High Noon!

Horse slowed to a trot as they approached the staging post. Jed was cautious; the place looked empty.

“You think he’ll use your friends against you,” Horse stated, matter-of-factly. “He’ll persuade you to join him in order to save their lives.”

Jed grunted. Horse didn’t need to read all of him; it was a clever critter and could work things out for itself.

“It’s quiet,” Horse observed. It was right. Ordinarily, the hitching posts would be occupied by horses and Horses. There would be stagecoaches, wagons, carts, and conveyances of every kind. There would be people milling around, bustling to and fro, enjoying the break in their journey, conducting their business... But instead everywhere was deserted.

“Just like Gillyflower Gulch,” said Horse. “No, wait; there’s someone standing over there.”

They moved closer until Jed’s eyes could see what Horse’s superior vision had seen. The standing figure was a young man and one Jed recognised.

Willoughby.

Jed dropped from the saddle and rushed to the boy. Willoughby was tied to a post that had been driven into the ground especially for this purpose. His hands were bound behind his back and his neck was strapped to the pole, keeping his head upright. Despite this, Willoughby’s head was lolling. His face was red and his lips were cracked and peeling. He had been out in the sun for some time.

Jed pulled his knife and set to cutting the boy free. Willoughby’s torso flopped over the gunslinger’s shoulder. Jed set him on the ground and leant him against the post. He reached for a canteen of water from the saddlebags and poured a good quantity into Willoughby’s mouth.

“The others...” Jed prompted, when Willoughby coughed and opened his eyes.

“Jed!” The dry lips parted in a grin. He coughed again and guzzled thirstily from the canteen. “They’re in the saloon. Oh, Jed! I knew you’d come! I told them. I kept telling them. I think that’s why he put me out here. To shut me up!”

“Going to get you out of this sun,” Jed picked Willoughby up and laid him backside skyward across the saddle. He led Horse towards the stable and installed the boy underneath the painted wagon, which, he was pleased to see, appeared intact and unmolested.

“Sit tight,” he told the kid. “I’ve got it from here.”

He left the water within the boy’s reach. He headed back outside but he paused in the doorway. “You won’t let me down, will you?” he was almost ashamed to ask it. “When the time comes.”

Willoughby didn’t respond. Jed left him. Maybe it wouldn’t come to that. Maybe Jed wouldn’t need the boy in the end.

Jed kept close to the buildings. Plisp could be anywhere; why should Jed give him an easy target? He skirted past the feed store and approached the saloon, which was uncharacteristically silent. He flattened his back against the wall and peered over the top of the louvre doors into the darkness within.

At the far end of the barroom, a couple of lanterns illuminated the stage. Belle and Lilimae were tied in position, like showgirls in a tableau. Jed was disgusted by the depravity of Plisp’s imagination. Even though he knew this display was a lure to get him indoors, Jed knew he couldn’t leave the women in those degrading poses. He ducked under the doors so they wouldn’t swing and scuttled inside.

Jed kept his legs bowed and his back stooped as he made his way from empty table to table, getting closer to the stage.

He paused to assess the situation. Plisp might have rigged the place with anything and everything. Jed wouldn’t be surprised if the floorboards collapsed beneath him, or something large and heavy came swinging through the air to squash him, or some kind of explosion would be detonated. For all his misgivings, Jed reckoned he was fairly safe. Plisp wanted him alive - a dead Jed would be no use as a partner. It was for the others Jed was afraid. Plisp would stop at nothing in order to coerce the gunslinger into joining his path of destruction.

At the Pianola, a seated figure. At first Jed thought it might be one of those automated fellows but closer inspection revealed it to be Doc Swallow, the quacksalver. The man was alive - barely. His arms had been sliced open from wrist to elbow. His veins and tendons had been drawn out and splayed across the keys like extra fingers. Swallow’s face was white and his lips were blue. The lower half of him was sodden with blood. A rattling sound came from deep in the man’s throat. Jed edged closer.

“Doc...”

Swallow’s eyelids flickered. The slightest traces of a smile played at the corners of his mouth. Then his final breath escaped him and he toppled forwards. A loud, discordant noise rang through the saloon.

Jed moved quickly. He spun around and shot the rope that was holding Belle’s head up. Belle collapsed in a heap - the impact jolted her awake. At the same time, Jed threw his knife. It sliced through Lilimae’s bonds. She fell forwards but her sister was there to cushion her fall.

“Jed!” Belle cried in surprise and delight. Then her face darkened. “You shouldn’t have come.”

Lilimae screamed; she had seen Doc Swallow’s body.

“Get to the stable,” Jed grumbled. “See to Willoughby.”

