Bragg was silent for a moment. Then I could see him give up. He stood carefully with his hands apart and flat on the tabletop.
“This ain’t the time,” he said.
“Um-hm.”
“Don’t mean there won’t be a time,” Bragg said.
“I see you are heeled and your boys there are heeled. I know you haven’t had a chance to read the bylaws yet, so I’m gonna let it pass. But the bylaws say that it’s illegal to carry guns inside town limits, so next time I’ll have to disarm you and lock you up for a bit.”
Bragg’s body stiffened. His shoulders seemed to hunch. He opened his mouth and closed it and stood for another moment. Then he turned without a word and walked out of the saloon. His ranch hands straggled after him.
The woman got off the train in the morning carrying a big carpetbag, and walked slowly up the main street and into Café Paris, where Cole and I were having breakfast. I’d never been to Paris, but I’d read about it, and I was pretty sure there were no cafés there like this one. One of the Chinamen who cooked there kept some chickens, so now and then they had some eggs on the menu. But today, like a lot of days, we were eating pinto beans and fried salt pork along with coffee and some sourdough biscuits. The biscuits were pretty tasty. The woman sat at a table near us and looked at the menu for a long time and finally ordered coffee and a biscuit.
“No sell,” the Chinaboy said.
“But they’re on the menu,” she said.
“With breakfast.”
“But all I want is a biscuit.”
“No sell.”
Cole was wiping his plate with half a biscuit.
Without looking up, he said, “Chin, sell her a biscuit.”
The Chinaboy looked at Cole for a moment, outraged at the impropriety of it.
“Boss say…”