Vampire Cowboy by Juliet Chastain

Chapter One
     
    Every single person in the run-down saloon stared at Daniel when he walked in a few minutes after dark. No problem, he was used to being stared at—after all, with his pale skin, almost colorless eyes and dark-blond hair, he didn’t look like most other people. What he wasn’t used to was being laughed at. The sniggers that ran up and down the bar surprised and annoyed him.
    He inhaled deeply. Along with the smell of beer, tobacco and the unwashed bodies of hard-working men filled the room. Preferable, he thought, to the odor of a roomful of perfumed dandies. He’d tired of that life—his elegant, decadent existence in Europe—and had crossed the ocean to America hoping to find something different. This tiny town of Haley, in the middle of nowhere, certainly was different. Everything was dry, dusty and colorless and so were the people who lived there.
    He returned the smile of the sole woman in the place. She sat at the far end of the scarred bar, self-consciously patting the elaborate mass of ribbons and curls that framed her narrow face. Bit scrawny for my taste, he thought. If I took her in my arms I’d feel every bone. I’d like someone with more flesh on her, but I can feed just as well from a thin woman as from a shapelier one.
    A big man with a scowling, florid face turned on his bar stool to look him up and down.
    “Whatcha smilin’ at, bunko?” the man rumbled.
    “I’m smiling at the beautiful lady at the end of the bar.” Daniel bowed to her. “I came in here looking for a good game of cards.” He could sense trouble coming, which didn’t bother him particularly. He was stronger than any mortal—and faster.
    Putting his hat on the bar, he parked himself on a seat facing outward, feet on the floor, ready in case the big man—or anyone in the saloon—was foolish enough to attack him. The man next to him, who smelled strongly of cow and tobacco, made as if to push the hat off the bar. Frowning, Daniel looked him full in the face. The cowboy paled, cleared his throat and changed his mind.
    “Don’t wanna cause no problems,” he said.
    “Then stay in your seat, friend,” Daniel advised. “I have no particular desire for trouble myself.”
    The big man lurched to his feet and came over to stand right in front of Daniel, his meaty fists twitching.
    “You think you’re a better man than us?”
    “Not really. It’s true that I am better dressed, and cleaner too, but does that make me better?” I can’t be a better man , he thought, because I’m not really a man at all. I was once, but that was a long time ago.
    “Leave him be, Billy Joe,” said the man behind the bar. “What you want to drink, mister?”
    “Cognac.” Daniel kept his unwavering gaze on Billy Joe’s angry face.
    “Sorry, but we don’t got that. We got whiskey and bourbon and we got beer.”
    “I’ll have bourbon,” Daniel said. “And please take care of the gentleman next to me at my expense.”
    “You’re so white,” said Billy Joe. “I bet you never did an honest day’s work in your whole life. I bet you ain’t nothin’ but a goddamn sissy.” He stepped closer, his broad, red face only inches from Daniel’s. His breath reeked of whiskey. “And I don’t like the way you’re lookin’ at me.”
    “To be perfectly honest, I don’t much care for the way you are studying me.”
    The man swung at him. Not as clumsy as Daniel had expected, but just the same, he wasn’t there when the fist should have hit him. He pushed Billy Joe so hard that the man fell backward to the floor.
    “Dicky, Albert,” Billy Joe roared. “Whatcha standing there for? Get the son of a bitch.”
    Two men charged Daniel. He sent one flying in one direction and the other the opposite way. The first crashed into a cowboy running forward to join the fray. The second rammed butt first into a table where three men were yelling “You show him Albert” and “Git him Dickey”. Men and chairs went skittering across the