The Gunman

He was fast; truly so; a quick draw to end all quick draws. On that day in 1874 he knew he had speed on his side as he drew his 'American Double Action' and blazed away, firing 5 rapid shots in the space of as many seconds. The explosion of noise was deafening....and then he paused, holding his breath.

At first he thought that his 'outburst of rage', as the papers would later call it, had produced a quick and decisive victory, but his heart seemed to stop when he heard the sound of boots slowly approaching him which raised the next serious issue that, perhaps, he should have taken into account before 'opening up': he couldn't see a damned thing!

Quickly reaching into his inside breast pocket he extracted a pair of eye glasses which he fumbled to put on, clumsily smacking the side of his head with his still smoking handgun. As the room came into focus, his eyes went wide and a gasp escaped his lips as he realized that he had hit almost everything in the saloon BUT his intended target....and in his last few seconds of life his feverish mind seemed to catch every little detail, from the bullet hole that he had made in the bar; a good ten feet from his target; to the one he had made 'right between the eyes' of the giant stuffed bear near the door and of course, the way 'Jimmy O'Doodle' seemed to cock his handgun in slow motion; its final 'click' making our would-be 'hero' jump, as he moved so close to him that 'missing' seemed completely out of the question. So, he reflected on the questionable wisdom of allowing vanity to preclude his using his glasses when it actually mattered and in not having invested in a better quality weapon (the American Double Action being 'cheap' by anyone's standards) or of facing the reality that getting killed over 'who hitched their horse where' was probably not the most worthy of causes.....