The Stranger
Destin Joyal
Smashwords Edition
Copyright Destin Joyal 2010
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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The sun was dipping low in the sky, being chased from its post by a moon which had yet to appear. The dying light threw its yellow-orange hue across the land, changing the color of the dust. The sand seemed to draw in the colors, making it the color of the light. A gust of wind kicked some of it, but it floated back to the ground every bit as lifeless as the man who had earlier this day, been very much alive. Cacti began to throw out their spiny shadows to join those of the vultures that circled some distance away. In the town of Haven the day was dragging to a close as it did each sunset. However, in the saloon the night was just beginning. It had been just another day for the entire town. It seemed as though it may continue this way as the men straggled through into the dusty saloon, their boots scrapping the worn wood that led into the bar; the rusted hinges of the door creaking as they swung. Once upon a time it had been new. The newness had left long ago, hoping to find a more suitable place to stay.
After all the men had settled in a woman began to distribute drinks. She had been pretty a time ago, some vestiges of that beauty were still apparent. On the whole however, she was as the saloon was – under the deadly crush of age, though she had yet to attain her twenty-sixth birthday the land around here had an odd way of aging the people, and covered in dust. She managed to get interested looks just the same. When she was done she found a place behind the bar and stared out the door, not really thinking of anything in particular, but lost in the depths of her mind.
It was the creak that brought her too. In the doorway, silhouetted by the dying light was a man. From his hip emerged a fifth limb, perfectly straight and ending in a bulge. His shoulders were also deformed, too round for the rest of his gaunt frame. On his head sat a simple hat, the kind worn by horseback riders and cattle rustlers. His boots were covered in the same dust as the rest of the town.
It took a moment for everyone in the bar to realize that he was standing there. Once they had he stepped into the saloon itself, where the barmaid could see a strip on his pants’ hips’ where the fabric had not faded as the rest had. His thumbs were hooked into his pockets and his face had a grim look about it, as if he had overheard a secret that he knew him shouldn’t have. He had stubble sprouting along his jaw and eyes that suggested they had seen too much.
It took her another moment to realize that he was not deformed but that a guitar was slung over his back, the strap of which ran across his front. It had been a while since a guitar had been seen in Haven – the last one had been sold years before to a traveling merchant after the owner had died.
He saddled up to the bar and fixed her with a look that suggested he wanted something. She walked over and looked at him levelly.
“What do you want Stranger?”
“Two things,” he began, “first, your name, second, a drink if you please. Water if it’s handy, nothing if it ain’t.”
Then he turned away from her, looking out into the bar. His appearance had changed from when he walked in – now he appeared to have the need to tell anyone willing to listen a dying man’s secret.
A man named William sidled up next to him and said, “Stranger, you look as though you’ve got a story to tell.”
“And what if I do?”
“Then I’d be glad to hear it.”
The Stranger turned to face William fully, thanking the barmaid for his drink when it arrived. His eyes looked the elderly man over and then he began speaking in a slow, calm voice.
* * * * *
The story began one week ago. The Stranger had come to a small town, not at all unlike Haven save for a difference in name. The town had been Silver City, named for a small silver mine located nearby. The mine had employed the majority of the townsmen who, once the day had ended, filtered back into their own saloon.
He had woken up in a bed he didn’t remember falling asleep in, next to a woman he didn’t remember meeting. A voice in the back of his mind remarked on the fact that at the very least, she was good looking and gave itself a jovial slap on the back. The Stranger disliked that voice. It didn’t help that his head was sore. He felt it for bruises but found none and when he accidentally upset the nightstand, it sounded like a thunderclap. He staggered about the room, his head feeling as though it would burst if the sound did not escape.
Somehow, through the head splitting pain, his mind remarked on the fact that this scene was eerily familiar; the pain, the girl (actually the girl wasn’t familiar, but the idea she represented was), the lack of memories of the night before. His mind, sluggish and worn out from whatever may have happened after dusk and before dawn was unable to even attempt to make connections. But for some reason, his mind guided him to a place where someone else could put him on the right track.
The Stranger found himself standing outside a church that very morning, not knowing how he had arrived there but understanding that somehow, through the haze of the night before and whatever had happened in that mysterious time, he had guided himself here, through the blinding light of midday. His eyes felt as though they would join his head in one great explosion that would decapitate him and end his misery.
He walked through the great doors, their hinges groaning, making The Stranger shudder. The priest looked up; The Stranger had the bizarre notion that he wasn’t really a priest because he didn’t have any robes. He wore simple black pants and shirt with a collar. He looked up from the altar as The Stranger entered. Then he spread his arms wide, welcoming the newcomer to his chapel.
He approached The Stranger, stepping from his altar in a manner worthy of a saint. He bowed his head in greeting, his voice soft as if he knew somehow of the sensitivity of the newcomer’s ears.
“What should bring you to a house of God?” The man asked.
The Stranger looked at him blankly, half-expecting him to answer his own question, for he certainly had no answer of his own.
The minister (that was the word he had been searching for amidst his cloudy mind) spread his hands even wider, as if he was trying to embrace his church as he looked The Stranger in the eyes. He must have found a sign in those eyes, for then he spoke again.
“I sense that you have lost your way.”
The Stranger nodded at this.
“Have you come to seek salvation?”
The Stranger shook his head – salvation wasn’t what he needed.
“So what is it you need?”
A moment of silence filled the air, crushing in with every passing heartbeat.
“I need answers.”
The minister spread his hands ever wider, and The Stranger had the absurd notion that they would pop out of their sockets and lodge themselves in the walls they pointed at.
“You have certainly come to the right place for those.”
The Stranger suddenly knew that he and this man were not thinking of the same answers. He turned on his heel and left.
