Opening Scene:  Bounty Hunter leads a second horse with a body draped over it into White Oaks township.  Sara stands outside her Mercantile Shoppe sweeping sand off the wooden planks of the sidewalk in front of her store and looks up at the hard looking square jawed steely gray eyed rider.

Heinrich ‘Hoss’ Wharton once Lieutenant Wharton U.S. Cavalry rode down the main street of another lonesome town in a great grasslands valley leading the body of the Rapahoe Kid already stinking up the morning air and stopped hitching the horses outside the Sheriff’s Office.  He swung a tired leg over the saddle and stepped down to the grass wincing at the pain in his left leg; another leftover from his days in the military.  He glanced at the well oiled Sharpe’s rifle in its horse scabbard before checking the tie down loop on his Colt Peacemaker single action six shooter.

Hoss pushed open the heavy wooden door and stopped.

“Hello inside.  I’m in need of the Sheriff; I’ve got a bounty to collect on.”

“Come along inside, stranger.”

“Name’s Hoss.  I’m gonna reach into my jacket pocket for the hand bill on the Rapahoe Kid.”

“I’ve heard of him.  Nasty piece of work.”

“He was.  Buzzard bait now.”

“He’s work two hundred fifty greenbacks.  I’ll write you a promissory note after I verify the deceased’s identity.”

“Step on out then.  He’s tied to my pack horse.”

A heavyset man six feet or so.  A few inches shorter than himself and quite a few pounds heavier but with a smiling face and blue eyes beneath a head of coal black hair.  He looked more miner than lawman.

“Well, Hoss.  Let’s take a look at what the cat drug in.  Unless you want a cup of coffee first.”

“No thanks.  Hot as the blazes outside already.  I’ll just collect my due and get me some eggs and maybe a cold glass of milk, if that’s possible.”

“Hofbrau Haus.  Just a couple of blocks down the street on the right hand side.  Tell Helga you’re a lawman and she’ll treat you real good,” said Sheriff John P. Stone.

“Ain’t a lawman; bounty hunter.”

“I hear tell that pays better.”

“But you can’t stay in one place.  Not long anyway.”

“Not for me then.  Been a resident of White Oaks Township most of my life; minus the years I spent in the saddle during the states’ war.”

“Spent a few years in the saddle myself.  Mostly chasing down raiders and bushwhackers.”

“I was East, Tennessee and Mississippi, mostly.”

“I was north, round the Plains, mostly.”

They reached the pack horse.  The sheriff pulled back on the dead man’s greasy black hair and looked at the mostly unmarked face then looked at a handbill he held in his left hand.

“Yep.  That appears to be the kid.  Let’s get you paid.”

“I believe I’ll have that cup of coffee, if you’re still offering.”

The sheriff pulled an off white ceramic mug from a nearby hutch and handed it to Hoss.  He took the mug with a nod of his head and walked to the pot belly stove in the center of the sheriff’s office and picked up the ceramic coffee pot by the cloth wrapped handle and poured himself a steaming cup of brown liquid.

At his desk, the sheriff took out a long check book and wrote out a check for two hundred and fifty dollars, signed it and left the To line blank.  

Hoss stepped over the desk blowing on the hot coffee before trying a sip.  He smiled; not bad and better than he expected.

“I can’t cook worth a damn, but I make good coffee.  Survival skills and all.  Here’s your check; you can make it out however you call yourself.  The bank won’t give you no guff; won’t be the first time I’ve sent someone to ‘em to get paid for a body.”

“Thank you, sheriff.  Much obliged for the consideration and the coffee.”

Hoss stood for a moment and drained off half the mug’s contents then set the mug down on the desk and tipped his hat to the sheriff as he turned and walked back outside into the morning sunlight.

The temperature had already climbed just in the short time he’d spent with the sheriff.  He looked over at the now unburdened pack horse and frowned.

“Undertaker came and took the body.  Swear that man is what they call psychic.  Knows when there’s a stiff needs burying,” said a pleasant looking brunette woman in a powder blue dress standing in front of a Mercantile Shoppe.

“The bank?”

“Up the street next block on the left hand side.”

Hoss pulled a slim cigarillo from his shirt pocket beneath his leather vest and pulled a wood match from his vest pocket to light it.

“Filthy habit you got there.”

“I’ve seen worse.  I’ll try to stay upwind.  Up the street on the left, you said.”

“Yes, not too far.”

“Thank you.”

He exhaled a blue gray cloud away from the woman out towards the empty street and crossed over to the other sidewalk.  He figured the horses were safe enough tied up at the hitching post, for now.

Inside the bank, standing in front of one of two tellers; Hoss wrote on the bank note ‘Henry Wharton’ in block print.

The bank manager stood to one side while the bank teller, a fetching looking woman with coal black eyes and a raven black hair swept up into a bun began to count out federal greenback notes.

“Prefer gold and silver coin.  Lost my trust in paper money.”

