Intro: Fastest Gun in the Galaxy

[MikeAnderson]

So, yesterday, I was clearing files off an old external drive I found in storage. I found some old stories I had jotted down, I mean, most of these were from back around 2010-2012. I rediscovered this one, and was excited. I'd forgotten I'd even penned this tale. So, I cleaned it up a bit, took out some spelling errors and added a few new lines to it.

I've been planning to do a collection of shorts for some time, and this is the opening excerpt chronicling a gunfight in the 1880's between a grizzled old lead-slinger just trying to find a peaceful place to hang his hat, and a way, WAY out-of-towner who didn't exactly ride in on a horse.

My first offering for Chrons. Hope you enjoy!

Title of Work: Fastest Gun In The Galaxy

Genre; SciFi/Western

Length: 1153 words.

Edited for the kiddies!!


“Shame to waste a beautiful day like this on trying to kill each other, mister. I wouldn’t think less of you if you just called the whole thing off. Hell, I’ll even buy you a drink. Can your kind even drink alcohol? Especially that acid water Earl here peddles. Swear to God, that stuff’s only good for stripping paint off a barn.”

I never understood why some gunfighters insisted on getting drunk before a draw-down. I tried that once in Wichita back in ‘71. Fella named Earl Huber called me out in the street one rainy, miserable day. Real piece of work that one was; low rent cattle rustler who rarely had two nickles, and sure as Hell didn’t have two bits of brain matter, to rub together.

I was ‘bout swimming in bourbon when that cur came tromping into that saloon, talking yapping how I got lucky, and he was gonna put a hole in my head big enough to ride a plow horse through.

Some fellas just don’t know how to take a whooping in a street fight.

Well, point of this musing is, took me three shots to drop that son of a bitch. If I hadn’t been swimming in hate and cheap Kentucky red-eye, Id’ve sent him off to the sweet by and by before his back hit the ground. That’s why I always made it a point to avoid the hard stuff from there on in before I had to slap iron with a man.

But this stranger was no man. I’ve met some mighty peculiar folks in my time. I thought the queerest of them all was that coot in Amarillo in ‘73 with the peg leg who thought that mouse he kept in his shirt pocket was the Lord Jesus himself. Even offered it a cracker and a prayer before we cleared our pistols from their holsters. I thought that man was the main exhibit in the weird museum.

Thinking about it now, while listening to a fella with four arms, wearing body armor, bumping his lips at me, I had to nominate THIS as the new gold standard of bizarre!

“Human, I did NOT traverse 7 parsecs of space, endure solar storms and rogue comets, just so I could sit in this disgusting hovel and ingest this rancid liquid that makes your un-evolved kind act like rampaging borka beasts! I crossed the stars to test my skills against this planet’s greatest gunner, and unless I get my glorious battle, I WILL scorch this town, and the desert surrounding it into glass!”

First time I met this chromed s**t-heel, I hated him right off the bat. First off, he zipped over this sandpit town in his glorified soup kettle, and caused a ruckus. Got all the steers penned up in the stockyard riled up, and they broke down all the gates. Took hours to get those heifers back in the yard, Caused a helluva mess.

Then, he had to go burn down Billy Winthrop’s haberdashery. Billy, panicked and singed, sucking down mugs of beer clutched in a shaky hand, told us that tale of this “God-awful abomination” making rays of fire and lighting bolts come out his hands. Those two Mexican boys he hired as stable hands, his mustangs, and his wife Maybelle were all burnt up to ash.

Then the sheriff gathered a posse to track him down. They rode out 5 days ago, headed out west near the abandoned Griffin Bros. Silver mine to track that flying wagon of his. They didn’t come back. Instead, tin man strolls into town yesterday, and stands right in the middle of town declaring…

“I am Siggoraz of Pentaris! While your pathetic mud dwelling race has barely grasped the concept of steam power, I have navigated the void and the stars, embarking on a quest to vanquish the greatest warriors…”

And on, and on, and on…

I’m trying to remember that word our town lawyer used to describe this metal moron’s behavior. One of those 12 dollar jobs that high affluent snob who came off the train from Boston likes to spout.

Rodomontade. Yeah, this fella was very rodomontade, all right. Surprised Phillip and his air of Harvard snobbery didn’t take a shining to this thing. Did a whole lotta bragging about all the creatures he killed, all the things he saw and done.

