Chapter 30

I followed Pen into the dance hall. The joint was overflowing with women. I think nearly every dancer and bar girl in El Paso was in our ballroom that night. When I walked in the door, the women started clapping. I blushed, gave them a little wave and walked over to the small bandstand to join the Hombres. The cigar and cigarette smoke must have been thick in the room that night, because my eyes were starting to water. I wiped my eyes with the back of my left hand as I slung my guitar around my neck then held up my hand for some silence. When the crowd quieted down, I told them how I felt.

“Thank you, Ladies, for the good wishes and get well notes and cards you sent me while I was convalescing. I hope that I can thank each of you in person in the next few days.”

I could have stopped right there and still have gotten my message across, but that wouldn’t be very Ty, would it? Of course not! So I threw in a little something extra.

“I just thought of a song that might express how I feel. I haven’t practiced this with the Hombres, so forgive me if it’s a trifle rough.”

I found me a chord I thought was close and whacked it once. The song was almost a cappella anyway.

Love me tender, love me sweet,
Never let me go.
You have made my life complete,
And I love you so.

Love Me Tender might have been old fashioned by 1977, but in 1877 it was one of the most romantic things these women had ever heard. I walked around as I sang and tried to make sure that I acknowledged every woman in the room. You can feel however you wish about how the ladies made their living, but you couldn’t for a minute deny that the majority of them were fine people.

Since I had the ladies all misty-eyed already, I nodded to the Hombres and called out “Kiss and Say Goodbye.” The boys smiled as I emoted the opening monologue, then backed up Miguel Calderon as he nailed the singing portion with his clear quavering tenor voice. After that, we piled on a few more love songs. We had the chicks all swooning for love by the time we took our ten-thirty break.

I was beginning to feel a little frayed around the edges, so I took my break in my office. I was sitting at my desk with my feet up, when Belle and Conchita walked in. Belle shut and locked the door behind them, then gave me a big grin as she nudged Conchita towards my desk.

“You were amazing tonight, My Sweet, I do believe that every woman out there tonight left in love with you,” Belle said teasingly.

I returned her grin and shrugged.

“That’s all well and good, as long as the two women in here right now love me, too.”

“No need to worry about that, is there Connie?”

Conchita nodded emphatically as she blushed a dusky rose color. Conchita loved the nickname Connie that Belle had hung on her, so we had all started calling her that.

Connie looked so sweet standing there that I had to stand up and kiss her. By kiss, I don’t mean a peck on the cheek either! It was a serious lover’s kiss. We’d shared more than a few of those already, when she was sitting with me as I convalesced at the jail. Connie loved to kiss and she was damned good at it. Her lips were the softest I’d ever felt, and she had an active little tongue once she got going. I didn’t do any more than kiss her, because she still worked for me. That was good in a way, because it let the anticipation build for both of us. I think she and Belle were under no such constraints, but if they were it was none of my business.

I finally made it up to the El Paso Hotel Saturday morning to check on the progress Belle had made sitting in for me. I couldn’t believe how much had been done in the last eight or nine days. Except for the draperies for the windows in Belle’s piano bar, everything was shipshape for our grand opening coming up on the first week of September.

Belle’s piano bar was the most amazing room in the club. She’d installed dark cherry wainscoting on the base of the walls, up to a height of about thirty inches, and painted the upper walls pure white. She’d found some nice pieces of art to hang, and even had some statuary placed in two of the corners. Centered along the wall opposite the bar was a gleaming black, baby grand piano. The room seated about fifty without any crowding, and double that when the partition was rolled back to open up the dining room.

The new sauna and massage rooms were nearly completed as well. It looked as if we’d be in fine shape for our opening in ten days as far as the facilities went. I was also confident about the kitchen and downstairs restaurant. Miranda was working as a waitress now, and Maria, and Miranda’s mother — Alisia — were helping in the kitchen. I had even talked Anna into being the restaurant’s hostess. Anna was a class act and charming as heck, so I thought she’d be perfect for the job.

The carpenters were just finishing up fabricating an easy to disassemble stage across one end of the first floor ballroom. The ballroom was a large space, fifty feet wide and a hundred feet long. I envisioned having a small stage for the house band and a larger stage for other types of entertainment. I’d truly love to put on some type of stage show at least two nights a week, if we could draw the crowds to make it worthwhile.

