Disclaimer: As IPS is not a western, it should be clear by now that I don't own it! ;P

Author's Note: Dedicated to BuJyo (Get well soon!), and all the other readers who are still reading this, which it turns out are kind of a lot! You guys are awesome! =D

Time for the big action/violence/showdown chapter! Still rated T, because it's not too graphic, but I thought I'd let y'all know, just in case! =)


West of the Pecos

Part 7

"Let me get this straight," Marshall turned to the sheriff. "You keep rifles under the floorboards?"

"Yep," Mary replied, still smirking.

"Is this a whorehouse or an armory?" he asked, positively goggling at her. Mary's smirk widened into a wolfish grin in response.

"Well, sometimes people… leave… their things, like Brandi said," Jinx explained. "And if someone dies on the premises, then we keep their effects."

Marshall's eyes widened further, a feat that Mary wouldn't have thought was possible.

"Oh, of course we don't kill them," Jinx added hastily, holding up a hand to forestall his protest. "No one would want to go to a cathouse where the ladies were murdering people, after all. But sometimes the patrons kill each other, and there's really not much we can do about that."

"Not to mention the ones that drop dead in the sack," Brandi chimed in as she re-entered the room.

She cradled in her arms perhaps half a dozen rifles, a burden she obviously found heavy. She dumped them on the foot of the bed for distribution to the room's occupants. The massive pearl-handled revolver was now tucked into a leather belt cinched tightly at her waist, somewhat at odds with her burlesque-worthy attire.

"So… you are killing them, in a manner of speaking," he addressed the heavily armed prostitute, who shrugged.

"I guess when you put it that way, kind of, yeah," she replied indifferently.

"Holy Jesus," Marshall murmured.

"Is it the plethora of weaponry or the notion of dying in flagrante delicto that causes you to take the name of our Lord's son in vain?" Peter piped up from the bed, awake for the first time since Mary and Marshall had arrived.

"A little of both," Marshall replied, clearly still turning over the ideas of an armed brothel and death by intercourse in his head.

"I can't fault you there," the man of the cloth replied, before turning his attention to Stan. "Would you be so kind as to help me to the chair by the front window? I'm a bit weak for standing, but I believe I can still aim."

"I wouldn't have thought a man of God would be willing to shoot someone," Marshall stated, growing more perplexed with each passing moment.

"Let he who is without sin fire the first bullet," Peter replied dryly as the mayor helped him get settled and Brandi handed him one of the rifles and a box of ammunition.

At that moment, Charlie burst into the bedroom, having returned to his post downstairs after showing the sheriff's party inside. It had evidently been his task to keep an eye on the comings and goings of the invading gang.

"Bad news, sir," he addressed the mayor. "They don't appear to have found what they're after, and they're starting to gather out in front. This is the only building they haven't checked."

Mary and Marshall moved to the sides of one window, stealing surreptitious glances at the scene below. The building was indeed faced by a mob of O'Connor's - no, Faber's men. They looked as though they were preparing to storm the cathouse at any moment.

"Attention, hookers!" Faber's voice called from outside. The memory of it sent chills down Mary's spine. "This is your soon-to-be-mayor, Michael Faber! I'm real eager to do business with all of you, but first, I need to find this town's current mayor so that I can kill him and gain his mayoral powers! You ladies wouldn't happen to know where he's hiding by any chance, would you?"

Marshall's brow furrowed as he looked at Mary. "Is this guy insane?" he asked, confused.

"I think he might be," she replied, her own brow creasing as she tried to remember. "He thinks there's copper in the hills outside of town, and he wants to make it into wires or some such nonsense."

She saw Stan's eyes light up at the mention of copper, and she felt the announcement of a new get-rich-quick-and-put-the-town-on-the-map scheme coming on.

"Keep your trap shut, Stan. Whatever it is can wait until we've taken care of this guy," she snapped, cutting the mayor off when his mouth was already half open. It snapped shut again quickly, and he nodded his deference.

As Mary pulled back from the window, the room seemed to spin for a moment, and she staggered slightly before regaining her footing.

"Oh dear Lord, Mary, what's happened to you?" Jinx cried out, having noticed for the first time the matted patch of bloodied hair on her eldest daughter's head. She reached forward to inspect the injury.

"Oww, Jesus! Woman, I'm fine!" Mary growled, batting her mother's hand away. "Did you really think the cut on my head would feel better if you were to stick your fingers in it?"

"Well pardon me for caring!" Jinx sniffed, picking up and loading her rifle before gesturing at the window to indicate the situation outside. "Anyway, what are we going to do about… about that?"

"We're going to make them wish they'd never set foot in our town," she stated defiantly.

"You ready to do this thing?" Brandi asked her sister, looking impatient and dangerous with her rifle in hand and her six-shooter in her belt, and otherwise still in full hooker regalia.

"Damn right, I am," Mary responded with a deadly grin.

