Aloysius Stubbs ate as much as Chester, twice as fast. It was no great shock when he heaved it back up directly. They gave him a little more–a little at a time–and a quantity of the station-master's corn whiskey, and by the time they'd been there an hour he was snoring in the corner of the backyard.
"He looks mighty comfortable, now, don't he," said Chester.
"He sure do fit there nice. Looks like a rake been put away." They watched him for a minute. Proudfoot checked his watch. "The horses won't be ready to go for nigh three hours at least." He held up the jug and grinned in Chester's direction. "Kin I buy you a drink?"
"Sure," said Chester. He worked up a grimace of sorts. He was well familiar with Wagonbed whiskey, inasmuch as it soon got him in a wagonbed kind of way–inanimate–and hurt on the way down. He'd still take a little. No sense offending anybody. It was free. They went inside.
"Could I have a couple glasses, please, and a sugar bowl?" Proudfoot called. The stationmaster nodded and set them noisily on the table. There was only one table. "That stationmaster must've picked the job for the quiet," said Proudfoot, although the stationmaster could certainly hear him. "You can about see the cobwebs in his ears. That oughta see all of us through, I guess," He said, nodding to the jug. He'd had a big dinner himself, even by Chester's standards. Chester didn't see how he could still have room for much vice.
"I guess so, yeah," said Chester. Proudfoot handed him a glass of it. Not a particularly generous one. Chester sighed, and came to watch incredulously as Proudfoot filled the other glass halfway up with sugar. "Ain't you gonna…" He filled it the rest of the way to the brim with whiskey and stirred it with a knife he drew from his boot. The stationmaster shook his head.
"Here's to Jim Buck's kicking foot!" said Proudfoot, and drank most of it down. Chester followed suit and coughed. Proudfoot pounded him on the back.
"Here, have a touch of that," he said, sliding the sugar his way.
"No, it's–ho, dear–it's right tasty like it is."
"You wanna try it first? Here–" Proudfoot put his glass in Chester's hand and looked attentive. "I never could stand the taste of liquor."
"Why not drink a beer?" croaked Chester.
"Oh, I drink a beer if I got a beer," said Proudfoot brightly, and stared. Chester smiled weakly and took a sip. He gagged. It wasn't the taste–the taste was no worse, just sweeter–but he hadn't been prepared to drink a syrup.
"It's a wonder you got a tooth left in your head," Chester said. Proudfoot shrugged and grinned his bitey grin. His teeth ranged in tone from white to tobacco-brown, but he didn't have a bit of space between them.
"I always had good teeth." He downed Chester's backwash and busied himself, a little over-vigorously, in stirring himself another. "Never had a toothache in my whole life. Just lucky, I guess. Ow! Why–" Proudfoot stuck his finger in his mouth and eyed his knife indignantly. "Been shot at a good deal, of course. You ever been shot?"
"As a matter of fact I have, yeah."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." He must have sounded some particular way about it without meaning to, because Proudfoot's eyes traveled slowly to Chester's leg and stayed there. Chester took pity.
"Oh, that...waal. That was shrapnel. Back in '65. Big ol' cannonball tore through a cottonwood, and when I got up to run I fell right down again. Pain woulda brought me to my knees, if I still had a knee, you know…" Chester laughed. Proudfoot didn't. "Anyhow, they figured to tie it up real tight and amputate if it got to fester, and it just never did, so. Guess I'm just lucky, too." He forgot himself and took another drink of whiskey. He spluttered a little. "But I been shot properly, too. I been...I been shot here…" he grabbed his shoulder, "and right there…" his arm, "and there…" his ear, "and clipped in the head a couple more times. What about you?"
"Pretty near the same on counts of getting shot. Been opened up between the ribs once, too, thought I was gone, sure...I always thought I was kindly prone to it, getting shot, I mean, but…well, I never was wounded in the army."
"Aw, that ain't nothing to be ashamed of."
"Oh, I know. It ain't that. I was just thinking. I guess if you're going to be hurt it ought to be in service to something. That's differnt than getting shot cause you picked a fight or sat in the wrong game. All thing I got in the army was jail fever. And that weren't no service to nothing, I can tell you that."
"Uh-huh."
"But then there's a feeling folks get about being in a war, too, that there's a certain number of lives getting lost and...bullets getting caught...and the ones as get took kindly get took for everybody."
Chester was embarrassed. No, he wasn't. It was something else. He cleared his throat.
