The Traveler

"So, what's the catch?" 

"What's the catch?" the old man behind the counter croaked. 

He moved back and crossed his arms in a defensive manner and a feigned shock blossomed on his dirty, wrinkled face. His twig-like fingers grossly caressed the rotted green oak counter separating him from the disgruntled traveler. 

"Room and board free of charge? I'd be remiss to not think of the deal as suspicious. So, I ask again, what's the catch?" the traveler calmly asked, wiping off some dust from his denim overcoat which complemented his blue jeans. 

His piercing blue eyes struck the cataract-plagued gaze of the innkeeper, unnerving the otherwise composed old man. The traveler stared at him through the silence, conjuring up an excuse in his dementia-ridden mind. 

“Well, yes, I guess there is a catch. Very minor, very minor. The last room we have is still damaged by fire after the Comanche raid last week. That’s why I’m offerin’ it to you for free. It’s not an accommodation worthy of payment, but I can’t let a vagabond such as yourself sleep outside in the cold. So please, friend, allow me to take you to the room.” 

The traveler looked around the parlor room as he pondered his response. The parlor room was horribly kept. Dust littered the floor; cobwebs lined the upper corners of the wooden walls; the windows were locked shut to prevent the freezing wind from blowing in; and the furniture–a cloth couch, two wooden rocking chairs, and a cedar elm square table–was grossly infected with mold and termites. 

He let out a resentful sigh as he acquiesced to the innkeeper’s hospitality and accepted his proposition. 

“I’ll take it,” he replied, grasping his pack tightly and laboriously carrying it with him. 

“Follow me,” the innkeeper demanded, beckoning the traveler forth by curling his lanky, crooked fingers. 

He led him through a doorframe and into a hallway full of rooms for guests. The hallway was skinny and could only fit one person shoulder-to-shoulder. 

“Any news from Dallas?” the traveler inquired as he cautiously walked behind the limping old man. 

“Why? Is that from where you came?” he curiously asked. 

“It don’t matter from where I came,” the traveler sharply snapped at him. 

“Oh, okay. Well what kind of news? I’ve only heard of the big bank robbery a week ago that ended with thirteen Texas Rangers dead. Three Pinkerton boys came around a day ago hopin’ the robbers would come by here. I didn’t see any robbers; in case you were wonderin’.” 

After hearing the innkeeper’s account of the robbery, the traveler’s face turned flush, and he stiffened his body posture. He reached for his hip and rested his hand on the holster of his Colt Single Action Army Revolver. He had the gun since his time fighting for the Confederates in the War of Northern Aggression six years ago. It had been marked and damaged over the countless engagements he fought in, from Vicksburg to Galveston to Palmetto Ranch. 

“Wow, I didn’t hear about that. It's wild what some people will do for money, huh?” the traveler responded. 

“You haven’t heard of it? It’s a big story,” the old man remarked with a sly look. 

“I’ve been on the road for a while, the only news I get is from other fellow travelers.” 

“Where was it you said you were goin’ again?” the innkeeper asked, turning around to face the traveler. 

“I didn’t,” he grunted with a square look. 

“You’re quite the quiet character, aren’t you?” the innkeeper nervously jested. 

“I’m going to San Francisco. I’m a speculator looking to invest in prospecting,” the traveler explained. 

“With just you and your horse?” 

“I... have a group of investors who are meeting me there. We found a promisin’ dig site and now we just gotta start the project,” he explained. 

“Well, Mr. Speculator, here’s your room. If you need anything, find me or my wife and we will get you all situated.” 

The old man led the traveler inside the room and closed the door abruptly behind him. The traveler was jarred by the sudden rush of wind to his back and the sound of the slamming door and did a full one-eighty. He scanned the rotting, peeling oak door and then moved on to the rest of the room. 

It was a small room that was only able to fit a single full bed, two small cabinets on either side, a dresser, and a wardrobe. All the furniture was made of the same beige-colored cedar elm. An oil lamp lay lit on the right cabinet, still nearly full of oil. The roof hung low, with cobwebs infesting the top corners of the room. The floor was made of oak planks that creaked and buckled under the pressure of the traveler’s heavy stature. The weakly constructed windows were boarded shut to prevent the wind from blowing them open, just as they were in the parlor room. Superficially, the room was serviceable to his needs. 

