Twenty Bodies

Chapter two: Little town.

Chapter two: Little town

The two men parked the coach, left the horse in the stable at the end of town and headed toward the saloon. Outside the saloon you could hear men yelling from losing or winning games of poker, the sound wasn't very clear to indicate which was which. A pleasant sound of ragtime would be coming from the house piano, women laughing, dogs barking and beers spilling. This, however, changed when Willy and Ace walked into the saloon. All the sound stopped. No laughing. No yelling. Nothing. Just a single whine from one of the dogs.
"HOWDY!" Shouted Willy, smiling. He seemed to be unaware of the awkwardness that was in the air. Willy continued as normal, scattering towards the bar. Every eye in the place was on Ace and Willy. Ace was wondering what the hell must have happened to these people for them to be so odd towards them. What had Willy done to them? They both sat at the bar when the barmaid came to ask "what's it gonna be, Willy?" Her hair a bright ginger and her face full of freckles.
"Two ham, two egg, two beers for me and my friend here"
She nodded and looked at them both briefly, disinterested in carrying on anymore pleasantries.
"Willy, why is everyone staring at us?" he whispered .
"How the hell would I know? You aren't naked again is you?" he chuckled.
The barmaid came back and put two foamy beers, ham and eggs down for the gentleman.
"You's an angel, Mary" Willy said to the barmaid.
"Blow it out your ass Willy" she replied and went to serve a man at the end of the bar.

Ace was about to take a drink of his beer when suddenly a huge man grabbed the beer out of his hand and took a drink in front of Ace.
"Hey! What-?"
"Quiet you!" The man said to Willy, in a thick English bark.
"You shouldn't have come back, Jack!" Now directing at Ace. "No one steals from me and if they do, they don't live very long. You've hid well, son, I'll give you that but you're very stupid to come back."
The big man took another swig from the beer.
"Fella" Ace replied "you got me confused with someone else. I ain't ever seen you before and I think you need to buy me another beer"

The big man stared at Ace for a second then erupted into a big hollow of laughter, everyone behind the big man soon joined in.
"You were always funny, Jack, but jokes only get you so far!"
The man pulled a pistol from his holster and pointed it at Ace.
"Look, mister, I ain't this Jack fella you speak of. I ain't never stolen anything so let me finish my beer in peace will you, big stuff?" Ace said whilst trying to appear calm as he looked at the big man's gun.
"Where's your gun, Jack? You gone yella"
"He aint gone nowhere, Ace can use my gun" Willy said with a mouth full of ham.
Willy reached into the back of his trousers and brought out a slightly rusted, old looking pistol.
"I ain't using no gun. I don't want to shoot no one" Ace said.

"Who in the hell is Ace?" He paused and pointed a dirty sausage of a finger at Ace and continued "this fella here is One... Eyed... Jack!"
Everyone in the saloon gasped, including Willy.
"Fella I ain't this Jack. I fell from the sky. I-" Ace's words were quickly interrupted.
"I'm getting tired of this, I wanna draw!"
"Draw!?"
"C'mon, Ace" The man said in a mocking tone. "One-Eyed Jack has the best shot I've ever seen! If you die, I guess you ain't him"
The big man picked up Ace and dragged him outside. Everyone followed them out to the desert air. 

Ace was thrown to the floor and he landed on his knees.
"Here, take this" Willy handed him his iron "You gon' be fine." 
The towering man looked down at Ace, which to Ace, this made the man look even taller.
"Now you head five paces down that way boy and I'll do five paces the other way. We gon' see who comes out living and who's gon' be eating supper with Christ himself!"
Both men took five paces in opposite directions and then turned to face each other. Ace opened up his gun to check the bullets, or to see if the piece of junk would even fire, but to Ace's horror there were no bullets. Inside the chamber of the gun held a rusted canal of empty holes and no ammunition.
"You gotta be shitting me! The crazy old kook gave me a gun with no bullets" He spoke to himself.
"You ready Jack!?"
"No, wait, I aint!"
"Get ready to see heaven boy"
The other man drew his gun out of his hip as fast as lightning, whilst all Ace could do was squint and get ready for the holes to be blown into him. He heard the thunderous boom of the led spitting out of the pistol and he locked his eyes shut tight...
No pain?
No blood?
No tears?
Did he miss or had he just not felt it yet?

Ace opened his eyes and saw the big man standing there but within a matter of seconds a hole of red appeared on the man's lapel. The towering man fell forward, stone cold dead, on the dusty desert ground. Slowly, a spectacular ray of smoke came out the corpses back, slowly blossoming into a rose shaped hole with the colour to match.

Ace looked at his gun "what in the blue-?"
The crowd looked at Ace then back to the fallen man, then back to Ace. He shrugged his shoulders at them with wide eyes and open arms but they all went back to the saloon, muttering to themselves as if nothing had happened. 
Willy came stumbling over.
"I told you you were a gunslinger" He giggled.
"I DIDN'T SHOOT YOU CRAZY KOOK. YOU AIN'T GIVE ME NO BULLETS" Ace scorned.
"Oh yeah, I keeps them on the horse, sorry bout that fella. Who the hell shot him then?"
"I was thinking the same thing"
"You wanna go back in and finish ya grub?"
"I've lost my appetite but I could use another drink"

Both men went back into the saloon which carried on business as usual. Willy and Ace still got funny looks from the folks inside but they seemed to have less of an interest in the pair this time round.
"Willy, why did you gasp earlier when they spoke about this One-Eyed Jack fella?"
"Well I don't know much 'bout this Jack fella, all I knows is he robbed a lot of folks around here and buried more but I ain't never seen him. Most folk ain't but they know the name. I don't thinks you him, he's mean as a snake and I like you Ace"
Ace looked at Willy and even though Willy had nearly gotten him killed, he felt for the old man. He might have even thought he was cute if not for his yellow and black teeth and dirty face.
"I like you too, friend" Ace said as he patted the old man on the back.

All of a sudden, a bell rang three times outside the saloon and all the occupants began to jump out of their chairs as fast as they could, including Willy who was trying to drink his beer as fast as he could, almost choking on it.
"What the hell is going on?" asked Ace, as the rumble of chairs and footsteps behind him sounded aggressively.
"Bad men are coming, we got to hide!"
"What do you mean?" Ace said, looking around him. Before he knew it though, the bar was empty. He was surrounded by empty chairs, split drinks and stepped on food. The last thing Ace heard was slamming doors of the neighbouring buildings outside and upstairs of the saloon too. Everyone was hiding and Willy was now gone also. Ace was sitting alone at the bar. Alone.
"HELLO'!' He jumped out of his seat and headed for the saloon doors.
"HELLO!" He shouted even louder as he walked outside but nothing was there. The town was still, not even a breath of wind was whistling. All Ace could see was the body of the man from earlier, still laying in the street dead.
He tried one more time.
"HELLO, WILLY!?" but again he was greeted with silence.