"I reckon I know what you mean, sort of, and you sure said it purty for being two deep in that there–"
"What? T'ain't been five minutes–"
"Only, I was mighty glad to be out of it–"
"Well that goes without saying. I'd have been better off to run away home–if I'd've know'd how–and so'd nine out of every ten fellas there, I guess. Just makes you kindly crazy-proud, all that Army stuff."
"–and I sorta wish it hadn't've happened."
"Yes," Proudfoot said, after a moment, and turned his gaze into his drink. He blushed, but Chester guessed that was just the whiskey reaching his head. "Say, I...I always say I talk too much."
"Waal…" said Chester. They sat quietly for a minute. Proudfoot made himself another drink. The sound of the knife on the glass was making Chester nervous.
"You know they're makin' Colorado a state?" said Proudfoot abruptly.
"It's been a state, ain't it?"
"August 1st, 1876, it's gonna be a real live state of the union." Chester laughed.
"H...What?" he said, at last.
"What?"
"Well, that was…" Chester counted on his fingers. "That's six-odd years past, ain't it? Seven, I mean?"
"What d'you mean?"
"What do you mean?"
Proudfoot looked a little puzzled, and didn't come out with a reply.
"Maybe you oughta just, you know, slow down some, sort of." Chester glanced at the glass in Proudfoot's hand. Proudfoot followed Chester's eyes to the glass, then stared into them as he downed it.
"Well, I ain't about to argue about Colorado Territory," he said, when he was finished. "I ain't ever even saw it. Say, Mr. Goode?"
"Uh-Huh?"
"Can I ask you a personal question?"
"Waal...sure."
"Any reason how come you're wearing galluses and a belt?"
"Why, tuh–" Chester dropped to a whisper. "Why, tuh keep my britches up, why else?"
"You don't need but one for that. Seeing as you got no vest, well, you might make do without them galluses. T'ain't polite, showing off your...why, they're practically unmentionables, on a growed-up man like you. You ought to know that."
"Well that's...a mite old-fashioned, ain't it?"
"And you ain't got no coat, neither–"
"Well I got a coat, feller, I just ain't wearin' it–"
"Nor nothing 'round yer neck? Ain't you cold?"
"No." Proudfoot shook his head wonderingly and muttered. "What's that?" Chester said.
"Style, that's what. I ain't even said one thing about style."
"Style?"
"Well, I guess you wouldn't understand. It don't matter much. Least you're covered up most of the way."
"Style's okay for girls–ladies...hair styles, you mean?"
"Fashion, like. Taste. More important a man's clean, though. You're awful clean."
"I am?"
"Ain't ye?"
"Well, I bathe of a Saturday like any normal decent person, yeah."
"You sure do stay bathed. I hardly seen the like. Why, I take a mid-week bath, even, if it's hot enough, an' wash my feet about every night, and I still ain't so clean as you more'n a day at a time, seems like. Oh, then there's the winter time. I don't care for that a bit, not bathing. Takes me til February to get used to it, and then in March it sets to itching." Chester laughed.
"Oh, you shoulda seen me this last spring," he said. "I was practical crawling outta my skin, you know. Got so bad, why, I went and took some other feller's water–I jest couldn't wait one more second."
"That's terrible! Just when he'd got unsewed?"
"No, haha, no, I took it when he was done with it, like." Proudfoot got a face like he'd smelled something sour.
"I don't believe I'd dare," he said. "Of course, I can't abide by them Wells-Fargo tooth brushes, neither."
"Say, feller, ain't that enough? There any sugar left in there?" Proudfoot had finished another whiskey. Chester wondered if he might be trying to prove something.
"Oh, there's plenty there. Why, we fixed to go a-shooting? Walk a circus rope?" Proudfoot laughed. "Don't you worry none about me."
"You just drunk it awful quick, is all."
"Well, it's free, an' we ain't got all the time in the world. Figure this next'n'll do me. Your teeth ain't real, are they? They look right nice, where'd you get 'em?" He poured out the rest of the sugar and another measure of whiskey.
"Forevermore," said Chester, and put the jug under the table.
"Lookee yonder, Mr. Goode."
Chester yawned. He'd closed his eyes for a second.
"What?"
"Oh...jest wanted to make a noise, I guess." Proudfoot had taken off his coat and was balanced precariously on the back legs of his chair, boots on the table. The jug was back out. He whistled absently and Chester rubbed his eyes. "You know something?"
