“Hello, sir, welcome to the ball,” a man dressed like a bell hop had said as he took Jeb's dusty and worn coat. Or tried to.
“Thanks,” Jeb said. “I'll keep it on.”
“Sir,” the man said. “This is a kind of celebration. It wouldn't do for you to parade in there looking you just came in from the desert. And we'll have to ask you to leave your guns in your room. Those won't do either.”
Jeb had smiled down at the man, who was several inches shorter than he. Jeb was taller than most people, reaching up to six foot four inches with his boots on. He was also well built, like someone who spent all day chopping wood and building fences. Jeb didn't do anything like that though, it was just all good breeding is all.
“Shut the fuck up,” Jeb had said. “And get out of my way.”
Jeb had walked past the door man without looking at him anymore, acting like he wasn't even there. The party was in full swing when Jeb arrived. No one else gave him a hard time about how he was dressed, and in fact there were several other characters there dressed like Jeb. He guessed that the doorman had given him such a hard time because he'd been instructed to try to keep the guests, some of them clearly rough people, from looking like a bunch of vagrants at the ball. The ball was really nothing more than some cheap food set out with even cheaper drink. No one cared though, not a single could be hired gun. Because make no mistake that's the kind of people that were at the ball, a bunch of men and a few women that made their living killing others.
Jeb surveyed the crows with shrewd eyes sandwiched between under the brim of his cowboy hat and the rim of his upturned glass. He wanted to obscure as much of his face as he could, turning from the bar to face everyone fully. Jeb had wanted to see if there were any faces that he recognized in the crowd, his prior experience as a bounty hunter and law man giving him plenty of exposure with outlaw types. He didn't see any criminals though, but he did see some of the fastest draws on this side of the of Mississippi—whichever side that was, Jeb wasn't so learned on his geography.
Jeb himself was a pretty quick draw, but not what people would call fast. There were several dozen men in the room who were much faster draws than Jeb. Jeb didn't think that mattered so much though. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been in a walk down, or show down as Yankees called them. Some gunfighters wanted that though, they wanted to suck you into some kind of ego power trip where two men walked down a street to the outskirts of town and then shot at each other until somebody died. That wasn't so much Jeb's thing. His thing wasn't bush whacking either and he saw a few of those types floating around the room, eating small sandwiches while they sipped their skunky beer. Jeb was the kind of guy that was good on his feet, made the right decision when it was time to act, who wouldn't freeze up or choke and miss the shot when it came time to drop someone from two hundred yards away with his rifle. Their was always going to be a faster gun, and Jeb was all right with that. He didn't expect to go through life blasting wholes in everyone that got in his way. The people that lived life like that only existed inside of the dime store western novel. Everyone else drew blood tactfully
Jeb worked well with others, that was something else that he didn't see a whole lot of around the room—people that were team players. Sure there were a lot of bad men, all of them carrying large weapons, but there weren't a whole lot of people who'd lived and died taking and giving orders before. He knew he had an advantage over everyone there, and he planned on pointing it out to whoever the hell was making the hiring decisions.
“Whose in charge here?” Jeb asked the bartender.
“Well that would be the man of the house,” the small, beady eyed bartender said. “The older gentleman over there smoking a pipe by the window. Yes, him, over there. His name his Herbert. He appreciates being addressed as Mr. Herbert by strangers.”
“Very well,” Jeb said.
The ball hadn't turned out to be anything else than a job interview. The idea of having a ball had just been something they'd put on paper that wouldn't sound completely ridiculous if the message were intercepted by someone along the way. The people sending these messages didn't want their actual intentions written on anything that could be shared with unfriendly eyes, so they'd thrown a 'ball' to invite everyone to. A ball it was not, though. And Jeb wondered why they didn't call it something else entirely.
“Are you the man of the house,” Jeb asked. “Are you the man who can answer for the letter sent to me?”
“Well I'm one of them,” Herbert answered. “Why do you suppose it is happening in my house?”
“I wondered about that,” Jeb said. “Why not a masquerade?”
“You are a clever man,” Herbert said. “The whole bandits and masks thing isn't lost on me. But you forget about the most important part—how can we tell if the guests arriving are the ones we invited if they cover their faces?”
Jeb laughed, his facing creasing into a smile. Jeb was one of those people who didn't look better with a smile on his face, he just looked different. Sometimes he even looked more unpleasant than he had before without a smile. Sometimes this put people who didn't know him off a little bit, but Herbert didn't have this reaction. Instead he was drawn to the twist of Jeb's grin.
“So tell me,” Jeb said. “How does this selection process even work?”
“Well, you must understand the situation,” Herbert said. “Because I'm getting impression that maybe you think you are competing for a job. On the contrary we have a certain thing in mind for you. The others here, some of them yes, are competing for a job. But for the most part the people here have been called her to accept a terms of agreement, not hash one out.”
Jeb took a big gulp of his drink.
“All right,” he said. “You got me there I made an assumption and it was the wrong one.”
“It's nothing like that, Jeb,” Herbert said. “There isn't really a right or wrong right now. Let me fill you in on the situation. Did you read the letter well?”
“Of course I read the letter well,” Jeb said.
Herbert shrugged.
“I don't mean to insult, I just ask because some did not, and probably will not. Not that it really matters at this point. Just kind of professional courtesy I guess,” Herbert sighed. “But what I'm getting at is asking you if you understand that Dry Well is going through some rather unrelenting and rather sharp growing pains at the moment. People are acting out, sometimes violently. And frankly, we can't have that.”