiked a shoulder, nodded, lain back against her saddle, and rolled up in her blankets.
It had been hell, all right. And Prophet had held her every night while she’d screeched and squealed and sobbed it all out in her dreams.
Maybe here in Juniper, he thought as the first corrals and stock pens and a clattering windmill pushed up along the trail, she’d find relief from those nightmares and could finally put all of her sharp-edged memories to rest.
The town was good-sized and sprawling, though obviously not planned out very well. The main street sort of zigzagged, and new buildings were going up amidst the rubble of the old. There were still tent shacks here and there and log buildings that were part canvas and that bespoke the days when Helldorado was a hell-stomping hiders’ and miners’ camp. Whores’ cribs flanked the tent saloons, and miners’ shacks stood along the stream that angled along the town’s north edge.
But everywhere Prophet looked as he and Louisa clomped along the street, weaving around parked or moving wagons and pausing as two muddy drovers chased a runaway bull from one side of the street to another while a shaggy collie dog nipped at the bellowing beast’s kicking rear hooves, there were big two- and three-story wood frame buildings with false fronts announcing hotels and saloons and sandwich shops and breweries and laundries and ladies’ hat shops and general stores and even toy stores and entire stores given over to books! Most were so new that the resin in the wood made the town smell like a pine forest—albeit a pine forest near a stockyard.
In the midst of it, and planted right smack in the middle of the street, with an old saloon tent on one side and Machiavelli’s Mining Supplies on the other, stood a tall, narrow, richly ornate building of red brick and sandstone, and which large letters formed of black brick across the second story identified as the Juniper Opera House.
Prophet stopped Mean and Ugly in front of the place, which was barricaded off from the street by boards and sandbags, likely to keep runaway cows from breaking out the windows, and poked his hat off his forehead, whistling his awe.
“What’s the matter—you’ve never seen an opera house before?” Louisa said in her condescending way.
“Why, sure I have. Even seen a gent up in Leadville last winter—fella named Oscar Wilde—give a talk on some dead Italian fella in the Tabor Opera House. Sissiest damn fool I ever did see, but he could talk the corn off a cob. But I sure as hell never expected to find an opry place as fancy as this one here this far off the beaten Wyoming path.” Prophet chuckled and narrowed a hopeful eye at Louisa. “I reckon this place is even more civilized than I thought it was.”
A man screamed behind them, and Prophet and Louisa turned to see that the bull had run up onto the boardwalk fronting a men’s clothing shop, pinning a tall gent in a long, clawhammer coat and beaver opera hat against the building while the two drovers yelled and waved their hats and the dog barked and danced.
“I’d say it’s still got some Helldorado in it,” Louisa said with a chuckle.
Prophet gigged Mean and Ugly around the opera house, continuing up the main drag. “Well, it ain’t New York City.”
“So what do you have in mind for us here, Lou? I can’t sing, so that sort of precludes the opera house. And you can’t, either, in spite of your best efforts while bathing. Thank god that only comes around once a year!”
“Very funny, Miss Bonnyventure.”
“I’ve told you—it’s
When Prophet had mentioned it late one night outside Sor Magdalena’s cave and mapped out his plan about heading for Wyoming—about as far from Mexico and all the horrible stuff that had occurred there as one could get and not find himself hip-deep in a Canadian winter—she’d merely hiked a shoulder, nodded, lain back against her saddle, and rolled up in her blankets.
It had been hell, all right. And Prophet had held her every night while she’d screeched and squealed and sobbed it all out in her dreams.
Maybe here in Juniper, he thought as the first corrals and stock pens and a clattering windmill pushed up along the trail, she’d find relief from those nightmares and could finally put all of her sharp-edged memories to rest.
The town was good-sized and sprawling, though obviously not planned out very well. The main street sort of zigzagged, and new buildings were going up amidst the rubble of the old. There were still tent shacks here and there and log buildings that were part canvas and that bespoke the days when Helldorado was a hell-stomping hiders’ and miners’ camp. Whores’ cribs flanked the tent saloons, and miners’ shacks stood along the stream that angled along the town’s north edge.
But everywhere Prophet looked as he and Louisa clomped along the street, weaving around parked or moving wagons and pausing as two muddy drovers chased a runaway bull from one side of the street to another while a shaggy collie dog nipped at the bellowing beast’s kicking rear hooves, there were big two- and three-story wood frame buildings with false fronts announcing hotels and saloons and sandwich shops and breweries and laundries and ladies’ hat shops and general stores and even toy stores and entire stores given over to books! Most were so new that the resin in the wood made the town smell like a pine forest—albeit a pine forest near a stockyard.
In the midst of it, and planted right smack in the middle of the street, with an old saloon tent on one side and Machiavelli’s Mining Supplies on the other, stood a tall, narrow, richly ornate building of red brick and sandstone, and which large letters formed of black brick across the second story identified as the Juniper Opera House.
Prophet stopped Mean and Ugly in front of the place, which was barricaded off from the street by boards and sandbags, likely to keep runaway cows from breaking out the windows, and poked his hat off his forehead, whistling his awe.
“What’s the matter—you’ve never seen an opera house before?” Louisa said in her condescending way.
“Why, sure I have. Even seen a gent up in Leadville last winter—fella named Oscar Wilde—give a talk on some dead Italian fella in the Tabor Opera House. Sissiest damn fool I ever did see, but he could talk the corn off a cob. But I sure as hell never expected to find an opry place as fancy as this one here this far off the beaten Wyoming path.” Prophet chuckled and narrowed a hopeful eye at Louisa. “I reckon this place is even more civilized than I thought it was.”
A man screamed behind them, and Prophet and Louisa turned to see that the bull had run up onto the boardwalk fronting a men’s clothing shop, pinning a tall gent in a long, clawhammer coat and beaver opera hat against the building while the two drovers yelled and waved their hats and the dog barked and danced.
“I’d say it’s still got some Helldorado in it,” Louisa said with a chuckle.
Prophet gigged Mean and Ugly around the opera house, continuing up the main drag. “Well, it ain’t New York City.”
“So what do you have in mind for us here, Lou? I can’t sing, so that sort of precludes the opera house. And you can’t, either, in spite of your best efforts while bathing. Thank god that only comes around once a year!”
“Very funny, Miss Bonnyventure.”
“I’ve told you—it’s
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