Cowboy

It was a hard life on the trail and the cowboy looked hardened to it.  As he swung open the half doors marking the transition from the stoop to the bar a few heads turned, noting his single six-gun and his size.

Despite the extra height in the doorway the man had to crouch slightly to enter.  His clothes were dusty and torn slightly, a light brown from the endless hours in the saddle.  He drew himself up to his full height as he approached the bar.  The barman was polishing a glass, inevitably, and dressed in the typical waistcoat and bar apron, hair pomaded and slicked with a single curl to the left of his forehead.

The big cowboy leaned on the bar-rail and hearing a faint creak seamlessly transferred his hands to be flat on the polished bar top.  He looked down from his nearly seven feet and removed his hat, which he let fall beside him at his feet with a small thud and puff of dust.

“I’d like some beer, Sir.”  The barman smiled, it looked unnatural on his face, like a man without much to smile about, but willing to practice.

“Ain’t no-one called me Sir in a long time.  Once I’ve seen the colour of your money you can call me Jeb.”  The big cowboy fished in his pocket for some change and finding it, placed it carefully on the counter and sorted out the silver dollars, nickels and dimes.  The barman nodded and drew a long pint of amber fluid into a glass.

“This here’s a nickel,” he said, but then reached for a shot glass and a whiskey bottle and poured into it and exact measure, “and this here’s on the house, stranger.”

“Name’s Bill.”  Said the big man, taking a draught.  He eyed the shot glass, and the barman looked uncertainly at it, and then Bill.

“That ok, Bill?”

The big man took another draught.

“That’s mighty fine Jeb, and I don’t wanna snatch it up and take it down without another thought, iffn that makes any sense to you.”  Jeb looked at him through narrowed eyes and began polishing another glass.

“Seems you a thinker for someone round these parts.”  Bill looked at him at length before replying.

“I can’t rightly speak to that, Sir.  Jeb.”  He took another draught of the beer.  “I ain’t been round here and I don’t know these people, so I wouldn’t want to speak out o’ turn.”  He took up the shot glass and swallowed the contents in one gulp.  “I know that’s some mighty fine whiskey you got there, Jeb, and I think I’d like another shot for sippin’.”

“You good fer a tab?” Bill nodded, and the barman poured another shot.

There was a commotion from outside and someone burst into the bar saying loudly,

“There’s a giant hoss outside and git this, it’s got a side saddle on it, fer ladies; who the hell are you?” The loudmouthed speaker came to stop in the middle of the bar floor.  Bill could get a look at him and his cohorts, who followed him into the space.  The loudmouth was average size, five feet six, maybe a little taller, and his friend were an inch or two taller than that.  The had the musculature of people stuffed into suits against their will, but their leader was finely tailored and fitted, his guns in a highly polished belt, and dangerously, already cocked.

“Man pays his way in my bar, Carson, so I don’t want no trouble.”  Said Jeb, calmly, but he put a stout stick pointedly on the bar.

“What kind of man uses a saddle fer ladies, where’s your dress boy?”

“I ain’t tellin’ you again, Carson.”

“Come on, Jeb, you ain’t never hit me with that stick and you ain’t never gonna.”

“Always a first time.”  One of the galoots clicked the hammer back on a gun.  Bill spoke up.

“I’ll tell you why I use it if you’ll call off your buddies and let me buy you a drink, Sir.”  He said.

“What makes you think I want drink with some sorta, I ain’t even got a word for yuh.”

Bill stooped down and picked up his hat.

“I’ll be seeing you, barkeep.”  And, placing some more money on the counter, he took a step forward, but the loudmouth placed a hand on his chest.

“You ain’t goin’ nowhere until we had a little fun, Son.”  Bill looked down at the hand, his hat shielding his face.

“You might want to consider taking your hand off me, Sir.”

“Or whut?

Bill’s grip came without warning, and it seemed gentle, occupying only tip of one finger, but it seemed to Jeb, standing at the bar, as if Bill had all the control in the world.

“I am a patient man,” said Bill, holding the just the tip; Carson was turning white with pain, and could not speak.  “I am, so I’m going to wait patiently while your friends empty their weapons, on the floor.”

“What makes you think we’re going to do that?” They said; Bill adjusted his grip, and suddenly Carson could speak.

“Do it, you assholes!” He shrieked.  They complied, and Bill swept their guns out of the way.

“Now I’m gonna let go of you and you’re gonna listen to what I have to say, you got me?”

“You can… aaaaaargh!”

“I don’t want any more trouble, but I don’t like to repeat myself; I’m gonna give you a freebie and then we’re gonna start paying a price for disturbing the good and peaceful people o’ Jeb’s Bar, ok?”

“OK, Ok just let go!” The good and peaceful people of Jeb’s Bar, as it was from then on known, hadn’t moved from their seats, but they were paying attention to the show.  Bill let go.

“I am gonna kick your a… hey that don’t hurt none at all.”  Carson bent his finger back and forth.  “How do’you do that?”

“I been travelled a great deal and met some people.  They taught me things.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Whut things?”

