A shadow Cat named Midnight
Appearing timeless several old Victorians stood side by side just as they did the day they were build over a century ago. Today they stood as silent sentry’s on a narrow street shrouded in thick gray fog. Just south of these grand homes only the burnt out frame of a late nineteenth century saloon remained built much earlier in a town now famous for it's cemeteries than anything else. Located roughly ten miles south from the heart of San Francisco this town had it's own share of misfits and outlaws. Vagrants, card sharps, confidence men as well as women drifted through it foggy streets like the stench of a rotting corpse on a summer day. Most were lured back to the city after their wounds had healed or their deeds or faces had been forgotten. But many new schemes were devised while others preyed elsewhere on new ground with easier pickings. But when these majestic painted ladies were first constructed this beautiful land was even more wicket and lawless where the quicker gun or sharper knife ruled the open vastness.
People of that era worked farms or ranches where livestock roamed free and fences were few if any. Folks got around the time honored way on horseback, wagons or buggies if it wasn't too far to walk. The railroad took a person or goods just about anywhere anyone ever wanted to go in those often forgotten days of that not too distance past. The mid 1880's is where our story begins in this American town where a nickle got you a glass of beer and a silver dollar could get a soul into real trouble especially around the Black Willow Saloon. One armed Jim owned and ran the place but he didn't pour a single shot of watered down something without getting the nod from his elderly mother right out of the gate. Some say it was Jim's own mother who took his arm in a fight over cards one night but no one really knows the real truth except Jim and he isn't talking.
In poor health and wheelchair bound from years of selling her womanly charms for goods or services, Jim's mother usually graced the front porch of the Black Willow like a potted plant needing water. She was the queen of this palace of sin and if you wanted inside you'd better bow and walk lightly. Within spitting distance of the hitching post this gray haired lady gave anyone who stepped inside the once over. Addicted to opium for pain when liquor wasn't enough she didn't care who saw her smoke or drink or spit. She was often seen being rolled behind the bar by a drunken patron or two for some personal privacy which at times could get loud? If she wasn't fanning herself with a whiskey stained opera fan or swatting at flies with a handmade horse hair swatter Jim as at her beck and call. I swear there were times I could hear her yelling at Jim clear across a ten acre pasture and it never seemed to stop, “Jim, move those horses into the shade, Jim, help me to the water closet or get me a bucket”, Jim, “freshen up my glass with real whiskey this time and sweeten my pipe”? Everyone in town called her Mama Kate but us kids whispered Mama Snake behind her back or far enough away as not to be heard. If she believed for one moment you were making fun or mocking her she specialized in dealing out her own form of town justice. She ever failed to keep a ladies gun tucked under many of her brightly colored aprons which she made herself and always wore. Loaded with cotton seeds instead of lead shot she sent many an unlucky patron howling into the night usually grabbing their backsides. Our house was just far enough away from the Black Willow that on an any given night when Mama Kate's gun went off it was never by accident?
