O’Hartz moved across the mirrored room. “Set it up for everyone,” he told the barmaid. Everyone commencing to do what they were doing before he turned their heads, walking up to a stranger at the bar sitting head down face shadowed by the bent rim of a dusty Stetson, O’Hartz asked him with a grin: “Can you kindly tell me, friend, what time the floorshow begins?”
“Couldn’t say, friend. I’m new in town myself.”

Backstage the girls were playing five-card stud by the stairs. The stage manager coming over gave them the heads up that the show was about to start; the tinpan Dixieland band striking up the opening chords of ‘Bury Me in the Morning, Mother.’ Rosemary needing a new headliner for the show had hired both Lily and Charlotte hoping to foster a rivalry between the pale sultry European and the ***** cherub-cheeked American girl; each appealing to a different part of the audience. Both sides of the room whooping and hollering, the line of chorines pranced onto the stage wagging frilly petticoats and flashing black garters.    

“Lay me down where the grass is green, mother,” sang Charlotte evoking the rolling hills of Dixie, Lily taking the second lead: “Where the murmuring winds will mourn, mother, the wreck that death has made,” her voice plaintive and husky. The chorus joining in as the two women stepped center stage joining hands and warbling in unison “Bury me in the morning and mourn not my loss...for I’ll join the beautiful army that carried the Savior’s cross.”

Bristling at the sanctified lyric, O’Hartz left the bar and went backstage. ****** downed his watered liquor. Lily and Charlotte shared a dressing room; O’Hartz waiting for the two stars outside the starred door. ****** was headed that way when his presence was sensed by the town’s new sheriff and his deputy a pudgy would-be wheeler dealer; the new mayor giving them carte blanche to handle things anyway they saw fit under cloak of the law.

This being the first full show with the entire chorus and flashy pair of ingenue. Leaving the stage to applause and piercing call-calls Lily turned to her stage partner and said, “Haven’t we met? I’m sure I’ve seen your face before.”
“Oh. This is not my regular job. I was hoping to get a job as a schoolmarm, but until school starts I have to make a little money.”

The European’s eyes turned to slits. “Moonlighting,” she muttered.
“Yes. That’s what you call it,” Charlotte chirped.
“And at night you sing to a room full of gamblers and drunkards.”
Charlotte frowned. She didn’t know what to reply. Lily was right beside her doing the exact same thing; as if looking down on herself for being brought this low. Charlotte had been a courtesan a long time. She had never been a teacher.