For all his bizarre and alien ways, he pretty much acted the same manner as every gun thug I ever traded lead with. Whole bushels of exaggerations, bluster, and making all sorts of wild threats dropped at my feet.

Little secret about most so-called gunfighters I’ll let you in on; most of the time, their voice boxes are louder, and deadlier, than their revolvers. Been doing it for over 30 years now, this killing thing. Most “shooters” aren’t worth the black powder in their shells.

I was in the saloon, like I am now talking to you good folks. Just sipping my coffee, not paying no mind to any of this bullsh** being plopped on the ground by our unwanted guest. That is, until I heard my name leave his lips and hit the wind.

“If Caleb Martin does not agree to meet me on this feces and dirt infested roadway and battle me, I will level this town to its foundations, then destroy the foundations!”

Figures! Every time I decide to sit a spell in Earl’s place, try to drink in a cup and a few lines of my book, some jackass gotta cause a scene.

Just as well. I’d been reading Pat Garrett’s account of how he took down Jesse James. Ol’ Patrick was always a greasy, yellow streak having con artist. Only thing the pages of that book were turning out to be good for was to wipe my bottom in the outhouse.. He was damn blessed I didn’t put him in the dirt in Santa Fe years ago.

I interrupted Earl’s daily watering down of the beer kegs to have him grab my gun belt from under the bar. It always seems to come down to this. Don’t matter what town I pressed my worn boot heels down in, whether it’s Tulsa or Amarillo or Yuma, my lay-over always ends with my Long Colts smoking.

And some son of a b***h who just made the mortician his rent for the week moldering in mud.

Every time I think my taste for blood done went away, somebody shoves a bowl fulla it in my face.

 

[L.L.Lotte]

Sorry if I come across tough, but i had a lot of difficulty getting through this.

My biggest issue with this is the fact that I came into this thread expecting to read a Cowboys vs Aliens style gunfight and was disappointed to instead be confronted by this thousand word plus, overly drawn out infodump instead. Much of it could be trimmed, or at least spread out with some action interpersed. You seem to know this already, with the alien complaining about standing around waiting, and the narrator himself with: "the point of this musing."

The narrator is right, the reader will be wondering what the point of the infodump is. Why should they care to read over a thousand words before anything actually happens?

I found the alien's dialogue to be a bit one-dimensional. It came across as typical advanced race superiority complex. But you seem to be going for just a bit of fun with this story so makes sense.

You have got a bit of the western style voice going on here, which is nice. The western voice was one of the things that made Joe Abercrombie's Red Country such a great read. Highly recommend if you want to get more examples of a western voice in a genre setting.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I do like the use of voice in this - I did find it very engaging. However, I did become frustrated by the lack of immediacy. A little restructuring might allow you to have a build up to the confrontation, placing relevant information as it occurs, all the time raising the tension - that way you wouldn't have to stop the action to explain everything. Interesting, though, and nice to see something a little different.

 

[Hummus]

I love a good tangent as much as the next person, but have to agree with Lotte here; too much info at once and too little action. The humour would benefit also, I think, if the piece was easier to follow.

I do like both the robot and the narrator as characters, and the whole thing reads as something told over drinks at a bar - which is neat.

Perhaps I missed something - but I got confused regarding this guy called Earl.. Was he the bar keeper, some other cowboy, or was there two of them? (The only Earl I know is a sort of tea, but that's not very helpful is it..)

 

[KiraAnn]

This is my first critique here, so please bear with me.

Overall, I pretty much liked it. Unusual set of circumstances. Like the other reviewers, I do agree that more action is needed and disperse the infodump throughout the story. Now to specifics.

That first paragraph makes the gunfighter simply sound like an garrulous old buffalo hunter than a gunfighter. That one phrase - "wouldn't think less of you" - sounds too modern; my great-grandparents, when they were alive, certainly didn't talk like that though I'm not sure what to replace it with.

That whole bit about fighting while drunk in Wichita seems out of left field. Who is drunk, and how would we know that? It does not seem to relate to the rest of the story, either. Within that sub-story, there are a few anomalies, like "real piece of work"; Try "nasty piece of work" instead. The expression as a derogatory phrase really dates from the very late 19th century, with "nasty" being dropped in the late 60's. And that leads me to the "whooping in a street fight" - surely you mean "whomping" or "whupping". Whooping sounds like he was celebrating.

Moving on to the next bit about Amarillo in '73. Now, I am from Amarillo, and I can tell you that about 15 years too early. In fact, there weren't any towns in the Texas Panhandle before '74 and still only 3 by '77. Commanches ruled hte Llano Estacado until Col. Mackenzie took all their horses at thee Battle of Palo Duro Canyon.

