“Oh, yeah, sure. How about that one,” Longarm said, pointing to a bottle of Kentucky Horse.
The bartender found the handsome bottle and uncorked it. “You’ve excellent taste.”
“Thank you,” Longarm said, leaning into the bar and thinking he might actually buy a good Cuban cigar.
The bartender poured him three full fingers and said, “Be three dollars, sir.”
“Three dollars!”
The bartender stiffened with surprise. “Sir? Is there something wrong?”
“Yeah, two dollars wrong. I’m not going to be skinned. Why, three dollars ought to buy the whole damned bottle.”
“Not at the price it costs us.”
“Well,” Longarm said indignantly, “three dollars for one drink is robbery. I’m getting out of here while I still have the suit on my back.”
“As you wish,” the bartender said with cool contempt. “It appears that you wandered into the wrong kind of establishment, eh?”
Longarm did not ignore this callous insult. His hand shot out and he grabbed the bartender by the front of his starched shirt. Longarm dragged him up on his toes and hissed, “You get smart with me, I’ll jam that Kentucky Horse down your throat, bottom end first. Do you understand me?”
The bartender’s cockiness turned to fear. “Yes, sir!”
Longarm let the man go. He had no patience with this type, and when Longarm turned to see everyone staring at him as if he were a coyote in a hen house, Longarm knew that this just wasn’t his kind of drinking place. Longarm wished he had enough money to make some outrageously extravagant gesture, like buying rounds of Kentucky Horse for the whole bunch, but that would have been a foolish gesture.
Instead, Longarm bulled his way outside into the fresh night air and found a little hole-in-the-wall bar named Stetson’s that catered to a working class of person like himself. They stared at him in his fancy clothes, but they let him alone, and when the bartender brought Longarm a bottle and a glass he said, “Be two bits a glass, two dollars for the bottle.”
“I’ll take the bottle,” Longarm said, noticing that it was a familiar brand of whiskey.
After a few minutes, the other patrons lost interest in Longarm, and he wandered over to an empty table and seated himself with his back to the wall. He enjoyed watching men, and figured it was good practice to study their habits and to try to fathom their minds.
There were about a dozen customers at the bar and three or four card tables with players. Longarm considered joining them, but the idea of gambling held no appeal. What he really wanted to do was to pay a visit to Caroline. But that would be a mistake, so he’d nip at his bottle for an hour or so and then he’d be off to bed.
At least, that was the plan until a couple of loud and drunken men came stomping into the bar with a pair of girls hanging on their arms.
“Lordy, lordy!” the bigger of the men crowed. “Hey, everybody, over at the Black Jack Saloon I just ran a full house into a hundred-dollar pot and I’m ready to howl! Drinks on the house for everyone!”
The room burst into cheers and men drained their glasses and stampeded to the bar.
“Hey,” the prettiest of the two young women said as she glanced over and saw that Longarm wasn’t hurrying over to join the others, “come on!”
“No, thanks,” Longarm said. “I’ve got my own bottle and I’m just fine.”
The smaller of the two celebrants overheard Longarm and said, “It’s bad manners not to accept drinks on the house when they’re offered. Everyone knows that.”
“Well, I don’t,” Longarm replied, “so just go ahead and enjoy your friend’s good fortune and leave me be.”
“You hear that, Big J?” the smaller man said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “You just been insulted.”
Big J was the man buying drinks on the house. He turned and waved Longarm over. When Longarm shook his head, Big J stomped over to his table. “I’m buyin’, you’re drinkin’. It’s that simple.”
Longarm heard the threat and chose to ignore it. “I heard you but, as you can see, I have a half bottle left of my own, so save your money.”
Big J’s face darkened. The girl he’d had his arm around didn’t want trouble. “Just let him alone, Big J. The stranger ain’t harming no one.”
“He’s insulting me.”
“No, he isn’t! He’s just a dude that don’t know our ways.”
“Are you a dude?” Big J asked, planting his huge hands on the table in front of Longarm and speaking right into his face.
“Nope,” Longarm said, “but I am a man that doesn’t like to be pushed. So back off and enjoy your good fortune while I enjoy my peace.”
Big J didn’t take advice very well. “You sonofabitch in your fancy suit and tie, I ought t-“
Longarm had picked up his bottle as if to pour a drink, but instead brought it up hard against Big J’s head. The man dropped like a stone.
“You bastard!” Big J’s friend screamed, going for his six-gun.
Longarm’s Colt came up first and he fired, sending a slug into the man’s upper arm.
“You broke my arm!” he cried, gun spilling from his hand onto the floor.
“You’re damned lucky just to be alive,” Longarm said as he collected the man’s fallen weapon. “I had every right to kill you.”
Longarm stepped around Big J, who had collapsed to his knees cursing and raving. When Longarm neared the end of the bar three railroad workers tried to block his path, but Longarm stopped before them and said, I am in no mood for interference, so I’d advise you boys to step aside.”
“And if we don’t?” one of them challenged drunkenly.
Longarm still held his gun in one hand and his bottle in the other. Leveling the gun, he stared into the man’s eyes and growled, “Those two behind me are just wounded and they’ll recover. But if you don’t move now, you just might not be so lucky.”
The man’s nerve broke and he stumbled aside. The others quickly followed. Longarm passed through the door thinking that he should have gone straight back to his hotel room and gone to bed. He was nearing the hotel when he heard the rapid pounding of footsteps behind him. Longarm turned to see Big J’s young lady companion hurrying up to him. She was crying and there was a smear of blood on her swollen lower lip.
“What happened?” Longarm asked.
“Big J punched me! For no damned reason, he just hauled back and hit me in the face.”
“Well,” Longarm said, dragging out his handkerchief, “when you wallow with hogs, you’re bound to get dirty.”
“Can I have a drink?” she asked, dabbing her handkerchief to her lip.
“Sure.” Longarm gave her the bottle. “Help yourself.”
“You’re a real gentleman,” she said, upending the bottle and drinking like a draft horse.
“Whoa!” Longarm said. “I might want a little nightcap up in my room.”
“Where are you staying?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Well, I thought me and Big J were going to celebrate, but now …”
“I’m a little tired,” Longarm hedged.
She was persistent and thirsty. “Strangers in Cheyenne shouldn’t drink alone.”
“Is that right?”
They were standing near one of the city’s new street lamps, and he thought she looked quite pretty, even with teary eyes and a puffy lip. “How old are you?”
“Twenty. How old are you?”
“Older.”
“You got a handsome face.”
“Thanks. My boss said I don’t look so good.”
“Your boss is probably jealous,” she told him. “I think you’re a lot handsomer than Big J, that ornery sonofabitch.”
“Yeah, but he has a hundred dollars, which is a lot more money than I have to spend in a saloon on whiskey and pretty women like you.”
The girl loved flattery and smiled. “You dress nice and I’ll bet you have lots of money.”
“You bet wrong,” Longarm told her.
“I don’t care,” she said after a minute. “I need a few drinks and it’d be nice to talk to an honorable man for a change.”