10 Gallon Hats O’ Blood
A Novel by Tom Miller
CHAPTER 4
In the
town tavern, Grizzard the Rip was serving whiskeys to the cowhands
and the whores. There were card games and bar fights and lots and
lots of smoke. Some came from cigars, some from cigarettes, and some
from warm guns that had just been used in a killing here or there.
This was a classic Western tavern if ever there was one, and there
was one, and this was it.
The
piano man was Snidely. Nobody knew his last name, but it didn't much
matter. He'd soon be replaced, as all the piano players of the past
had been; with a bullet. The casket maker, Sinister Grim, hid in the
shadows drinking his coffee. He didn't take the alcohol because of
the one time he dropped a casket and the body rolled out. It weren't
pretty. Especially since it was the body of Edna May, weighing in at
over three-hundred pounds. And as he went to collect her, he threw up
on her tits. Twern't pretty, I said. And when they finally cleaned
her off, he shit his pants trying to lift her back in the box.
Twern't.
Yeah,
Sinister Grim was a spooky man who had been in town for what seemed
like forever. He never drops a casket now, and he don't throw up and
he don't shit, neither.
But
then, Biggs got up. He put his hand on his gun and the room fell
hushed. The piano man shut the piano and calmly took cover. Grizzard
the Rip ducked down behind the bar. And Biggs strolled over to the
frail looking gentleman wearing the glasses who had been writing all
day at a table in the back of the saloon. He walked right up and took
a seat next to him and gave him a dirty look. The gentlemen shook
with fear and put down his paper and pen to give Biggs his full
attention. Biggs was a man not to be trifled with.
"What
the hell are you supposed to be, with yore painted up fancy suit and
your spectacles, just-uh writin' away like a lawyer?"
"I
uh..." the man was scared like a sinner at the pearly gates. "I'm a
poet."
"Poet,
huh." Biggs cleared his throat and then his voice became even deeper
and more loathsome. "I'm a poet too," he growled. "I write all the
time." He pointed to his head. "I write here, in the
mind."
"I
see," said the poet.
"And
you're gonna' hear my poem and tell me if you like it."
"Sure,"
said the poet. He didn't want to die. And then Biggs cleared his
throat again and blew a wad of spit on one of the whores. "Goes like
this. My horse... of course... I ride her well... into the black of
night... and when I kick my spurs in her... she gets a little
fright." The room was dead silent. "What do you think so far, Mr.
Poet man?"
He
looked at the gun and Biggs' hand on the grip. "Oh, that's good," he
said.
Biggs
continued. "But if'n she throws me off her back and makes me break my
leg... I'll shoot the horse instead of myself... and then I'll let my
leg heal." The room was still dead silent. "What do you think of
that?"
"It's
really good," the poet said. "I, uh... like the, uh... meter, and
umm... it works. It really works well and uh..."
Biggs
leaned in and the poet could smell the onion and cigar on his hot
breath. "Now, you tell me one."
"Sh...sh...sure."
Biggs
leaned in until he was almost kissing the gaunt pale man. "But if'n I
don't like it... yore dead." He pulled out his gun and held it
to the poet's temple as he recoiled slowly back into his
chair.
"The
uh... birds alight softly... in the fresh... dew... of uh, morning...
and as the sun..."
BLAM!
Back------
Chapter
5