A Dance (of Sorts) at Ol' Gil's Tavern

' The decaying skin, congealed fat, dried flesh, and scabbing blood made a soppy mess of the burlap bag. He carried it slung over his shoulder, dripping some semblance of a rusted bile onto the back of his duster; sweat stained, mud strewn, tattered, and now, gut streaked.

The clomp of his boots and rattle of his spurs were distant whispers compared to the booming of the waist high swivel doors into the saloon against its rotting walls. It was dim. It’s smell reminiscent of a corpse soaking in a beer vat that everyone happily drank from at some macabre luncheon. The oaken bang brought him back to the moment: he saw the drunk at the bar jolt from his slumped slumber, only to immediately find it again. A glass broke behind the bar. The barkeep quickly grabbed another, as not to make it seem like he was startled. Wanted to seem tough as nails. Wanted his hard new patron not to notice him kicking the glass down the bar towards the drunk, shouting a suspect curse to make it seem like the barkeep wasn’t the culprit. This new patron wasn’t so simple, but humored the gesture, didn’t say anything, just continued his saunter up to the bar top.

The varnish found itself peeling back revealing garish splinters that looked like they belonged on some ship in some distant ocean, stabbing out of animals much too large for them to be killing, but successfully doing so just the same. Whales or maybe sea monsters. Not providing refuge for the declination of man in the form of beers and whiskeys. A devils kiss and broken promises.

The new patron shot a glance over to the drunk, wondering which of these were he, his face plastered to the bar top- surely skewered by the gouging mandibles that were once veins in the body of some foreign timber. Was he the great beast? The Sea Monster? Was he the duplicitous recipient of a devils kiss? All of it? None of it? It didn’t matter. The thought was interrupted by a spewing volley of something tar-like and black from the deepest recesses of the drunks decaying innards. If cut from crown to cock, he’d surely display a vile decay, greening where once it was pink and slick. Just a decrepit corpse of a man, living until dead in this spot, by his own hand, gullet, or someone or something else.

Swift movement, a glint of glass through the air, the dull pang of crystal cushioned by flesh then bone. The drunk-struck-fall of the maybe devil kissed, maybe beast, maybe monster, definitely injured, probably dead slob at the bar top - mid evacuation. It was a shockingly inhuman quickness that compelled the barkeep. It subsequently startled the patron enough to drop his soppy sack of deplorable accoutrements, and display an even quicker flash of movement. His hands to his holsters, which bore two long-barreled army issue dragoon pistols made for mining fist sized gore-slicked holes from men at 200 yards out. This all happened within the same second. The infinite stillness only broken by the sound of the thrown glass shattering. The one that struck the drunk and quieted the vomit.

The barkeep and the patron locked eyes immediately, tense as a coiled rattler. They settled into lambs after a brief moment of acceptance. Acceptance that there was some safety in the coming conversation. With all the new mysteries bestowed by the patron and his bag soaked in violence, for Ol’ Gil the bar keep to test his luck, speed, and accuracy with the two shot derringer in his apron pocket on this hand-cannon wielding fella, the vantablack aura of death emanating from the hollow of his soul sucked eyes; would just be a waste. An exercise in futility and boredom. If Ol’ Gil was anything, it was sporting.

It’s worth mentioning that, had Ol’ Gil won the death race ending this ominous patron, this story would have a much more joyous conclusion. A lot less blood and bile than already introduced. It would end here and the town of Mirespring would go on in its own way. Albeit not too civil; it would, nonetheless, go on.

But Ol’ Gil didn’t dance with death that day. Didn’t try his luck. Ol’ Gil gave into his civilities as a barkeep and business owner. He gleaned some quip from parables passed, carried on just long enough about the drunk owing him for two glasses, and proceeded to wipe up the the staining projections from whose mouth was spat. He did this directly after pouring a shot and brew for the patron whom leaned into the drink and sat quietly waiting for the bar keeps question.

Ol’ Gil’s civility killed this town at that very moment. At that very moment Ol’ Gil committed genocide. For this, he is not a victim of what comes. He is complicit.

“What’s in that mess of a sack you got there, guy?” Ol’ Gil wondered aloud, without the slightest hint of a look to the patron.

The patrons answer was a heaving strain and sloppy glop unto the craggy bar top. The weight of its contents caused a deep red splatter to project from the sacks more gaping pores.

“So happy you asked.” He said with a drawl as its top drooped open, allowing the sluggish fall of some slippery horror to the floor. A grotesque splash slurped out of the mass on Ol’ Gils side of the bar.

Its ears still attached, as to retain full value, this horror was a human scalp soaked in the mass of blood and fat that made up the entirety of this deathly patrons crimson drenched parcel.

