The Fastest Gun Dead
BY JULIAN F. GROW
The skeleton had the fastest
draw west of the Pecos. Too
bad he was such a lousy shot.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1961.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
He was a big man, broad of shoulder, slim of hip. His Stetson was crimped Texas-style, over slate-gray eyes that impassively had seen much good and more evil in their twenty-six years.
He stood in the saloon door with the dust of the streets of Dos Cervezas Pequenas still swirling about scuffed, range-rider's chaps. His left hand held open the weatherbeaten swinging door. The right hovered over the worn peachwood butt of the Colt holstered on his right thigh.
The slate-gray eyes, emotionless, swept the crowd bellied up to the bar, and stopped at one man. When he spoke it was flat, but with the ring of tempered steel, and every man but that one drew back out of range. "I want you, Dirty Jake," the big man said. "Now."
Dirty Jake shot him into doll rags, naturally.