The traveler walked over to the stiff bed and sat down on its white, cotton sheets. He took off his pack and carefully placed it on the bed beside him. His mouth salivated as he opened it up and took out a shining ingot of gold. He moved it from one hand to the other under the lamplight, feeling the weight of the gold sink into his skin and smiling as he did so. 

Inside the pack were nine more gold ingots which had seriously weighed down his horse on his way to the inn. The trip had taken nearly a week and he was still in Texas, somewhere halfway between Dallas and the New Mexico border. His horse would not be able to ride at the pace it had been with such a heavy load, but he did not know where to find another, bigger horse in the area. Anyways, he loved his horse, Trouble; he had ridden her for many of his most dangerous jobs and she had never failed him once. 

As he began to think about Trouble, his mind rushed back to memories of his past. From past jobs he had completed, to past rides he had shared with her, and to past battles that he had nearly died in countless times.

In the maelstrom of his memories, he succumbed to his exhaustion and slipped unknowingly into a sound slumber, surrounded by the spilled sack of gold. 

It was the sound of clattering spurs and heavy boots squashing the muddy earth that woke the traveler from his hibernation. Slow but loud footsteps began to march from around the inn, heading toward the front door. Over the sound of the whistling wind, the traveler could barely make out chattering teeth and whining neighs of horses parked outside his room. 

In a flash, he leaped up from the bed and onto the hard wooden floor. He hurriedly shoved the gold ingots back into his pack and slung it over his shoulders. He unlatched his holster, held the grip of the gun with his right hand, and popped open the door. 

After the unsubtle creaking of the old door, the traveler could hear three distinct voices of men and a fourth, distinguishable voice: the innkeeper. Their voices were low and their volume quiet. They spoke with urgency; however, the traveler could not understand the meaning of their whispers. 

Suddenly, a wave of clarity washed over him, and he backed away from the door. He turned around and again studied the walls of the room. He moved his hands over the rotted wood and realized his foolishness. They were far from pristine, but they were not burnt, and they were not new. These were the original walls of the building. 

Then he looked at the oil lamp and remembered that it was full and lit before he even got there. He never saw the innkeeper go into the room.

Why was it lit? 

He moved back to the door again, this time pushing it completely open. He carefully moved, step-by-step, down the hallway toward the parlor room to confront his suspicions. Every step he took, the wooden floors let out an annoying croak, alarming anyone with ears to his presence. 

Approaching the entrance to the parlor room, he hesitated. He held his clammy, callused hand firmly on the grip of the pistol in his holster and his ear to the doorframe. Alarmingly, the voices had stopped, as if they knew he was listening. 

He poked his head out into the parlor room and saw the innkeeper behind his counter and three men sitting silently on a couch in the corner of the room. They held their hands in their laps and when the traveler walked past them, their heads followed. 

“What can I do you for, sir?” asked the innkeeper, nervously. 

He kept on glancing back to the three men sitting idly on the couch whilst sweating behind the counter. The traveler looked back as well and saw all three of them staring right at him. They all wore light frock coats trousers and a bowler hat, and all had thick, jet-black mustaches. 

“I... I thought you said my room was damaged?” he asked curiously. 

“What?” 

“The room that I’m staying in. Didn’t the Comanches burn it down?” 

“Oh yes, indeed. It was a frightful raid. We’ve fixed it since. I hope it is to your likin’,” the innkeeper muttered. 

“I thought the reason you gave me the room for free was because of the damage?” 

The innkeeper began to tremble behind the counter and did not offer the traveler a response. The traveler gave the innkeeper with a funny face and then looked back at the three men sitting on the couch. They had not moved an inch but were all looking away from him now. 

“What the hell is goin’ on here, exactly? You know I found a lit oil lamp in my room. Were you expectin’ me?” he growled, reaching for his gun. 

