Another Return To Gunsmoke

Wild Bill Hitckok stood in front of the Dodge House after eating a good breakfast. He was wearing a tailored, black suit. Around his waist he wore a red sash. He had two pearl-handled revolvers stuck in it, turned backwards. Wild Bill thought anyone wearing a holster was a sissy. He was unaware that everyone’s first impression of him was that he was a sissified greenhorn. As Wild Bill stood there more or less admiring himself, a horseman rode by and splashed mud all over him.

Wild Bill reacted by drawing both guns, ripping his sash, and firing all 12 shots at the horseman. He missed all twelve times. Missed the horseman. He did take out three windows, a mule and Old Man Hagerty’s hat. The horseman, Johnny Ringo, heard the shots and saw the windows break. He turned in time to see Wild Bill trying to reload. Hitckok was trying to reload by holding both guns in his right hand and load with his left. He dropped one of the guns and, as he reached to catch it, fell into the muddy street.

Ringo wasn’t a patient man when it came to someone shooting at him. He wasn’t a patient man in any case. He saw Wild Bill scrambling around in the muddy street looking for his guns and bullets. Ringo thought he ought to just go on and shoot him and be on his way. Then he decided he was only riding from one muddy, one-horse, two bit town to another muddy, one-horse, two bit town. No reason to be in any kind of hurry. No, he’d go back and horsewhip the sissy.

Matt Dillon was sitting in his office listening to Festus make fun of Chester Goode. Festus liked doing that since even if Chester had a mind to fight that stiff leg always did him in. Chester is the one guy out here who should carry a gun, several of them. Upon hearing the shots, Dillon jumped up and said, “Not in my town they don’t”.

Festus told Chester that he’d be going to cover Matt’s back. Chester said he’d get Doc and Miss Kitty.

“Miss Kitty? What in darnation fer?”, Festus asked.

“Because she’s pretty”, Chester told Festus.

Matt Dillon got to the scene just as Ringo snapped the whip and caught Wild Bill’s leg. The idea was to drag the sissy through the mud a ways and then shoot him.

“Hold it right there!”, Dillon yelled. “This is my town and you won’t be doing anything here. Let the sissy go!”

Johnny Ringo considered that one. The marshal hadn’t drawn his gun but Ringo had a whip in his hand. Was he fast enough?

Festus got there and read Ringo’s eyes. He told him, “Now, doncha be gittin’ no iders. Ifffen ya was to do anythin’, why, I’d shoot them ears righch offen ya. Not the whole ear, jus’ that hangy down purt. I done many a time, Johnny Ringo”.

Ringo knew Festus and knew he had. Dang! Should have just shot the sissy and rode on.

“Why don’t you just ride on, stranger. No real harm done and I want it to stay that way. Let the sissy be”, Matt Dillon told Ringo.

Along about then Wild Bill was tired of being called a sissy. He stood up and announced that he was,” Wild Bill Hichkok, fast gun and great poker player. I’m on my way to Deadwood to play a big game. I’m no sissy”.

Doc, who had just arrived, said it was okay to be a sissy. Couldn’t help what you were born like. Then he asked why he was called away from his morning coffee and whiskey if no one was hurt.

Miss Kitty, who also had just arrived, said,” Someone here better need me and have the right amount of money. This better not be another one of Chester’s fool excuses to look at me”.

Dillon stood there taking this all in. He had a stupid gunfighter using a whip. He had an even dumber gunfighter looking like a sissy. He had a deputy with an ear fetish. He had a stiff-legged, part-time deputy who was a sissy himself. He had a doctor who may or may not have gone to school. He had a hooker who wouldn’t admit she was a hooker. Hooker? She owned the Long Branch. She was a madam.

He thought, “well, we aren’t in Kansas anymore, Toto”.

Well, yes he was. Dodge City, Kansas. Don’t tell him.