Sorry for the quick rewrite - the original chap was composed at 10 pm and I may have been only 3/4 awake when I wrote it on account of two kids under four not sleeping through the night. Yuck.
Hushed voices and urgent tones.
Gentle hands feel like hot pokers
As he pieces my face back together.
My body is ensconced in gauze instead of wood and earth.
As Kip regales the past poker games he's attended, I'm aware of three succinct things. One, the man with grey eyes, Hank Camden, is gradually and deliberately getting face-numbing drunk. Two, the annual poker tournament Kip describes will be a nearly perfect setup for revenge, with only a few minor complications. Three, a U.S. Marshal and two of his men have been making their way to each shop along the boardwalk across the street, ducking in and then emerging a few moments later, as though searching for something...or someone.
A few other patrons have noticed, too, and the name Gilbert McAdams is murmured in hushed tones with reverence normally reserved for legends like Wyatt Earp, Jesse James, and Buffalo Bill Hickock. His renown spreads from methodically hunting down and executing seven of the eight Mexican horse thieves responsible for terrorizing the southwest region for nearly a decade.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Hank and his two friends slip to the back of the bar on the heels of the bartender, who has handed off his duties to one of the saloon girls.
By the time McAdams and his men enter, the saloon girl has her ample bosom pressed up against the bar and she's making more from tips than the alcohol she's selling. It helps that her cleavage has become the cash register.
It is obvious from the moment he enters that McAdams is the kind of man who can command a room just by the way he carries himself. He is tall, with a salt-and-pepper handlebar mustache and keen blue eyes that sweep the room. I get the distinct sense that he's able to memorize faces with a single glance.
The bar quiets and people look in his direction. His voice is low, and surprisingly quiet, but you can hear every word he says over the silence that now fills the room.
"I'm looking for a man. Hank Camden. Anyone in here seen him?"
People glance around at one another. Kip has taken a great interest in a burn mark on the table in front of him. Everyone is waiting for someone else to speak up. The marshal's eyes fall on nearly every single face, willing the men to speak up, but no one does.
His gaze falls on me, and he looks at me for only a few more moments than he spared everyone else. Curiosity flickers in his eyes and then vanishes. I'm not the one he's after so I've been discarded as unimportant.
"No one?" He moves around the bar, his boot heels thudding on the wood floor. More than a few men at the poker tables look guilty, so he pauses next to one man who is bouncing his knee up and down nervously. "Come on...someone has to have seen him. Lady up the street said he came in here for a drink after burying Mac Waterford in that cemetery over yonder. I checked my facts and sure enough, there's a fresh grave over there." I feel a pang of regret that it's not Camden who is buried out there right now. McAdams sets his knuckles down on the table and the nervous man visibly swallows his dip.
No one wants to be a snitch. That's almost worse than being a murderer, depending on who you kill. Even the saloon girls keep their mouths shut. I'm not sure if it's because they don't want to give the saloon a bad reputation or if they're afraid of the marshal.
The nervous man has gone completely still.
"Hank Camden is wanted for charges of theft and murder. You lot are aiding and abetting a dangerous criminal." His voice has gradually grown louder, sharper. "You're interfering with a federal investigation!" His face darkens and even I feel sweat start to slick my palms. "Do you hear me?"
No one moves or speaks.
He mutters something, frustration etched in the grim lines around his mouth, and then he turns to leave. One moment it appears as though he is heading to the door, and the next, his gun is drawn and grazing the nervous man's temple. The air in the room is suddenly sucked out - no one breathes or dares to move, as though his gun is pointed at everyone's temple, and not just the dusty, drunk cowboy seated at the poker table.
McAdams curls his lip in disgust and cocks back the hammer - the click is deafeningly loud in the breathless silence in the room.
"So help me, God," he says through clenched teeth, "I will shoot you here and now if you don't tell me where he is."
A small puddle appears on the floor by the man's chair. Until this point, incurring the wrath of Hank Camden has been far scarier than that of a respectable lawman. Now, though, it appears the lawman is about as dangerous as the man he's hunting. Is he really willing to shoot someone in his pursuit of Hank Camden? Does anyone really want to test out the answer to that question?
There's a whooping shout and the thunder of hoofbeats outside the saloon. Out in the street, someone empties his pistol into the air. Three horsemen shoot past the window.
"Goddammit!" McAdams cries, and he and his deputies run outside after the remainder of the Camden gang. Everyone presses against the window to watch as McAdams and his men swing into saddles and take off, leaving behind a cloud of dust and a saloon full of excited cowboys.
I curse under my breath, and everyone buzzes with frazzled energy. The piano player strikes up another tune and the only person besides me who isn't grinning from the tense drama is the man who wet himself.
My heart thrums, not from the excitement of what just happened, but from the angst that I now have competition. I just hope I can get to Camden before McAdams does. He doesn't strike me as the kind of man who takes his shot and misses.
YOU ARE READING
The Widow
Historical Fiction#621 in Historical Fiction The crack of a pistol rips through the night. Smoke curls from the barrel. Red blossoms across his chest. My scream comes out a whisper. "No!"
