Jese glanced around The Little River Saloon. Nothing had changed. If it weren't for the guise of his unwieldy top hat and face consuming spectacles, he might have forgotten that he'd ever left. Nova's assault (and everything else that had followed) might have simply been erased from memory.
Turning bodily, Jese scanned the room for the two cattle rustlers. He felt his boots stick to the Tavern's hardwood floor. Generous amounts of beer - enticed downwards by gravity - had turned the entire bar tacky underfoot. About him, saloon girls fought to keep their dainty slippers on their feet.
A small frown formed on his brow. With the perfect mixture of bravado and stupidity, the two rustlers - Jese had decided - would struggle to avoid the Tavern that night. All Jese needed to do was spot them.
He wouldn't have minded the search if it weren't for the smell of the place. The warm stench of beer and body odor were enhanced by a rancid gas... Incredibly drunk cowboys breaking wind. Jese had tried to spot the gassy perpetrator, yet no one wore a guilty expression. Perhaps their bowel movements went unheeded as the competition over the tired looking saloon girls heated up.
The sight of the girls trying not to breath through their nose brought Jese's mind back to his fiancee. How a beautiful specimen like Nova Radcliffe was penniless and nearly homeless in this town, with her looks and the obvious lack of competition about, was a complete mystery to him.
His jaw tightened at the thought of her predicament. Nova's bad luck had worked out very well for him. Too well. But, instead of feeling celebratory, doubt had started gnawing at his gut. The possibility that maybe she deserved better than him. Maybe she deserved a partner that would love and cherish her, not someone like him who had nothing to offer but a moment of financial security. He was starting to feel a strange emotion... Pity.
Jese nearly recoiled in shock. He had obviously drunk too much if he was having such idiotic thoughts. A woman like Nova wouldn't notice a good man if he walked straight into her in the vast wilderness. She was never going to marry for love, so he didn't need to feel guilty about marrying her for security.
But even if he had no intention of helping her find a future with a man far more adequate than he was he did have enough heart to protect her from these scoundrels out to poach her cattle. Or, he thought dubiously, maybe he was just looking after himself? After all, those bulls were supposed to be his in a few days time. His lips tightened menacingly.
Finding the two was a difficult task. The rowdy night meant that the bar was elbow to elbow with excited patrons, and trying to see through them or around them was a feat of genius... the kind of genius that he wasn't capable of.
With his elbow propped on the bar and his eye on the crowd, Jese took a sip of the mandatory whisky which the barkeep had skidded, across the roughly planed surface of the bar, in his direction. It wasn't the finest liquor that he'd had the good grace to partake in, but he treated it as if it were a well-aged drop.
"Back again?" The barkeep remarked.
Jese nodded. So the man had seen through his terrible disguise, he pushed his spectacles up his nose. Hopefully, the men he sought weren't as observant.
"You'll be leaving soon?"
"I might not," Jese replied. Secrecy and silence were desirable traits for bar staff in this land of outlaws and new beginnings. In comparison to others, this Barkeep had an insatiable curiosity. "I've taken a liking to the area."
An aging Saloon Girl bustled in beside Jese, as the Barkeep moved away. Her hoop skirts chafed his leg, and elbow jabbed his ribs. The woman clutched a fraying handbag to her person protectively, as if she thought she was to be mugged imminently. Jese noticed her lips trembling.
He noticed the descent of one clear and sparkly tear. It fell down her cheek like a freshly cleaned diamond. The lone droplet was soon gobbled up hungrily into the cracks. He'd seen her face before. Taking a peek down he tried to appraise her knees. Spotting one large knee, he noted that yes, she was the dancing girl from the night before.
"Sorry." She buried her face in her hands.
He struggled not to sigh audibly. That one word had sucked him in. It had made him responsible of her angst. Now he had to be the gentleman that his Mama had brought him up to be. "Here." He passed her a freshly starched white handkerchief.
The woman took it appreciatively. Her fragile shoulders shaking to such a state that Jese worried that they might break.
