Western Adventure - The Law Comes to Little Whiskey Pt2

With the thud of hooves on the hard packed desert highway, the Little Whiskey stage thunders in to town, its roof covered in strongboxes full of silver from the local mine. Chester who is driving, wipes the sweat from his brow, is it the hot desert sun or just relief that the first stage of this journey has passed without incident, even he’s not sure which.

He’s looking forward to a lukewarm beer in the Tail Feather Saloon followed by broth in the new brothel that’s recently opened in town, ahh the joys of civilised living, all the comforts of home he thinks. Mind you he usually sleeps in the livery stable and washes once a week in the horse trough.

However Big Jim has installed a pump that provides fresh (brackish) water, so now he doesn’t get too much straw mixed in with his beard afterwards. If only Jim had made the trough bigger, Chester could save the 10cents that Whiskey Jack charges for the use of the Bathhouse, although Bathhouse is a bit of a misnomer. It’s a bathtub round the back of the saloon, there is no ‘house’ to it, but the girls in the brothel stop serving broth to the smelliest customers in the height of the summer so needs must when the devil drives.

This is the follow on to the very lengthy introduction to the enlarged town I did nearly a month ago HERE

Chester’s view down Main Street as he drives into town, all looks quiet, the girls on the balcony are talking to some hard riding stranger with a Winchester in his hand. Nothing untoward there, everyone carries a gun in Little Whiskey and some even know how to use it. At the far end of the street a local rancher and his wife are coming this way as well as young Billy with his mule train of pack horses.

Donna lurching over to the Wells Fargo office, holding tight to her bottle passes Irene Adler (yellow dress) crossing to the other side, but Irene takes no notice of Donna, she has other things on her mind right now. She gives Billy such a glare that the young man, who knows no fear, slows his horse and lets her pass in front of him. Pedestrian crossings are not needed and jay walking is not a problem in the Old West when you have a steely glare to stop the traffic.

Donna makes it to the other side without falling over, what a constitution that girl has, she stares at the door into the office and like all drunks the world over thinks “why am I here, what did I come for, who am I” to which the universal answer is “I’ll have another drink and see if it becomes any clearer”

Well you can’t call this a one horse town, it’s getting quite crowded.

Almost a traffic jam.

I expected Irene to go and speak to English Bob the sheriff but she seems to be lurking on the sidewalk behind him, maybe she’s shy?

At this stage of the game she was not committed to a course of action, all the bit players had an open brief to play their role by ear, and when the time came, to go with the flow, or maybe go with the roll.

About this time and out of our sight because the cameraman didn’t take the shot, Dangerous Dave who was outside the Tail Feathers opened the door and uttered the cryptic words “Boss it’s time”

There is movement inside the saloon.

Nick pulls his gun, swift as a striking snake. “Hold it right there, put your hands where I can see them.” Jack who was expecting trouble was close to his shotgun but not close enough and complied but Ruben White the bar keep reacted differently.

I'll come back to Ruben later.

Bill Samuelsons crew had been drinking for quite a while and the drink, as it does, affected them all in different ways. Nick who was normally a bad man became really mean, and his reflexes fuelled by the alcohol were faster than ever. Some of the others slowed down or just got plain nasty, clumsy or braver, strangely none of them got happier.

This puts the scene into perspective, Lefty is looking out of the dirty windows of Jacks Emporium thinking it’s a good job it’s bright out there or I couldn’t see to shoot, the rest of them are bunched by the door waiting for the stage to get a little closer.

The cameraman gets a reprieve, he did take the shot and this is it, Dave is lurking in the shadows after warning his Boss the stage is coming.

Pans back to get an overview of the situation, Billy and the coach are at loggerheads, Chester needs to get close to the Bank at the far end of town to unload his valuable shipment but Billy who is a stubborn young man has carried on down the street after his contretemps with Irene earlier and does not want to give way a second time.

"You’re on the wrong side of the road" says Chester – "No I ain’t responds Billy". The man with no name, riding shotgun looks nervous.

Is this a head on collision.

Dangerous Dave is just visible behind the porch post, and believe it or not this is still turn 3.

Irene Adler from England moves closer to English Bob she must be about to introduce herself, they must know each other as they are both from the same country but Bob ignores her and moves forward towards Billy, “Now come on there, be a good lad and let the stage through, I need him outside the bank to unload and the sooner he gets there the happier I’ll feel. At this point in the game I resolved some of the bit players.

Billy is an ornery character and has an affinity of 2 so to do a bad deed he has to roll 3 or better on this occasion with 2 dice, he rolled 1 and 2, so he decided to comply with English Bobs request and move on over. “Just havin a bit of trouble with my mules there Sheriff, I’ll get them out of the way shortly” English Bob doesn’t like being called Shortly but he lets it go.

Irene needs 4 or more to do a bad deed and rolled 5 and 6, so I decided she was in league with the outlaws and would aide them. I told you last time she had a mean looking snarl on her face, another good sculpt.

