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Johann and Olds walked briskly down the street. Olds' spurs clinked with each step.
"Five silver pieces, is that good?" Johann asked.
"Not good enough, I'm afraid, but I've never sold rabbit and boar skins before." Olds replied. He could sense that already people were watching them from the shadows of the alleys, doorways, and windows —spying their movements, trying to size the two of them up, and check for any weaknesses. Unseen scoundrels made little calculations of whether or not Oldsmobill and Johann had anything worth fighting for, and how hard they might fight to keep it. Olds knew the boots would attract attention, that he is why he wore them. But now, he wondered if it was the kind of attention he actually wanted.
"Remember to keep your guard up Johann...we've already attracted some suspicious glances our way."
"Aye, I've noticed. I'm beginning to wonder if wearing a rabbit suit would have been a better idea."
Olds suddenly heard the familiar sounds of a pub — familiar, because pubs, bars, and saloons seem to sound exactly the same no matter where they are located in the world. The sign above the bar read: 'The Hoof and Mouth'. He stopped in front of the establishment and stared at the darkened doorway, but Johann kept walking a ways before he suddenly noticed that there wasn't any more jingling and jangling. He eventually stopped as well.
"What say we have a cup of ale, my good friend?" Olds brightly bubbled.
"What? In there?" Johann replied. He looked at the weather-beaten building and curled his lips in displeasure. "Sorry, but I don't like having a shiv shoved in my kidneys while I'm drinking."
"Oh, I'm sure we have nothing to fear...its looks like a nice, family establishment."
"Yea, if your family belongs to the Mafia."
Olds put his arm around his friend and began walking him in. "We need gold, and where better to find it then in there?"
Johann grunted and gave Olds a derisive look. "The only gold we're liable to find in there are from the stolen teeth of pensioners."
Olds just smirked and led Johann upon a little porch in front of the tavern. It too was weather-beaten and rickety, and contained an assortment of empty jugs, casks, and broken Grecian urns. There was an elderly blind man sitting near the corner on a chair. He was petting a dog that had large chunks of dried mud matted in its fur. The old geezer smiled and held out his hand as the two walked up. Olds slapped it with his own and said, "Wha's up, old-timer?"
The old man rubbed his fingers together, grumbled, and then sent a glob of spit toward the street.
The inside of the bar was dark and smoky. There was no door, just splinters in the doorway where the hinges had once been. As the two casually walked into the place, they saw the type of den where angels fear to tread, mainly because they would surely have their wings and halos ripped-off the minute they walked inside, and quickly sold at the nearest pawn shop.
The place had the usual assortment of low-life's. Around worn tables they sat — rogues and rascals of all types. There were hooded muggers and sneak thieves ― always on the lookout for an elderly man to roll for his bifocals and gum-wrappers. There were road bandits and highwaymen, with their muddy boots and handkerchiefs, just having a few drinks until the next unguarded shipment of cantaloupes or breaded fish sticks made its way down the road. In the far corner, and in what so happened to be the darkest part of the bar, was a table of thuggish outlaws, just in town to rest their horses, and to determine which babies they could steal candy from next.
To Olds' left, near the door and in front of the only window in the place, were a one-eyed mandolin player and an elderly gent holding a large scroll.
"Great," Olds sarcastically whispered, "we arrived right in the middle of a karaoke competition."
As if on cue, the mandolin player started playing a few familiar notes, as the old man, in a deep baritone voice started to slowly sing:
"There is...a house...in New Orleans, they call the 'Rising Sun'..."
With each step Olds' spurs clinked and plinked, accompanied by the thump of his heavy boots upon the worn floorboards. He sounded quite a bit like Clint Eastwood did in every movie where he happened to amble into a spaghetti-western bistro.
"Clump, jing! Clump, jing! Clumb, jing!"
The two sat down on a couple of stools, and when the barkeeper, a rather large fellow with a very pug-shaped nose, looked to them, Olds asked for two pints of ale. He poured the drinks into a pair of handcrafted wooden mugs ― expertly carved to look like pineapples. He smiled mulishly and collected two silver coins, before resuming his effort at seeing how far his index finger would fit inside his left nostril.
Johann took a deep drink. He secretly loved ale; mainly because it was so thick and heavy that it was more like eating a meal than drinking a beverage. Wiping the little foam mustache onto his sleeve, he exclaimed, "Heh, it's surprisingly good!"
Though no one had, as of yet, made any obvious signs of it, Olds knew that several pairs of eyes were intently watching them. Some just glanced over repeatedly. Others bent their heads down and stared intently. Olds sipped his ale, and agreed with Johann, it was quite good.
The two sat in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the little reward they had spent their money on, and thinking that a little peace and a little ale is certainly worth two pieces of silver.
A bearded fellow stepped up to the bar and flipped the barkeep a silver piece. "Ale," he demanded.
Olds looked over at the strange figure, for even though the man was wearing all black and had a full, dark beard, he sounded like a woman imitating a man's voice. The figure downed the ale quickly and motioned for another. A few seconds later, a high-pitched hiccup popped out of his mouth. He put a dark-gloved hand to his beard and stated in the same low, odd voice, "Excuse me."
