Madame stood at the top of the stairs and called, “Mr Westman! Good evening!”

Rex held his hands crossed over his heart and cooed in return, “Madame. Madame.... My-my-my. Do you know how long it's been since I've seen a real fine-lookin', purdy-smellin' lady? And can whip-up vittles, too? Hoo-whee! Momma always told me, she'd say, 'Rex, do one thing – find yourself a woman'll cook'.”

“I fear, then, that Mother would have found in me much disappointment,” she laughed. Rex came up the stairs to meet her and Madame nodded to Misty. The gesture said, without so many words, “Get your ass over here, girl.”

“Momma,” Rex corrected her. “Not 'Mother'. Never 'Mother'.”

“Of course,” said Madame. “I apologize for misspeaking.”

He hooked her waist and pulled her close at the top of the staircase, holding her hand in the first step of a waltz. “I only meant to make light. Apology's uncalled-for. You know, I often find my sense of humor incongruous with the fancy of others.”

“Well, Mr Westman.” Madame winked at Misty in her scanty get-up and said to Rex, “Some might say you and I are not so dissimilar in that respect.”

Rex kissed the back of her hand. “Your mouth enamors me. Of particular interest is the tongue therein.” He squeezed her, enveloping the old woman the way a thunderhead darkens a whole sky. Madame's feet came off the floor and Misty could not look away, nor could she act. It was shocking. No feller had ever manhandled her boss that way – not even close.

Old Madame was a cool character, though. She slipped her nimble paw inside Rex's trouser-pocket and held him by his member. At this, he relented his embrace and set her down. Never unhanding Westman's prick, Madame shook her head. “Not in my shop.”

“You don't leave a man a whole lot, do ye?” He indicated a truce by raising his hands and showing his palms.

Letting him go, she wiped her hands on her gown. “Don't reckon you brought a whole lot of man to begin with.”

“Holy shit,” Misty whispered. She clapped her hands over her own mouth to contain any more excited utterances.

Rex shook his head in admiration. “You're gonna be my woman.”

“How about supper, first?” Madame Danish replied. “The girl has set a table for us out on the balcony. Won't you join me? We'll dine al fresco. She will fetch your favorite spirit. Girl?”

“Just a humble peasant, myself – whiskey do please,” said Rex. Misty turned to leave them at the top of the stairs but, before she could go, Rex had time for one more favor. “And mind tellin' Tom Savage to observe caution with the gypsy? She's still a relatively white woman, after all.”

Misty went downstairs to the bar and saw Tom Savage still chatting up the gypsy. Going behind the bar, she poured two shots of whiskey. She kept the bottle and arranged the spirits all on one tray. Then she confronted the heathen.

“Hey you!” she barked.

“I am Tom.” He turned slowly toward her. “How may I serve you this day, white girl?”

“Your boss says to keep your prick out of the white pussy.” Misty blushed and looked at the gypsy. “Sorry ma'am. I know you're wanderin' road-folk and what-not but you're still of reasonably fair hue. I mean, his boss told me to tell him.”

The gypsy laughed and Misty's cheeks burned. She left the bar and weaved through the parlor with the tray above her head. Rex and Madame were already outside on the balcony, seated across from each other at the table.

Rex cheered upon her return. “I thank you for assuming of me the sort of thirst which demands bottles whole!”

She set the tray on the table and Madame took one of the shots and held it high.

“That'll be all.” Madame looked at Rex but spoke to Misty. “Now excuse yourself to my chamber. Disturb us only upon supper's imminence.”

But before Misty could go, Rex caught her by the wrist and modified Madame's order. “Do stay where I can see ye,” He said. Then, to Madame alone, he went on, “It puts me in a fine mood when I can keep my eye on a fine woman. Twice the women, well – twice as fine.”

So Misty stayed nearby and listened while Madame offered a toast to acquaintances new and old alike. They drank to Rex and they drank to her dead boy. Madame was lamenting dramatically, but Misty didn't reckon Rex heard any of it. He gulped his shot without ever peeling his prying eyes from Misty's nethers. He ran his tongue along his mustache to collect the last droplets of whiskey. Madame, meanwhile, went on about what misery it was to lose a child. How gentle Roger had been; what a tragedy his murder were.

