From: bs904@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Andrew Nellis)
Subject: Showdown!
Date: 5 Apr 1997 05:08:18 GMT
Message-ID: <5i4mo2$kf7@freenet-news.carleton.ca>


The noon-day sun hammered down on the Global Village, cracking the hard-
baked streets into a crazyquilt of tiny mesas and buttes.  The sandy grit 
and dry heat in the air combined to make a powerful thirst, and everyone 
with a plugged nickel to spare was drinking cheap rotgut in the Nana Saloon 
and liking it.

The man with the killer's eyes squinted as his gaze swept over the rough
wooden tables and ragged crowd of townsfolk, past the batwing doors that
seemed to undulate in the fierce heat, over the top-hatted piano player
who tinkled "My Darling Clementine" for the eighty-ninth time that day,
and settled on the ample curves of the proprietess.  He caught her eye
and nodded.  She returned his nod and held up a bottle.  He smiled and
waved her over to his table with a finger.

"Lookin' good, Sheriff," she said with a saucy wink as she brested her way
through the milling mass of customers.  "Makes a girl wonder what that there
stubble'd feel like agin' her cheek."

Sheriff Chris Lewis grinned over his barbed-wire chin and patted her well-
formed rump.  Laughing, she junmped and made him dodge a slap.  "I declare, 
Miss Braver," he said, "you're enough t'make a man think about hangin' up 
his irons and raisin' him a mess o' little 'uns."

"Away with you," she said, but batted her eyelashes coquettishly.  "Why
ain't you out a-makin' the streets safe fer decent womenfolk like me?"

"Aw, gimme a break, Miss Braver.  It's hotter'n the Devil's fryin' pan 
out there.  Ain't nobody gonna be breakin' no laws 'til it cools off some.
B'sides," he said with a grin that made his icy blue eyes twinkle, "there
ain't no decent womenfolk like you.  That's why they're decent."

"Oh!  You--" she began in mock indignation, but stopped as she became aware
that the whole saloon had fallen silent.  She turned around and saw that a
man stood shading his eyes in the doorway.  He wore a sharp black pin-stripe
suit with every crease just so.  His string tie was held by an expensive
silver clasp, and his shoes were made from rattlesnake skins.  He might have
been a banker but for the gun slung low at his side.

"Afternoon," announced the man loudly in a theatrical voice, tipping his
bowler hat to the whole saloon.  "Sheriff.  Miss Braver," he said, nodding
to each in turn.  His voice held a note of displeasure and his waxed handle-
bar mustache quivered with some strong emotion.

"I told you not to come in here no more," said Miss Braver, her voice husky
with anger.  "You jes' take your Fancy Dan self right out of here, Wallace
Sanford, 'cause we ain't a-buyin' none o' your snake oil."

Sanford smiled a slow, lazy smile, the deceitful smile of a crocodile, and
gazed at her from beneath half-closed eyelids.  "No, my dear, I don't think
so.  I've as much right here as anyone.  If people don't wish to purchase
what I sell, well, they can ignore me.  Isn't that right Sheriff?"

Sheriff Lewis was quiet for a moment.  During the whole exchange, he had not
moved.  His eyes, expressionless, rested on the mirror behind the bar.  An
observent onlooker might have noticed that his eyes never left the reflected
image of Sanford's holster.  "I think the lady asked you t'move along, Mr.
Sanford.  I'd be inclined to agree with 'er.  We don't need the likes o'
you a-stirrin' things up in our town, shoutin' your pitch at all hours and
a-drownin' out the parson on Sunday.  It'd be real wise t'pack up and get
yourself gone."

Sanford's smile deepened into a wolf's feral grin.  "Oh, I wasn't talking 
to you, Lewis.  I was talking to the Sheriff.  Isn't that so, Sheriff?"

A silhouette filled the doorway as Sanford stepped aside.  The batwings
swung wide, and the figure took two steps into the saloon, spurs jingling
softly.  He wore a black five-gallon hat and a trenchcoat pulled aside to
reveal the pump-action hogleg strapped to his thigh.  An ample stomach
sagged out over his belt, and his face was beastial with a heavy brow and
thick, dissipated lips.  He wore a shiny silver star pinned to his coat.

A buzzing whisper ran through the saloon.  Someone pointed and said: "That
ain't the Sheriff -- that's Doc Grubor!"

Sanford gave the man an oily smile.  "Nonetheless, he is the true sheriff.
This --" he gestured at Lewis with disgust, "this impostor has gunned down
his last innocent salesman.  I think the first thing I'll do is turn this
ridiculous saloon into a shop for my wares.  If it doesn't sell something,
it's simply not worth having around."

"Yeah, what he said," sneered Grubor.

Everyone turned to see Sheriff Lewis' response.  He remained motionless, 
his poker face revealed nothing.  "What makes you think I ain't a-gonna 
stop you and your toy lawman both, Sanford," he said quietly.  A few people
edged nervously out of the line of fire.

"Yuh ain't got the sand tuh take me," said Grubor, his face scrunched up in
disgust.  "Yuh ain't even Amurican, yuh owlhoot!  Slap leather or crawl yuh
yeller-bellied polecat!"

Sheriff Lewis' eyes narrowed and in a single motion, he was on his feet, his
hand hovering over his .45 Colt revolver.  The crowd scrambled desperately
out of the way, knocking over chairs and shot glasses in their panic.  Both
Grubor and Sanford reached for their guns.  Suddenly a shot rang out.

"Hold it!  Next person who moves gets third nostril!" shouted the man with
the Remington repeater who stood at the top of the stairs leading to the
rooms above.  He was thin, almost cadaverous, with the ascetic face of a 
fanatic, and his eyes burned with the light of a true believer.

Sanford blinked in surprise and Grubor gawked with naked stupidity.  Sheriff
Lewis kept his hand rock steady over his holster, ready to draw, his eyes
darting to the man on the stairs for a split second.  "Who the hell might
you be," growled the Sheriff.

"I am Boursy.  Stephen Boursy.  Ah, I see my repuation precedes me.  Good,
then you know I am quite serious.  Not accurate, perhaps, but serious.  And
anyway, this is a repeating rifle so I don't have to be accurate.  Now, I
will shoot the first man who says he will shoot the first man who will shoot
the first man who says he will shoot the first man who..."

"Hands up, pardner!" came the shout from the doorway.  A grizzled-looking
man in a dusty brown hat and leather chaps had the drop on Boursy, an old
but servicable Civil War officer's pistol in his hands.  "Lucky fer you,
Sheriff," said the man, "that yer Moose was tied up out front an' came ta
warn me 'bout ol' Sanford here."

Sheriff Lewis nodded to the man.  "Jes' in the nick o' time, Deputy Falk.
Good work."

Off in a corner, the top-hatted piano player muttered to himself, garnering
odd looks as everyone shuffled away from him.  "It's a plot, you know," he
said, breathing stale liquor into a townsman's face, who sidled away from
him in disgust.  "It's all a plot to defame me.  They're all insanely
jealous of the genius of Bill Palmer.  It's all a plot..."



--
 +-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+ .....Who so would be a man must be a........
 |  Andrew Nellis              | .    nonconformist. Nothing is at last     . 
 |  bs904@freenet.carleton.ca  | .    sacred but the integrity of your      .
 +-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+ .....own mind.  [Ralph Waldo Emerson].......