“Yep, I’m tellin’ the worl’ that gent is the first gent I ever see what is handsomer than me, an’ I don’t blame that gal none,” Toothpick said.
“Shucks!” The hostler looked him up and down and then shook his head. “Feller, yuh ain’t never looked into a lookin’-glass, I’m bettin’ plenty on that, ’cause my eyesight is plumb good an’ I finds yuh about as handsome as a chuckwalla horned toad.”
The two watered and fed the horses, then headed across the street toward the Lone Star Saloon to attend to their own personal wants. The saloon was a long, low room. At the rear four men were playing pool; the bar itself was deserted, except for the McGill twins. When the hostler saw them, he attempted to back out, but Toothpick pushed him forward.
“Barkeeper, push out a bottle. Gents, what’s yourn?” The last was addressed to the McGill twins.
Like a pair of puppets worked by the same string, the twins slowly turned toward Toothpick and allowed their hard, cold eyes to wander from his dusty boots up along his worn jeans to come to rest on his face.
Toothpick’s expression never changed as he met their searching gaze. The hostler fidgeted uneasily and looked everywhere excepting at the killers.
At last, Sandy McGill broke the silence.
“Yuh a stranger?”
Toothpick remarked easily: “I sure am—an’ I’m hopin’ yuh gents will join me in a little liquor.”
The twins made no answer to this request. Their expressions grew bleaker, their eyes colder. In spite of Toothpick’s laughing eyes, they read the challenge that lay within them. It was not the challenge of a gunman—simply that of a brave man who would die rather than back down, even if faced by a thousand enemies. Simultaneously, remembrance came to both the twins of something that had happened the night before. It was too soon to kill again. They relaxed.