Page 6 of The Brave and the Reckless

Esra:What am I walking into?

Sinan:A saloon.

Esra:Very funny.

Sinan:Free food.

He knew me too well. He also hadn’t talked to the sandwich police yet apparently. I wasn’t as hungry as I could have been, but I’d still spent the last ten days on the road on a tight budget for gas and snacks, soanyfood was a good idea. While I had no intention of copying our parents, either sticking to the trendiest dietician’s advice on bland, fat-free foods or serving classic four-course dinners, the novelty of jerky and ice cream for every meal had worn off a little.

Walking into Bravetown was surreal. Sure, I was holdingmy tiny supercomputer of a phone, and wearing a pair of denim shorts that would have gotten me jailed for impropriety way back when, but those things faded to insignificance when I stepped through under the wooden arch with the town’s name on it. The entry to the park was a dusty circular plaza. In its center, a statue of a cowboy on a rearing horse greeted visitors, while the sides were lined with old wooden buildings, their slabbed facades faded shades of brown and red and the porch roofs wonky enough to seem at risk of crumbling. Not old. Old-looking. None of this was older than twenty-five years.

The large buildings to my left were marked as ticket offices and visitors’ information. I would have loved to linger on the way the light flickered in perfect rhythm in the upstairs windows of the former, or on the silhouette of a woman walking back and forth in mechanically paced steps behind the curtains of the latter, but I was part of a crowd heading the opposite way. I didn’t want to get trampled while gawking.

The people around me were chattering and huddling together, and they looked like they all belonged there in their faded Wranglers and their scuffed boots, half of them even wearing freaking cowboy hats. And not the pink-tassel, bachelorette-party kind. My chunky platform loafers alone branded me as the new girl when I’d figured they’d look at least somewhat professional for a staff meeting.

My footwear musings were cut short by the Rattlesnake Saloon. Maybe I’d get used to Bravetown one day soon, but I stumbled in my steps and almost face-planted for the second time today. The Rattlesnake was in all actuality a saloon. Music and voices spilled through the swinginghalf-doors, barrels outside served as standing tables on the porch, and three real-life horses were tied to a rail-and-trough fixture on the side.

My mind did the same backflip it had when I’d seen Cowboy Lucky this morning. People had come here on their horses, because of course they had freaking horses as an actual means of transport.

I wasn’t given much chance to check out where the path led past the saloon. I just got a glance at the closed ticket gates before I was shuffled forward by an old lady who told me to “stop dilly-dallying” as she shooed me inside.

The inside of the Rattlesnake was still Old West, but a bar was always going to be a bar. There was a stage at the far end, draped in heavy red and blue curtains, a large round space right in front of it, covered in chairs and tables that could probably be removed to create a dance floor, and all of it was ringed by booths and upper-level balconies with more private seating. Behind the booths, a long bar ran along the wall, a woman with honey-blonde curls juggling bottles like it was a sport.

“Ez! Esra!”

My head swiveled in the direction of my brother’s voice. Sinan was standing in one of the booths, waving both arms over his unruly head of dark hair, grinning from ear to ear. His fiancée sat behind him, smiling and just waving with her hand raised to shoulder-level.

The second I made my way over, his arms wrapped around my shoulders and he pulled me against his chest. It started as a hug but then his embrace tightened bit by bit until my face was smushed against his chest, and I flailed my arms and grunted.

“You’ve gotten so tall,” he fake-wept against the top of my head.

“You stink,” I grunted even though I could only smell his laundry detergent.

He released me with a huff.

“Hi, how are you?” Zuri slipped around Sinan and wrapped me into a much gentler hug. Zuri gave the best hugs. She’d come to New York with Sanny a few times, so I’d had my fair share of Zuri Hugs, and I’d have made Sanny marry her for those alone. She was a bit taller than me and while I didn’t lack assets, Zuri was all lush curves that made every hug extra-cozy. Most of her black curls were wrapped into a high bun, drawing all the attention to her soft face, shimmery gold highlighter making her dark skin glow. “How was the drive?”

“It was good. I saw the world’s largest chicken.”

“What?” She laughed and pulled me next to her on to the bench.

With Sinan sitting across from us and the saloon filling with people and noise, I automatically started signing alongside my words. Sanny’s hearing aids had a setting for crowded spaces like this, but it wasn’t always the most reliable. “The world’s largest chicken. Okay. Technically, it’s the world’s largest chickensculpture. But it’s huge.”

“That’s why you took almost two weeks to get here?” Sanny asked.

“I also saw the world’s largest chest of drawers. And a big chair. It’s not the world’s largest anymore, but it was at one point.”

“That sounds like fun,” Zuri said, signing the words as she spoke them. Her hand movements were still a littleslow, but she was learning. She actually meant what she was saying, too, while Sinan was chuckling and shaking his head.

“How do you like your room?” he asked.

“It’s tiny.” It took everything in me not to grimace. “My closet at home is bigger than that room.”

“Don’t worry,” Zuri laughed, and the tight coils that had escaped her bun bounced around her face. “You’ll spend hardly any time in your room anyway.”

“I don’t plan on working that much.” Now I did grimace.

“There’s always something going on either here or in town. Once you get to know everyone, you’ll always be busy. The saloon is open to the public like a regular bar most of the time, so people from town don’t need to buy a park ticket to just come here and hang out.”

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