Graham Rowat

The one in white spoke next with that same odd dialect.

Jacob tried to be friendlier than he had been all day.

He didn't want to lose these customers, strange though they might have been.

They all nodded, and the one in black, perhaps their leader, spoke for them.

Jacob squinted at the man, his muddy brown eyes meeting the gray ones buried in flesh, almost as gray.

They shook their heads, and for the first time, the one in the suit of pale green spoke.

Jacob smiled, a big, wide smile that took considerable effort to maintain.

The more these four men spoke out of their pale, fleshy faces, the more Jacob wanted them out of his bar.

There was something off about them.

Something that was, in his opinion, foul.

Just looking at them had made him pick up on a bad scent.

The way the man in black put it sounded like an apology, at least on the surface.

But Jacob couldn't help but feel that he was being ordered about.

He sure as hell didn't like being ordered about, certainly not by some out-of-town bastards with their clay faces and their fancy suits.

He looked down for a second and saw that the knuckles around the bottle he held were white.

The man in black continued.

The short, hunched little monster of a man nodded a head topped with a mossy green hat, oily skin glistening.

The two other brothers obliged, like coyotes howling at the sound of their pack leader.

The one in white taking initiative next.

The man in red reached forward and shook Jacob's hand.