Brandi headed downstairs, for what purpose, Marshall knew not, though it seemed clear enough that the sisters were following some long-standing contingency plan. Honestly, who plans for something like this? he wondered as Mary kicked open the door to the balcony and strode out into the blazing brightness of high noon.

"Hey, asshole!" Mary's voice bellowed. "You want us, come and get us!"

"Holy crap! Kitten! It's you!" Faber cried in surprise as she loosed a shot at him.

Unfortunately, she missed; her aim was off because she was still wobbly from her injury. Faber's men broke ranks for a moment, and in that instant of chaos, Brandi made her move.

"Whores! Charge!" her bellowing voice gave the order, and in an instant the street was flooded with angry, armed prostitutes.

The outlaws were taken by surprise, unable to mount a defense as they were confronted with a sea of scantily clad, jiggling women. Weapons were discharged in a frenzy, the booming report of Brandi's large-caliber weapon audible over the others, and more than one man was felled by the swinging butt of a rifle wielded by a hooker's hands.

Marshall, Eleanor, and Bobby D joined Mary in providing support from the balcony, taking down the men positioned on neighboring rooftops in a staccato of successive rifle fire. Mary noticed that Marshall grunted softly with each shot; the recoil seemed to be straining his shoulder, and she wondered if he had injured it at some point.

In a few moments it was all over; the majority of Faber's men were dead, and the remaining few were scattering to the winds. Faber himself was nowhere to be seen.

As Mary glanced down, assessing the damage, she spotted movement: O'Connor rose from behind a rain barrel across the street and leveled a pistol at her sister.

"Brandi!" Mary screamed, and before either sister could react, the air was split by the crack of a single gunshot.

O'Connor fell, dead, as a thin wisp of gun smoke curled from the barrel of Peter Alpert's rifle.


"The preacher really came through, saving your sister like that. I didn't think he had it in him," Marshall noted as the party made their way downstairs, with the exception of Peter and Brandi, the latter having run upstairs after her close call to tend to the holy man.

"She's probably trying to pay him back in trade as we speak," Mary replied, smirking.

"Well, you know what they say. 'No good deed goes unpunished,'" he grinned.

"No casualties among the ladies of the evening, only a few minor injuries," Charlie reported happily as they arrived on the ground floor. "Doc Eps is already seeing to the deceased among the outlaws."

"You have a doctor?" Marshall asked, confused. "Then why isn't he tending to the living?"

"Oh, he's not really a doctor," Jinx informed him. "That is to say, he used to be, but his patients tended to, um… die. Rather often, actually."

"Now he's our undertaker," Charlie added helpfully.

"This town scares me," Marshall muttered to the sheriff.

"Well, what about this maniac, Faber?" Stan demanded. "Are we going to search him out, or aren't we?"

"Prostitutes!" Charlie shouted. "To the streets! Find Michael Faber!"

"Well, that takes care of that," Mary remarked as she watched the young man lead his army of iniquity through the door and down the street.

"They really seem to like him," Marshall added as he watched the spectacle.

"Well, he practically lives here," she replied. "He's on friendly terms with most of the girls, if you know what I mean."

"That's… uh…" Marshall trailed off before switching topics. "Perhaps we should go out and look, as well."

Mary shrugged and led the way outside.


The group had split up, with Mary and Marshall taking one side of the street and Eleanor and Bobby D taking the other. Marshall had wandered through a gap between the general store and the wainwright while Mary checked out a nearby storage warehouse, and found himself in a secluded rear alley. It seemed clear and he was about to leave, when a scuffing footstep behind him stopped him in his tracks.

"Well, if it isn't the marshal dispatched by the government of these United States to throw a wrench in my plans," Faber taunted. "We meet at last."

Marshall turned slowly; he found that the man had not yet drawn, but his hand hovered over the butt of a holstered gun. The desperation in his eyes told Marshall that he wanted to draw against him, and didn't care if he lived or died. Staging a shootout with a desperate man was never a good idea, and in this case, Marshall knew something Faber didn't. While Faber thought the odds were even, Marshall already knew what the outcome of the gunfight would be; he'd come down hard on his shoulder when he'd escaped the explosion in the mine, and the joint was stiff and sore.

He would be unable to draw quickly, and he would lose.

But he had to try. There was no other choice. This had to end before more lives were lost… before more harm could befall Mary. If Faber's bullet didn't kill him instantly, if he had time for just one shot...

"I am United States Marshal Marshall Mann," he replied icily, "and I'm the man you're looking for."


A/N: Dun dun duuuuunnnnn! Cliffhanger! What will happen to Marshal Marshall? And Mary? And the hookers? But most especially Marshall? Saddle up next time for the answers to this and more in the next chapter of West of the Pecos, and don't forget to review this chapter, too! =D

Also, there looks to be a ratings bump in the near future, so look for the next chapter under M! ;D