“So you’re a scalper.” Ol’ Gil grunted out as he sauntered slowly over to the small heap of flesh splattered upon his barroom floor; the mess left by the drunk now just a fresh varnish and stain on the ragged lumber. There was no alarm or haste in his step, though that didn’t surprise the once patron, now scalper; freshly outted by the all too familiar reality whence weight is compelled by gravity. Like bodies, when they fall. Limp. Soppy. Wet. Indifferent. Warm.

“I figured.” Ol’ Gil said as his foot met the flap of skin and hair. He knelt down and grabbed it by the stringy, blood matted, mop of black that crowned it.

“You figured?” A smile dawned the scalpers face that looked like it’d ooze venom through the cracks of its teeth; an ooze that, by the same vehicle of gravity, would be aiming to fall into some unfortunate victims open wound.

“What else, pray-tell, would I be carrying in a blood soaked sack a’ burlap? Into a town, no less, that’s known country wide to pay top-dollar for fresh Apache scalps?”

“Aye, so you a man that’s done his research?” Ol’ Gil smirked as he flopped the fleshy mass onto the bar top between the two of them.

“Don’t take much to know that ‘round these barren parts. But I do fancy myself somewhat learned.” The scalper took a big swig of his warm brew at saying this, sloshing his dirty sleeve across his lips smearing what Ol’ Gil hoped to just be old dirt on the lower half of the scalpers face.

Ol’ Gil startled at realizing he had been staring, consumed by his thoughts about what or whose gore may be packed into that sleeve's dirt. He blinked and shook, hoping the scalper didn’t notice. The scalper did. But it didn’t matter, Ol’ Gil continued, “Well, then you are amongst friends here, I too consider myself a bit of a learned man. Don’t let this humble tavern operate as any sorta’ tell as to my intellect. It is but a facade, traveller!-“ the way he hung on and drew out the word facade gleaned a smirk from the scalpers old earth and less-old blood streaked face. That was enough of a tell.

But Ol’ Gil was oblivious, “I consider myself a scientist, of sorts, in fact.”

“Is that a fact?” The scalper entertained the all too predictable coming monologue-
 “It is! It is - as a matter of that same fact, I just so happen to be the one that verifies the scalps brought into this here town before any release of the governments moneys for said trophies. But I bet you knew that already, didn’t you? Learned fella like you.”

The scalper shrugged, he didn’t see a benefit in pretending one way or the other, so a shrug worked. At this Ol’ Gil shined a wide and yellowed smile while extending his right hand out across the bar for a judgement of this nameless fellas grip. His off-hand's grip loosening on the two-shot Derringer he realized he was clutching a bit too tight up until this point.

“Figured. So then you know my names Ol’ Gil. What should I be calling you, traveler?” Ol’ Gil began searching his minds Rolodex for names and photos he’d seen in wanted posters or heard around town. Come to think of it, none of them really looked like him. His grip loosened a bit more on the palmed pistol in his left hand.

The scalper leaned in, intentionally taking Ol’ Gils hand with a half-limp one of his own. “How is it you verify these scalps, if I may ask.”

At this, Ol’ Gil resigned to returning the two-shooter to the little pocket cleverly sewn into his shirt sleeve. This freed up his left hand completely so he could grab the specimen on the table. What did he have to worry about? The man couldn’t even shake a hand properly. He silently breathed out so much relief, he completely forgot he had asked this scalpers name. But who could blame him? This was his favorite part.

“Well you see-“ He started, lifting the scalp by the hair as if he were intently examining the flopping flap of crown in the light he pretended he needed; it drooling pus and a few other fleshy particulates while it hovered over the bartop.

“The hair is right. The placement of the ears. Tone of skin. Almost a leathery texture to it. Were you a butcher in another life son? This work is impeccable! I digress. But the most telling piece: ya know what that is?”

The scalper feigned more overzealous interest. Ol’ Gil took the bait and pointed at the front-most part of the hairline on the scalp. “These fatty deposits underneath the front of the crown indicate what we scientists call a prognathous brow, something them savages possess being that they are so closely related to their lesser troglodyte ancestors.”

The scalpers eyebrows raised at this, him fighting back a laugh something fierce. Experience had taught Ol' Gil and his "science" were both more full of shit than an outhouse. But it never garnered much surprise the mental gymnastics white men would perform to justify their bigoted opinions and hatred. Despite his compounding disdain for Ol' Gil, the scalper somehow managed to eek out a semi-believable “Is that so? Wow.” as he finished his beer with a second swig

“Yep, ya see traveler, that is why I do what I do. Scholars maintain that we descend from completely different humanoid ancestors than these poor primitive fucks.” At this, he chuffed out a small chuckle. Simultaneously, the scalper decided to enact some form of punishment. Something to make Ol' Gil piss himself for being such a racist fuck.

