It was a dusty frontier town and Bob was just passing through. He hitched his horse up outside the saloon, threw open the doors and went in. There was a piano-player playing. There was a saloon-keeper. There was a blonde whore in a red dress and feathers leaning against the counter. She got up as she saw Bob coming in. There were round tables, slouching drunks and a card game going on. Bob’s heels and spurs clip-clipped on the hardwood floor as he went up to the bar.
“Glass a’ whisky,” he said to the saloonkeeper.
The whore leaned on his arm.
“Care fer some fun, honey?”
He didn’t like the look of her. She was too chewed up and dead looking. One of a few women in a cattle town. He didn’t like the smell of her. The perfume made his head ache. The smell of spirits made him think of dead things in jars and yet, despite all that, there was another scent coming up to him over the feathers and Bob had been such a long time in the saddle.
“You want it honey? You know a girl always can tell when a man’s got something for her.” She put her hand against his groin and he felt himself swell and surge.
He drank his whiskey straight, slammed a note down on the counter then he grabbed the whore and hitched her skirts up.
“Right then you goddamn slut, now you’ll get what you asked for.”
He unbuttoned his pants and rolled them down. He hauled the whore up against the counter and pressed her naked butt into the brass rail. She looked shocked then aroused that he would take her right there. She wrapped her legs round him and he slid his dick into her. She bit her lip from the force of him going in and then they rolled…
“Take it, bitch.” said Bob and he went in hard.
The saloonkeeper looked at them. They were butting up against the counter. He thought about saying something but he had seen Bob come in. All rage and fury behind quiet eyes. A dangerous man. He certainly wasn’t going to unset a man like that when he was in a rut.
Finally Bob’s face contorted and he pulled out. He spun round, his cock pulsing in the air. He looked round for something to blast into but he didn’t find it and so jizz flew through the air, spattering the floor, and landed in an old man’s beer glass.
“Yer damn nam peckerwood!” said the old man and he drank the beer. He sat there with the ropey strands of jizz hanging in his beard.
“You bastard!” The whore said to Bob, “I hate when a man doesn’t give it all to me.”
The old drunk raised his jizzed-filled beer glass to his lips again and Bob pulled his pistol and shot the glass out of his hand.
“I’ll not let a man swallow my essence,” said Bob.
The saloon went silent. All action temporarily halted by the gunshot then the saloonkeeper broke the silence.
“Anna!” He called, “Come here! You got some cleanin’ to do.”
He turned to Bob.
“Next time, sir, take it to one of the rooms and don’t go shootin’ the place up.”
Anna, the cleaning girl, came out with a bucket and a mop, and started clearing away the shards of broken glass, and mopping up the spilled beer and the jizz. Bob looked at the girl and saw that she was pretty. He could see that even after just having shot his load and with how lousy he felt about it. He tilted the girl’s chin up to get a good look at her.
“Who’s the girl?” he said to the saloonkeeper.
“Oh, she’s just some girl whose whole family got caught out on the road by injuns.”
“Is she chewed up?”
“What d’you mean?”
“You know what I mean,” said Bob.
“No,” said the saloonkeeper, “She ain’t chewed up nor spat out neither. Not yet anyways, we keep her round here to clean the place but between you and me…”
He beckoned Bob over to the counter. Bob stepped forward.
“We’re waiting for some gentleman to come by with a good enough offer, then she’ll be let out. Maybe you wanna put an offer in?”
Bob’s look made the barkeeper nervous.
“Course, you could always wait till after she’s been had, then she’ll be a whore just like all the others.”
“So she’s lucky?” Bob said.
“What? Ugh.. well if you’re figuring she’s lucky cos she got off alive then yeah, but all ‘o her families’ dead an’ scalped an’ she ain’t got nuthin to look forward to ‘ceptin a life o’ whorin’. Real sad.”
“She’s lucky.” Bob said. “Because I walked in here.”
The saloonkeeper brightened. “So you wanna make an offer on her?”
“No.” Bob said, “No-one touches the girl. She’s mine.”
