volume one IN THE D U D L E Y C L A R K - Ohio Vine Tours

The other hands at the bar returned to their gossiping and fly-swatting.
“Join me in another?”
To Useless, the Old Cowboy’s voice was like a choir of angels.
He licked his parched lips.
“I might like that, yes sir, I might.”
“Set ’em up.”
With a deepening frown, the bartender complied.
“You best be warned, sir.” The bartender advised the Old Cowboy,
unable to hold his tongue. “Useless here can’t hold his likker an’ is like to
cause a row once you’re gone.”
The Old Cowboy nodded.
“Consider me warned. Now—look at me real good.” The bartender,
sensing trouble, stepped back a bit. “You ever see a man look like me only
with a scar here, an’ mutton chops?”
The bartender shook his head. He had stopped looking at his customers
twenty years ago.
“No. I have not, sir.” But now his curiosity was up. Casually, he
daubed at the bar with a tobacco-y towel. “He wanted by someone?”
The Old Cowboy nodded.
“By me.” He pointed to the bottle with his chin. “Leave it.”
The bartender obliged, took some more of the money, then waddled off to
practice his profession elsewhere along the bar.
Useless looked on hungrily as the Old Cowboy re-filled his glass.
He picked it up with trembling fingers and eagerly slugged it down, then
wiped his mouth on his the back of his dirty sleeve.
He presented his benefactor with a sheepish grin.
“They call me Useless ’round here, but my name’s really Eustace. I
pitch hay an’ muck stalls over at th’ livery. I could take care o’ your horse,
you like.”
“I’d like.”
Eustace nodded and waited, maybe expecting the Old Cowboy to tell him
his name, maybe because nodding waiting were things he was good at. The
Old Cowboy said nothing, but obliged him by again renewing his empty
glass.
“I see a man from time to time looks like you come in, a mean sort’ve
tramp. You kin?”
The Old Cowboy appeared not to have heard the question.
ROY ROGERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY 1