The Barkeep

The Barkeep

     A dusty wind blew through the saloon door. Abe had not bothered to move from his position behind the counter when the commotion had started. Spilling blood had a tendency to leave men thirsty. He could have made a stand against evil that night, but it would likely have ended with him in a grave, and a shallow one at that. Had the grave digger still been alive he might have found his courage, but as it stood, it was just one thing too many. Damned shame, he thought, doing his best to wipe the coat of grime from inside a glass.

     There wasn’t much point in cleaning anything. Sooner or later the dust would settle back down, but it was the repetitive motion that calmed him. Even in a world of chaos, he still had glasses to polish, and drink to pour. There was no chill down his spine as The Man stepped in, only the sweat of determination.

     Erwin had sold him out with his dying breath. He had never trusted the grave digger much, but he had thought him to be more than a common coward.

     “Good evening sir. My men and I are thirsty.”

     “What’ll it be?” Abe said in more of a throaty whisper than actual speech.

     “I do hope you’re not sour about your friend out there.”

     “Good riddance to him. It’s just a shame there will be no one to dig his grave.”

     The Man let out a hearty chuckle, and a small group of the bandits filtered into the saloon behind him. “Yes of course. Well, I think that his apprentice outside will do quite nicely given the circumstances. I’ve never seen the point in wasting so much effort on the dead to begin with.”

     “You said you were thirsty,” Abe spit behind the counter. It was a force of habit, and not meant as a slight, but he still regretted the gesture. “What’ll you have?” He attempted to sound jovial, but his voice betrayed him with the slightest quaver.

     “Oh, I’m sorry. You are mistaken. We are thirsty, but it is not for drink. What we seek is drink of a more existential nature. I desire your knowledge, and for it, I will compensate you most fairly.” The words dripped like venom through the air, leaving an acid taste in the back of Abe’s mouth.  Anything that rolled off the tongue so easily seldom contained the truth.

     “That’s a lot of fancy words.” He hoped to God that the poets had been right when they said ignorance was bliss.

     “Where did the rider go?” Nothing but the cold, calculating mind of a man who had already forgotten about the corpse cooling in the street.

     Therein lies the rub. The rider had come in at midday and spent the rest of his time moving between the bar and the bedroom. It wasn’t all too infrequent for travelers. They may have been a small town, but their companionship was exceptional. That girl had been around for a long time, and he considered her kin. Whatever business she had with the rider had continued after the fighting had started. Neither of them had come down to see what the ruckus was about. “Can’t say for sure.”

     If The Man was angry with Abe’s response, he did his best not to show it, and instead propped himself up on a stool like he was about to give a primary school lesson. “Do you know your history good barkeep?” His eyes glinted with the slightest hint of malice.  “There was an age of knights. In paintings and stories, it all seemed to be a glorious affair with maiden’s kisses and boisterous victories, but the truth was closer to blood and shit. Knights fought and died for what they believed in, or at least what those in positions of power believed in, and paid the price with their own pain and suffering. Long after they saw a cause as folly, they continued on, in search of what?” He paused and looked around the empty saloon as if waiting for an answer.

     “Heroic vanity. Knights fought because it made them look good to do so. Now, as it pertains to you; I don’t see a soul in this bar, and one of your most frequent patrons just caught a bullet for pageantry. Therefore, there is no vanity to be had, and heroics will bring nothing but a swift death and an unmarked post out in the desert. That is, if I decide to let the apprentice live. Something about him just rubs me the wrong way.” The men around him nodded in agreement and the man smiled at their ignorant compliance.

     “I really haven’t got a clue where they went.” It was a half-truth. Abe did not know for sure where they had gone to, but he had a fair guess, seeing as how he had built the saloon on top of the tunnel himself.

     The man looked over the hardened faces of his men, and wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, looking peeved. “You see? They understand what it means to be cooperative.” Abe hardly had time to see the man’s hand move, but soon there was a mean looking black pistol sitting at his hip. The barrel was a dark eye, staring straight through him. “Some might consider us to be knights you know? Riding through the desert, spreading bloodshed, and all for a singular cause. However, there isn’t a thing that’s gallant about it. Our commonality is simple, self-interest, and those who get in the way, well,” he motioned to the street once more.

     Abe knew that they would soon run out of people to question and the trail would go cold, but he still had no desire to die. His hands shook beneath the counter, as a mean grin spread across The Man’s face, and his hand flexed around the small pistol. “I’ll tell you what.” The pistol dropped for a moment, and he took on the air of casual conversation. “I’m a fan of counting. It brings drama to a situation, makes everyone feel a little more desperate. So, here’s what I’m going to do. I will count down from 5.”

     Abe gulped, and steadied himself on the dirty wood in front of him. The world blurred a bit and he hoped that the girl had enough time to get away. He would hold out for her, but not forever.

“Barkeep?”  

Abe looked up.

“Are you paying attention? I do despise it when people nod off. Isn’t that right Bill?”

A man in a leather duster that bore several black stains that might have been blood stood up. “Yes sir you do. We all remember Charlie.”

“Of course, Charlie. Couldn’t handle the 6AM ride, decided to sleep in, so we let him sleep forever. Didn’t we Bill?”

“Yes sir we did.” Bill sat back down and The Man looked pleased with himself.

“So barkeep. I will count down from 5, and at the end of my counting, you will have either told me where the rider went, or be lying dead on the floor of your bar. The choice rests in your hands, but I’ve grown tired of lecturing. 5,” he cocked the pistol’s hammer back.

The shaking in Abe’s hands grew violent.

“4.”

Abe thought about the sawed-off beneath the counter and wondered if he’d have time to use it.

“3.”

A picture of a family he never had flashed before his eyes and he regretted it all.

“2.”

Abe readied himself.

“O-” the man started to say, but was cut off by the sudden loud ringing of bells from outside. A gunshot tore through the night air, and Abe felt at his face helplessly, looking for the bullet wound. He found nothing. The saloon doors burst open and one of The Man’s lackeys stumbled in with a clean hole through the center of his shirt, and collapsed on the floor. In the moment, Abe ducked beneath the counter, pulled out the sawed-off, and ran out the back door…