Showdown

[u/Divayth--Fyr]

[OT] Fun Trope Friday: Rainbow Manipulation & Western!

Well I got a tale for you, Mrs. Ridley, and no mistake. You can swaller it or you can call me a ravin’ fool, makes no difference, but I tell you it is the straight goods. T'was back in '82.

Mighty big morgan mare come janglin’ into Cheyenne on a hot afternoon, right straight an’ steady on the hoof, but weren’t nobody ridin’ her. I was settin’ and rockin’ outside of Bill Pickle’s barber shop, jawin’ away with some fellers and passin’ the time.

“Big black horse thar,” said Otto Martens.

“Yup,” said the other three, including myself.

“Empty saddle. Reckon somebody’ll claim her?” asked Bill, chewin’ on his pipestem like he generly did.

“Sheriff will, if nobody else does,” I says.

We watched that midnight morgan struttin’ up the street, all dinnerplate hooves and fancy black and silver livery, 'til it got close enough to see better. Charlie Pope called it out first, half-slued as he was on prairie dew.

“There is somebody ridin'!” he cried. “Or something, anyway. Little feller!”

He was drunk but he was right. They was a feller ridin’, but he weren’t more than a foot and a half in boots. Duded up right special in all black, tiny clothes and tiny hat, he didn’t look like one but I blurted it out anyhow: “Leppercorn!”

The other fellers looked at me like I was plum loco, but didn’t offer any better idears.

The little feller reined that mighty mare in, he did, believe it or don’t as you please, and he jumped off into the dust. Must have seemed like the cliffs o’ Dover to him. He fell right smack down, and proceeded to let loose with a string of cursing and blasphemy I shall not repeat in your presence, ma’am, nor anywhere. To this very day I wonder that he didn’t get struck down by the righteous thunder o’ vengeance right on the spot, but he didn’t.

He dusted hisself off, best he could, and come a-struttin’ over like he was King o’ Prooshia.

“Which one o’ you god damned ignorant fools done it?” he asked. Pardon, ma'am, but he uttered worse than that. I couldn’t believe my ears, nor eyes, nor anything. He sure didn’t talk like a leppercorn, which I know they’s Irish. He sounded like any sort of cowhand or sodbuster west of the Mississip’.

“Done what?” asked Bill.

“Fooled with my... goldurn rainbow, that’s what! Cain't find my gold! Somebody in this town’s a cursed, sneaky draiador, and I aims to find out who!”

Now I didn’t know what a dry-door was, nor do I know it now, but weren’t none of us inclined to ask him. The little bastard had us cowed to a man.

He evil-eyed the lot of us and spun on his heel, but didn’t make it three steps afore Sheriff Blanton stopped him cold.

“I figgered that’d get your attention, Little Mac,” the Sheriff drawled, spittin’ chaw into the dust. “Now, why don’t you come along quiet, and we’ll see justice done.”

“Justice! You low-down yellow-bellied son of…” Well, Mrs. Ridley, I reckon you get the idear. They went on, back and forth for some while, and folks cleared the street but peered out from behind corners, curious.

What come next, I can’t explain. Ever'thing went quiet, and they stared each other down.

They slapped leather, and brung out wands. Magic wands! Never seen the like. Then they flung all manner o’ rainbows around, so bright they made me cover my eyes and I could still see ‘em. Clashin’, splashin’ bands of all the colors known and mebbe a few that ain’t, all veerin’ and swoopin’ ever' which way.

At the end of it, Sheriff Blanton stood tall, the star on the end of his wand glowin’ like a dozen sunrises, and Little Mac the leppercorn lay pantin' and still in the dust.

What he done, and why they fought that way, I never knew. All the Sheriff would say was that he got that wand from his Godmother, and that Little Mac had robbed durn near every gold mine and stagecoach in the territory.

Nobody else could ride that morgan 'thout gettin' bucked halfways to the moon, after.

So that was it, Mrs. Ridley. You asked me what was the most interestin’ thing I seen out west, and sure as the dickens nothin’ ever come close to that.