Playfully, Cletus knocked the hat off Billy and ran his hand through his hair. “Billy, if I didn’t know you was only twenty-one, I would swear you was seventy years old.”
“Gentlemen, please, some of us are trying to sleep,” one of the passengers said. The passenger had white hair and a white beard.
“If I was you, mister, I wouldn’t be worryin’ none about sleepin’,” Cletus said. “Old as you are, you’ll be gettin’ plenty of sleep before too much longer.” Cletus laughed, then poked the other two. “You get that?” he asked. “I said this old codger will be gettin’ plenty of sleep before too much longer. That’s ’cause he’ll be dead,” Cletus added. Then he laughed again.
“We got it,” Billy said. “Come on, let’s find a seat.”
The engineer blew the whistle, and the train jerked forward. When it did so, Cletus, who was obviously the drunkest of the three, fell against a young woman.
“Pardon me, miss,” Cletus said. As he got up, he let his hands wander across her body, taking the time to squeeze one of her breasts.
“Oh!” the young woman gasped.
“Sorry,” Cletus said. “I didn’t mean to squeeze your tittie there. I was just tryin’ to stand up, is all.” Cletus giggled, and the young woman flushed red with embarrassment.
As Cletus stood up, he saw Falcon staring disapprovingly at him.
“What are you lookin’ at?” he asked.
Falcon shook his head. “I’m not really sure,” he said. “But if I were to guess, I’d say I was lookin’ at a pile of cow manure.”
“Mister! Do you know who you are talkin’ to?” Cletus asked, his eyes flashing with anger.
“I suppose I’m talking to that pile of cow manure,” Falcon answered, his calm, low-key voice contrasting with Cletus’s increasing hysteria.
“By God, I’m going to teach you a lesson,” Cletus shouted. He reached for his gun, only to discover that the holster was empty.
“What the hell! Where’s my gun?” he shouted.
“I have it,” Billy said.
“What the hell are you doing with it?”
“I’m trying to keep you from being killed,” Billy said. “Now get back here.”
Cletus pointed at Billy. “Look, you may be my brother, but I don’t let nobody order me around, do you understand? Nobody.”
Billy walked over to the open window of the train, and stuck his hand through, holding Cletus’s gun just above the ground that was moving swiftly beneath.
“Get over here and sit down, or say good-bye to your gun,” Billy ordered.
Cletus turned to Falcon. “Mister, I don’t know who you are,” he said. “But this here ain’t over between us.”
“Cletus?” Billy called again.
Grumbling, Cletus returned to the end of the car, then sat down in the seat beside Ray, who was already asleep. Within moments, Cletus was also in alcohol induced slumber. Billy waited until both brothers were snoring before he got up. He stopped at the seat of the woman Cletus had groped.
“Miss, I’m sorry about my brother. He don’t really mean nothin’, he’s just drunk,” Billy said.
The young woman nodded, but said nothing. Billy then walked back to Falcon. “Mister, I hope you don’t hold no grudges,” he said.
“Your brother has a mean streak about him,” Falcon said.
“Yes, sir, he does,” Billy said. “I try and look out for him, but I can’t always be there.”
“Why do you even try?”
“Because he’s my brother,” Billy said, as if that explained everything.
By now, the train was fully under way and the excitement was forgotten as nearly everyone on the car went back to sleep.
About an hour later, Falcon walked to the water barrel at the front of the car. As he did so, he passed the three brothers. Cletus and Ray were asleep, or passed out, in the back-facing seat. Billy, who was sitting across from them in the front-facing seat, was awake and looking through the window at the passing desert. Falcon took down a tin cup and held it under the spigot, then filled the cup with water.
“Mister?” Billy called quietly.
Falcon drank the water before he replied.
“Yes.”
“I want to apologize again for my two brothers. They ain’t like this all the time. They just got drunk back there in Pueblo, that’s all.”
“Looks to me like you have your hands full just keeping up with them,” Falcon said.
“Yes, sir, I reckon I do. But they’re sleepin’ it off now. Chances are, when they wake up, there won’t neither one of them even remember seein’ you.”
