He was a loner.

I knew that the moment I saw his silhouetted frame block the doorway of The Gun & Tumble Saloon, the late evening sun bathing him in its waning orange glow.

He moved further into the welcoming yet slightly outdated room; his footfalls clicked mutely on the hardwood floor as he casually, yet deliberately strolled past the patrons lounging and drinking at the polished bar, not sparing them or myself a glance.

Head straight, he made his way further into the belly of the room, passing the dinner section with their two and four seated table sections, moving past to the fun section of the bar where the rowdier patrons held domain, some playing darts, cheering and jeering with each throw, while the rest were engrossed in rousing rounds of varying card games.

I watched transfixed from my post behind the wooden polished bar counter as he walked over to an empty table at the very back of the bricked section, pulled out a repurposed wooden chair so that it faced the rest of the open room, sat and in the shadowy coolness of the almost deserted area, intensely surveyed what was unfolding before him.

He held the aura of someone who was looking for something or maybe someone in particular and that just added an extra chime to the mild alarm already going off in my head…

I just knew he was trouble.

After working in this establishment for as long as I have, I’ve developed a sixth sense about people.

I may not be able to sense their whole life story, but depending on their body language, the energy they exuded and the way they behaved in this place that promoted debauchery, I could gather enough information to figure out how dangerous a person was likely to be.

I knew all of the regulars.

I knew the times they came into the Saloon, their preferred menus, drink orders and when they wanted me or one of the other girls to simply sit and chat with them offering a discreet, compassionate-enough ear.

I also knew when they were about to cause the kind of trouble that I’d need to call in Gary, our 6 ft 5, hugely, buff bouncer to help them cool off outside.

I knew the kind of signs that could change my okay work day into a crazy one and I was just the type of woman to use this information to do my best to ensure everything went back to our preferred level of normalcy.

I’ve been doing this for years, it was a subconscious skill at this point, and that’s why the appearance of this mysterious man with the confident gait has me so …nervous…

Alert and guarded.

There has admittedly been an uptick in new patrons recently and while that is usually a good thing, it however, brought with it the unknown, the ones who didn’t know or care of the rules.

The ones who were craving trouble.

My eyes flicked over to a certain set of new customers that I have just been itching to get rid of, since they had arrived and had basically spread their presence like a plague all over the bar.

They were loud, boisterous and raucous in a way that befitted the 1800’s shoot ’em up saloon culture and not the fantasy bar I’m managing, but no matter how much they were annoying me, and irking the rest of the Saloon girls, they weren’t quite at the point where I could justifiably kick them out yet.

It was only a little after 6:30pm and the kind of trouble- aka fights- I usually expected to break out on days like these, when there was a palpable tension in the air and the loudness of the patrons took on a recklessly sharp edge, usually only got going from around 9p.m, the earliest.

Even so, I decided to keep my eyes keen on the likely offenders.

It was my job to not only serve the patrons, but ensure that the other waitresses and the patrons were as safe as possible while in the Saloon and needless to say I took my job very seriously.

Lounging as I was against the patrons’ side of the bar, the position I had taken up the moment the Mystery man had passed by, my eyes once again sought him out in the back.

He was sprawled leisurely in his chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him, not quite slouching as his eyes scanned the menus placed on the table next to him.

I wasn’t buying this disinterested act.

Lips pursed, eyes narrowed slightly, I felt my head tilt as I coyly turned my body fully towards his table in the back, considering what kind of trouble he would possibly bring soon.

He didn’t fit our usual style of regulars, nor trouble makers, but something about him felt…out of place. Off.

He was handsome, tall and had those broad shoulders, but he was giving off very confident yet oddly determined vibes.

This wasn’t usually the case for those who frequented nor stumbled into our little hole-in-the-wall saloon and what could he be determined about?

What could be in this bar to be so determined about?

It made me scan our patrons once again, my brain excited about this new puzzle and determined to solve it.

Unconsciously, I bit my lip as my eyes scanned the bar, and the other sections, now looking for clues about what the Stranger could be on the prowl for before they once again landed on the handsome man himself, as if compelled.

The way he had carried himself as he made his way across the room earlier had spoken volumes that he was not someone to be taken lightly.

This alone was enough to make him stand out like a sore thumb to me and the other ‘Saloon Girls’ as our boss liked to refer to us.

And oh! Haven’t I introduced myself yet?

I’m Lena and if I’m being honest had I just one inkling about just how terrible, yet extraordinary my shift was going to be today because of this mysterious man, I would have called in sick, curled up on my very comfy sofa and watched the drama unfold over the news, instead of being in the actual thick of it, running for my life.

Sigh!

