Found ... One Well-Used Tent: Western Flash Fiction Story

Orange light flickered against the dingy and tattered canvas interior of the tent as Madame Karla threw her head back in a moan.

“Oh, great spirit … if you are Sheriff Finnerty’s long lost daddy … give us a sign!”

The table beneath Calvin Finnerty’s outspread palms began to shake, and the sheriff’s eyes grew wide. When the wooden surface lifted into the air, Finnerty stood with a shriek, spilling the table onto its side and revealing a man crouched on his hands and knees.

Madame Karla gasped and scrambled to her feet.

“This isn’t what it looks like, Sheriff,” she stammered. “I have no idea who this intruder is! Arrest him!”

The flabbergasted scoundrel looked at Karla with resentful eyes but remained quiet.

Finnerty reached for his cuffs, but before he could collar the charlatan on the floor, the canvas began to twitch all around them. A low growl filled the air and built into a gravelly whisper.

“Calvin,” the voice called out. “This woman is a crook. Guard your town well.”

“Dad?” Finnerty asked the darkness.

“Why, this is preposterous!” Karla protested, but her uncertain eyes flashed to the man on the floor. “Never in my life have I --”

“I know what you did in Haltom’s Hollow!” the ghost voice rasped.

The medium’s face went ashen in the low light, and she bolted from the tent. The kneeling man watched her go, then scrambled after her.

Finnerty burst into hearty laughter as he stepped out into the night, where his old buddy, Tom Conroy -- the sheriff of Haltom’s Hollow -- walked from around the back of the tent.

“Great show, man!” Finnerty clapped Tom on the shoulder.

Conroy grinned and watched the two criminals kick up a dusty trail as they disappeared into the desert night.

Dark Rivals: A Western Flash Fiction Story

Every night at half-past 11, old Hoss Jacobs drained the last drop from his canteen, gazed out at the open range in front of Grayback Gulch Mine to make sure no one was fooling round … and promptly passed out cold.

It had taken Jess Sanders all of five days to figure out the hired watchman’s routine, and it came none too soon.

Jess, after all, was a scholar, not a miner. But as soon as he heard the big news out of Garden Park, he knew Colorado was the place for him.

And, even though he didn’t have the gear to get the job done, he knew who did.

Within a week, Jess had made his way west and hired on with the Clayton company.

The intense labor racked his soft body, and Jess almost gave up each of the first three days.

But on the fourth, he noticed an unusual shape emerging from one of the rock walls he passed on the way to his assigned station.

By Friday, that shape was unmistakable. Jess had to rescue his treasure before the real miners damaged or lost it.

And so, as Friday seeped into Saturday, Jess tiptoed around the sleeping Hoss and eased his way into that first dark chute. He had memorized the layout of the mine and felt his away through the blackness until he made the final turn leading to his quarry.

There, he stopped and lit his lantern. As orange light flickered against the walls, an unmistakable click thudded in Jess’s ears.

Before him stood Avril Thomas, holding the great lizard’s thigh bone in one hand and a revolver in the other.

“Looks like we both had the same great idea,” his rival paleontologist said. “I just had it first, is all.”

Buried Reckoning

Graverobbers were the lowest of the low, a scourge on God’s green earth. And now look what they had wrought!

Deputy Randall Kroft shook his head and gazed down on his fallen friend and boss, Sheriff Blaze Bowman. Why, the stress of trying to catch the scoundrels who had plagued Whitlock all summer had finally taken its toll.

A man of 50 could only stand so many long, overnight vigils, so many disappointments. Poor old Blaze’s heart finally just gave out.

It was a real shame.

Of course, that big old ring on Bowman’s finger would help ease Randall’s pain. Along with whatever else the sheriff was hiding there in his coffin.

And it would be easier than ever for the deputy to collect his bounty, what with Bowman out of the picture. All he had to do was wait until nightfall.

Randall stifled a grin as he turned away from Blaze’s casket, but he couldn’t swallow the song in his heart, and his usual, “Oh! Susanna,” broke out as a soft hum.

--

Blaze Bowman could scarcely breathe, and the blackness was more complete than any he had known in his life. If it weren’t for the scratching of some varmint or other at the foot of his wooden box, the sheriff might have believed he really was dead.

He knew there wasn’t much longer to wait, though.

Judging by the way Randall Kroft had lingered over Blaze at the funeral that afternoon, the sheriff knew his suspicions were most likely correct -- his own right-hand was the cowardly graverobber who had confounded the sheriff for months.

Somewhere above him, the whistled strains of “Oh! Susanna” muffled through the dirt, and hard metal struck the earth.

Blaze smiled ruefully in the darkness and clutched his six-shooter.

Randall’s reckoning was at hand.

Blood Duel

The whole of Bart’s life had been spent preparing for this moment. As the dust swirled around his boots and spat in his eyes, his father’s words echoed in his head to the pulse of the undertaker’s count.

One

“I’ve taught you boys all I know, and now it’s time for you to make your own way.”

Two

Lewis was a good-for-nothing drunk, but he was still their father.

Three

They hated what he was, yet they wanted to be like him.

Four

How could he send them away, Bart at 17 and Cody, only 12?

Five

The weight of responsibility had nearly buckled Bart’s legs in those first few steps away from home.

Six

“Just remember boys,” their father had stopped them one last time.

Seven

“The honorable man doesn’t turn until ten.”

Eight

“But the man who wants to live turns on nine.”

Nine

Bart jammed his heel into the gritty earth and pivoted. His six-shooter flashed in the midday sun as he whipped it from his holster.

He locked eyes, for just a beat, with his mirror image, 18 paces between them. Two brothers reunited through circumstances and their father’s wisdom, echoing across the years.

One a lawman.

One an outlaw.

Neither one honorable.

How had they lost their way?

Ten

Two shots shattered the town’s uneasy silence.

Dummy Malloy: A Western Flash Fiction Story

Dummy Malloy was a legend all across the Utah Territory, even though no one could remember ever talking to the man.

Hell, it was doubtful he even could talk -- he wasn’t called “Dummy” for nothing.

But for the few people who could prove having met the dark, brooding gunslinger, there was no doubt he understood everything that happened around him, and more.

The proof?

The mangled fingers of a suspected card cheat …

A slug through the shin when Malloy perceived the slightest hint of threat in another man’s eyes …

An eavesdropper’s ear severed with the flick of a wrist …

There was even tell of another mute whose tongue Malloy had ripped out because of too many questions.

Were they all true?

No one could say for sure, but there were enough maimed frontiersman that the patrons of the Muskrat Saloon grew nervous when the dusky and diminutive man shuffled into the tavern.

This was a stranger, to be sure, and the boyish face and drag-footed limp matched what they’d heard about Malloy.

Men looked at the floor, occasionally flashing suspicious eyes to the intruder as he clubbed along. Women clutched their hands to suddenly flushed bosoms.

--

Anna Malloy steadied herself on the hunks of oak between her heels and the soles of her boots. Her rough red bandana scratched against her throat as she breathed harder, straining the strips of cloth wrapped tight against her chest.

Would this be the day someone finally figured her out?

Maybe. Didn’t matter, if she found her good-for-nothing daddy.

Same daddy who taught her to fight.

Same daddy who killed her mama and shot Anna in the leg. Left her for dead.

Same daddy, in fact, who taught her about disguises.

Anna squinted and scraped toward the Muskrat’s bar.