DISCLAIMER – I do not own any Sonic the Hedgehog characters, settings, etcetera (anything copyrightedly relating to SEGA's works). Fang the Sniper / Nack the Weasel is property of SEGA, although some aspects of this story are my own work. Alterations to the Sonic universe in this story are not to be considered canon. Do not steal (forge in your or another person's name) or sell this story in any manner. I have a good lawyer. You may, however, place this on your website without permission. Please ask permission before using aspects of this story in yours. If sections of it look similar to another, please inform me. I'm no thief myself. Thank you, and enjoy.

Bounty Hunter
By Rusty Dillingham

--Chapter Ten – On a Lark--

"Bill!" shouted Sergeant Baker from his messy, smelly office. The Station Square police department was busier than ever for some reason that night, and his big, huge, manly body needed caffeine. A lot of it. "Coffee!"

"Yes, sir," sighed Officer Bill from his desk for the twenty-eighth time since he'd arrived at work. He too was sorely busy, and hearing Baker scream at him every fifteen minutes wasn't doing nice things to his health and state of mind.

"Extra cream and sugar!"

"Why don't you shove it up your ass, Sarge," muttered the severely overworked policeman, just quiet enough to keep his superior from understanding.

"WHAT?" yelled Baker. "I CAN'T HEAR YOU, DAMN IT!"

"YES, SIR!" was the response. Officer Bill looked at the gun in his holster and thought about the many uses he could put it to.

"You have to SPEAK UP! Nobody can understand you when you talk like you're a mouse who just got caught with cheese in his face! I swear, Bill, did you even graduate from the goddamned academy? They're supposed to teach you how to speak with authority! Use your voice for a change! You've gotta grow some balls! Talk back to people! Otherwise, they'll walk all over you!"

Officer Bill muttered some unintelligible obscenity.

"WHAT!?"

"YES, SIR!"

Sergeant Baker leaned back in his massive leather chair and rocked. There was a stack of paper on his desk almost an inch-and-a-half thick, a documentation of that year's activity in the police force, including improvements, arrests, and most importantly, information on any monetary transactions the department had made. The file had grown over the year until it was the monster that threateningly loomed before Baker's fat visage. Captain Lipton had decreed him worthy of handling the nuisance of overseeing the file and making sure everything involved was in line. It was no secret in the precinct that Lipton did not like Baker, and vice-versa, but the Sergeant's options for retaliation were seriously limited. He had contemplated shoving the file into Bill's hands and delegating the whole thing to him, but Lipton had foreseen that possibility already and specifically forbidden it, much to Baker's irritation.

He had only made a tiny, almost immeasurable dent in the file by then. He'd already gone through three sodas and a carton of cigarettes that had belonged to Bill. The point of the file was lost to him, especially since the department had people who handled this garbage, but apparently, they were all conveniently off on vacations to Casino Night or some other overrated dump. That just figured, Baker thought as he skimmed through the rest of the file and glowered at everything he saw.

He was just getting ready to scream at slowpoke Bill when the officer finally entered the office unceremoniously with a small cup of steaming caffeine. "It's about time," Baker groused.

"You're welcome," mumbled Officer Bill, shuffling over the desk as slowly as he could without getting Baker wound up over it.

Baker grabbed the cup from Bill's hand. "Where's the cream and sugar?"

"It's already in there." Bill made no attempt to hide the hateful glare on his face.

"Where's the honey?"

Bill's glare intensified. "What honey?"

"The honey! Where is it!?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Who in the hell put honey in their coffee? You were supposed to do that with tea.

"I can't have any goddamn coffee without honey! What the hell is wrong with you? Haven't you ever had coffee before!? You know I need honey in here when I've got all this hard work to do!"

"You didn't ask for honey," countered the officer through clenched teeth.

"Yes I did!"

"No you didn't."

"Yes, I did!"

"NO YOU DIDN'T." Bill's pupils dilated.

"Ye—" The obnoxious, old-fashioned buzzer on Baker's desk rang noisily. Baker slapped a fat finger onto a well-worn button. "I'm BUSY!"

"I have a reply from GUN for you," said Secretary Doris. She was filling in for Secretary Josie, who was using the absence of the department's money punchers as an excuse to take a well-earned vacation from the building, Baker, and Bill's charmless advances.

"Bill, go get it."