You see, earlier that day I had walked into the two stories building that still featured the architecture from a long forgotten saloon, greeted the other Saloon girls as I usually did on my way to the door labelled Employees Only so I could put my purse into my locker, and started my shift, just like any other day.

However, that’s when he walked in, and even though I knew that he was going to be trouble, I was still the oblivious lamb who had no idea that just a few hours later would be chosen as a sacrifice for the slaughter.

Our boss Edwin Cartwright was a serious Old West Saloon fanatic and loved the idea of creating a place that catered to a surprisingly profitable niche market.

Those who usually came to this Saloon absolutely loved the vibe of it and came back pretty regularly.

The artificial lights within the building provided just enough ambience to imitate dusk at all times, creating a calm, yet mysterious and free atmosphere, no matter the time of day.

Most of our patrons were men, who could come in to eat, drink and watch sports on the huge LED TVs he had hung up around the restaurant area and in the Lounge.

They could play card games, checkers and darts as they slung back heavy drinks and beers readily poured from the bar and served on a platter from the lovely Saloon Girls.

They could also drown their sorrows in their drinks while spilling their guts to one of the Saloon girls if they so chose in the ‘Confessional’ ,an area so coined by the waitresses that hosted a few loveseats and sofas artfully placed to offer a sense of privacy.

And because Edwin loved the ‘authentic yet modernised' vibe of the Saloon, there would frequently be live bands and artists booked to deepen the ‘ambience’.

There was absolutely no prostitution allowed within the Saloon. That was where he drew the line.

A Saloon Girl was basically a waitress, but we could also garner tips by chatting with our patrons as we plied them with more ‘commissioned’ drinks.

This meant we toed the line with our patrons and how ‘close’ we allowed them to be at all times, because at least half of the regulars could be very needy.

That was what made the Stranger stand out even more, because his self-assuredness clashed furiously within the context of what we usually experienced from those who walked through our doors.

Looking around the bar, I exchanged meaningful stares with the other Saloon girls, knowing he had piqued all of our interests, even as the other patrons in the bar continued to be oblivious of his presence, too wrapped up in their own pursuits or trying to forget their own struggles.

Settling into his seat, legs sprawled ahead of him, a table away from an ongoing, obnoxiously loud poker’s game with some of the rowdier new patrons, he presented an air of someone just looking to chill and be entertained, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was actually searching for someone in particular.

Overcome by my curiosity, drawn in by his magnetism and competitively determined to get to him before any of the other girls could approach him, I abandoned my post by the bar, making my way towards his table, my cheeks aflame as the other Saloon girls grinned cheekily, throwing out knowing looks at me.

In those quick moments of eye contact, they had all tacitly agreed that I would be serving this literal tall, dark stranger, even though this was not actually my section this evening, but I suspected the other girls were intrigued by what could happen next between me and this man.

Believe it or not, I’m usually a quieter kind of girl compared to the rest of our waitresses.

I’m nice and perhaps more accommodating to my regulars, but I could never have been described as ‘eager’ before. It was rare that I was drawn to any of our patrons or so curious about them that I made the first move.

Now my heart was foolishly beating a wild staccato beneath my ribs as I quickened my stride to be near him faster.

Walking almost trance-like in his direction, I couldn’t help but notice the way the black T-shirt complimented his dark complexion and hugged the outline of his athletic physique.

He was still giving off an air of ‘relaxed patron’, man-spreading out of the seat, but as our eyes met for the briefest of moments, something unreadable flashed across his face too quickly for me to decipher before he blinked and his gaze slid away.

His eyes glazed over as if he hadn’t actually, truly seen me, or cared enough to acknowledge the connection, before they retrained themselves to something just over my shoulder.

Instinctively curious, and only slightly jealous, I also turned to see what- who- he was looking at so intensely while trying to be subtle about it.

Was it another Saloon girl that had caught his eye, the TV screen or was it another patron?- when out of nowhere, I felt a burly arm wrap itself around my waist.

An undignified squawk left my lips as I was shocked back to cold, hard reality.

Dammit!

In my haste, I had walked into a horrible trap.

All evening, this particular bunch of rowdy men who were playing cards and drinking strong liquor, had been nothing but a bane to our work day, grabbing at the Saloon Girls , almost coming to blows with each other as the games went on,  and being  the worst kind of drunk nuisances.

They were repeat offenders who seemed to have left their manners in another dimension entirely, but they were smart enough to not go too overboard, and they kept buying drinks.

We are no strangers to drunk nuisances, this is a Saloon after all, so unless they attacked us or actually got into a fight, they could stay.

Unfortunately for me, they were the closest table to the reserved stranger and for some reason, a few of them looked really familiar to me, though I could not for the life of me figure out why.

As I’ve said before they were not regulars and as far as I knew, this was the very first time they had ever visited this Saloon.

