In the saloon kitchen, the Chinaman made me biscuits and fried sowbelly for breakfast. I had two cups of coffee with it, and drank the second one on the front porch of the saloon. The sun was coming up behind me, and the weather was clear. I could see most of Resolution from where I stood. It was a raw town. Newer than Appaloosa, raw lumber, mostly unpainted, boards warping as they dried. Flat-front, mostly one-story buildings, with long, low front porches, covered by a roof. The saloons generally had second floors. And sometimes a second-floor porch.

I finished the coffee and put the cup down and strolled Main Street. There were three saloons besides the Blackfoot. There was an unpainted one-story shack with a sign in the front window that read Genuine Chicago Cooking. There were no customers yet. A Chinaman with a long pigtail was outside, sweeping down the porch. He kept his head down as I passed. I stopped in to the livery stable to visit my horse. There was a bucket of water in his stall, and some oats in another bucket. He seemed sort of glad to see me. He nudged at my shoulder and I gave him a piece of sugar that I’d taken from the saloon.

Past the livery stable were a couple of independent whorehouses where the girls lived and worked. No gambling, no food, just short sessions for a dollar. No one appeared to be awake in the whorehouses yet. Beyond, a little away from the wooden buildings, were a few tents where the Chinamen lived, maybe ten to a tent. They cooked in the saloons, and washed floors, and washed dishes, and emptied spittoons and chamber pots and slop buckets. They laundered clothes, and ironed and sewed. They mucked out the livery stables. And I knew they stepped aside when any white man encountered them in the street. I had heard someplace that they sent all their money back to China and lived on a few pennies a month.