The street is full of life and his arrival goes unnoticed. There is nothing scared about this town. There is clearly no watch kept on the road. They have no fear of gangs or outlaws. A town smug in its wealth and security.
Three children are teasing a dog that barks excitedly, running circles around them. A woman, their mother perhaps, stands in the shade by the hitching rail watching them. A wagon is unloading on the other side of the street, the shouts of the men carrying the sacks and barrels competing with the noise of the dog as it plays.
He swings down off his horse as he approaches the children, the horse's ears twitching in alarm at the sight of the excitable dog. He walks the horses up the street, unconsciously dropping a hand to his belt to check that his Colt is still sat safely in its holster. This isn't what he had expected to see in the town. The unexpected makes him nervous. This looks as though it might be the very sort of town that he had been hoping to find. But that makes it seem too good to be true, like a mirage or an elaborate trap.
He touches his hat to greet the woman who watches the children. She returns the gesture with a slight nod and an unguarded smile. He feels himself relax a little.
He loops the reins of the horses over the hitching rail outside a grand brick building that bears the word 'Hotel' painted across the front, and a sign swinging in the gentle breeze that reads 'La Rosa'. It looks a promising start. Some ladies in fine dresses and a gentleman in a suit are drinking coffee in the lounge. A smart looking establishment that's certain to have a comfortable room, if a rather expensive one. And they seem to have some wealthy clientele, and there's nothing quite so useful as making wealthy friends in a new town.
But he's conscious that he hasn't slept in a bed for a little while and guesses that he probably doesn't look like the kind of man that would be able to afford a room at La Rosa unless he'd robbed a bank or blown up someone's house for money. He decides to return later and try to rent a room when he has cleaned up a bit. No doubt there will be somewhere he can get a shave. That will make all the difference.
Up the busy street, dodging the hooves of riders and the wheels of wagons, he passes the saloon. It seems quiet but it isn't yet quite noon. The sheriff is sat outside the jail, swinging on a rocker and chewing furiously. Logan imagines that the sheriff is weighing him up. He is a man from out of town, any sheriff worth his star would be weighing him up.
Beyond the jail stands the office of the Humby Mining Corporation. So this is where the town's wealth comes from. There is clearly some mining going on hereabouts that is making someone a lot of money. The company office dominates that end of the street, looking wealthier than the bank and more solid than the jailhouse.
A small wooden building bears the word 'Barber' painted on the glass and seems to be doing a brisk trade. He decides that this looks like just the place to smarten up.
'Good Morning sir, do take a seat.' The barber quickly wipes a towel over the newly vacated chair and gestures for Logan to sit.
'I think this gentleman was here before me,' said Logan, pointing out the grey-haired man in a suit sat reading a newspaper near the window.
'Ah yes, he was here before you, but if you don't mind my saying so sir, you seem rather more in need of a shave than he does. And Mr. Keyes there has only come in to read my newspaper and make conversation while he waits for his beard to grow again.'
Mr. Keyes chuckles quietly from behind his newspaper. Logan shrugs and sits down.
'So, let me see, you'd be new in town then.'
Logan opens his mouth ready to answer, but the barber interrupts him before he can speak.
'No, don't tell me what you're here for or where you're from, that takes all the fun out of it, you can just tell me whether I'm right or wrong.' The barber busies himself with tucking towels round Logan's neck.
'You're right so far, in that I'm new in town.' He smiles. 'Do you play this game with all the new men in town?'
'Oh, I try, not all of them are so cheerful as you though. There are quite a few who barely utter a word the whole time they're here.'
'Do you get many? New people passing through I mean.' The barber is always your best source of information in a new town. He is determined to find out as much as possible about what to expect in Walkers Creek.
'Oh yes, quite a few. Probably one or two in here every day wouldn't you say Mr. Keyes?'
'Indeed.'
'Now, back to you. Let's see, the state of your beard I'd say you've been traveling a few days. The state of your hat though.' The barber shakes his head and tuts. 'I'd say you've been on the road for months.'
'Nope,' says Mr. Keyes. 'You have it wrong. He's a miner. He's been out working a claim not riding the road. You don't get a hat as battered as that by just riding.'
'Ah, but you didn't notice his boots when he came in, I'd swear they've seen at least as much riding as walking.'
There is a pause as they both wait to find out if they're right but Logan is unable to speak without getting a mouthful of soap.
'You're both right,' he says at last, sputtering the soap from his lips as the barber sets the brush back down by the basin.
'How?'
'Now, now, your rules said I was only to tell you if you were right or wrong.' He laughs as the barber's face knots up like schoolboy who's been asked some impossible arithmetic.
'You can't go setting a riddle like that. That's enough to make a man's head explode. Surely you've either been riding the road or digging a hole. Which is it?'
'Since you're about to hold that razor to my throat, I'll tell you: I was mining, prospecting for gold in the desert. I broke open a pretty decent claim that showed some promise and decided that I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in that particular hole, so I sold it for a tidy sum and headed West over the mountains. So here I am, with all my prospecting tools on the back of a pack horse, after a couple of months on the road, a traveler and a miner all at once. You're both right.'
The barber laughs so hard at the simple answer to the riddle that Logan fears for his chances of a steady- handed shave.
'Of course there's not much call for prospecting round here,' says Mr. Keyes from behind his newspaper.
'Really?'
'Oh, Mr. Humby's mining operation has pretty much everything sewn up. Plenty of work available in the mines if that's what you're after, but you won't be doing much prospecting.'
'I take it they've found gold then?'
'So they say. Mr. Humby's pretty wealthy on it. He owns most of Walkers Creek.'
'And he's the mayor,' says the barber.
He thinks for a moment while he towels off the remains of the soap.
'So this Mayor Humby, is he a nice man?'
Keyes puts down his paper and looks at the barber but neither say anything.
'I ask, because Walkers Creek seems like a really nice town. You don't see so many towns where people smile at you when you say hello even though they don't know you, where most of the men don't carry sidearms and where a man from out of town can just ride up the street without so much as a sideways glance. It seems like a nice town, so I figure the guy who owns it must be a nice guy, right?'
Keyes shrugs and picks up his paper again. The barber fusses over folding an already folded towel. Neither says anything.
This doesn't seem like a profitable line of enquiry. It seems Mr. Humby, far from being held in high regard, is someone they feel threatened by. Threatened to the extent of not wanting to talk about him.
'So, this lovely town, with its wealthy mine. All that gold and money about. I'd have thought you'd have attracted every outlaw in the county like bees to honey. Isn't this a dangerous place to live?'
'I wouldn't say that Walkers Creek is completely without violence or crime Mr. errm, Mr...'
'Tanner, Logan Tanner.'
'It's not completely without crime Mr. Tanner, why just yesterday someone not two miles from here had his house dynamited, but people seem to like it here and plenty of people who came just passing through have ended up staying. You might just find that you like it here too.'
'So nobody ever tried to rob the bank?'
