Bordello Falls 7

Englishmen in Westerns don't tend to mosey threateningly into town on horseback with a cigarillo hanging out of the side of their mouth and a low-slung six-shooter hanging from their belt.

Neither did white haired Colonel John Parker one baking hot afternoon in the mid 1880's when he noisily thwacked his whip to force the final steps out of a dying carthorse which was delivering him and the contents of his covered wagon into the centre of Bordello Falls.

Printed on the wagon were the words: Colonel John E Parker MA FRCP - Minister Of Oaths and Purveyor Of Ointments & Potions - By Appointment to Her Royal Highness Queen Victoria of England.

Inside the covered wagon was 35 year old Mrs Hannah Parker and seated next to her, 16 year old Caramel Parker whose ample teenage breasts were sore with being bounced around all day on the rough dirt tracks they called roads in this godforsaken neck of the woods.

This was to be the official version. The story they'd tell everyone when they hit town. The truth was somewhat different.

Hannah was not the Colonel's wife. Neither was Caramel his daughter. Neither was the Colonel a Colonel. The three of them had met on the boat that took them from Plymouth to New York and decided they'd stand a far better chance of survival in the badlands of America if they stuck closely together.

Hannah Abrahams (her real name) was a considerably attractive serene woman who had only recently discovered she harboured a submerged power to assert herself should life suddenly turn unbearably cruel. Thus it was but a month earlier that she dispatched her violent alcoholic husband Bullyman by slipping a phial of arsenic into his bedtime pint of absinthe.

Unfortunately, not being a murderess by nature, she had failed to think through the consequences of finishing off a bastard's life without first working out a means of getting away with it. She was a fine Jewish woman . But right now she was, as they, a fine Jewish woman on the run.

So was Caramel Sanderson except she was neither a Jew nor a murderer. She was in fact a non-Jewish double-murderer. Caramel was an orphan who had been taken into care as a young child. Now she was a busty 14 year old, easily fooling everyone she was sweet sixteen. Which was probably fair enough because in truth she had far more experience of life than many girls twice her age.

Not long ago, the married couple who owned her orphanage had both cast lecherous eyes on her fully developed body. Indeed, they were in the throes of introducing the child to a simultaneous lesson on 3-way sex when they were rudely interrupted - first one then the other - by the sudden thrust of a sharp knife to the heart. That was how Caramel broke free from a life of hell just three months earlier.

John Parker was a well educated, bone idle London conman who had spent half his life in prison. A specialist in the portrayal of vicars and gynaecologists, he had come to believe that every policeman from Greenwich to Brentford had got to know so many of his disguises that the odds of getting caught had grown too high to sustain.

A pragmatic soul, he considered it far more sensible to eke out his remaining years in a country where nobody knew his face. So off he fled to America where he immediately assumed a brand new persona, telling everyone he was one of the few survivors from the "Little Bighorn" fiasco.

This explains not only his new and superbly convincing limp but also the fake shoulder badge which informed anyone interested that he once fought proudly with the US Army Seventh Cavalry.

It was within this wildly creative spirit that he became, not just another wannabe pioneer but a founder member of the millionaire club that later on came to fondly label America 'The Land Of Opportunity'.

The carthorse made it as far as The Livery Station then dropped dead on the dusty street.

Colonel John looked down at the horse and presumed he and his 'family had come about as far as they were going that day. He got down from the driver's seat and gave the nag a medically-qualified kick in the ribs in case it had just fallen asleep. The lack of reaction was sufficient to confirm the body was indeed dead. So he looked away and took in the local scene.

Along the way stood a small crowd looking down at another dead body. A man's body, laying in a pool of blood. "Nice place", he thought. Across the road from this was a suspicious looking place called The Apache Oasis. And outside was the noon stagecoach which looked as if it had just arrived.

Beside the stage, a man he later knew as Chisum Morse was staring in his direction. Not in a gay way but in another way that made him feel distinctly uneasy. However, Morse looked sufficiently rich to merit The Colonel making a mental note that should they ever meet socially, he would try and con him out of a few hundred dollars.

