Alex Bell - Fighting with fire

‘Let’s go get ourselves a drink, Sid,’ Jesse said, already striding purposefully towards the bar.

Lex obediently followed along behind him.

‘Hello again, Sam,’ Jesse said to the man behind the bar.

Lex was pleased to note that he was bald and had a waxed moustache that curled at the ends, just like in the books.

‘Howdy, Jesse,’ Sam replied. ‘Back again? Ain’t you got bored of lookin’ for that sword yet?’

Lex almost jumped where he sat. Jesse had told him right back in the jail cell at the Wither City that he didn’t believe the Sword of Life existed. He had neglected to mention that he had searched for it himself.

‘Just passin’ through this time,’ Jesse replied. ‘Needed somewhere to stay for a few days. You got any rooms?’

‘Yep.’ Sam turned around and picked off a key from the board on the wall behind him. He put this on the bar in front of Jesse, glanced at Lex and said, ‘Who’s your friend?’

‘This here is Slow Sid,’ Jesse said. ‘We’re travelling together for a while.’

‘Pleased to know you, Sid. I’m Sam. What can I get you?’

‘Glass of milk, please,’ Lex said, scooping up the nearby beer mats and absently starting to shuffle them.

‘Sid!’ Jesse said sharply. ‘What have I told you about that?’ He looked at Sam and said, ‘He means milk and rum. Obviously.’ He added a nervous laugh at the end of that, which Lex thought was rather a nice touch.

‘Obviously,’ Sam replied, eyebrow raised.

‘Yeah,’ Lex said, giving the barman his best eager-to-please smile. ‘Milk and rum.’ He turned his smile on Jesse, who nodded approvingly. ‘Without the rum,’ Lex added? to which Jesse shook his head despairingly.

‘What are you hanging around with this halfwit for, anyway?’ the barman said suspiciously. ‘You’re a one for always bein’ out for yourself, so what’s in it for you, Jesse, eh?’

Uh oh, Lex thought. Off the top of his head he could think of a couple of half-decent explanations but the problem was in trying to convincingly produce them when he’d been sitting there affecting a complete lack of awareness of anything that was being said.

But, as it happened, he didn’t need to come up with something because, quick as a whip, Jesse said, ‘What’s in it for me? Well, I’ll show you.’

And, suddenly, Lex found the beer mats plucked from his fingers and a pack of cards pressed into his palm instead. He looked up at Jesse, who raised an eyebrow meaningfully. Lex knew instantly what he had in mind. He looked down at the pack in his hands for a bare moment before breaking into a perfect Faro shuffle. It was one of the more difficult ones to do but Lex pulled it off flawlessly.

‘Little bit of Sid the Kid comes back when he handles the cards. We split the winnings,’ Jesse said blithely.

‘You’re using him,’ the barman said with a knowing chuckle.

Jesse gave a lazy grin. ‘Dunno ’bout that. Works all right for us, don’t it, Sid?’

Lex grinned stupidly and took a big slurp of the milk Sam set down in front of him. It left a moustache but he didn’t bother to wipe it off.

They spent the rest of that evening in the bar. Slow Sid was clearly something of an enigma to the other cowboys and it seemed to bring them great amusement to take it in turns buying him glasses of milk.

Of course, whilst he was sitting in the bar, Lex could not be looking for the sword, but he didn’t mind. This was groundwork. Groundwork that was going splendidly well. Already Lex could see that Slow Sid was going to serve him much better than Sid the Kid ever could. It was, after all, one of his own rules that he should always be underestimated as much as possible, by as many people as possible. In his preoccupation with learning how to become a cowboy, he had become too good. The other cowboys might have been wary of Sid the Kid, with his mean card skills and his impressive knife spinning and the keen, sharp mind that made up for his lack of brawn.

Sid the Kid could never have wandered the house at night. Slow Sid, on the other hand… Well, no one would think twice about a nincompoop lost in the halls. The trick, therefore, was to get himself known to as many of these cowboys as possible. And that evening spent in the bar was the perfect way to do it. With a little bit of help from Jesse, everyone became very interested in Slow Sid. It was cleverly done, Lex couldn’t deny that. Because Jesse was, at the end of the day, every bit as much of a rotter as Lex was, the cowboy didn’t even need Lex to tell him what to do. He could do it all by himself! Whilst maintaining a perfectly amiable manner towards Lex, Jesse brazenly exploited him for the others’ entertainment.

They bounced off each other beautifully. At one point, Jesse proclaimed that he’d never seen anyone dance like Slow Sid. He then promptly sat down at the honky-tonk piano and started to play a lively, jolly little tune. Lex leapt up on to the bar, secretly delighted by the cowboy’s improvisation, and broke out into the most absurd jig he could manage. The cowboys cheered merrily. It was probably no lie to say that they had never seen anything so silly in their lives.

It was perfect. Even if there were cowboys staying in the house who were not in the bar that night, they would be sure to hear about Slow Sid later and, if they were to catch Lex wandering around at night, then they would surely put two and two together and assume he was just a halfwit who couldn’t find his room, rather than a thief and an adventurer who was looking for the Sword of Life. As Slow Sid, Lex could get away with doing practically anything.

It was about midnight when Lex and Jesse finally left. After the dancing, Lex had affected a sudden fatigue and apparently gone to sleep with his head on the bar. Seeing that he was to provide no more amusement to them, the other cowboys had settled down to talk to Jesse, flicking cigarette butts at Lex from time to time but paying him no attention other than that.

Finally, Jesse collected Lex from the bar and they made their way back out to the main entrance hall. Up the stairs they went, past the portraits and up to the large landing at the top.

The corridor leading there was uncommonly thin. Only just wide enough to accommodate Jesse’s broad shoulders. Anyone with a plump stature would not possibly have been able to squeeze through. It was lit with electric lights along the ceiling. Doors led off from both sides.

Jesse glanced over his shoulder at Lex and said quietly, ‘Not a bad start, eh?’

The corridor appeared to be deserted but Lex did not respond to Jesse’s question. Breaking character was a risky business and a bad habit. Lex never allowed himself to do it until he could be absolutely sure the coast was clear. So he ignored Jesse and simply continued walking down the corridor in the slow, shuffling gait he had adopted as Slow Sid. Jesse looked faintly surprised but had the sense to say nothing as they continued on down the hallway. A moment later he stopped in front of a room with the number nine painted roughly on it in chalk. He unlocked the door and they stepped in.

Because the corridor had been so narrow, Lex had been expecting the room to be small, too. But, actually, it was extremely large. The corridor had obviously just been another one of Nathaniel East’s quirks, rather than a result of a genuine need to conserve space.

The large room they stepped into was fairly ordinary in so much as it had a large four poster bed, a wardrobe, a sink and a window that looked out from the front of the building. A hammock was strung across one corner. But the odd thing about the room was its colour scheme, for everything in it was a garish shade of lime green. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, the furniture. It was extremely wearing on the senses and Lex instinctively wanted to wince and shield his eyes from the horrible sight. But he kept staunchly in character as Slow Sid whilst Jesse groaned aloud and said, ‘Aw, man, not the snot room!’