Be damned if he missed his men because of a soggy dame. He stood a little higher and peered out above the heads. They still were nowhere to be seen. Although he'd begun to wonder if he even remembered what they looked like. The duo would be easy to spot, Jese decided. One tall and overweight with a badly shaped stetson, and the other short and skinny with an undershot jaw. Alone they were strange looking but together they were almost comical.
"I'm sorry," the woman whimpered again. "I just need a strong drink. To settle my nerves."
He glanced at her momentarily. So this was how the lesser attractive Saloon Girls made their living, begging for sympathy drinks? Jese waved the barkeep back over. "A drink for the lady," he said. Noticing that a trace of resignation was audible in his tone.
"A whiskey."
Jese saw the stern look his female companion gave the man and he noticed that this time the Barkeep didn't mince around with Iced Tea but headed straight for the strong stuff. He watched quietly as the whiskey was passed to her eager hands. Throwing it back she gulped for air.
There was something heartening about knowing he hadn't been swindled for a drink. That the poor woman was obviously in such a state that one strong drink was all that was needed to put her right. "Tough day?" he asked.
She didn't answer at first. Instead, he could see (from the small smile that crossed her face) that she was taking pleasure in feeling the alcohol enter her bloodstream. "Yes. A little. I'm sorry to have bothered you. I was just feeling a little foolish."
He assessed her quietly. She wasn't lying but she also wasn't telling the truth. Not the whole truth. Jese had an eerie feeling that she knew something that he needed to hear. It was this run of strange luck he was having. It was as if he had an angel watching over him. An angel with red hair, he thought sadly. Glancing back at his companion he spoke carefully, "Everyone feels a little silly at times."
Jese wasn't the best man at understanding how to delve into matters of the heart, or even how to begin conversations in general. It hadn't been a skill he'd needed to work on in the last few years. But he'd always had a knack of getting people to talk. His 'man of few words' exterior meant that people opened up to him without much encouragement.
He'd never liked hearing everyone's heart-wrenching sob story, as every story he'd heard had some kind of bloodshed. And he simply didn't want to be reminded of the grim reality of life... which was death. As far as feelings went the nicest, by a long shot, were none. To be in a cocoon of nothingness was Jese's kind of Utopia.
Jese's pathetic attempt at small talk was all the encouragement the poor woman needed and she burst forth into a long monologue. "It's nothing. I'm only feeling foolish because I just went for a drink to a lounge bar across town with the largest fellow you ever clapped eyes on -"
Jese's ears pricked up instantly. "Large, was he?"
"Hands the size of frying pans," she answered. "If he held a dog it would have thought itself a pup." She shook her head momentarily. "But I digress."
"Say, this fellow... did he have a friend with him?"
The woman seemed momentarily shocked that Jese had spoken. As if she'd forgotten that she was recounting the tale aloud at all. With a tiny shake of her head, the loose skin at her throat wobbling perilously, she answered, "Oh yes. A tiny weasel of a man. Such a strange pair. I really ought to have known that such odd looking fellows would be up to no good."
"And they were?" he asked. Trying to keep the urgency from his tone.
"As crooked as a dog's hind legs. They didn't want my company as they'd first suggested... and even laughed in my face that I had thought that they might. No. They wanted an accomplice, they said, an old lady. And that I'd be very suitable."
"An accomplice for what?"
"I didn't hang around to talk!" She exclaimed angrily. "They offended my honour! I didn't want to waste a moment more of my time there."
"Those two men. Are they in this Tavern now?"
The woman dutifully peered around the bar. "No, they aren't. Most likely they'll be where I left them ten minutes ago."
"And where was that?"
She opened her mouth to speak, and while the words tumbled out Jese couldn't hear a thing over the sudden din. Turning to find what had caused the commotion, Jese spotted eight burly men, with their faces covered by dark bandanas, entering the bar with guns held aloft.
"This is a stick-up," the ring leader growled in a familiar voice.
Jese's brain scrabbled through his foggy memory to remember where he'd heard that man before. He'd met an awful lot of outlaws in his lifetime, so it was no easy feat.
"Put your hands where we can see them," the man continued. "So no'one'll get hurt."