"No."
"You been asleep half the time I've know'd ye, but you don't seem no more rested t'me."
"Waal. Maybe I oughta get drunk in the middle of the day sometime, maybe that'd help."
"No, I don't think so." Proudfoot rocked his chair a little. The thickness in his voice had gotten a lot thicker. Chester had to draw on his patience to listen.
"Who's...who's your favorite type a' person?" Proudfoot asked. Chester gave him a bored sort of look. "Y'ever think about what your favorite type a' person is?" He seemed impervious. Chester gave up.
"What, fer loving?" he asked.
Proudfoot studied the join between the walls and the ceiling and didn't reply. Chester cracked his neck and yawned again. "Purty girls, I reckon," he said. "Either way. Nice girls, sweet...and gentle...with, you know, nice manners. With yeller hair."
"Oh," said Proudfoot.
"What's the matter with that?"
"Nothing! Nothing's the matter with that, my...my gracious, no, nothing's...no."
"I mean fer loving, of course, especial."
"For loving."
"What's your favorite type of person, then?" Chester asked.
"Well, I...my favorite...people, in particular, that's...that's a different question altogether."
"It is, huh?"
"'Course 'tis. But my favorite type a' person is married ladies. With kids. And parasols. Like they got lots of all up back East. In the parks."
"Huh. That's...sorta unusual."
"An' have you ever met a Irishman, Mr. Goode?"
"I reckon I must have sometime."
"I sure do like them. I used t'live with a Irishman." Proudfoot shook his head wonderingly and blushed brighter than he already had, and Chester started to worry. "He come from a place called Dingle Bay, and he was just about the nicest fella you could ever wanna meet–"
"Look, Mr. Proudfoot, you're drunk–"
"–nothing ain't never seem t'bother'm, an' he–I liked to hear'm talk–I could listen to him the whole day long. And he had some eyes, too. Some eyes. Kindly like your eyes." Chester leaned back nervously, then forward to say,
"You shouldn't oughtter be telling me this."
"He tol' me if ye beat a Irishman in a fight, he'll be your friend for life. But you never punch a Irishman in the face. Ye punch'm in the belly and he goes gentle as a lamb. I've made a lot a friends that way."
"Ya have, have ya."
"An' e'ery one've'em a Irishman." Proudfoot rested his ear on his shoulder and gave Chester a serene look. Chester felt a bit foolish. "They's purely easy. I sure do like them."
"Is married ladies with umbrellers easy?"
"Parasols? Sure. They'se mostly real hospitable'n all. 'Course, they's all differnt. Jus' like men is, only they're...smarter. No, that ain't it, they...they're women, that's all."
"Uh-huh."
"Without ye...well, ye can't talk to 'em like a man, but ye can talk to 'em kindly...ye can just talk to 'em."
"Well, you kin talk to anybody, cain't ya? You kin sure talk to purty girls, if you're courting them." Proudfoot muttered and shook his head. "Anyhow I cain't make out what them umbrellers got to do with it."
"I just like 'em."
"But you ain't...you ain't talking about courting married girls."
"My gracious, no! That's just what I mean. You ain't bound to court 'em."
"Don't you wanna court nobody?"
"Well, now, I just...a body just kindly likes to set'n visit sometimes."
"Yeah, but you kin court and sit and visit." Chester grinned. "Courting's jest like visiting, excepting you get to spark a little." Proudfoot shook his head more vehemently.
"Naw, they...they expect things of ye."
"Reckon that's their right. If you're courting 'em."
"That's what...you just don't understand!" Proudfoot waved his hands around some, to clarify. Chester laughed.
"Now, I ain't–"
"No, you don't understand," Proudfoot said again. "Don' matter none, I guess. You got to court to have children, though. I'd like to have children."
"You would?"
"Wouldn't you?"
"Waal. I like children. I like 'em a whole lot, some of 'em, an awful lot. I'm just awful poor. And they don't, you know, they don't let you sleep."
"Oh, you don't need money to have children."
"Waal, no, but they gotta eat."
"Only so much as a man does. If you can eat, you got enough for a kid to eat. All thing a little kid needs is someone to do for 'em."
"What about a bigger kid?"
"Oh, they get big enough you get 'em a gun, they'll eat, all right. I'm only funning. I'd find some way, you can always find some way. I'd provide for 'em."
"Sure."
"I got to–I want a daughter. I'd dearly love to have a daughter. A little girl."
