Incident in a Barroom. *
The shotgun's blast was deafening, the hollow double boom multiplied by its confinement within the walls of the barroom. From where the gun was fired near the doorway, a thick cloud of smoke, grey-black, drifted out into the street. It thinned slowly in the cool, still air.
A few feet outside the door a tree showed the fresh scars of the double load of buckshot. Leaves drifted down, and the remnants of a man's flat-topped Western hat, torn and shredded, lay in the dust.
Big John turned away from the door and swaggered back to his post behind the bar. He broke open the short double barrels of the sawed-off shotgun, pulled out and dropped the empties. He shoved two more ten-gauge shells into the breech and snapped the barrels closed. Then he slid the gun back into its usual place beneath the bar and glared at George.
"There, by God. You got any more questions about my shootin'? Your hat's deader'n hell." John's expression was dour, as usual, but he made no effort to hide his satisfaction.
George said nothing, only shrugging his shoulders and drifting back to stand at the bar. He waited while Big John poured a shot of bourbon for each of them. They were alone in the saloon.
The saloon was the Magnolia Room. It adjoined the Jeffery Hotel in Coulterville, in the foothills of Central California. Two hundred yards west, the main branch of California's Mother Lode lay, angled along the foothills from northwest to southeast. Its snowy white quartz showed as outcrops here and there, at ridgetops and along steep slopes.
Once, in the 1850s, Coulterville had been home to thousands of miners, but now, in 1887, it would have been hard to get more than a couple of hundred folks to show up for anything, no matter how exciting.
But the town wasn't too big for its population. The coincidence of accidental but devastating fires, in '59 and '79, had kept the town down to the size its residents needed because they rebuilt accordingly. There wasn't all that much to do in town, what with nothing but the few gold mines still running, and the sawmill, and a few cattle and some farming. And the general store, of course. But the people, the ones remaining, still had spirit. They worked hard, and long hours, but there was time for enjoyment, too. And the local saloons were a large part of it.
The Magnolia was the biggest saloon in town, and the busiest, except when Big John Thompson, owner and bartender, decided to take a day or two off. When he did the bar was closed, unless George Tiscovia came into town, and then it wasn't open to anyone else. The two, despite their differences in appearance and manner, had been friends for years.
When George came in, and Big John decided on it, the two men holed up in the saloon and drank. And lied to each other, boasting of whatever each thought he could do better than the other. They'd had angry confrontations now and then, but never fights. John was too big for that. At six feet five he towered over everyone, and he was burly, strong as the drink he served and tough as any mule he'd bossed in the old days. His face was as rough as the bark on an oak, his mind as inflexible as the tree itself. But he was a peaceful man, unless he was riled.
George Tiscovia was smaller, no more than average size, with shrewd grey eyes and quick movements. He was devoted to practical jokes, not unusual for the time, but he carried his farther than most. He delighted in baiting Big John into bets he couldn't win or maneuvering him into being the butt of his pranks.
Not that George was an idler. He worked hard, rode hard, and got drunk only on occasion, mostly with John. George's uncle owned the stage station in town. Stages stopped there to change horses on the way from Modesto to the Yosemite Valley, and George drove the route from Coulterville to Yosemite and return.
George had driven a stage down late the day before, eight horses and the flimsy stage swinging and sliding down the steep grades and hairpin turns of the Coulterville and Yosemite Turnpike. It was a tough job, and service was important. The competition was fierce from the Big Oak Flat road, not like it was at first, when the Coulterville road was the only way for anything on wheels to reach Yosemite. George had made three hard trips up and back without a rest, and now he wanted a little relaxation.
He had come into the bar early, just after seven, while Big John was cleaning out and getting ready for the day. George threw his hat atop the big, wheeled safe that stood just to the right of the swinging doors, against the front wall, as he cam in. Everyone did that, and sometimes when it was busy there were so many hats on the safe they kept sliding off to the floor. Now, though, there were just the two, George's and Big John's.
They had a drink apiece, and then John decided to close up so they could have a talk and another drink or two. It started off innocently enough with talk about the weather -- heat, dust and no rain -- and what had been going on in town. The conversation went on in an idle way until John mentioned that the Riverside Saloon, over on Ferry Road the other side of Maxwell Creek, had been held up several days before.
"Sheriff catch 'im?" George asked idly.
"Naw, hasn't even been over yet. Only been a few days."
"He git much? The hold-up man, I mean."
"Naw. You know old man Vigna. He starts out with hardly any change in the box of a morning. Hold-up man didn't know that, I guess. Came in early, before any customers." John scowled. "Don't matter, though. I know what I'd'a done." He stooped slightly and slid the sawed-off shotgun out from under the bar. "I'd'a let him have it with this."
George's eyes brightened, but he looked doubtful. "Come on, John, you couldn't hit the wall of a room from inside it with that thing. How come you think you could stop a robber?"
John glowered and swung the double barrels around to line up on George's chest. "You wanta find out what I can hit?"
George's hands came upward off the bar. "Yeah, but not with that thing pointed at me. Can't tell, you might get lucky." He hesitated, then, "Tell you what. See if you can hit my hat. For a dollar." He flipped a silver dollar onto the bar.
John covered it with a dollar of his own. "Okay, but not in here. Git yore hat and hang it on a tree outside, along the edgeof the street. I'll show you how to stop a robber." He raised the gun's muzzle so it no longer threatened George.
George picked up the hat from the top of the safe and pushed open the swinging doors. He moved to a wisteria vine at the street's edge where it wound around the porch support, about ten feet from the door, and hung the hat on one of its trimmed branches. Then he scooted back inside and stopped just behind John, where the latter stood in the doorway, and waited for him to fire.
Back at the bar, George picked up the drink John had poured and drank it down. Then, just ahead of Big John's, his hand swept the two silver dollars off the bar and into his other hand.
"Hold on, there, you little piss-ant, them's my dollars. I won 'em fair and square." The quickest thing about John was his temper, and it was coming up fast.
"Nope." George had skipped across to the safe, scooped up the lone hat left on its top and was on his way to the doors. "Big John," he shouted as he went through, "I bet you couldn't hit my hat. You didn't. That was your own hat you shot, not mine."
By then Big John had the shotgun out again and let fly in the direction of the swinging doors. The blast tore one door loose from its hinges and sprayed the other, and the doorframe, with a double load of Number Two Buck. Still see the scars today, if you go into the Magnolia.
George? Oh, he got away clear. He usually did.
All Rights Reserved.
*Copyright (c) 2002 by F. Barriger
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Forrest Barriger is the author of several E-books and articles published in a number of newsletters. Comment is invited to forbar@2xtreme.net/ Or see www.withfootinmouth.com/
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©2002 StoriesByEmail.com
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