The buildings were weathered and leaning, and the painted signs on the front of the edifices were worn and hard to read. A wagon was backed up to the general store, and a couple of men were listlessly unloading it. They looked over at Hawke, curious as to who he was and what brought him to town, though neither of them were ambitious enough to speak to him.
Hawke dismounted in front of a saloon called the Brown Dirt Cowboy and went inside. Shadows made the saloon seem cooler, but that was illusory. It was nearly as hot inside as out, and without the benefit of a breath of air, even more stifling. The customers were sweating in their drinks and wiping their faces with bandannas.
As always when he entered a strange saloon, Hawke checked the place out. To one unfamiliar with what he was doing, his glance appeared to be little more than idle curiosity. But it was a studied surveillance. Who was armed? What type of guns were they carrying? How were they wearing them? Was there anyone here he knew? More important, was there anyone here who know him, and who might take this opportunity to settle some old score, real or imagined, for himself or a friend?
It appeared that there were only workers and cowboys there. The couple of men who were armed were young; probably wearing their guns as much for show as anything, he thought. And from the way the pistols rode on their hips, he would have bet that they had never used them for anything but target practice, and not very successfully at that.
The bartender stood behind the bar. In front of him were two glasses with whiskey remaining in them, and he poured the whiskey back into a bottle, corked it, and put the bottle on the shelf behind the bar. He wiped the glasses out with his stained apron, then set them among the unused glasses. Seeing Hawke step up to the bar, the bartender moved down toward him.
“Whiskey,” Hawke said.
The barman reached for the bottle he had just poured the whiskey back into, but Hawke pointed to an unopened bottle.
“That one. And a clean glass.”
Shrugging, the saloonkeeper pulled the cork from the fresh bottle.
“You’re new in town,” the bartender said. It wasn’t a question, it was a declaration.
“I’m not in town,” Hawke said. “I’m just passing through. Thought I’d have a couple of drinks, eat some food that isn’t trail-cooked, and maybe get a room for the night.”
“What brings you to this neck of the woods?” the barkeep asked as he poured the whiskey.
“Nothing in particular,” Hawke said. “I’m just wandering around.”
“We don’t get too many of your kind in here,” one of the men at the bar said.
Hawke paid for his drink, then lifted it to his lips. Taking a swallow, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Is there a place to eat in this town?”
“Mollie’s, just down the street,” the bartender said. “Nothin’ fancy, but the food is good.”
“Hey, mister, are you deef?” someone at the bar said. “I said we don’t get too many of your kind here.”
The tone of the man’s voice was more challenging than friendly, and Hawke turned to look at him. He had a bushy red beard and was wearing a dirty shirt and a sweat-stained hat.
“Oh?” Hawke replied. “And just what would my kind be?”
“I’d say you are a saddle tramp,” the bushy-bearded man said.
“Barkeep,” Hawke said. He nodded toward his antagonist. “Give my new friend here a drink, on me.”
The bartender put a glass in front of the bearded man. “Here you go, Metzger. Compliments of the gentlemen.”
Metzger picked the glass up and held it toward Hawke as if offering a toast. Hawke returned the gesture, then lifted his glass to his mouth. Metzger lifted his glass too, but he didn’t drink it. Instead, with an evil smile, he turned the glass upside down and spilled the whiskey on the bar.
“I don’t drink with saddle tramps like you,” he said.
“Wait, let me get this straight,” Hawke replied. “Is it that you don’t drink with any saddle tramp? Or you just don’t drink with saddle tramps like me?”
The others in the saloon laughed, and Metzger, realizing that they laughing at him, grew angry. He pointed at Hawke.
“I don’t like you, mister,” he said. “I don’t like you at all.”
“Well, maybe if you had a bath your disposition would improve. How long has it been since you had one? Two years? Three? Ten? I mean, having to smell yourself for that long is bound to get to you after a while.”
Again, those in the saloon laughed.
“Metzger, looks to me like this here fella is just a little too quick for you,” one of the bar patrons said.
Metzger, his face flushed red with anger and embarrassment, charged toward Hawke with a loud yell.
“Look out, mister! He has a knife!” someone shouted, and Hawke saw a silver blade flashing.
Hawke jerked to one side just in time to keep from being badly cut. At almost exactly the same time, he pulled his pistol from his holster and brought it down hard, on Metzger’s head. Metzger went down like a sack of potatoes.
Hawke put his pistol back in his holster then picked up his drink.
“It can’t be all that good for your business if he greets all your visitors like that,” he said.
“He’s a bully,” the bartender said. “He has the whole town buffaloed. I reckon he figured he needed to take you down just to show everyone else that he was still the top rooster.”
Hawke nodded. “That’s a plan, I suppose.” Finishing his drink, he put the glass down and slapped another coin on the bar beside it. “I’ll have another.”
“No, sir,” the bartender said, pushing the coin back. “This one is on me.” He used the new bottle to pour a fresh drink.
“Thanks.”
“Now, I’m going to do something I should’ve done a long time ago,” the bartender said.
Reaching under the bar, he pulled out a sawed-off, double-barrel, twelve-gauge Greener and pointed it toward Metzger’s prostrate form. He handed one of the other men in the bar a glass of water. “Here, Paul. Wake the son of a bitch up.”
Paul was about to pour the glass of water on Metzger, then put it back down.
“No, I’ve got a better idea,” he said. Reaching down by the bar, he picked up the spittoon, then turned it upside down over Metzger’s face.
Metzger came to, spitting and swearing. When he sat up, he saw Paul holding the spittoon.
“Why you—” he said, getting to his feet angrily. “I’m going to—”
“Leave,” the bartender said.
“What?” Metzger looked at him, his face stained with tobacco juice. Little flecks of expectorated tobacco clung to his beard.
“I was just finishing your sentence for you. You were about to say that you were going to leave.”
“I wasn’t about to say no such thing,” Metzger sputtered.
“Yes, you were.” The bartender augmented his observation by pulling back both hammers of the shotgun.
“Wait a minute, you ain’t the law in this town. Fact is, this town ain’t got no law, so you got no right to run me out of town,” Metzger said angrily.
“This says I do,” the bartender said, emphasizing his statement by lifting the shotgun.
“Listen, what about you other fellas?” Metzger asked. “Are you just going to stand around and let this happen? I though we was pards.”
“There’s nobody here who is pards with you, Metzger,” Paul said. “We’ve had about enough of you.”
Metzger looked at the others, who, emboldened by the fact that they were all together now, stared back at him without sympathy.
“All right, all right, I’m a’goin’,” Metzger said. He looked at each one of them. “But I plan to remember who was here and who didn’t stand beside me. And when I come back, there’s going to be a settling of accounts.”
“If you come back, we’ll kill you,” Paul said quietly.