THE MAN ON FOOT TETHERED TO THE PACK MULE made the ride South to Silver Rock longer than it would have been otherwise, but as the town had the nearest railway station for some distance, and the man in question was meant to go back East, there weren't many options otherwise when it came to their destination. And though it's true that early on there had been some debate about letting him ride the mule rather than walking behind it, Fitcher had decided before she'd even taken possession of the irrefutable fuck that she didn't want some teamster stinking up her mule.
"Why Mr. Clarke, I don't think I've ever known someone so eager to get to their own hanging," she'd said. That had mostly shut him up.
At the time Fitcher had first caught up to him, Rob Clarke had been engaged in more or less honest bullwhacking across the river valley. That much was just fine. She might have never cared much for a red shirt with a bullwhip, but the work was necessary even if the people at it rarely were. No, the issue had nothing whatsoever to do with the six head of oxen, or the wagon load, or even the boy Clarke had been driving with, and everything to do with the man he'd killed and the girl he'd beaten on prior to his change in occupation.
And though Clarke had initially come into her custody with very little fuss, having not had time to get good with that whip and evidently being no friend of the dark haired younger fellow with him, his extended company was trying enough that by the time they reached Silver Rock Fitcher found herself resenting it. Not much to be done about that either though. Give him to the Marshall and she would almost certainly find him gone in the morning, value paid out to someone else’s tab. And God forbid she leave him tied to the mule in the street while she made arrangements or put her feet up.
Which is how, late in the evening as the piano plunked obstinately along from the corner and the fresh paid boys from the silver mine were leaned about the bar, a woman in a dark coat pushing a road dusted man bound by the hands came to shoulder in off the street and into Waller’s Saloon.
The barman and proprietor of the establishment, one Percival James Waller, did pretty well for himself in Silver Rock. It wasn’t hard, as he ran the only saloon, and the miners always came out of the ground parched and hungry. He also offered the only temporary lodging for people passing through, and while he didn’t run the dry goods store, a portion of the proceeds therein wound up in his pockets anyway, being the store owner’s brother and all.
But it seemed, as each creak of the floorboards beneath Fitcher and Clarke’s footsteps conveyed, that PJ Waller cared only to spend his earnings on what mattered. What mattered, judging by the loose floor boards, uncomfortable chairs, busted tables, and poorly tuned piano, were not creature comforts or the luxury of interior design.
The man himself, a great slab of a man with an unruly mustache and one eye that never found its mark, was one of only a few in the saloon whose attention remained with Fitcher after the initial glances. “Ye’ll be wantin’ a room, I’m guessin’,” He said, sounding like he was talking around a mouth and throat full of rocks. “‘Less this is some kinda marital dispute, y’ain’t gonna be able t’offload that feller til mornin’ anyways.”
A table of men in the far corner of the room sat hunched over their cards, though their attention was no longer on their game. They spoke to one another in low voices, taking turns looking over their shoulders or past their associates’ heads to take in the sight of bounty hunter and bounty. They were not well-suited to subtlety.
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But it seemed, as each creak of the floorboards beneath Fitcher and Clarke’s footsteps conveyed, that PJ Waller cared only to spend his earnings on what mattered. What mattered, judging by the loose floor boards, uncomfortable chairs, busted tables, and poorly tuned piano, were not creature comforts or the luxury of interior design.
The man himself, a great slab of a man with an unruly mustache and one eye that never found its mark, was one of only a few in the saloon whose attention remained with Fitcher after the initial glances. “Ye’ll be wantin’ a room, I’m guessin’,” He said, sounding like he was talking around a mouth and throat full of rocks. “‘Less this is some kinda marital dispute, y’ain’t gonna be able t’offload that feller til mornin’ anyways.”
A table of men in the far corner of the room sat hunched over their cards, though their attention was no longer on their game. They spoke to one another in low voices, taking turns looking over their shoulders or past their associates’ heads to take in the sight of bounty hunter and bounty. They were not well-suited to subtlety.