Kate comes downstairs and approaches the Bar, looking tired and a little worn. Her hair is pleated, her typical cowboy hat left upstairs
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Kate gestures in the direction of the tabs board, and sure enough her debt has just climbed a fair bit. She chuckles; it's less a trick of the Bar, and more an indication of just how well She's come to know her over the last three years.
Kate uncorks the bottle and nods at Dixie, quick but polite.
Dixie hadn't even noticed the tabs board before. "Well! Now how do you suppose she learned how to turn a sum?" Dixie still doesn't know how Bar can just understand everything that she does understand.
Then she grins from ear to ear. "The company's pleasant and the food beats anything I'll get on the stage line," she grins. "And it's a wonderful place to hide when I've lost my purse."
"The Miss has her fair share'a secrets," Kate explains, filling two glasses and offering one to Dixie. "I reckon there's a great many things she knows how t'do. But it's her mystery that keeps me comin' back. Ain't that right?"
She pats the Bar. Her voice may ooze sarcasm, but for how much she hates the surprises and curiosities, she has a good deal of affection for this place. And the Miss, too.
"Now, tell me. When was the last time y'lost your purse?"
Dixie takes the glass and rests it on the bar. "The mystery and the company, of course," she smiles. "I'm happy to be here and not San Francisco for the moment."
At the question, Dixie laughs. "Not since I was sixteen and lost my valaise on my way out of the convent. Doc..." she shakes her head and rolls her eyes. "I was such a silly child. He acted like a lovelorn swain and rescued me from a snatcher. I found out later the guy was one of his boys." She sips the booze. "It's the same position, but a different lie."
At a word, the color drains from her face and she's left dumb, hovering her glass near her mouth on reflex. It's as if she's afraid to move, like the world has literally frozen around her and the tiniest breath could shatter it. When, finally, the adrenaline subsides, she's left with spots in her vision and a lightheadedness she wasn't expecting for another couple of drinks.
She tips the liquor into her mouth, and swallows hard.
"I'm sorry. W-what didja say? I wasn't ... payin' attention."
Dixie raises an eyebrow. "I was the moll for a fella named Doc McCoy. Actually, more than a mol - he's my ex-husband. Blond man. Terribly fond of robbing trains." She rolls her eyes. "He always thought so damn small."
"He never even went." She shrugged. "He just liked to be called 'Doc'. I think his real name was Elmo." Dix doesn't know Doc anymore, really. "I haven't seen him since I rode away with a divorce decree, the silver the sisters had given me, and a bottle of brandy." Quite awhile ago.
She smiles. "I've been around a few times," she says loftily. "Not as many as some might suggest, but enough." A little sip, an arching of the eyebrows. "As the notches on my bedpost would attest."
A little sigh. "We weren't getting along. Doc was my first...everything. He lied through his pretty little teeth about who he was, and how he felt about me...and he blew up a stage coach on our honeymoon."
Her response to the arched brows and gentle primping is halfhearted at best: a laugh that never splits her lips, coming out in a low hum instead; a smile that sits too high, unnatural-like. She lowers her eyes to her glass, just listening instead.
"I reckon robbery an' violence would kill the romance," she remarks dryly, gesturing to the bottle to offer Dixie a refill. "Especially if y'thought you was marryin' a respectable physician."
Dix sort of hates to disappoint an audience. "Unless it starts with a robbery." She'd make a cheesy joke about stealing hearts, were she someone else. She nods at the offer, accepting the cool amber liquid. "Every man lies a little. Doc just majored in lying."
The words come out in a mumble as she's filling Dixie's glass, just barely audible and offered with no explanation. Kate's relationship with her Doc began and ended with a lie.
Doesn't make it hurt any less, of course.
"I reckon since then you've been mindin' your own purse?"
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Kate gestures in the direction of the tabs board, and sure enough her debt has just climbed a fair bit. She chuckles; it's less a trick of the Bar, and more an indication of just how well She's come to know her over the last three years.
Kate uncorks the bottle and nods at Dixie, quick but polite.
"You still kickin' 'round here?" she teases.
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Then she grins from ear to ear. "The company's pleasant and the food beats anything I'll get on the stage line," she grins. "And it's a wonderful place to hide when I've lost my purse."
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She pats the Bar. Her voice may ooze sarcasm, but for how much she hates the surprises and curiosities, she has a good deal of affection for this place. And the Miss, too.
"Now, tell me. When was the last time y'lost your purse?"
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At the question, Dixie laughs. "Not since I was sixteen and lost my valaise on my way out of the convent. Doc..." she shakes her head and rolls her eyes. "I was such a silly child. He acted like a lovelorn swain and rescued me from a snatcher. I found out later the guy was one of his boys." She sips the booze. "It's the same position, but a different lie."
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She chokes on a chuckle.
At a word, the color drains from her face and she's left dumb, hovering her glass near her mouth on reflex. It's as if she's afraid to move, like the world has literally frozen around her and the tiniest breath could shatter it. When, finally, the adrenaline subsides, she's left with spots in her vision and a lightheadedness she wasn't expecting for another couple of drinks.
She tips the liquor into her mouth, and swallows hard.
"I'm sorry. W-what didja say? I wasn't ... payin' attention."
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A laugh.
"S'funny. I know someone named McCoy, who's a doctor."
She pours herself another, not mentioning the other Doc she knows. The one with blonde hair. The swain. The heart-breaker.
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"Well, my Doc wasn't a doctor. He told me he was, but he wasn't." He was just a con. And a cheat.
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"Did he never finish medical school?"
She drains this glass too, with one smooth, quick flick of her wrist.
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It isn't really funny, except for it is.
Especially today.
"Well golly, Miss Dixie. Y'really weren't kiddin'. You've done a helluva lot of livin'."
She glances over her shoulder at her, spreading her lips in a smile that doesn't come anywhere near her eyes. She rolls her glass between her palms.
"What made y'end it?"
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A little sigh. "We weren't getting along. Doc was my first...everything. He lied through his pretty little teeth about who he was, and how he felt about me...and he blew up a stage coach on our honeymoon."
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"I reckon robbery an' violence would kill the romance," she remarks dryly, gesturing to the bottle to offer Dixie a refill. "Especially if y'thought you was marryin' a respectable physician."
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The words come out in a mumble as she's filling Dixie's glass, just barely audible and offered with no explanation. Kate's relationship with her Doc began and ended with a lie.
Doesn't make it hurt any less, of course.
"I reckon since then you've been mindin' your own purse?"
Reply
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