Beside Morse was a stunningly beautiful woman who might have been a school teacher or a trapeze artist, he couldn't tell.

Hannah and Caramel popped their heads out of the wagon. "Why've we stopped", demanded the Colonel's wife. "Horse's gone and snuffed it", he replied. "Ungrateful bastard. You two might as well get yourselves down here 'cos this is as far as we're going today".

Just then two men started to walk across the dusty street. One of them only got half way.

"BLAM!" "BLAM!"

Colonel John saw the nearest of the men drop to the floor as he simultaneously swivelled round to look at the open window of the Livery Stable from whence the sound of gunfire came. He was just in time to catch sight of a gunman holding a smoking Winchester.

For a moment they stared at one another. Then the gunman raised the Winchester to his shoulder, took the Colonel in his sights, and fired three times at point blank range.

"BLAM!" "BLAM!" "BLAM!"

Colonel John fell to the ground on the dusty street. His wife and daughter leapt from the wagon and knelt by his side. The murderer disappeared inside presumably making his getaway from the back of the Livery stable.

"Has he gone"? asked the Colonel as he opened one eye.

"Yes John he's gone the bastard. Did you get a good look at him"? Asked Hannah.

"You bet. Good job I had the plate on", replied the Colonel as he stood up gratefully banging the thick metal vest that had just saved his life.

"I saw him too dad but I pretended I hadn't", said Caramel, picking up her surrogate father's dusty top hat and placing it back on his head. "He was....

"Shhhh!", butted in CJ who cared for her as if he were her father. "You saw nothing. You got that Caramel. You didn't see anybody and you can't identify anyone - got it"!

Colonel John now turned his attention to the unfolding drama just a few yards along the street. Two dead men. And a few locals starting to stand up and dust themselves down having hit the deck with the sound of gunfire. The man in the centre of the street - the one who hadn't been shot called out.

"You alright old boy"?

Bloody hell! An Englishman! What the Picca-shittin-dilly's hell is an Englishman doing here in the middle of nowhere, thought the Colonel as he noticed the growing wet patch on the man's trousers:

"Fine old bean. And you"?

The wet-trousered Englishman nodded before suddenly hurrying over to the place that called itself The Apache Oasis.

"OK girls, suppose we'd better follow him over and find out what this town's all about".

Just then a woman's voice bawled out. "You - stranger man in the crazy hat". She was shouting from a side window of the Apache Oasis. Colonel John took off his hat and bowed in her direction.

"Yes you - yer creek faced chickin breedin jack-pillock shaggin' mooseball of a skunk - get that dead horse of yers outta the street before the crittin flies start chewin it an bringin their dirt bag shit over to my bar - got it"!!! This was Madame Bitters.

"An another thing", she yowled. "We got just 27 horses in this here town. 27 d'yuh hear me. So don't you think about goin off with one of ours or youz'll end up face down in the dirt like that one there yeah".

She slammed the window shut and drew a set of heavy velvet curtains.

"Charming", said the Colonel to his girls. They each picked up a bag and slowly walked over to the swing doors of the Apache Oasis on which was a sign. Strictly Bar Only - Men Wanting Girls Use Back Stairs.

It was dark inside. At the end of a long bar stood three men drinking. One was the Englishman with the wet trousers who although he could have only been in there a few minutes already had four empty glasses in front of him. Another was a good looking black guy whose eyes popped out on stalks the second he saw Caramel.

The third came across. But not to say anything to Colonel John. He went straight to Hannah, took her hand to his lips and kissed it. Bat Masterson Ma'am from Western Virginia at yer service.

Ten minutes later, at precisely five in the afternoon, Bat Masterson who had already decided to marry Hannah, plus Skoob the Englishman with the wet patch - and the black guy with the bulge in his trousers who couldn't take his eyes off Caramel - all left the bar to book a table for six at Schwartz's Chinese a short distance down the street.

Colonel John, Caramel and Hannah were to join as soon as they'd fixed their rooms with Madame Bitters.

Chapter 8