6:52 PM >> Two Rustlers

The serious one sips. Then with eyes still closed and taking in a numbing guzzle of beer, he slams his mug down on the table. It faces off with the laughing one's mug.

The piano player starts in on a new polka. "Beer Barrell" or something.

The serious one peers through two slits in his head. His eyes are red. A mixture of no sleep, anger, loss, and revenge. He squares off across the table with the laughing one. Two sets of eyes staring one another down. Their saddle bags hang off the corner of the table. Their holsters huddle in the middle of the table. They aren't smoking yet, but the kindling's there waiting for a spark.

"I said gold," says the laughing one again. "Gold."

"I want none of it. You be out of here by the morning. If you are not, I'll see you out of town myself."

"You drag me out of town and the gold belonging to no one leaves with me. It's half yours if you help. I need your guns."

The serious one shoots both hands to the mound in the center of the table. He comes up, arms crossed with his and the other's gun barrells strangling the laughing one's throat. The chuckle is gone.

"I swear to f'ing hell -- you be gone tonight."

The now trembling one chokes on the pistols at his throat.

The serious one finishes, "I'm done with that. Till I'm taken to hell at the end of my days, I'll be living here waiting it out. Got that?"

Blood drips from where the iron sights were dug in. He coughs.

"I got it. But wouldn't your wait here on earth, so close to hell, be better spent in comfort with a bag full of gold?"

The serious one stares him down from the slits in his head. He drops the guns to the table. Raises his mug. Drains it. Slams it to the table. And reaches to the trembling one's throat. His open claw pauses at the trembling one's dripping neck. He holds the empty claw there for a couple of seconds. Then rips the trembling one's bandana from his neck and holds it in front of his face.

"Wipe that blood. Finish that swill. Meet me outside when you are done."

The serious one sweeps up his bag, holster, and gun and floats into the night outside the saloon.