Warning: Profanity Western Tale The Piano Man, by J.D. Romanow --- He was dusty, covered with the white dust you get from riding over the dry lands around here. His boots were worn, and if he'd asked for a free meal, well I may not be the Lord but I probably would have provided. He walked up to the bar, stiff from too long in the saddle, and asked for a rye. "I got chili on in back. Bowl of that too?" I asked as I poured the whisky. He nodded, wrapping work-thickened fingers around his drink. He wasn't in need of conversation, and I had better things to do, so I brought a bowl of the chili out and left him to it. He picked up the bowl and carried it to a table just inside the door, where he sat with his back to the wall. He sat still, and if he was another man, I might have thought he was thanking the good Lord for his bounty. But his head stayed up and his eyes looked around like he doubted providence was on his side. He shifted his holster on to the top of his thigh with his right hand and picked up the spoon with his left, and lowered his head to eat. There was something about the gesture, the moving of his holster that triggered a memory. I couldn't quite catch it, but I knew then I knew him from somewhere, somewhere way back. Mind you as a bartender you meet everybody sooner or later. It is not unusual to see some one you sold a drink to once or twice and think you knew them. And it isn't all that rare to see someone you came across years ago and take hours to figure out why you know them. Tending bar is kind of like being a preacher. Your flock comes and goes, rising and falling in prosperity; sometimes they start as trail hands and end as bosses, sometimes they leave your bar a boss and reappear ten years later as a bum with shaking hands in bad need of cheap whisky. Looking at him there was nothing to remarkable in his dress. If you hadn't met his type before you might have thought he was just another busted cowboy. But no hungry poke ever took his eyes off his food. This one, his eyes never stopped moving. Half hidden by the brim of his hat they were watching me, the door, the windows. He wasn't jumpy but he sure wasn't taking anything for granted. And you didn't have to be General Lee to know he had picked his seat to get the lie of the land on you. His kind always have their back to a wall and a quick route out. You don't tend bar in the territories without getting to know men of his type. Maybe that was it: maybe it wasn't him I knew just someone like him. I studied on it some while wiping the glasses. However much I studied I couldn't come up with a name though. Eventually I turned my rag and my mind to other things. I don't have much of a place but I like it clean. When the wind blows in off the desert, it's a full time job keeping the grit out. I had just finished sweeping the worst of it and had turned to dusting bottles of the better stuff when a shadow flickered across the wall and my bar was suddenly full. It was only Tom Henderson and that bunch of young broncos he pals around with but at that age boys take up a lot of room; the five of them make enough noise for twice that number. "Whisky all round, Barkeep." Barkeep! As if I hadn't know the lad since he was in barely out of diapers. I kept to my polishing and gave young Tom a look. I may not spend my time blowing hell out of busted wheelbarrows in Dry Creek Canyon but I don't have to take lip from some kid. They giggled and nudged each other, and finally Tom spoke again. "Mister Joad? You hear me? I said whisky all round!" Well, it wasn't much but it was probably the best I was going to get out of him. "You boys got any money? Whisky ain't free." And I'll be goddamned if the Henderson boy didn't slap a gold eagle on the bar. "That enough for you barkeep? A bottle of your best! And keep the change." There was a challenging light I never saw before in Tom Henderson's eye. His success with those poor half-by-half prospectors had done more to him than I expected. He was keyed up like a mustang before a thunderstorm. I set a bottle of my good rye on the bar in front of them and followed it with the tin mugs. They might be able to afford the good whisky but I wasn't going to trust these kids with anything breakable. It was hell packing glassware in to these parts. The silver wasn't rich enough for us to have the kind of suppliers you see up in Denver or over to Carson City. I had to order and ship things on my own hook, and let me tell you a bull whacker wants damn near a wagon full of silver before he will be bothered with a load of glass and china. Tom poured the rye into the mugs and they all fell to clanking their cups together and giggling and nudging each other. You would have thought they were still in school way they were carrying on. I stuck the eagle in my poke and carefully counted out the change on the bar. "Din't you here me old man? I said keep it!" Henderson grinned at me and tossed off his mug of rye. "Plenty more where that came from." "I never had no part in blood money and I never will, Tom Henderson." Well they all fell to laughing at my words, but Tom picked up the silver off the bar and pocketed it, turning his back to me and leaning against the bar. Kids got no manners these days. Maybe he was right. Maybe I am an old man. But I knew what Comstock was up to when he hired that boy. Boys that age don't know what they're getting into. They shoot first and think later. I doubted Tom Henderson would ever learn to think at all. Comstock wanted people to be afraid, and he knew it wouldn't be too long before Henderson got them that way. And if some old bull decided not to take any guff from the kid, it was no skin off Comstock's back. Either the kid would make it or he'd be a cheap corpse. Hiring somebody like Earp would cost real money, and Harry Comstock never paid with a nickel without first trying to buy with a penny. Well it wasn't too long before Tom and his friends decided to include the stranger in their jollification. He just looked up from under his hat and looked back down at his chili. Tom took a stride across the room towards the stranger. I wasn't