Buildings are going up so fast in Little Whiskey that a man with five fingers on one hand will have already lost count.
The latest are two adjoining buildings – The Sheriffs Office and the Arizona Territorial Bank. There are obviously very good reasons for the Bank to want the Sheriffs Office built next door and it means English Bob the Sheriff doesn't have far to go to deposit the towns tax revenue.
When Whiskey Jack walks down the Main Street he feels a tremendous sense of pride and achievement, this is his town, he owns the land all the businesses are built on. The place is booming, silver has been discovered only a days ride out of town, there is still the possibility of a rail line passing through, but Agua Fria a town about 50 miles south has plenty of water and has been entertaining the railway engineer lavishly.
Direct action might be called for, and he is just the man for the job. Well he knows a man, how knows a man, who for a fist full of dollars will see the job done.
A general view of the enlarged town from the South West, the new buildings are just behind the pack horse train.
A quick run round the town to remind you of the various businesses that are here so far. On the North (
far) side of the street, on the left are the new buildings the Bank and then the Jail/Sheriffs Office, in the centre and right are the two original buildings in Little Whiskey the Tail Feathers Saloon and Big Jims Blacksmith and Livery.
An overview from the North East
I turned the board around ;)
On the south side of the street, furthest away from us, on the left is Rob Tilney Gunsmith shop, in the centre the Westmoorland Grocery Company, with Blonde Edna’s Saloon and Brothel above it and on the right is the Wells Fargo Office.
It confused the hell out of me taking the photo’s from the opposite sides of the board when I came to describe everything, hope you are not dizzy yet.
A close up of the Bank, and guess who's the new Bank Manager, yep it’s old Sweet Sticky Fingers himself, Ebenezer Douglas. Off to the right English Bob has recovered from his near death experience in the Skull Rock Holdup and is back on his feet again. He’s wondering who parked their horses on his hitchin rail.
In the foreground you should recognise Billy, he now has 3 horses in his mule train, business is booming.
A sexy little shot between the buildings to catch a rancher and his wife Molly coming into town, but the little vignette in the background is more interesting, but we'll get to that.
Marshall McAlister has also recovered after the shoot out in the Incident in Little Whiskey, he is now sharing an Office with English Bob but to maintain proprieties he has his own door and office sign.
I think he is off to the outhouse but after the aforementioned incident his sawn off shotgun goes everywhere with him. Rumour has it that he even sleeps with it, but this is hotly denied by Dora DuFran from Blonde Edna’s Home for Wayward Girls. She maintains that when they share a bed the only explosions are of her making, I don't know what she is referring to.
A long shot up Main Street from the East.
And the view from the other end of the street.
Mr Douglas wants the bank to look it’s best today because great things are happening in Little Whiskey, so he has had some local cacti planted in pots outside the bank to add a touch of class. I wonder how long they will last.
It looks like there is some more building work about to take place although as usual no one has any idea who might be doing it or what it might be, or when it might happen.
The Stage arriving, seems to be heavily laden with boxes, quite big boxes, quite strong boxes!!
Big Jim is over in his usual position in the coral, leaning on the fence and watching the world go by and that looks like a different woman he’s talking to.
Yep it's Mary Ann Conklin from Blonde Edna’s Home for Wayward Girls she is chatting away quite happily to this great hunk of a man. How does he manage it, every good looking woman in town seems to gravitate to the man.
The Westmoreland Grocery Company is open for business and doing a brisk trade, but not as brisk as Blonde Edna’s upstairs.
Sarah (yellow dress) who runs the Grocery side of the business is in partnership with Pearl De Ville (crimson dress) but she doesn’t approve of the woman nor her business, however she does approve of the income generated.
When the building was erected so to speak, she insisted that the entrance to the brothel was around the back and up the stairs.
Word got out that a brothel was opening in Little Whiskey and a big queue formed because the men thought is was a soup kitchen providing soup or broth as it is known in the Midlands. Once they found out what was really on sale the queue got much bigger!!
Up stairs at Edna’s Pete seems to be in deep conversation with Eleanor Dumont and Dora DuFran, maybe enquiring into the truth of the rumour about Marshall McAlister and his shotgun.
A more cynical view might be something to do with the fact that Edna’s balcony has a commanding view of the whole of main street so there might be an ulterior motive!!
Temperance Jenkins (black hat) and Miss Virginia (blue hat) are discussing the appalling state of the morals in the town and what on earth can be done about it. The children have no school, the sinners have no church and the Temperance Society have no meeting room. Appalling.
