The White Bull

Katherine Korting
Ms. Miller
P. 3-4 British Literature
UA High School






The cowboy paced into the saloon, his spurs making a faint ching as his worn leather boots trod on the weathered boards. His mute, gray eyes glanced from side to side, and a calused hand automatically reached for the dusty hat upon his head, bringing it down as he strode his way towards the empty bar.

He recognized Jack, the bartender, immediately, and muttered a muffled, hoarse, "Whiskey, Jack," in a thick drawl to the balding man. He eased himself down into a tall barstool as the man smiled and poured him a glass of the liquid fire. "Anything fer you, Tom," Jack replied, and slid the shot glass over the counter.

The White Bull Saloon was empty, common for midmorning. The card tables were empty, and odd chairs were left upheaved and helpless on their sides after a fight. The ladies of the establishment were all up the stairs, except for one red and black-clad mistress who was staring at him from the turn in the staircase and puffing on a thin, white cigarette.

Tom only downed the amber contents of his glass as the brunette tapped her ashes on the floor and stepped forward down the steps with her black feathers ruffling at each break in her deliberately slow movements. The whiskey raged down his throat, making his taste buds scream in protest, but his mind tuned it out. "Jack, gimme another 'un."

"Yessir, Tom." And the tall bottle was brought out again; the tiny shot glass was refilled. Tom hated the smell, but he wanted the fire in his stomach, that cozy little fire, and there wasn't anyone who was going to stop him. He felt the light touch of a gloved hand on his shoulder, and his senses told him that the lady was directly behind him.

"Now, what's a man like you doin' here at this hour, Tom Burton?" She laughed like all the other women in the place did, a flirtatious 'hmm' that buzzes in a man's ears. "It's not even noon time yet, why, you shouldn't even be awake yet on a day like this." Her other hand somehow had found its way to his other shoulder, minus the cigarette, and Tom let himself smile, for once.

"Miss Cassidy, I happen to be in town on a bit of business," he was only half-truthful with her, but that didn't matter to either of them, "And I thought I might just stop on by here and say hello to you-- personally." He spun around on the stool, and picked up her black-clad hands. A flash of his clean-shaven and handsome smile, a little razzle-dazzle with his eyes, and the woman was purring like a kitten. He knew all of the girls at the White Bull, and they knew him. It was his watering hole, when he could get off the ranch and treat himself. "And here you are, the beautiful Miss Cassidy Lee, right here for me to say hello to. Now isn't that a coincidence?"

She laughed that 'hmm' again and opened her mouth to speak, but the half-doors of the saloon swung in with another set of spurs jingling and treading the worn path, only the wearer of those spurs had a mean expression on his moustached face, and a rough hand hovered over a glinting silver pistol. "Cassidy! I heard you from outside with him," he spat. "What are you doin' with 'er?" he half shout-growled to Tom, his upper back hunched over like a beast. "Get away from 'er, 'cause she's mine, and it'd be best if you just ran yourself right out of here!" His brown eyes glared from underneath a dark cowboy hat, and he reached for the girl with an outstretched, claw-like hand.

Cassidy's wrist was suddenly in the intruder's hand, and Tom snarled a low, "You leave her be. If you so much as…" But it was too late, because the brown-eyed man wrestled her over towards him. Cassidy yelled muffled, inappropriate words for a lady at the beast-like man, and tore herself free of his grasp.

"I ain't never been yours, Butch, and don't you ever think it's goin' t' happen, because you're a mean, nasty animal!" She all but screamed the words, her cheeks turning pink, and the black feathers trimming her red gown shaking as she spoke. Butch growled and lunged for her, shoving her into a table and onto the floor. Tom rushed at the moustached man, and pulled him away, shoving him back towards the door of the White Bull.

Jack only offered a quiet advisory from behind the counter, "If you gentlemen will just take this outside, I'm sure I won't have to call in the Sheriff." But Butch lunged for and hit the girl with a mammoth punch to the eye. Tom's gray eyes cooled even more into hardened steel, and he calmly stepped toward Butch, who was smirking over his handiwork.

He never saw the tensed fist hit him as Tom threw him a right upper-cut that caused an audible crack to come from Butch's jaw, his dense cowboy hat to come off, and his head snap all the way back. There was a spray of blood from Butch's mouth, and he collapsed in a heap of chaps and leather to the dusty floor of the White Bull Saloon.

Cassidy wept quietly and babied her eye, it was already starting to show signs of the tawny-beige of a bruise. Her bare shoulders shrugged with her choked sobs, and she didn't even think of looking up to speak to her hero.

Tom stepped back from the pile of a worthless man unconscious on the floor, and picked up his idle shot of whiskey from the bar, and threw it down the hatch. "Put it on my tab, Jack." He coughed with the taste of the liquor and the fumes that prodded his nose and throat. The balding man behind the counted nodded, and went about his business drying glasses behind the shining bar.

As Tom picked his way past Butch and the overturned chairs, spurs making the same ching out the doors of the saloon. He wondered why he couldn't pick a more peaceful place to hang around, but he enjoyed himself, no matter what he did. He let the swinging doors fall back behind him, slowly wavering shut, and he thought to himself, ‘Just another day at the White Bull.’


Yeah, it's supposed to sound like a bad spaghetti western. It's also what I write best... just wierd stuff. ;)

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