<hr/><div class="floatleft">(http://gunsofold.com/marshal_badge_silver_balltip.jpg)</div><br/><strong>Date:</strong>January 9th, 1874<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Evening<br/><strong>Location:</strong>The Back Room<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Sloane<br/><hr/>The winters of Gomorra came as hard and cold as the summers came dry and hot – there was packed snow on the ground on the traipse from the Casino Morongo to the 'Back Room' of Whiskey Nick's Joint.  Nick himself was one of the oldest miners in Gomorra – he'd been in California during the '49 strike, and never found more than a few nuggets of gold in over a decade of panhandling.  Those he did were rapidly spent on whiskey, and when the '69 ghost rock fever came around, Nick learned a lesson from the saloon owners that had once robbed him blind.  Nick might well have been one of the toughest old miners in Gomorra – with a reputation as a little loco.  During his first few months of being open, a gunfight had nearly broken out in Nick's, and the weathered miner had casually struck a match as six men stood in a Mexican standoff.  He'd lit his pipe, then applied the burning match to a fuse.<br/><br/>“Gents, you got about... nine seconds to put them smokewagons back in theirs skins, before this 'ere dynamite blows my whole place to Kingdom Come.”  He'd calmly thumped the dynamite onto the bar, for all to see.  It was seven seconds before the would be gunslingers had settled themselves back into their bars, and in five years, no one had drawn another gun in his establishment.<br/><br/>Nick never replaced the fuse – only two seconds of it remained, and he still kept the dynamite under the bar.<br/><br/>His place had a reputation as a quiet place to get a fairly priced drink, and a safe place for otherwise contentious folks to meet in safety – or at least mutually assured destruction.  He rented out a back room that assured privacy, for the modest price of ten dollars a night.  Nick was actually a fairly affable fellow, after someone had made good on their tab, but tolerated few shenanigans in his saloon.<br/><br/><div class="floatright">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/d/d1/Mrlee.png)</div><div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/0/0b/Msgreene.png)</div>He nodded to Sloane as he made his entrance, and gestured to the back room's door.<br/><br/>“They're already inside.  Diana's gonna have skillets coming in a few.”<br/><br/>Through the back door, Ms. Green and Mr. Lee were already sat around the single modest wooden table.  A tea cozy had been set out, and both Greene and Lee politely nodded at Sloane's entrance.  Greene was outfitted in her tight skirts, a folded parasol at her knee, and Mr. Lee wore a dapper western suit and wire-rimmed spectacles, offering a friendly smile.<br/><br/>“So lovely of you to join us, Mr. Sloane.  May I offer some tea?”<br/>