The Green Gun

The green Gun is a western set in an alternate reality, featuring unlikelihood and odd characters. Not to be taken seriously. Damon Wolfe, author of THUNDRHED!

                            The Green Gun

Seňor Rowel was a gunfighter to his boots, and that could be a good thing or a bad thing, as his boots were back home collecting dust under his bed. He did not appreciate them as articles of attire. His feet were very wide indeed across the toes, and flat, for Seňor Rowel was a frog. Frogs and boots are not compatible. It is understandable then that Seňor Rowel rode barefoot, if not bareback, upon his trusty though small, unusual and curly-tailed mount, whom he had unimaginatively named Piglet. Beside Seňor Rowel rode his loyal saddle companion, Sotty, who was a vampire bat mounted upon an armadillo named Sprung.

They'd ridden the rough, dusty trail from Morte Canis for four days at a conservative pace, stopping periodically to rest and water their ersatz horses. In the middle distance lay their goal, the lawless plains town called Drybone Gulch. Seňor Rowel squinted under his sombrero, taking in the unpainted clapboard buildings, which from a distance might have been a jumble of wooden crates scattered on the desert's edge and abandoned to roast under the merciless New Texico sun. Sotty dozed in the saddle, semi-consciously jerking upright sometimes, only to flop bonelessly over the armadillo's back once more. He woke in foul temper when the Seňor began to sing.

'The River Stoens runs over sticks,

runs over garbage, runs over bones.

It runs over budget and runs over trout,

over the end of a pig where are ears and a snout.'

'Aargh!' Said Sotty. 'What is that noise?'

'That,' Replied Seňor Rowel with dignity, 'Is the opening verse of “Ode to the River Stoens”, from the Viking's Wedding.'

'What viking's wedding?'

'Sven's. The Viking's Wedding is a famous opera by Wagoner. You should see it some time and enrich your life.'

'Bah! Opera!' Sotty sniffed. 'Opera's fer snobs. It's just poetry with music.'

Seňor Rowel raised an eyebrow, in spirit if not in the material sense.

'Have you ever been to the opera Sotty?'

'Yer darn tootin' I have.' affirmed the bat. 'I went to the Grand ole Opry in Gravestone before it burned down. Saw the big fight there: Slim “Dogmeat” Wirmlegs versus Brutus “The Mutilator” Hammerly. Brutus won. He's a dwarf, you know.'

'A dwarf?' The Seňor didn't believe what he was hearing. 'Brutus The Mutilator's a dwarf?'

'Yup.'

'He's six feet eight and three hundred pounds, amigo.'

Sotty frowned. 'So?'

Rowel shook his head in wonder. 'There's a production of Eleventh Night coming up in Jink City. If we get back there in time, maybe we will invite a couple of seňoritas to see it. Then, perhaps, you will come to appreciate higher culture.'

'What's Eleventh Night?'

'It is a most entertaining play by William Shakepike, a renowned playwright and poet.'

'It's not an arty wank, is it?'

'The Seňor laughed. 'No, my friend, it is not a wank.'

Unexpectedly Sotty said 'Argh!' and fell off his improvised horse because his cinch strap had broken. Fortunately, armadillos are not high. Usually. Sprung got his name from his habit of leaping straight up in the air when startled, and Sotty's fall startled him. He landed on Sotty, who cussed, and Piglet squealed and panicked and bolted, his little pink head bobbing along at triple speed while Seňor Rowel yelled vibrato and hauled on the reins.

The cinch strap incident was but a small hiccup in the feast of earthly travel, and soon the companions had the after-dinner mint of their destination within reach. But their progress was not free of difficulties, for Sotty, being a bat, was very much inclined to sleep during daylight hours, and did so wherever he happened to be. Ordinarily this made for no tragedy, but combined with his broken cinch strap and his dearth of knot-tying skills, it led him to grief. Sotty habitually fell asleep by the time he'd ridden a hundred and fifty yards. The rope with which he'd joined the ends of his cinch strap worked loose every two hundred yards or so, whereon his saddle slopped sideways and dumped him on the hot, dusty ground. Sotty woke cursing. He re-tied the rope, re-mounted, fell asleep and was, with pitiable predictability, dumped in the dirt two hundred yards farther along. The Seňor offered to help with the cinch strap but Sotty remained determined to fix it himself, so that he was dumped from his saddle twenty-five times over the last few miles to Drybone.

