@cbishop: Here you go
Santo Barker
“I’ve been to Hollow Mountain, Tiny Town, Tombstone and Gallowwalker County,” declared the man at the bar loudly “And I aint never seen a town full of pitiful drunken inbred scum than you lot!”
The piano player in the corner abruptly stopped and the Trigun Taverna went quiet. All eyes turned to the man with long black hair in his brown coat who smoked at the bar. He looked around for any credible threat but there was none. He puckered his lips and spat a glob of saliva onto the floor.
“That’s what I thought.” He spun and slapped a hand on the bar “Bar keep!”
The pudgy man with the bow tie and the chequered rag glided down the bar like he was on wheels, which he was being a cyborg from the waist down. “Yessir?”
“Tequila!”
The bartender pulled up a bottle, spun it for effect and placed it down in front of him “How many glasses?”
The man sneered “You think I’m gonna share that?” He threw a handful of gold bitcoins onto the bar as he snatched up the bottle yanking the cork out with his teeth spitting it with great accuracy onto a table where they were playing cards before he’d started flapping his gums.
“Deal me in!”
Slowly the tavern resumed normal noise and the piano player cranked out a lively tune.
“It’s five card sabbac,” said the dealer as he shuffled the seventy-six cards between his cybernetic fingers at blinding speed. “Closes…”
“I know how to play you varmint!” he snarled as he threw into the pot in the middle and took a swig from his bottle.
“My name is Br…” The gun was out of the holster and jammed into the players mouth at light speed
“Didn’t ask!” Smiled the man looking deep into the player on his lefts eyes “Don’t care neither! Only words I want to hear from any of you nerf herders is call, shift, draw, fold or sabbac. Y’hear?”
The player whimpered yes with a mouthful of cold steel and the other five players grunted in agreement. The dealer flicked out the cards and the game began.
**
Joe Manco-Blondie got off his horse at the edge of town. It was just what he did, as he’d been told by Sister Sara at the orphanage where he grew up, a man walks into town. Now parts of him weren’t quite human anymore, and he’d done things that would take something demonic to think them up but he always walked into town.
“Come on Coogan.” He tugged the reins and led his pale horse, the corpses of six headless cannibals slung over its back. Wasn’t a good day but the bounty should pay for a few drinks at Trigun.
The sound of glass breaking followed by gunfire as a man flew out of the Taverna window, followed by another man firing shot after shot into him, finally bringing down the jetpacking fugitive.
“CALL ME A CHEAT WILL YA!” Several more rounds went into the man.
Joe shook his head as he approached the scene.
“What you looking at?” snarled the man.
Joe stopped. “Are you talking to me?”
“Nobody else out here, ya damn fool!”
Joe looked at the man noting his choice of weapon; a DL-44 heavy blaster. “Son…calling me names will only get yourself killed.”
“I aint your son!” growled the man as he moved towards Joe “I got a prick of a father already!”
Joe’s hand shot up and smashed the man’s nose across his face. He quickly grabbed the weapon hand as he kicked the feet out from under him. In an eye blink the man was looking up at his own weapon.
“Name!” said Joe as he cocked the blaster.
“Richard.” Panted the man “Richard Lansdale”
Joe lowered the blaster “You’re Joe Lansdale’s son?”
The man smiled “Yup. You wait til I tell my father about this.”
BLAM!
“He might be waiting awhile.” Joe tossed the pistol onto the corpse of Richard, a large bore hole through his forehead leaking blood and brains into the dirt and manure. Joe tugged on Coogan’s reins and headed towards the sheriff’s office.
**
Joe Manco-Blondie looked at the sheriff in disbelief “Three hundred?”
“Word came in from Sirius that the price on cannibals is now fifty bits, effective as of yesterday,” said Sheriff Gladewater as he rocked in his pleather rocker, feet on the desk. “Sorry Joe.”
Joe shook his head “Hardly worth the effort.”
“But still a great service,” said Gladewater as he tossed a sack to Joe “Now I heard some shots and terse words in the street…”
“Lansdale’s boy mouthed off at me,” replied Joe weight the sack in his hand “Put him in his rightful place?”
Sheriff Gladewater nearly fell out of his chair “You didn’t?!?”
Joe nodded “Warned him, but you know the Lansdale’s.”
“JOE! ARE YOU MAD? JOE LANSDALE OWNS MOST EVERYTHING AROUND HERE!”
“Then he’ll have somewhere to bury his kid.” Joe tipped his hat and left.