The ballroom opened up onto the back patio via three sets of double doors, so I had a couple of open but roofed bars built out there to service the crowds we would hopefully draw. After some discussion, the partners agreed that the first floor restaurant and ballroom should be open to the general public, unless the gent’s club was using them. The first floor would still be up-scale and require proper dress and comportment from our patrons.

We effectively blocked the stairs to the second floor by moving the registration counter over to the base of them. To get past the desk, you had to be a member of the club. A man and a woman would be at the desk around the clock to take care of anything a member might need. I figured those to be two of the most important jobs in the place.

One of the men’s positions was already filled by this guy Pen knew. He was a super snobby Englishman that exactly fit the image we were trying to establish. Talking to the little shit, you’d think he was royalty, but Pen said he was an out of work second rate Shakespearean actor. Pen said his real name was Ray Jarvis, but he insisted on calling himself Mister Jarveaux (pronounced zhar-voh). Even Belle was impressed by how snotty he acted. Me? I liked the guy, and called him Jeeves. I was the only one who could get away with something like that. Belle said it was because Mister Jarveaux was gay, and had a crush on me. Go figure.

Once again, I took a lengthy afternoon nap, and as she had the day before, Belle provided the type of wake up service Seth Thomas could never match.

That night at the cantina found me feeling almost up to speed. I took a thirty minute break around nine and worked through until one-thirty in the morning.

Sunday morning, I managed to talk my way onto Melosa, instead of riding to Mass in Belle’s carriage. I was lucky in that Belle had a covey of women going with her, including Molly, Naomi and Conchita. I followed along behind the carriage as Jose drove it to Hector’s rancho to pick up Maria and his sister Miranda. If I wasn’t doing much else, I sure was helping increase the attendance at mass.

For the first time since I first rode her, Melosa was not her usual happy self. It took about half a dozen songs and some serious apologizing by me before her step had any bounce in it.

That morning, I saw Feleena for the first time in two weeks. She actually acted as if she was concerned that I had been injured. I nodded politely, thanked her and then asked where her boyfriend was. She told me that George was on important business for his father up in Austin. She didn’t elaborate and I didn’t ask her any more about George. I was certain that George was filing a claim for the mineral rights to the salt flats in the name of his maternal grandfather, George B. Zimpleman, because it fit in the history I knew. The filing of that claim and Howard’s attempts to enforce it were the final provocations that led to the Salt War.

Feleena sure spent a lot of time checking out the women standing around me. The women were unfailingly polite to her, but in a way formal enough for her to catch how little they were intimidated by her beauty. Miranda summed up Feleena perfectly after she walked away.

“She is so beautiful on the outside, but I think her heart is a lump of coal.”

After Mass, I told the women I was taking Melosa for some exercise, and away we rode. Jose was taking Conchita, Molly and Naomi home, then he was taking Belle to the Lopez-Calis hacienda.

Melosa and I meandered along the river for about forty-five minutes, then headed for dinner with Hector and all the women. I spent the time I was riding around trying to remember more El Paso history and the events that unfolded in September and October of 1877. As I recalled, Howard would start trying to enforce his rights to the salt in early September, by riding into San Elizario and demanding payment for some salt a few Mexicans had brought back from there. All hell broke out after that, as Howard was assaulted and thrown in the local hoosegow, on the orders of Louis Cardis, the head of the anti-salt faction and Howard’s bitter rival.

Howard agreed to quit his claim to the salt and some of his cronies posted a twelve thousand dollar bond as a guarantee for his word. Howard never returned to his judgeship after that day. Instead, he holed up on his ranch, waited for the Texas Rangers to show up, and plotted his revenge against Cardis.

I shook those thoughts out of my head temporarily and sat down to enjoy a marvelous dinner that Hector had prepared, to celebrate Juanita and Emilio’s engagement. With all the people there, it was catch-as-catch-can for finding a seat. I ended up out on the porch with Joaquin and Jose Colon. Maria and Miranda were sitting one to a side next to Belle in the parlor, while the happy couple, their children, Anna, Hector and Ramona all sat at the dining room table. I couldn’t resist giving Joaquin the business about him being next at the gallows after Emilio. Joaquin just grinned.