I stopped at the door of the saloon to see what was in front
of us. There were a couple of cowboys at
a table on the left. McMasters went
to join them. Three vaqueros from my
ranch were seated behind them. Juan
glanced up and caught my eye. He nodded.
On the right was a poker game that seemed to be very tense. It
had the dealer, a whiskey drummer, Bill
White from the Double W and what looked like a corpse. A corpse that kept
coughing into a soiled lace handkerchief.
That must be Earp's partner. Doc Holiday. Some people called him a
gunfighter. A pistolero. But when you looked in his eye you saw one
thing. Death. He was a killer. Pure and simple.
Earp was at the bar. Burly and dark with a bushy mustache
and a soiled suit. He looked like what he was. Crooked. Greedy. A pimp. Well worse than a pimp. A politician.
We eased into the saloon. Tell went to sit opposite the game
and Cap hung by the door. Everyone looked up as we walked in and I am sure as hell that they
all noticed the scatter gun that Cap held low at his hip. Sometimes you don't
have to say much when it is right plain out there for you to see.
"Evening Marshal" drawled Earp. He seemed awful
arrogant for a man in my town. No matter how many guns he might have, he would
always be outgunned in a Sackett town. It might call for him to step a little
lightly. But that was not what the man would do. You see he was an asshole.
"Sorry I didn't go to your office but I thought we might make this
friendly if we could. Less official so to speak."
I walked over to the bar. "I think official might be
the way we might best handle this Earp. I heard about the doings down Tombstone
these past months. So I have no use for a personal vendetta here in my
town. If you have warrants to serve you
can serve them. But no gun play where an innocent could get hurt. You hear me
son."
"Whose to say whose an innocent Sackett? You?"
"Everybody is an innocent until the jury convicts them
Earp. I ain't planning to let you gun
down Curley Bill or Ike or even Ringo. Not that any of them are in town. Or have been seen here in New Mexico in months. Nobody is gonna get gunned unless it is me
doing it. Sabe amigo?"
Suddenly there was a commotion at the poker table. Holiday
had started hacking and wheezing and spitting and carrying on. I couldn't tell
if he was coughing or laughing or dying. It turned out he was laughing.
"I guess you can't buffalo Tyrel Sackett the way you
always do Wyatt.....ha, ha,ha....you might have to do it legal this time."
A gleam of amusement sparked in Earp's eye. "I always keep it legal Doc. Or legal
enough. No problem sheriff. We will just
stay the night and load up some supplies and be on our way in the morning.
Thank you for your consideration."
"Consideration you can have just realize there ain't no
slack in the reigns. Have a good night.
Gentlemen."
I turned and walked out of the saloon. Cap followed but William Tell stayed behind
to keep an eye on situation. I knew it wouldn't
be so simple.
12 comments:
Hire a proofreader - reigns are not reins. Form is not from. I know, this is all for fun. If you are serious about writing you should either get better at it or pay someone to read what you write.
As for the content - it is terrible, like a rejected script from a pirate movie mashed up with the worst western cliches ever written. You can do better.
As for your illness, you are lucky that's all you caught when Titus came in your eye.
Thanks Sixty.
I love constructive criticism.
I would love nothing better than a proof reader but I can't afford one.
Westerns don't have cliches, just motif's so to speak.
Louie Lamour made a great career out of it as did Max Brand and today Elmer Kelton does pretty well with it. It is not everyone's cup of tea but Walmart shoppers seem to dig it.
There you go - let us start with
Louis L'Amour, for example. No idea who that "Louie" guy is, but I heard about him in a song once.
I was serious about you being able to do better - I have seen it - creativity, story telling, ability to capture the speech patterns of a specific time and place and run with them. You need to get well and apply yourself.
Whose, who's and Whoville - all different things. Get on your homophone and call the British cigarette.
Send your rough drafts to me and I can read them and find the most obvious typos - that's what I do. Won't charge you a thing. And remember, you get what you pay for.
Won't ask to take it out in trade, as two writes don't make a sarong.
Hows about a little more pulp in that fiction? Some fleshy part of a fruit or plant like some figa?
Help me out here, E. P. Raylan - would it have been better as "Two sarongs don't make a rewrite"? You are the master of such things...
Two dongs don't make a rite is all I can come up with and that belongs in an Althouse gay marriage thread.
Troop's characters are a little too homoerotic for my taste. Like I said, he needs a Miss Kitty to make fictional pulp.
Anthony Kiedis repeats an old 5th grade canard of where babies come from: link
One of fogblather's greatest talents is to blend humor into historical period piece series--like "The Case Of The Dubious Douchbag" series--a personal favorite.
I could envision a series of stylized Westerns with ridiculous and inappropriate modern PC ethics imbedded like so many inappropriate types of trees that Sixty notices. Just look at how people ate up "Downton Abbey" with its revisionist morals. Putting the modern ethics back into the past could help us see the present and avoid a hellish future.
I could envision a series of stylized Westerns with ridiculous and inappropriate modern PC ethics imbedded like so many inappropriate types of trees that Sixty notices.
I never saw "Django Unchained" Was that its premise?
I never saw "Django Unchained" Was that its premise?
If you look hard enough, you can find the right pusillanimous douchebag role that fits Leonardo Dicrapio to a "T".
"Tough crowd..tough crowd."
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