Pearl De Ville maintains very high standards in her business and private life, she is always immaculately dressed and has a very high opinion of her pale beautiful looks. She just knows that she turns every man head when she walks down the street, which is something she likes to do regularly to upset the 'good' women of Little Whiskey. This is something else Sarah disapproves of, but she keeps her thoughts to herself.
I suspect Sarah is comparing Pearl to the horses ass, but we’ll never know.
I’ll come back to the Tilney establishment but just wanted to show you that there appears to be a couple of lumber piles round the back at Edna’s, the business has been so successful they are opening additional space to serve the broth.
Apache George is a new comer in town, he seems to be rushing to the outhouse, maybe the broth didn’t agree with him.
Another shot of Molly and her rancher, with little Bob running along behind. Molly obviously doesn’t have a driving licence and so has to walk while her husband controls that 1 horse power motor in front of the cart.
The evil looking lady in the yellow dress is Irene Adler, you may have heard of her, not long out of England. I realise you can’t see that she looks evil because I didn’t take a good photo of her, but trust me – she’s a wrong un.
Round the back of the Wells Fargo office you can see the sort of goods that are pouring in to the town.
Donna staggers out of the Saloon clutching a bottle of her own special Rye Whiskey, she’s paid for it and it’s hers and that makes it very special. Miss Virginia, sees this happening.
And tongues start wagging again.
As she staggers up the street there is a figure in the shadows. On the sidewalk, outside the saloon!
It’s still not a clear view but it could be Dangerous Dave in his newly touched up duster. Maybe I should say partially repainted duster, well you probably know what I mean.
If you can – look at Donna’s face, I am incredibly impressed with the facial sculpting of the Col Bill’s female figures I have bought, and they are almost all fully clad as well.
If you remember the last Little Whiskey town post, the latest building was - Rob ‘Slim’ Tilney’s gun shop. Most people seemed to think this was surplus to requirements and that a Doctor or an Undertaker was called for in Little Whiskey but I knew the law was coming, in the form of English Bob and Marshall McAlister and that there would be no more shootings in town. ;-)
Well in fact the figure of Slim was of Little Slim Jr and he is the son part of the shop sign. This chap is Rob ‘Big Slim’ Tilney Senior.
In close up he is a dour looking individual, it’s hard to realize what a hellion he was in his younger days. Don’t get on the wrong side of him even now or he’ll rattle your shins with that stick he always carries.
Keeping to the shadows behind him sweeping the stoop is Bertha Tilney, his long suffering wife.
Where I come from the front step of a house is called the stoop, does anyone know what the American expression might be?
Humm I said it was a 1 horse power motor but I think we’re looking at pony power here.
Just a moody shot of the back streets.
I see Tilney still hasn't put a door on his outhouse, I wonder what Temperance Jenkins thinks of that, hummm I probably know.
Ebenezer Douglas behind the cactus is consulting his watch, looking a little nervous as Billy leads his pack horses into town.
Sheriff Bob is still looking at those horses outside the jail and thinking.
Across the street there are two more horses he doesn’t recognise, and they are packing heavy! He continues thinking.
In fact there are quite a lot of horses packing heavy! He continues to think and I believe he is thinking – why haven’t I got a deputy. It’s that skinflint Whiskey Jack’s fault. I'm going to need someone to watch my back in this town and maybe sooner than I would like.
Ok you will have guessed before now the stage is carrying a s**t load of silver from the local mine, this is to stay in the brand new safe in the bank overnight before moving on tomorrow. I guess that’s why everyone is a little nervous.
All except these guys who are getting liquored up, they are very nervous.
Between them they have taken a lot of lead and done a lot of running lately. Bill Samuelson has got them into more than one piece of trouble in the past few jobs but maybe this is the time their luck will change, we will just have to wait and see.
Well this was supposed to be a game report but I got a bit carried away with the intro and I didn’t even get to introduce the girls from the soup kitchen properly. Sorry about that.
Oh - just a final note, you might remember Joe Turner got shot in the leg and was laying in the street bleeding to death. Well by a strange quirk of fate in the time space continuum the stagecoach that was being held up in the last game arrived in Little Whiskey at that very minute he was shot.
Dr John Watson (disbarred) still drunk, fell off the stage and seeing a man in need of medical attention called for a hot branding iron from Big Jim Smith the Smith and slapped it on Joe's leg. Cauterizing the wound and miraculously stopping the bleeding.
Joe and Jane are now recovered and along with all the other characters in Little Whiskey are ready for the story to continue. I do like a happy ending, although this is not the end.
If you are still here – thanks for reading and let me know if you passed this way.
Cheers