“Go ahead Miss Moneypenny.  Sir, you aren’t the only person with such a distrust.”

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The middle aged woman set out a small stack of twenty dollar gold pieces and a similar stack of five dollar silver eagles.  He scooped up the monies and filled both his front pockets.

“I heard tell of a good restaurant in town.  Don’t suppose there’s an equally good hotel nearby.”

“If I know our sheriff, the hotel is the Hoffbrau down the street on the right hand side.  If you continue on to the corner lot, you will find the Majestic Hotel.  I’m certain you’ll find it to your liking.”

“Very kind of you, sir.”

Hoss put his cigarillo out in a nearby spittoon on his way out of the bank before turning up the street.  He nodded to a well dressed couple as he passed them and caught sight of a leatherworks shoppe with a nicely tooled saddle in the store window with silver conches stitched onto it.  

At the intersection, he walked across the street walking around a slow moving Wells Fargo stage coach over to the hitching post and his horses.

With the horses in tow, he walked down the street until he began to smell the most wonderful smell of sausage meat being cooked.  He tied the horses to a nearby hitching post and walked into a red and white cloth draped shoppe with a wooden sign posting the Hoffbrau in cursive letters above a wide heavy brown painted door.  

Inside, he smelled fresh baked bread and beer; not the watered down saloon vintage but good hops filled beer.  A well proportioned woman with her brown hair pulled up and braided most complexly.  

“Help you out, sir?”

“I’d like a meal and a beer.”

“Follow me, I have a clean table just over here.”

He sat at the small square table in a scroll chiseled high backed chair with green cloth padding stitched over the seat and the lower back.  He pulled a cigarillo from his inside pocket before looking up into disapproving brown eyes.

“Nein.  It spoils the taste of the food.”

He put the cigarillo back into his pocket and looked at a short typed menu on thick paper.

“I’ll have sausages and a beer.”

“You want some saurkraut with that blood sausage?”

“Does it go with the sausage?”

“Oh, yes.  It’s how you would say cabbage.  But better tasting.”

“Then I’ll have that.  Oh, and some bread.  I smell some delicious bread.”

“Then you shall have some.  Uh, you have monies?”

“Just got some from your friendly bank manager.  Oh, and the sheriff says hello.”

“You know important people for someone new to town.”

“How do you know I’m new to town?”

“Your first time in my restaurant; how could you not be new in the town?”

They both laughed before the woman twirled around and headed away towards the kitchen.

When his food arrived, on a wooden platter carried by a younger version of his original waitress, the smells rivaled the great tastes as he tore into the first decent meal  he’d had in days.  His camp cooking could keep a man alive, but it couldn’t compare to the taste of the strange fermented saurkraut or the heavy sausage.  He washed the meal and the sour dough bread with the heady strong amber beer.

Feeling better than he had in weeks, Hoss put a silver door and two silver dimes on the table beside his empty beer glass.  He smiled at the older waitress and what he presumed was her daughter or daughter in law before walking out into the heat and the sunlight.  He nodded at a man in a charcoal suit as he walked by puffing on a light brown ceramic pipe.

Safely alone and outside the restaurant, Hoss lit up his cigarillo and made his way to the corner and the three story Majestic Hotel.  He sat down in a nearby chair set outside the hotel and finished his smoke watching the town move around him.

“Mister, you needin’ a room or just restin’ your feet?”

“I am in need of a place to stay, yes.”

“Well, you alone and do you have luggage?”

“My things are on my horse.  Oh, has this town got a stable I can board a pair of horses at?”

“Sure thing.  I can take your things into the hotel for you.  Oh, and I’ll take your horses down to Jessie’s Stable. He charges twenty cents a night to board, though.”

Hoss looked at the eager young man; thin as a rail with a full head of red hair and the freckles to boot.  The boy’s pants ended a measure before the start of his leather shoes but the shirt and the suspenders looked clean and well cared for.  

“I guess I can trust you with my belongings.  Those two there are mine and I’d like the saddle bags and the rifle with me in the hotel.”

“Sure thing, sir.  You just sit and enjoy your smoke.  I will get you checked in.  You particular about your room?”

“Yes.  I would like a room overlooking the main street here on the top floor.”

“Sure thing.”

The young man took off at a run and piled two saddle bags over his thin shoulders before grabbing the Winchester repeating rifle in his arms and running back into the hotel’s lobby.

Hoss laid on the bed on top of the bedding with his head raised on not one but two pillows and looked at the end of the room with its two windows looking out onto the main street.  His horses were safely stabled; he needed to find out where Jessie’s Stable was so he could visit them.  His saddle bags were set side by side on top of an actual wooden dresser while a ceramic bowl and a pitcher of water stood at the center of a round table with two chairs in the corner of the room.

The windows were open and he felt the warm air breeze from outside.  The heavy sausage and the heavy beer were weighing him down and somehow pulling on his eyelids as well.