18
Thomas was the first one to arrive at the small saloon they’d chosen as their meeting place. Above the door was a handwritten sign that said: BO HART’S SALOON. Good, simple, straightforward name, he thought.
He went inside, found the place quiet, in spite of the fact that it was pretty full. A quick look around told him there was no piano, no stage, no gambling equipment. There was one barmaid moving through the room, carrying a tray. Seems Bo Hart’s Saloon was simply a place a man could get a drink—and not much more. Well, at least there won’t be any trouble here, he thought.
He walked to the bar and leaned on it. The bartender was a man who had the misfortune to possess both a barrel chest and bandy legs. Gave him an odd appearance and, as he moved about behind the bar, an odd gait as well. Thomas waited until the man finished loading the barmaid’s tray with drinks before waving his hand at him.
“What can I get ya?” the man asked.
“Just a beer.”
“Comin’ up.”
The man filled a mug with a frosty brew and set it down in front of Thomas.
“Mind if I start a tab?” Thomas asked. “I’m waitin’ for two more fellas and they’ll also be drinkin’.”
“Sure,” the man said, “why not?”
Thomas grabbed his beer, turned his back to the bar, and leaned against it. There were only about ten tables in the place and eight of them were full. There were two empties toward the back of the room. He waved at the bartender again.
“Another one already?”
“No, just a question,” Thomas said. “Them two empty tables in the back, they reserved for anythin’ special?”
“Poker games,” the man said. “We usually have a couple goin’, but they won’t start for a few hours yet.”
“Mind if I sit at one, then?”
“Uh…well, we usually keep them open,” the bartender said, looking confused.
“Where’s the harm if I sit at one for a little while?”
“Well…no harm, I guess—”
“Much obliged.”
Thomas left the bar, walked to the back of the room, and sat at one of the tables. He sat facing the batwing doors so he’d see his brother and father when they entered.
The men seated at the other tables—seated by twos and threes—all turned to look at him as if he’d just dropped a turd in the middle of the room. He simply raised his beer to them, nodding his head.
It took a few moments, but finally several of the men—two from one table, a third from another—slowly stood up and walked over to him.
“You can’t sit there,” one of them said.
“You’re not supposed to sit there,” another said.
The third simply stood there, staring at him.
“I’m just waiting for my father and brother,” he said. “When they get here they’ll each have a beer and we’ll be on our way.”
“Can’t sit there,” the third man said.
“We’ll be gone before your poker game is supposed to start,” Thomas said. “I guarantee it.”
A fourth man got up and came over.
“You gotta get up.”
Now, Thomas knew that the simple thing, the easy thing, to do was get up—just get up and walk out. He could have waited for his father and brother right out front. But he also knew that once you let a man cow you, move you, tell you what to do…well, once you did that men tended to try to do that to you all the time.
“I’m not finished with my beer,” he said, swirling what was left of it at the bottom of the mug. “There’s no harm in me sitting here long enough to finish my beer and then I’ll go. I’ll wait for my brother and my pa outside.”
A fifth man stood up.
“You gotta get up now.”
“What is it with you people?” Thomas demanded.
“Them’s the tables for poker games,” a sixth man said.
“Well, maybe today they ain’t,” Thomas said stubbornly. “What do you think of that? Maybe today that’s one of the poker tables.” He pointed to the table two of the men had stood up from. “That one—and that one.” He pointed to the other empty table, which was always used for poker. “If the game had to be played at another table, what would that mean?”
Nobody answered.
“Would the world end?”
No answer.
“Goddamn it!” Thomas said.
“That’s one of the poker tables,” the first man said. “Always has been.”
“That’s the way it is,” anther man said. Thomas had lost count of how many men had spoken.
“Shit!” Thomas said.
He wasn’t afraid. He was outnumbered, but he wasn’t afraid. That wasn’t why he was mad enough to cuss. These weren’t gunmen, they were townsmen who did things the same way every day. If a day came when they had to do things differently, they wouldn’t know how to react.
But if he let them make him move…
“Shit,” he said and drank the rest of his beer.
James walked the teacher home, then handed her the armload of papers at the front door of her house.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Thank you for tellin’ me somethin’ about this town.”
“It’s a town, like a lot of others,” she said. “Folks around here get into a routine. If something changes that routine—”
“Like some strangers ridin’ into town?”
“—they get curious. Wary. Don’t let it bother you if you get stared at.”
“All right.”
She stepped through the door of her house, then turned and said, “Maybe, if you stay in town a few days, I’ll see you again.”
“Maybe,” he said. “I’d like that.”
She smiled a dazzling smile that made his heart skip a beat and then closed the door.
Dan Shaye was impressed by Pearl River Junction and its people. They stared at him as he went by, but he didn’t let that bother him. They were just curious. He understood that.
One by one the businesses closed up as the last customer left and the merchants locked their doors. People went home for supper.
He found a wooden bench in front of the mercantile store and sat in it for a while, just watching folks walk by, listening to the locks being turned on doors. Finally, the owner of the mercantile store came out and looked at him.
“Can I help you?” Shaye asked.
“The chair,” the man said. He was an older man, balding, pot-bellied, wearing an apron. “I got to put it away.”
Shaye stared at the man for a few moments and could tell it would be useless to ask him to leave the chair out just this once. He stood up and the man took the chair and carried it into the store without a word. Seconds later Shaye heard the door lock.
Suddenly the streets were kind of quiet and empty. Occasionally someone rode by on a horse or a buckboard went by, but the amount of foot traffic on the boardwalks had dropped significantly.
It was time to meet the boys, so Shaye stepped into the street and headed for the saloon.
19
When Shaye reached the front of the saloon, he saw James coming toward him from the south end of town.
“I thought you had the north end,” he said when his youngest son reached him.
“I did,” James said. “I’ll tell you about it inside.”
Shaye nodded and they entered through the batwing doors. They became immediately aware that something was going on. Most of the men in the place were standing and they were all facing the same way.
“What do you want to bet your brother’s somewhere in the middle of that?” Shaye asked.
“No bet,” James said.
“’Scuse us,” Shaye said and he and James started to make their way through the crowd.
Thomas had just about made up his mind that there were better things to fight over than a table when he saw his father and brother break through the crowd of men who were fronting him.