Authors Note: Dedicated to Zoee with great thanks. Without your brilliant suggestions this chapter could not have been written! Also, this chapter is labeled as 10-11 but appears in the novel as Chapter 11. This has been done to sync up the Literotica chapters with the novel's chapters.
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The furthest into the states Kate had ever been was Chicago or St. Louis. They were settled and civilized, to be sure, but they were still very much frontier towns. The clothes each year got more and more dandy on the citizens, guns seen less and less, but the air of freedom and expectation was there.
Now Kate was delving deeper east, and she felt like that King Odysseus in one of Izzy's stories; searching for home after a war only to face monster after monster, danger after danger.
Sweet was boarded up with White Cloud and her family, and Kate knew her beloved horse was safe. She'd left word with Dan Forth of her plans, knowing Finn was as high-handed as Rafe and Jerome and would never let her go east alone.
With each stop she drew more and more stares. Something had changed, and no matter what she did, Kate was not passing for a boy, and here women did not wear pants like men. Oh, she knew there was that nurse from the civil war walking around in her old pants from her uniform, but the woman had a letter from congress granting her permission.
At a general store Kate plunked down some gold for two dresses of simple muslin cloth. She had to wait for the train to make another stop before she could change, and it felt odd.
Her time with McMasters had made her more and more used to dresses, but those had been heavy, of fine cloth, very restrictive. These cheaper ones store-bought and not tailored were loose, and long enough to hide her boots, though the distinctive thud of them sounded as she walked. On that, Kate would not budge.
She wore her duster now to cover her guns, having been told by many passengers in the saloon cars that an armed woman would be arrested. She knew she made an odd sight, but she was ready for anything.
Boston was her first target. A wire to Finn's cousin Robert Finnegan had told her Benito Vercelli had entered the country through Boston Harbor, and it washer guess that's how he'd leave.
Boston was magnificent. There seemed to be as many people in the crowded, dirty city as there were in all of California, if not more. Garbage lay in streets, buildings were slammed together, but the city had a sense of life to it that amazed her.
She found herself stopping constantly, gawking like a country mouse. A few times she'd tried her hand at gathering information in saloons and taverns, but Kate quickly learned only women for sale entered these establishments in the city.
She needed, Kate hated to say, a man.
Robert had directed her to the Irish neighborhood. Here the smell of garbage and death was strong, people crowded tightly as they bustled about, and more than one pickpocket tried their hand on Kate only to feel her squeezing grip break a finger or two.
On wooden posts at every street corner strange flags and sometimes dead animals were strung up. She learned from an old woman begging for bread on the street these heralded gang territory.
The gangs Kate knew, like the Cowboys, were loose packs of men riding through towns and range, killing, raping, and stealing. The gangs here were more organized, staying in one spot, and all crimes from murder to pick pocketing were orchestrated and monitored.
The address she'd been given was a tea house, and outside lounged what city dwellers called ladies of ill repute, their bodies nearly bare their eyes glassy and hollow. The looked her up and down but made no greeting or other move as she stepped inside.
Inside was a long counter with only two jars on it, behind it an old woman who looked like a grizzled tree. There were two small tables, both empty, and flies buzzed in a corner where a crack in the walls had been stuffed with a dirty rag.
"No beggars! No coin; get out!" The woman said with a thick brogue.
"I have money, and I'm meeting Robert Finnegan here."
The woman's skin went from molasses to moon-pale in a flash. "Have a seat dearie, I'll bring ya a clean pot o' tea and a cup."
Kate resisted dusting one ancient-looking chair and sat with her back to the corner, watching the door and wavy leaded-glass window to the street below.
The small woman moved quickly, cleaning the tea pot and cup with a rag as dirty as that in the wall. She set the pot to boil filled with water from a tub that looked like dishwater.
Kate tried to stop her stomach's grumbling, knowing she wanted nothing from the strange little shop.
Outside the people in the street seemed to go on alert, like animals at a watering hole sensing a coyote. Kate sat up and fingered her gun as the people in front of the shop parted, and a dark shape climbed the four narrow stairs to the porch where the glass-eyed women cooed to him.
The door opened to reveal a man unmistakably Finn's cousin. Taller than Finn, he was broader, and thick with muscle, but he had the same black hair and bright blue eyes. He was younger than Finn, closer to her own age, but his eyes were crinkled attesting to time spent outdoors that complemented his slight tan.
"You must be the Kid."
Kate stood and nodded touching the brim of her hat as was habit. At the gesture, which she knew was strange for a woman in the east, he raised a dark brow. "And you must be hisself, what do I call you?"
"Robert will be fine. And how are you, Janet?" He turned to the old woman who was trembling.
"I be as fit as a fiddle, sir."
Robert crossed to the counter and peeled off fresh currency, dollars Kate barely recognized, living in a world of gold as she did. "That's for your time, and silence. We won't be staying, but we were never here, yes?"
The woman took the money and nodded. "God bless ya sir, faith and my eyes know you were ne'er here."
He nodded and held his arm out to Kate. "You'll need food and a place to rest, I assume."
She crossed to him but didn't take the arm. "That'd be wonderful, thank you."
Shrugging he turned and led her onto the street. To her amazement people on the street turned their eyes to the ground, and parted for him like he was the richest sky-pilot in the area.
He led her to an alley that was cleaner than the others she'd seen, and up rickety wooden stairs he led her to a balcony. Chairs sat outside doors, many of them occupied by old men and very young men and women. All had hungry eyes, and the coloring of pure Irish. Seeing a few redheads, Kate slipped off her hat, knowing she wouldn't command too much attention.
"Here we-" Robert turned back to her and froze.
She felt herself blushing under his inspection, not that she was attracted to him. Oh, he was an attractive man, but after Rafe MacNeil, no men raised her pulse a bit. No, it was the knowledge that dawned on her; she was a woman alone in a land where women were powerless.
"Are," Robert finished with a smile.
He opened a door and she peered inside to see a cushioned chair, writing desk, a decent-looking rope bed, and a small table with a chamber pot and washbasin.
"Thank you."
"Why don't you wash up and change, then we'll eat, and we can begin our search."
