A dangerous place to bring your baggage…
3
Poor old Whiskey had the misfortune of being the first one close enough to offer assistance to the latest unlucky soul to roll into Quicksilver, though he soon wished he hadn’t.
“Here, do you need some help, son?” Whiskey offered
‘No, I don’t need help—you need help! Now get out of my way!” the surly man spat
Wiping spittle from his face, Whiskey shot right back, “To hell with you then!” and stalked away
After witnessing the altercation, no one else was willing to go near the seething stranger, and so he was left to dust off or wallow in it, as we say around here.
Eventually, he stomped himself down to Vera’s, where he threw himself into a booth and pounded the table hard enough to bounce the creamer on its side, spilling milk all over the place. “Anybody work here?” he bellowed
The only other customer in the cafe after the breakfast rush that morning happened to be Sheriff Gavin, who’d been enjoying his last cup of coffee. He eyed the surly man curiously and took another sip as if this kind of outburst happened all the time, which it didn’t. Sheriff Gavin knew the man was about to hear about it from Vera, which he did.
Vera busted through the swinging kitchen doors like a prize bull at full kilt with a dish towel and a butcher knife in hand. Sheriff Gavin swore later that he smelled burnt rubber when Vera’s shoes squeaked to an abrupt stop at the offender’s table.
“I’m gonna tell you this one time, Mister! You act like that; I refuse service! Now, what’s it gonna be?” she derided, allowing what little sunlight there was to glint brightly off the butcher knife. The man quickly stabbed his sunglasses back on, but not before Vera caught sight of his eyes.
“I need a menu.” He groused
“What you need is some ice on that shiner you got there.” Vera scoffed before snatching a menu from the next booth over. Surprisingly, the man had no retort as she yanked the nearest set of window blinds shut and left him perusing the 11×9 plastic billboard for ‘All Things Delicious by Vera’ in semi-darkness.
Catching his eye on her way to the kitchen, Vera gave Sheriff Gavin a wink. She had this, her tight smile conveyed. Sheriff Gavin swallowed the lost drop in his cup and set it on the counter beside a couple of dollar bills. He glanced over at the lone customer as he pushed through the swinging glass door, hoping Vera was right.
He’d no sooner fired up his rusted Rover before Gavin made the decision to head up to the highway and see if whatever vehicle had brought the surly stranger into town could also take him back out. There was something not right about the man, Gavin muttered. He knew it as he turned up the collar of his light jacket and headed north.
Invisible from the highway, the old utility road is extremely steep and overgrown, and only a few townspeople and Pat, the mail carrier who shows up once a month, know about it. This little secret seems destined to endure as every last newcomer manages to tumble straight down the mountain and pop up between or around Tasha’s Real Estate and Mac and Macy’s laundry, which is nowhere near the old utility road. The angry man had appeared in the same clearing as all the others, except no one else had been so upset. No one else had sported a shiner. Gavin smiled. Obviously someone else had been mad enough to give the guy a black eye.
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