“Well what d’you mean? What’s your offer?”
But Bob just turned and walked out the door and into the street.
There was a fat man at a nearby table. He was a rich cattleman and he had been listening intently to the whole discussion. He called over to the saloonkeeper.
“You say that sweet piece of meat is for sale?”
“The girl?”
“Yeah, how much you want for her?”
“That’s dependin’ on the price yer offering.”
“I’ll give you fifty dollars right here ‘n now, take it or leave it.”
“Well now, sir! I figure you just done got yourself a deal.”
The fat cattleman got up from the table, waddled over to the bar, peeled off a fifty and laid it on the counter. The saloonkeeper scooped it up and went over to Anna. She was mopping up the beer. He took the mop out of her hand, plopped it into the bucket and laid a hand on her thin shoulders.
“Cathleen!” The saloonkeeper called.
The old starched whore came over.
“What is it now?”
“Go and get Anna scrubbed up and put her in that nice dress of yorn. She’s gonna have her first gentleman customer.”
Cathleen the whore smiled and led Anna up the stairs and on into one of the rooms.
“You just take a seat at the table there now, sir, and Cathleen will let you know when the girl’s ready for you.”
The fat cattleman grinned and sat down. He had a tough time walking now that he knew he was going to have the girl. He sat down on his chair, resting his sweaty palms on the table and breathed heavy.
A little way off, at another of the tables, a skinny world-weary man raised his eyes and looked at the fat man. He sighed, looked down into his whisky and drank.
A short time later, the door to the room opened up and Cathleen came out to the balcony.
“Okay!” she called down, “She’s all ready now.”
“Off you go!” The saloonkeeper said to the fat man.
The fat man opened his mouth, looking like a big fish, and he got up and went slowly up the stairs. He stumbled on the last two steps, brushed past Cathleen and went into the room. The door closed. Cathleen gave a wink to the saloonkeeper. She was grinning savagely. She was happy. She looked like she was getting back at some enemy of hers. She was a bitter whore.
Bob was just at the general store, loading up on supplies and vittles. He paid for them and went out.
Inside the room above the saloon the fat man moved forward and reached for the girl. She tried to get away but she couldn’t get past him. He tore at her dress. He was sweating and breathing hard.
Just then, downstairs, the saloon doors swung open and Bob walked in. The whiskey-drinker at the table looked up. The saloonkeeper turned. The whore leaned over the balcony. The card players stopped playing.
Bob looked around the room.
“Where’s the girl?” he said.
“I’m awful sorry, sir, but another gentleman just gone an’ beat you to it.”
“I said: where’s the girl?” Bob growled.
The saloonkeeper looked left and right.
“She’s upstairs in the room. The gentleman’s in there with her now.”
Bob pulled his gun out of the holster and went up the stairs.
“Just a minute, sir, you can’t go up there, she’s with a gentleman!”
Cathleen, the bitter old whore, moved away as she saw Bob coming. He went up to the door and kicked it in.
Someone in the room shouted as Bob went in. There were gunshots. Screams.
The fat man staggered out of the room, blood pouring down his white long johns. He leaned on the balcony and then it broke and he fell into the room below and crashed through a table. He was dead.
Bob came striding out of the room with the girl over his shoulder and the gun in his hand. She wasn’t screaming now. He walked down the stairs. Everyone in the saloon stared at him. Bob walked up to the counter, the girl still draped over his shoulder. She was crying.
“Say…” the saloonkeeper said, “I know who you are. you’re that outlaw! That Murderin’ Bob Hughes, the one who strangled that whore and shot up that other ‘stablishment.”
Bob looked at him.
“Yer right,” he said quietly, “I’m Bob Hughes. And you don’t listen so good.”
And he raised the gun and shot the saloonkeeper in the head, then he turned and walked out, carrying the girl.
The whiskey drinker smiled, set his empty glass down on the table and got up.
“Where you going, Bell?!” A man said, “Don’t go after that man, he’s dangerous!”
“I figure I’ll take my chances.” said Bell and he walked out of the saloon.