sure what he intended but he stopped cold when the stranger's head snapped up. There was a click, loud in the sudden quiet, as the spoon hit the table. The stranger's hand stayed beside the spoon on the table. His right was out of sight in his lap. Tom and the stranger looked at each other for a moment. I could see Tom's back tense. He was thinking about his gun so bad he might as well as asked one of his pals to hand it to him. The stranger never showed no sign of anything. He just sat there, and you can bet he saw where every single gun hand in that room was. He broke the stillness then. His left hand drummed the table top once, like it was playing a piano. It was then I knew who he was. It was back in Kansas, close on to fifteen years ago. He'd just been a gawky kid back then. Must have been close to fifty pounds lighter, and no beard of course. Being a man now and in work clothes you'd never recognize him. His mamma always kept him dressed up then, with fine white shirts and pants and frock coats like the swells wore to church. Of course you had to dress up if you were going to be on the stage. He played the piano in the Rancher's Club and the better hotels. Back then I tended bar in the old Rancher's. This was back when the railhead and the trail drivers met and the streets were awash in gold. Some nights I made more in tips than I do in a whole week now. I remember the first time his mamma brought him round for us to hear. Nobody really believed a kid that age could play a piano, but the owner was a good sort and willing to give him a try. There wasn't no one to speak of in the club that time of day. I was just starting my afternoon shift, making sure all the bottles were handy and what not. The kid didn't say a word while his mamma sang his praises. Finally he just sat down in front of the keys and looked at them. I felt real sorry for him then. He looked like he was praying to the Lord for help. If he was praying it surely wasn't for help. I don't believe that boy ever asked anybody for help in his entire life, unless maybe it was that Texican. He leaned forward, and kind of hunched his shoulders and held his hands like claws over the piano for a second. Then his hands moved so fast they were only a blur. My god but that kid could play! Well he was the wonder of the Club for quite a while after that. I kind of saw him grow up. His mamma had lived in a hotel when they first came to town, but she had moved out to the nice part of town once it was clear that the club and hotels could pay enough. That didn't stop her from coming round to walk home with him after his night's work. She couldn't come in to the bar to hear him on account of her not being that sort of woman. Well this sort of thing - her coming by to walk home with him I mean - it didn't sit too well with the rougher element his age. It wasn't too long before some of the local boys who wanted to be thought of as tough started calling him a mamma's boy. They took to thumping him on his way to the Club. If he fought they beat him, him being outnumbered; and if he ran they chased him. It probably would have ended with a couple of fist fights, except for one of those Texicans. He was just another one of the cowboys that come up the trail. He stayed at the Club so he must have been a trail boss, but other than that - and his love of music, of course - I have no real recollection of him. That Texican, he purely loved to hear that kid play. He would pull up a chair near the piano, his hat in his lap like he was in church, whenever the kid and his piano were going at it. Well one day that Texican was having a cigar in the lobby, when the kid came tearing up into the Club. The other boys stopped on the street jeering and panting. The Texican he didn't say anything at all he just stood and watched. I wouldn't have thought much of it, normally. But you know how things are in a trail town. After a while you kind of get the scent of what ever is going on. Not long after the kid being chased into the club, I was out riding to a camp outside of town. I heard some shooting so I kind of cautious like wandered over to see what was happening. The Texican and the kid were in the bottom of one of those breaks you get out in South Kansas and the Texican was tossing cans in the air for the kid to shoot. I didn't stay watching long, but it was pretty clear the kid had the knack. I suppose I should have figgered things out then, and maybe gone to the sheriff. Of course the sheriff, he should have known better without me sticking my shovel in the pile. He should have reined the local toughs before things got out of control. It could only end bad. I guess nobody thought how bad. Jerry Barnette? Varnedde? Something like that, he was the leader of that pack of brats. He saw the kid outside a store one noon and he scooped up a horse chip and threw it. What he didn't see was the kid's mamma was standing right there. Jerry's aim wasn't too good and he spattered the poor woman pretty bad. The kid didn't come flying at Jerry like you would have thought. I guess it was then that we all should have known. He just straightened up, his face frozen, and demanded an apology. Well that just got a horselaugh. "Hoors an' shit belong together." Jerry scoffed. The idlers were starting to pay attention, kids yelling at each other being more interesting than a dog fight and a little less fun than a horse race. Still you never knew when they'd start swinging and then you could get some money down. That was all anybody was expecting; nobody expected to see anything except Jerry bloodying another boy's lip. "My mother is no whore! You take that back or you'll pay!" "What you gonna do? Shoot me?" Jerry addressed his remark to the crowd, looking around with a smirk to the guffaws and cries of "You tell 'm Jerry." Looking back on it now it still seems like harmless kid stuff. It was too, until the kid snaked out a pistol from under his frock coat. Well people started screaming and diving for cover, and Jerry just stood there too shocked to do anything. "You apologize now or I'll shoot you like the dog you are!" Then some goddamned