The Last Book

The forecast for paperback and hardcover books isn’t good. According to business analysts and stock market speculators, along with cues from the current economic temperature, books will soon be going by the way of vinyl. Ebooks, APPs, Kindles, IPADs, all manner of electronic gadgetry will be taking the place of a book you can hold in your hand, a book you can smell, touch, tuck under your arm or tuck away on a book shelf. Books will become dinosaurs and publishing houses will be no more. It is with all that in mind that I have come to the conclusion that once I live up to all the contracts for the books I want to write I will be retiring from this particular field. The last book I will pen will be about my brother Rick. The Plea will contain the story of what happens to a man and his siblings when he is falsely accused of a crime. It will include letters of confessions from the so-called victim, photographs, interviews with lawyers, politicians, journal entries, live film footage and much more. I will be stepping aside from the work I have been doing in the fall of 2016. I’ll write more about what lies ahead for me later, but for now I will continue with the subject for this month, prostitution in the Old West. This story and many others just like them are found in the book Pistol Packin Madames. “Kate Horony removed the crystal stopper from a glass container filled with brandy and poured herself a drink. The svelte, well-dressed nineteen-year-old took a big gulp, and then poured another. She slammed the brandy back and trained the derringer in her right hand on a man’s body that was stretched out before her. Jonas Stonebreak was lying in a pool of blood, with a bullet in his upper torso. He stirred a bit, struggling to lift his head off the floor. He glanced around the bedroom at the Tribolet parlor house until his blurry eyes came to rest on Kate. She stared down at him, her eyes filled with contempt. The lifeless frame of Madam Blanc Tribolet was slumped in a chair next to Jonas. Kate motioned to the dead woman with her empty glass. “You had no cause to kill Blance,” she told him. “You’re a miserable cur.” She blinked away a tear and poured another drink, while Jonas tried to sit up. “She was asking for it,” he offered, spitting blood. “No she wasn’t,” Kate responded, pointing the gun at his head, “But you sure as hell have.” She squeezed the trigger, firing off a shot that lodged a bullet in Jonas’s forehead. He collapsed in a heap. Kate drank down another brandy before pocketing her gun and leaving the room. Blance Tribolet was the first madam Kate Horony, better known as Big Nose Kate, ever worked for. She was more than an employer to the young woman; she was a friend and surrogate mother as well. The revenge Kate sought for the murder of her benefactress was one of many defining moments in the life of one of the West’s most notorious prostitutes.” God to www.chrisenss.com to read more.