8
“There’s a hundred bottles on that shelf. A blind man could shoot a bottle.”
“With a bow? What about off my head?”
“Yeah, maybe. From here?”
“Ha! In the Wild West Show they shoot an apple off a man’s head. You have a bow?” Wendell asked, because of course he must. And Smoke said he thought he had one back home.
“Here? Right now?”
“Why the hell would I be running around town with a bow?”
“Clem!” Wendell called the barkeep over. The plan was turning and it was making him giddy, dispersing the clouds, but the plan required a bow.
“Clem, you got a bow?”
“Someone might have left one . . . What do you need a bow for?”
Wendell clutched and unclutched his empty glass and the world was looking bright again. At the very least, by god, he’d get himself some more whiskey. He waited for Smoke to have the epiphany—or Clem—but neither seemed to catch a glimpse of the beauty, the brilliance, which was so obvious.
“You heard of the William Tell?” He asked, and they both said no.
So Wendell laid out his plan and rallied the crowd, an easy task in a place so desperate for entertainment.
“How’d you like to see yours truly defy death right before your very eyes! Right here in this room, a reenactment of the American Indian Wars! A moment that demonstrates the terrible defeat of General George Custer!”
Smoke would have preferred Wendell didn’t invoke of the humiliation of Little Bighorn—he didn’t want Wendell inciting the