Genre: Western
Setting: Rock City
Object: a journal
Billy finds purchase on the cadaver-grey rock overhang, hoisting himself closer to the man who killed his father. He’s long since left behind the tracks of the new-fangled incline rail, boasted about by signs in Chattanooga dreaming of progress. From the mountain, smoke chokes the skies from the endless parade of trains going south, the old No. 45 they call the Chattanooga Choo-Choo, the safest train east of the Mississippi. Well, almost.
The trains bring more big people daily to take over the bountiful region around the Tennessee river in the same fashion as the gnome settlers, who drove out the filthy faires. Though by now, most gnomes have abandoned these lands for the hills and mountains, habitats of their forefathers. These big folks, the Americans, as they call themselves, don’t even recognize the gnomes. The first cart load arrived and gazed over a range roamed by children roping calves. These pioneers dubbed the children cowboys. Point of fact, these were full-grown gnomes driving herds of miniature bison. The term stuck, even if the true cowboys mosied on, disappearing into the Appalachian and Smokies, never to be seen again.
A fire crackles to life, the flames fighting a darkness threatening to swallow it whole. Billy warms stubby, dirt-covered fingers, still catching his breath. Too much red meat and tobacco. The whiskey doesn’t help either. He wants to strike up, the craving for a cigarette almost more than he can bare. However, his hands go to the holstered revolver, fingers working a kind of alchemy born through repetition, emptying the bullets and cleaning it with a bit of soapy water from a canteen. When it’s dry, he takes the marked flask, the one he made a mistake once of drinking from instead of his whiskey, and oils the chamber. The guns aren’t pretty, but they can kill a man just as easy. The old European dwarfs, run out of homelands like the gnomes, took their fine ax crafting skills and plied them to guns in the new world. The revolver in Billy’s hand wouldn’t be considered more than a peashooter by the Americans, a lady’s pistol, but the Dwarfs know how to use black powder efficiently, and it packs the punch of a two-ton hammer.
By the time he’s done, the winds have reduced the fire to embers; he’s had his cigarette, ok maybe two, and then he’s holding the blood-red journal, unknowing of how it ended up in his hands. It found its way to him like a bad penny, turning up when his father’s old ranch hand sent it by pony express from his deathbed. Why he’d kept it to the end was a mystery to Billy till he read the last two entries. By the low light, he can barely make out the passage seared into his mind about the horde of treasure his pappy stashed away and the son of a bitch who took his land and life all at once. But the times they are a changing, and one by one, the parcels go up for sale, Billy honing a steady trigger finger and waiting for news that Rock City is for sale. And low and behold, on the side of a barn one day, he saw the sign “come buy Rock City: 100,000” white text on a blood-red barn.
A final shot of whiskey and he’s out, trigger finger hitting bullseyes till the daybreak.
Sunlight cracks his eyes, a headache threatening to split his head. Hair of the dog helps to steady nerves and he kicks dirt onto the long-dead fire while slipping the journal into a breast pocket.
Rickety signposts warn trespassers to turn back. He ignores them. Shuffles along the path, suddenly in no hurry now that the days come. They say you can see five states from this bluff on a clear day; Billy just needs a clear line of sight on the bastard.
“Far enough,” comes a voice accompanied by the click of a gun hammer.
“Hear you’re selling,” says Billy, hand comfortable on his side, close enough to the pistol.
The old gnome moves out of the house’s shade, the one of Billy’s childhood long since torn down. Wind rustles his peppered mustache stranding dead leaves between the two.
“Don’t take no junk bonds,” says the man. “No railroad stock neither.”
Billy flashes a gold nugget. “More where this came from.”
The old man spits, chaw staining the granite rock. “You’d be the only offer.”
Yeah, it’s a ridiculous price for rocks if you didn’t know about the horde. And Billy doesn’t plan on paying in anything but lead.
“Want some peace and quiet. And that don’t come cheap.”
“Not many gnomes round these parts anymore.”
“Good.”
The man squints at Billy. Can’t tell if it’s the sudden shift in the sun, but the man’s wrinkles deepen.
“Come on, Billy.” And he spits again. “I’d know your ugly mug anywhere, spit-n image of your father.”
Billy’s hands are on the guns.
“That’s enough.” Quicker than thought, the man has a second pistol on him. “Knew someone’d come one day.”
“Take a father, and you’ll have a son-shaped shadow on you till you die. This here’s my land.”
The man coughs. “And it was the fairies before that. Man doesn’t truly own the land; time sees to that.”
“I’m here to claim what’s mine. We gonna do this or not?” Billy cracks the knuckles on bone-dry fingers.
“Wait-n on you.” And the man holsters the pistols.
The wind stops, and even the late autumn crickets sense the intensity. They eye each other. The righteous son returned for revenge on the man who done his whole family wrong.
In a single flash, like a reflection off a pair of longhorns, the pistols are out. Fastest draw Billy’s ever seen. And then his world is flipped. The first bullet strikes with the force of a fright train, hitting the journal in his pocket, but the second finds tender flesh.
On his back, all he sees is clear sky and red leaves.
“One problem their young blood,” comes the man’s voice. “You written yourself a hero in this here story. But you ain’t seen the full picture. I knew if I put this property up for sale, no matter how much I asked, someone’d be stupid enough to pay it. Knowing they had the location of the horde in that journal of your pappys. Except this ain’t your inheritance. Yer father was just some run-of-the-mill thief till he knocked over the No. 45. Done made the wrong side of some nasty people. And unfortunately for him, and you, I always get my man. No matter what.”
One final gunshot rang out, and then nothing more than the sweet lullaby of the nearby waterfall.
_________________________
As an aside: westerns are not a genre I’ve read that extensively. Years ago, I made it a goal to read more broadly. Thus, every year I try to read at least one book from the established genres: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Western, Romance, Horror, Literary, etc. I’ve read several westerns now, but not enough to feel I know the genre. Thus combining it with Fantasy, which I’m more versed in, helped. I still don’t know if I captured the essence of a true western, but was pretty happy with what I got down.
Onward!