"Yeah." Chester wasn't sure how to say he understood without saying he understood, which seemed like too large a concession. But he understood. "Yeah. Little girls is sweet."
"Say, I should marry a Indian! Indian girls, you know, they don't court like white girls do, but they're so tough I just kindly wanna do for 'em anyhow."
"Ya don't see too many umbrellers 'round Dodge, do ya," said Chester loudly, hoping to get on firmer ground.
"No you suuurely don't."
"Excepting for some a' the saloon gals. Miss Kitty, now, she's got more'n one!"
"Miss Kitty?" Proudfoot's eyes lit up. "'Course she does."
"You kin talk to her purty easy, cain't ya? She's awful kind and obliging."
"'Course I can! She's a–she's a friend a' mine! One a' my best friends."
"Yeah, Miss Kitty's friends with jest about everybody, I reckon," said Chester.
"I don't know about that. Wasn't too sure of her at first myself, poor creature, what with...what she...well…" Proudfoot coughed. "She always seemed kindly beat down, nearly, aside from her work. Dreary. An' a girl shouldn't ought to drink so, an' time was I worried she had scheming...designs on..."
Chester had slammed his hand on the table, and Proudfoot looked his way, waiting. Chester tried to think of a way to look that would make him take his boots down and act, at least, like he was speaking of worthy persons. All he could think to do, though, was frown and stare.
"That ain't no way to talk of Miss Kitty. She's a lady," he said, at length.
"'Course she's a lady! 'Course she is. I just never knowed it 'til later. When I'd got to knowing her better, knowed better what her mind was and how she was honest. And she is, true as north. It's only I can't stand a dishonest woman. Why, I couldn't even stand to pay 'em for, you know...pleasure–"
"Shut up." Proudfoot didn't look nearly alarmed enough. He stared at Chester with idle curiosity and scratched his ear. Chester noticed Proudfoot wore a ring. A bright copper ring. Chester thought a ring was unbecoming on a man–he might as well have had earrings.
"I wouldn't hire 'em, I mean, that's all," he said. "Not that I do besides. I don't care for it. Don't figure it hurts 'em none, some body's bound to–"
"Miss Kitty ain't in that line of work."
"Why no, she ain't, not now. But I knowed her when she was. Word was she did fast business, too, even if she ain't the prettiest, just cause she is that way."
"What way?"
"Oh, I don't know how to say it. Folks is drawn to her, that's all, cause she's s'patient. Only anyone with eye's'd know she hated it. You know, she won't hold nobody's hand now, even. Fella looks at her funny she turns her nose up, now she can. It's good for her, she's content now most often. Fattened up good. Time was I worried she'd end up replacing our Miss Brandy one day, all tired an' lonesome-like, but then again I ain't so worried now, Miss Kitty's a real nice girl, an' she don't drink near so much as she did. Hardly nought but beer."
"Who's Brandy, your sister?" said Chester, with venom.
"Me? Why, I ain't that old!" Proudfoot laughed. "No, I mean Brandy Crane, big softhearted ol' girl what keeps the girls outta trouble down o'er the Texas Trail, where Miss Kitty was a'fore the Allafraganza."
"She don't work at no Aller-no-place, even."
"She didn't work there long, she went o'er the Long Branch soon after, for Sam Noonan. He's a nice fella, that Sam. They was friends and now they'se partners. Imagine that. Quiet little girl like Kitty, half-owner of the finest saloon you ever saw."
"Half-owner–?"
"Sure! T'ain't as if a woman can't run nothing, not now, not in Dodge City. She sure deserves it, too. She fixed their prices up different and they make a lot more than before, even what with the strays–she feeds all them stray dogs, you know. Stray people, too. And you ought to hear her sing! Why, I imagine I was wary of her once, and I just can't figure."
"Mister, the way you talk I think you oughta be wary of her."
"Now I'm kindly wary for her, Marshal Dillon don't marry her one day soon I just don't know what they're gonna do–you know I can't do nothing a t'all for how I talk, I got a hole in my mouth."
"What?"
"Babies with harelips got holes in their mouths."
"What?"
"You can fix the lip okay but you can't do nothing for a hole in your mouth. Was we talking about Miss Kitty?" Chester felt like he was about to have a headache, the kind that makes you see halos. He put his head on his fist and sighed.
"Yeah. You was."
