PollyWannaCracker
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2021
- Posts
- 125
"Justice Will Be Had"
Sarah Learner was never looking for trouble. She wasn't looking for it when she entered the Dry Gulch Saloon. She found it nevertheless. Some would say trouble was destined for a beautiful, even sexy young woman who paraded into a saloon alone, carrying a pistol on her her hip and dressed all in tight fitting black, including a bustier that emphasized her hourglass shape and generous bosom.
Before her first shot of whiskey had even arrived -- delivered reluctantly by a barman who knew she would be the center of a ruckus -- the first adventurous man approached Sarah, looking to learn more about her and -- as was always the case -- get her out of her clothes to see if her sexual energy matched her outward appearance.
She whispered such that only he would hear, "Get the fuck away from me."
When the smirking man -- a ranch hand, Sarah presumed -- didn't depart but instead only moved nearer, she downed her shot, looked him in the eyes, smiled, and added, "And take a bath."
His smirk faded, and a short, tense conversation that got progressively more public ensued. The man told Sarah she needed to be taught some manners, and Sarah told the man she doubted he had anything to teach her.
As they spoke, the black-clad woman's hands remained on the bar, handling the shot glass and bottle that the barman had left behind. The ranch hand, though, had slowly but surely let his right hand move ever closer to his own sidearm until it was resting on the weapon's butt. Sarah wondered whether he feared or hoped that the conversation was going to lead to him pulling his weapon to save face in a conversation in which a mere woman was obviously coming out on top.
Eventually, Sarah slowly turned left to face the man directly; her own gun hand remained on the edge of the bar. Her rude conversation mate glanced down at the weapon. Sarah took note of his reaction to seeing what he may or may not have recognized as the latest in handgun advancements, the Colt Single Action Army, Model M1873. There still weren't very many of this particular weapon here in the Southwest, and those who did own the very expensive weapon were more often than not rich collectors and certainly not your ordinary cowboy. Sarah knew of a few gunslingers who carried the gun called The Peacekeeper, but most of the men she'd seen packing the fine piece were lawmen who typically had a second, more financially prosperous occupation as well, such as owner of a saloon, brothel, gambling house, or combination therein.
"After realizing that you aren't about to get me out of my clothes," she began in a calm voice, "you seem to have become more interested in pulling that piece of steel on your hip. Am I correct?"
The cowboy smiled, as if confirming Sarah's assumption. In an instant, her Colt was out of its holster and pointing at the chest of the man, so near to him that only inches separated her own steel and his dirty vest. His eyes swelled and his mouth fell open, and despite his tightening his fingers around his own weapon's butt, he certainly didn't pull the gun.
Sarah hesitated a moment, letting her peripheral vision take in the reactions of the others in the saloon, including the two men her conversationalist had been sitting with earlier. No one moved, though the tension in the room was obvious. The man before her slowly lifted his hand away from his own weapon and dangled it by his side. Sarah then slowly returned her Colt to its holster and, still facing the man directly, asked quietly, "Perhaps it is time you got back to the ranch?"
The man's expression was still one of total shock and fright, and it took a moment for him to begin backing away from Sarah. He glanced to his friends, then turned away, growling, "Let's get out of this fucking place."
Sarah had hoped that was the end of the excitement, but as was often the case, there was more to come. She finished a second shot of whiskey, asked where she could find a room for rent -- she was told about Widow Alcott's Boarding House -- and headed out through the saloon's swinging doors.
She found the three cowboy's standing in the street, facing the drinking establishment, their stances speaking of their readiness to draw the weapons on their hips. Sarah studied them a moment, then asked, "So, may I ask, is this a case of three cowards standing together against one, lone, woman ... or are two of you going to stand aside and--"
The answer came when the man she'd embarrassed at the bar pulled his older style pistol from its holster. He had acted first, and he may have thought he would have the advantage as such. He didn't, however. Sarah ripped the Colt from her side and put two bullets through the man before he could even level his own pistol at her.
She'd hoped the other two men would have the smarts to not get involved, but they were each pulling their own weapons as their friend spun and fell to the ground. Saran put one round through each of them, then as they were reacting to the slugs ripping through their chests, she put a second shot through each, just to be certain.
Even as the men were coming to stillness on the ground, Sarah was reloading her now empty Colt. She'd seen supposedly victorious gunfight participants shot down by their only-injured competitor in the past, and she wasn't the type to let that happen to her. In the end, though, additional rounds would be unnecessary: the three men were most certainly dead.
Sarah stepped away from the saloon's doorway, looking through the window for signs of other friends of the men she'd killed. Several men had risen and were coming slowly to the doorway to review the damage done, but none seemed to be a threat to Sarah.
The person who eventually interacted with Sarah wasn't coming from inside the saloon but was instead approaching from down the street. The town's Sheriff and one of his Deputies approached, asked the now present barman what had happened, and got a rundown that included the facts that one of the dead men had not only started the fracas but had been the first to draw.
"I'll need you to come with me to my office," the Sheriff told Sarah. Then, glancing to her reloaded and now holstered weapon, he said, "And I'll need to take that, if you don't mind."
"I do mind," Sarah said without hesitation. Seeing the tension in the faces of the Sheriff and his shotgun toting Deputy, she smiled to him and added, "But once you have me inside your office, where I don't have to worry about some cowboy taking a shot at me, I would be more than happy to turn it over to you, Sheriff."
Apparently, that worked for the Sheriff, who gestured Sarah to follow and led the way. The Deputy fell in behind them, and as the crowd back in the dirt before the saloon dealt with the dead men, the three of them covered the two block distance to the jail house. She surrendered her weapon, still in its holster, and -- while she'd expected to be put in a cell for safe keeping -- she found herself gestured to a chair opposite the Sheriff as he sat at his desk.
"Cup of coffee?" he asked before adding, "So, what's your story, Miss?"