WOODY CREEK, Colo. — They say the Woody Creek Tavern, with its leopard-print carpet and chipped wooden booths, is the center of the universe in this hamlet a few mountain tops from Aspen.

For Hunter S. Thompson, it was bigger than that.

The hard-living journalist, who committed suicide Sunday, held court in this pleasantly seedy saloon for decades. He preferred the barstool by the door, where he could tuck himself in on cold winter nights, swig Chivas Regal and rail against the world.

Friends of the man who coined the term "gonzo journalism" and wrote best sellers such as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" gathered around the bar today, trying to figure out this last, most shocking chapter of an already outrageous life.

"I don't know why he would leave us like that," said Gaylord Guenin, a local journalist who had known Thompson for 30 years. "I hope it was an accident — I'd feel better if it was."

Steve Bennett, a bartender, stared at the stuffed marlin on the wall and considered the point.

"Well, it could have been an accident; he always had loaded weapons around," Bennett said. "Anyone who would shoot propane tanks with a .357 magnum could have easily done something like this by accident. And if a weird thought crossed his mind, he would act on it without thinking twice."

Thompson, 67, was found dead in his kitchen Sunday evening with a single gunshot wound to the head. The Pitkin County Sheriff's Department said the death was a suicide.

Today, friends said they had noticed nothing out of the ordinary about the journalist -- at least nothing that was at odds with his mercurial temperament. But Thompson's health had been fading. He had been staying home more often because of painful back surgery, a hip replacement and a recently broken leg.

"I saw him last week, and he didn't look too good," Bennett said. "He seemed upbeat, but he had so many mood swings it was hard to tell. He was a larger-than-life character who will be hard to replace, and I'm not sure you'd want to."

Thompson lived in a secluded compound along a rural highway a mile or so from the tavern. Friends said he liked to pass the time firing automatic weapons, writing and drinking heavily. He typically woke at 5 p.m., wrote through the night and then slept all day.

His death seems to have winded Woody Creek, a wealthy enclave eight miles northwest of Aspen. For some, Thompson was beyond merely eccentric -- he was an enigma. He could be rude and nasty, then turn on a dime and be sweet and lovable.

"Everyone sort of adopted him and accepted him as he was," said Mary Harris, owner of the Woody Creek Tavern. "I used to live next door to him. I'd hear gunshots coming from his back yard. We used to hang out. He liked to come in when we closed. He could be a bully or your best friend."

Thompson came to the Aspen area in the early 1960s. Back then, it had a rough-and-tumble quality that's since been replaced by extreme wealth and gentility.

Guenin, who at one time edited the now-defunct Aspen Illustrated, recalled getting long, rambling letters to the paper from the acerbic Thompson -- who would sign his name "Adolf Eichmann."

"We all knew it was him, but that was just his style," said Guenin, 70, as he sucked a nicotine tablet to ward off his cigarette cravings.

Some said Thompson's stunts were more for public consumption than anything else.

"I knew Hunter for 25 years, and I think some of what he did was an act," said Joel Lapin, drinking a beer at the tavern. "He was an extremely intelligent man. He would walk around town with a drink in his hand, but it was his persona, like Groucho Marx with the cigar."

Groupies liked to drop in on Thompson at the tavern or call and ask for him. He didn't respond well to such invasions of his privacy. Unless they had been introduced through an intermediary, Thompson didn't talk much to strangers, his friends said.

As shocking as the suicide was for many folks here, others weren't surprised.

"It was entirely predictable," said George Stranahan, a local businessman. "Hunter fiercely determined the course of his own life. He was as honest a man as you will find. I say the king is dead, long live the king!"