The stranger Lido hooked his thumbs into his gunbelt and squinted into the dusty glare. "What'll it be, stranger?" called the barkeep. The saloon was empty. The glare was from the mirror. The sun angled in low through the doorway where the stranger stood. The sun was over his left shoulder. It had to be that way.
"Whisky," replied the stranger Lido, in his whisky-soaked graveled-leather voice, as he clomped slowly and deliberately forward toward the bar. "And a milk chaser."
A delectable wench of disputable repute sauntered in from the side hall and leaned insolently against the piano. She was wearing one of those bosomy frontier gowns, a mauve job with the tight bodice and poufy elements. Her eyes flashed. "We don't serve no milk here, stranger. Leastways, not cold. There's a cow out back." She laughed. Haughty.
It had been hot all day. The stranger Lido reached the bar, arresting his forward progress with an outstretched hand. Slowly he turned his eyes to regard her, taking in her voluptuous breasts, her glistening neck, and her lust-soaked eyes. He imperceptibly smiled. "Warm's fine. Long as I don't have to milk the cow myself."
She gave a hurt pout and huffed out the back door as the barkeep set the whisky down in front of the stranger Lido. "That'll be five cent, stranger."
Lido slowly wheeled his gaze from the rows of bottles up to meet the bartender's stare full square. "That include the milk?"
There was a long, waiting silence.
Then, as if on cue, the wench tromped back in through the back door, setting down a tin pail on the bar with a slosh and a clatter and a glare at the two men, and continuing with unbroken stride through the room and upstairs. "Make that seven cent - and I'll get you a glass for that milk," the barkeep said low, as he grabbed the lightly-laden pail by its wire hoop handle and headed to the other end of the bar for a clean glass.
The stranger Lido continued staring after the exeunt vixen, up the stairs - which still seemed to be shimmying. He reached into his wallet, counting by feel, and drew out eight pennies, which he set on the bar as the barkeep returned with a full frothy glass of fresh milk. "I don't believe I ever seen nobody get a rise out of Rose Althea like that on first meeting. What do they call you, stranger?"
"That's right," he said, not taking his eyes from the staircase. "'Round these parts, they call me...stranger."
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