Later on after the chromed s**t-heel - interesting phrase I've never heard before - speaks, you mention the steers in the stockyards then the rounding up the heifers. First, I have to congratulate you on spelling heifer correctly; I have seen so many spelling it heefer! But, which is it - steers or heifers or a mix?

Next is the haberdashery with stable hands? What do stable hands have to do with buttons and needles and cloth?

In the sheriff's pursuit, I would spell out "five" instead of using "5". And later, spell out "Brothers" instead of "Bros".

When describing the lawyer from Harvard, I suggest dropping the phrase "who came off the train". It doesn't add anything.

When talking about the bizarre and alien ways, you used the phrase "Whole bushels or exaggerations, bluster, and making all sorts of wild threats dropped..." I suggest removing "making all sorts of" from that. I don't think you can drop "making" at someone's feet..

Later is the phrase "black powder in their shells". I feel a better term would be "cartridges" or even "beans"; shells in that time generally referred to artillery. And this is also about the time that smokeless powder was replacing black powder; perhaps make it just "powder in their catridges".

In the next paragraph, I particularly liked "bullsh** being plopped". Nice sound to that.

A couple of paragraphs later, you mention "try to drink in a cup and a few lines of my book". That just sounds awkward. The speech patterns of your gunfighter are not quite consistent.

As for the paragraph about Pat Garrett, he did not have anything to do with Jesse James, much less write a book about him. The only book he wrote was about Billy the Kid. Again, it does nothing for the story and I suggest dropping that paragraph.

In the next paragraph, the phrase "pressed my worn boot heels down in" is also a bit awkward. How about "stepped my worn boot heels in" or "stalked my worn boot heels in". You also refer to Amarillo again, along with Tulsa and Yuma. Now I know Yuma was around by then, but what about Tulsa? Remember, Oklahoma was not opened to anglo settlers until about 1890, and before that it was mostly Creek that lived in Tulsa.

Typically, face-to-face shootouts didn't take too long, although the build up to them could. I think you can shorten this up, and start getting to more action, without losing anything. Correct some of your historical references, and I believe you will have a winner.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

My biggest issue is working out who is who in the scene.

The idea is great but I got to the end and really didn't have a good idea as to the characters or the setting (yes 1800s Mid West America but beyond that... is he sitting on a bar stool, out in the street etc)

 

[Plucky Novice]

When I read this I'm imagining an old timer sitting in a saloon swirling a glass of bourbon while he rambles on to whoever happened to sit next to him. In that context I really enjoyed it because the musings fit and the info dump fits because it is in character.

My biggest gripe is that I know from the second para who wins the gun fight because it's first person past tense. That might not matter if the gun fight is comedic but it'll be difficult to build up any suspense here.

Alternatively you could turn this into a third person narration which might work well. The old timer might be recounting a tale where someone else was the gun slinger?

Anyway, you kept me engaged and entertained. Well done.

 

[MikeAnderson]

Appreciate the feedback. I had thought about doing a restructuring of this myself. I do realize the beginning is a little slow burn, so next rewrite, I'm going to pep the action up a little bit.

 

[J.C. Scoberg]

Overall, I enjoyed the twist on the gun-slinging Western story. But, I tend to agree with some of the critiques above.

I was unclear on when the gunfight was occurring - was it an old pub bore spinning another tale, or right here and now? Then, with all the build-up to the fight, it felt anti-climactic not to have it happen. Almost like you ran out of word count and finished before you wanted.

There is a solid foundation to work from and a good idea for a story, it just needs some tweaking in my opinion.

I hope that helps.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

I liked this, especially the western voice. It has a hook and a nice rye feel. The alien voice as was said, felt flat. The biggest problem is that it jumps. One moment you're in the here and now, your MC's being called out into a gunfight. The next he's reminiscing about old gunfights. It keeps breaking up the action and making it difficult to follow. I'd say cut back on the reminiscing, keep the asides though but link them always to the immediacy of the hero and the coming gun fight. As for the infodumping / background about how the alien dude comes to town to call him out, strip that back to the basics and maybe put it in as a conversational gambit between him and the alien.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Danny McG]

I really thought this was about Blake's 7.

Fairly sure in one episode they talked about someone being "The fastest gun in the galaxy"

I know it's nothing to do with your post for critique!