By Charles Langley

The stranger wore a brand-new ten-gallon hat that had never held water and still had that store-boughten smell. His chambray shirt was starched and ironed and had fancy little stitches around the pocket. His belt, wide and hand-carved, had obviously never supported a six-shooter and his polished high-heeled boots sported no spurs. He was a dude, that’s what he was, an out-and-out dude.

“I hear tell this town of Tombstone has some real tough hombres,” he said, lookin’ right at me. “Know any of ’em?”

“If they’re here and they’re tough, I know ’em,” I told him. “Even if they ain’t tough, I still know ’em. Ain’t enough hombres around for me not to know ’em.”

“Who’s the fastest man with a gun in these parts?”

“That’s probably Two-toe Thompson. He’s so fast he can shoot hisself in the foot twice before the other gun-slinger clears leather.”

“He’s real dangerous, then?”

“Only to boots and toes. They call that high spot over yonder ’boot hill’ cause that’s where he buries his shot-up footwear.”

“How come the other guy, after he finally gets his six-gun outta the holster, doesn’t gun him down?”

“Man hoppin’ around on one foot and howling like a turpentined dog kin be very distracting and hard to hit. Fella usually empties his gun and then rolls around laughin’ so much he cain’t reload?”

“Guess what I want to know is who’s the best shot of the lot?”

“That’d be Dead-Eye Dickson. They call him that cause one eye ain’t no good for seein’. But usin’ the other eye he kin shoot the horn offen a horned-toad. Only he wouldn’t shoot at a toad. Only wastes his lead on pop bottles and tin cans. Says they’s so few hombres around that men are more important than reputations. Won’t even shoot a prairie dog. Says they got a place in nature’s plan. People never mess with him ’cause with idees like that they know he’s plumb loco. Besides, if he ever got it into his mind to start shootin’ people, wouldn’t be nothin’ left but prairie dogs and horned toads.”

“Who would you say has the most notches on his gun?”

“Ole Jess Willard. He never does no shootin’, but when the gunfire gits too loud he’s liable to walk up and whomp one of the gunmen aside the head with the butt of his gun. Hate’s loud noises. They ain’t so much notches as they are nicks where the headbone cracks into the gun-butt.”

“I hear tell Wyatt Earp used to hole up here. Tell me about him.”

“Not much to tell. Always set in a corner so’s nobody could git behind him. Stood with his back to the wall. I always thought his pants wuz split up the back, or somethin’, but I walked in behind him once and he warn’t showin’ any more behind than anybody else.”

“What do they call you?”

“Depends on whether they’re bigger than me. Iffen they are, they call me anythin’ they want.. Otherwise, I’m known as Doc Holliday. I pull teeth in that room in back of the barber shop. While back, some writer feller come to town and wrote a piece about how dangerous I wuz. Didn’t nobody come in with a tooth-ache for months after that.”

“Didn’t Billy the Kid stop here for a while?”

“Yes, siree. Used to deliver groceries for Ron Teller down at the general store. Had to git rid of him, though, because of his gun-play. Ever’body shoots at tin cans once in a while, but he shot at the one’s he was deliverin’. People don’t cotton to gittin’ their canned peaches with all the juice drained out through bullet holes. Some say he put a hole in twenty-one cans afore he was sixteen years old and they run him outta town.”

“By the way, if anybody wants to know who you been talkin’ to, I’m Bat Masterson. Used to be Sheriff of Abilene. Real rootin’, tootin’, shootin’, son-of-a-gun. I’ll be a legend in my own time if I can just git someone to write my story the way I tell it. Until then, I write for the sports page of the New York Telegram. Real tough town. Take your life in your hands everyday just ridin’ those trolley cars. Lend me your gun, I’ll show you some fancy shootin’.”

I handed him my Colt revolver. He twirled it around his finger, made “bang, bang” noises and then accidentally pulled the trigger and shot off his big toe.

Like he said, rootin’, tootin’, shootin’, son of a gun. Legend in his own time.