Feathered Floozies

It's Halloween week on The Chorus of the Crows. I've lassoed a few wayward, Halloween themed posts, and I'm sweetening the deal by re-posting some old favorites. This one in particular is an expose on my unforgivable, dirty lowdown past... 

Me and my favorite pistol. Beside me, my pretty partner in crime. 

Alas, there is a shameful and checkered past reflecting back at me from my foggy rear view mirror. Oops, I mean the dusty old fashioned looking glass I held up over my shoulder, to ascertain just what was galloping at a rowdy clip, at the tail end of my wagon. I ran across this picture in my photo archives and it spurred me to describe my former life, as a low cost Saloon girl. 

The news of the weird unfolds like this...I may have worn feathers by night, but by day, I was a gun toting outlaw - robbing from my former clients. There were no morning trots of shame for me. No little doggie. After every illicit crime spree, me and my trusted horse Maybelline tethered up at the saloon with garters full of cash. There were only a few occasions where the men were so flat broke, that I was forced to steal a chicken or a skinny goat. Well, a girl has to eat. It was all too easy. Those were the glory days. The nights were sticky, the sheets looked like a future Jackson Pollock painting and my lips were always irritatingly chapped, from long rides in the Arizona sun. But, those were good times. 

So, just how did I pull off my robberies?  I plied the men folk with so much whiskey during our rolls in the hay - on the third floor of that filthy, whiskey soaked establishment -  that they never saw me follow them home. Maybelline was a sure footed horse with the stealthy hooves of a cat on the hunt. So, the foul drunkards never heard or suspected a thing. Mind you, I never hurt any woman folk or young-ins. Although, I heard from my friend Michelle (on the right) through one of her clients, that one disgruntled wife bashed in the skull of her husband at breakfast with a cast iron skillet -  bison meat and eggs flying around the cabin in a flurry of grease, after one of my early morning visits. I guess the cheater deserved it. 

I never made enough money to get rich. But I lived well. I could afford to mail order new feathery frocks from the Sears Robuck catalog. I had a custom made saddle, rumored to be fashioned and carved by the same leather mason that the Jesse James gang used. How I learned that will remain a secret between me and a certain, un-named outlaw. And my friend Michelle and I never went hungry. When other settlers were eating potatoes boiled with pine needles for flavor - through the long harsh winters - we were eating high on the hog. And a fat one at that. 

After a time, I gave up the outlaw life and married a warrant/bill collector. My friend Michelle became a famous horse whisperer. She fixed up unhinged horse flesh in a jiffy, starting her career in the arid hills of Los Angeles, and winding all the way down to the wilds of Baja, Mexico. She always did have a way with my Maybelline. 

She gave up whiskey. 

I didn't.

The sober truth.

Me and my friend Michele at one of those old time photo booths. As if you didn't already know that!