The Wild Bill Hickoks: Lucy - Chapter One

A Chapter by Sophia Margaret

An alarm went off somewhere in the room bringing me to consciousness. Well, as conscious as I was willing to get at this point. Pulling the blanket up further over my head to block out the sun, I reached my hand out in an attempt to find a weapon of some sort. My fingers wrapped around something hard and, without thinking too much about it, I grabbed it and tossed it in the general direction of the annoying beeping sound that seemed to be getting louder by the second.

Unfortunately, all that did was create even more of a ruckus as whatever it was crashed into the wall and shattered. Worse, it was followed by a familiar voice yelling far too loudly. “D****t, Lucy Allen Smithson! You just threw a freaking beer bottle at my head!”

Despite my massive hangover and the surety that it was far too early for this, I couldn't stifle the mischievous giggle that escaped me. “Did it hit your head?” I asked Shiloh, my roommate at this less than stellar hotel we temporarily called home.

“It did not, but not for want of trying! You came inches from cold-cocking me with that damn bottle, girl. Then what would you've done tonight? Y'all would've been up on stage without a drummer.”

Giving in and shoving the blanket off me, I sat up to look her over, disguising my concern with a look of sarcastic appraisal. Shiloh - Lo to those of us who loved her - was one of those people who'd get cut up from a bottle you smashed from across the room and not bother telling you. She wouldn't want you making a fuss over her.

With honey colored skin, soft brown eyes, and thick, shiny brown hair cut short to accent her heart-shaped face, everything about Lo was soft and sexy. We'd nicknamed her “the Temptress” a while ago, because everything from her throaty voice to her five-foot-eight inch curvy frame radiated pure sex appeal. She drove men crazy.

Once I felt sure that she was unharmed, I gave her my infamously devilish smile. “I'm sure we would've been able to rustle up a new one between now and tonight. And if not, well, we could've always just stomped our feet.”

“Stomped? Seriously, Lucy, how many times do we gotta do this? I swear, one day I'm just gonna up and leave you fools till you learn how to appreciate me.”

“Come on, sweetie, you know I'm just teasing,” I said, before she got too worked up. I didn't want to spend the rest of the day trying to talk her into taking the stage with us tonight. Lo was a little sensitive about drummers, swearing they were the least appreciated member of the band but one of the most important. We liked to work her up about it, but in the end she was the glue that held our little ragtag group together.

Giving up on getting anymore sleep, I stood up and stretched as I took stock of the room. It was a wreck. Furniture was upended, alcohol bottles of different varieties were scattered around, many leaking onto the rug or furniture. It looked like Raelynn had ignored the no smoking rule again, if the cigarette butts strategically stubbed out around the room were of any indication.

I checked myself out in the mirror above the dresser while Lo assessed our room. My shoulder length blonde hair was a knotted rat's nest. The circles under my glassy blue eyes spoke to how little sleep I'd been getting lately, while my already pale complexion was even more washed out than usual. I only hoped the stage lights would help disguise how much of a mess I looked.

“Frank's gonna kill us,” Lo muttered.

Frank was our ever-faithful manager and handler. He booked us these shows out in the middle of nowhere and promised us it was part of a grander plan, that one day we'd be able to ditch these s**t-hole hotels in favor of an actual tour bus. Obviously, we weren't there yet.

“Frank's always gonna kill us,” I countered, knowing it was true. We had a way with hotel rooms. Their destruction was a particular specialty of ours. Something about staying in a crappy hotel after doing a show always brought out the worst in us. Usually by the time we rolled out of town again it was to trashed rooms and threats from Frank that if we didn't get our s**t together soon he was going to send a babysitter to meet us at the next town over.

One time, after a particularly wild night in some rinky-dink town somewhere in New Mexico, Frank decided it was time to make good on his threat. By the time we rolled into the next stop on our schedule, Kevin was waiting for us.

Kevin was about six-foot-five, two-hundred-and-eighty pounds of pure muscle, and absolutely no sense of humor whatsoever. Frank had hired him to act as our tail for two weeks. To add insult to injury, we had to pay for Kevin ourselves, from what we were taking home from our shows.

Worst two weeks ever. Sure, we could've ended our misery and fired both Frank and Kevin, but ultimately we had faith in Frank's magic. So for two weeks we were on our very best behavior. Once Kevin was set free we tried to reign in our naturally destructive natures, keeping things just this side of Frank calling in the cavalry again. None of us wanted a Kevin repeat.

“Anyway, Frank's not here. What he doesn't know won't hurt him. Now, whaddya say we wake the girls and see what this little town has to offer in terms of entertainment?”

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