Chapter 6 Trouble in Taos Part 5 - The Conclusion

Those of you that keep track of such things will notice that the time I traditionally post on Mondays and Thursdays will change in the coming weeks. The fine folks at Amalgamated Monster are changing my schedule.

This is the last section of chapter 6 of Trouble in Taos. If you’re the type of person who likes to know what’s going on – check the four posts preceding this one. If you want to know more (or you feel like wasting money,) you can buy the book on Amazon.

Slimy was surprisingly clean. Well, he didn’t have much blood on him anyway.

Slimy was the first to stir. I called to him, but he either didn’t hear me or was thinking about something. I guess he didn’t hear me. It took longer for Father Julio to move. Being a relatively short man saved him, that and the fact that the four dead men were pushin’ him away. Some of the blood was his, though, coming from his forehead.

Two things changed about Father Julio. One, he never heard so well anymore. People who came to his service could sit in the back and still hear his homily, because from that day onward Father Julio was a shouter. He also had a rough dark patch on his forehead.

Each year, sometime between Christmas and Easter, the folks at Saint Frank’s come in to put soot on their forehead. Father Julio looked like that every day of the year.

Claybourne Petree and me worked for a while matching bodies with head parts. They weren’t pretty, but I think we got ’em mostly right. The tallest ugly one didn’t look any worse as a mangled mess than he had in life, so we weren’t all that worried about it. It wasn’t like anybody cared about ’em. They weren’t as rich as Rutherford James, so Father Julio offered to pay us. Maybe he felt responsible ’cause he put Slimy in the casket. I didn’t think that was right, and I was going to refuse the money, but Claybourne took it before I could say no. I gave Claybourne a dirty look, but once the money was in Claybourne’s hands, I made sure to get my part. I guess I’m no more a saint than Claybourne.

If Slimy was troubled by what happened, he never said a word about it. It took him a spell before he stood up, but when he finally did, he looked over himself once and headed out the door without a word. By the time Claybourne and I had the first body together, Slimy’d finished his ditches and was heading for Estevo’s. I caught up with him ’cause I was worried he might shoot Estevo for tellin’ those fellers who shot Rutherford James and where to find him.

Slimy was just there for his glass of water and to tell about that dog that barked one night. He didn’t look any different, smell any different, or act any different.

Well, that’s not completely true. Slimy musta seen me attack those men with my stick. I think it meant somethin’ to him, ’cause he was always nice to me after that.

Too bad that was what killed him.

People keep sending me this video.  I guess they think it's funny so I should share it here - it couldn't be about my writing, could it?

Trouble in Taos: Batwings and Strangers Part Five

I’m over my interruption snit and back to finish Chapter 7 of Trouble in Taos. If you want to see the first four installments, you’ll find them here, here, here, and here.

There’s still time to enter the Nine (should be eight) Missing Words contest. Send your answer to headleystupid@gmail.com with the subject Nine Missing Words. Include your name (fake if you don’t want people to know who you are,) and mailing address (real if you want to get the Trouble in Taos coffee cup for winning.) Today’s letter scramble is for word six and it’s UYO (not really a tough one.) That makes the scrambled phrase - ___ _ TRIPTREE GILTH SUEHO UYO EENRV ___ ___. The deadline is Wednesday, Midnight EST. The winner (and last section of chapter 7) will be in this blog on Thursday.

Batwings and Strangers - Part Five

Another stranger looked over Estevo’s new doors. He watched Slimy dancin’ like it was the most interesting thing in the world. Estevo was beaming. His batwing doors and guitar player were drawing new people already.

But there was something about the feller lookin’ in that made me uncomfortable. He wasn’t nodding his head to the music; he was just watching Slimy.

The seaman said you’re in danger now, make way, make way.

The stranger propped open one of the doors and pulled a revolver from his holster.

For what you approach is no garbage scow, make way, make way.

 

That’s what was botherin’ me. He looked like a gunman, and that’s why he was watchin’ Slimy. He was here to kill Slimy.

She may be small

“Slimy!” I shouted. “Watch out!”

for eight tons

Slimy jerked as the man squeezed the trigger.

she be…

Lowell played a bad chord on his guitar, the first ugly sound since he tuned the thing up. The right side of his forehead cracked open with blood and other stuff flying out.

What a shame, I thought, that a man who played so nicely should have an ugly chord be the last thing he played.

