14 hours

4. Headache and more time

Saloon Lady Melonee petted over her freshly styled hair before she opened one of the guest rooms of the hotel. It was early in the morning and the streets of Dirt still empty and quiet.
Loud snoring met her ears. With a glee smile she watched the four gunslingers who lay in a group of four in a double bed.
The rest of the night they had played karts, dallied with the girls and drank one bottle after another.
The saloon lady passed the bed and parted the curtains.
"G'day! It's 6 o'clock!"
A loud wailing and nagging grumbling filled the room. Bill threw himself to the other side that the bed creaked. Kinski put a pillow over his face. Chorizo buried himself under the blanket while Stump fell off the bed.
Melonee put her hands on her hips and watched the tired bunch.
"Dear, dear. Standing up time!"
She bent over and shook Bill's shoulder.
"Shut your mouth, dopey cow!" he muttered loudly and hit at her with weak waving of his hand.
"Ts, ts." Melonee crossed her arms. "You said I should wake you up at 6 o'clock."
"Why the hell should I order such shit?" Bill grunted.
Melonee snorted. "Like you want, I just did what you said."
She turned around to leave the room, but suddenly Bill lifted his head.
"What time you said is it?"
"Few minutes after 6 o'clock."
"6 o'cl... damn! The post!"
Bill sat up and gave Kinski who laid next to him a hard push. "We have to meet our stage coach!"
Bill swung his feet over the edge of the bed, but the blanket had tangled up his legs. He fell forward with a loud crash on the floor on Stump. Kinski who had wrapped in the blanket was carried with him off and landed on the Gila monster's back. Chorizo who lay at the bottom of the bed groaned loudly when Kinski's big feet met his head.
"Mamá!" he wailed.
Melonee looked down at them and shook her head with disgust.
"And what need my little babies now?"
Stump looked up and held his head. "Aspirin!"

Moments later they sat at the counter in the saloon. In front of them four glasses of water and aspirin tablets.
Chorizo had the less headache. "I had so much in my mind last night that I almost forgot our little friend."
"Meh, that was the sense of our trip," Bill muttered and rubbed over his tired face.
"Mmm," Stump started. "Yesterday was... payday."
"What payday?" Bill asked and drunk innocently his glass of water.
Stump nodded tiredly. "Yes, sure."

"Does that happen every day now?" the postman wailed. "In the past it was just once a week."
"Hell, don't gabble," Bill grunted and took the postbag.
It wasn't much post like always so that they made a find quickly.
"I've found it," Stump cried.
Bill didn't wait and took the letter. He tore open the letter, they didn't want to show it someone else anyway.
This time it was just a little paper, again with cut letters of the alphabet.
"These are fewer words than in the last message, right?" Kinski said.
Bill didn't reply and read:
"You need more time to fulfil our requirements, don't you? (a cut out scrowl emoji had placed after that sentence). Well then, paper doesn't blush, but just once. We give you 24 hours more. Time and place the same. Don't be late or..."
"Or what?" Chorizo asked and bent over.
"No more," Bill corrected. "They spare the letters after "or". Maybe we should know what they want to say."
He folded the paper together.
Awkward silence lapsed.
"Mm, what should we do now?" Stump asked. "He got a grace period."
Chorizo nodded. "Should we give Beans the letter?"
"What the..." Kinski and the others stared at their leader how he set the letter on fire.
"The letter was lost on his way," the Gila monster commented. "That's possible every day."
He let the burning paper fall to the ground where it crumbled to ashes.
Under the view of his companions, he turned around.
But Bill just crossed his hands behind his back of his head.
"Well, shit happens."