Bill stood there, then conceded and left the room, if just to get Baker out of his line of sight for a few moments.

Earlier that morning, Baker had gone to Doris and told her to take a letter for him. At first she had flatly refused and told him to write it himself, but Baker's incessant bitching and moaning had driven her crazy within seconds, and he was barely competent enough to write something that wouldn't embarrass the department anyway, so she had resigned to her fate. The e-mail had directly asked in no pleasant terms the status of their agent in the field who was tracking Nack the Weasel, a subject Baker wanted closed, and fast. He had not heard one word from either the agent or the three bounty hunters he had sent off after the little weasel-wolf himself, and that made him antsy. Baker could have gotten hold of the GUN agent himself, but between that scalawag and the agency he worked for, GUN was a lesser poison, and he'd actually forgotten the guy's phone number anyway.

Bill returned and handed Baker a printed copy of the reply e-mail. Baker snatched it with no word of thanks and began to read while Bill assumed a seat in front of the desk.

Dear Sergeant Whatever-your-name-is,

We have maintained periodic contact with our agent in the field since the beginning of this operation. He is currently investigating the possibility that Fang the Sniper is tracking Claw the Mole and his men. He has reason to believe Fang the Sniper is currently located in Sand Hill based on information and evidence he has obtained. Thank you for your interest in overseeing how well we do our jobs. Please tell Secretary Josie and your mother that we said hello, and that you're movin' in with your auntie and your uncle in Bel-Air.

Love, GUN

Baker crumpled the letter into a ball and tossed it into the garbage pail near his recycle bin. "Pricks."

Bill rolled his eyes.

"All of 'em are just a bunch of assholes. Especially that agent they've got working for them. The fellow who showed his ugly face here. I'll be a sonofabitch if he didn't reach a level of asshole only few can hope to achieve in a thousand lifetimes. And criminy, did he smell. Probably hadn't looked at a shower in years. What the hell was his name, Bill? He was some kind of dog or cat or something. James? Jimbo?"

"He was a hyena, and his name was 'Jagged,' sir."

"That wasn't it!"

Bill sighed.

Baker leaned back in his seat, causing the unfortunate thing to squeak louder than ever. He rocked back and forth, his swaying girth sending noticeable ripples through the atmosphere while the chair beneath him groaned helplessly like it were being put through some kind of torture session. He watched nothing in particular, struggling to put his brain to good use. "Claw the Mole... Claw the Mole. Why does that name sound familiar?"

"Wanted criminal," Bill said, wondering how this big, fat idiot couldn't know who that was, especially since Baker had sent Jagged some information about him. "His poster was in here on your wall for a while, in case you've forgotten. He tried to rob a bank a while back. Messed up big-time. Some people paid the price for his mistakes; couple of children, I think. The department put out a bounty on him not long afterwards."

"How much?" The sergeant took a long swig of coffee, savoring the taste, regardless of its lack of beloved honey.

"Three hundred thousand dollars."

Baker spewed the contents of his mouth all over the file he'd been working on and jolted to his feet. "Three hundred thousand dollars!!"

"That's correct, sir."

"What stupid dumb cracked-up twinkle-toed shit-for-brains put a three hundred thousand dollar bounty on that worthless deadbeat!?"

"You did, sir."

"I'm not stupid enough to make a decision as retarded as that one! I'll bet it was that miserable sonofawhore Lipton!"

"No, you did it, sir. You did it because your mother had just opened a savings account there and had her down payment of ten dollars taken because of the heist."

"Bullshit! You're probably in on this, too! I can't trust any of you grab-assing dumbasses with anything!"

Bill sighed.

"Three hundred grand!" Baker cried. "Three hundred! What the hell kind of crazy-ass psycho would do that? Who the hell thinks we've got that kind of money here? All these damned bounty hunters are wringing us dry of cash already!"

Bill shook his head and watched helplessly.

"What in the hell are we supposed to do if that furry little fuck catches him and brings him back here!?" the Sarge yelled with a wave of his hands, splashing the rest of his coffee onto the carpet floor. "We don't have that kind of money! He'll kill us all! Hell, he already tried to!"

"He did?" Bill blinked.

"Well, I mean—" Baker remembered he hadn't told anyone about Fang's recent appearance and threats in that very office. The demand from Fang about keeping quiet burned to life in his memory, and he almost choked on his tongue right then and there. "It's just that when he stole all that money, that was a way of offing us, right? Put us all out of a job, I mean."

