Title: Are You Quick Enough To Be Dead?
Summary: The Quick and the Dead After they burned his mission Herod gave him a choice, Fight or Die. He had chosen death. They had made him fight. They had forced him to fight because Herod knew he was fast. But Cort doesn't want to be fast. All Cort wants…is to die.
Disclaimer: I own no characters from the movie, The Quick and the Dead.
A/N: Okay, this is gonna be a little weird because I've never written a western before. So take it easy on me and no flames!
Most of this story will be in Ellen's point of view. I'll let you know when it's someone else's.
Losing Redemption
Ellen stared across the dry Nevadan Desert thinking about what she had left behind her years ago. That little town that had needed her help so desperately. Needed her? The blonde smiled to herself. No, not her. Just some gun savvy hombre to take on Herod. She had been gun savvy, and in the end she had been the one to put the evil outlaw in the ground. But she wasn't the only one who could have done it.
Cort could have done it.
Her smile faded. He had offered, more like demanded, to take on Herod himself. But she hadn't let him because of her father. The other reason she wouldn't let him was because she knew what killing did to his kind.
It gave them a thirst for the kill.
Ellen knew how much killing a man affected your average gun fighter. Once they got a taste for it, they never stopped.
Elle also knew how it affected Cort. He had tried so hard to put violence behind him. And to go on living like a good man. A preacher of the Lord's good word. Being a 'holy' man of sorts made it worse for him. He felt that he had failed, in almost every way possible to keep the holy laws that his God had set down for him, and it tore him up inside, to kill other men in battle.
How did she know? How did she know so much about this reformed outlaw and gun slinger? He had told her as much as he could during the one night they had shared. She had listened. Wanting to help this poor man to go on living after all the death and destruction that had followed him everywhere he went.
He was a good man. He had been deceived in his youth, but he had learned his error. He had repented of it as best as he could. He was a good man with good morals. He helped those who needed it. Like her. Ellen would never be able to thank him enough for the help he had given her in defeating Herod. She had done her best to thank Cort, she had tossed him the badge. Given him a new life to look forward to.
She grinned and turned her horse east, toward Arizona, and Redemption.
It was time to visit and old friend.
As she rode in she immediately noticed the new jail and Marshall building. Ellen blinked back a few tears as old memories of what had gone on outside of the last Marshall Building the town had.
Shaking her head, she rode past the new clapboard building and pulled up next to the newly rebuilt Pigeon's Nest, now called Silk Mats. Ellen smirked at the name. It looked like the Kid's widow had found her self a new calling (Remember? The lady the Kid got married to was named Mattie Silk?). Tying her mount to a hitching post she clinked her way into the new Saloon next door.
Little Katie, not so little now, stood behind the bar serving a drinks to a couple cowboys as her father refilled a platter of peanuts for the gamblers.
Katie looked up from what she was doing when Ellen's shadow fell across the bar. The young woman beamed and hurried over to the gun packing blonde.
"Oh Lady! I knew you'd come back sometime!" She grasped Ellen's hands and drew her to a corner table. "The whole town's been a missin' you."
The older woman allowed herself a slight smile before answering. "Is that so?"
"Oh yes," Katie nodded vigorously along with her statements. "It was such a wonderful thing you done for us, we couldn't help but miss ya'." The slender woman sighed and dropped into the seat next to her hero. "Actually Miss, we was hoping you'd give the Marshal a hand. He ain't doing so well against the drifters."
Ellen lifted and eyebrow at that. Cort having trouble? "What is he doing? Trying to preach them into jail?"
The Owner's daughter looked confused for a moment then her face lit up. "Oh miss, I'd forgotten. You ain't been here in so long and-"Seeing the impatient look on the older woman's face she hurried on. "Cort ain't the Marshal no more. He only took the job till the town got back on its feet, and then he left. It's Jimmy Moonlight who's Marshal now."
Katie gave a quick glance around before whispering to Ellen, "Lady, he just ain't got the salt for the job! He's too much like his Pa to stand up to the one that talk big. That's why we need you, somebody's just got to clean the town of all the bad 'uns and appoint a new Marshal. Old Doc Wallace tried to find a new Marshal, but nobody'd listen to him."
"Is that so?" The other woman commented dryly. "Well get me a room and I'll see what I can do."
The brunette leaped to her feet and was scurrying toward the back door when Ellen caught hold of the girl's left hand. Raising it to the light, a small silver ring with a ruby chip on it glittered on her third finger.
