Chapter 1

FFlloyd, itinerant piano player and cathouse swamper,
Eased thru the swinging saloon doors.
His eyes darted back and forth,
From the piano to the bar.
From the bar to the women lounging along the bannister up the stairs.
“ ... to heaven...” Fflloyd prayed.

You don’t get around much if you think it was a holy prayer.

Fflloyd’s eyes roamed the room as he slouched away from the door And stood, back to the wall while he noted the two – no three -professional gamblers scattered at tables around the room. And noted the gun-tough, also back to the wall and facing the door. That one, his face hardened each time the doors swung open. Gun-tough. Rising from a table with an oath, an unlucky man stormed across the room to the bar. Without a word, the bartender reached to the top shelf and poured that bottle into a large glass. The unlucky man must not have tasted the drink, he slammed it back so quickly.

Ears alarmed, Fflloyd glanced to the piano. She was not even sitting.

“To properly position the fingers where one might reach the keys And to simultaneously reach the treble with your right And the bass with your left It is required to sit at the piano.” Fflloyd had not even realized that he was lifting her hand as if dancing And lowering her to the bench at the piano.

She blushed and looked down as she might have when she was a debutante. Which she had left behind not so recently as she wished you’d guess. Fflloyd wasn’t guessing. He gripped each of her wrists and eased them into a comfortable stance above the keys. “Something simple. From your dreams.”

“Please.”

She danced her fingers along the melody A tune from a romance A memory from her past Moving too swiftly, she leapt from the bench and dashed partway up the stairway. She stared past Fflloyd as he continued the song, his hands challenging each other to consume as many keys as possible and Yet Retain the simple phrasing that the debutante had begun. She leaned into the music. She stared past Fflloyd, seeing only her past. She smiled a smile no one here had ever seen. A smile from happy days before...

We all have a past.

Her smile faded. She turned and fled upstairs. A door slammed.

Fflloyd had blown it again.