Will nodded. “Sure. It can’t be no worse than the swill I downed at the saloon.”
The barber waddled into the other room and returned in a few moments with a tumbler of amber liquid. He handed the glass to Will and said, “Now I’ll see to heating the water.”
Will sniffed at the glass. It had the scent of fresh-cut hickory wood and brown sugar. He took a cautious sip. It was the best booze he’d ever tasted. While the big man wrestled wood into his stove and placed buckets of water on the cooking surface, Will settled back in the chair, sipping and putting together what he’d learned at the saloon. It wasn’t long until he heard water churning and boiling. The barber returned with a white sheet—and another tumbler of brandy, which Will accepted without argument. “I’ll shave you first, and then you can luxuriate in your bath in the next room.” He spread the sheet over Will’s lap and around his neck, and stirred a mug of soap into a creamy, clean-smelling froth, which he spread with a hog’s-hair brush over Will’s neck and face. His straight razor moved easily, slowly, not tugging at whiskers. In a matter of a few minutes, Will’s face was as pink and smooth as a young virgin’s ass.
“Bath’s ready,” the barber said, handing Will the promised cigar, already lit and burning evenly and aromatically, and his glass of brandy. Will stood next to the tub, stripped, and sank his body into the still-steaming water. The barber handed him a long-handled scrub brush and a chunk of lye soap and then stepped out to the other room. Will soaked, drank brandy, smoked his cigar, and watched the water he was in change color from a sparkling clear to a brownish hue as sweat and dirt lifted away from his body.
The cathouse was totally silent, as was the town of Lord’s Rest. Will’s mind drifted like the smoke from the cigar clenched lightly between his teeth. Coulda been different—a lot different, he thought. Maybe me an’ Hiram would be cattle barons, or could be I’d have a wife an’ a passel of kids an’ so much prime land somewhere it’d take a good man on a strong horse a week to ride around it. I’d set on the front porch at dusk with a glass of bourbon an’ watch my horses out on pasture an’ listen to my kids rippin’ ’round after each other. I’d have a little gut from eatin’ so good an’ so often, an’ my neighbors would wave—Ahhh, bullshit.
That wasn’t me. The first Colt .45 I bought—with its taped-up grips an’ rusted finish an’ a trigger that had to be yanked rather than eased—changed my whole life. That gun gave me the power I needed to do anything I wanted, get anything I wanted. Hell, the first mercantile I robbed, I wasn’t but thirteen years old an’ nervous as a whore in church, an’ my voice squeaked when I demanded the money. He chuckled out loud. Made off with four dollars an’ fifteen cents, but it was a start, an’ it felt better than anything had ever felt before.
First man I drew against was a drunken cowpuncher who’d been slappin’ me ’round in a gin mill for no reason. I took it for a bit an’ then faced him. I had two rounds in his chest ’fore he was able to fumble his pistol outta his holster.
I never cared for killin’, but I’ve done ’nuff of it. Thing is, I never killed a man who didn’t need killin’. Now, this One Dog . . .
That thought raised him from his languor. He put the brush and soap to good use and then stepped out of the foul water and dried off with a rough towel. He dressed quickly, tugged his boots on, and went out front. The barber was sucking at his pipe, smiling. “What do I owe you?” Will asked.
“A dollar’ll do her.”
Will gave him two. “Anyplace in town I can get a room for a couple nights an’ a decent meal?”
“Hell, boy,” the barber grinned, “this place was a cathouse. I got more damn rooms’n a ol’ whore has crabs. Cost you a dollar a night. Only real grub in town is the saloon on the other side of the street, but it isn’t a half-bad feed. That ‘Eat Drink’ sign on the other gin mill don’t mean a thing ’cept the sign was there when the owner bought the joint.”
Will handed over another pair of dollars. “I’ll be back later,” he said.
The meal at the saloon wasn’t half bad: the steak was large and thick and cooked so that thin blood ran from its middle. Will sat at his table, drank a pot of coffee, and then started on beer. It was good beer—not cold, but not warm, either. He rolled smokes until his fingers no longer obeyed and he scattered perfectly good Bull Durham all over his table, put a bunch of money next to his empty plate, and weaved back to the cathouse. He slept the rest of the day away as well as the full night.
In the morning he ate a half dozen fried eggs and most of a pound of bacon, along with a helping of thin-cut fried potatoes and several cups of coffee. He walked down the street and checked on Slick, who snorted at him and then dropped his muzzle back into a nice serving of crimped oats and molasses.
Will spent the rest of the day sitting in the shade of the saloon’s overhang, went inside at late dusk, drank too much, and crossed the street to his room. He flopped onto the bed fully dressed except for his hat, which he tossed toward the door, and slept deeply and dreamlessly for the night.
The screams he heard at first light tried to work themselves into a dream, but failed. Will sat up as the howls of pain from the street brought him to full wakefulness. The window of his room no doubt hadn’t been cleaned for years, but it was possible to see through parts of it.
There were two men on horseback—Indians, obviously—and a white man with a rifle.
The two drunks from the day before were yelling with pain, screaming for help. The Indians fired arrows at the drunks, starting low—just above their heels, and then moving upward. The Indians were good: their shafts went where they wanted them to. Their speed and skill with their weapons was nothing short of amazing. A man barely had time to scream before the next arrow was unerringly on its way.
Some grunted words were exchanged between the two Indians. They laughed and nodded to one another. The next two arrows severed the spines of the two harmless drunks at about midback. They fell clumsily, with no control of their limbs, like a child’s rag doll hurled against a wall.
Will scrambled from his room and down the stairs, his right hand checking the position of his Colt. He burst out of the cathouse a few seconds too late. The two men were facedown in the dirt of the street with arrows buried several inches into the backs of their heads—the final punishment for speaking of One Dog.
An arrow slashed a shallow furrow across Will’s cheek and blood cascaded down the side of his face. He was on the ground, rolling in the dirt, before the next arrow from the second Indian missed his face by a couple of inches. It was hard to keep moving and fire accurately at the Indians, and even if he dropped them, there was the white man with the rifle.
Will fired twice at the Indian who’d cut his face and he got lucky: a slug tore through the archer’s shoulder and the second entered his right eye socket. The second Indian was drawing his bow as Will got his balance on the ground. He put two bullets in the man’s chest.
The rifleman was the problem now and Will rolled again, just as a gritty volcano of dirt spurted an inch from his face. He blinked away the grit, and as the rifleman worked the lever of his weapon, Will blew the top of the man’s head off, blood, bone, and brain tissue scattering in a pinkish red mist.
The rifleman collapsed from his horse. Will recognized him—the rag-dressed boozer in the saloon who was slumped over the table with the empty bottle in front of him.
Will walked to the pair of dead Indians. Both wore war paint on their faces, but their clothing was strange—one wore a rebel outfit with bullet holes in the shirt that were there long before he met Will Lewis; the other, butternut drawers and a Union shirt. The rifleman looked like a down-on-his-luck cowhand who hadn’t seen a new shirt or pair of drawers for a good long time. The serape he wore was too large for his body and there were bullet rents through it—mainly in the back.