“This man owes me a beer, Al,” Thomas said. “Draw three and he’ll pay for them.”
Davis turned to face Thomas. Some of the other men at the bar sensed the trouble and backed off, giving the two men room.
“I’m only payin’ for two beers,” Davis said belligerently. “You pay for your own.”
“I did pay for my own,” Thomas said. “And you spilled it. That means you owe me one.”
“I don’t owe you shit!”
Baker set three mugs of beer on the bar and looked at the two men, wondering who was going to pay for what.
“Look,” Thomas said, “I tried to do this nicely, so now I’m tellin’ you—pay for the three beers.”
Davis looked Thomas up and down. He saw a big man in his mid-twenties, at least ten years younger than him. He wasn’t about to let some young punk tell him what to do.
“You know how to use that hogleg?” he asked, nodding at Thomas’s revolve.
“I’ve been known to.”
“Is it worth usin’ it for a beer?”
Thomas spread his feet and planted them firmly beneath him. “It’ll be worth it to teach you a lesson,” he said, “and it might ease my bad mood.”
“I’ll take care of your mood—” Davis said, taking a step back. Before he could do anything else, though, Ben Cardwell stepped between the two men and planted his right hand against Davis’s chest.
“Back off, Sean,” he said with authority. “You did spill the man’s beer. I saw you.” He looked at Thomas. “My friend is clumsy. I apologize.” Then he turned to the bar and tossed some coins on it. “That cover the three beers?”
“It covers it,” Al Baker said.
“Enjoy your beer,” Cardwell said to Thomas.
“What the hell—” Davis began.
“Let’s sit down!” Cardwell snapped at him. “Now!”
He grabbed Davis by the arm and literally dragged him across the floor to their table.
“I thought he was gonna draw his gun for sure,” Baker said to Thomas.
“He was,” Thomas said. “He would have, if his friend hadn’t stopped him.”
“Then you would have killed him.”
Thomas looked at Baker, picked up his beer and said, “Yes.”
“Over a beer?”
Thomas put his elbows on the bar. “It would have been more than that.”
“What the hell did you do that for?” Davis asked after Cardwell had forced him into a chair.
A large, ham-handed man, he easily pushed the slighter, shorter man into his seat.
“You didn’t recognize that man?”
Davis looked across the room at Thomas, who had his back to him now. “No, should I?”
“We saw him earlier,” Cardwell said. “He was wearing a badge.”
“One of the deputies?”
“That’s right. We don’t need you gettin’ into trouble with the law tonight, Sean.”
Davis looked across the room again, but some of the men who had spread out to give them room to resolve their conflict before had closed ranks again, and he couldn’t see the lawman.
“But…he wasn’t wearin’ his badge.” The long, slender nose that gave his face the look of a weasel twitched.
“I noticed that.”
“You sure—”
“I’m sure,” Cardwell said.
Davis drank down a quarter of his beer.
“I would have killed him, you know.”
“Probably,” Cardwell said, “but that would have caused us a lot of trouble we don’t need right now. So drink your beer and get used to the fact that you’re not killin’ anybody…not tonight, anyway.”
6
“I thought I told you never to tell anyone I’m a deputy, Al,” Thomas said to Baker.
“Thomas,” Baker said, “everybody else in here knows it already. It was just those strangers—”
“I don’t care,” Thomas said. “If I wanted people to know—strangers—I’d wear the damned badge.”
“Okay,” Baker said, “sorry.”
Thomas pushed his empty mug forward.
“Another?”
“Yeah.”
“You usually nurse one,” Baker said, picking up the mug. “This’ll make two.”
“Three,” Thomas said, “counting the one that was spilled. Besides, what are you, my father?”
“Thomas—”
“I already have a father,” he said. “Give me another beer.”
“Comin’ up.”
Thomas made a point of not turning around to look at the two strangers. No sense inviting another confrontation. Somebody might not walk away next time.
“I’m going home,” Dan Shaye said. “You comin’?”
“I think I’m gonna walk around town some more, Pa,” James said. “Make sure everything’s all right.”
They had just done that, so Shaye suspected James had something else on his mind. Maybe that gal Thomas had been talking about.
“Suit yourself, James,” he said. “Just don’t get yourself into trouble.”
“I’ll be careful, Pa.”
“Good night, then.”
Shaye walked home to a quiet house. He knew instinctively that Thomas was out, and not inside, asleep. Maybe that was where James was going, to find his brother.
Thomas finished that next beer and pushed the mug away. He was surprised at his own anger. He suspected it had been burning in his belly for a year, and two beers plus the better part of a third had probably fanned the flame. He felt ashamed when he realized who he was angry at.
He was considering another beer, wondering if it would put out the flame or fan it into an uncontrollable blaze when he felt someone sidle up next to him.
“James.”
“Big brother.”
“Want a beer?”
“How many have you had?”
“Enough.”
“I’ll skip it.”
Thomas turned his head to look at his brother. “How’d you know where I was?”
“I looked.”
“Why?”
“Something’s been botherin’ you, Thomas,” James said. “I thought you might wanna talk about it.”
“James—” Thomas started, but he stopped abruptly.
“Thomas?”
“Let’s get out of here, James,” Thomas said, “and I’ll talk to you.”
They turned away from the bar and headed for the door together under the watchful eyes of Ben Cardwell and Sean Davis.
“Why don’t we follow them?” Davis asked. “We can get rid of them tonight.”
“Yeah,” Cardwell said, “that’s all we need is two dead deputies showin’ up in the mornin’—and the rest of our men aren’t here yet.”
“With the two deputies dead, you and me can do the job alone,” Davis said.
“Sean,” Cardwell said, “who makes all the plans?”
“Well…you, usually.”
“And how do things turn out?”
“Well, okay, usually.”
“Then shut up,” Cardwell said, “and stop tryin’ to do the thinkin’. You ain’t cut out for it.”
Thomas and James walked back toward the center of town, where it was quiet.
“What’s goin’ on, Thomas?” James asked.
Thomas didn’t answer right away.
“Come on, Thomas,” James said. “I know you’re the older brother, and you’re always there for me, but sometime you gotta let me be there for you…you know?”
Thomas looked at his little brother and realized he was right. If he was always going to be there for James, who would ever be there for him? His father? He couldn’t very well do that, could he? After all, wasn’t that who he was mad at?
“Tell me something, little brother,” Thomas said. “Do you ever get angry?”
“What?” James asked. “Well, sure, yeah, I get mad sometimes.”
“At who?”
James shrugged. “I get mad at Ethan Langer, for killin’ Ma and Matthew.”