The Drunk (Western Short Story)

The drunken man stumbled into Carville; he zig zagged across the centre of town, smelling as though he had just taken a bath in cheap whisky and looking as though he would just as likely shoot himself as be able to shoot anybody else and he stood in front of the Red Horse saloon.

“Carter Burke”, he shouted, taking a gun out of one of his holsters and firing it in the air three times, “Come… come out here… you son of a bitch and….fight me like a man”.

Soon, out through the bat wing doors of the saloon, he saw the outlaw Carter Burke and two of his gang members, Pearly Roberts and Bill Bronson, come and they were grinning and laughing as they saw the drunk man wrestling to get his other gun out of his holster.

“Why you’re so drunk”, said Burke, a big smile stretching between his ears, “That if you tried to shoot a hole in the ground  you’d probably miss it”.

The drunk span dizzily around, facing the wrong way before spinning back round to face the three outlaws.

“Yeah”, said Bill, joining in, “He’s so drunk that it’d be like shooting a barrel of whisky full of holes. He’d probably start spraying whisky everywhere”.

The drunk man fell down before staggering, clumsily back onto his feet.

“Huh”, Pearly now added, with a laugh, “That fools so drunk he can’t even stand up. We might have to shoot him lying down”.

Carter spat a wad of black tobacco he had been chewing onto the ground,

“So why you want to fight me anyway?”, he asked.

“’Cause you killed my family”, said the man, a sad look filling his eyes as he remembered people he had lost and would never see again.

“Yeah, well”, said Carter drawing a gun from one of his holsters, “You’ll see them soon, my friend. ‘Cause I’m gonna reunite you with them”.

The drunk man laughed,

“You can try”, he said, “But I know something that y’all don’t know”.

“What’s that”, said Burke, unconcerned.

Quick as lightning, the man, who had been slouching forwards, straightened up; shooting both his guns with deadly speed and accuracy and, hit by two bullets each that pierced their vital organs; Burke and his two outlaw friends fell face down in the dirt.

“I’m not really drunk”, replied the man.