Chapter Two—Don’t Stop Till You Find the Bananas

     I rode on into the town, and got there a little after noon. The sign on the outskirts said the name of the place was River Bend, which I thought was fairly appropriate given the location. It wasn’t much of a town—one main street that was L-shaped, two rows of false fronted buildings, a couple of side streets with some houses running along them. I’d seen a few hundred cowtowns just like it, so I didn’t stop and gape.
     In fact, even if the town had been mesmerizing, I wouldn’t have noticed. My stomach was queasy; I figured the last bit of ham I ate that morning might have been spoiled. So the first thing I wanted was a glass of milk. That always seemed to help settle my tummy when it ached.
     I didn’t spy a restaurant off hand, but there was a saloon just to my left. I wasn’t much of a saloon-goer, but I figured I couldn’t get into too much trouble, given the time of day it was. So I reined up, tied my horse to the hitching post outside, and went into the bar through the swinging doors.
     Pretty typical place. Maybe a dozen tables to the right, bar straight in front of me, stairs to the left leading to a second floor, piano against the staircase, sawdust covered floor, a few usually missed spittoons here and there around the room. There were a handful of men sitting at tables. They glanced at me when I came in and visa-versa, but then I walked up to the bar.
     There was a short Chinese fellow for a bartender, which was a little unusual—a lot unusual, bartenders tended to be big, burly fellows that didn’t take no snuff offa nobody—but I figured this Chinaman’s name was probably Chop Headee and nobody gave him any snuff, either. I nodded at him, and he said, in perfect English, “What’ll it be?”
     “I got a stomach ache,” I told him. “You got any milk?”
     I heard some snickering and snorting from the fellows at the tables, but I ignored them. The Chinamen surveyed me for a moment, and nodded. He reached under the counter and said, “Fresh and cold, just this morning.” He poured me a glass.
     Before I had a chance to drink it, I was introduced to another of the saloons employees. “Aw, you got a wee tummy ache, handsome? Maybe Molly can help make you feel better.”
     I turned around and there stood a long, curly-headed blonde who was almost at tall as me and probably outweighed me. Not that she was fat, she was just…tall and probably outweighed me. She was wearing one of those little red and black frilly things—I don’t know what they called them—that barely covered her breasts and hips. Not really bad looking, actually.
     I took a swig of the milk. It was fresh and cold. “Yes, to the tummy ache, Molly, but maybe some other time on making me feel better. I’d hate to barf all over you.”
     That seemed to turn her off a little, which was my intention. I drank the rest of the milk and asked the barkeep for another one. One of the men who had been sitting at the table sauntered over. I glanced at him, annoyed. He was itching for a fight, I could tell that right off. But he was a big fellow—at least three inches taller than me and outweighed me by a good 50 pounds. He probably outweighed Molly, too. Maybe her and me put together.
     “Milk, huh, stranger,” he said. “Don’t you know what this place is? It’s a saloon. We drink whiskey here. Milk is for sissies. Sissies. Is that what you are? A sissy?”
     “Well, if drinking milk makes me a sissy, then I guess I am one.” I lifted the glass to drink from it and, just as I got it to my lips, the fellow reached up, tilted the glass, and the whole contents ran down my chin and the front of my shirt.
     I jumped back involuntarily, but still got the milk bath. He laughed, and all his buddies behind him did, too.
     The Chinaman bartender said, “Don’t start anything, Jake.”
     Jake, the big man, snarled. “I don’t like sissies, China.” He looked back at me. “Only sissies drink milk.”
     I really didn’t feel like fighting. So I sighed, put the glass back on the bar, pulled out a coin and tossed it to the bartender. “Thanks,” I said. And started walking towards the door.
     “Hey, sissy. Don’t you want some more milk? Are you gonna let me call you a sissy, a little girl? You’re not a man, you’re a woman…”
     “Oh, shut up, Jake.” That from Molly, and that’s all I heard because I went outside.
     I didn’t care a whit what that fellow thought about me, so I put it out of my mind immediately. The milk had helped, but another glass would have been nice. So, I made plans. Get a bath, get my clothes cleaned, find a restaurant, and have a good meal with lots of milk. Then get some supplies from the general store. Maybe even ask around about a job. I wonder if Jim Perry or Gail Sanders is hiring…I nodded, satisfied. I spied the barber shop about a block down the street on the opposite side, so, since I’d been riding all day, I thought I’d just walk. It was almost a mistake.
     As soon as I started to cross the street, a team of horses pulling a wagon came around the corner like a bat out of hell. “Get out of the way!” the driver—a woman—shouted at me, and I did just that, jumping back as quickly as I could. She barreled on down the street, scattering people right and left. Once she was past them, people went on about their business as if this had been an every day occurrence. Well, maybe it was in this town. I started to cross the street again, but this time looked both ways before I did.
     The barber shop was right next to Dave’s General Store, which was right next to the Gold Dust Café. Couldn’t ask for better than that. I’d already shaved, so I didn’t need that, and I’d had a haircut a few weeks back and didn’t want to do that. So it was bath and dry cleaning. The warm bath felt good even though it wasn’t cool outside. But it certainly beat a frigid mountain stream.
     I came out of the barber shop, feeling like a new man. At least physically. For about five minutes, I could get Julie or Robin out of my mind. Then one of them would come back—or usually both—and melancholy would sweep over me again. That’s what happened when I left the barber shop, but I didn’t have a lot of time to contemplate my woes.
     “Hey, sissy!” I looked to my left and groaned. Here came Jake with his puppy dogs trailing him, and he had a grin on his face from ear to ear.
