Reunion

He entered the saloon, pausing to let his eyes adjust to the dim interior from the brightness of the outside. The good weather had allowed him speedier travels than expected and he had arrived a day early, giving him perhaps a rare opportunity to relax solo until his colleagues showed up.

They had chosen well. This place barely a town, called Reunion, had no sheriff; no law at all, it seemed. Off the beaten track, it might be hospitable to the thieving kind, so long as they kept their noses clean. But they meant no trouble, and no one there should know them.

Bellying up to the bar, he ordered a beer and looked around. The usual games of chance as might be found in any respectable gambling establishment worth its salt surrounded him, although, being the middle of the afternoon, only one game was in progress. He might be tempted to take a chance later, but now, glass in hand, he settled in at a table and immersed himself in thought.

His colleagues were his friends – well, most of them anyway – the co-leaders of the outfit more bosses than anything else. His good-time-Charlie exterior got on well with his peers but belied a sometimes more contemplative soul; and while the respite from his cohorts would give him time to think, he would not want to stay there long – that occasional philosophizing having gotten his old man in trouble in his own heyday.

A scion of a prominent Eastern banking family, his father, a third son and a romantic at heart, yearned for adventure and answered the call of the West. Angered by the massacres at the Alamo and Goliad but too young to have taken part, he headed to Texas anyway. There, after years of exploration and life as a solitary mountain man, he wanted a family and took a half-Anglo, half-Tejano wife and fathered several children. Tiring of domestic bliss after some years, he took off to the gold fields of California, never to be heard from again.

Thus was the parental background of one Andrew Wolf Riggs – Andy for short as a young boy, but his prowess and patience at hunting had led his mother to christen him Lobo from his middle name, and he went by that ever since, save a vow to answer to Andy were he ever to run into his father again.

How he had arrived at this moment, or any moment for that matter, well, he certainly knew but tried to make sense of beyond the true story. Perhaps fascination with fanciful tales from his father in early childhood led him to flights of his own imagination. He had followed in his father's footsteps for a while but cut short his own experience as a trapper in the West Texas hills because the solitary life weighed on him just as it had his dad, and his mother had taken ill. Arriving just in time to say goodbye before she passed, he soon after left again as Texas seceded, heading to western Nebraska Territory. Falling into petty thievery to eat between paying jobs, he drifted but was still there when Wyoming Territory was declared. In and out of trouble with the law, but nothing serious, he had fallen in with the Devil's Hole Gang, becoming right hand to its leader, Big Jim Santana, before Big Jim was captured and Hannibal Heyes had taken over. Now, with Kid Curry as Heyes's right arm and Wheat Carlson third in command, he was content just to be part of the gang, away from leadership and its resulting responsibilities. His years with them were the longest he had stayed in one place, and how long that life would satisfy him he did not know. Perhaps the camaraderie of the outfit replaced the family he had lost, but he would not dwell on it. Finished with drumming banks in surrounding towns, he would wait patiently on Kid and Hank before all three returned to the Hole.

"Well, look what the cat drug in."

Startled back to the present, he looked up to see a familiar face. "Hello, Mae."

He stood to offer her a chair, and she sat.

"Polite as always. I guess those fancy Eastern manners never leave ya."

He chuckled. "You know that was my ma's doin'. Pa had nothin' to do with it."

"So you've always said." She paused. "Ain't ya surprised to see me?"

"Nope. Figure I'll run into people I know here and there. Just never know who."

"Well, it ain't every day ya run into your wife." She paused. "But it's ex-wife now. I finally got a divorce."

He nodded, not surprised. "Ya did the right thing."

"Wasn't sure I should, but I went back to my own name, so in case ya ever want to look me up again, it's Parker, not Riggs."

"Ya do what ya have to." He sighed. "I'm sorry, Mae. Really didn't give us a chance, did I?"

"Nope. I was a fool to think you'd be back."

"How long did ya wait?"

She grabbed his beer and took a swig, and shrugged. "Too long."

He nodded in understanding. Everyone did what they had to do. He had made a living out of it. He took note of the place. "Still in a bar, huh?"

"Yep. Once a barmaid, always a barmaid, I guess."

"I guess," Lobo echoed. He got the barkeep's attention and signalled for two beers.

They waited while the brews were delivered. Mae thanked the barkeep and lifted her mug to toast the moment. "To reunions. I knew this town might lead to somethin'."

Their glasses clinked and they drank. Lobo looked at her, taking in the coincidence. "Reunions. In Reunion? Really?"

"Yep." She smiled and took another sip. "What're ya doin' here? Couldn't be to see me 'cause ya didn't know where I was."

"Waitin' on some friends."

"Another reunion?"

His voice was quiet. "No. Just meetin' them here."

"Then what?"

He shrugged. "Back to where we live."

"Oh." She sounded wistful. "I guess there's no chance, then … you and me?"

Lobo sighed. "I'm sorry, Mae. Ya know you're better off without me."

"Am I? Ya never gave us a chance."

He smiled. "As my grand-daddy's lawyer might say, 'I rest my case.'"

She looked at him with pursed lips. Their courtship had been quick and the marriage quicker, but there would always be a place in her heart for him. And she knew he had loved her, once. Maybe he still did. She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. "Where are ya stayin'?"

"Was gonna get a room at the boardin' house."

They owed each other nothing, but he had been her husband. She was impetuous, even oddly hopeful. "Got room at my place."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Okay."

Mae looked around. "This place is empty. I think I can get off early."

"Okay." He paused. "Seems like old times."

She said flatly, "Some things never change. I don't think either of us ever will."

"Prob'ly not."

She lifted her glass. "To now."

He did the same. "To now."