This paragraph with Cook's first lines is chef's-kiss good! Love it.
--having just cold-read the incognito marshal like a frontier Holmes NICE (especially coming after "I'm a bum. Every dollar I get I spend on hard liquor"--such a disarming confession; such a contrast with Holmesian perception.)
--a character who seems impossible to fluster, correctly forecasting the marshal's chances of selling his horse or buying a gun, unceremoniously ejected from the saloon to dust himself off like an indignant cat and report back the information successfully gleaned by his wistful loitering. --I mean, how can one not fall in love with "dust himself off like an indignant cat"?? I love it. But also, "report back the information successfully gleaned by his wistful loitering." What an economical and graceful and just all-around pleasing way of putting it.
--He produces a couple of hard-boiled eggs from nowhere and nicely salts them to share, throwing in with a gunless marshal against a known trio of stone killers with a lackadaisical shrug and an afterthought dash of luck over his shoulder: "I ain't doing nothing today." --I would love to see it, but I'll probably content myself with your review, as I'm maxed out, for the moment, on opening even free accounts at places.
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--having just cold-read the incognito marshal like a frontier Holmes NICE (especially coming after "I'm a bum. Every dollar I get I spend on hard liquor"--such a disarming confession; such a contrast with Holmesian perception.)
--a character who seems impossible to fluster, correctly forecasting the marshal's chances of selling his horse or buying a gun, unceremoniously ejected from the saloon to dust himself off like an indignant cat and report back the information successfully gleaned by his wistful loitering. --I mean, how can one not fall in love with "dust himself off like an indignant cat"?? I love it. But also, "report back the information successfully gleaned by his wistful loitering." What an economical and graceful and just all-around pleasing way of putting it.
--He produces a couple of hard-boiled eggs from nowhere and nicely salts them to share, throwing in with a gunless marshal against a known trio of stone killers with a lackadaisical shrug and an afterthought dash of luck over his shoulder: "I ain't doing nothing today." --I would love to see it, but I'll probably content myself with your review, as I'm maxed out, for the moment, on opening even free accounts at places.