Carefully lowering the hammer, Tom slowly bolstered his pistol. “Shucks, ma’am, t’weren’t nothing.”  In truth, he wasn’t even completely sure what<i>had</i>happened. He’d been in a few fights in his time - mostly drunken punch-ups in a saloon - but this had been<i>fast</i>. “But Ah’ll be thar, an’ thank you ma’am.”<br/><br/>A thought struck him, and he checked his pockets. There was a newspaper setting up, right?  Maybe they’d pay for a story?  It was worth a try, and ‘Tom Cavendish, newspaper reporter’ sounded a bit better than ‘Tom Cavendish, broke prospector’.   He grinned as he found an old notebook he used for writing letters, and a stub of pencil.<br/><br/>Checking the stub was sharp enough to write, he approached the Madame and the little blonde woman who’d beat three shades of shit out of one of the robbers.  “Pardon me, ma’am. Ma’am.”  He nodded to each in turn. “Ah was wonderin’ if’n Ah could ask y’all a few questions ‘bout what jes happened here...”<br/><br/>-*-<br/><br/>Cassie followed Miss Vickie, whistling low and appreciatively at the beating Miss Missy had dealt out. She wouldn’t have thought the spoiled little rich girl had it in her - she’d pegged her as all talk, no action. She’d been wrong, it seemed. Quite impressively wrong. Probably a wildcat in bed, too...<br/><br/>Fuck. She needed to get laid good and hard. Everything was turning her on, right now.  Like the scruffy cowpoke asking Miss Vickie a bunch of questions. Bet he’d clean up nice. Him and the one-armed gent both. Both at once, and<i>fuck </i>but she needed to concentrate.<br/><br/>“Want me to run him off, boss?” she asked Miss Vickie, nodding towards the cowpoke. “You said you had business to attend to.”