Wicked Women by Enss Chris

Author:Enss, Chris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TwoDot
Published: 2015-02-20T05:00:00+00:00

Kate Horony

The Hungarian Madam

“It’s laughable how some people will talk. I laugh at how often I turn up dead and buried.”

Big Nose Kate, 1883

Kate Horony pulled a crystal stopper out of a glass container filled with brandy and poured herself a drink. The svelte, well-dressed nineteen-year-old took a big gulp, then poured herself another. She slammed the second brandy back before training the derringer in her right hand on a man’s body 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 Blance Tribolet was slumped over 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 added, blinking away a tear. Kate poured another drink and 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 threw back another drink before pocketing her gun and leaving the room.

Blance Tribolet was the first madam for whom Kate Horony, better known as Big Nose Kate, had ever worked. 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 benefactor was one of many defining moments in the life of one of the West’s most notorious prostitutes.

She was born on November 7, 1850, in Budapest, Hungary, and named Mary Katherine Horony. Orphaned at the age of fifteen, Kate, along with her four siblings, went to live with their guardian, Otto Schmidt, in Davenport, Ohio. Schmidt was a farmer who instantly put the Horony children to work on his property. He was a strict taskmaster who physically abused the Horonys and attempted to rape Kate. She managed to escape his attack, hitting him in the head with an ax handle and rendering him unconscious. Fearing for her life, Kate ran away. She ended up at the bank of the Mississippi with no money and, with the exception of her curvaceous figure and sharp mind, no prospects.

The river docks were crowded with boat crews, fur trappers, and gamblers, all of whom would take advantage of Kate if given the chance. She managed to avoid their pervasive come-ons and snuck aboard the steamship Ulysses. “Burlington” Fisher, the vessel’s captain, found the teenager and questioned her about why she was there.

The trapped orphan made up numerous stories about her situation before confessing the death of her parents. She told the captain that she was trying to get to a nun’s convent in St.

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