     * * *

Doc Darby took his thumb out of his waistcoat pocket and looked at his watch. Just after noon. He glanced sidewise at Mayor Malone, who was cleaning his spectacles on his bathrobe. The doc's lips tightened grimly. Imagine the town mayor turning out to greet strangers in a bathrobe and slippers! It just went to show how far the man had let himself go since trouble came to town. Malone adjusted his threadbare top hat as the two newcomers reined in at the boardwalk fronting the deserted sheriff’s office. The short green one in the sombrero looped his reins about the foot of a post that supported the hitch rail, his pard doing likewise. A suggestion of smothered distress coloured the mayor's face as the little Texican walked up the stairs towards him, large spurs jangling at his bare green heels. Doc Darby shifted uneasily. Sotty gave him the willies. The mayor cleared his throat.

'Seňor Rowel?'

'I am Seňor. This is my compadré, Sotty.'

'Pleased to make your acquaintance. I'm Mayor Malone an' this here's Doc Darby. What say we step inside an' fix us some coffee?'

'As you wish, Seňor.'

Malone unlocked the door to the sheriff's office and set about firing up the stove for coffee while the doc dusted off a chair and sat down. The two bounty hunters hopped right up on the table so they could see over it, Sotty flapping his wings a little to make the jump and damn near startling Darby off his seat. Seňor Rowel pushed back his sombrero and got down to brass tacks right off.

'In your telegram, Seňor Mayor, you said you have had trouble with gunmen in your town for more than a year, led by a man named Obert? Can you tell me of this?'

'Yessir, I reckon I can.' Malone leaned distractedly on the stove, realised it was growing warm under his hand, and leaned on a chair instead. 'There ain't much to tell, really. 'Bout a year back these six fellers started comin' through town reg'lar. Hard nosed types with tied down guns, real tight lipped, always kept to themselves. Used to be they'd just be here overnight an' be gone with sun-up. Well Ed Sherman, he was our lawman then, he got suspicious of 'em straight off, 'cos they always come through here from the south, drivin' an empty wagon with 'em. We never saw them come from the north, like they avoided the town when they was headed south. With the border bein' so close an' all, the sheriff figured they was runnin' guns across the Rio Muddé into Texico.

Then one night when they was in town, Ed had some hard words with these fellers, an' natural enough they denied everythin', so Ed couldn't do nothin'. But three nights later, after the gunrunners had evidently left town, Ed disappeared in the night. That was where the trouble started. A week later we found the sheriff's body some ways north, but that's real stony ground out there an' the wind had cleaned up any tracks that might've bin left.

A month after that them badmen came back to town. Matt Shore was wearin' Ed's badge by that time an' he fronted them in the saloon, askin' what they knew about Ed's murder. There was an argument when Matt accused them of the killin', an' there was gunplay. Well, Matt was shot dead right then an' Bill Bowman, the barman, took a slug in the lung. They was the only two in the saloon aside from the hardcases, so there weren't no other witnesses. The strangers said that Matt Shore got angry an' drew first, that they only shot him in self defence. Bill Bowman told the Doc here different, but he was in a bad way an' had to stay in the surgery after Doc pulled the slug out. I asked him if he'd testify an' he said yeah, but someone stove in his head with a pistol butt that night. So now it's my word an' the Docs against all of them, an' neither of us was there when it happened.'

'I see.' Said the green man. 'So now you have no recourse to the law?'

'Not as such, no.' Malone poured coffee into cups and handed them around. 'Thing is, see, one of 'em shot Mort Schubert a few weeks back. Mort took over as sheriff after Matt was killed. Mort run into one of these fellers in the telegraph office. There was a gunfight an' Mort got killed. It happened just as Rube Rundle walked in the door an' Rube shot the killer in the ear, left him stone dead. When the gang's leader heard about his pardner bein' killed he swore loud an' plain that Rundle would pay for it, an' the rest of the town would pay too. That afternoon they left town, ridin' hard towards Rundle's place. Left their wagon behind when they lit out. A few of us figured they was up to no good an' chased them out to Rube's place, a ranch just west of town. But we was too late. Rube an' his wife was shot full of holes an' the badmen was a cloud of dust on the skyline.

There was talk of followin' them an' havin' it out, but the fact is none of us stands much of a chance against gun-slingers. That was when we elected to hire some outside help an' git this business settled before these fellers come back an' drive everyone out of town with their killin'. If it ain't settled soon, Drybone Gulch is goin' to be a ghost town, one way or the other.'

Seňor Rowel was silent for some moments while Sotty sagged on the table top and began to quietly snore.

'And this outlaw leader, you say his name is Obert?'

'That's correct, Seňor. You know him?'

'I know of him, Seňor Mayor. Sotty and I have had difficulties with some of his family in Comanche City. I shot his cousin. They are hardened men, these Oberts.'

'Yes sir.' The mayor nodded. 'If'n you have any doubts Seňor, I'd like to hear them before we jump in with both feet. Can you handle these five fellers, jist the two of you? Some of the townsmen might be willin' to back you up if’n they thought they had a fightin' chance.'