Bill stared at him as though that were the stupidest thing he'd ever heard.

"What!?" Baker growled.

"Nothing, Sarge."

"Up yours, Bill. I'm this close to getting an ulcer," said the sergeant, eager to change the subject. "With any luck, the agent will hurry the hell up and finish Nack the Weasel off. I'm already up to my ass in debt because of both those little pricks. I should just retire early."

I wish, thought Bill. "What about those three other bounty hunters you hired? The smarmy kangaroo guys."

Baker was immediately suspicious. "What about them?"

"Didn't you tell them that you were going to pay them each thirty thousand dollars if they caught Fang the Sniper?"

Baker stared at him, slack-jawed.

"HOW THE HELL DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT!?" he yelled.

"Well, you're so loud, it's a wonder the whole city doesn't know. Did you even have the department's authorization to make that kind of deal?"

"NO I DIDN'T HAVE THE STUPID DEPARTMENT'S AUTHORIZATION!!" Baker's neck turned a deep purple.

"What are you going to do if those guys come back here with Fang's head on a stick? They're going to be awful curious as to where their money is. And I don't think they're the kind of people who have a lot of reservations about putting all those guns they had on them to use, too. They look like the sort of folks who shoot at stray dogs and the elderly to practice their aim."

"Don't you get smart with me! I know what I'm doing, and I don't have to listen to your smarmy commentary to get through this... this... stupid crap! I'll think of something!"

Bill crossed his arms and watched Baker. "What about Jimbo? How much are you paying him if he seals the deal?"

"I, uh, I don't... Hell, I don't even remember—"

"It was thirty thousand, right?"

"I don't know!"

"And you told him that this department had a hundred thousand dollars stolen from it by Fang, when we're lucky if we have five thousand in the bank now because of all these ego-centric man-hunters collecting bounties."

"Why don't you shut up!?"

"You're telling me," Bill said, leaning forward, "that you lied about our funding to a GUN agent, that you offered to pay him thirty thousand dollars, that you offered to pay the other three hunters ninety thousand dollars, that you somehow have to come up with three hundred thousand dollars in case they all screw up, and that you didn't have authorization to do any of these things?"

Baker stood motionlessly, gawking at Bill and looking very much like a deer staring down an eighteen wheeler going eighty miles an hour. His eyeballs grew larger every second.

"Wow," exulted Bill, thoroughly enjoying this. "You're in deep shit, Sergeant Baker."

Baker was still silent, but he had an expression on his face that all but said he'd like to walk over to Bill and rip out all his vital organs. He grabbed at the brown hair on his head and pulled while fighting as hard as he ever had to figure out how to correct all these damned complications the officer had produced. "I don't deserve this. I'm a twenty-two year veteran of this department. I've got a wife and kids. A mortgage. A high phone bill..."

Bill sighed and prayed for Baker to quit rambling.

"... a car I'm still trying to pay off, insurance payments out my ass, a big, fat, stupid, still-growing bill because I never took those DVDs back to the rental store, and I'm a good goddamn man of the faith! This is bullshit! I don't believe this! Five dickhead mongrels who would like nothing better to then to shoot up this whole miserable world when they find out we don't have their money. What the hell am I gonna do?"

"Gee, Sarge, I just don't know. I guess you're proper fuc—"

Suddenly Baker stopped his pacing about, as though a switch had just been flipped in his skull, lighting a labyrinth of black tunnels inside. "Wait a minute. Just hold on for a second. I'm not approaching this correctly at all."

Bill too was quickly suspicious, and he felt his elation fade. "How's that?"

"If something were to happen to Nack that made him, oh, I don't know, not exist anymore—"

"What!?" cried Bill, looking at Baker like the man had just sprouted a second head.

"What?" repeated Baker with a huge shrug of his shoulders.

"Sir, you can't put out a hit on the guy! Have you lost your mind? We're trying to catch him, not waste him! Not to mention he's half the reason crime isn't as prevalent as it could be. He helps get the scum off our streets so we don't have to."

