Bookshelf Battle

Slade had been using his regular voice for a year, but now the rasp was back with a vengeance.

“Who the fuck are you?” Sawbuck asked.

It’d been twenty years since Slade had last seen Sawbuck. The outlaw’s hair had turned gray. His face was wrinkled and leathery, but Slade still recognized him.

Slade puffed on his cigar. “I’m the man that’s going to kill you.”

“Is that so?” Sawbuck asked.

“Yup,” Slade replied.

Clovis and Slim wrenched their hooks out of the zombie, allowing it to drop to the ground. They stepped aside.

“Do I know you, bushwacker?” Sawbuck asked.

“Nope,” Slade replied. “But I know you.”

Sawbuck sneered and tossed Tobias aside. “Lots of people know me. You a bounty hunter?”

“Nope,” Slade replied.

“The law?”

“Nope,” Slade said.

“Then who the hell are you?” Sawbuck asked.

“An interested party,” Slade said.

“Huh,” Sawbuck said. “Well, Mr. Interested Party, if you want to challenge me, it’s your funeral. Here are the rules. You step back fifty paces that-a-way. I’ll step fifty paces back and on the count of three we…”

“Draw,” Slade said as he raised his rifle and shot Sawbuck right through the throat. The outlaw’s face could not contain his shock as he collapsed.

Along his journey, Slade managed to find two Colt pistols to replace the one he’d lost. He dropped his rifle, then drew one of the pistols and walked over to Sawbuck’s carcass and kicked him over onto his back.
Sawbuck clutched his throat as blood sprayed out of it.

“The…rules!”

The last thing Sawbuck ever saw was Slade pointing his Colt at his face.

The last thing Sawbuck ever heard?

“You don’t get rules.”

One…two…three…four…five…six.

Sawbuck was beyond dead and his face was the same consistency of raw hamburger.

“Hey!” Clovis yelled.

Annoyed, Slade holstered his empty pistol, then drew a fully loaded one and pointed it at Clovis and Slim, who instantly threw their hands up.

“Oh shit!” Clovis shouted as he and his hefty accomplice beat a trail out of town.

Slade holstered his pistol and stared down at Sawbuck’s corpse until Miss Bonnie joined him.

“Feel any better?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“Did you think you would?”

“Kinda.”

“I’m sorry,” Miss Bonnie said.

“It’s ok.”

“I thought you weren’t going to use that dumb raspy voice anymore,” Miss Bonnie said.

Slade returned to his regular tone. “Oh. Right.”

Tobias dusted himself off. “Holy shit, Mister! I never thought I’d see the day that someone stood up to Sawbuck Sam. Thank you.”

The young mayor stretched out his hand. Slade took it and tried not to stare at top of Tobias’ ridiculous hat as it flopped up and down during the handshake.

“You travelers or something?” Tobias asked.

“Traveled all the way to be here,” Slade said.

Tobias smiled. “More people? This town sure could use them.”

“Good,” Slade said as he picked up his rifle.

“What’s your name, friend?” Tobias asked.

“Slade. Rainer Slade.”

Tobias didn’t just smile. He glowed. He wrapped his arms around Slade and attached himself to his new hero like a barnacle.

Slade and Bonnie traded confused looks.

“Welcome home, brother!” Tobias cried.

“You stupid hayseeds have no idea how much you need me, do you?” Sawbuck asked the townsfolk.

“Thirty years,” Sawbuck said. “Three decades I’ve been volunteering my protection for you pathetic suckers and this is how I am repaid.”

The outlaw kicked Tobias in the gut, knocking him onto his back in the dirt.

“Sawbuck,” Tobias said as he stared up at the sky. “It was all my idea. Just let everyone go and let me have it.”

“That’d be too easy,” Sawbuck said. He turned to his lackies. “Bring it out, boys.”

Clovis and Slim went to the back of the wagon and before long they were carrying out a rolled up blanket, roughly six feet in length. On top of the blanket were two long wooden poles with sharp metal hooks on the end.

And it was groaning.

Tobias attempted to lift himself up to see what was going on, but felt down and landed on his side.

Clovis and Slim rolled out the blanket to reveal a restrained zombie. It was a male about thirty years old, dead at least six months. His arms had been hacked off, but his legs still worked. His mouth had a thick piece of rope in it, keeping him from biting, which from the growls he was making, he clearly wanted to bite someone badly.

“You know folks,” Sawbuck said. “For the longest time, I’ve been asking myself, ‘What can I do to make those stupid fucks in Fiddler’s Gulch take me seriously?’”

Clovis and Slim picked the zombie up. Clovis picked up a pole, stabbed it into the zombie’s back and caught his ribs with the hook. Slim did the same.

“I’ve shot so many of you that I lost count,” Sawbuck said. “Shooting you dummies just isn’t doing the trick anymore. So I thought about it. What can I do to impress upon you morons that I’m the boss and I am not to be fucked with?”

Sawbuck grabbed Tobias and lifted him up on his feet.

“And then I met my new friend here,” Sawbuck said as he pointed to the zombie. “And I knew I’d come up with a better way to convince you hicks to do your duty.”

The chains around his legs kept the zombie from walking. It writhed and struggled, but Clovis and Slim held on with their hooks.
“Jesus, Sawbuck,” Tobias said. “Can I pick getting trampled by your horse, instead?”

“That’d be too good for you,” Sawbuck said. “I…”

The sound of wagon wheels and galloping horses interrupted Sawbuck’s words. The outlaw looked down the road to see a wagon train entering town. In the lead wagon sat a redhead and a man with a beard.

“This some kind of trick, boy?” Sawbuck asked.

“No,” Tobias said.

“What is this?”

“I don’t know,” Tobias said. “I swear!”

“Listen up, rubes!” Sawbuck shouted. “From now on, anyone who is man enough to challenge me should challenge me. And if you’re too yellow, then shut the fuck up and start doing what I tell you or be ready to get eaten up and shit out by my pet!”

Sawbuck gripped Tobias’ arm tightly then walked toward the zombie. Clovis undid the rope and the zombie’s teeth chomped up and down until…

Pow. A bullet opened up the back of the zombie’s head. It fell dead, slumping like an unused puppet on the poles held by Clovis and Slim.

Slade slang racked up another bullet in his rifle, then slang it over his shoulder.

“I challenge you.”