The Rascal by Lisa Plumley

due allotment of space at Jack’s saloon. He hefted his ginger beer for another lunchtime swig. “Not just dancing girls like you had in here last year?”
    “A whole troupe,” Jack confirmed. He’d been corresponding by post with the entertainers for months now, but he still hadn’t entirely convinced them to stop in Morrow Creek on their way west to San Francisco. “Acrobats and all.”
    Daniel nodded in approval. “That ought to cost you a pretty penny. I reckon it’ll be worth it though.”
    “Yep,” Jack agreed. Although it occurred to him that if he didn’t get Grace Crabtree safely wed before the troupe arrived, she’d probably stage another one of her protests and ruin all his plans. “I hear the Birdcage in Tombstone hired a troupe, and their profits were—”
    “Hmmph,” Harry interrupted from nearby. The older man had been the first person Jack hired in Morrow Creek, and he typically felt he deserved a say in things. “A whole troupeoughta pack this place up right tight. Don’t have room on that itty-bitty stage for a whole ‘troupe’ plus customers, too.”
    Dolefully, the man shouldered his way down the bar behind Jack. He slid a plate of beans with bacon across the polished wood to a waiting cowboy. The corn bread on the plate wobbled precipitously—as Harry’s food was wont to do—then settled.
    Working from the small kitchen in Jack’s quarters out back, Harry kept customers supplied with what he called “basic victuals.” Jack figured Harry’s simple meals kept men tipping back whiskeys instead of leaving to eat someplace else, and that meant more business for him. There was some profit to be made from the food, too, even if it was barely edible. It turned out that so long as the grub didn’t stink, smoke or scuttle away, bachelors weren’t picky.
    Harry also doubled as Jack’s backup barkeep, for those rare occasions when Jack couldn’t serve himself. It didn’t happen often. All Jack had in Morrow Creek—hell, all Jack had in the whole world—was his saloon. He never saw much reason to leave it. Despite Marcus Copeland’s needling that he’d grow himself clean into place behind the bar like a massive ponderosa pine and never be able to get free.
    “The customers won’t be onstage.” Jack grinned, sharing a fun-loving glance with McCabe. “They’ll be at their tables buying twice as much liquor as usual. At least that’s my hope.”
    He needed the money, too, if he were to keep the place afloat. He’d already sunk most of his funds into payments collected by a land agent on behalf of his landlord. Leasing operated differently in the territory than in Boston—which was how Jack had come to share the property in the first place. Despite the obstacles presented by Grace Crabtree, he hoped to buy the whole caboodle someday and make his new life complete.
    “Bunch o’ dang fool nonsense if you ask me,” Harry grumbled. He wiped his hands on his grimy apron, then shuffled toward the saloon’s back room again. “Jest don’t expect me to feed all them trapeze monkeys and whatnot,’ cause I ain’t.”
    Daniel watched the man leave, then regarded Jack with his usual carefree grin—an expression that had grown even more expansive since his marriage to Sarah. “Looks like you’re the one stuck with feeding those trapeze monkeys, Murphy.”
    Jack shrugged and grabbed his polishing cloth.
    “One of these days, Harry’s going to take over this place,” Daniel opined. “You ought to show him who’s boss.”
    “Right.” Jack tucked his cloth into the next glass, cleaning it with a practiced motion. The gesture made his pocketed cigarillos sway, emitting the rich scent of tobacco. “I should show him who’s boss, the way you do with your wife whenever she wants you to bring home some ribbons or lace from the mercantile?”
    The blacksmith’s face turned ruddy. “It was only that one time. Just one damned basketful.”
    “But you looked right purty with all