When I came to it was still dark outside. I was in the ditch, and my head ached from more than just bad booze. At some point that bastard Ike must’ve given me the bum’s rush. I felt around my mouth to see if I still had any teeth left, I didn’t find any new empty spots, I supposed Ike had already knocked out his favorites by then. I got to my feet and then had to wait a moment for my stomach and my head to catch up. Once the earth stopped spinning long enough I climbed back on the boardwalk. I went to Ike’s door to take a last look inside. I wasn’t so gone that I’d go back in to the same dump that already tossed me for the night.

Inside the slow night has become slower. Most of the guys who had been drinking at the bar have crawled off to die for a few hours. Just that leathery mean cowboy, the one who liked music, and a few others were still there. The card game was still going in the corner, only with a few less players. The other table was open. I noticed the players weren’t paying attention to their cards anymore than the drinkers were paying attention to their drinks. They were all looking at a man standing at the bar, a stranger.

It was that flat Spanish hat from sunset, the hat that my musty old instincts had told me to watch. A strange hat for the company, black with a black band. Fancy new hat like that would normally make him a greenhorn but for the unnatural relaxed way he came into town. That patience, the calm, the weird hat, only kind of man who doesn’t rush and doesn’t give a damn is one isn’t afraid. In this place that made him a killer. Greenhorn or killer I didn’t like him. Takes a real bastard to wear a black hat out here, better than a white hat, but still a real bastard.

While I hung in the shadows near the door I saw that the hat was talking to Ike and criminally ignoring the drink in front of him. Even then nobody was that interested in Ike, not even Mrs. Fat Bastard. Ike made a show of listening to the hat then he shrugged like he didn’t know something that maybe he knew. I saw the hat chew on the lie for a minute and then let it go.

The hat dismissed Ike and picked up the tin cup in front of him. He sniffed the whiskey like he gave a damn what it was. Then the hat slugged it just as quick as anyone with sense. I guess he didn’t find it too offensive because then he bought a bottle of the same stuff. He took the bottle and moved over to a free table. Then he just sat there, rolling a smoke with his hands, the rest of him unnaturally still. Made him hard to notice until you did, once you did you couldn’t stop watching him. It was like a snake waiting on a rabbit.

The card players went back to their game, not enough imagination among the lot of them to stay worried for long. I stayed in the shadows outside the door. I had a room in the flophouse but instinct, the same instinct that watched that dot on the horizon, kept me from my bed. We stayed in our places for a while, him waiting for his rabbit and me trying to figure who the rabbit might be.

I’ll admit that I flinched first. I told myself that I might know something he wanted to know, that I might make an honest buck off him. The reality was I wanted to know what he wanted, curiosity and cats you know. I pushed into the light of the bar. The hat still didn’t move, not even his eyes. I saw that Fat Bastard Ike had a different look than usual. His usual disdain had been replaced with alarm; it was the kind of thing I paid attention to in the old days. The kind of thing that the hat couldn’t miss.

“C’mon over and have a drink on the house” said Ike.

“You talking to me?” I asked. I’d never seen Ike give anything away; I couldn’t believe he’d start with me.

“Yeah, you’ve been coming here long enough. I guess you’re owed one.”

“Sure Ike, I’ll have it at the table with him.” When I said that I saw something sad in Ike’s eyes, something scared in them too.

“Why aren’t you asleep? You should be asleep” it was rhetorical so I didn’t answer. I didn’t see the drink forthcoming either. It was first casualty of my damned curiosity.

I walked over to the hat’s table and stood across it from him. He blew a smoke ring at me; I took it as an invitation to sit down. He looked at me for the first time and I saw his eyes. A normal man, his eyes move all the time when he first sees someone, the hat’s eyes find what they want and stay there, hard eyes. They’re the kind of eyes that see everything.

Again I’m the one to break the standoff. “You gonna drink that or put flowers in it” I say nodding at the untouched bottle.

“I bought it for you, Samuel Scott. I’ve heard you have the taste for it these days.”

Samuel Scott, it was a name I hadn’t heard in a long time, my name. I didn’t exactly cover that name in glory either, more like infamy. “You a law man? You don’t look like one.”

“No Sam, I’m not the law. The law gave up on you a long time ago. Hopes you’re dead in Mexico or some such nonsense.”

“Well then, do I owe you money? Good luck collecting.” My palms were starting to sweat, the man had come too far just to shake down a drunk for a few bucks.

“You don’t owe me anything Sam. In fact if there’s any one who owes here it’s me owing you.”

“Quite playing with me boy. Who are you, what you want?” That last came out as a squeak.

“It doesn’t matter who I am. Name wouldn’t mean a thing to you.” He took a long pull on the cigarette, till it was just a cherry hanging off a nub. His big left hand came up and pinched the butt out between his thumb and forefinger with a faint hiss. “Tell you what Sam. We have some time to kill. I’ll tell you a story.”

“I’ll be having that drink then.” I told him.