stupid rancher got in on the act and demanded that Jerry be armed. Another one took the kid's mamma away where she couldn't interfere. What with all these folks supervising it wasn't long before the boys were marched outside of town limits and set up for a real duel. I'll say this for Jerry. He wasn't scared. I guess he was too boneheaded to figure something had changed. He stood up to the kid like he was sure to win. It's a funny thing watching a duel. Sometimes folks cheer and hurrah the winner. Sometimes they just stand around looking solemn. That's what they did this time while Jerry was crying on the ground, his boots digging into the grass. The kid put four shots into him. Jerry's gun went off into the dirt. I expected the kid to be bothered, maybe throw up or something. He just stood their with his gun pointed somewhere between him and Jerry, with not a drop of sympathy on his face. When the good Lord handed out mercy he overlooked the kid. He holstered his gun, once it was obvious Jerry wasn't going to get up, turned, and walked away. It took Jerry the better part of a day to die. After that the kid played the piano with the gun on and visible. He would hitch it up on his thigh like he had when he sat down to eat his chili, and attack the keyboard like nothing had changed. About a month after his duel with Jerry, a drunk trail driver made light of the kid's playing. The driver at least got a shot off in the general direction of the kid, but he died quicker than Jerry, being shot in the head. There was some muttering after that head shot. Some folks believed that the driver was already down, and some held he was still falling when the kid blew his brains out. It was clear no matter how you cut it that a duel with the kid was serious business. It was about then that his mother stopped walking to meet him after work. Three corpses later the sheriff asked him to move on. I heard of a couple more duels before I lost track of the kid. Rumour was that if you needed somebody to die, the kid was available as a duellist. If I ever spent any time pondering on him, I would have figgered him dead. Hired killer isn't a job you expect to grow old in. Looking at him now it was clear he hadn't been playing much piano since then. He looked pretty much like you'd expect a man that has survived the better part of two decades as a shootist, to look. I imagine he found more than one name useful. I don't know what he got paid for his work but he either spent it on fast women and cards or left it in the bank somewhere. He looked like a chair with the bark still on it: serviceable, but nothing you would want to set in front of the womenfolk. I don't know for sure what the outcome would have been if Tom Henderson had kept at his foolishness. The stranger was a lot older now, and your hands lose speed as you age. All the great duellists were kids. But what I seen of Tom, he was never more than passably handy with a gun. The stranger, he surprised me about then. He put his right hand up on the table along side the other. "You look like you have something to celebrate son." Tom didn't relax. The look that had stopped him dead just didn't fit with the friendly comment. "I ain't your son!" he blazed. Very slowly the stranger got to his feet. He picked up his chili bowl in one hand and his empty glass in his other, and walked directly toward Tom. If I hadn't seen what happened next I never would have believed you could do it. Mind you, the kid had some of the fastest hands I ever did see. Even so, you don't expect to see that kind of speed with the muscle needed to hold up a hundred and forty pounds of startled boy. When the stranger stepped towards Tom, he jumped like a scalded cat, trying for some room and clutching at his holster whilst he did. He should have been more worried about his balance. As he jumped, his heel caught on the dirt and he staggered, starting to fall. The stranger took one step forward, put his glass and bowl on a nearby table and caught the boy with one smooth motion of his right arm. For a moment Tom hung there from the stranger's extended arm, his feet scrabbling against the dirt floor till he was planted. He straightened up, and as the stranger let him go, Tom was the boy who had been terrorizing sparrows a few short years back. "Thanks mister." he said before he could think about it. After that the ice was broken. The stranger had a rye with the boys and they moved on to hurrah some other establishment, leaving us two old geezers behind. I poured another rye into the stranger's glass. "On the house." I said. "Been a few years, hasn't it?" The stranger just looked at me. "Rancher's Club. Kansas territory." I said. "Tended bar there when you played piano." He looked at me, for a second as if he didn't remember. "You ever play since?" "No. Haven't played a note since then." We drank in silence. After a few minutes he shoved himself back from the bar. "Guess I'll be moving on." he walked to the door, but paused and turned before leaving. "That boy, he get his money honestly?" "Hired by Comstock, to protect his mine. He's run off a couple of miners that Comstock thought were fossicking too close to his claims." I said, that being as close as I was going to get to explaining the local politics. The stranger eyed the floor for a second, as if he want to ask something more. He looked up at me, when I cleared my throat. It may be an old man's fancy but I thought the talk of the Rancher's Club and meeting Tom made him regretful, like maybe he knew he had made a mistake way back when. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask the stranger to talk some sense into the boy, but I doubt the Henderson boy would listen. Lord knows I never did at that age. Instead I asked the kind of damnfool question he must have heard from every eastern newshand and barfly from Texas to California. "Would you have killed him?" I asked. His expression changed then, and until I die I'll be haunted by the look in his eyes. They were as empty as the wind out of a canyon. "What do you think?" He turned and disappeared into the sunlight. I never saw him again. END