jail.
On the third morning of their watch, they heard through the grapevine
that a U. S. marshal named Cooper had been killed. Someone had shot
him and thrown him off a train. A wire had been sent to the sheriff in
Red Arrow telling him to be on the lookout for any suspicious
characters. He relayed the information to the owner of the saloon, who
told it to everyone who came into his bar for a drink.
The four men felt they had cause for celebration. They sat together in
the corner and shared a bottle of Rabbit Rye among them.
Robertson, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, wasn't in a festive mood.
'What's taking those women so long to get here? According to the
boss's calculations, they should have gotten off the train yesterday or
the day before.' He had only just made the remarks when an old coot,
with long straggly hair and a smell about him as rank as a skunk's
spray, came walking into the saloon.
He strutted up to the bar and draped himself across the counter. 'Give
me a drink, Harley. I just seen something real special, and I'll tell
you about it after I wet my whistle.' The bartender, a big man with
beefy arms and missing front teeth no one ever noticed because he never
smiled, sauntered over to his customer and squinted at him.
'You got money today, Gus? ' In answer, the misshapen, scrawny man
slammed a coin down on the countertop. 'I sure do, ' he boasted. 'I
got a lot of money today, almost three whole dollars.'
'Where'd you get it? ' Harley asked as he poured Gus a watered-down
drink of whiskey.
'Never you mind, ' Gus answered. 'Do you want to hear what I seen or
not? ' 'I'm listening.'
'I think maybe we're getting us some new whores, and the two I saw were
real perty and fresh looking. I seen them both, and I can't make up my
mind which one I want to diddle with first. Maybe I'll do them
both.'
'Are you drunk? ' Harley asked.
'No, I ain't drunk yet, but I plan to get that way as soon as you'll
pour me another drink. I seen what I seen, ' he insisted. 'Two men
were with them, ' he added before taking a long gulp. In his greed to
quench his insatiable thirst, he spilled liquor down the sides of his
face and quickly tried to catch the drops with the back of his hands
and then licked them dry.
