Chapter 1
The red-bearded
bartender swung his freckled face toward the tall, dark man in a calico shirt
and smoke-stained buckskin trousers just then pushing through the batwings of
the Horsetooth Saloon & Hotel, and said, “Pardon me all to hell, breed, but
you’d best take two steps back the way you came and read the sign posted to the
front wall there!”
Yakima
Henry stared at the bar tender. The man stared back at him, frowning
belligerently, a cleaver in one hand, a chunk of bloody rabbit in the other. There were a half dozen other men in the dim,
dingy place--three at a table near the front of the room, two more at a table
near the bar, two more near the cold, potbelly stove. No fire was needed. The
dry desert air was hot and oppressive, mixing the smells of the pent up
saloon—raw meat, hot bodies, coal oil, tobacco, and cheap liquor--until it
smelled like a bear den. The three at
the near table, all hard-bitten, pie-eyed men in cheap suits ensconced in
billowing clouds of cigarette smoke, stared at Yakima with expressions that
were a nasty hybrid of distaste and cruel delight.
A dog
had just sauntered into their camp. They
didn’t like dogs.
“You
hear me, breed?” the barman said. “Step
back out there and read the cotton-pickin’ sign. I put it up there for a reason!”
Yakima
gave a sheepish smile. “I reckon you’re gonna have to come on out and read it
for me, mister.”
“Can’t
read, huh?”
The
three men in cheap suits, which marked them as salesmen of a sort, chuckled and
snickered though Yakima doubted they could read half as well as he’d taught
himself to, from whatever books he’d been able to get his hands on over his
long years on the remote western frontier.
He doubted
the bar tender could read as well as he could, either.
The
barman sighed with strained tolerance, plopped the meat chunk into the pot, and
set the cleaver down on the bar. As he walked out from behind the counter, he
wiped his hands on his apron though Yakima doubted anyone could actually clean
his hands on such a badly stained stretch of tattered cloth.
The
barman was several inches short of six feet, but he was built like two rain
barrel-sized slabs of suet sitting one atop the other. He smelled like sweat, raw meat, and whiskey. As he stepped out from behind the bar, he gave
his hands another scrub on the apron that was so badly stained it was
impossible to discern its original color, and strode past Yakima and out the
batwings, holding the left wing open as he pointed.
“There
it is right there. Come on out
there--I’ll give you a little lesson in English.”
He
beckoned to Yakima. The half-breed
shrugged, stepped halfway through the batwings, and followed the man’s pale,
pudgy finger to the sign nailed to the front wall right of the doors. It was a
rough pine board on which someone had hand-painted blocky letters in dark-green
trimmed liberally with dried drips.
The
portly barman pointed out each word in turn as he read, “If yor skin is any darker
than these dors”--he paused and slapped the top of the sun-bleached batwing he
was holding open--“then you can kiss my ass and point your hat in the opposite direkshun!”
The men
inside the saloon laughed.
The
barman opened his mouth to show his teeth and then he laughed, as well,
thoroughly delighted with himself.
“Give me
your hand,” he told Yakima, as though he were speaking to a moron.
Yakima
glanced at the other customers, gave another sheepish hike of his right
shoulder, and then gave the man his right hand.
“That’s
it--there you go. You’re catchin’
on.” The barman held Yakima’s hand,
which was nearly the color of an old penny--heavily callused, scarred, and
weathered--up beside the batwing door.
The
bartender clucked and shook his head as though the contrast saddened him. “No, no.
Now, you see there--that skin of yours is about seven, eight shades
darker than these here doors. That means
you’re about as welcome on these premises as a goddamn full-blood Apache. Why, you’re no more welcome here than
Geronimo himself. You see?”
He
grinned at Yakima, who stood a whole half a head taller. Yakima stared down at the fat man from
beneath the flat brim of his low-crowned, broad-brimmed, black Stetson.
Yakima
pulled his hand from the bar tender’s grip and used it to indicate the words
painted on the pine board. “The sign says I should kiss—your—ass, don’t it?”
The
man’s smile faltered and a slight flush pinkened the nubs of his fat, freckled
cheeks. “Say again?”
“The
sign there says that if my skin is any darker than these doors, I should kiss
your ass.”
The
barman gave a nervous chuckle, snorted, and glanced at the sign. “Well, now, that it does, that it does.”
The men
inside had fallen silent. They were all
holding their drinks and cigarettes or cigars in their hands and staring with
bright-eyed interest at the doings at the doors.
“Well,
then,” Yakima said. “Let’s step inside
so I can do the honors.”
“What’s
that?”
“I said,
let’s go inside so I can kiss your ass like the sign says.”
The
barman stared up at him, but now his smile looked glued on and his cheeks were
growing pinker. The men inside were
snickering, one lightly slapping the back of his hand against his partner’s
shoulder. Yakima held the barman’s gaze
with a stony one of his own.
“What’re
you talkin’ about?” the barman said.
“Isn’t
that what the sign says?”
From
inside, one of the card players said, “Come on in, Clancy. If the breed wants to kiss your ass, let him
kiss your ass. We’ll watch to make sure
he does it proper.”
The
barman stared up at Yakima, his smile fading fast though the flush was still
building in his cheeks, darkening his freckles.
He rolled his eyes around, and then sucked his lower lip and pooched out
his cheeks and gave a fake laugh, as though the joke were still on the
half-breed, and said, “Well, hell, yeah!
That is what the sign says, all right!”
He
laughed and walked inside the saloon and stopped and faced the bar. “Okay, there you go, Injun. Pucker up now!”
He
looked at the card players and the two men farther back in the room who were
watching with keen interest now, as well.
The barman winked at the card players and snorted another nervous
laugh. “I want a nice soft one there on
my left cheek.” He leaned forward and
patted his butt cheek.
“Best
drop your trousers,” Yakima said, standing in front of the batwings, thumbs
hooked behind his two cartridge belts.
“So I can do it proper.”
“Go
ahead, Clancy,” one of the card players said, laughing with the others. “Drop your pants so the breed can kiss your
ass proper!”
He
whooped as the others laughed and yelled.
“Go
ahead, Clancy.”
“Pull
‘em down, Clancy--what’re you waiting for?”
“Oh,
this is plush,” said one of the others.
“This is pure-dee plush! Pull ‘em
down, Clancy. Give him your fat, white
ass so’s he can lay a kiss on it!”
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