The next morning, Matt waited on top of a hill, looking down on Bates’s campsite. Matt wasn’t on the actual crest of the hill, but was just below the crest, behind a cut that afforded him concealment. He watched as Bates woke up.
The first thing Bates did when he awoke was relieve himself. Then he rolled up his blanket, and was tying it to the back of his saddle when he noticed his hat. Matt could tell the very moment Bates saw the hat because he stopped what he was doing and stared at it for a long moment as if he didn’t know what he was seeing. Then he saw the note and moved quickly to it, jerking the note off and reading it.
Matt could hardly keep from laughing as he saw Bates stiffen, then, gingerly, reach his hand up to his throat. Bates looked at the hat, then let out a yell.
“Ahhhhhhhh!”
The yell echoed back.
“Ahhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhh!”
Bates threw the hat down, then pulled his pistol and looked around.
Matt threw a rock and it hit far down the hill from his position, clattering as it bounced down the rocky hillside.
Bates began firing wildly, the shots echoing back, doubling and redoubling the sound so that Bates had the feeling he was being shot at, even though he was the only one shooting.
Quickly, Bates saddled his horse, then swinging into the saddle, urged the horse into a gallop.
Given Bates’s weight and size, Matt knew that the horse would not be able to sustain a gallop for very long. Because of that, he was almost leisurely as he saddled Spirit, then rode at no more than a trot in pursuit.
Matt Jensen stopped on a ridge just above the road leading into Choulic. He took a swallow from his canteen and watched an approaching stage as it started down from the pass into the town. Then, corking the canteen, he slapped his legs against the side of his horse and sloped down the long ridge. Although he was actually farther away from town than the coach, he would beat it there because the stage would have to stay on the road, working its way down a series of switchbacks, whereas Matt rode down the side of the hill, difficult, but a much more direct route.
No railroad served Choulic, so the only way to reach it was by horse or by stagecoach. And after a few hours on a bumping, rattling, jerking, and dusty stagecoach, the passengers’ first view of Choulic was often a bitter disappointment. Sometimes visitors from the East had to have the town pointed out to them, for from this perspective, and at this distance, the settlement looked little more inviting than another group of the brown hummocks and hills common to this country.
A small sign just on the edge of town read:
CHOULIC, population 294
A growing Community
The weathered board and faded letters of the sign indicated that it had been there for some time, erected when there might actually have been optimism for the town’s future. Choulic was like many towns Matt had encountered over the years, towns that bloomed on the prairies and in the deserts desperately hoping the railroad would come through, staking all on that uncertain future, only to see their futures dashed when the railroad passed them by. Despite the ambitious welcome sign, Matt doubted that there were as many as two hundred residents in the town today, and he was positive that it was no longer a growing community.
The town baked under a sun that was yellow and hot.
Finding the saloon, Matt saw what he was looking for. Tied to the hitching rail out front were nine or ten horses, and one of them he recognized as belonging to Bates.
While Matt was dismounting, the stagecoach he had seen earlier came rolling into town, its driver whistling and shouting at the team. As was often the case, the driver had urged the team into a trot when they approached the edge of town. That way, the coach would roll in rapidly, making a somewhat more dramatic arrival than it would have had the team been walking.
The coach stopped in front of the depot at the far end of the street, and half-a-dozen people crowded around it. Matt turned his attention back to the task at hand, and checking the pistol in his holster, he went into the saloon.
The shadows made the saloon seem cooler inside, but that was illusory. It was nearly as hot inside as out, and without the benefit of a breath of air, it was even more stifling. The customers were sweating in their drinks and wiping their faces with bandannas. Matt looked for Bates, but he didn’t see him.
The bartender was wearing an apron that might have been white at one time, but was now soiled and stained. On the bar in front of him were two abandoned glasses in which a little whiskey remained. One of the glasses had been used to extinguish the last dregs of a rolled cigarette. Picking out the little pieces of paper with his fingers, the bartender poured it, tobacco bits and all, into the other glass, then poured that back into a bottle. Corking the bottle, he put it on the shelf behind the bar. He wiped the glasses out with his stained apron, and set them back among the unused glasses. Seeing Matt step up to the bar, the bartender moved down toward him.
“Whiskey,” Matt said.
The barman reached for the bottle he had just poured the whiskey back into, but Matt pointed to an unopened bottle.
“That one,” he said.