'Any help would be welcome Seňor, but yes, the two of us will account for them. We certainly have a fighting chance. I would like to speak with you further this evening, but for now my partner and I need to find a bathhouse, a meal, and accommodation.'

'Of course Seňor.' Replied the mayor. 'You'll find Mcmurtry's hotel across from the saloon, on your left, bathhouse next door, an' the stable's down the end of the street.'

Seňor Rowel and Sotty mounted and made for the stable, having agreed to attend a meeting of townsfolk after dusk.

Sotty's saddle fell off. The mayor and the doctor stood on the boardwalk outside the sheriff's office, watching the interrupted progress of the hired guns. The mayor shook his head.

'We're as good as tarred an' feathered, Doc.'

'How'd you mean, Zeke?'

The mayor nodded at the two unlikely heroes. 'Our “town tamers” are a frog with no boots an' a narcoleptic vampire bat who falls off'n his armadiller every thirty yards.'

       * * *

The saloon exuded the full-bodied, saline bouquet of persons who have enjoyed a longer hiatus between baths than the rest of us would like. Oft-times the Seňor's calling bade him fish in such stagnant waters. He loosened his twin derringers in their holsters and strode in under the batwings.

The little green man had already done the arithmetic. Derringers multiplied by two equals four bullets, minus five badmen, the sum of which looked like hard lines for Seňor Rowel. Being a frog meant that he wasn't able to carry a bigger gun that held more bullets. His legs were too short to let him sling even derringers on his thighs, so his guns had to be worn in holsters on his back and drawn over the shoulders. A six-shooter in one of those holsters would merely tip him on his back and anchor him fixedly to the ground, but Seňor Rowel knew his physical limits and had survived in spite of them.

He stood just inside the saloon, silhouetted in the glare of the desert sun slanting in over the batwings. Two men stood at the bar, one with a shaggy grey beard and thick hair, the other a lean, hawk-faced man with two guns riding low on his thighs. Farther back in the room sat three more at a table, with playing cards and a bottle of whisky between them. The cards fell to the table and the talk fell dead. The shaggy man at the bar, Obert, lifted his shot glass and drank the whisky smoothly down, his feverish eyes piercing Seňor Rowel over the glass-bottom. He quietly sat the empty glass back on the bar.

'Lookit this, boys.' He waved a hand at the Seňor, not his gun hand. 'This here's the slimy little w*****k who shot cousin Olaf. Ain't that right green bean?'

'That is correct Seňor, but I am not here to kill you.'

Obert snorted. 'My, ain't that generous?'

'As you say, Seňor. There will be no trouble if you and your men lay down your arms and accompany me to the jail.'

'Huh!' Obert grinned. 'For what? You can't prove nothin' flatfoot.'

'Nevertheless.' Seňor Rowel tapped the badge newly pinned to his holster strap. 'I am the duly appointed officer of the law here, and you are under arrest.'

The grin vanished from Obert's face, ousted by cold anger. Almost as one, the three men at the table pushed their chairs back and rose, their harmony of movement ominous. Obert didn't even glance at them, he just stared at the Seňor.

'Whaddya say boys? Should we co-operate with Seňor Popeyes here?' There was no answer. Obert glared.

'You know what my Granpappy used to do with your kind back in France Hop-along? I got some garlic for you, you sumbitch!'

Obert snatched up his gun and Seňor Rowel flipped both of his own over his shoulders. The derringers spoke first, simultaneously knocking Obert backwards and taking a man at the card table in the chest. The recoil of the derringers flipped Seňor Rowel onto his back, as it always did. Obert slid down the front of the bar and the shot man at the card table fired once into the floorboards, lurched and fell. Seňor Rowel pulled his little head in and stuck his feet out, rolling back onto them as he completed his tumble. Bullets hammered dust from the floorboards where he'd been standing. He triggered again, putting down the hawk-faced man at the bar and hitting one of the card players in the throat. No bullets left.

The last of the badmen held his shots till the tiny lawman rolled to a halt, in which hair's breadth of grace a flapping, vampirish horror streaked in over the batwings clutching in its feet a double-barrelled shotgun that was sawn off at both ends; a carrier pigeon from Hades bringing home the bad news. Sotty let the last of the bad guys have it all, blasting him with both barrels. The bad guy spun and fell and the kick from the shotgun punched Sotty straight back out the way he'd come. He glanced off the door jamb, dropped the shotgun, swore, flapped, crashed onto the boardwalk outside, and swore and swore and swore.

Seňor Rowel re-loaded his guns, holstered them, and dusted himself off before moving to assist Sotty, who was a thrashing tangle of limbs and appeared to have his foot stuck in his a*s. Victory.

Author's Note

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