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Coward

Robert Spielman

    The whiskey went down easy. The scar tissue in the back of his throat stopped the burning.
    “You gonna do it?”
    “I gotta do it.”
    Surly placed the shot glass back on the bar. The grooves in this thumb and pointer finger greased it up as he twisted it. He motioned for another. The bartender obliged.
    “You ever shot a man ‘fore?”
    The bartender emptied the bottle into the glass. The end. Last drop.
    “Na. I stabbed two of dem Choctaws over at the old farm in Canton—long time ago. One after the other. Dead as dead. Put down my share of cattle and game. That’s it.”
    “So, you never drew on a man ‘fore either?”
    “Na.”
    The night wind crawled into the saloon, under the doors, through the spaces between the window and the frame, mountain air, tough to escape. Chilly night, made the hairs on Surly’s forearms rise, each one higher than the next, wrists rattling and fingers twitching.
    “I called him out. I gotta do it.”
    The bartender reached for another bottle of whiskey, this one black and without a label. He wiped the dust off its body with a stained rag.
    “I reckon.”
    “I been a lot of things but I ain’t no coward. My departed wife—God rest her soul—wouldn’t have no coward. You take care of that girl of mine, she said. Said it right there—dyin’ of that coughin’ sickness—all white. Didn’t have no choice.”
    “You done did a good thing, Surly... takin’ in that widow an’ her girl after the war.”
    Surly took another drink. Only sipped this time. “So ya say.”
    “He says it ain’t him that did it to the girl?”
    “Yep.”
    “You stayin’ in town tonight then?”
    “Yep, over yonder. Meetin’ in the eight A.M. tomorrow mornin’, on the road.”
    “Eight A.M. ya say?”
    “Yep.”
    His moustache itched terrible. Just terrible.
    A man came into the saloon, swinging doors squeaking. The remaining whiskey spilled on the bar. The glass had tipped over. Surly touched the handle to that Colt at his belt.
    The man removed his hat, sweat and grease pinning his dark hair to his skull. He lit a match on his trousers and piped in a few hits of smoke from the cigar dangling from his mouth. Flicked his wrist a few times to put out the match, dropped it and stifled it with his boot.
    It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Earl Billings, wasn’t Jesus Christ either for that matter.

    After another few rounds, Surly stumbled to the hotel, avoided some gunplay and mischief to the left and right of the road, in the dark. Boys being boys.
    There were lights and there were laughs. Surly entered the hotel.
    He walked by a few games of cards around kerosene lamps. Ms. Sara stood at the foot of the steps, bustier lifting up those breasts, up and out, cleavage spilling forth, freckled, nipple peeking out from the right one.
    Missing a tooth on the upper part, one of them in front. Lipstick, red as sin, pasted on those lips.
    “You always got the money, don’t ya?”
    “Yep.”
    Surly handed her a five dollar note and followed her up, black bottle of whiskey in one hand. He took another swig.
    The room smelled of heavily scented britches. Surly sat, more half-layed on that sofa, the one with the sheet covering it, dotted with stains. He undid his suspenders and pulled his trousers down to his boots. Ms. Sara kneeled up next to him, exposed her breasts and took his pecker in her hand, rubbing it like life itself might be found within.
    “You thinkin’ this be your last night and all, Surly?”
    “Good chance.”
    Nothing happened. Just hurt. Surly took her hand away from it. Damn thing.
    “Happens to you all. Don’t fret about it. You’re getting on in years, Surly. Your thicket’s even getting gray.”
    Surly looked down at his pecker.
    “Yep, sometimes it don’t and sometimes it does when it shouldn’t.”
    Surly took another drink. Heavy. Those eyelids got heavy.
    “You sure Earl Billings did that thing to that girl living with you?”
    “That’s what she done told the preacher and Miss Alice at the school house.”
    “That what she told you?”
    Surly took another drink from the black bottle. A big one.
    “Why you got to drink like that?”
    “Kills the taste of the others from off of ya.”
    “That ain’t nice, Surly.”
    “Apologies...You ever have any demons, Ms. Sara? Ones that tell ya to do things that you wouldn’t want honest folk to see?”
    “What are you talkin’ about, Surly?”
    “Nothin’ particular.”
    Surly took hold of Ms. Sara’s bare breast and squeezed. He looked down at his pecker again. Things were blurry as hell. Nothing.
    “Oh, Surly.”
    Surly passed out, still holding that worn flesh, pecker still dead.

    The next morning, Surly watched from over the door of the saloon, headache pounding, sunlight making it worse. He checked his pocketwatch. On the hour. The people had made their way out of the post office, and the barber, and the hotel, gathering on the edges of the street.
    Nothing from the north. Just blank road. Watch ticking.
    The bartender came up behind him, height allowing more visibility.
    “Ya know, Surly, if Earl Billings ever drew on a man ‘fore?”
    “Yep, think so. Done it a few times I think. Pretty fast.”
    They were waiting, all of them. Surly looked down at the Colt.
    “You best go out there.”
    “Yep.”
    Surly walked out, into the sunlight. The morning dew kept the dust from fleeing upward in the dirt. He stopped in the middle of the road, eyes to the north. Nothing, just nothing and rolling hills.
    Surly stayed like that for a while, just staring ahead. People cleared their throats and knocked their boots clean. He checked his watch. Ten after the hour.
    The bartender came up behind him from the saloon with his own watch dangling.
    “He’s yella, a coward.”
    Surly didn’t say nothing, just kept looking, distance ebbed and flowed in his blurry vision for the time it took for the bartender to stop blowing the smoke from his rolled cigarette past his face.
    Fifteen after the hour.
    The bartender raised his voice to the crowd.
    “He ain’t comin’.”
    The crowd groaned.
    “Don’t change nothin’.”
    “What ya say, Surly?”
    “The girl’s still with a bastard child. Still’ll be a curse on her... on us.”
    “Well, he’s a coward if ya ask me. Look at all these folks come here, skippin’ tendin’ to their business... waitin’ to see justice.”
    The crowd dispersed, making their way back to the barber, post office, hotel, saloon. It took that old drunk Harald Smithe quite a while to get his fat ass back in the saloon, degenerated hips taking stuttered steps.
    Surly salivated, got a mean thirst, looking at that saloon, doors swaying, closing, then opening, then closing. “It wasn’t him anyway.”
    “How you know?”
    “Just know.”
    Surly checked his pocket watch again. Twenty after the hour and still ticking. He closed it.
    “He shoulda come. Damn coward.”

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