Savagery of The Mountain Man

taking a part-time job for a couple of days or so just to earn enough money to keep going. Over the last month he had worked in a livery, had loaded and unloaded freight wagons, and had even stood in for a week as a bartender. At one ranch, he had spent a day breaking horses, getting five dollars for each horse he broke. Then, in the little town of Jasper, Colorado, he built on an extra room for a widow who earned her keep by making pies. The widow, whose name was Diane, suggested, both by word and action, that if Pearlie wanted to stay on, she would more than welcome his company. But Pearlie declined the offer as tactfully as he could.

“That’s all right, cowboy,” Diane, who was no more than a year or two older than Pearlie, replied. “If you ever get tired of seeing what’s just over the next hill, you can always come back.”

As Pearlie rode off, he wondered if he made a mistake in not taking up the widow’s offer. It wasn’t as if he would have been cheating on Lucy, and the diversion might have helped in the healing process. But even as he considered that, he knew that it would not have been the right thing to do—not for him, and not for Diane.

After another week of riding, he happened across the little town of Los Brazos, which lay flyblown and dying as it baked in the hot New Mexico sun. The first building he passed was a railroad depot, though there was no railroad serving the town. The age and condition of the depot indicated that it was the past expression of a misplaced optimism—rather than the sign of something to come.

Feeling the need of a beer to cut the trail dust, Pearlie dismounted in front of the Casa de la Suerte Cantina, which was the only saloon in the small town. Instead of the batwing doors with which Pearlie was more familiar, long strips of rawhide, upon which several wooden beads had been strung, hung down to cover the entrance. The beads clacked as he pushed his way through to the inside.

The inside was more pleasant than the outside had promised, with a chandelier and a long, polished bar. The bartender was Mexican, and he stood at the far end of the bar, leaning back against the wall with his arms folded across his chest and a small piece of rawhide dangling from his lips. Seeing Pearlie come in, he reached up, took the rawhide from his mouth, then walked down to stand in front of Pearlie.

“Tequila, Senor?” he asked.

“Beer.”

“Beer, si.” The bartender drew a mug, then set it in front of Pearlie. Pearlie blew the foam off, then took a deep drink for thirst. The next swallow was to enjoy the taste.

“Hey!” a loud angry voice yelled. “How come you serve that stranger and you don’t serve me?”

“Because, Senor Dempster, already, you are drunk I think,” the bartender replied. “And the more borracho—the drunker you get, the meaner you get. Besides, you lied to me when you said you didn’t have to work today. Senor Ben had to make the run to Chama without you.”

“Since when is it any of your business whether or not I go to work?” the belligerent customer replied.

“It is none of my business if you do not go to work. But it is my business if I make Senor Montgomery enfadado. This is his place, and he could fire me.”

“Ha! He ain’t goin’ to fire you for sellin’ me another drink. Hell, that’s what saloons do, ain’t it? Sell drinks to their customers?”

“Dempster, why don’t you settle down?” one of the other saloon patrons said. “You been a burr under ever’body’s saddle ever since you come in here.”

Pearlie continued to stand there with his back to the bar, watching the exchange as he drank his beer.

“What the hell are you lookin’ at, you pie-faced weasel?” Dempster said to Pearlie.

Pearlie finished his beer before he replied.

“Mister, don’t try to draw me into all this. I just stopped in for a beer.”

“Yeah? Well, you finished it, so get.”

“Senor Dempster, to my customers like that, you no can talk,” the bartender said.

“I’ll talk to anyone any damn way I want,” Dempster replied belligerently.

“Dempster!” a new voice called out angrily.

Turning toward the door of the saloon, Pearlie saw a gray-haired, gray-bearded man, short, stocky, and angry.

“What do you want?”

“Where were you when the stage left this morning?” the gray-haired man asked.

“There didn’t nobody come to wake me up. If someone had come to wake me up in time, I wouldn’t have missed the stage.”

“It ain’t nobody else’s job to wake you up in the mornin’,” the gray-haired man said. “If you hadn’t been hungover, you would’ve been able to wake yourself up. And look at you. You’re drunk now.”

“Come on, Ben, I ain’t that drunk. I’ll be at work tomorrow mornin’, just you wait and see.”

“No, you won’t be there tomorrow or any other day. You’re fired.”

“You can’t fire me. You’re just a stagecoach driver.”

“I didn’t fire you, I’m just tellin’ you you’re fired. Mr. Montgomery is the one who fired you,” Ben said.

“Yeah? Well, who are you goin’ to get to ride shotgun with you?”

“We’ll find somebody before the stage leaves,” Ben said.

“You’re the one that talked him into firin’ me, aren’t you?”

“What if I am? You’re supposed to be riding shotgun guard with me. You think I want a drunk sitting beside me?”