Slimy had his shotguns out and fired four barrels into Estevo’s new batwing doors. It turns out that those fancy doors weren’t much good at absorbing shot. Wood splinters joined shot in ripping flesh and blood from the body of the stranger.

I don’t know if he was named Ernest Felthousen. Considering Colmes’s accuracy in other matters, he probably made the name up.

Estevo, showing unusual bravery, was the first to the spot where the stranger fell. He picked up a bit of wood from the floor and searched the remains of his new doors for the place to put it.

Jacques went over to Lowell. He sat on the floor and cradled the bloody head of the guitar player on his lap. “What’s the rest of the song,” he whispered.

Lowell Sparger was a good way past answering.

Neither Flossy nor Two-Bucket Joe moved away from their stools, and I refused to look over and see why.

Slimy stepped over to me and very awkwardly gave me a slap on the shoulder, as if to say, “Thanks for the warning, Buddy.” Then, still dancing a bit, wound his way over to his stool by the wall, shouted, “Make way,” and sipped his water.

He didn’t try to tell any stories the rest of the night. He just shouted, “Make way,” every once and a while. No one asked him why he was doing it. I don’t know if he could have told us if we had.

Keeping with the western theme, here's a video for all those fans of 90s educational video games... yes, both of you.

Not keeping with the western theme, here's a vid that's slightly funnier.

 

Estevo's Shotgun

This post is a little violent. It’s hard to do a story about a gunfighter without… Of course I could have done it like A-Team where ex-military “elites” fired thousands of rounds each episode and never hit anybody.   More better – I could have done a gunfight like Mr. Bean had in this clip.

This is the third of five installments of an excerpt from my book Trouble in Taos, the story of Slimy Beach, gunfighter and latrine digger. If you’d like to see the first two here are the links. part-1 part-2

But back to the story. I’m pretty sure Slimy never thought of taking up fisticuffs to defend Miss Flossy’s honor. Being so small, Slimy was not one to resort to fisticuffs if he could avoid it, and certainly not with the village blacksmith. Furthermore, Flossy was not the sort of woman who expected, or even desired, men to defend her honor. That would be economically inconvenient.

It wasn’t the liberties Mike Finn took with Flossy that irked Slimy; Slimy just never could tolerate being ignored.

Slimy grabbed the barkeep’s scattergun from the top of the bar and shot Mike Finn dead. He also winged two poker players and shattered the chair that Claybourne Petree, the undertaker, was about to sit in. According to Two-Bucket Joe, Claybourne was pretty scared for a minute, but took it pretty well. Of course, he got some business out of the deal.

This was Slimy’s first killing, and it came as a surprise to the people of Taos. He’d been in town a year or two and was, after his own fashion, a successful businessman. People found him tedious, and nobody liked the way he smelled, but no one thought of him as dangerous before.

Slimy grunted an apology for the mess and offered the smoking scattergun back to Estevo, the bartender.

Estevo, not a man known for his courage, failed to take it.

Looking back, a lot of lives might have been saved if Estevo had reached over and taken that shotgun from Slimy. Others might point fingers, but I'll wager that not a single one of his accusers ever ran a saloon in a 19^th-century western town. Bartenders dealt with the rowdiest (and drunkest) characters in what was already an unruly and violent environment. Lawmen rarely spent time in saloons, and it wasn’t because there was more business elsewhere. They knew that if you sat around in a bar with a gun and a badge, someone would eventually think it a good idea to take a shot at you – maybe in the back.

Bartenders like Estevo didn’t have a friendly jailhouse to retreat to. If they started disarming their clientele, some clever fellow might figure things out. If he managed to smuggle one gun into an unarmed bar, the only thing he needed to do to be king of the bar was kill the bartender.

I’m sure there were a few brave bartenders in the West. A couple might’ve lasted a year. Estevo lived to sixty-eight and would have lived even longer if he hadn’t eaten his way to three hundred pounds by the time he was fifty.

It was a younger, slimmer Estevo who said to Slimy that day, “No, Mr. Beach. Please don’t be concerned about the mess. Accept the shotgun as my gift. Here…” And at that point, Estevo reached under the bar and produced a matching weapon. “Please accept this one as well.”

“That’s nice of ya, Estevo,” said Slimy. “Thanks.”

So Slimy just killed a man in cold blood. What will the folks at the Rosa Linda do about it? Find out in the next post: Hanging is for bad guys.