It was an old man’s voice (an old bastard’s voice), speaking with the shrill, head-hurting intensity which is the sole province of old bastards in their cups. He was talking about the old days, as old bastards always did, and about how the world had moved on, and how things had been ever so much better when he was a boy. Then he had said something which caused Depape’s ears to prick up: something about how the old days might be coming again, for hadn’t he seen three young lords not two months a-gone, mayhap less, and even bought one of them a drink, even if ’twas only sasparilly soda?
“You wouldn’t know a young lord from a young turd,” said a miss who appeared to have all of four teeth left in her charming young head.
There was general laughter at this. The old bastard looked around, offended. “I know, all right,” he said. “I’ve forgot more than you’ll ever learn, so I have. One of them at least came from the Eld line, for I saw his father in his face… just as clear as I see your saggy tits, Jolene.” And then the old bastard had done something Depape rather admired-yanked out the front of the saloon-whore’s blouse and poured the remainder of his beer down it. Even the roars of laughter and heavy applause which greeted this couldn’t entirely drown the girl’s caw of rage, or the old man’s cries when she began to slap and punch him about the head and shoulders. These latter cries were only indignant at first, but when the girl grabbed the old bastard’s own beer-stein and shattered it against the side of his head, they became screams of pain. Blood-mixed with a few watery dregs of beer-began to run down the old bastard’s face.
“Get out of here!” she yelled, and gave him a shove toward the door. Several healthy kicks from the miners in attendance (who had changed sides as easily as the wind changes directions) helped him along. “And don’t come back! I can smell the weed on your breath, you old cock-sucker! Get out and take your gods-cussed stories of old days and young lords with you!”
The old bastard was in such manner conveyed across the room, past the tootling trumpet-player who served as entertainment for the patrons of Hattigan’s (that young bowler-hatted worthy added his own kick in the seat of the old bastard’s dusty trousers without ever missing so much as a single note of “Play, Ladies, Play”), and out through the batwing doors, where he collapsed face-first into the street.
Depape had sauntered after him and helped him up. As he did so, he smelled an acrid odor-not beer-on the old man’s breath, and saw the telltale greenish-gray discolorations at the comers of his lips. Weed, all right. The old bastard was probably just getting started on it (and for the usual reason: devil-grass was free in the hills, unlike the beer and whiskey that was sold in town), but once they started, the finish came quick.
“They got no respect,” the old bastard said thickly. “Nor understanding, either.”
“Aye, so they don’t,” said Depape, who had not yet gotten the accents of the seacoast and the Drop out of his speech.
The old bastard stood swaying, looking up at him, wiping ineffectually at the blood which ran down his wrinkled cheeks from his lacerated scalp. “Son, do you have the price of a drink? Remember the face of your father and give an old soul the price of a drink!”
“I’m not much for charity, old-timer,” Depape said, “but mayhap you could earn yourself the price of a drink. Step on over here, into my office, and let’s us see.”
He’d led the old bastard out of the street and back to the boardwalk, angling well to the left of the black batwings with their golden shafts of light spilling out above and below. He waited for a trio of miners to go by, singing at the top of their lungs (“Woman I love… is long and tall… she moves her body… like a cannonball… “), and then, still holding the old bastard by the elbow, hail guided him into the alley between Hattigan’s and the undertaking establishment next door. For some people, Depape mused, a visit to Ritzy could damn near amount to one-stop shopping: get your drink, get your bullet, get laid out next door.
“Yer office,” the old bastard cackled as Depape led him down the alley toward the board fence and the heaps of rubbish at the far end. The wind blew, stinging Depape’s nose with odors of sulfur and carbolic from the mines. From their right, the sounds of drunken revelry pounded through the side of Hattigan’s. “Your office, that’s good.”
“Aye, my office.”
The old man gazed at him in the light of the moon, which rode the slot of sky above the alley. “Are you from Mejis? Or Tepachi?”
“Maybe one, maybe t'other, maybe neither.”
“Do I know you?” The old bastard was looking at him even more closely, standing on tiptoe as if hoping for a kiss. Ugh.
Depape pushed him away. “Not so close, dad.” Yet he felt marginally encouraged. He and Jonas and Reynolds had been here before, and if the old man remembered his face, likely he wasn’t talking through his hat about fellows he’d seen much more recently.
“Tell me about the three young lords, old dad.” Depape rapped on the wall of Hattigan’s. “Them in there may not be interested, but I am.”
The old bastard looked at him with a bleary, calculating eye. “Might there be a bit o’ metal in it for me?”
“Yar,” Depape said. “If you tell me what I want to hear, I’ll give you metal.”
“Gold?”
“Tell me, and we’ll see.”
“No, sir. Dicker first, tell second.”
Depape seized him by the arm, whirled him around, and yanked a wrist which felt like a bundle of sticks up to the old bastard’s scrawny shoulderblades. “Fuck with me, dad, and we’ll start by breaking your arm.”
“Let go!” the old bastard screamed breathlessly. “Let go, I’ll trust to your generosity, young sir, for you have a generous face! Yes! Yes indeed!”
Depape let him go. The old bastard eyed him warily, rubbing his shoulder. In the moonlight the blood drying on his cheeks looked black.
“Three of them, there were,” he said. “Fine-born lads.”
“Lads or lords? Which is it, dad?”
The old bastard had taken the question thoughtfully. The whack on the head, the night air, and having his arm twisted seemed to have sobered him up, at least temporarily.
“Both, I do believe,” he said at last. “One was a lord for sure, whether them in there believe it or not. For I saw his father, and his father bore the guns. Not such poor things such as you wear-beggin your pardon, I know they’re the best to be had these days-but real guns, such as were seen when my own dad was a boy. The big ones with the sandalwood grips.”
Depape had stared at the old man, feeling a rise of excitement… and a species of reluctant awe, as well. They acted like gunslingers, Jonas had said. When Reynolds protested they were too young, Jonas had said they might be apprentices, and now it seemed the boss had likely been right.
“Sandal-wood grips?” he had asked. “Sandalwood grips, old dad?”
“Yep.” The old man saw his excitement, and his belief. He expanded visibly.
“A gunslinger, you mean. This one young fellow’s father carried the big irons.”
“Yep, a gunslinger. One of the last lords. Their line is passing, now, but my dad knew him well enough. Steven Deschain, of Gilead. Steven, son of Henry.”
“And this one you saw not long ago-”
“His son. Henry the Tail’s grandson. The others looked well-born, as if they might also come from the line of lords, but the one I saw come down all the way from Arthur Eld, by one line or another. Sure as you walk on two legs. Have I earned my metal yet?”
Depape thought to say yes, then realized he didn’t know which of the three culls this old bastard was talking about.
“Three young men,” he mused. “Three high-borns. And did they have guns?”
“Not out where the drift-diggers of this town could see em,” the old bastard said, and laughed nastily. “But they had em, all right. Probably hid in their bedrolls. I’d set my watch and warrant on it.”