OOM: Galveston, Texas -- 1888
Mar. 15th, 2013 09:30 pm[Previously...]
On their first day in Galveston, Kate and Rachel install themselves in the first fancy hotel they agree upon; an opulent Greek Revival with a hotel saloon and all the latest comforts. Galveston's as big a city as you could hope for out West, and they find no trouble filling the hours with twenty-five cent baths perfumed with rose petals and lye soaps, hot square meals, entertainment, and the first comfortable night spent in their respective rooms — feather pillows and silk sheets — since they started on the trail east from Cuero.
It takes a few days for everyone to find each other. Ace is the first to ride in, followed a day later by Butch and Mireille. In that time, Kate takes to exploring the island. Her father would come home with stories after business trips and quick errands, but Kate herself has never been to the coastal cities. She's never seen the buildings pock-marked with salt mist and sun and mildew, or smelled the tangled gardens hung heavy on the muggy air. Galveston's a wealthy, modern, commercial gateway to cotton, cattle, and other trades, whose mercantile benefactors have made it a cultural and architectural showpiece without equal west of New York.
Having seen the New York of the future, that makes Kate smile privately. Wandering Galveston's urban streets makes her wonder if someday it will sprawl just as big, whereas now it swims like a guppy in the vast ocean of progress where New York City is a shark.
(And, unmentionable, unthinkable, comes the pang that accompanies remembering her trip to New York, where thoughts of Tommy are quickly suppressed.)
Kate catalogs the avenues, the back streets; making maps of getaway routes in her mind. The Strand spans Twentieth to Twenty-fifth Streets, a commercial epicenter akin to Wall Street, where she counts five enormous banks and eight newspapers. The former makes the gears in her mind crank, potentials endless, but she meekly skirts past the latter for fear of being recognized. Ms. Katherine James, daughter of wealthy cattle baron Elijah James, secretly the infamous kissing outlaw half of Texas now hunts. Wouldn't that sell a rag or two?
Punctuating the western end of the Strand is the Sante Fe Railroad station. Steam billows from an engine, which looks to her like an angry bull impatiently awaiting a rider; the rumble and ruckus of lever, engine, and air is low, but deafening. Kate wanders the limestone halls, glancing over newsstands in search of familiar names and dollar amounts. 'CUERO BANK ROBBED BY KISSIN' KATE!' But she sees nothing.
Yet.
She meanders through the East End, along Sealy, Ball, Winnie, and Church Streets, across Broadway where business gives way to extravagant Queen Anne style homes, fine cast-iron Gothic Revival verandas, wooden galleries, columns, and balustrades carved with intricate Gothic and Greek Revival designs — every ounce of wealth from the Strand on display, boasting, bragging. She pauses for a while outside the limestone and granite mansion she's told is the "Bishop's Palace", and wonders what it would be like to strip these people of their grand vestments. To show them what it's like to live like Viktoria, and the rest of the people of Cuero so long taken advantage of.
The thought passes.
She eventually makes her way back through the business district (and even it peacocks about, cast-iron facade decorations and iron hoods over every window), the ghostly scents of oleander and hibiscus melting away to German Jewish delicacies, the scent of the cotton mills, horses, and sweat. The occasional blast of salt and sea off the Gulf. The barking calls of merchants haggling, inviting, tempting; the sound of wagon wheels and clinking glasses and people laughing and crying and buying and selling and living.
It's a good place to get lost, if you're running from something.
But Kate stands in the broad way, and thinks to herself, Goddammit, I'm gonna make you people see me.
The trick will be not letting them see Weyland's giant mechanical bird first.
(Finding a suitable place for Hildegard didn't exactly come easily, but rich Victorians who rely on oil and shipping as their main trades don't have much use for plow, hoe, or most helpfully, barns. The golden bird tucks herself in the hayloft, nests in old straw; Mireille is satisfied, though some mean streak in Kate's humor is tempted to let her loose on those fine Queen Annes and watch the people scatter as she picks off cattle and sheep for snacks.)