Olds' suspicious left eyebrow rose. He was about to say something to the rosy-cheeked man with the rather smooth features, when the darkly-clad figure took the remainder of the ale and bounded over to a dark corner of the bar. Oldsmobill continued to stare as he caught a faint whiff of perfume in the air. He was pondering what he had just witnessed when he suddenly heard a strange sound ― it was a 'thump-tock' sound as if someone was stomping their foot and then rapping the floorboards with their cane. At first, Olds thought a percussionist had joined the karaoke session, but the beat was way off. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a rather peculiar sight.
After performing a double take ― for it took him a moment to fully register what he had actually seen ― he whispered, "Now, why...in a bar...in Fouldune...hundreds of miles from any type of ocean...would there be...a pirate?"
Johann stared at the peg-legged buccaneer slowly limping towards them and softly asked, "I wonder what he does with all his right-footed shoes?"
The pirate was rather tall and burly with a thick, black beard and long, dark, curly hair. He had a Napoleonic three-sided hat on his head and a dark-blue coat with tarnished gold buttons and fuzzy shoulder boards, His dirty pants had probably originally been white, but were now a mixture of khaki and gray, and they billowed out at the knees. His left leg contained a knee-high black boot, while his right had a large, oval-shaped chunk of wood. There was also a parrot on his shoulder, though upon closer examination it turned out to just be a badly-stuffed pigeon that had been sloppily painted many colors. It was obviously pinned, or possibly sewn, to the shoulder of his jacket.
The pirate leaned against the bar and looked directly at Olds, who was attempting to hide his face with his hand. The pirate next pulled out a long-stemmed pipe and began puffing upon it. Several seconds later, he decided it best to actually light the silly thing. A thin stream of smoke wafted into the air and filled the bar room with the charred and slightly grassy bouquet of burning cow manure.
Olds took a very long drink, and after finishing the ale, brought the flagon down hard upon the bar — producing a loud "thunk." He quickly turned to the buccaneer and firmly stated, "If you say 'Aargh', I'm going to crack you in the side of the head with this flagon, got it?"
The pirate's face was suddenly filled with confusion and astonishment. He tried mouthing several words — touching the end of his teeth with the tip of his tongue, looking about, furrowing his brow, and biting his bottom lip — but nothing came out. Finally, he rolled his eyes, and in a voice that sounded like the inevitable, simply whispered: "Aargh."
Olds' flagon connected right above the pirate's left temple and the old buccaneer feel hard upon the floor. The stuffed pigeon rolled about in a semi-circle around his head. The old scallywag's peg-leg suddenly fell off ― revealing a clean, and wiggling, but perfectly healthy, bare foot.
"I warned you!" Olds jumped up and yelled, while pointing down at the befuddled buccaneer." You can't say I didn't warn you!"
The pirate waved his hands in a front of him, and in a somewhat tragic and pleading voice, cried, "Aargh! But, I don't know how to start a sentence without saying it...aargh!" He covered his head and fully expected a good flogging at that point.
Johann calmly looked round the bar and notice that no one else was paying much attention to what was going on, but he could feel that everyone in the place was actually paying very close attention to everything that was going on.
Meanwhile, Olds started to smile, and after looking upon the poor wreck a little, offered his hand to him. The pirate, after a few cautious seconds, accepted it and was helped to his feet. He sat down next to Olds and said to the barman: "Aargh! A pint of ye finest brew, matey."
The pig-nosed server withdrew his index finger, looked at it a second, and slowly poured a pint of ale. "The name's Henry," the bartender said plainly, while sitting a pint jar in front of the pirate, "...Not 'matey'. That'll be a silver from ya...admiral."
The buccaneer gave him a sneering look and flipped him a silver coin. He then bent down and picked up his stuffed pigeon and faux peg-leg. He looked over at Olds and flashed a greenish-yellow smile.
"Aargh, name's Cap'n Kidneybean, matey...'tis always a pleasure to meet a man well-versed in the art of flagon flogging." He next held out what appeared to be a dirty hoof with fingers.
Oldsmobill shook his hand and introduced himself and Johann. He humbly apologized for hitting the Cap'n in the head, but he had thought the buccaneer was a horrible stereotype and didn't want him tarnishing his reputation. But after the captain's fake peg-leg fell off, Olds quickly realized that he was only a harmless parody.
The salty, old, brine-drinker accepted his apology, for Oldsmobill seemed quite sincere — and who could possibly resist those puppy-dog eyes?
Cap'n Kidneybean shrugged off the obvious assault and battery charges and bought a round of brews for the two. During the conversation that followed, the Cap'n said that he was in town looking for shipmates on a little trade vessel that was heading down river the following morning. He stated that he was taking a cargo of fine Italian marble and a few planks of expensive wood up the Mea Culpa River for the Royal Palace re-modeling effort in Rottweillor.
During this entire conversation, he kept trying to get his fake parrot to stay upon his shoulder, but every time he pinned the feathery object to his coat, it would stand straight for only a second or two, before falling face-down upon his chest. "Aargh!" he growled, "This 'ere parrot has lost all his avian self-esteem."
He quickly pulled out a large roll of duct-tape from his coat pocket and messily adhered the feathered blob to his shoulder. "Aargh! That's more like it, now his confidence appears to be on the upswing."
Johann rolled his eyes. He then forcefully grabbed Oldsmobill's arm, as well as his attention, and rolled his eyes again — just for emphasis.
At that moment, a thin skeleton of a man took the karaoke stage and did an amazing rendition of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower."
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