Katie flushed. "Me and Arnold- you remember Arnold don't you? He used to shine shoes and stuff outside the Saloon."
"You mean the blind boy?"
"Yes, we got hitched last month."
Ellen dropped her hand and followed the girl outside. "You're father let you marry him? He hasn't got a job that could support him, much less a woman."
Katie's face clouded over. "He was the only one that's take me after-"
A sympathetic look passed over the older woman's face and she patted the girl on the shoulder. "I understand."
Katie shrugged it off. "Anyways, Pa lets us have a room and Arnold helps him wash up the tables and things after hours. He also got a part-time job over at the Livery feeding the horses, so we do alright. Here you go, you can stay in this room as long as you like."
Ellen entered the small room and started unpacking her stuff. She needed to talk to the Doctor as soon as possible.
Old Doc Wallace was getting too old to keep his practice. He knew that before too long he'd have to give it up to some young 'un who thinks he knows something about medicine.
The Doc had looked at the credentials of several such men looking for his job and had only found one likely candidate. That young man was moved into one of the side room's in Wallace's house and was to be present at every medical encounter so as to learn what he would need to know.
When Ellen called, Wallace and his 'apprentice' were in the operating room pulling a slug out of a man's back. She slipped quietly into the room and took a seat next to a window. She settled herself in for a wait.
After the wounded man had left, escorted by the assistant, Ellen came up to her old friend and gave him a hug.
"It's great to see you doc. How's life been here on your end?"
The old gentleman sighed and led her into the kitchen. "Not so good I'm afraid. After Cort left everything went downhill again. The only thing different in this town from the way it was five years ago is the fact all the buildings are new."
She accepted the cup of tea from him and blew on it. "Who took Herod's place then?"
Wallace shook his head. "You wouldn't know him. Some cattle lord from Texas someplace moved in here sometime last year and took over. He's more of the law around here than our recent Marshal is."
"Why'd Cort leave? He didn't strike me as the kind of man to leave a town in a lurch."
"Oh we were doing just fine when he left. Everything had been rebuilt, plus a few new places and all the bums had jobs, so no worries in that department. In the two years Cort was Marshal he gained this little dung heap a reputation for not putting up with any nonsense. But it wasn't more than two months after he'd left that the riffraff moved back in."
Ellen looked amused at the old doctor's referring to the town as dung heap. "That's all fascinating but why'd he go? Even after the town was fixed up it'd still need a lot of help before these people would be able to stand on their own."
Wallace took a swallow from his own cup of tea before responding. "Ellen you should know the answer to that question. You knew him better than any of us. He left because of bad memories. And because a man like that doesn't settle down someplace for good unless he's got a wife to keep him there."
"Do you know where he went?"
"No. He didn't say anything but that he had to leave. Although…"
She looked at him expectantly as the Doctor trailed off. "What?"
"He did mention something about getting some land around Wyoming, but I can't remember where exactly he said. Why are you so interested in his where abouts?"
She shrugged. "Just wondering. Like I said, he didn't strike me as the kind of man to just get up and leave without a serious reason."
Wallace just gave her a knowing smile.
Ellen woke in the middle of the night to gun fire. Leaping off the bed she pulled on her breeches and buckled on her gun belt, snatching her hat off the post on her way out. The sight that met her eyes was terrible.
The whole north end of town was on fire. All the houses, stores and saloons on that end of Main Street were going up in flames. The silhouettes of riders and people scurrying across the dusty land flitted across her vision.
She cursed and ducked back inside. Hastily she stuffed all her things back into her saddlebags and pulled on her coat.
Dashing back out she ran for the stables and her horse. She tied her pack onto the saddle, Leaping onto the horse's back as her mount cantered out of the barn. She turned the horse toward Wallace's house and kicked it into a gallop.
When the huge beast tore past a saloon on their way, Ellen suddenly remembered Katie. Cursing once again she swung the horse around only to have her way blocked by a wagon.
Doc Wallace, Katie and her family gaped at the gun slinging Lady and it took an explosion knocked them from their reverie.
Katie gasped. "C'mon Lady! We've gotta get, and fast!"
Ellen shook her head, "But the town-"
Wallace stopped her cold with his next words. "Don't. Redemption was lost the day your father died Ellen. Don't waste your time trying to save it now."
Well? What do you think? Does it have promise? Can I safely proceed with the next chapter?