Bloody Jim looked up from his glass of rotgut and turned on his barstool. He saw, extended upright not six inches from his face, a bony finger. It was a middle finger, a gnarled finger. A few wiry hairs grew between its bony knuckles. The finger, crowned with a cracked and dirty fingernail, did not speak well of its owner's personal hygiene.

Behind the finger, slightly out of focus, the scowling face of a drunken prospector leered beneath the upturned brim of a battered hat. Fringed by ratty, tobacco-stained whiskers, his grimy features were flushed with ire. His hate-filled grimace revealed swollen gums from which protruded at odd angles like tombstones in an abandoned graveyard, several teeth in varying states of decay. Beneath his bushy brow hung a raw pork sausage of a nose, separating blood-shot eyes clouded with rage and rotgut.

A hush fell on the Golden Nugget as the disgruntled loser played his final card.

There was a flashing arc of steel; a high-pitched metallic ching reverberated in the silence.

The offending finger spun end-over-end, flesh, tendon and bone neatly severed at the gnarled knuckle. Small globules of blood hung suspended in the air before beginning a graceful descent toward the sawdust-covered floor.

The aggressor's expression changed from unbridled rage to bemused curiosity. He stood frozen in time like a daguerreotype. After an impossibly long moment, the finger fell to the wooden floor with a clatter.

The silver blade had vanished from sight. Bloody Jim took a casual draw on his twisted cheroot, and puffed a smoke-ring.

The wreath of smoke encircled the prospector's nose, and spread across his pallid face.

"Fuck you too," said Bloody Jim.

The miner's eyes rolled back in his head, and he keeled over like a log of lumber.

The piano player struck up a popular honky-tonk tune, and the usual raucous background noise of the Golden Nugget Saloon resumed.

Bloody Jim turned back to the bar, downed his glass of rotgut, and poured himself another from the half-empty bottle.

A couple of cowboys jostled the unconcious prospector through the swinging doors.

"Hey Mister…I really admire the way you handled that nasty old bum.…"

Bloody Jim turned his head and saw what appeared to be two loaves of yeasty bread dough rising, not from a pan, but from the bodice of a sparkly green dress. He lifted his gaze and saw gray-green eyes heavy with mascara, auburn hair and carmine lips curved in a slightly lopsided smile. For a moment the color of those eyes reminded him of the deep-watered Susquehanna.

"Thanks," he said.

She raised a penciled brow.

Bloody Jim signaled the bartender. "Barman! A glass for the lady!"

The sullen barkeep slid a glass in front of her as she settled onto the stool next to Bloody Jim. By the standards of the common strumpet one commonly found in this sort of god-forsaken hellhole, Miss Fifi was the very embodiment of feminine charms.

"The guys around here call me 'Tits' La Rue but my real name is Fifi, Fifi La Rue"

"How do you do Miss La Rue," said Bloody Jim, "my name is...Frank."

"Frank...," Fifi paused as if savoring the sound of it, "I like that name"

"Yeah, it's a heluva name alright." Bloody Jim replied. He poured her a shot of rotgut. "Cheers", he offered. The Golden Nugget's house liquor was not the "sipping kind". They raised their glasses and tossed off their drinks.

"So," Miss Fifi set down her glass and Bloody Jim refilled both. "What brings you to Gray Gulch Frank?"

A bone-weary sense of self-loathing, Bloody Jim thought, but he opted for a less introspective reply. "Gold," he said, giving his glass a twirl, watching the rotgut spin as though it were going down a Philadelphia bathtub drain.

Follow, dear reader, the trails of the Great Plains toward their desolate northern regions until at last, only one remains. It is a rocky trail, meandering fainter and fainter through the badlands until it finally reaches the mining camp of Gray Gulch, and dies in a whisper among limestone outcroppings carved in strange shapes by runoff from the grim hills beyond. Among the gullies and washes of the foothills, miners scratch out a meager living. They pan the stream-riven landscape for the pinch of gold dust that will buy them some beans and buckwheat, and maybe a night at the Golden Nugget. The trickle of gold comes from somewhere up in the mountains, and there are rumors of a rich vein of the precious metal, a motherload, but those who venture into the black hills beyond never return. Even the Sioux, in their nomadic wanderings, skirt the shadowed range in superstitious dread.

