Bag of Bones

The moment she stepped foot in the door, she had everyone's attention.

Nobody was really sure why, but there was something about her that unsettled.

She seemed fine. She wasn't visibly bleeding, her cowboy hat was dusty but whole, her duster was much the same. Her jeans, her boots, her shirt—nothing was too torn, just worn. Her guns were holstered, as was her knife, and the scar that lingered beneath her eye, stretching to her chin, was old and, therefore, not particularly alarming or grisly.

It was the bag she carried. No, it was more accurate to say it was a sack. A flour sack, like. From the outside, it was hard to tell what could be in that sack. Whatever it held seemed to poke at the sack itself, as if trying to get out. But, that couldn't be. Whatever it was, it seemed inanimate. Knobs covered by the sack poked out, reminiscent of knees in pants. It wasn't alive, but something about the way the thing in the sack bulged was disturbing.

The moment she stepped into the saloon, everyone's eyes were on her and that sack. Even the poker game, which had been heated only a moment before, became quiet.

Nobody dared to say anything as she made her way to the bar.

She tossed three dollars on the counter. “Need a stiff drink and dinner.”

With a nod, the bartender greedily accepted the money and poured whiskey into a glass.

With a nod of thanks, the woman grabbed the glass and walked to a round table in the front corner of the saloon.

Truthfully, nobody liked that table. Last year, Tim Yates had caught a stray bullet sitting there. Outside and across the street was the bank, and a bunch of outlaws had gotten the idea to withdraw from everybody else's accounts. Didn't take long for the law to catch on to what was happening. Tim Yates never caught on, drunk as he was. Instead, he'd sat there, nearly passed out, and caught a bullet to the head on behalf of the local lawmen. That wasn't but a fortnight ago, and since it was still so fresh in their minds, nobody in town would sit at that table in the saloon.

But this woman wasn't from here, so it'd make sense she wouldn't know.

None of the patrons felt it prudent to tell her that she sat where death had just two

weeks prior. There was something about her that still unnerved them.

If anyone could sit where death sat, it'd be her.