In my haste to reach the Stranger, I failed to notice that one of them had risen from his chair and wrapped his large arm around my waist until it was too late.

Now, he was crushing me to him, holding me against his big, barrel chest, positively reeking of stale, sour whiskey and pungent cigarette smoke.

The shock of being grabbed and pressed so closely to this foul smelling, sweaty man, left me breathless and chilled, immobilising me for a moment.

"Aren’t you de purttiest li’l ting?" he slurred.

His pungent breath as he bent lower to speak, nearly singed my ear as his associates, still seated at the table, began to roar with raucous laughter, while I could only manage a very weak smile while I tried to politely pry myself away from him.

Generally, when regulars got too handsy, this signal  worked, as most of the regulars usually came back to their senses, realising that if they didn’t they would get thrown very forcefully out of the Saloon by our bouncer.

Yet, at this moment all my signal managed to achieve was to make his hold around me grow tighter and tighter, until I was sure he meant to break me in two.

Suddenly, he was trying to grope me, putting on a show for the obscenely cheering men at the table.

Angrily, I wrestled against him, grabbing at those gross wandering hands, see-sawing between wanting to kick him out and my unofficial job to coax him into settling down and buying more drinks.

Taking a deep breath, I reminded myself that sometimes this happens and prepared myself to say my usual threatening lines, after  plastering a fake, sweet smile on my lips, “ If you don’t let me go, I’ll have to get Gary to deal with you. We don't want that, yes?”

Not only did he not take the hint and release me, but this big buffoon actually had the gall to be grinning like some deranged maniac, shouting for all the world that he knew how much I wanted him.

I didn’t even know who he was and he was so gross, how could I want him?

Rage shot through me like a lightning strike, taking with it all of my patience with this brute when he audaciously  tightened his hold on me.

"Are you out of your damned mind?" I yelled, anger spiking through me at realising he had no intention of behaving, "Get your foul-smelling-self, off of me!"

He was still trying to grope me, pawing at me while I struggled when I swung my hand back and connected it with a resounding thwack right across his cheek, the impact stinging my palm and stalling the entire Saloon as the sound bounced off the walls, drowning out all the other noises.

Everyone collectively held their breaths, terrified, yet wide eyed interested in what would happen next.

Within the unnerving silence, the echo of my uncharacteristically loud scolding, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of a hard slap across the face reverberated painfully and regretfully within the cavernous room, piercing my heart and freezing everyone in its wake.

I am rarely flustered.

I have never been in this kind of situation before where a patron has been so rude to me, had the audacity to actually grab me and worse, made me resort to violence.

All eyes were on us, but no one dared to move, waiting with baited breath as the loud patron in the ensuing silence turned his head back towards me slowly. Intimidatingly, eyes alight with murderous intent.

He was still holding onto my waist tightly, but even he was frozen, mouth agape, eyes twitching as if it had never occurred to him that I would make such a scene.

Truthfully, it hadn’t occurred to me either, and now I’m agitated from my out of character response, chest heaving rapidly.

The men from the table had regained themselves and started jeering at my captor, laughing at the situation as if my discomfort was somehow comical to them.

“Oh! She got you good!”

“Put you in your fucking place!”

“Looka this pussy! Head almost flew off!”

In the midst of their raucous sneering, I realised that this ridiculous situation was about to go right off the rails and I just cannot allow that.

The last thing I needed tonight was for this ridiculousness to escalate into a full on bar fight- which it absolutely would the moment Gary caught on to this situation.

The clean up and property damage would be insane.

Taking a deep breath in a quick attempt at calming my anger, I said in as polite and friendly a tone as I could, “Sir. Please, release me” .

If he released me, then the patrons could breathe again, the Saloon girls could get back to work and I could continue on my way to investigate the handsome Stranger.

In short, the evening could still be salvaged.

Little harm, no foul.

Yet, even with everyone’s eyes on us, even as we had become the most interesting and entertaining show of the night, my captor was clearly not feeling any of the shame or guilt I was for disrupting the overall vibe of the Saloon, nor was he interested in dropping the act.

His grip, almost reflectively got even tighter, forcing me to clench my jaw and grit out a low, “Right now!”

As if coming back to himself, seeming a bit cowed from the jeering and all the eyes on us, he shook me as if I was the cause of all his problems.

“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” he snarled.

His foul breath blasted into my face, while he bodily tried to rag-doll me, demanding, “Who the fuck do you think you are?!”

Is this man for real?! I thought, my anger reappearing with a vengeance.

The tension in the room was heightening and the pressure of all those eyes on me felt like an actual weight, as they- some of the patrons and my colleagues seemed to be waiting for a sign from me to intervene.