The men were almost uniformly coarse and unwashed. Drunkenness, violence, and debauchery were the chief pursuits of the town. Its rutted street and rude buildings remained in a permanent state of disrepair. The smell of burnt sulfur (one of the unfortunate consequences of the process used to separate gold from its local ore) in combination with the ubiquitous horse-dung, lent Gray Gulch an uniquely unpleasant odor. It is a fact that the two most oppressive settings for human habitation-- desolate wilderness and industrial wasteland-- combined in Gray Gulch, whose acrid environs were therefore unremittingly harsh. For an ordinary person this was stressful enough, but for a man whose every receptor was attenuated to maximum sensitivity, whose every sense-- including, and especially his sense of smell-- was honed to a knife's edge, it was, to say the least, excruciating.

Bloody Jim's nostrils flared as a waft of air drifted in from the street. He lifted his glass and tossed off another slug of rotgut. As his sinuses filled with alcohol fumes, he appraised Miss Fifi. She looked like a common barroom strumpet, albeit with a remarkable bosom, but in the flickering gas light he percieved a hint of something more. For the nonce however, he decided to address her most obvious feature.

"I must say,…Miss La Rue,…that is quite a splendid 'rack' you have there." He displayed his even white teeth in a dazzling smile.

"Why thank you Frank" The corners up her painted lips curved upward in turn. "You are such a charming man," she said with perhaps a hint of irony, "I guess that must be how I got my nickname."

"One would imagine so…" said Bloody Jim.

The piano player struck up a popular two-step. Several of the Golden Nugget's girls were twirling on the dance floor with clumsy drunken miners. Bloody Jim hoped Miss Fifi wouldn't ask him to dance.

"I'm originally from Baltimore," she said, accepting his offer of a cheroot. She lifted her gaze as he held a match for her. Their eyes met for a searching moment, then she exhaled a cloud of obscuring blue smoke. "But I grew up in Missouri... I hate Missouri..."

"Here, let me freshen that up for you." Bloody Jim filled her empty glass.

"Thanks Frank"

"You're welcome."

"Hey 'Tits', how's about a dance?" A tall ungainly yokel tugged at Miss Fifi's arm. A shapeless wide-brimmed felt hat pressed down on his ears. Dungaree overalls hung from his scrawny shoulders.

"Later Jeff, I'm talking to this gentleman right now."

"Fergit fancyboy 'Tits'…Let's dance!" His tugging became more insistent.

"I said later Honey."

"Aw, c'mon…"

"Jeff…" said Bloody Jim, "The lady said later."

"Who the fuck are you anyway? I ain't never seen you before." Jeff leaned forward, peering from under his floppy hat brim. "Maybe you'd like your fancyboy ass kicked out in the street Mister…"

"Jeff Hon…" Miss Fifi pulled her arm free. "Tell Earl to pour you a drink-- on me. We'll dance in a bit. Okay? Earl!!…Pour Jeff a drink wouldja?"

The big bald barkeeper put a glass on the other end of the bar, and poured Jeff a drink.

Jeff glanced down the bar. Looked back at Bloody Jim. Finally his thirst got the best of him. "Fancyboy." He muttered, and took a seat at the end of the bar.

"He ain't a bad sort really." Said Miss Fifi.

Bloody Jim said nothing. He had no particular desire to kill Jeff; in fact, he was a man who had grown weary of violence.

"Earl has a metal plate in his head", said Miss Fifi, changing the subject. "From the war."

Bloody Jim eyed the barkeep speculatively. Earl was turned away, wiping glasses. Jim could see a long, jagged scar that ran white across the back of his scalp.

"See the little blonde over there? The one in the red kimono?…That's my girlfriend Mona. She's the one all the girls go to whenever they have a problem."

"Why's that?" Asked Bloody Jim. He watched Mona dancing with a drunken miner who towered head and shoulders over her. What she lacked in the vertical axis, she made up for in the horizontal plane. She was, in the parlance of the times, "stacked" albeit not quite achieving the cantaleverage of Miss Fifi. She appeared to be enjoying herself.

"I dunno…" Said Miss Fifi.

"Don't know what?" Asked Bloody Jim absently.

"Nevermind", Miss Fifi helped herself to another drink. "Y'know Frank… didja ever wonder what the fuck we're all doing in a place like this."

"A place like what?" He paused, about to relight his cheroot.

"This…" She made a sweeping gesture.

"Good question Miss La Rue," he allowed, "that's a damned good question."