Rattler. Barry Andrew Chambers

was getting busy. I sat at the bar and ordered the fried turkey sandwich and sweet tea.

      Munching happily on the sandwich, I did not see the rough-hewn cowboy enter. He walked straight to me and thumped me behind the ear.

      “Hey!” I cried as I turned.

      “You’re in my seat,” he said in a gruff voice.

      I moved down two stools and gestured toward the stool I’d been sitting on. “Be my guest.”

      The cowboy took my old seat and ordered a whiskey. Then he looked over at me and growled, “You sure give up your seat easy.”

      “You said it was your seat.” I figured logic would appeal to him. It didn’t.

      “First come, first served. It’s your seat,” he said.

      I smiled. “I bequeath it to you.”

      The witticism sailed over his head. The man had no sense of humor. “You give up too easy Tenderfoot. You’re a yellow backed coward.”

      The challenge had been issued. A piece of turkey stuck in my throat. I tried to wash it down with the tea, but all that did was choke me. I started to cough like a madman. The cowboy walked over and shoved me.

      “What’s the matter…coward? ’Fraid?”

      I backpedaled into another customer who made no effort to stop my action. Suddenly I was on my back, looking up at a painting on the ceiling. It looked religious in nature with winged devils flying over the flames of Hades.

      “Get up boy.” The rough cowboy stood over me. Before I could reply, he pulled me up by my shirt collar and started slapping me.

      That was enough. I pushed back, putting the weight on my back foot. The cowboy didn’t move. He laughed.

      “Are you crazy?” I yelled. “Are you plain loco?”

      “Yeah, I’m—”

      While he was busy replying, I threw a fist straight at his nose. It caught him by surprise and I was pleased to see blood spurting from his face as he did some backpedaling of his own. The customer who I ran into was still in his place with a Colt revolver sticking out of his belt. I didn’t think. I just grabbed the gun.

      “Wha…?” the customer protested.

      I pointed the Colt at the customer. He didn’t say another word. Then I wheeled on the cowboy who was advancing on me.

      “Stop right there, mister,” I commanded.

      He did.

      “I’ve had enough of this and it stops now.”

      The cowboy smiled and took two steps toward me. “You don’t know how to use that.”

      Actually I’m quite good with firearms. Rifles, pistols, derringers, bow and arrow, you name it. My father was a short, small-boned man who suffered from bullies. To equalize his lifestyle, he learned guns. He became quite the expert sharpshooter.

      I’m not a fast draw, but my father taught me well. I could core a silver dollar at twenty-five paces. I aimed the Colt low.

      “One more step and I’ll blow your knee to pieces.”

      He hesitated and for the first time, the cowboy looked worried.

      I continued, “Do you know what kind of damage a bullet at close range will do to a man’s knee? I mean, forget the blind, searing pain. That will be the least of your worries.”

      The cowboy’s eyes turned down, looking at the barrel of the gun.

      “The cartilage will just blow through, tearing muscle along with the bullet. A spray of blood—your blood—will splash against the wall behind you.”

      I nodded toward the barkeep. “Yes sir. The gentleman behind the bar will have a real mess to clean up.” My eyes shifted to the barkeep. “I hope you’ve got a lot of clean towels.”

      The barkeep nodded dumbly.

      My eyes shifted back to the cowboy.

      “And you…you’ll spend the rest of your life with a nub. After tonight they will have to amputate, because the bullet will sever tendons, dividing the lower part from the thigh.”

      Not being a doctor I had no idea of the damage, but having read a McKenzie Medical Digest for a stomach ache, it sounded good.

      Although the cowboy grimaced, he kept up a strong bravado. “You’re not going to shoot me. You don’t have it in you.”

      I cocked the trigger. “I beg to differ.”

      His face fell. Then he did an odd thing. He picked up his whiskey glass and downed it in one gulp.

      “What are you doing?” I asked.

      He didn’t reply. He turned the glass in his hand with a simple three quarter turn of his wrist. The whiskey glass caught the light from the overhead chandelier. It wasn’t blinding, but it was bright enough to catch my attention. In an instant, the Colt was knocked out of my hand and I saw a fist headed for my face.

      I woke up in a bed. My face hurt and my neck hurt. And my back wasn’t feeling too good either. My eyes focused on a lamp that hung on the wall. In the room was a chifforobe and a chair. It looked like my hotel room, but mine had a chifforobe on the opposite wall.

      Standing over me was an old gentleman holding a glass of something brown.

      “Where am I?”

      The old man held my face up to the light. “Open your eyes.”

      “They are open.”

      “Wider.”

      I had not realized that my lids were half closed. The room was dim, but the lamp hurt my eyes.

      “Open,” he said gently.

      Against my better judgment, I opened my eyes full wide.

      “Look at me,” he said.

      “Are you a doctor?”

      “The best one in St. Louis.” He gazed into my eyes. “You’ll live. That bump on your head was what worried me.”

      I reached back and felt the swelling just above my neck. “Ow!”

      “Relax.”

      I leaned back on a soft, eiderdown pillow. It was just like the one in my room. Upon feeling it, I was thinking of taking it home with me. “Where am I?” I asked for a second time.

      “Room 34 of the Hotel D’Arms.”

      That figured. Room 32 was mine.

      “Is this your room, doctor?”

      “Nope. It belongs to the man who brought you in and called me.”

      A good Samaritan. “Where is he?”

      “He’s down the hall taking a bath.”

      I nodded, but didn’t understand. “I have an appointment tomorrow morning.”

      The doctor shook his head. “You need rest. That bruise isn’t going away any too soon.” There were no mirrors in the room, but the doctor produced a hand mirror from his bag. “Here you go.”

      On my forehead was a dark, purple spot. The mark of Cain. I was not going to make a very good impression on my potential employers. The door opened.

      “Ah, here’s your friend now.”

      Coming through the door was Harlon Shanks, my future boss and current good Samaritan. He wore a bathrobe and had a wet towel draped across his shoulders. Of course at that moment, I didn’t know his name when he walked in the room, but I’d seen him before. He was the cowboy who punched me out.

      There are different ways for The Service to approach candidates. If