“He looked so like his daddy,” she remembered.

Rex renewed their whiskey. “Where is the boy's father? Has he been informed?”

The supper bell rang, dragging Misty away to collect their vittles. She reckoned that were alright because she had heard this story before.

According to Madame, Roger's pa had been a feller called Kit Carson. Madame hadn't always been a madame. Once upon a different time she had been a schoolmistress back east. As luck would have it though, she made an even better mistress outside the schoolhouse. Her trysts became more lucrative than teaching class. She began accepting Roanoke's elite by appointment only and hers became a muff of utmost renown. Boys whispered about it in their dormitories and the town's best gentlemen praised it over brandy and cigars. She quit her teaching post and took up in the town's poshest penthouse. It was too much for some of the wives to bear.

Thankfully, one of her clients came by his fortune through the railroad. They struck a deal, and she fled town on the train before the wives could have her stoned. The legend of her opening spread across the continent. She was a missionary, converting men to new ways of knowing flesh. By the time she reached California the government had taken notice. A company was waiting when she departed the train, and they took her south to service army boys caught up in the War on the Mexicans. It was there that she met a man of great influence and prowess – a scout from Kentucky called Kit Carson.

Pulling the supper-cart behind her, Misty returned to the balcony in time to hear Madame ask, “Do you know who that is, Mr Westman?”

He replied, “I may not look it, but I have read from time to time the pages of books, and I do know the exploits of Lieutenant Carson.” He poured them each another shot and held his high, but before he drank he paused to ask, “And won't you please just call me Rex?”

“Why, the mere thought makes me blush!” Madame touched her glass to his and they drank. Misty stood nearby, waiting for a break in the conversation during which she could present the meal. “But I do digress,” Madame went on, paying Misty no mind. “After Santa Barbara was captured by Fremont and the Commodore, I spent a week as the concubine of their favored lieutenant. He had been gut-shot in the last fight. I saw to Lieutenant Carson's recovery – and I was made pregnant.”

“The prick,” Westman said with an erudite air about him, “is the first to mend.”

“And that is the old acquaintance your cyclops delivered to my parlor, cold and with his trousers dung-filled,” Madame said. “The bastard son of Kit Carson, Mr Westman – who at present prepares a posse of five-hundred men to rid the mountains of savages. Some reports have him aiming this far north.”

“Madame, I have your supper – I fear it may cool,” Misty mumbled. She pushed the supper-cart nearer the table's edge. She lifted the dome of the silver serving platter and steam rolled out. A slab of pink meat was revealed in its succulent grotto.

“I do pray you enjoy ham,” Madame said. Misty sliced portions for Rex and Madame and slid them onto their respective plates. Rex fingered a chunk from the whole and flicked it into his mouth.

“I enjoy the consumption of most things.” He tore another piece and gushed, “Some savory swine this is.”

Madame cut a piece and ate, too. There were also ears of corn, and roasted Brussels sprouts inside two silver chalices. Misty's stomach groaned something envious. Madame finished chewing and said, “I told the kitchen to spare no expense for Mr Westman.”

“Well it is a most fucking gracious spread.” He chuckled between mouthfuls. “I should hope in the future to kill more of your children.”

“Roger was my only child,” she continued grimly, “and Carson's only white kin, too – though he sired a few half-breeds during his trapping days. So I'm sure you see my predicament. Lieutenant Carson should be told of his son's murder, but at that I risk he ride into this town where commerce has been so free-wheeling for so long – and the Army could then impose here for years. And what of you, Mr Westman?”

“And what of me?”

“Why, I fear regulation might fall on your house hardest of all.” Madame batted her eyes and smiled. Slyly sipping a hint of whiskey, she elaborated, “Don't reckon any father would cotton much to the murder of his lone, white heir. Do you reckon a daddy would cotton very much to such a despicable thing, Rex?”

