In The Beginning by Gail Daley (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📕

boarding houses, three churches, a schoolhouse and three saloons on the main street. Behind the main street, several side streets were lined with well-kept homes.

Dominating the center of town was The Hotel, spoken of in capital letters by everyone. The Hotel was new. It had been built on the site of the fourth saloon with money from the mines up in the hills behind the town. It boasted a grand dining room, a ballroom (used for the weekly dances the shrewd owner had instigated as a way of bringing in money), running water and new finagled bathrooms on each floor and gas lighting. The Hotel had an elegant saloon, with red velvet draperies and an expensive mirror that ran the whole length of the bar. Liquor was served by waiters in black velvet suits who carried weighted clubs to enforce polite behavior. When they wanted to impress each other, the town leaders frequented the saloon in The Hotel, citing the rarefied atmosphere and good conversation. Ordinary miners were not permitted in The Hotel saloon unless they had cleaned up their appearance. No dirty work clothes allowed.

Minerstown, across the river, and reachable by ferry, was the wilder side of River Crossing. Decent women didn't come across the river. Several long bunkhouses owned by the various mines dotted the main street. A railroad line ran spurs up into the hills to the mines and made trips several times a day, taking miners to work their shifts and bringing down ore from the mines ready for processing at the smelting plants outside of town.   Wise in the ways of surviving on St. Antoni, mine owners like Michael St. Vyr knew the value of working with each other for assets they could all use. Since the six mines all mined for different valuable minerals there was no real competition to prevent them cooperating to build, and share access to, the new steam rail line snaking up from Minerstown into the mountains.

Most miners with families preferred to live across the river on the Crossing side. Minerstown had no school, no churches, and no courthouse. The mining companies owned several eating-houses and a general store on this side of the river. The laundry used by both towns was run by a Chinese emigrant named Wong, who had a sharp knife and a short way with people who misbehaved in his business or around his family. Since the mine owners knew his business was essential to the town's operation, they protected him, and the other business owners brave enough to open shops in Minerstown. In Wong’s case this protection simply meant not prosecuting him after he cut up three miners who attempted to take liberties with his wife and daughter. Cuttings were nothing unusual in Minerstown; it was a rare evening when three or four didn't take place. Since the mine owners disapproved of their employees shooting each other (rendering them unable to work the mines), they enforced a strict ordinance that forbade guns to be carried on their side of the river. The weapons of choice were knives and clubs.

The six saloons on the main street had drinks served by waitresses who performed upstairs in a less refined manner. None of this cut into the business at the far end of town where for a price, a man could find a better class of feminine companionship. The woman who ran this pleasure house didn't tolerate troublemakers; she carried a sharp stiletto and an equally deadly pistol and used six big, tough knuckledusters to keep order.

The ferryboat was run by Old Man Grainger. No one knew Old Man's first name, and since he was a cross-grained codger with a sawed-off shotgun and a short temper, no one ever tried to find out. The area around the ferry was patronized by the rougher elements; River Crossing men who wanted to prove they were tough enough to have a good time across the river and miners who wanted to prove they were just as good as the more law-abiding elements living on the Crossing side.

Just below the ferry landing on the edge of River Crossing, there was a bend in the river shaded by a huge broadleaf tree. Jeanne tethered her tricorn where it couldn't easily be seen and leaned against the tree, watching Black River's lazy flow. It was deceptively peaceful here. Minerstown lay quiet since most of the miners had gone to work or they slept off last night’s debauchery. The next shift change wouldn't be for at least two hours.

A large, hard hand came across her mouth and Jeanne was dragged back against a man's body. She bit down hard on his hand and kicked back with the heel of her riding boot, getting him in the shin with sharp spurs. A grunt of pain was her answer as teeth and spur bit home. Involuntarily, the man's hold loosened, and she jerked away from him, drawing her gun. Fast as she was, he was faster. He had her gun hand and pinned her against him.

"Hellcat," he remarked. "It would have served you right if I had been someone else."

Jeanne had collapsed against him in relief. "It was the only way I could see you," she said. "I was hoping I would see your tricorn in town—"

"I saw your tricorn too," he retorted. "That's why I followed you down here. I ought to blister your fanny for this stunt. Do you know what would have happened to you if I had been someone else?"

"Samuel, will you please shut up! I don't know how long it will take Bethany and McCaffey at the preachers. He threatened to beat me too if I rode out alone anymore. Said I was a liability—"

"Who said that? Who threatened to beat you?" Jeanne read the incipient violence in his voice and smiled. All the Johnson men were handsome, tall and golden haired with blue eyes, except Samuel. He had the dark gold hair, but his steady eyes were brown, and closer