There was a noise from the back of the bar, near the little stage, a chair tipping over and the sound of coughing, followed by a scratchy voice.

“Goldarn it Carson, you kicked my ass loads of times and you ain’t never bin curious once ‘bout anything I gotta say.  What the hell is going on?”

“I ain’t kicking your ass now, am I? Why don’t you sit down and have another drink?” And he learned around Bill and waggled his eyebrows at the barman; but Jeb wasn’t just taking an instruction, he asked,

“You payin’?” Carson looked at him hard.

“Sure, I’m payin’ I ain’t cheap.”  And while Carson turned his attention back to Bill, Jeb poured another beer for the old timer.  Carson looked at Bill closely.

“You ain’t stupid, why didn’t you cover that damn thing with a blanket?” he said.  His men stood behind uncertainly, scuffing their feet.  “Goddamn it, we ain’t fightin’ now, git yourselfs a beer or git out and see to the horses.”  They left.

Bill turned and went to the bar.  “I’d like a beer and a chaser for me and one for my new associate here, and two beers for those men please, Jeb.”

“Sure thing Bill.  I’ll take the beers right out.”  Bill dropped his hat on the floor again.  Now that Carson could see him without the fog of anger and bile, he could see that the tall man was greying slightly and had a thick, full moustache, overgrown like his hair.  His eyes seemed to smile even when he wasn’t trying and there was an aura of peace on him as if there was nothing that could possibly happen to him.

“I been all around the world, Carson,” said Bill, taking a long gulp of the beer.  “I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe, met people who thought I was a giant, sent from the gods; met others thought I was the devil hisself.”

“I’m not sure what to make o’ you myself right now.”

“I’m just a man.”

“I ain’t never been beat by ‘just a man’ before.”

“I bet you ain’t ever been beat.”

“Nossir.”  A number of the patrons gaped.  “I thought if I was ever beat, I’d be dead.”

“Ain’t worth a man’s life for a little ridicule.”

“That ain’t how I’ve lived, Sir.  Any man ridicule me, he a dead man.”  Bill nodded at Jeb, who refilled the glasses.

“You feel bad about that?” Carson looked up and the big man and found, to his own ashamed surprise that he couldn’t see clearly.  There was a moment of confusion, and then he realized that he had a tear in his eye.  “What the hell you done to me?”

“To answer your blanket question, damn hoss don’t like it and he don’t like me, so he gits it off.”

There was a pause, and Carson tried to keep his face straight, but then a titter from their little audience sounded, and Carson burst out laughing as if a great river had burst. He laughed as if he’d never laughed in his life.  He laughed and cried and put his head down on the bar and pounded with his hand, and laughed and laughed and laughed.

It was a flood, and the people gathered up around him and Bill, and hoisted them aloft and took them outside and paraded around with beer and laughter until sunset.  Everyone was infected with it, as if spreading from person to person like a contagion.  The citizens of the town came out to see what was going on, the ladies and gentlemen, the bakers and butchers and general store clerks, the sheriff and the priest and the barber.

The next day, in an anonymous town in the west, an old priest took a terrible confession from a rabble-rouser and gunman and rapist and torturer; and the priest remembered the joy of the previous day, and laid a great penance on this member of his flock, greater than any he had laid on any man, because he knew that he could bear it.

And that penitent walked from the church, soul stained, but clearing.  Now a man of the cloth, at least in name, he went to the Sherriff’s office and laid aside his gun, and told the Sherriff what he had done, and of the penance laid upon him.

“I ain’t got no punishment to fit your crimes, Son, and I think you’ll be dead in a week; but if that old priest got the power to make you do this, then I ain’t getting’ in your way.  Go in peace.”

And the penitent left the town a few days later, having made a kind of peace with all the people there, by admitting and apologizing for everything.  It would never be enough in the West, a life was the price for anything, but this man had God, or something similar inside him, and he seemed protected.

While that took a few days, Bill left the next, to much ado by the inhabitants, but he insisted that he had places to go, places to be.  Jeb asked him one final question before the man rode away on the giant horse, with the giant saddle and its complicated binds.

“You coulda got that horse in the stable, big as he is, Bill.  Why didn’t ya?” Bill looked him, a clear steady gaze.

“I coulda.  I was thirsty.”

“You didn’t seem that thirsty, Bill.”

“I didn’t say what I was thirsty for, Jeb.”  Jeb thought about this.

“We gonna see you again, Bill?”

“If I make it right around again.”

“Right around what, Bill?” Asked Jeb, not following.

“The world, Jeb.”

“Oh.”  He thought again and brought something out of a satchel.  “Here, this is for you.  It’s the good stuff, sippin’ whisky like you like.”

“Keep it.  Give a shot to any soul got the bully in ‘im.  Tell him the stranger bought it for him.”

“No name?”

“Lotta men named Bill round these parts, best leave it.”  Bill mounted up and the horse looked back at him as his weight settled and the pack settled beside him.

“Happy trails, Bill.”

“Thanks for your hospitality, Jeb.”  And with this, he rode out on the main street, and Jeb watched him until he was a speck on the horizon.