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coach’s worn-out wheels.
    Even though their backs and arms still ached from the loads, the crew was refreshed by the gas lamps and the late workers who manned stores, transported goods, and swore back and forth at the gamblers and drunks. The prairie was a lonely place for three men too exhausted to talk (or even to bicker); and the city might not mean welcome, but it would warm them and supply them.
    They moved deeper into the heart of the place, keeping to themselves even as they drew the occasional curious eye. There were places in the west, as everywhere, where free black men could find no haven—but likewise, as everywhere, there were places where useful men of a certain sort could always find a reception.
    In the central district, where the street lamps were fewer and farther between, the saloons were plentiful and the passersby became more varied. Indians walked shrouded in bright blankets; and through the window of the Hotel Oriental, Hainey saw a circle of Chinamen playing tiles on a poker table. On the corner a pair of women gossiped and hushed when the old coach drew near, but their business was an easy guess and even Simeon was too tired to give them more than a second glance.
    Along the wheel-carved dirt streets, Hainey, Simeon, and Lamar guided the horses beyond the prostitutes, the card-players, the cowboys and the dance hall girls who were late for work.
    And finally, when the road seemed ready to make a sudden end, they were at the block where Halliway Coxey Barebones ran a liquor wholesale establishment from the backside of a hotel. He also ran tobacco that the government had not yet seen and would never get a chance to tax, as well as the occasional wayward war weapon en route to a country either blue or gray—wherever the offer was best. From time to time, he likewise traded in illicit substances, which was how he had made the acquaintance of Croggon Hainey in the first place.
    The side door of the Halliway Hotel was opened by a squat white woman with a scarf on her head and a carving knife in her hand. She said, “What?” and wiped the knife on her apron.
    Hainey answered with comparable brevity, “Barebones.”
    She looked him up and down, then similarly examined the other two men. And she said, “No.”
    The captain leaned forward and lowered his head to meet her height. He minded the knife but wasn’t much worried about it. “Go tell him Crog is here to ask about prompt and friendly repayment of an old favor. Tell him Crog will wait in the lobby with his friends.”
    The woman thought about it for a second, and swung her head from side to side. “No. I’ll tell Barebones, but we don’t have no Negroes in here. You wait outside.”
    He stuck his foot in the door before she could shut it, and he told her, “I know what your sign says, and I know what your boss says. And it don’t apply to me, or to my friends. You go ask him, you’ll see.”
    “I’ll go ask him, and you’ll wait here ,” she insisted. “Or you can make a stink and I can make a holler—and you won’t get anywhere tonight but into a jail cell, or maybe into a noose. And how would you like that, boys?” Her eyebrows made a hard little line across her forehead and she adjusted her grip on the carving knife.
    Hainey did a full round of calculations in his head, estimating the value and cost of making a stand on the stoop of the side door at the Halliway Hotel. Under different circumstances, and in a different state, and with a night’s worth of rest under his belt he might have considered leaving his foot in the door; but he was tired, and hungry, and battered from a hard crash and hard travels. Furthermore he was not alone and he had two crewmen’s well-being to keep in mind.
    Or this is what he told himself as he wrapped a muffling leash around the insult and his anger, and he slipped his foot out of the door jamb so that the toad-shaped woman in the scarf could slam it shut. He said aloud, “We shouldn’t have to