“Mr. Williams? Mr. Williams, sir?”
“Yes?” Williams answered in a voice that was groggy with sleep.
“It is seven o’clock, Mr. Williams. You left word with the desk that you were to be awakened at seven sharp.”
“All right, all right, I’m awake,” Williams said. “Quit pounding on the door.”
“Yes, sir,” the chagrined voice said from outside Williams’s hotel room.
Trent Williams lived in the hotel. As president of the Bank of Salcedo, Williams could afford to live anywhere he wanted, but he preferred a hotel room to a house or an apartment in a boardinghouse. Life was just simpler living in a hotel.
A slight morning breeze filled the muslin curtains and lifted them out over the wide-planked floor. Getting out of bed, Williams padded barefoot over to the window and looked down on the town, which was just beginning to awaken. The morning’s enterprise had already begun. Water was being heated behind the laundry and boxes were being stacked behind the grocery store. A team of four big horses pulled a fully loaded freight wagon down the main street.
From somewhere, Williams could smell bacon frying and his stomach growled, reminding him that he was hungry. He splashed some water in the basin, washed his face and hands, then got dressed and went downstairs. There were a couple of people in the lobby, one napping in one of the chairs, the other reading a newspaper. Neither of them paid any attention to Williams as he left the hotel.
The morning sun was bright, but not yet hot. The sky was clear and the air was clean, and as he walked toward the cafe he could hear the sounds of commerce: the ring of a blacksmith’s hammer, a carpenter’s saw, and the rattle of working wagons. That was in contrast to last night’s sounds of breaking liquor bottles, out-of-tune pianos, loud laughter, and boisterous conversations. How different the tenor of a town was during the business of morning and the play of evening.
Several of the town’s citizens doffed their hats in respect to Williams as he passed them on the street. Williams nodded in return, but because of his station in the town, he did not doff his own hat.
“Good morning, Mr. Williams,” the owner of the cafe said as Williams stepped inside. Eric Jordan held a folded newspaper out toward Williams. “Your table is ready for you, sir, and the coffee is hot.”
Williams grunted in reply, then took the paper and walked over to his table. Even as he was sitting down, a waiter appeared and poured the coffee for him.
“Your usual, Mr. Williams?” the waiter asked.
“Of course my usual. Bacon, eggs, fried potatoes, biscuits and gravy,” Williams replied. “Have I ever varied my order?”
“No, sir.”
“Then don’t waste my time asking foolish questions,” Williams said. “Just get my breakfast out here.”
“Right away, sir,” the waiter answered.
Half an hour later, Williams was just finishing his breakfast when a man stepped up to his table. The man needed a shave and a bath. His clothes hung in rags from his body.
“You are in my light,” Williams said. “Move.”
Obligingly, the man stepped to one side. “Sorry, Mr. Williams. Didn’t mean no offense,” the man said.
“What do you want, Percy?”
Williams asked the question without so much as looking at the man, concentrating instead on his breakfast.
Percy ran his hand across the stubble of his beard. “Well, sir, Mr. Williams, you said I was to bring you a telegram if it come.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, sir, it’s come,” Percy said. “It come this mornin’.”
Williams stuck his hand out.
“Yes, sir, it come this mornin’ and I got it first thing and brung it over to you,” Percy said, making no effort to hand over the telegram.
Williams grunted, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a quarter. He gave it Percy. “Will this compensate you for your trouble?”
“Yes, sir!” Percy said brightly. “Thank you, Mr. Williams.”
“The telegram?”
“Oh, yes, sir. Here it is,” Percy said, handing the little envelope to Williams. “You want me to hang around so’s you can answer it?”
“No,” Williams replied. “That won’t be necessary.”
“If you need me to run any more errands for you, I’ll be glad to do it, Mr. Williams. Whatever you want, why, you just let me know and I’ll do it for you,” Percy said.
“What I want is for you to go away, Percy,” Williams said, making a motion with his hand. “You smell and you are disturbing my breakfast.”
“Yes, sir,” Percy said, turning toward the door. “But if you need any more errands run, well, you know where I’ll be.”
“Yes, I know where you will be,” Williams replied. “Like as not you’ll be passed out on the floor of Duffy’s saloon.”