I didn’t want to give in.

I wanted to forget this was even happening, but once again, my captor was having none of it, throwing slurs and other threats right into my face.

“Take that back, you dirty lil bitch or I’ll teach you a less’n in manners!"  he slurred, his big, disgusting hands pawing at me again and I snapped.

Grabbing his hand, I bent his fingers in the opposite direction, twisted his wrist and then jabbed my other hand into his Adam's apple as hard as I could.

“ Now fucking get your hands off of me!” I yelled.

He immediately released me to grab at his throat, unable to breathe properly and doubled over, his body reactively retreating from me.

Watching him, chest still heaving and hearing the loud gasp of the gathering crowd, a lump of apprehension formed in my throat at the realisation that this night was only actually going to get worse.

I had failed.

Not only had I failed to diffuse the situation, but my anger had added fuel to the fire and now all I could do was watch as it all burnt to the ground and tried to take me down with it.

My heart beated in double time from the sheer induced anger at his gall, my hands formed fists at his brutish nature and I felt a bubble of mixed emotions, covered in almost blind rage engulf my chest.

I felt wronged, at the end of my patience and fully pissed off.

"I think you’re the one who needs the lesson in manners," I said hotly, feeling seconds away from striking him once again.

Gary, our bouncer ,who had been on break when this ridiculous confrontation started, burst back into the room, a Saloon girl - who I assume had alerted him-,hot on his heels before pausing to fully take in the scene, then moving with large, determined strides towards us.

Even though Gary was coming to my rescue, somewhere in the back of my mind I knew it was already too late.

Truthfully, I would have loved it if my captor had just simply released me, dropped back into his seat, resumed his game and allowed the night to have worn on as if nothing had ever happened.

The appearance of a fuming Gary, all but confirmed that a bigger fight was probably imminent, especially after this man had already refused to play by the clearly established rules of the Saloon.

I knew from experience that men always got extra stupid in front of their friends and peers, particularly when drinking and in their competitive mode and I had just humiliated him publicly.

Distracted as I was with Gary’s appearance, and the ramifications of my own actions, I didn’t notice that my once captor  had risen up, taken a deep breath and was advancing towards my retreating back.

“Lena!” I heard Gary call to me in warning, but I had no time to even process the warning before finding myself once again captured.

The barrel-chested man, who clearly didn’t know when he was beaten, lunged towards me with murder in his eyes, grabbed my  wrist and violently jerked me around to face him again.

Alarmed, I watched as his eyes flicked over to gauge the reaction of the other men at the table, and whatever their expressions were, it had doomed us both.

His face scrunched up in distaste and false bravado,his brows furrowed and his mouth downturned into a scowl.

I knew the signs of a coward about to start something they couldn’t finish, looking to save face by assaulting whom they considered to be a weaker person.

In this bar, I had seen this countless times, but today I uncharacteristically found myself on the receiving end of this ridiculous posturing.

What the fuck?

I tried to wrestle away from him again,but his grip was just short of crushing and my admittedly weakened slaps and kicks were ineffectual.

Wisely he dodged all of my strikes to his face and throat.

My eyes searched wildly for Gary as I panicked, mind suddenly too foggy to think my way out of this quickly.

I had just located him pushing through the throng of useless on-lookers, literally shoving people out of his way, his mouth moving as he stormed towards us, teeth flashing.

He was probably shouting at the man, but it didn’t seem to matter.

I couldn’t hear him through this weird fear I was experiencing, which manifested as a high whine in my ears, but if my captor heard him, he gave no inclination, too set apparently on getting his revenge.

Seriously, who was this man? Why wasn’t he backing down?

Panicking, I lifted my leg, fully intending on kneeing him between his legs, but he dodged; my kick landed on his thigh hard, but instead of hurting him enough to release me, it only pissed him off more.

My heart was beating maniacally against my chest, yet I suddenly felt cold and almost hopeless-, a drastic contrast to the heat and steel firmness of the man who had captured me.

In what felt like the worst moment of my life, I watched as if in slow motion as the man lifted his hand, palm opening wide, along with my eyes the moment I clued in to his malicious intent.

Gary was still too far away and I was neither strong nor fast enough to defend myself in time.

His hand swung from above my head, coming down with the speed and force of a falling sledgehammer, and a squeak escaped my lips as I braced myself for the pain of  impact.

He began throwing more obscenities in my face, seemingly delighted as I tried to cower away from the forthcoming blow.

This was not a battle I could win, and for the first time since I had started working at the Gun & Tumble Saloon, I was scared.

Well and truly scared.

Suddenly, mid-strike, his palm just centimeters from my face, someone caught his hand and in this low voice filled with barely leashed rage drawled, "It’d be wise if you released her."

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