     He continued, and his voice was loud, loud enough that probably everybody in town could hear him. “Why don’t we head back over to the saloon, sissy, and I’ll buy you another glass of milk? Would you like that? Milk’s just the kinda stuff sissies like to drink.” And he laughed and laughed and all his buddies did, too.
     This guy had to be retarded. “What’s your problem, buddy?” I asked him. “I had a stomach ache and I wanted a glass of milk. I can’t really see that that’s such an unusual thing. Or any of your business.”
     By this time, folks were watching, not stopping, but walking slowly and keeping an eye on the situation, like something interesting, such as a fight, might happen real quick. Jake got an ugly expression on his face. He poked a grimy finger in my chest and said, “I don’t like sissies. I don’t like ‘em clutterin’ up my town. So I tell you what I’m gonna do, mister. I’m gonna pound you into the dirt, then put you on your horse and send you outta here with a warnin’ to never come back. But I’ll be nice and won’t pound you too hard, just enough to maybe knock the sissy out of you.”
     I looked him up and down. Big. Yeah. I decided that, if I was going to fight him, it might be a good idea not to let him hit me. I knew a good way to do that. So I said to him, “You know what, Jake?”
     He was rolling up his sleeves. There was a circle of people around now and I even thought I heard some guy quickly taking bets. Jake responded, “What?”
     “I saw a baboon in a zoo one time that looked just like you. His name was Jake, too. Reckon he was your father? Or maybe it was you earlier in your life.”
     I heard several gasps, as in “what does that fool think he’s doing, bating Jake like that?” Well, I knew exactly what I was doing.
     It was far from my best line ever, but my words had the desired effect. Jake’s face clouded up and he popped all his knuckles. “I was gonna go pretty easy on you, mister, but the only thing worse’n a sissy, is a sissy with a smart mouth. Now I’m gonna pound you real good.”
     And then he did exactly what I thought he would do. He threw a punch that started last Thursday and would end the next Tuesday. But it would have knocked over an elephant if it had connected. Which it didn’t.
     Jake’s problem was that he was a brawler, not a fighter. Most men don’t know how to fight, they just start swinging from the heels and a guy like Jake will win a scrap like that every time. I wasn’t about to brawl with him. And I knew how to fight.
     I ducked under his roundhouse and started jabbing. A left to his nose. Another. Another. Another…Quick, short jabs that, one, broke Jake’s nose, two, kept him off balance, and three, never gave him a chance to get set and try to swing again. Each punch staggered him back a step or two. Then, with him still off balance, I put everything I had into a right to his gut. He ooooof’d, bent double, and headed for the ground. I helped him by locking the fingers of both hands together and coming down hard on the back of his neck. He hit the dirt, face-first.
     A man that has been gut-punched and lost all his wind has lost the fight. Nobody can fight if they can’t breathe, and that was Jake’s situation at the moment. I should have just turned around and walked away at that point, but I was mad now and did something pretty mean. I went over and stomped on Jake’s right hand, breaking several bones in his fingers, and then slammed my foot into his right knee, which, at best, dislocated it. He screamed in pain, and rolled on the ground in agony.
     “I…I’m gonna…kill you…mister….kill you…you…you hear…me?” Jake was able to gasp out those words as he held his right hand in his left and rocked back and forth on his back.
     So I knelt beside him, pulled my gun, and stuck the barrel of it up his broken nose. He cried out again, but I said, “Well, if you’re planning on killing me, mac, then maybe I better kill you first, just so I won’t have to worry about you dry-gulching me sometime.” I cocked the hammer back on the gun.
     Jake was still gasping for breath, but his eyes got big. “D-don’t. I was…just… funnin’. I wouldn’t…dry-gulch…nobody…”
     “No, maybe not, but I’ll tell you what you are going to do. You’re going to get on your horse and ride out of this town and never show your face here again. Because if I ever do see you again, I’ll blow you to kingdom come and it will be self-defense because all these people heard you say you were going to kill me. You got that? Ride!” He saw nothing but fire in my eyes.
     “Yeah…yeah…I’ll…I’ll go.”
     I stood up, the gun still pointing at him. I looked at his friends, who were standing there, shocked. “Get him and get him out of here,” I said to them. And then to Jake. “And you ride south, baboon, because I’m heading north. And south is that way”—I pointed—“where the bananas grow, in case you don’t know. Don’t stop till you find them.”
     I motioned to the men, who reached down and helped Jake up. He was groaning, holding his right hand, which he’d never use in a fight again, and limping away. He was just a bully, but people like that make me mad. I didn’t especially like being called a sissy, either.
     So, ignoring the crowd which was staring at me like I was some kind of creature from outer space, I started to walk off. And when I turned around, I came face to face with the woman who had almost run over me in her wagon earlier.
     I snarled at her. “And, lady, if you ever come close to hitting me with your wagon again, I’ll slap your pretty little teeth down your pretty little throat.” I none-too-gently pushed her out of the way and headed for the restaurant.
     Nobody else got in my way.
     I went into the restaurant. There were a few people in it, but I found a table at the back, and sat down, facing the door so I could see who came in. I sighed and dropped my hat onto the chair next to me, starting to cool down. The waitress came over and handed me a menu.
     “I want a glass of milk first thing, please,” I said, and she gave me a once-over, nodded, and walked off.
     Well, that’s great, Conners. You find a place you halfway like and blow your stack…almost kill a man, then insult a woman…I sighed again…Keep riding, I guess…
     But not quite yet…