"Do you have a better idea, Bill?" spat Baker, a frown burrowing into his brow. "One that won't get this station burned to the ground by some pissed-off bounty hunters who have so little regard for life, it's a wonder they even care about their own? Maybe I could just give them your paycheck! Since you're so goddamn inept, you can't even bring a guy some honey when he asks for it. It's a miracle you can find your way out of bed in the morning. I don't think you could locate your balls with a map and a flashlight."

"You don't have to do that, sir," replied the officer. Bill felt like his whole body was deflating. "But pulling a stunt like that would be the biggest breach of ethics you could attempt, and you've already done some major breaching of ethics by using the department's money in your deal-making with these bounty hunters. There's got to be some way you can come up with the money to avoid having to go that route. I don't know. Sell your car, take out another mortgage on your home."

"Three hundred thousand dollars, Bill!"

"I know, I know." Bill leaned forward again, keeping his voice down. "But you can't end a person's life over money. We're not the mob."

"It's the only way to insure our safety. Putting that kind of thing into motion isn't as hard as your brainless head might think. There are men out there who will do that kind of work for peanuts. We just have to get hold of them somehow."

We? thought Bill. "You think an assassin is going to try and kill Fang the Sniper for peanuts?"

"Why do you keep calling him that?"

Bill sighed yet again.

"I'm not talking about an assassin," Baker continued. "Assassins cost too damn much, and you can't trust them anyway. They're too smart compared to who I'm considering. I'm talking about low-life deadbeats, dregs of society who claw their way through life with nothing but a gun and a dollar in their pocket. Scumbags who get their courage through liquor and then gun down a banker for looking at them wrong. They're exactly the sort of thugs we can depend on to pull this off." Baker thought a moment. "You say the department's got at least five thousand dollars?"

"We'd know for certain if you'd ever finish working on that file on your desk."

"I want you to put out an A.P.B. to Sand Hill's capital tomorrow morning, first thing."

"Does that place even have a capital?" asked Bill. He'd never been to Sand Hill, but all he knew about it was that it was basically the sole epitome of shithole.

"Of course it does. It's, uh—" Baker thought for a long while. "Oh, hell. Just find a damn map of it and see what it is. I want every slimeball in that God-forsaken wasteland to know that there's a death sentence on Nack the Weasel's head, and the first individual to put a bullet in it gets five thousand dollars, cash. I know how that place operates – word'll get around fast."

"You think this is going to work? Nobody will want to take on that guy."

"For five thousand dollars, they will. Think about it, Bill. In that kind of environment, a man's pride is all he's got. Nobody would normally test their shooting hands against Nack the Weasel. He's just too damn good with a gun. But put some money on the table, and suddenly a whole lot of folks will feel their balls get bigger. The idea of being the one who shot Nack the Weasel will sound a lot nicer with a reward of five grand to go with it."

Bill shook his head, unable to believe what he was hearing. "That's all the money we've got left, Sarge. Every single person above you is going to have kittens when they take a look at our bank account. Not to mention, the mayor and everyone else with the city are gonna spontaneously combust when they find out they have to deal with this mess."

"Don't remind me. It's better than the alternative."

Bill watched him. He didn't want to get involved in this at all, but he felt inclined to anyway for some reason. Maybe it was the mental image of his police station completely on fire. "Are you sure about this, Sarge? It's a big step to take."

Baker nodded. "It's the only way, Bill. I've gotten us all into a terrible situation, and now I have to get us out of it somehow. It's my responsibility."

A shudder-inducing moment of stillness hung in the air. There was one more thing Bill felt he had to remind Baker of, something much worse than anything else he'd yet mentioned.

"Sergeant," Bill said quietly, "I know you probably already realize it, but when all those bounty hunters you hired find out you did this, they're not going to be happy."

Baker was silent.

"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, Bill."

A light Sand Hill wind ruffled Fang's sand-swept fur, prompting a fierce glower that was directed up into the dark sky. The desert zone's nights were cold, and save for his blanket, he had not thought to bring any kind of protection against this harsh environment, save for the gun in his holster, which only served to quell other annoyances with weapons and didn't help against the frostbite-inducing bitterness of the atmosphere. Only his violet coating kept his recent case of the sniffles from coming back to haunt him.

