The hat poured me a stiff one, the bottle angled so that the liquor came out slow and steady. He pushed the cup across the table and left the bottle in the middle. His own cup stayed empty.

“Aren’t you going to have one?” I asked.

“I’m not going to drink with you Sam. It wouldn’t be honest.”

“Honest?”

“We aren’t comrades, acquaintances, or strangers well met Sam. This thing between us shouldn’t be drunk to.”

“I’m drinking.” I took a long pull on the cup for emphasis.

“I expected you would be Sam. The proprieties never meant that much to you, no reason to change now.” He pulled out his tobacco and started rolling another smoke.

“Fuck the proprieties.” I wanted to say ‘fuck you,’ but he had the all the guns.

“Ha, Fuck the proprieties… Maybe there’s something left of you after all. I was worried that I had come all this way to kill a shell.” The hat struck a match with his thumbnail, cute.

“You going to tell me why you want me dead so bad boy?”

“Sure, I’ll tell you. I’m just wondering where to start. Time and place I suppose.” The hat got quiet for a moment. “Twenty years ago, St. Lois, Missouri. My old man was a cooper, making beer barrels mostly. I worked for him, guess I was about 10. My ma had died shortly after I was born, but I had a big sister who did most of the work of domesticating me.” He took a pull on the smoke and continued glassy eyed with recollection.

“It wasn’t an exciting life for a boy, fitting staves in hoops all day. But it was all the life that I was born to. Was I happy? Happiness is a slippery thing, I guess I was content.” The hat stopped talking for a while, looked at his fingernails like he had the next word written there. I waited for him to work it out; I was drinking on his dime after all.

Finally he looked up and started again. “One day my pa and sister went out with a wagon load. They had a delivery to make, either a brewery or a pickle factory, I don’t recall. My sister always went on the deliveries. She had a good head for numbers, something Pa had never learned. I stayed at home to watch the shop.

“After they left I heard some gun fire, not that uncommon, not enough to think about really. A few hours later the wagon came back, driven by the sheriff. On the back lay two dusty bundles wrapped in sailcloth.

“The sheriff told me how it happened. You had a falling out with a tavern owner and the two of you took to shooting. Shots were going everywhere, each of you too drunk to hit the other. The way I heard it, the tavern keeper tripped over a bar stool, and you plugged him in the back while he lay there. You were already most of the way out of town before anybody noticed my pa and sister. Pa got it clean in the head, my sister got it in the belly, spent some time bleeding out before she died. Someone in their wisdom thought it might be easier for me if I didn’t watch her die, so they waited for it to end before bringing the bodies.

“Next day the sun came up as usual. It looked to be one of those perfect days when just being alive and breathing air is pleasure, strange weather for a funeral. I took the wagon to the bone yard by myself. The caretaker already had the holes dug. I helped him put my pa and my sister in the ground and then stayed for a while as the priest said some words. Nobody else came; maybe they thought that showing up would force them to take me in.

“When I got back to town I sold the shop for half price to another cooper. I took the money, bought a horse, and got out of town that night. For a while I was adrift. My only ambition was to see you dead, and you weren’t hard to find in those days. But even my boy self knew I couldn’t take you, I wasn’t ready. So I decided to set about making myself ready.

“For a time there wasn’t a spot of trouble I could stay out of. I mixed with more useless thugs then you’d think the world could hold. After a while I got to be pretty tough, but by then I couldn’t find you. I started drifting again, trying to get a sniff of you. I got so desperate that I took a job with the Pinkertons for a while, but they don’t do favors.

“After a while I began to think you might be dead, but something wouldn’t let me stop looking, not till I knew for sure. I quit the Pinkertons and just I took to wandering at random, just hoping to see you. Then today I wandered in here. Somehow that bartender knew you, he didn’t say anything, but I knew he knew you.”

“Ike used to run with me before he got so fat.” I told him.

“Either way here you are, and here I am. It’s almost over now.”

“Well boy, if you were planning on killing me you could have saved us both some bother and kept that story to yourself.” I said

“Don’t worry Sam, I won’t kill you yet, I said we had some time and I meant it. I won’t shoot you in the back, or in cold blood. When you go down it’ll be face to face, no excuses.”

“I don’t even have a gun boy.”

“You’ll find one, you got till noon tomorrow.”

I spat on the floor, stood up from the table, and walked over to the bar. The leathery cowboy was still there, his head hanging low over the bar. I grabbed him by a greasy hank of hair on the back of his head.

“Give us a song.” I said. Ike started to come around the bar, but I gave him a look that changed his mind.

“Fuck you rummy.” Leatherman said, his hand fumbling for his gun. I drove my fist into his belly, doubling him over and sending spit-up bile and booze onto both our boots. I still had him by the hair so I drove his face into the bar. Blood, bubbles, and teeth, the beast inside me laughed. I took Leatherman’s gun and belt.

“Tomorrow then kid.” I said giving him a last look. Then I walked out the door, giving him my back. I could feel his eyes, that hard look of his burning a hole between my shoulder blades. It was good to be alive again.