Their first night all together, Butch, Ace, Mireille, Rachel, and Kate, is spent in celebration. Kate promised them a party, and she found one in the Garten Verein. The city's so bright and shiny with all the finest modern ideas that bona fide electricity lights up the German dancing pavilion, giving Kempner Park a soft, unearthly glow. Folk are nice enough, the night is warm, there's no lack for beer, and the time stretches on in laughter, dance, spirit and song. After the job, it's a needed respite. And before she can buy Butch that dinner she promised him, it's a welcome moment to spend in merriment.
For every thing there is a season.
For every wound, a salve.
For every job there is a time to spend, to keep breathing, to live.
Ms. Katherine James appeared in Galveston one early August evening, astride a clear-eyed red dun with a stern young companion at her back. To say the apparition wasn't poetic, even for the bustling port town, would be a grievous omission.
On their first day in Galveston, Kate and Rachel install themselves in the first fancy hotel they agree upon; an opulent Greek Revival with a hotel saloon and all the latest comforts. Galveston's as big a city as you could hope for out West, and they find no trouble filling the hours with twenty-five cent baths perfumed with rose petals and lye soaps, hot square meals, entertainment, and the first comfortable night spent in their respective rooms — feather pillows and silk sheets — since they started on the trail east from Cuero.
It takes a few days for everyone to find each other. Ace is the first to ride in, followed a day later by Butch and Mireille. In that time, Kate takes to exploring the island. Her father would come home with stories after business trips and quick errands, but Kate herself has never been to the coastal cities. She's never seen the buildings pock-marked with salt mist and sun and mildew, or smelled the tangled gardens hung heavy on the muggy air. Galveston's a wealthy, modern, commercial gateway to cotton, cattle, and other trades, whose mercantile benefactors have made it a cultural and architectural showpiece without equal west of New York.
Having seen the New York of the future, that makes Kate smile privately. Wandering Galveston's urban streets makes her wonder if someday it will sprawl just as big, whereas now it swims like a guppy in the vast ocean of progress where New York City is a shark.
(And, unmentionable, unthinkable, comes the pang that accompanies remembering her trip to New York, where thoughts of Tommy are quickly suppressed.)
Kate catalogs the avenues, the back streets; making maps of getaway routes in her mind. The Strand spans Twentieth to Twenty-fifth Streets, a commercial epicenter akin to Wall Street, where she counts five enormous banks and eight newspapers. The former makes the gears in her mind crank, potentials endless, but she meekly skirts past the latter for fear of being recognized. Ms. Katherine James, daughter of wealthy cattle baron Elijah James, secretly the infamous kissing outlaw half of Texas now hunts. Wouldn't that sell a rag or two?
Punctuating the western end of the Strand is the Sante Fe Railroad station. Steam billows from an engine, which looks to her like an angry bull impatiently awaiting a rider; the rumble and ruckus of lever, engine, and air is low, but deafening. Kate wanders the limestone halls, glancing over newsstands in search of familiar names and dollar amounts. 'CUERO BANK ROBBED BY KISSIN' KATE!' But she sees nothing.
Yet.
She meanders through the East End, along Sealy, Ball, Winnie, and Church Streets, across Broadway where business gives way to extravagant Queen Anne style homes, fine cast-iron Gothic Revival verandas, wooden galleries, columns, and balustrades carved with intricate Gothic and Greek Revival designs — every ounce of wealth from the Strand on display, boasting, bragging. She pauses for a while outside the limestone and granite mansion she's told is the "Bishop's Palace", and wonders what it would be like to strip these people of their grand vestments. To show them what it's like to live like Viktoria, and the rest of the people of Cuero so long taken advantage of.
The thought passes.