Behind him, he heard the cock of a pistols hammer which made him instinctively twist around, see the man pointing the old ‘Peacemaker’ at him and fire two quick shots into his chest. The innkeeper screamed and fell to the floor, while the two other men reached for their own guns. The traveler, with nowhere else to go, dove behind the cedar elm square table and flipped it over to use as cover. 

The two men fired into the table, but the thick cut wood was able to brunt the impact of the bullets. The traveler squirmed behind the table, jarred by every shot that splintered its wood. 

He had hit his lucky break, however, as both the men simultaneously ran out of bullets. The eerily quiet reload time signified to the traveler his only chance to live through this scenario, so he took it. 

With a rapid rise and two true shots, the traveler took down the two men fumbling with their pistols and bullets. They dropped to the floor in succession, their blood soaking into and staining the old wooden floors. The horses outside had erupted into frightened stomping and neighing due to the gunfight. He let out a sigh of relief and laughed at his own dumb luck. 

The traveler walked over to them and reached inside one of the cold, dead man’s coat pockets. He pulled out a wallet with some cash and a Pinkerton badge. He did the same with the other two men and also found wallets and Pinkerton badges. In the coat of the third man, however, he found a wanted poster. A wanted poster with his face crudely drawn on it. They had gotten his thick, raised cheekbones and long curling nose correctly, but they managed to describe his eye color and height incorrectly. He scoffed at their error and crumpled the wanted poster into his right coat pocket. 

The traveler looked around the room, to make sure no one else was there. He made his way behind the counter and found the innkeeper shaking beneath it in a fetal position. He looked down at the old, impaired man and felt sympathy for him. He had seen his face; however, and he could not let him live. The traveler cocked the hammer of his Colt and aimed it at the innkeeper’s head. The old man looked up at him through his cataracts and pleaded for his life. 

“Please sir, please! They made me do it! Please don’t kill me sir, I ain’t done no wrong!” he cried, kneeling before the traveler. 

The traveler looked at the innkeeper’s foggy, partially blinded eyes and pushed up the hammer. He pulled out the wanted poster and held it in the innkeeper’s face. The innkeeper responded by looking at the traveler with confused and hopeless eyes. 

“Is this me?” he asked, pointing at the poster. 

“What?” 

“Is this me? On the poster?” 

“Umm, yes it looks like you. Sir, please don’t kill me,” he pleaded once more. 

The traveler looked down at the old man and then back at the poster, contemplating his options. The old man remained in his kneeling position before the traveler, almost praying to him like he was a god. He placed the poster back into his coat pocket and reached for his pack of gold. 

The traveler stared longingly at the shining metal, his head swaying back and forth as he lost himself in the pile of tangible wealth. The thought of losing his score because of the pleads of an old man seemed folly to him. The gold was worth so much more than a life to the traveler, but the innkeeper would whole-heartedly disagree with him.

However, the traveler was the one with gun and the innkeeper was left subject to his frontier justice. The traveler looked back at the praying man, who had so little left to live for, but so desperately wanted to. More than anything in the world. 

With his pistol firmly in his right hand and his pack of gold in his left, he made up his mind and carried out his decision. 

It was still early in the morning, the sun had not yet risen, but the traveler needed to get back on the road as quickly as possible. He walked up to Trouble, who had been stampeding in place ever since the first gunshots were fired. He quickly calmed her down with a few quiet hushes and soft, gentle strokes on the salt and pepper hair of her left side. As she eased her tantrum, her calming, warm energy flowed into him, and they connected as one. He unfastened her reigns and jumped onto her saddle with a surprising ease which still felt a touch uncomfortable for him.

Trouble neighed playfully at her rider, and he leaned over to rub below her neck, and he whispered into her ear: 

“Don’t worry Trouble, the load will be a little lighter from now on.” 

The traveler then sat upright, kicked his spurs into her side and yelled, “HYAH!” to get Trouble running. She took off at lighting speed down the dirt road, west toward New Mexico and far, far away from the remote inn until it was nothing more than a pea-sized dot swallowed by the rising sun way back on the blood-soaked horizon.