confused, Rachel tried to understand what he was saying. Then it suddenly struck her. Totally stunned then, both eyes and mouth opened wide as she tried to speak. “You don’t mean...” she started. He nodded. “Oh, my God!” she managed. “You’re the new owner?”
“I’m afraid so,” Ben answered. “I’ve got the papers to prove it.”
Amid the hooting and hollering, Rachel was trying to remember all that she had just told him and wondered if she would still have a place there. There were comments she had made about Jim Vickers and his lack of business sense that might come back to strike her. She looked at Annie, who was standing there grinning, and speculated on the chance she might work in the kitchen with her. “I guess you’ll want to go over some things in the office and catch up on things,” she suggested, lamely.
“I expect that would be a good idea. Maybe we’ll do that tonight sometime and get it over with,” Ben told her.
“Certainly, Mr. Savage.”
“First thing we’ll take care of is my name’s Ben and I don’t intend to call you Miss Baskin. Is that all right with you?”
“Of course,” she blushed. That was as far as they got for the moment, because there was the matter of a dead man lying in the front door. In the middle of it, Tuck Tucker and Ham Martin were eager to meet the new owner of the Lost Coyote. Bragg asked for a little help in relocating the cowhand’s body to the porch to await Merle Baker’s handcart, so Ben helped him carry the body outside.
Once that was done, the sheriff went to fetch Merle, who acted as the town’s undertaker. But before he walked away, he felt inspired to offer an opinion. “I ain’t about to tell you how to run your business, but for what it’s worth, Rachel Baskin is a fine woman, and she’s done a good job takin’ care of this saloon.”
“I ’preciate what you’re sayin’, Sheriff. That was my first impression of Rachel, as a matter of fact. I was just as surprised as everyone else here a couple days ago when I found out I owned this saloon. I rode a few years with Jim Vickers. He was the one who broke me in as a Ranger. And just like Jim, I ain’t got a grain of experience runnin’ a saloon, so it looks like Rachel’s got another greenhorn to break in.”
“I’m glad to hear you ain’t bringin’ in new people to replace the ones workin’ here now,” Bragg said. “And I hope you do well here in Buzzard’s Bluff.”
“’Preciate it, Sheriff,” Ben said and went back inside. When he walked in the door, the conversation at the end of the bar between Rachel, Annie, and Tiny stopped immediately. All three stared at him, waiting to see what instructions he might have for them. He was not insensitive to their concern, so he thought it best to set them at ease as soon as possible. Starting with Annie and Tiny, he asked them how long they had worked there in the saloon. Both had been on the payroll for more than two years. “I reckon if Jim thought you were doin’ a good job, then I do, too, so everything’s the same for you two.” He looked at Rachel then. “But not for you, Rachel. Let’s you and I go in the office and take a look at those books you mentioned before.”
She was not quick enough to hide the instant look of concern as she turned at once and led the way to the office, which was immediately behind the barroom. When she passed by Annie, the cheerful little woman touched her arm and said, “Don’t worry, honey, I’ve got a good feeling about this man.”
When she and Ben walked in the office door, she started to sit down at the desk, but thought better of it, and sat down at a straight-back chair against the wall instead. He paused in front of the desk and said, “Why don’t you go ahead and sit down at your regular place. I’ll pull this chair over by the desk.” When she did as he directed, he said, “Now, I’m wonderin’ if you can show me how much it costs to run this place—how much we take in and how much we pay out.”
“I can,” she replied and pulled a set of ledgers from one of the desk drawers. She showed him the balance sheet and pointed out her’s, Tiny’s, and Annie’s salaries, and showed him that the saloon was showing a profit every month. This was even after the owner’s share was taken out. He was impressed. When he had asked to see the books, he had actually expected to hear there were no books. “Well, that’s about it,” she said. “We’re gonna need a new shipment of whiskey in the next week or two, so some of that money will be needed to pay for that. That usually runs me about six hundred dollars. The kitchen pantry is well stocked, Annie keeps it that way, and there’s a little over nine hundred dollars in the safe. You wanna count it?”
He didn’t tell her that he had not the slightest idea what he was looking for, but he studied the ledgers intently, noticing expenditures generated by Jim Vickers’s personal expenses. He was looking to make sure expenses like costs for stabling his horses were included. When he had satisfied himself that the saloon would more than support his needs, he closed the ledgers and handed them back to Rachel. “I reckon that’ll do for now. I don’t need to count the money in the safe. In case you ain’t figured it out yet, but I expect you already have, I don’t know any more about runnin’ a place like this than Jim did when he started. So I want you to do the same job you’ve been doin’, but I don’t think your salary is right for your job. I think the fairest thing to do is to make you a partner in the business. Whaddaya say? Fifty-fifty, we’ll split the profits down the middle. Does that sound fair to you?”
She was struck speechless for a few moments. Jim Vickers had paid her a generous salary, but nowhere near the income she would enjoy as an equal partner. She could not imagine why he would give up half of the profits of a going business when there was no reason to do so. When she had still not replied after several more seconds, he suggested, “You’re good at things like this, so you could draw up a partnership agreement, if you like, and we’ll sign it. Take it to the bank and let them notarize it. Whaddaya say?”
Finally recovering her emotions, she answered him. “I don’t know what to say. I mean, of course I accept. I just didn’t expect you to be so generous.” Then she quickly sought to assure him. “I will do my best to make sure you don’t ever regret this. I’ll surely take care of your business for you.”
“Our business,” he corrected her. “I’d be very surprised if I’ve misjudged you.”
“I have to ask,” she insisted. “Why would you do this? I would work just as hard if you kept me on at my regular salary.”
“I figured you would, and that’s one of the reasons I wanted you as a partner. Look, I’m pretty much in the same boat Jim was. I ain’t as old as Jim was when he quit the Ranger service, but I don’t have any family, and I don’t need much money to live on. So why not pay the person who’s really operatin’ the saloon?”
When they returned to the saloon, they found Tiny and Annie waiting by the bar, anxious to try to read the expression on Rachel’s face. They relaxed their concern at once when they saw her beaming happily. Waiting with them were two women of uncertain age, but obvious occupation. Only then did it occur to the new owner that he had seen no trace of the soiled doves that are typically found in saloons. Whereas he was surprised to see them now, he told himself that, of course, the Lost Coyote had saloon gals, like every other saloon in the wild west. Sensing his surprise, Rachel said, “You were probably wondering where the girls were. I was wondering, myself.” She motioned for them to come over. “Meet the new owner of Lost Coyote Saloon, Ben Savage. Ben, this is Ruby and Clarice.” Addressing them directly, she asked, “Where were you two hiding while all the fuss was going on down here?”
Clarice, the larger of the two and obviously a little older, answered Rachel. “We were both stayin’ in our rooms as long as those two fellers from the Double-D