“You've got a long-winded way of making your fucking point.” As he spoke, Misty didn't hear any of Rex's prior playfulness. Madame had bled his humor dry. “So I reckon you have some proposal, Madame? Some way that I might save myself from Carson's paternal vengeance? Before he rides into Red Junction with his posse and forces Tom and I onto the reservation?”

Madame cupped a hand to her ear and listened to something. All Misty could discern was the piano downstairs, the cat-calling drunkards, rhythmic headboards, hooves upon the road – nothing out of the ordinary. She couldn't reckon what Madame were getting at. Madame wondered aloud, “Do you hear that, Rex?”

“Hear what?” Rex had come to the frayed end of his patience. There was an edge to his voice, informing Misty that his capacity for violence did not discriminate on grounds of gender. She knew a thing or two about men who hate women. Fellers like that were scalding cauldrons, scarcely submerging their rage till it inevitably boiled over. Rex asked again, “What am I listening for? Is this a game to you? Lady, Doc Sanders hasn't enough potions to cure your dementia. You better cut to the fucking point.”

“That’s just it,” Madame replied, laughter still in her voice. “You don't hear a thing, Rex. It's the sound of your men – not fucking any of my girls.”

“That's what this is all about?” Rex wiped his swine-greasy fingers upon his lapel. “Look here, I don't much care for this exasperatin' supper-talk – so do please allow me to un-muddy your waters. Sweetie, you needn't have sacrificed your boy to suss out this riddle! There was no call for inserting him into my gang and forcing me to return him to you that way. No, this blackmail, while mighty admirable, was wholly uncalled-for. You needed merely to make a direct query. And to answer your question: I've long kept my own stable of more-than-adequate twat. Hardy girls, Madame. Furthermore, I enforce a strict monogamy between my men and my whores as a simple matter of commerce. Is that not reasonable?”

Madame poured them each another shot and agreed, “Most reasonable – and shrewd. You must recover a good portion of the wages you pay.”

“Indeed I do,” Rex elaborated. “The Westman Company stays home because no man can resist Doris. She was born with such a malformity of her cunt – that girl is a geyser.”

Didn't matter how much she'd heard it over the years – bordello shop-talk could still make Misty blush.

Madame poured more whiskey and laid out her conditions. “Perhaps, then, I should absorb your whole stable – liquidating those that don't meet the Bare's standard. Say I tithe thirty-percent of the entire pussy-haul back to your coffers? And I don't tell Lieutenant Carson how you murdered his and my son. How does that sound, Rex? Is it an amenable proposal?”

Rex drank the whiskey and shook his head. He shrugged his shoulders and Misty thought she might faint when he said to her, “Some impressive Madame you've got here.”

“Yes sir,” Misty agreed.

“And brave, too.” He looked at Madame with a playful threat. “For having come to know me and still persisting in this extortion.”

“I assume we have a deal?” Madame slipped off her dining glove and spit in her own palm. She extended her hand to Rex and he spit in his palm, too. The business was consummated by the intermingling of their bodily fluids. Madame purred, “It has been a far greater pleasure doing business with you than rumors had hinted. That the years had not recently ended my ovulation! I might produce more offspring as kindling for the bonfire of our commerce.” She laughed.

“I have great admiration for cunning.” Rex fingered the baring ham-bone and asked, “Is there more of this? And mayhap some wine at the bar? We really ought to imbibe a spirit more sophisticate to salute your complete victory.”

“Girl!” Madame called to Misty. “Fetch us more meat, and have Isaac select our best vintage from the cellar.”

“Yes Madame.”

She went downstairs, humming loudly enough to drown out the bordello's music. She would have been reluctant to leave Madame alone with him, but her old madame had worked Rex over till he shriveled. Misty had watched him wither. She felt some sympathy for him, even. He'd never expected to meet a more devious imp than himself. He sure hadn't reckoned on such a fair devil.

It saddened Misty a little to learn that the kitchen had no more ham for Rex. At least the tender would help her procure the best grapes. Behind the bar, though, Isaac wasn't much for wine stewarding. He sought to clarify Madame's request by asking Misty, “What's she mean exactly by 'vintage'?”

“How in the fuck should I know?” was Misty's answer.