“I see, so- now that it’s authenticated, who do I need to see to collect?”

“That would be the sheriff. Unfortunately though, the sheriff don’t stay in town, and he has a back log.”

“What do you mean a ‘back log’?”

“By that, I mean the sheriff only seems to leave his new house on the hill for ‘emergencies’ on account of how he’d rather be fucking that sweet cousin o’ mine after whose which daddy this town is so named.” At this Ol’ Gil spat out the vile utterance of these bothersome circumstances into a spittoon. The scalper responded with a small “hmph” before asserting a quandary.

“Oil money built this town?”

“You skimped on your research a bit, friend.” Ol’ Gils hands weren’t busy enough. He never knew what to do with his hands. So he grabbed a grimey glass and started polishing it. “My uncle Brock Mirespring was in transportation. A railroads gonna be coming through here soon enough.” Ol’ Gil set the glass down after pretending for too long that he was examining it. Slinging the rag over his shoulder and leaning over the bar, he continued, “Whatever the fuck ‘soon enough’ means!”

At this, Ol’ Gil would have let out another all-too-comfortable chuff of a chuckle, had the drunk at the end of the bar not recommenced his incapacitated blackened purge. In a fit of rage, Ol’ Gil threw the rag over his shoulder down onto the floor. The scalpers left hand slowly dropped to his side as he patiently drained his whiskey; sloshing it between his teeth, letting it do its cleansing burning thing before he swallowed. Ol’ Gil began marching over “Excuse me- What the God awful fuck are you spewing all over my fucking-“

A blur. A click. A deafening and concussive boom. A small hole in the cheek of the once vomiting drunk. A spattering of blood and brain borne of a gaping hole in the back of his cranium. Bone fragments splayed onto the floor and drilled into the wall behind him. The wide eyed gape of shock in his eye. Tar dribbling from his lips. His body seemingly sinking into the floor, its breath emptying with the rest of its' excrement. A puddle of piss, shit, vomit, and blood pooling underneath. A stillness. A ringing in Ol’ Gils ears. Ol’ Gils jaw dropped. A long barreled army issue dragoon pistol pointing stiff at Ol’ Gil. An empty existential stare on the face of the scalper. The slow crane of a terrified barkeeps head realizing he’s under barrel. Utter shock. A thought of palming the two-shooter in his sleeve. An interruption.

“I see so much as a pinky move on your left hand, I’ll shoot your knees out before I plug your stomach with one of these slugs. Hiding that derringer in your sleeve like I’m some, what did you call it? Poor primitive fuck?”

Ol’ Gil instinctively began to raise his hands and turn slowly towards this scalper, transmogrified through violence into what? Robber? Murderer? Undertaker? Executioner?

“Shake that little ten cent pistol onto the floor and mosey on over here.”

Ol’ Gil obliged with a clatter of steel on the wood plank floor while also managing to sputter out a “Look friend, you can have w-w-whatever the fuck you want, I ain’t g-g-got a lot of coin but I got good-“

“I ain’t here to rob you, Gil. I’m here to sell scalps.” in a blur, with a click and the clank of steel on ornate leather, the dragoon was back in it’s holster. Gil cocked his head in puzzlement whilst relaxing his arms a bit.

“What the fuck is going on he-“

“Does THIS constitute an emergency?” inquired the scalper while gesturing towards the rotting human heap on the bar floor.

With a shrug and limper-getting arms Ol’ Gil responded with a timid

“Yes?”

"Well then" the scalper hopped up with an all-too callous energy and indifference declaring, “In that case! Take me to your sheriff. Mind grabbing my scalps? I’ve been carrying them for quite some time and my shoulders getting just a bit too tired.”

After a pause to process, Ol’ Gil got into gear and obliged, carefully traipsing over the dead drunk and his gore splayed across the barkeeps exit onto the tavern floor. As they were leaving, a juxtaposedly cheery scalper introduced himself, “You can ride with me, Ol’ Gil. By the by-“ Ol’ Gil stopped in fear, realizing that in his haste, he had turned his back to this deathly patron. He quickly turned on his heels, fully expecting to meet the same fate as the drunk on his tavern floor.

This guy, whoever or whatever he was, was that fast.

Where Ol' Gil knew he'd be staring down a barrel, he was staring at an outstretched hand,

“The name is Vance.”

Ol' Gil shook now Vance's hand; not entirely without noting the weakness of his own grip this time and ruse that Vance's fragile grip was previously.