Mr. Parker’s Suede Jacket

The Peacemaker.

“…Listen, I don’t mean to be a sore loser, but when it’s done, if I’m dead, you kill them.”

It was 1890. Wyoming. Noisy locomotives shooting westward carrying bank notes and criminals. No time for pretense. No patience for hollow talk. It was an unforgiving time. The only currency that mattered was a man’s word.

He said what he said to his brother because he knew the five men he was facing, each with their hands hovering over unsnapped holsters cradling Colt single action revolvers, was not what the little fat man in the middle had promised would be the terms of their duel.

He took another chunk of tobacco from the pocket of his weathered suede coat, the coat his father had passed to him because he was the oldest boy, and handed the coat tohis brother.

“Here, hold this. No good to my boy if it’s got holes in it.”