I woke with the dawn and began getting up. Progress was incremental. First I rolled to the edge of the cot and then I sent my feet out to scout for the floor. For a moment I rested there, feet on the floor, elbows on my knees and head in my hands. The whole of my body ached, but certain regions demanded more attention. My head was in particularly poor shape, the metaphysical ache of too much whiskey was in a battle royal with the concrete bruising I’d received at the hands of Ike and my head wasn’t big enough for the both of them. There was a foul metallic taste in my mouth and I tried to spit, but my dry mouth and swollen tongue could find nothing to spit. I heaved myself upright, my knees cracked like gunshots. I swayed for a moment, finding my balance. Once I felt stable enough I staggered over to the washbasin. There was some water in the basin, I took a moment to thank whichever god looks after filling basins with water, and I cupped some of it and brought it to my mouth. I sloshed the tepid water around in my mouth for a moment and then spat, hoping that the rinse would take most of the foulness with it.

Coffee, the need for it burned with an unholy fire. I put on my boots, taking a moment to knock Leatherman’s dried vomit from the toes, and pushed out the door. There was no kitchen in the flophouse, so I’d have to go elsewhere for coffee, basically that meant going back to Ike’s, not something I wanted given the circumstances, but I’ve never been strong against addictions.

Outside the world was grey with dawn, not the sort of morning you’d pick for leaving behind mortal existence. I tread along the wooden sidewalk, making my way gingerly toward Ike’s. Not everyone had made it to a bed. Here and there lay a few fools sleeping off the nights excess in the street, their mouths open and their nostrils whistling the steady beat of inebriated sleep. The only other soul I saw was a Chinese fellow sweeping in front of the general store. He had his hair done in a long pigtail, the hair going down to near his waistline. The hair moved as he swept, going left when the broom went right and right when broom went left, like one was chasing the other. He heard me coming and looked up for a minute, his eyes caught mine for a moment and showed me nothing. His eyes weren’t hot, hard, cool, or cagey; they just saw me and gave nothing back, soft eyes. Whatever he saw didn’t merit another look; he went back to sweeping. I wondered in passing why he bothered, who sweeps in a world of dust?

When I got to Ike’s he was still up, raking the vile hay off the floor and into a midden he had out back. Everybody was cleaning this morning. He heard me come in the front door and looked at me funny, almost made me think he was feeling sad about something.

“Coffee” I said.

“Over there” he nodded his head at a tin pot set on the bar.

I grabbed a cup and poured some for myself. It was thick with sediment and cold. “How old is this shit?” I asked.

“Let’s see, might be I made it Saturday, but I don’t really recall.”

“Ike, it’s Thursday, are you going to send me to my grave with week-old coffee.”

“Shit Sam, you’re the only one who drinks it. Do I look like I made of coffee beans?”

“You look like you’re made of suet you fat bastard.”

“You see, I was going to make a fresh pot, but with that attitude you can just drink what’s there.”

“Fuck you Ike.” I slugged down sludge, hoping to get it down before tasting it. Total failure. Still, vile as it tasted it still had some of the healing powers of coffee. I started to feel human.

“Where’s the boy, the black hat from last night.” I asked.

“He took a room upstairs, rented a bed warmer.”

“Who?”

“Jenny”

“Huh” With Jenny warming his bed I could count on him not being down for a while. “You see him, tell him I’ll keep the appointment.”

“Where you going”

“I’m going to take in some air.” I pushed back outside.

The Chinese fellow with the broom was gone. I decided to get gone myself. I wasn’t going to spend my last morning on earth in this town. I didn’t have a horse, so I started walking. There was a hill of sorts that I might make it too in an hour or so. It was a pretty a place as I was likely to find before noon.

I’ve always thought that you are what people think you are. People see you one way, and the weight of that expectation causes you to be that way. Maybe down deep there’s someone else, someone who doesn’t get out much. You might want to pretend that the deep person is the “real” person and the guy everybody sees is just a facade, but that’s not the way it is. Real is what happens out in the open, the person people see, he’s the real one. That inner being, that’s your imagination telling you who you’d like to be. Maybe that’s why I’ve never gotten along with people, they always expect the worst from me, and I always oblige. It seemed like a good idea to spend those last hours away from people, away from myself.

I passed the edge of town and gradually the early morning grey burned off into another clear hot day. Here and there you could see great puffy clouds. The air was so clear that each cloud had it’s own distinct shadow following under it. Tumbleweeds rolled passed me with no particular place to go, just riding the wind for a far as it would take them.

After about a mile I angled off the road and started toward my hill. It wasn’t so much a hill as it was a big sandy rock that you could use to get out of the sun and the wind. It was the only break from the sea of brown grass that covered this part of the world. I sat down on the shady side of the rock. The side of it was mostly black from the countless fires that had been lit here. The soot on that rock was deep, I wondered how far back you’d have to go to see that rock clean. Had it ever been clean, or had some ancient Indian waited here for it to emerge from the plain so that he could set his fire out of the wind?

I must have dozed for a moment, because when I came to the sun was getting near to being overhead. I’ll let people think what they want to about me mostly, but I won’t have them think that I would show up late to my own execution. I stood up and slapped some of the dust of pants. Most of the aches I’d had in the morning seemed to be gone, although I was starting to wish for something to eat.

The sun was now well and truly up, and it was hot, especially hot for one like me who hadn’t much to sweat out, excepting horrible coffee and the last stubborn dregs of whiskey from the night before. The sweat that did come out was oily and foul smelling, even to myself. I vowed to bath if I lived to see the afternoon.

I could see the hat from along way off. He’d brought a chair out from Ike’s and had set it so that it leaned against a hitching post. His hat was pushed forward on his head to cover his eyes. Taking a nap I guessed, that Jenny could always take it out of a man. Again I found myself watching him from a distance, only this time I had to do the moving. The road passed quickly now, before I expected it I was in town. I walked toward Ike’s, then stopped in front of the hat, waiting to see if he was awake. The hat didn’t move.

“That you Sam?” he said, not asleep after all.

“Yeah.”

“Ike said you’d be back. I wasn’t so sure.”

“Tell you what boy, I don’t feel like chatting right now. You walk over there; I’ll walk over there. Winner buys the drinks; loser gives up drinking an everything else. It’ll be just like a penny novel”

He got up and started walking. I did like wise. The bullet ripped through me and spun me around. I staggered back a few steps and then the horizon dropped away. I found myself bleeding in the dirt and looking at the sky. All that fuss and he shot me in the back; I’d a laughed if the bullet hadn’t taken most of my wind. I lay there for a while, white hot fire running up and down my side and blood thundering my ears. That noonday sun was drilling into my eyes so I closed them. Then I heard the crunch of his boots in sand as he walked up to me. The sound stopped and I felt a shadow cross my face. I opened my eyes and lifted my left hand; the bullet was in his throat before he knew a thing. He fell back and I pulled my self up, a bullet in the shoulder hurts like hell but it won’t kill you. I stood over him and watched his life run out his neck for a while, waiting for it to stop. When his blood stopped flowing I walked over to the body. For the first time I noticed the sweat stains in that damned hat, white creeping up behind the leather hatband. Guess even the devil sweats in hell. I holstered the gun and bent down for the hat. You gotta be a real bastard to wear a black hat in these parts. It fit just right.