"Poor thing's pining for a home somewhere, and little children, and so's Mr. Dillon, I think, unnerneath t'all. I mean that in truth. He's tired a' his business and he loves her. An' she loves him. But he don't think he ought to make her a widow s'young." Proudfoot laughed suddenly. "Well. Maybe she'll have to marry me." Chester wasn't sure what to do. Maybe fight him. Proudfoot might win if he was ready for it, but surprising him wouldn't be hard.
"Miss Kitty wouldn't never marry you," Chester said.
"She says she hopes she will."
"That's a lie."
"Course 'tis. She only swaps lies that way, on account I like–that is, I know about dresses and hats and foreign lands and things like that, as she likes to talk of. An' poetry."
"Poetry?"
"Poems. They's like songs, only they ain't no music. I cook better'n she does, an' I make her her cigarettes. She mends me my clothes and gives me the loan of her soap."
"So?"
"So we'd be happy sure."
"Miss Kitty don't smoke." Chester wished he could ignore it, but it just kept coming.
"She does, just not in public. Says it don't look good."
"Maybe she takes 'em off you just so's you don't feel as you're taking charity, huh."
"No, she smokes 'em. Used to smoke a pipe–I done too–but Mr. Dillon turned us all onto them little fellas."
"He did, did he."
"Yeah, but he don't roll 'em tight enough for my preference." Chester opened his mouth to say Mr. Dillon don't smoke, neither, but it was dawning on him that the fellow before him wasn't very bright if he was a liar, and otherwise he was crazy.
"You a good friend of the Marshal, then?" Chester said.
"Mm-hm. Best friend I ever had."
"Best friend you ever had, you must know him real well."
"I'd say I do."
"Where's he from, then?"
"Oh, that's easy, he was born o'er in Kentucky. Folks and him was pilgrims though come out to Ohio, and then when they died he come back to Kentucky. But it didn't suit him, so he gone out to Arizona–" he said Arizona like Arizony– "and West Texas, 'round there, and shot up border ruffians and things, a'fore he come up here."
"That so."
"Uh-huh."
"He got a given name?"
"Don't be foolish, 'course he has, it's Matt. Matthew on a check."
"You call 'im Matt or Matthew?"
"I call him Mr. Dillon."
"Uh-huh. An' how old is he?"
"Not s'old. That's personal."
"What's he like to eat?"
"Oh, anything. He'll eat it cold, too, but he don't never eat much."
"What's he look like?"
"What's he–? Say, don't you know 'im?"
"I ain't too sure, can you tell me?"
"Oh. Well, sure," said Proudfoot. "He's...he's some taller'n me, some...six, seven inches, like. Big man, but he ain't fat, you know, just mostly tall. Got a black slicker he wears all over when it ain't too hot."
"Good looking feller?"
"Oh, I suppose. He's more freckle n' skin, I'd say, and his teeth is all rotten...course none of that don't matter none if you're trying to find him on the street, he's got red hair–"
Chester snorted and tried to keep from laughing. He felt better knowing this man had never seen Kitty and the marshal, or probably even Doc and the rest of it. Doc, though, would probably enjoy him. He was contrary that way.
"–and you can't never miss a man with red hair–what's all that?" Chester had snorted again.
"Wh-what about Miss Kitty?" Chester managed.
"What?"
"What sorta hair's she got?"
"Oh...brown, I guess. Kindly light brown, but real pretty." Chester shook his head, and said,
"Say, what time is it?"
Proudfoot gave a start and dug around for his watch, and in an instant lost his balance. He crashed backwards to the floor and lay silent for a second, and Chester almost thought he might've passed out–it didn't seem possible, but it had been that sort of day–when Proudfoot unfroze and started cackling. Chester got up to look, and saw him still laying in–on?–the chair. He had the hysterical, half-scared look of an overtired kid who'd rolled down a hill too fast, or run into a door and hurt themselves.
"Look at yerself." Proudfoot thought that was very funny, too. "Honest to goodness, if we was in Dodge ya'd be locked up right now."
"I-I-I might at that!"
"C'mon, now. What time is it?" Proudfoot took a few shaky deep breaths and checked.
"Three-thirty."
"Ain't we leaving jest about now?"
"A 'course we are!" Proudfoot clambered to his feet. "You just kindly...aim me at the door, next time it comes around, n' we'll go."
"Yeah, well. Aim yerself a second, will ya, I gotta go see to the prisoner."
"The..?"
"The prisoner, mister, the prisoner. The feller stopped the stage."
"The prisoner! Oh, my gracious. I–uh-oh."
