The bar had a surface that came from a great oak tree, and had been polished and buffed, stained and shined till it gleamed and looked almost syrupy. But that had been many years ago, and now it had been beaten and scratched to the point it started to regress to the old rough splintered oak it had been when it was first chopped down. Deep rivers held stale beer and gouges housed the shells of cashew nuts. At one end someone had glued down a quarter as a tip.
Behind the bar stood more hard liquor bottles than Reacher could count, but the only thing in front of him was a chipped and stained coffee mug. It had been white once, so long ago maybe the oak bar had still been standing tall in a forest. But inside the mug was warm black coffee that tasted like it had been brewed within the last week or so. Good enough for him, considering it was probably the best he had tasted so far in New Mexico.
As he sipped at his mug the bartender worked silently. He was finished bringing cases of beer and neon coloured bottles of something from the cellar below the bar and was now rinsing out glasses. He was wiping them with possibly the dirtiest dish rag he could find, which made Reacher take a second look at his mug.
The mug said 'Palm Plaza Motel, Miami FL' on the side, which was odd, since he was in the Hotel Indigo in Alamogordo, New Mexico. or more precisely the ramshackle old bar next to the Hotel Indigo. Which was more a motel anyway, he thought.
He was there to see the White Sands National Monument.
Reacher finished the black tar in the bottom of the mug and left it on the counter with a tip. Got up from his bar stool and walked out into the raging morning sun. His plan was to get the first bus he could out to White Sands, which he managed to do after only 20 minutes in the hottest sun he had felt in years.
Sitting in a mostly empty bus he had room to stretch out his long legs and stare out the window at the passing desert. He had seen plenty of desert in his time, but very little in his own country. It didn't look much different.
If it wasn't for the upcoming 70th anniversary of Trinity, the first detonation of a nuclear bomb, the thought of catching the first bus to Alamogordo from Seattle would never have occurred to him.
He wasn't a supporter of the nuclear programme, but he saw it as a terrible necessity to war. He had been around enough anti and pro arguments that his own opinion was very much lost in the struggle. It had been nothing more than a part of life he lived with but couldn't effect, like army food.
The bus shuddered to a halt and kicked up more dust and white sand, and Reacher waited for the few passengers on board to disembark before he got up. He didn't like the pre planned tours and preferred to see the sights for himself, pretending in his mind he was the first man to walk over the dunes and see the rolling landscape unfold before him.
He wandered away from the bus, glancing back to see the enthusiastic tour guide point here and there, explaining things he wasn't interesting in, and set out to be the first man to see the white sands in all its glory.
He spend a little over two hours shuffling his feet in dry hot sands and staring at the horizon, imagining what it would take to survive out here, with the desolation and intense heat. He knew the nights would be below freezing and he thought back to his own desert experiences, how hard it had been, with food and water and military clothing. Would he have what it took to ride out here on horse back with little water and no shelter? He wasn't sure, but he wasn't going to test himself either, and he headed back for the bus before it left.
He put his head against the window and let the rocking of the bus lull him to sleep on the way back. He had seen the desert, and didn't want to experience it again from the other side of the road.
When the bus finally reached his stop, he cancelled the old country and western song playing in his head and got off. Again he kicked his legs and feet in yellow brown dirt, thinking it was about time to get away from this dust bowl and back to a city or at least somewhere with a little green somewhere in view. But first some coffee.
He started walking along the edge of the black tarmac, straddling the faded and chipped yellow line as best he could where he saw it. The sun was hanging low on the horizon and creating shimmering mirages against the horizon. He almost second guessed his decision to leave, thinking the sunsets would be spectacular enough to hang around for a few days to watch. He would have to stay one more night at least to catch the sunrise, if only to see if it was as awe inspiring as the setting sun.
An old rusted pick up truck passed him a little too close, travelling far too fast to be travelling to the bar Reacher was heading to, or so he thought, until he saw the red break lights and heard the screeching of hot tires on blistering dry road. The truck lurched on its axles and slammed to a stop just outside the bar. The doors flew open and three men got out, visibly staggering towards the entrance. There was aggression in their swagger.
Reacher thought about heading straight back to his motel and turning in early for the night, but the pull of one more coffee was too strong, and he headed for the door that was still swinging behind one of the swaggering boys.
Pushing open the cowboy half door he saw the three men at the bar, demanding more drinks from the same bored bartender he had been served by that morning. He just stood behind the bar with his arms crossed and shook his head as the three drunkards badgered and fought with each other for space, even though there was no one else in the bar.
Reacher took his place on the first stool and motioned for a coffee by nodding his head towards the steaming hunk of metal on the bar. The bartender raised a dirty hand to his three accusers and walked towards Reacher and the semi white mugs.
This did not go down well with the pick up truck driver, or his buddies, who turned an angry eye towards the hulking mass perched on a rickety stool. Feeling there was safety in numbers they approached Reacher, swaggering and rolling up checkered sleeves.
Reacher was expecting some back and forth banter, maybe a few idle threats along the line of not being from around here, maybe he would be called 'mister' a few times and a finger or two would be poked. What he wasn't expecting, and what almost caught him of guard, was a beer mug to be tossed at his head while the men were only half way towards him.
Half ducking and half falling he used his momentum to reach down and grab the lowest point of the stool and swing it all the way around his body to launch it at his nearest attacker. It struck the man side on and crumpled like only old wood can. The man also crumpled, like only a drunken man can, and his truckers cap flew backward, landing on the bar. One down, thought Reacher.
At this point he assumed that the other two would run, but being drunk and stupid had its disadvantages. And Reacher was sober and now on high alert.
He kicked out at his closet rival, connecting solidly with the mans stomach and knocking the air out of him, while pulling his arms up to block the third mans slow roundhouse punch. A swift upper cut later and Reacher stood above three twitching bodies, and looked into the barrels of the bartenders shotgun.
"Time to leave town mister."
Reacher decided he was probably right, and turned away from the shotgun. He headed for the double swing door and out into the dusk, thinking the sunset was beautiful, but the sunrise was probably not worth hanging around for.