Champing at the Bit
by William White
The cowboy slouches low slung on his creaky wooden chair. From between beer bottles on the table in front of him he stares. Across the smokey bar. From the back corner of a cowboy watering hole that stinks of desperation and is about to close for the night he stares.
He sees her. He sees only her.
He fumbles his last cigarette out of the pack. His Army Ranger lighter flares as he draws a deep pull. The smoke warms his lungs, but it does not warm his heart.
He smokes.
His friend stumbles towards the table. Knocking into it he spills several empty bottles onto the floor. The cowboy doesn’t notice. His friend sits down hard on a chair.
“You gonna talk to her?” the friend says.
The cowboy says nothing.
“Charlie! Are you gonna talk to her?”
The cowboy’s eyes shift toward the friend. They’re cold, menacing eyes. Flames of ice flicker in those eyes.
The friend recoils. “Look, I’m just saying, Buck is getting ready to close. If you’re gonna talk to her now’s the time.”
There’s a plate glass window behind the cowboy. Red neon light flashes into the bar, streaks across the cowboy’s shoulders, illuminating the two men.
The cowboy shifts. From his side he pulls out a gun. A pistol. A Colt 1873 Single Action Army pistol. He drops the pistol onto the table with a thunk. The cowboy sits back.
The friend looks at the pistol. Then he looks over at the woman. She’s talking to a man now. They’re whispering to each other. Their faces, their lips, very close. Almost touching. The friend looks back at the cowboy.
“You can’t,” the friend says. “You can’t kill her Charlie.”
The cowboy stares across the bar.
Suddenly the house lights come on. Too bright. There are groans from the other patrons. Complaining. Yelling.
The friend says, “You know you love her Charlie. And she loves you. Gwen is the finest woman I’ve ever known and you’re lucky to have her. Why she puts up with you I’ll never know. But you two are meant for each other. You both know it. And all she wants is one thing, Charlie. One thing that doesn’t make any difference in all the world. I don’t know why you don’t see that.”
The cowboy takes a long draw on his cigarette.
After a few minutes the friend stands up. Defeated. He looks at the cowboy. The friend turns and walks from the table.
The cowboy closes his eyes.
A voice says, “Hey.”
It’s her. He knows it’s her.
The cowboy opens his eyes and looks up at the woman. She looks down at him. They are equals, these two, they both know it. A pair. A match. But not one made in heaven. Slowly the cowboy unfolds himself up from the wooden chair. He straightens his lean frame and stands looking at her.
She looks at him, she’s about to say something, but then she doesn’t. She looks down at the table. At the pistol. She reaches down and picks it up. She holds the gun in her hand, feeling the weight. She spins the cylinder, then stops it quick. Looking the cowboy straight in the eye she releases the cylinder. She tilts the pistol in front of her and spills six bullets down to the floor. With a flick of the wrist she snaps the cylinder back into place. She looks at the gun, she looks at the cowboy. She says,
“You wanna marry me?”
And she hurls the pistol through the plate glass window behind the cowboy.
The bar falls silent, it’s just the two of them now.
“Then no more guns.”
The cowboy looks at her. Looks into her eyes. He looks into the only eyes he has ever loved. The only eyes that have ever loved him. Eyes he knows now that he can never leave. He looks into those eyes long and hard, and he says,
“Ok.”
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Illustration by William White
