The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky: Part 2 Summary & Analysis

Inside the town watering hole, the Weary Gentleman saloon, are six men: a drummer who is new to the town, three Texans, and two Mexican sheepherders sit at the bar. In front of the door, the barkeeper’s dog lays lazily on the boardwalk. Across the sandy street from the saloon are “vivid green grass-plots” that resemble “grass mats used to represent lawns on the stage.” Circling the town, the “fresh-cut” bank of the Rio Grande gives way to “a great plum-colored plain of mesquite.” The town is largely placid and asleep, save for the patrons in the Weary Gentleman.

The drummer regales the other patrons with fantastic tales until a young man enters the saloon and proclaims that Scratchy Wilson is drunk and “turned loose with both hands.” This news causes the two Mexican sheepherders to lower their glasses and quietly slip out the saloon’s back entrance, while the remaining patrons become “Instantly solemn.” 

The perplexed drummer wonders about the “chapel-like gloom” that descends upon the saloon. He watches as the barkeeper locks, then bars the door, and pulls down the saloon’s heavy window shutters. The young man tells him, “for the next two hours this town won't be a health resort.” When the drummer asks if this portends a shootout, another patron warns that there will most certainly be some “good shootin,’” while the young man guarantees that a fight is coming. The drummer’s curiosity piques. He asks again the name of the man who is causing so much fear, and the patrons answer in chorus, “Scratchy Wilson!” 

The drummer unleashes a barrage of questions about Scratchy Wilson. “Will he kill anybody?” “Can he break down the door?” The barkeeper replies that Wilson has failed to break down the door before, but he warns the drummer to get low, as Wilson is certain to try to shoot his way into the saloon. As the drummer lies on the floor, the other patrons insist that Wilson is “out to shoot” and “out for trouble.”

Only Jack Potter can stop Wilson, the patrons claim. They tell the drummer that Potter is the town marshal who “goes out and fights Scratchy when he gets on one of these tears,” but unfortunately, Potter is in San Antonio. The chatter in the saloon dampens down to “mere whispering.” Still flush with questions “born of an increasing anxiety and bewilderment,” the drummer waits in silence for Wilson to arrive. The barkeeper pours a full glass of whiskey for a patron who promptly gulps it down, then takes up a Winchester rifle and motions for the drummer to hide behind the bar.

The barkeeper tells the drummer that Scratchy Wilson is a “wonder with a gun” and “the last one of the old gang” that hung around the river. Although harmless when sober, the barkeeper adds, alcohol turns Wilson into “a terror.” As the barkeeper laments that Jack Potter is not in town to deal with Wilson, he hears a shot in the distance followed by several wild “yowls.” Scratchy Wilson is heading towards the saloon.