He'd stopped after putting a good ten miles between him and the town, but now he had little to go on. He'd been told that Claw – or someone who looked like Claw, anyway – had been headed north, where nothing but death lay waiting for anyone stupid enough to set foot in such harsh wilderness. Much of Sand Hill was unexplored territory, as it was socially popular only for overly-hyper teenagers who enjoyed boarding down some of its towering mountains, and everyone else here was only present because they had to be, whether by business or hard luck. Fang had been in worse places, so he didn't mind the mediocre situation as much as he would have otherwise, but it still left a foul, morbid feeling within him.

He took care to make sure his little camp was situated where a fire wouldn't be presentable to anyone lingering around in the near vicinity, as he stopped himself by another of Sand Hill's towering rock formations. The fire itself had to be small, but it did its job, which was to heat some of the canned goods Fang kept in the Queen for instances just like this. The food wasn't stellar, but he didn't fuss about that sort of thing anymore. He usually ate whatever was in front of him without complaints these days, since he was too poor as of late to enjoy the swankiness of anything better than the pork and beans he ate directly from the can after it had warmed significantly. A sorely average, typical dinner for Fang the Sniper. That was the way it was in the badlands.

Afterwards, he struggled to entertain himself with a book he'd been trying to read every so often for the last six months, but he only managed four paragraphs before getting frustrated with the lack of light and uneasiness that came with being so vulnerable in the dead of night. Besides, the wind kept slapping sand into his eyes, so he eventually threw the old, worn novel back in the Queen and curled uncomfortably under the freezing blanket to try and at least get a few hours' rest.

He succeeded in getting maybe half that. Between the immense feeling of loneliness, the sprawling environment full of nothingness, the freezing atmosphere, the unnerving noise of the wind, the sand brushing over him, and the deathly black darkness all around him, he could not remember being more miserable. It was a man's duty to endure whatever was thrown at him with as much of a stone jaw and leather face as he could manage, but Fang knew that even he had a limit. If he didn't find that little bastard mole soon, he didn't doubt the possibility of his soul curling up and dying after having enough with the little exploits his body attempted.

He would have given anything for a decent bed and room. It would have been nice to get one back at the town, but that mangy hedgehog kid had put any chance of that to a halt. Part of Fang wished he'd just shot the little prick, but he didn't like to kill unless he had to, or he were thoroughly pissed off. He wasn't quite pissed off enough to go back there and do it, too. Maybe somebody else would finish the job for him, though. His thinking got the better of him, and he woke up various times through the night. He eventually took to sitting before the fire after he'd taken great effort in getting it going again.

Fang glanced at the bandage on his arm, where a stray round from the hedgehog had grazed him. He found himself watching it a good long while.

There were a lot of ways a fellow could just disappear in this line of work. The Sand Hill environment helped that a lot, too. The harshness of being a bounty hunter, a lifestyle that set its own regulations and morals, ate up people like a grinder. He'd run into every speck of low-gene life he could ever imagine coming across. Drug addicts, drunkards, killers, gunfighters. All of them, it seemed to him, were soulless creatures who made the world a worse place with their existences. Their presence made the land a more dangerous place. If a man didn't succumb to the terrible hate of these lowlifes, there were a thousand other things that could go wrong. Bounty hunting, except in a few rare cases such as Claw the Mole, was more often than otherwise not particularly prosperous work. People did it because they knew nothing else, and could do nothing else, and few were born with the survival skills needed for this occupation. There were so many ways a man could die.

Fang the Sniper, however, had built up a reputation as being too tough to kill. He had faced every hazard he'd come across and lived to tell the tale. His exploits were so widely-known that someone who didn't know Fang the Sniper was a rarer sight than solid gold. People he had never met hated him for what he did, just because he did it so well. The very mention of his name was like a saber to the heart of badmen everywhere. Some said he was invincible, and he didn't go out of his way to dispel those claims.

He knew the truth, though. A man didn't go through this lifestyle without taking his share of bruises, and while they healed on the outside, inside they all added up over time. Fang grimaced at the pain the wound produced. He might have been tough, but he had not built up a tolerance for pain, pain that was propagated by everything that had happened to him. In the last few days, he'd almost been blown up by grenades, almost shot a kangaroo, broken into a police station, threatened a man of authority, destroyed a bison with a grenade of his own, shot a lizard, almost been crushed under a mountain, been shot at himself and hit, hadn't eaten anything worth a damn, and his legs still hurt. Anyone else might have croaked under the pressure, but Fang had somehow handled it without dropping dead. He didn't know how, though.

