The clothed harpoon now leaned on one of Albert's knees, at ready, just in case. He sat slowly sipping on his coffee and preparing to take a shot of that whiskey that tempted him so. Bar fights were nothing strange to him. In fact, this was not even comparable -- save for the number of languages spoken at once -- to bar fights, [i]real[/i] bar fights, a man might chance upon in godforsaken, uncharted islands of the Pacific or the Caribbean, fought between men just as forsaken and uncharted in St. Peter's book. [i]Hell, even Iceland or Ireland,[/i] he thought. At least for now. [i]Perhaps there'll be viscera on the boards ere I finish my damned drink.[/i]

Downing the first shot of whiskey and cleaning his lips with his sleeve, he said to the woman, although it might been to no one in particular: ”Saw a man cut a Pagan's throat just a while 'fore I came here. Over cards and a bottle of mescal. Looked just like the one playing monte here. Come sun-up, the murderer dead in horseback, no one knew how and when. And scalped, fucking tonsured to the brain. Among other things...” He made a pause to finish his second whiskey, then went on with a grimace. ”The ones who did it left a warning along the road for us, too. Scalped some poor bonepickers and left them rotting naked in their carreta, feathers stuck in their god damned eyeballs. A child among them. Now, imagine what they'd to do a woman.”

Vengeance was an old devil, Albert knew, a vice in all men, both heathen and baptized, aimed at both man and beast. He suffered from it too of course. He remembered some of the storm nights on the sea during which the howls of maimed wretched crewmen stroke harder than any thunder. They cried in the bowels of the ship, swearing revenge, predicting the demise of their beast-foe like some serenos or augers, guessing the future according to the lost limbs taken by the whale. Many argued they were more frightening than the largest leviathan that they so hated who, although a greatest beast to ever live, knew no thirst for intimate reprisal that, just like the whale oil fueled the lamp, fueled the hearts of many men and directed their thereon lamed spear. 

”Our friend here has a point,” he nodded towards the man with the scarred face. ”Never substitute a good discussion with slaughter. Especially with the sheriff come to the town.” He raised his empty glass to the sheriff and tipped the hat with a smile. ”Sheriff.”