A bear of a man sat at a table. Even sitting down he was huge. Little piggy eyes. Mean eyes. Bully was invisibly stamped all over him. His face looked remarkably like a hog.
“You talking to me, Pig-Face?” Smoke asked.
Big Pig stood up and held open his coat. He was not wearing a gun. Smoke opened his jacket to show that he was not armed.
Beans stepped to one side.
“I think I’ll tear your head off,” Big Pig snorted.
Smoke leaned against the bar. “Why?”
The question seemed to confuse the bully. Which came as no surprise to Smoke. Most bullies could not be classified as being anywhere close to mental giants.
“For fun!” Big Pig said.
Then he charged Smoke, both big hands balled into fists that looked like hams. Smoke stepped to one side just at the last possible split second and Big Pig crashed into the bar. His bulk and momentum tore the rickety bar in half and sent Big Pig hurling against the counter. Whiskey bottles and beer mugs and shot glasses were splintered from the impact. The stench of raw whiskey and strong beer filled the smoky barroom.
Hollering obscenities and roaring like a grizzly with a sore paw, Big Pig lumbered and stumbled to his feet and swung a big fist that would’ve busted Smoke’s head wide open had it landed.
Smoke ducked under the punch and sidestepped. The force of Big Pig’s forward motion sent him staggering and slipping across the floor. Smoke picked up a chair and just as Big Pig turned around, Smoke splintered the wooden chair across his teeth.
Big Pig’s boots flew out from under him and he went crashing to the floor, blood spurting from smashed lips and cuts on his face. But Smoke saw that Pig was a hard man to keep down. Getting to his feet a second time, Pig came at a rush, wide open. Smoke had already figured out that the man was no skilled slugger, relying on his enormous strength and his ability to take punches that would have felled a normal man.
Smoke hit him flush on the beak with a straight-from-the-shoulder right. The nose busted and the blood flew. Big Pig snorted away the pain and blood and backhanded Smoke, knocking him against a wall. Smoke’s mouth filled with the copper taste of blood.
Yelling, falsely sensing that victory was his, Pig charged again. Smoke dropped to his knees and drove his right fist straight up into the V of Big Pig’s legs.
Pig howled in agony and dropped to the floor, both hands cupping his injured parts. Still on his knees, Smoke hit the man on the side of the jaw with everything he could put into the punch. This time, Big Pig toppled over, down, but still a hell of a long way from being out.
Spitting out blood, Smoke got to his feet and backed up, catching his breath, readying himself for the next round that he knew was coming.
Big Pig crawled to his feet, glaring at Smoke. But his eyes were filled with doubt. This had never happened to him. He had never lost a fight; not in his entire life.
Smoke suddenly jumped at the man, hitting him with both fists, further pulping the man’s lips and flattening his snout.
Pig swung and Smoke grabbed the thick wrist with both hands and turned and slung the man, spinning Big Pig across the room. Pig crashed into the wall and went right through it, sailing across the warped boardwalk and landing in a horse trough.
Smoke stepped through the splintered hole in the wall and walked to the trough. He grabbed Big Pig’s head and forced it down into the water, holding him there. Just as it appeared the man would drown, Smoke pulled the head out, pounded it with his fists, then grabbed the man by his hair and once more forced the head under water.
Finally, Big Pig’s struggling ceased. Smoke wearily hauled him out of the water and left him draped half in, half out of the trough. Big Pig was breathing, but that was about all.
Smoke sat down on the edge of the boardwalk and tried to catch his breath.
The boardwalk gradually filled with people, all of them staring in awe at Smoke. One man said, “Mister, I don’t know who you are, but I’d have bet my spread that you wouldn’t have lasted a minute against old Ring, let alone whip him.”
Smoke rubbed his aching leg. “I’d hate to have to do it again. ”
Beans squatted down beside Smoke. When he spoke his voice was low. “Kirby, I don’t know who you really are, but I shore don’t never want to make you mad.”
Smoke looked at him. “Hell, I’m not angry!” He pointed to the man called Ring. “He’s the one who wanted to fight, not me.”
“Lord, have mercy!” Beans said. “All this and you wasn’t even mad.”
Ring groaned and heaved himself out of the horse trough.
Smoke picked up a broken two-by-four and walked over to where Ring lay on the soaked ground. “Mister Ring, I want your attention for a moment. If you have any thoughts at all about getting up off that ground and having a go at me, I’m going to bust your head wide open with this two-by-four. You understand all that?”
Ring rolled over onto his back and grinned up at Smoke. One eye was swollen shut and his nose and lips were a mess. He held up a hand. “Hows ’bout you and me bein’ friends. I shore don’t want you for an enemy!”
Three
The three of them pulled out the next morning, Ring riding the biggest mule Smoke had ever seen.
“Satan’s his name,” Ring explained. “Man was going to kill him till I come along. I swapped him a good horse and a gun for him. One thing, boys: don’t never get behind him if you vegot a hostile thought. He’ll sense it and kick you clear into Canada.”
