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between St. Louis and San Francisco.”
    â€œWhat will we do?”
    â€œStable our horses and make a plan. Come on.” Chet swung his horse around and a delivery rig about ran him over.
    â€œWatch the hell where you’re going you damn backwoods hick,” the red-faced man on the reins under a cow-pie hat shouted.
    JD laughed at the man’s words. “Guess he knew where we lived.”
    Back in traffic headed west, they moved through and around the throng of rigs, teams, and wagons to the O.K. Corral.
    A man who leaned on the wall sign of the business, shoved off with his shoulder and came over to confront them. “Me name’s O’Leary. I can book your animals in here for fifty cents a day.” He looked at the five horses. “Yeah, I got tie stalls. Grain’s twenty-five cents more.”
    â€œIsn’t that kinda steep?” Chet asked the man.
    â€œSteep it may be, but where else you going to park ’em?”
    â€œCan I store my panniers here?”
    â€œYeah,”
    â€œWe’ll take a few days.”
    â€œGood. We’re the best in town.” O’Leary stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled loud enough a deaf man could have heard him. Three Mexican youths came on the run from the hallway and collected up the reins.
    â€œWe will unsaddle them and care for them, señor,” said the oldest boy.
    â€œGood, put our panniers up too,” Chet instructed.
    â€œSí, señor.”
    After stabling their horses, Chet and his men and walked from the O.K. Livery to the nearby street corner. He wanted a place their conversations might not be overheard.
    â€œWe can sleep in the hay at the livery tonight. Jenn said that her daughter worked last in the Lady Rose Parlor. That’s on the left in the next block and upstairs. You ready for another ride, JD?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œHer friends were Ivory, Red Rose and Eclare. Find one of them today and ask her about Bonnie Allen. All you can find out. We’ll even pay her for more information.”
    â€œWhat if none of them are working today?” JD asked.
    â€œAsk for one of them anyway. Someone may know something.” Chet gave him five dollars.
    JD thanked him.
    â€œWe’ll meet back at six o’clock and go to supper. Jesus, I bet they have some putas around here.”
    â€œOh, sí . I can find them.” He nodded his head and smiled.
    â€œHave you ever used one before?”
    â€œYes, I have.”
    â€œMaybe one of them knows something about her disappearance—Bonnie Allen.”
    â€œI can find that out.”
    Chet handed him five silver dollars. “Be back here at six. We will go to supper together.”
    â€œGive me some quarters. A dollar is too much for one of them,” Jesus said with a grin of mischief.
    Amused, Chet took back two of the dollars and replaced them with four quarters.
    â€œThat is good. I will be here then.”
    Smiling to himself about his plan for the investigation, Chet headed for Big Nose Kate’s Saloon halfway down the block for a drink at the bar, hoping he could find out more about Bonnie Allen. His wife and Susie may kill him if they ever learned he’d sent those boys off to use saloon girls for information. What they didn’t know wouldn’t kill them, anyway.
    After a block of rubbing elbows and dodging drunks among the boardwalk pedestrians, he pushed in the swinging doors and went to an open spot at the bar. Some woman of the night with her skirt gathered up exposing her bare legs was riding a guy’s lap in a chair at a side table. She was screaming so damn loud it hurt his ears.
    â€œDamn. Is she always that loud?” he asked a man in a dust floured suit beside him who was watching her antics.
    The suited man looked mildly back at Chet. “That’s Ruby Jo. She sings and does several other things. Yeah, she’s that loud most of the time.”
    â€œHurts my ears.”