Further down Main Street Jim is still stroking his beard and Mary is watching – fascinated.

For those of you who read Miles and Boon (we know who you are) this is the love interest in the story :-)

Ok we’re back in the saloon Nick has the drop on Jack. Ruben fails his Brains test and then fails his Guts test so decides to do a runner, he is next to the back door and dives straight through it. Nick doesn’t hesitate, the drink and his innate meanness, means he's happy to shoots a poor old, white haired fellow in the back.
He misses, this makes the old man run even faster, - well it would wouldn’t it.

The gunshots are heard all over town. That's sort of spoilt the surprise a bit.

Irene, Bob and Dangerous Dave are all shocked by the sound of gunfire and fail to activate.

In the Wells Fargo Office they all decide it’s none of their business – except Donna who crashes through the door, staggers down the step and into the street. Looking mean, moody and slightly rosy cheeked.

Further on up the street, Pearl and Lucille move back into the shelter of the Grocery Store.

Big Slim ushers his wife into the gunshop and picks up a double barrelled shotgun that he has resting close to hand. He didn’t grow old in the west without being able to recognise trouble when it came knocking on his door, nor without knowing the appropriate response, the 12 bore was usually the appropriate response.

Bill Samuelson and 2 of his men burst through the door, Lefty who was looking through the window fires at Chester the driver and wings him, not serious but he takes a few seconds to recover.

Bill is first through the door and he and the shotgun guard the man with no name fire simultaneously, Bill takes a load of buckshot in his left leg and falls to the sidewalk OOF, but as he is going down he gets off a couple of shots, Chester is hit again and is OOF and the second shot puts a big hole in the man with no name and he is also OOF and falls from the stage.

Steve grabs the reins of the lead horse and hangs on to prevent it bolting.

Billy is starting to move his horses out of the way, turning them in the street with the intention of getting away from the shooting, it’s none of his affair and there does looks to be a lot of them.

Marshal McAlister joins Bob on the sidewalk, fails to notice Irene until she cocks her pistol and murmurs, gentlemen, please keep your hands where I can see them and drop those shotguns. They both pass their brains tests and decide this is a reasonable course of action based on their pay scale.

You can just see Pete on the balcony with the good time girls. Donna stumbling across the road, she must have looked as if she was going to join in the fracas so Pete shoots her.

Donna is hit in the arm and falls OOF, she feels no pain, well that’s not really true because she was hit in the left arm and dropped and shattered her bottle. – That hurt.

Irene is facing down the two lawmen, I wonder if they will keep their jobs, of course that means someone else would be stupid enough to apply for them, so maybe they will.

Dora and Eleanor are horrified by Pete’s action and attack him with fists, teeth, feet, and anything else that comes to hand.

Beaten up by two girls, it’s not his day but it’s about to get worse.

Billy has turned his string of horses around and is riding out of town and sees Donna get shot and fall, so for the second time I tested to see whether he would do a good or bad thing and against the odds, he dismounted and tried to help her.

On the other side of the street, Dave has climbed up into the drivers seat and pushed Chester out in to the street. You might thing that Dave looks very much like the man with no name but of course you would be wrong, it’s only because they're both carrying a shotgun that they look so alike.

Frank moves to the door of the stage and a shotgun blast misses him by inches, there are two guards inside the stage. You didn’t think there would just be the man with no name guarding this valuable shipment did you?      You did!!!

Frank doesn’t take his normal course of action when shot at and run away, shows what a bottle of rotgut whiskey will do for your courage. He returns the fire, hitting one of them in the head, killing him instantly, but there is a sickening click as the hammer falls on a dud shell. Swift as lightening he pulls his backup derringer and puts 2 bullets into the other guard who is now OOF.

Bill is rolling around on the sidewalk cussing and moaning in equal measure as Temperance Jenkins and Miss Virginia look on horrified at all this violence and blood shed. They kept failing to activate and didn’t move, - no sense of self preservation, they’re not going to last long in Little Whiskey.

Billy has pulled Donna over to the side of the street and is protecting her behind the horses.

When asked about this later his response was "just loosening her clothing to let her breathe a little easier, you know, like it says in them books" I think he's been reading Miles and Boon, although I'm not so sure he can read.

Don’t mess with the girls from Blonde Edna’s Saloon and Brothel, not content with beating the living daylights out of Pete they threw him off the balcony and here he is lying in the street having taken further injuries from the fall.

Everyone else has decided that they don’t need to be on the street at this time of day, in the hot sun and all, so the outlaws are able to put the wounded into the stage and the rest mount up and ride on out of town, they did leave the two lawmen locked in their own jail.

Not an auspicious start to  - “The Law Comes to Little Whiskey”.


If you are still here - thanks for reading and let me know you passed this way.
Cheers

Mia Culpa/Tikki Coast if you are still visiting I just wondered if you are OK, your Blog has closed and my PM on LAF was returned, just a bit concerned is all.
Cheers