Lanternlight Bleeds at Dawn · Part 2: The Quiet Saloon

The saloon sat three doors down from the sheriff’s office, two stories of warped wood and bad decisions. Someone had painted “The Long Pour” over the door years ago. Most of the letters had peeled off. Now it just read “The Long Po.”

Fit the place fine.

The stranger pushed through the batwings. The piano in the corner stopped mid-note. Cards stilled in calloused hands. One of the working girls, red sash and tired eyes, stepped back into shadow like she could vanish into wood paneling if she tried hard enough.

Only the barkeep moved.

He was a heavy man with a beard gone mostly white and a scar clawed down the side of his neck. His name was Greeley, and his eyes were sharper than anything on the wall behind him.

The lantern’s light washed over the bar. When it touched Greeley’s face, the flame inside narrowed into a thin, hard line. Almost like it was squinting.

Greeley flinched. Just a fraction. A twitch in the jaw.

The stranger noticed.

He crossed the room without hurry and hung the lantern on the iron hook at the end of the bar. No oil smell. No smoke. Just that wrong, bright flame burning in a glass that never fogged.

“What’ll it be?” Greeley asked, wiping a glass with a rag that was more habit than hygiene.

“Coffee,” the stranger said. “Black as you can make it.”

Greeley gave a single grunt that might have been a laugh. “You sure you’re in the right building, friend?”

“Depends what you serve,” the stranger said.

He did not smile when he said it.

The barkeep poured the coffee thick and dark. The stranger wrapped his hands around the tin cup, more for the feel of it than the warmth.

Behind him, the saloon found its sound again in nervous pieces. A chair scraped. Somebody muttered about “goddamn drifters.” Cards snapped as a hand resumed.

But every few seconds, eyes flicked to that lantern on its hook, burning like noon in a room made for dusk.

Greeley leaned in, voice dropping low.

“That thing yours?” he asked, nodding at the lantern.

“For now,” the stranger answered.

“Get it outta here before dark,” Greeley said, all humor gone. “We close the doors tight when the sun goes. We got enough trouble without bringing our own.”

The stranger met his eyes. “Your trouble walk or crawl?”

Greeley’s gaze flicked to the lantern again.

“These days,” he said, “it just comes in the dust.”

Outside, the morning light crawled higher over Brimstone Edge, but inside the Long Pour, it felt like the day had stopped at a thin, nervous edge.