Belle nodded. With Lilimae clinging to her, she made her way down the steps and across the saloon. Jed looked around. He doubted Plisp would attack his friends again. He had Jed where he wanted him. Jed cussed himself for not being there sooner to save the poor quack - but then again, any later and the others might have met some grisly end too.

Um, Jed...

The voice in his head wasn’t Plisp’s. It was Horse. Jed’s heart dropped to his boots as he realised his error. He tore through the saloon and out into the stark sunlight. Silhouetted against the sky, on Jed’s Horse, was Farkin Plisp.

“The choice is simple,” Plisp said pleasantly as if he were offering the sugar bowl for Jed’s cup of tea. “You can come with me and keep your precious Horse. Or I will take you apart and that piece of you that is bonded with this critter will be mine. That’s all I need from you, Jed. That’s what all this has been about. With this Horse at my command, I will be unstoppable.”

Jed stood his ground and was silent.

“Oh dear,” Plisp heaved his shoulders in a sigh. “I was hoping you’d say something redundant and clichéd like ‘over my dead body’. Other people are such a disappointment, aren’t they, Jed? They never pick up their cues.”

Jed spat on the ground.

“Come and face me like a man,” he snarled. “Let’s settle this once and for all.”

Plisp grinned. His glassy teeth glittered in the sunlight. He hooked his long leg over Horse’s back and stepped from the saddle like a streak of ink poured from a bottle.

He squinted at the sky.

“Must be high noon,” he reckoned. “There’s the cliché I’ve been waiting for.”

“You and me. Fastest gun wins.”

“Your daddy really filled your head with nonsense, didn’t he? Very well; if it will make you happy and will bring about my inevitable victory.”

Horse, unbidden, was already stepping aside in moves that would have won any dressage competition.

The two men walked to the centre of the road. They were twenty paces apart. The sun was high above them. They cast no shadows.

From the doorway of the barn, the women watched. Plisp’s back was to them, masking the gunslinger from their view. Belle held her breath. Lilimae’s fingers dug into her sister’s arm.

Jed’s hands twitched near his holsters but he didn’t look away from Plisp’s eyes and the cool blue glow behind them. The staring was part of it. The slightest flicker would signal the shooting to start.

Jed’s eyes widened as searing heat travelled from his fingertips to his shoulders. His hands were locked and burning with invisible fire. A low chuckle rose from Plisp’s chest. Taking his time, Plisp drew a single pistol and fired it.

Belle and Lilimae gasped to hear the shot. The man in the black coat was still standing. They heard the thud as Jed hit the dirt. Lilimae screamed.

Plisp crouched by the gunslinger’s body. He tore off his glove and placed his clawed hand on Jed’s brow, laughing to himself with malevolent glee.

“What’s happening?” Willoughby was at Belle’s shoulder, peering out into the brightness of day. He saw. “Oh no, oh no!”

Plisp raised his bloodied claw to the light. He licked it then threw back his head and roared. It was too delicious!

Jed stirred. Plisp needed him alive for the removal. Jed summoned all his strength to send a single word to Horse. Horse nodded even though Jed couldn’t see it.

Horse turned to Willoughby and gave him a significant nod.

Willoughby nodded in return. He steered the ladies away from the door and took them deep into the stable. Then he opened the back of the wagon, after all this time of keeping it closed. He was puzzled to find it empty. What had Jed meant? Had Willoughby misunderstood? Had it all failed?

Then a growl and a rush of air leapt over the boy’s head. Paw prints appeared in the dirt. Willoughby laughed and followed.

Plisp, his back to the barn, told Jed to keep still if he wanted to leave a pretty corpse. And then, apart from a few screams, he said no more.

Invisible jaws clamped around Plisp’s neck and threw him to the ground. The chameleote tossed Plisp around like a rag doll, tearing off his limbs and spilling the aqueous fluid Plisp used for blood, all over the road. Plisp’s head rolled clear. His eyes glinted in the sunlight and the glow behind them dimmed and went out.

Willoughby and Belle hurried to Jed and pulled him out of the way of the ravening beast. Glimpses of the critter flashed in the sunlight. Pieces of Farkin Plisp became opaque and shrivelled. Pretty soon there was nothing left but a battered black hat and a black coat in shreds.

The chameleote bounded away in search of some new females to do his hunting for him.

Willoughby and Belle lifted Jed’s arms around their shoulders and half-carried, half-dragged him to the shade of the barn. Lilimae raided the general store for bandages and other provisions. Horse paced nervously to and fro while together, the three survivors patched up the gunslinger and waited until he was sufficiently recovered to explain to them what in Hell had happened.