**
“Richard done got himself killed”
“WHAT?” roared Joe Lansdale with a mouthful of spaghetti as he sat with his gang of brigands in the valley of Gwangi. He looked at the young cyber-apache who relayed the news. “Where?”
“Santo Barker”
Joe tossed his plate into the fire as he stood, his gang following suit. He wiped his mouth and then slapped it on the back of the young man who told him the news. “You’ve done well son. What is your name?”
“It’s…”
“IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOUR NAME IS!” screamed Joe as he grabbed the boy with his hands and snapped his neck with a sickening crack. The cyber-apache lay convulsing on the ground, incapacitated but not dead. “I hate bad news.”
“What shall we do with him boss?” asked Guapo, Lansdale’s right hand hybrid lizardman.
“Maybe a stir fry,” suggested Lansdale.
**
“You can’t leave!” pleaded Sheriff Gladewater “You caused the mess, you clean it up!”
“It’s been three days,” said Joe as he walked towards the edge of town, Coogan in tow. “If Lansdale actually cared about…” Joe stopped as he saw a cloud on the horizon heading their way “Speak of the devil. Sheriff, best you make tracks.”
**
Joe Lansdale and his Sundowners rode into Santo Barker like a tornado. Guns blazing, yelling and screaming.
“YOU FIND ME THAT SON OF A MOTHERLESS GOAT WHO KILLED MY BOY!” bellowed Lansdale as his horse reared “BURN THIS TURD CAMP TO THE GROUND IF YOU HAVE TOO!”
“You looking for me?”
Lansdale turned his horse to the voice to see Joe Manco-Blondie standing in the street, poncho flapping in the breeze.
“You killed my son.”
“Your son called me names, disrespected me. Warned him, like I’ll warn you; calling me names will get you killed.”
“Is that so?” remarked Lansdale “Sundowners! Kills this yellow bellied mother f...”
BLAM!
Lansdale’ head exploded. Joe blew the smoke off the end of the barrel. “Warned you. Now, I got no quarrel with any of you…yet.”
The shocked group of thieves and bandits didn’t know what to do. Guapo drew his gun “KILL HIM! KILL HIM DEAD!”
Bullets and lasers erupted at Joe who calmly stood there. After a solid minute of certain death they stopped firing. Joe looked at all of them, sneered and pulled his poncho aside.
“A McGrew force field generator!” gasped Guapo looking at the bulky contraption strapped to the gunfighter.
Joe nodded in acknowledgement and returned fire. Each shot was deadly. An eye exploding here, jugular puncture there. And when he rang out of bullets he drew his second pistol and fired left handed until that was empty too. The main street of Santo Barker resembled an abattoir. Joe surveyed the scene making sure they were all dead before holstering his guns. Sheriff Gladewater emerged from his hiding hole to survey the scene.
“I quit!” he plucked the badge off his shirt and thrust it towards Joe. Joe eyed the badge and pushed it back towards the nervous sheriff.
“I aint no lawman. I’m a gunfighter who don’t take to name calling is all.” And with that he unclipped the generator cords that led to Coogan who carried the force field battery and headed towards the Taverna.
“Sonofabitch!” muttered Gladewater kicking the dirt.
CLICK!
Gladewater looked up to see Joe pointing a gun right at him. The Sheriff gulped as a puddle appeared in the front of his white pants.
“Hope that wasn’t directed at me Sheriff.”
The end
Notes:
Notes: Santo Barker is named for Santo Porco from the film The Three Amigos and horror writer Clive Barker
Hollow Mountain, Tiny Town, Tombstone and Gallowwalker County are homage’s to films all found http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weird_West
Trigun Taverna is a homage to the series Trigun
Sabbac is a Star Wars card game, it’s how Han Solo won the Millennium Falcon off Lando
Joe Manco-Blondie is the character names of Clint Eastwood in his Man With No Name Trilogy
Sister Sara is a reference to the film Two Mules For Sister Sara starring Clint Eastwood
Coogan is a reference to Coogan’s Bluff also starring Clint Eastwood
DL-44 heavy blaster is Han Solo’s weapon
Richard Lansdale & Joe Lansdale is a homage to Joe R Lansdale the man who helped shape & define splatterpunk and weird western subgenre
Sheriff Gladewater is a homage to the town of Gladewater where Joe R Lansdale was born in 1951
Valley of Gwangi is a film reference where cowboys fight dinosaurs
Guapo is a reference to El Guapo from the film The Three Amigos
Sundowners is a reference to The Sundowners series by James Swallow
And the ending is a total sci-fi homage to A Fistful of Dollars where Clint has the bulletproof chest plate under his poncho and then kills everyone.
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