Caleb stood and leaned on the bar, watching as Penrose pushed through the crowd. Sissy held out her hand to him and the door shut behind them.

‘Your friend is quite a favourite of our Sissy,’ Lil said, pouring Caleb half a tumbler of Evan Williams Kentucky Bourbon. She pushed it across to him.

Caleb picked up the glass and stared into its golden depths. ‘I think I’m going to like you, Miss Lil,’ he said.

‘I’ll put it by for you.’ She leaned her plump elbows on the counter. ‘What brings you to Maiden’s Creek?’

‘I’ve a mining claim up at Pretty Sally,’ he said.

She regarded him for a long moment. ‘I’ve seen ’em come full of hope, but one winter up in these ’ills and they ’ead ’ome like whipped dogs. If you’re the canny sort, there’s more money to be made off the miners than the mines.’

Caleb looked around the crowded room. ‘You may be right, Lil.’

‘Besides, you don’t strike me as the sort given to ’ard work, ‘Unt.’

‘Really?’

Lil picked up his left hand. ‘You ’ave the ’ands of a gentleman.’ She turned it over and traced the lines on his palm. ‘You ’ave violence and tragedy in your past.’

Caleb snatched his hand back with a derisive snort. ‘And you’re an old charlatan,’ he said. ‘There’d be few Americans of my age and background who weren’t touched by the war.’

Lil shrugged and tilted her head as she considered him. ‘But you’re a bit different, ’Unt. Something about you doesn’t ring true.’

Caleb took a swig of the whiskey, holding the soft, smoky liquid in his mouth for a moment before swallowing it. There had never been hard liquor in his childhood home; whiskey and the devil went hand in hand, according to his father. He’d been right. Whiskey had become a taste acquired to ease the reality of war.

‘Another?’ Lil asked as he set the empty glass down.

Caleb shook his head. Another would lead to another and then another … and the night would end in a miasma of grief, regret and self-pity … and singing. He knew that route too well.

‘North or south?’ Lil asked.

‘South.’

Lil straightened. ‘You wouldn’t think to see me now, but back in my day, I danced in Savannah and Charleston.’ She smiled. ‘I was the toast of the town.’

Caleb studied the round, puffy face and tried, and failed, to imagine the girl who had been the toast of Savannah. ‘Pour me a beer, Lil, and we’ll drink to memories.’

Penrose reappeared half an hour later, smiling, his hair dishevelled. He ordered a beer, which Lil set down in front of him with a thump that slopped half the contents on to the table.