I got a sour feeling in the pit of my belly the way that cavalry soldier was looking past Annie at Cole in the saloon.

“You don’t remember me do ya”, grunted the sergeant. ( I knew by his stripes that he was a sergeant).

“Don’t rekon I do, should I?”, Cole said flatly without a hint of fear. Which was odd because Cole was many things, fearless wasn’t one of em.

“You surely should you sonofaseacow”, the sergeant yelled,”You killed my brother Clay”.

“Well I’m bettin ole Clay had it coming ”, I said.

“Mind your business old man, this here’s between him an me”, the sergeant bellowed.

“I hope you aint fixin to cause no trouble in our quiet lil town we aim to keep it that way, quiet and without trouble”, Cole said without any bravado.( Being that Cole wasn’t very brave, I wondered what he’d been drinkin to make hisself so all fired confident all of a sudden).

The saloon got deathly quiet. The sergeant and his soldier buddy were fixin to cause a heap of trouble.