Lucky reached over to the fat, dead, standing man and removed his bandana. Luckily, the bandana had remained bullet hole free. Lucky wiped the gore off his face and made a point of not looking at the rag when he was done. He stepped over to Stretch, squatted on his haunches, took Stretch's hat, and stuffed the wadded up bloody bandana into his screaming mouth.
The screaming became muffled, but it didn't stop. Worse still, Stretch was feebly trying to remove the obstruction in his mouth with his one good hand. Still on his haunches, Lucky searched all the dead men's pockets. Confirming his hunch, only Dave had anything of worth on his person. Wads of cash. Figuring the dead Dave had no need of such wealth, Lucky stuffed the bills into his own pockets.
Stretch was still vainly tugging at the fabric in his mouth. Lucky stood up and stretched, looking around the room as he did so. The bottle of tequila he was looking for had, Lucky sadly noted, smashed on the floor. Presumably from when he had had his argument with gravity.
Stretch managed to get a bit of the rag out of his mouth, his screaming got that much louder.
Lucky slammed his heel down hard into Stretch's throat. Spur first. The screaming stopped. Lucky walked over to the bar, handed Hector what he hoped was a large bill and said, "That's fer the mess and two bottles o' tequila. Courtesy of my old friend Steve."
Hector looked as if he was going to say something, but then reconsidered. He handed Lucky a much nicer bottle of tequila. Lucky took it with a smile and sauntered to the saloon door. He put on Stretch's hat and was not surprised at all to find it a perfect fit. He turned to face the room and tipped his hat.
"Ma'am." he said and then slipped out into the storm.
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