He found his answer in an unlikely place. After retrieving his guitar from the room he’d awakened in, he found a place on a porch and begun strumming chords very softly. He’d accidentally knocked the instrument on his way out and the resulting sound had nearly torn him apart. A few children had gathered around his feet and were listening raptly to him.
As The Stranger’s mind wandered, it began to remember bits of his childhood and the time he had spent growing up. Finally, one piece of advice his mother had given him leapt to the front, brought to light by the abundance of children at his feet.
He stopped playing and leaned over the guitar, his hat shadowing his eyes from the brutal glare of the sun.
“I have a question for all of you.” He told them, and a number of them nodded encouragingly.
“If someone thinks that the road they’re on isn’t the right one, what should they do?”
One of them – quite possibly the youngest – stood up and said, quite simply, “He should get off it.”
The Stranger cracked a smile and said two words which he had never really said and meant before – “Thank You.”
Then he went back to strumming and the children listened again.
It was only that afternoon that the group began to disperse. The children slowly and reluctantly left until there was only one little girl left. She stood before The Stranger, turning in place shyly.
He looked at her imploringly and she said “You’re really good mister.” Before turning and fleeing.
The Stranger sat back on the porch. No one had ever told him he was good at the guitar before. He played piano for a living – the guitar he carried because it had been his father’s. His father had bought it from a small town out in the desert with an ironic name – though he could never remember what it was.
His gaze drifted down the street to the saloon where the piano sat. Upstairs there was a room that he didn’t remember with a girl he didn’t know. Downstairs was where he had played crazy ditties; hammering on a piano while the drinks hammered on him.
His eyes remained fixed on the piano for a long time.
That night he didn’t play on the piano. He didn’t have a drink at the saloon. He didn’t go to be with a girl he didn’t know. But best of all, the next day his head didn’t feel as though it was going to explode.
* * * * *
It was the next night that challenged him. He walked into the saloon as the sun dipped low behind him, throwing a light not unlike the one in Haven that night. The people already inside turned to face him. Last night had been too quiet for their tastes.
“Hey Stranger, you going to play us a tune?” One of the men asked.
He shook his head. The Stranger feared that if he so much as sat at the stool in front of the piano his resolve would shatter.
At his response a number of the patrons turned back to whatever they had been doing before The Stranger had arrived. However, at the bar, the bartender waved him over.
“It’s on the house stranger, so what’ll you be having tonight?”
The Stranger very nearly told him, his finger beginning to point towards a keg behind the bar. By some small fortune his tongue remained true to his resolve and spoke the word ‘water’ as he sat down.
Sitting next to The Stranger at the bar was a man. As the bartender passed the glass of water to The Stranger (along with an odd look) this man began to hum a tune that The Stranger had played the night before last.
The Stranger began to feel an itch in his fingers. He wrapped them around the glass of water, hoping to dispel it with the feel of the cup, but the itch grew steadily stronger. One of his feet began to tap out the rhythm and he quickly stilled it. He began focusing all of his energy on remaining still and just drinking the water.
“Hey Stranger, if you play that piano, I’ll dance for you.” He looked up and quickly discovered it was her. He still didn’t know her name. Surprised he slammed down the glass, very nearly shattering it. His fingers trembled, wanting badly to begin doing their own dance across the ivory keys. She wiggled her hips and he swallowed hard. Sweat broke out across his brow as his nerves began to deteriorate rapidly.
He stood up abruptly and his seat tumbled to the floor. Without a word he dashed across the saloon and up the stairs to his room. There he grabbed his guitar and ran back to the bar. He threw a handful of coins at the bartender and ran from the building.
Across the street he sagged against a post, sliding slowly to the ground and gasping for breath. His eyes looked across the street and into a lighted window. In the window was a small face that he recognized well. It was the little girl of the day before. When she saw him looking she waved. The Stranger waved back, unsure of what he was doing.
As he waved the itch in his fingers subsided, the sweat stopped and his racing heart slowed.
Finally one of the girl’s parents collected her and she disappeared from the window. The Stranger’s head began to droop until his chin rested on his chest, his hat shading his eyes from the glare of the moon. As he fell asleep his hand wrapped around the neck of the guitar; pulling it across his lap. As he drifted off a feeling of peace drifted across his body like a cloak.
* * * * *
He awoke as the first rays of the sun caressed his cheek, slowly leading him back from the realm of dreams. He awoke slowly and peaceably, not needing to be anywhere, not needing to speak to anyone. There was no itch in his fingers, no fire in his mind.
He sat up against the post and began to play on the guitar, strumming chords slowly in the morning sun. He played the day through, into the afternoon as the children watched and into the night as the patrons of the saloon came out to listen. The music was soft and peaceful; the tunes that had been pounded out on the piano at the risk of shattering the keys were no more. The notes seemed contemplative and somber.
Late that night, as the moon began to give way to the sun, the men and women from the saloon turned away. As they did The Stranger overheard one of them say; “My, that man sure can play. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone play the guitar that well.”
The Stranger smiled slowly, his head feeling heavy once again. His eyelids dropped slowly and his chin fell once more.
* * * * *
The next day The Stranger left the town and never looked back.
* * * * *
“That’s how I came to Haven.” He finished. He had held the attention of everyone in the bar, and silence had reigned for a good while now.
“So play us a song stranger.” William told him.
The Stranger slung his guitar properly about himself and began to play. The song he played was of his own creation, and it told the tale he had just told the patrons, in fewer words and in a fashion that made them all, when coupled with the other version of the tale, begin to think about their own lives.
When he was done, he got up quietly. The patrons had stopped listening a long while ago, but they had yet to speak. The Stranger left the saloon that night, left Haven far behind, seeking another town in which to tell his story.
But that night in Haven was one that was never forgotten. It also happened to be the last one when alcohol was served in the saloon.