Gunlaw

Gunlaw 20

Chapter 11 - Fifty Years Ago

A town as small as Sweet Water ought to sleep. There ought to be some hour deep in the dark where the pulse of such a place grows slow and the people lie fast in their slumbers. But even in that time before the dawn breaks, when all light is withdrawn from the world like the sea drawing back before the hugest wave crashes ashore, even then the lanterns still burned along Main Street. Hemar crept in the dry dirt beneath the sidewalk where it raised up against the threat of winter mud.

" . . . spooking cattle down at Janer's yard . . ."

". . . smell it on the wind, I tell you. Trouble, I tell you . . ."

Two men, ripe with tobacco and sweat. Hemar waited for distance to swallow their conversation. He wondered what might reek so bad a man could smell it on the wind.

". . . ain't seen Nobby Reese in an age. Could balance a pint on his head, Nobby. That was his trick. Flat head." The swish of a hand sketching how flat. "Fat too. Uncommon fat . . ."

Another quiet minute of waiting and Hemar slunk into the open, choosing places where shadow pooled. He moved slow, sniffing at doorways, peering through shutters, listening with ears cocked and high. The pack had tales of town, tales enough for many long nights, passed along long chains of storytelling and anchored on the word of domen who had thrown their lot in with men, lived in their towns, herded rather than hunted. The scent of the place, the multitude of stinks from sharp through sewage to sour, the murmurs, cries, chinks, clinks, and exclamations, scenes glimpsed past shutter slats, all served to put flesh on the chewed bones of those stories. From the darkest corners Hemar watched humans come and go. Drifters following the run of cards or cattle, prospectors over-rich with gold-dust and bent on being rid as fast as possible, free guns waiting for a kill, whores a whoring, stitchers raw fingered in the seamstress' shed, Black Sam dead and yet not dead, wriggling in his grave, these were the night folk of Sweet Water, standing the long watch before dawn.

Warmth drew Hemar to the Broken Horn saloon, warmth and the scent of something beyond anything he'd known, past the thrill of a lean swift bitch in heat, past even the hot melting wildness of spilled blood sharp with fear. It smelled as if fire itself had threaded the air, an aroma that ran from nose to veins. He stole a look past the low swing doors, summer doors despite the night chill. In that moment's glance he saw the source, golden in small glasses, liquid flame, returning the lamplight, twinkling. Whiskey. He knew it from the pack-tales. Domen's Ruin they called it, for few that had run on the badlands would ever return to the hunt after they'd poured whiskey over their tongues. Hemar had only scented it and already the need pulsed in him.

****

"Four and one. The house wins." Johnny scooped the chips whilst the player sagged against the craps table.

Sally tipped the whiskey into her mouth, tongue making a swift lap of the glass' rim. The shot glass made a satisfying clunk against the table. She let the liquor swill around the sharp points of her teeth. Once upon a time the stuff had taken her breath, made her gasp, even watered down like Ed's. Shock becomes commonplace becomes tedium. First fucking, then whiskey. She watched the free-fighters at the bar, slouched, hung with belt and bullets, trail dust still bedded in their skin. Had the shock of killing graduated to tedium for them, had drawing down on a man become commonplace? Perhaps not, perhaps the day it stopped setting their hearts a-pounding was the day they caught their bullet.

"Three and two, house wins." Johnny's voice carried the apology. The house always won and Johnny was always sorry. His mark, a fat gold-panner, all sweat stains and whiskey, in off the dust, didn't seem to mind. Deep down all gamblers play to lose, whatever their game.