Maybe he didn't want to know how. The possibilities made him uncomfortable. And more uncomforting was the knowledge that sooner or later, someone else was going to come along – someone who wanted a fight. Someone who was faster, younger. Someone who was better than him, and would beat him. It was inevitable, because that was the way the world worked. He was a very mortal man, and he knew the world would prove it someday.

He watched the fire a little longer, feeling some part of him erode as he did so.

What am I doing? he thought to himself.

It was around half-past four in the morning when he decided he felt too melancholy to sleep any longer than he already had. Not only that, but when he bothered glancing at the skies, he realized they were no longer completely black, but instead were a dark gray hue. Five seconds after he'd discovered that, he was treated to a sudden downpour that not only soaked he and his blanket like they'd both just been thrown in a lake, but also somehow made things even colder than they already were.

"Rrgh," was all he said.

He packed up what little gear he'd set about the small camp. On to the airbike he sat, and stuffing his hat harder into his head, he spared one long glare at the storming skies, then started up the Marvelous Queen and rode hard.

The town of New Mettle was so far north of where Fang had been that few people in Sand Hill even knew of its existence, but it turned out that it was the closest thing to a capital that the zone had, despite its inherent worthlessness. It was bigger than the nameless wonder the bounty hunter had had the pleasure of visiting earlier, but not by enough to constitute a better opinion of it. The obligatory hellhole for drunkards still reigned supreme, but there were a few small casinos (that entombed little more than a few slot machines and some poker and blackjack tables; they were visited mainly because the hellhole was always full and they had their own bars), a full-blown town constable building (which consisted of two rooms and a jail cell), a post office, and even a bank. Civilization had yet to really prosper in Sand Hill, as South Island's level of society fluctuated as visibly as the lands themselves, but New Mettle was the most well-off dump in the zone.

It had formed itself only recently, after five young friends had grown sick of Dr. Eggman's constant and obnoxious meddling in South Island's affairs, and they had sought to shut themselves from society as best they could, hoping its nuances wouldn't care enough to bring themselves to such a lowly and hopeless place. Instead, this premise had attracted various kinds of people looking for the same things in life, but somehow or another, it eventually molded into yet another violent, crazy, drunk-off-its-rear-end town that didn't have a name worth the breath it took to say it. That was just the way Sand Hill was.

Why it was even called New Mettle was anybody's guess. Rumors abounded that the five founders all had suggestions for the name, but hadn't been able to agree on what it should have been, so they'd written their suggestions down, dumped them in a hat, and picked one out. Apparently, the others had been San Morales, which wasn't particularly better or worse than New Mettle as far as the villagers could tell, Lake Emerald, which was just stupid for a place like this, Antonio Banderas, which was treated as a thoroughly confusing addition, and Eggbeater McWaffleville, a suggestion only a select few appreciated. But it was New Mettle, and that was that.

Because it was bigger than Sand Hill's other toughspots, it was naturally a nest for even more unsavory types enjoying a way of life that didn't live by the law. Fights broke out regularly in the bars. Men carried guns and pulled the triggers while bearing little reason for doing so. The dead man's hand was a staple of the casino card games. New Mettle only served to emphasize the stark contrast between Sand Hill and the rest of South Island, where life was greener, happier, and filled with fewer assholes.

It also attracted wanderers. Zipp the Coyote was one such wanderer, or as he himself put it, a steely-eyed, mysterious stranger-drifter kinda fellow. He considered himself a man of the west and its wilderness, and he thrived in an environment like this, or he at least tried to. He was a bounty hunter by trade, a job he wasn't particularly good at, but he'd made an average living off it thus far in his life. He'd been hunting some loser a month before when the search had brought him to New Mettle, where a delightful young lass named Roxy had been smitten with him, or so he'd thought. Out had come his pair of six-guns as he hadn't been able to resist putting on a whirlin', twirlin' show for her, and when the town council had seen that, they'd pinned a badge on his chest and offered him a lawjob since apparently nobody else wanted it.

"Oh, I dunno about that," he had said at the time.

"Well, why in the hell not?" they had asked, ready to lynch him if he didn't take the job.

"'Cause I'm a drifter. The call of that wide, open wilderness is too great for a man of my rugged stature, because when a man gets a taste of the west in his blood, it's like sucking back on a cactus that'll never again see the light of day, I tell you what. That open range questions the valor and guts of a man who wonders if he's true to his nature, and when he's out there and the hard labor of the journey looks him straight in the eye, he's gotta spit right back in theirs, and blah blah blah, etcetera etcetera..."