She eventually makes her way back through the business district (and even it peacocks about, cast-iron facade decorations and iron hoods over every window), the ghostly scents of oleander and hibiscus melting away to German Jewish delicacies, the scent of the cotton mills, horses, and sweat. The occasional blast of salt and sea off the Gulf. The barking calls of merchants haggling, inviting, tempting; the sound of wagon wheels and clinking glasses and people laughing and crying and buying and selling and living.
It's a good place to get lost, if you're running from something.
But Kate stands in the broad way, and thinks to herself, Goddammit, I'm gonna make you people see me.
The trick will be not letting them see Weyland's giant mechanical bird first.
(Finding a suitable place for Hildegard didn't exactly come easily, but rich Victorians who rely on oil and shipping as their main trades don't have much use for plow, hoe, or most helpfully, barns. The golden bird tucks herself in the hayloft, nests in old straw; Mireille is satisfied, though some mean streak in Kate's humor is tempted to let her loose on those fine Queen Annes and watch the people scatter as she picks off cattle and sheep for snacks.)
Their first night all together, Butch, Ace, Mireille, Rachel, and Kate, is spent in celebration. Kate promised them a party, and she found one in the Garten Verein. The city's so bright and shiny with all the finest modern ideas that bona fide electricity lights up the German dancing pavilion, giving Kempner Park a soft, unearthly glow. Folk are nice enough, the night is warm, there's no lack for beer, and the time stretches on in laughter, dance, spirit and song. After the job, it's a needed respite. And before she can buy Butch that dinner she promised him, it's a welcome moment to spend in merriment.
For every thing there is a season.
For every wound, a salve.
For every job there is a time to spend, to keep breathing, to live.
[following this:]
They haven't been in Galveston but a few days when Butch asks to meet with her. She's been looking for a moment to talk with him anyhow, so she heads down to the hotel saloon after the rest of the group has turned in, where there's naught but a handful of folk lingering, mostly drunks, and finds him at a table in the corner.
"Howdy."
She sits herself down opposite, watching the candle flicker between them.
"How y'doin'?"
They haven't been in Galveston but a few days when Butch asks to meet with her. She's been looking for a moment to talk with him anyhow, so she heads down to the hotel saloon after the rest of the group has turned in, where there's naught but a handful of folk lingering, mostly drunks, and finds him at a table in the corner.
"Howdy."
She sits herself down opposite, watching the candle flicker between them.
"How y'doin'?"
The plan had been so simple.
Cuero's only about a five hour ride from Yorktown, across the Guadalupe by horseback. While the young Mr. Lehane, Mr. Adler, and Mr. Ferguson made themselves comfortable in Yorktown, Kate afforded two scouting trips. She only ever took Butch and Ace, her right-hand man and the lookout, leaving the other two to their devices. Folk remembered her — the young Mrs. Prudence Evans, whose husband the preacher was hoping to settle her somewhere kinder to her consumption — and Butch and Ace looked enough the part of two gentleman parishioners that nary an eye lingered in suspicion.
Everything was as it should be.
They were so confident.
It should have been easy.
11:17
on the morning of Saturday
JULY 28th
Kate's fine laced boots touch down in a shallow mud puddle. Beaut's skin twitches, and she sidles closer to Arrow, while Salty comes up on her right side. The mud draggles the blue skirts Kate wears on her way to the boardwalk. She's calm, and prim, hands gloved in brown leather, hair up in curls and bonneted. She enters the bank first, on business with Mr. Buchel.
The other boys will follow.
Cuero's only about a five hour ride from Yorktown, across the Guadalupe by horseback. While the young Mr. Lehane, Mr. Adler, and Mr. Ferguson made themselves comfortable in Yorktown, Kate afforded two scouting trips. She only ever took Butch and Ace, her right-hand man and the lookout, leaving the other two to their devices. Folk remembered her — the young Mrs. Prudence Evans, whose husband the preacher was hoping to settle her somewhere kinder to her consumption — and Butch and Ace looked enough the part of two gentleman parishioners that nary an eye lingered in suspicion.
