Fire Brands
Murasaki Shikibu
9781465668615
418 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
“I’ll kill him, if it’s the last thing I ever do!” yelped “Sad” Sontag. “I tell yuh, I’m goin’ to kill him!” “Quit it, I tell yuh!” wailed the bartender. “Don’t do that!” Swish! Crash! “Aw-w-w-w, you danged fool!” The bartender’s voice was raised in a wailing crescendo. “Look what yuh went and done.” Sad Sontag’s face came up from behind the bar and he looked around solemnly. His serious gray eyes considered the redfaced bartender, shifted to “Swede” Harrigan, his partner, and then considered other occupants of the saloon, who were interested. “Your darned heels knocked some of my glasses down,” complained the bartender. “I told yuh not to do it, didn’t I? Didn’t I tell yuh not to git up on my bar like that?” “Uh-huh,” nodded Sad. “I s’pose yuh did mention it.” “Mention, hell!” The bartender appealed to the crowd. “I’ll leave to any of you.” “You kinda overreached yourself, cowboy,” observed Swede. “Uh-huh,” Sad squinted around, felt the back of his neck and shrugged his thin shoulders. “Well, I s’pose I missed him,” he said ruefully, coming from behind the bar. “That’s the first darned horsefly that ever bit me from behind and got away with it.” “Gittin’ up on my bar and tryin’ to hit a fly with a hat!” The bartender was justly indignant. “Where in hell do you fellers think this place is, anyway? Balancin’ on your knees on top of my bar and——” “Wait a minute,” interrupted Sad. “If you think that anybody is intensely interested in yore recital, hire a hall. I’ll betcha you’ve got a silv’ry voice, and all that, but not when yo’re mad. Right now yuh kinda creak yore words.” “I’ve got a right to kick, ain’t I?” Sad leaned against the bar, his old sombrero pulled down over his left eye, his shirt collar hiked up around his ears, and squinted reflectively at the irate bartender. “All right,” he nodded. “Go ahead. But, brother, let not yore oration become personal. Use all the ‘I’s’ yuh want to, but keep from sayin’ ‘you’ as much as possible. Proceed.” But the bartender’s vocabulary seemed to have oozed away; so he contented himself with picking up what few glasses Sad’s heels had smashed when he fell off the bar in his efforts to swat a horsefly. Sad Sontag was as lean as a grayhound, bronzed as an Indian. His hair was sort of a washed-out sandy color, with one long lock extending down his forehead and joining one of his arched eyebrows, which gave him an habitual astonished expression. Sad’s shirt was of neutral shade; the color having long since faded from the sun and strong soap, his chaps worn and scarred, and his boot heels badly run over on the outer edges, which proved that Sad was bow-legged. His cartridge belt was of extra width, molded by use to fit the curve of his hip and thigh, and from a scarred holster protruded the plain, black wood butt of a heavy Colt revolver. Swede Harrigan, his partner, was a composite of Gaelic and Norse; a six foot six inch blond cowboy, with an Irish mouth and nose. His eyes were round and very blue; patient-looking eyes, which belied the nose and mouth below them. His raiment was on a par with that worn by Sad, except that his boot heels were slightly run over on the inner side, which proved that Swede was a little knock-kneed in spite of the fact that he had spent most of his life in a saddle. They were a nondescript pair, these two cowpunchers; neither handsome nor gaudy. An experienced cattleman would probably pick them out of a crowd as being tophand cowboys; but as far as appearances went they were merely two ordinary cowhands, no better nor worse than the average run. Nor were they, except that they were joint owners of the TJ cattle outfit in the Sundown country, a hundred miles north of this town of Oreana. Oreana City, they called it, a cow town of a hundred and fifty inhabitants, and the county seat of Pipestone County.
