always been cowboys

it rolled over him like a wave, this overwhelming feeling. he had been leaning low on the bar, tired arms resting on tired elbows, idly cleaning a glass, the classic image of the classic bartender: just a touch past his middle years, balding, graying mustache, muscular, but only in that lumpy, almost-out-of-shape way. it had been an uneventful night--no, an uneventful decade, he would think later--abnormally slow for a saturday, when all the hands and their more successful counterparts would come in for a drink or three and perhaps a game of cards. but this feeling, this indescribably oppressive feeling that both terrified and excited him, had washed over him until he felt he was swimming in it. he had looked around to see if anyone else had felt it, but apparently no one had.

it was a very odd feeling, perhaps made more so by how absolutely certain it was. it scared him, but not in the way that the beasts of the night scared his children; that was a fear based in imagination, compounded by it. this was a fear of absolute certainty. when it hit him, his first thought was this: i’m either going to die tonight or i’m not. either way, this is the end of my life.

he didn’t really know what that was supposed to mean, but it didn’t stop him from thinking it. he did, however, have a feeling as to how such a thing was going to be decided. it was the man who would bring him his next life, whatever that might be, the man who had followed through the swinging saloon doors after the wave, swimming with it, or perhaps pushing it outward. he was not tall, nor was he particularly menacing; his girlish black hair flowed out from under his dusty hat to curl around and end just above his ears, and his beard was thin and neatly trimmed. he wore no guns, a fact that the man behind the bar had picked up immediately with well-trained eyes, even though he had his long brown coat wrapped tightly around himself. he had entered the saloon with a casual but steady pace, the walk of a person who knows where they are going but are in no hurry to get there, though he paused ever-so-slightly when he was fully inside. the man behind the bar saw his eyes flick up toward the bar, and then he was moving again; the pause and the glance were so quick that the man behind the bar wasn’t sure it had really happened.

the newcomer continued his slow walk toward the bar, and with every step the overwhelming feeling of change seeped further into the bartender’s bones. or maybe it was finality--the feeling seemed to press in on the bubble of his consciousness, exerting a powerful force but never revealing its true nature. i think this is what destiny feels like, he thought.

the man never sped up, never slowed down. he just kept on moving slowly toward the bar, eyes downcast, but his destination was clear. the man behind the bar fought back the terrible urge to reach for the shotgun just inches from his waist and take the first shot. he could separate the man’s head from his shoulders before he could even raise his eyes again, the damned devil, and--no, he thought, we’ll see who’s the devil yet. the man continued his inexorable march across the worn-out wooden floor, seeming to pay no mind to the men at the surrounding tables playing cards or the girls serving them drinks and flirting away their coins.

after what seemed like an eternity--and perhaps it was, in the grand scheme of things--the man stopped in front of the bar, directly in front of the man behind it. he raised his eyes and met the other man’s, face completely blank. the bartender felt a bead of sweat roll down his back and tried to force his heart to slow down. the shotgun seemed very far away, now.

suddenly the newcomer broke into a wide smile and rubbed his well-groomed chin. “hello there,” he said in a friendly voice, with more than a hint of relief. he took a half-step forward, leaned to his left, and sat down softly on a barstool.

“Hi.” It was all the bartender could say, really. The tension was broken, but only a little, and the oppressive feeling never left him.

“This your place?” the man asked. “Your bar?” He put his elbows up, resting his chin on his fists. It made him look oddly childish, like a boy asking his father for a story.

“S’my bar, but it’s not my place.” He refused to relax, refused to let his guard down. He would play along, though: “Belongs to Aunt Rae,” he said, nodding his head in her direction. The old lady sat at her table playing cards with a few of the regulars, unaware of what had happened and even more unaware of what was about to happen. When he looked back at the man, he saw that his eyes had never unfixed from his own.

For seven interminable seconds neither man spoke. Had it been eight, the bartender would have lost what little control he had left and would have reached for the shotgun. He would not have made it. When the newcomer finally broke the silence, it was with a small laugh, then: “This would be the time where you are supposed to tell me you don’t recognize me, you know,” he twisted his smooth, youthful voice into a gruff parody, “’I ain’t seen your face ‘round these parts, stranger’ and all that.”

The bartender stared at him, eyes slightly narrowing. “All right, stranger, if you want me to ask you what you’re doing here, then fine.” He paused in spite of himself. He had a feeling he knew the answer to this question before he asked it, and he felt it was not an answer he wanted to hear. He tried to take a deep breath, but it ended shallow. “What do you want?”

The man leaned up on his elbows, raising his face higher to the bartender. He seemed to grow older as he did this, and his eyes seemed to deepen. The bartender now saw them to be a dizzying gray-green, like the color of darkened granite. The world on either side of the man’s face seemed to fade as if it were also drowning in the oppressive flood that filled the bartender’s mind. His smile faded and, eyes narrowing, he said, “You know exactly what I want.”