Everything was as it should be.
They were so confident.
It should have been easy.
11:17
on the morning of Saturday
JULY 28th
Kate's fine laced boots touch down in a shallow mud puddle. Beaut's skin twitches, and she sidles closer to Arrow, while Salty comes up on her right side. The mud draggles the blue skirts Kate wears on her way to the boardwalk. She's calm, and prim, hands gloved in brown leather, hair up in curls and bonneted. She enters the bank first, on business with Mr. Buchel.
The other boys will follow.
By the time she reaches Oakville, it's after sunset and she's been riding all day. The last hints of yellow are fading from the sky, giving way to the pregnant dark blue of an endless night. She hitches Beaut to a post outside the first saloon she happens by, noting the livery stable to the south down the broad way. There's a nice hotel across the street.
But, first things first.
The batwing doors swing open as she steps in, all of five feet, tousled hair, and eyes as hard as diamonds. It ain't like it is in one of them Western ‘moo-vees’ — most folk don't pay her any mind.
Most.
But, first things first.
The batwing doors swing open as she steps in, all of five feet, tousled hair, and eyes as hard as diamonds. It ain't like it is in one of them Western ‘moo-vees’ — most folk don't pay her any mind.
Most.
OOM: Yorktown, 1888 -- rally the troops
Jun. 24th, 2012 02:20 am[Sometime after this:]
When Kate leads Butch out her door, they end up in an ordinary bunkhouse. It's where she and Mireille have been staying the past few weeks. The robot woman is happy to see them, but they don't stay for long. Today's the day.
The gang's riding in.
Beaut and Salty are already saddled up; the latter is one of John's dapple grey geldings. He'll be Butch's main legs while he's here. It's about a half hour ride to Yorktown, a good portion of which takes them through John's property, so there are no problems to speak of.
Hopefully, as they ride up to the fancy saloon in the heart of the town, that luck will continue.
When Kate leads Butch out her door, they end up in an ordinary bunkhouse. It's where she and Mireille have been staying the past few weeks. The robot woman is happy to see them, but they don't stay for long. Today's the day.
The gang's riding in.
Beaut and Salty are already saddled up; the latter is one of John's dapple grey geldings. He'll be Butch's main legs while he's here. It's about a half hour ride to Yorktown, a good portion of which takes them through John's property, so there are no problems to speak of.
Hopefully, as they ride up to the fancy saloon in the heart of the town, that luck will continue.
Kate doesn't try to draw attention to herself, but it's kind of hard to sneak through the bar leading a 15-hand pony. Beaut's not fond of hardwood, truth be told, but convenient doors to Texas aren't always to be found from the forest outside.
"Come along, sugar. Not far now an' there'll be dirt under your hooves again."
Beaut issues a dubious snort, sidestepping when a waitrat ventures a little too close. Kate swings around to steady her, arm brushing a piece of yellowed paper she's got tucked into her britches. She knocks it loose, and it flutters to the floor behind her.
"He ain't botherin' you. C'mon."
She moves a little faster. The quicker she gets Beaut outside, the better. Opening her door, she grins as Beaut's ears twitch forward in recognition, and lets her mosey out first.
"No, no. By all means, let me hold the door for you."
The two disappear.
But the yellowed map remains.
As does the door.
"Come along, sugar. Not far now an' there'll be dirt under your hooves again."
Beaut issues a dubious snort, sidestepping when a waitrat ventures a little too close. Kate swings around to steady her, arm brushing a piece of yellowed paper she's got tucked into her britches. She knocks it loose, and it flutters to the floor behind her.
"He ain't botherin' you. C'mon."
She moves a little faster. The quicker she gets Beaut outside, the better. Opening her door, she grins as Beaut's ears twitch forward in recognition, and lets her mosey out first.
"No, no. By all means, let me hold the door for you."
The two disappear.
But the yellowed map remains.
As does the door.