Abby and Luke first appear in
Abby and the Outlaws
How I come to be standin' on the arrivals platform at the Grand Central Depot in Chicago, Illinois, accompanied by a fine young buck and a satchel stuffed with cash and four loaded hand guns, is a story previously told. But I suppose you ain't all heard it, so there's a few things you'll need to know before I get into the particulars of the present topic.
I'd been whorin' out in the territories in a miserable pile of buffalo shit that called itself the town of Shoshone. I don't expect the Shoshones themselves took much pride in that.
What come to occur was, a prominent local just so happened to expire as I was bouncin' on his pole. The widow got it in her head that I had done him in on purpose. Before you know it, I was sitting in the hoosegow, waitin' to walk up those thirteen steps to the gallows.
Now, I am of the thought that I have a right pretty neck. I didn't think it needed no stretchin' out. So first chance I got, I vamoosed out of that jail house, along with a grubby excuse of an outlaw named Ethan.
To keep a long story short, Ethan and his unsavory companions come up with a plan to rob the Shoshone bank. That wouldn't matter to me, except a key to their plan was to get me lynched as a diversion.
One member of this gang was a fresh young fella named Luke, who didn't know much about life, other than taggin' along runnin' errands for a gang of ne'er-do-wells. It didn't take me long to convince him that the pleasures of partnerin' with a pretty young gal was a better deal than fetchin' and totin' for a crew of flea bitten hooligans.
As it turned out, the plan was a failure in conception, but a partial success in execution. Those numbskulls, robbed the bank all right, to the tune of some five thousand dollars, a fine fortune in those days. On the other side of the ledger, one of them died in the doin', one was wounded mortally, and another, well I'll just say he didn't make it either.
Ethan was the one wholly livin' exception, but the last time I saw him, he was hogtied naked, next to a smoky fire while Luke and I rode off with the loot. I'm assumin' most likely the posse caught him and strung him up instead of me. Otherwise, maybe the Sioux got him and did even worse.
So there we were, me and Luke, newly arrived in Chicago, lookin' to make our way in the world.
I started life as a Missouri farm girl, but I had seen St. Lou and Kansas City. Before we lit out from the west, Luke had never been in a town he couldn't see from end to end. In fact, that damn railroad station was bigger than Shoshone.
Now, you might wonder why I chose Chicago as my destination for a new start. In those days, most folks was goin' west, to California. But I was a condemned fugitive after all, and that's what any pursuers might suspect. Chicago, 'specially since they had that big fire some years back, was doin' nothin' but growin' bigger and bigger, puttin' in all sorts of stockyards and factories and such. One thing I know is, where there's men lookin' for work, there's men lookin' for pussy. That meant opportunity for an enterprisin' gal such as myself.
Our first welcome to the town was a scrubby ass newsboy, shovin' the Chicago Tribune in my face, shoutin', "Garfield dead! Read all about it! President Garfield is dead!"
I pushed the broadsheet aside. I told him, "Lots of sons of bitches are dead, It ain't my business," and walked by.
I had to keep a close eye on Luke. He was lookin' about, dazed by the size of the crowd and the height of the damn ceiling. I led him out to the street, which weren't much better.
There was a porter nearby, loadin' valises on to a cart. I stepped over and asked him for the location of the nearest nice hotel. He gave me directions to a place nearby, called the Wabash.
I thanked him and told Luke "Give this gentleman a quarter."
He looked at me puzzled, but he dug a coin from his pocket and handed it to the porter, who tipped his cap and smiled real fine while he thanked me. A quarter was pretty good money. I doubt he usually made much more than a dollar a day.
As we walked away, Luke whispered to me, "Abby, that fella was as black as darkest night."
"Your goin' to meet all kinds of folks in the big city, honey."
"Why'd we give him a quarter?"
"Because he gave us directions."
"I don't understand. Why wouldn't he just give us directions anyhow?"
"You've got a lot to learn about the city," I told him.
The hotel was only a few blocks down the street, but Luke was agog at the things we saw. I admit, I was a bit dazed, as well.
We saw men dressed all in black, with beards down below their waists, and ladies in the finest fashions in every color, style and hue. It seemed like there were children everywhere, some in prim little suits, some dressed in urchin's rags.
We bought thick salty pretzels from a fella with a pushcart. Luke judged them to be the finest thing he'd ever tasted.
And then there was the monkey.
We heard music ahead of us on the street. A crowd had formed and we squeezed our way into it, to see what had drawn so much attention.
I thought the man was Sioux at first, from the color of his skin. But he had a big bushy mustache, and I never seen an Indian with anything like that.
He was crankin' away at some kind of a hand organ, makin' a merry tune. But what had drawn the crowd was the monkey, dancin' about on the pavement, wavin' a tin cup in the air. Every now and then, someone would drop a coin in the cup, and the monkey would dance with a bit more gumption.
Now, I had seen monkeys once before, in a travelin' circus that came to Joplin. But Luke had never even heard of such a thing.
"Look at that lil' critter," he kept tellin' me, laughin' in delight.
"Well, drop a coin in his cup," I told him.
He did, and when the monk did his special dance for him, I thought he'd piss his pants.
We found the Wabash straightaway, and went inside.
I'd done some business in fancier hotels in Kansas City, but the Wabash was mighty fine, or at least the lobby was. I had to tug on Luke's arm to get him to quit gawkin' at the glittery chandeliers and the plush furniture.
He had spent part of our train trip practicin' writin' his name on the back of an railway schedule with a stubby pencil, so I told him he should sign the hotel register.
He bent down low over the big book, concentratin' hard. He finished and stood back up lookin' proud.
I took a gander at his work. It was shaky, but passible.
"Good job, honey," I told him.
A bellhop come to us, but we didn't have luggage but for the one satchel, and I was not about to hand a sack of cash over to a bellhop.
He showed a phony smile and led us across the lobby.
Now it was my turn to be the rube in the big city.
The bellhop led us to a pair of double doors on the far side of the lobby. He pushed a button on the wall and we heard a bell dingin' somewhere on the other side.
Then we just stood there, wonderin' what the hell was goin' on.
Suddenly, the doors slid apart and we was lookin' into a small square room. There wasn't nothin' in it but another fella in a hotel uniform, standin' next to a box with a handle on the top.
"What the hell is this?" I asked the bellhop.
"It's the elevator, ma'am," he said, giving me a little bit of a sneer.
"What's it do?"
"It elevates, ma'am." He gestured for us to step in, and, not knowin' what else to do, we complied.
The bellhop nodded to the elevator man and said, "Three."
The elevator man did something with his handle, and the doors slid shut.
