Chapter Eight

The following day was very much like any other, at least in the sense that it featured Polk Buckhorn being thrown out of a tavern.

He'd sent Evans off early in the morning with a shopping list of provisions for the trip, and had then made his way directly downstairs to the bar. Halfway through a bottle of the Bird Cage's best bourbon (or at least its most expensive), it had seemed like a good idea to visit the gambling hall. Within a few hours, he'd lost nearly half of his new-found fortune; had be been in a clearer state of mind, he would probably have lost more. Instead he'd accused the dealer of cheating, and had instigated what had quickly developed into a fairly nasty brawl.

Things got a little fuzzy in Buck's memory after that. Currently, he seemed to be lying in the street outside the Bird Cage's front door; a painful lump on the back of his head explained the blackout. He struggled slowly to his feet, wincing. He was dimly aware that he deserved what he'd gotten, but he went ahead and bellowed a curse in the direction of the tavern anyway, albeit mostly because he felt that it was expected of him.

The insult came across as half-hearted, and Buck realized - to his own great surprise - that he was in high spirits. He was never more in his element than when he was making an ass of himself, and the familiarity of the situation put him in a good mood. The fact that his fortunes seemed to be looking up certainly didn't hurt, and he found that he was feeling cautiously optimistic - a rarity, given his usual outlook. Buck tested his weight on his twisted ankle and then set off in search of Evans, a self-satisfied expression on his face.

Things had calmed down inside the tavern by the time Buck came to, and before long the main hall of the Bird Cage had settled into its usual morning routine. Things were a lot less rowdy before noon, since most of the early risers were nursing headaches. There were no more than a dozen of them now, breakfasting on hair-of-the-dog while the more enterprising girls made the rounds, offering hangover cures of their own. The bartender had time to wipe down glasses, and to share jokes with the handful of patrons who'd had a good enough night to appreciate them.

Something odd happened at this point. The jangling of the piano abruptly fell silent, and within moments a hush had fallen over the room. Every head twisted in unison as all eyes turned to stare at the door. The whole procedure was standard protocol whenever, say, a gunslinger dressed in black walked into a tavern. This time, however, things were slightly off. First of all, player pianos are generally not easily intimidated. Secondly, today's black-clad gunman was still a few blocks up the street, and wouldn't walk into the tavern for fully another minute.

The crowd waited in an uncomfortable silence as the man dismounted, shared a few quick words with his posse, and then finally walked through the door and into sight. He was more or less what they'd expected, although they couldn't have said how. His boots, his trousers, his chaps, his shirt and vest, his long coat, and his wide-brimmed hat were all, of course, black - darker than black, somehow, as if whatever light made the mistake of falling on them wasn't ever coming back. He was tall; he was gaunt; he was pale. His sunken eyes were also black, and not just the parts that should have been.

The hush became a silence, and - at this point - it becomes necessary to define "silence." The closest that most people get is when they're alone in their homes at night, and that really isn't the same. If you listen, you'll notice the constant clamor of all the tiny sounds that you normally ignore: distant traffic, if you live near the city; the buzz of the refrigerator; or just the ambient hum of electricity. You can plug your ears, but you'll still hear the sound of the blood rushing through your veins. It may be very quiet, but it isn't silent.

The bar was truly, utterly silent. The bartender realized that the pale man was staring at him, and suddenly he could hear his heartbeat. It sounded like the tick of a timer running out.

The pale man began walking towards the bar. He walked with purpose, although nobody would have cared to guess what that purpose might have been. His footsteps boomed over-loud against the hush, the sound of coffin lids slamming shut. The jangling of his spurs was slightly comical in comparison, but nobody seemed to be in a laughing mood. Something about the pale man's presence made it hard to imagine that such a thing as laughter existed.

Outside of the Bird Cage, the pale man's companions waited impatiently.

"What's taking him so long?" grumbled the first, a red-haired giant of a man.

"Well, he probably..." began the second, before breaking into fits of ugly coughing.

"...Scared them all too stiff to talk," finished the third, a gaunt figure in ill-fitting clothing.

The burly redhead grunted his assent. A few more minutes passed before the pale man finally exited the building, a dissatisfied look on his face.

"Bad news?" choked the sickly man.

"No news," the pale man grumbled. "Nobody's heard anything."

"Is that even possible?" balked the thin man. "This place might be a backwater, but somebody must have heard something."

"Bullocks to something," the burly man opined. "This whole region should be in a panic."

"What do we do now, then?" whined the thin man.

There was a moment's pause as the four men considered their apparent dilemma. At last, the pale man shrugged.

"We keep looking," he rasped.

Inside, the crowd remained silent even as the sound of galloping hooves faded into the distance. The mood still hadn't gotten any lighter an hour later when a young woman burst through the door, abruptly fired two shots into the rafters, and addressed the wide-eyed crowd with no further introductions.

"I'm looking for a friend of mine," Melody announced.