"Don't get your knickers in a twist, I'll deal with him, it's my job, anyhow. But you jest better think about whose prisoners is getting left in whose charge when you figure ta go make a shame a' yerself in the middle of the afternoon, next time, maybe."
"Oh no, I got it."
"Look, you jest set tight, there. No, uh...get back to the stage, I'll be along." Proudfoot mumbled and scrubbed his hands over his face. "For heaven's sake, don't get to crying over it."
"I ain't either crying." He looked up to glare, and Chester saw that indeed he wasn't.
"Waal, alright." Chester shrugged and turned away. Proudfoot stepped close behind him, on the heel of Chester's boot, and Chester hopped to face him.
"What's the big idea here, now, huh?"
"Why don't you just call me Chester?"
"Forevermore, mister–"
"E'rybody else does."
"Waal, it confuses me, is the only thing."
"It's m'name…" Proudfoot looked at the ground. "Seem like such a nice boy an' you won't even learn a body's right name–"
"Alright, alright, would ya quit yammerin' a minute, Chester?" Proudfoot backed into the wall beside the door and narrowed his eyes. "Much obliged," said Chester, and made his way out back.
"Alright, grandpa. Time to…" Chester drew up. Aloysius wasn't where they'd left him. As a matter of fact, he wasn't anywhere. The fence was high and the gate was locked, and the old man was so–
"Time fer nothin', young feller," hissed Aloysius in Chester's ear. Chester arched his back, but Aloysius just pushed the knife–or whatever he had–to meet it.
"You oughter be ashamed," said Chester.
"You got a purse on ye?"
"No. And you ain't getting outta here whether you stick me'r not, so why don't you jest settle down some, and–ow!"
"Don't talk back to me."
"You're a nasty mean ol' billygoat, you are."
"Quit yer whinin'. I ain't goin' to no jail nowheres an' you ain't armed."
"Stoppit!"
"Stoppit!" Aloysius repeated in a grating, high-pitched voice and gave a ruined kind of laugh, and stuck Chester hard enough to break his skin. He jumped and hollered. It always surprised him how much it hurt to be cut. Aloysius was laughing but his hand was steady. "Don't you kick me or nothin', now. My daddy was a butcher."
"You–" Chester was, of course, going to kick him anyway, as soon as he collected his spite and nerves.
Instead, he dropped to the ground. He was already down before he understood he'd heard a gunshot.
"Don't shoot, don't shoot!" Aloysius howled. "I ain't done nothin'!"
"I coulda shot you perfect-legal, y'old cuss. Drop that a'fore I do. Drop it!"
"I done it, don't shoot!" Chester sat up, wincing. Proudfoot stood in the doorway with his gun trained on Aloysius, who, Chester could see, was trembling, with a broken bottle-neck on the ground beside him. Proudfoot muttered darkly to himself a second before dropping his arms to his sides.
"I'm a-gonna tie you up," he said.
"Don't shoot!"
"I ain't!" said Proudfoot, waving his pistol, loose in his hand but still smoking. Chester stood and dusted himself off gingerly.
"I'm nought but a sorry old man, ain't got nothing to git shot fer!"
"You're sticking glass into the infirm, ain't ye?" said Proudfoot.
Aloysius keened.
"For heaven's sake, he missed you by a mile," said Chester, with a twinge of pity. "He's drunk as anything. C'mon." He grabbed the old man by the upper arm, and he shrieked.
"Let 'im go, boy, t'ain't your worry," said Proudfoot. "You hurt any?"
"Jest a little. Look, I thank you fer the help, n' all, but you shouldn't oughtter go shooting in the air that way. Somebody coulda got hurt." Proudfoot opened his mouth and left it there for a second, affronted or thinking, it was hard to say. "Go on back to the stage, now."
"You're…why. You're ungrateful." He still hadn't put his gun away. Chester raised his voice.
"I've had jest about enough of you for right now, mister, I got enough to contend with and you're acting crazy!"
"I ain't either!"
"Aw," Chester put his hands on his hips. "If you ain't acting it, well, you plain are it, maybe."
"Why–"
"Watch where you're pointing that, will ya?"
"I'll watch where I right well wanna watch!"
That's when Chester realized he'd let go of Aloysius. He realized this when Aloysius smashed one of the station master's jugs over Proudfoot's head. Chester jumped back. Proudfoot gasped, scandalized, and took a single nauseous step before he crumpled.