Free Bad to the Bone by Len Levinson Page A

Charleston Nightingale.
    â€œWhar the hell is she?” asked a drunken cowboy standing nearby, a mug of beer in his hand.

    â€œBe patient, gentlemen,” replied Maggie. “She's on her way.”
    Maggie sauntered toward the stage, and if a drunkard wouldn't get out of her way, she unceremoniously pushed him to the side. She'd learned long ago that the only way to deal with outlaws was take no guff at all. The crowd shouted approval as she stepped onto the stage, and she blinked in the bright light of oil foot-lamps.
    There was only one way to capture their attention, so she lifted the side of her skirt, yanked out her derringer, and held it up so all could see its ugly snubbed nose. The saloon became miraculously silent, for nothing sobers men quite like the sight of a woman with a gun in her hand.
    Maggie smiled. “Howdy,” she said in her whiskey-and tobacco-coarsened voice. “You damned sure ain't here to see me, but I want you to remember one thing. Our featured performer has travelled a long distance to entertain you fellers tonight, and I expect you to treat her like the lady that she is. So let's give a big Texas welcome to the woman you've all been waiting for, the world famous Charleston Nightingale, the one, the only—Miss Vanessa Fontaine!”
    Applause rocked the saloon as a tall slim figure in an ankle-length mauve silk gown, trimmed with Malines lace and diamond puffs, appeared in the doorway. It was Miss Vanessa Fontaine herself, the Charleston Nightingale, on her way to the stage. She hoped that a certain green-eyed young man might be in the audience, having ridden countless miles to see her perform.
    A path opened before her as she promenaded onward. Men pounded their hands, whistled, yelled, and jumpedfor joy. It was as though they were paying homage to a great goddess of their people, which in a sense Miss Vanessa Fontaine truly was. The bullwhacker who'd shinnied up the pole was grinning like a baboon.
    Vanessa carried herself to center stage, unerringly found the best light, and took her first bow. Hats were thrown into the air, men hooted, and somebody fired his gun, installing the expected bullet hole through the ceiling. The report made Vanessa jump two inches in the air, and for a moment she'd thought that someone had assassinated her, but then she noticed the worshipful expressions in their eyes, and all she could do was bow again to the thunderous acclamation rolling across the dimly lit saloon.
    She realized that they were slipping away from her and becoming lost in an orgy of uncontrolled foolishness, so she raised her hand, smiled expectantly, and prepared to speak. Without a weapon in her hand, her simple gesture plunged the saloon into rare silence, except for the dripping of a bucket behind the bar.
    â€œGentlemen,” she began, “I want to thank you for your gracious welcome, and I really don't believe you're a bunch of cattle rustlers, bank robbers, and hired killers, as some folks say. In any event, here we are together again, and I'd like to sing, with your permission, a few of the good old songs that we love so well. Although I'm standing up here in the lights, and you're down there in the audience, we've all lived together a in a place you can't find on any maps, but that we'll always carry in our hearts. It was called Dixie, and I'd like you to sing along with me, if you'd be so kind.”
    There was no orchestra, conductor, or instruments. It was just Miss Vanessa Fontaine, one palm of herhand resting in the other, standing before them and opening her mouth to sing:
“ I wish I was in the land of cotton
    Good times there are not forgotten
    Look away, look away, look away
    Dixie land.
    In Dixie land where I was born
    in a shack on a frosty morning
    look away, look away, look away
    Dixie land . . . “
    In truth, Miss Vanessa Fontaine had been born in the manor house, not a shack on a frosty morning, but many men in the audience had first