The locals called him Spittoon Muldoon.
Or Billy the Book.
Each one fit the humble barkeep just as well as the other, and together they wrapped up all anybody knew about the man who always had a good word for the patrons of the Calvary Saloon.
He loved his tobacky …
And he always carried that strange leather book with him. Spent every night behind the bar reading and scribbling notes, folding little pieces of paper into its pages.
So it was no surprise to Sam Waters when he walked into the fancy white church to find that Billy had carried the cracked and weathered volume with him all the way to the end.
What had surprised the sheriff of Smallwood was that Billy had any ties to the fancy folks in Clinton at all.
Truth was, no one had known where the old man spent his days until that telegraph arrived two days before, on Friday.
Sam had posted notices around Smallwood and told the folks he ran into, but he didn’t expect to see many of them in Clinton on Sunday.
He had been wrong, though.
One whole side of the church was filled with Sam’s own neighbors and friends.
The other was filled with strangers.
As Sam looked down on Billy lying there in the casket, he heard them all whispering the tavern keeper’s name.
“How did you know Reverend Muldoon?” a soft voice asked from Sam’s right.
He barely even noticed the young girl standing beside him, because his gaze was focused on the cover of Spittoon’s mysterious book.
Its cover read, “Holy Bible.”
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