by Jon Sharpe
Fargo pushed on the batwings. The familiar scents of liquor and cigar smoke and the clink of poker chips made him glad he had stopped. The place was packed. He shouldered to the bar and smacked the counter and a bartender with a bushy mustache and a big smile came over.
“What will it be, stranger?”
“Whiskey.” Fargo fished a coin from his pocket. As the bartender produced a glass and poured, he motioned and said, “It’s not the Fourth of July, is it?” He didn’t make it a habit to keep up with the calendar.
The bartender chuckled. “Sure isn’t. All this to-do is because of the hanging.”
“The what?” Fargo said, although he’d heard perfectly well.
“Everyone is in town to see Steve Lucas strung up.” The bartender glanced at a clock above the shelves behind the bar.
“In about an hour. I’ll be closing so I can go. It’s not every day you get to see someone swing.”
“No, it’s not,” Fargo said. The times he had, he tried to forget. It was an awful way to die.
“The mayor is going to give a speech and there are booths where you can buy juice and cakes and pie.”
“Nothing like a hanging to work up an appetite,” Fargo said.
About to turn away, the bartender gave him a sharp look.
“I don’t know as I like your tone. The man being hung deserves it. He was caught red-handed.”
“Caught doing what?”
It wasn’t the bartender who answered. It was a tall, lanky man in a broad-brimmed black hat and a vest with a star on it.
“Rustling.”
Fargo turned. “Marshal Travers, I take it?”
The lawman nodded. He had a long, bony face and close-set eyes. “I found the cow myself in his barn.”
“One cow?”
“One or twenty, it’s all the same. Lucas stole it and he has to pay.” Travers leaned on an elbow. “You here for the necktie social or some other reason?”
Fargo treated himself to a swallow of Monongahela. “For this. Then I aim to be on my way.”
“Make sure you stay out of trouble. You won’t like what happens if you don’t.”
Fargo held his temper in check and said, “You’re not very friendly.”
“We have a nice town here and we like to keep it that way,”
Marshal Travers said, and smiled. “So no, we’re not very friendly at all.”
FB2 document info
Document ID: 8ec6e276-6777-4a3c-8b24-69c1064124fc
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 16.5.2012
Created using: calibre 0.8.50, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
Document authors :
Jon Sharpe
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