Those who had been listening had started falling asleep where they stood around there, so anything Zipp had said next was speculation to anyone but himself.

Being the town's only policeman – Zipp liked to call himself 'Town Marshal' – wasn't too hard. All he had to do was wander around once in a while, making it look like he was on patrol or whatever. Maybe stand bow-legged once in a while. And when people out there got a look at those two six-guns of his, they right up went and booked it straight out of town, for Zipp the Coyote was fast on the draw (and, as everyone in town well knew, faster with his mouth). He also was one of many brazen individuals out there who claimed to do their killing 'before breakfast,' as opposed to all the youngsters who did theirs 'after breakfast,' which was why he was up at four-thirty in the morning when, in the brick police building, when there came a noisy ringing of his telephone, a device that was so old and decrepit it was a miracle it didn't fall apart as soon as it started screaming.

Zipp kicked his feet up onto the desk and plucked the receiver off the hook, slapping it against his pointy light pastel blue ear and leaning back in his Official Town Marshal Seat, not realizing how close his six-shooters came to falling straight out of the leather holsters on his gunbelt as he did so. "Marshal el Terriblé de la Zipp speakin'. Who's feeling Zippity this mornin'?"

"Who in the world is this?" asked the unfamiliar voice.

"Marshal el Terriblé de la Zipp speakin'."

"That's just great. My name is Officer Bill Billings with the Station Square Police Department. Please listen to m—"

"The what?" asked Zipp while rubbing his eyelids, still tired given the early hours he had to be up at. He usually woke up at four and had to be here at the office thirty minutes later. Why couldn't it have been Roxy instead? Nevermind the fact he hadn't seen her since the day he'd met her.

The other line paused after the question had been asked.

"The Station Square Police Department," enunciated Officer Bill.

"Where's that?"

There was an even longer moment of silence on the other end. "Station Square."

"Oh." Zipp rubbed his eyelids again. "... Where's that?"

And yet again, an even longer silence.

"You've," Bill sputtered, "you've never heard of Station Square?"

"Is it some kinda bus station shaped like a square? I gotta say, partner, that's a pretty silly name. Y'all coulda just named it Bus Station Seven."

"I can't believe you don't know what Station Square is," Bill stated, incredulous. "That's unreal. That's unbelievable."

"Well, lemme tell you somethin', Mr. Big City Police Man Officer. Out here, a real man doesn't need to know trivial crap like that. Here in the west, he runs his life by the rules of the wilderness, with nothin' but the sun at his back and his horse under his balls. Just the two of you out in the wild of ol' mother earth at her damndest, takin' some tough hits and battlin' tougher beasts with your only friends bein' your guns and the gravel in your guts—"

"Who in the name of God am I speaking to? You're some kind of authority figure, right? I didn't dial a wrong number, did I?"

"What parta Marshal did you not hear, sonny?" Zipp was actually younger than Bill, but he didn't know that.

"You're a Marshal? What? They don't have Marshals these days. Put an officer or a sergeant or somebody on the line."

"Can't," stated Zipp bluntly.

"Well, why not?"

"Ain't got no deputies."

"What!?"

"Yep." Zipp examined his rough brown leather gloves boredly while a drunkard outside the building hooted and hollered at the moon. "Not too many folks wishin' to put their lives on the line for a place like this. I do this 'cause a man of the west has gotta have a steadfast hand of justice, a hand that deals justice to any yankee lowlife lookin' to put the moves on his guns and his women—"

"What in the holy hell are you talking about?" asked Bill.

"Y'need a dictionary or somethin'? I'm pretty sure we're speakin' the same language."

"I'm not so certain about that. You can't possibly be a man of the law. I've never heard of anything like this. I didn't study criminal justice for four years just to listen to this mockery of our justice system."

That got Zipp wound up. "Lemme tell you somethin', rookie—"

"Oh God," Bill whined, "spare me."

"Out here in the west, all you boys with your rules and your regulations and your don't fire until a theat is thoroughly assessed, I tell you what, out here you draw your gun on a man, you shoot him. You hesitate like a green-skin tinhorn and you get a bullet right in the skullpipe."

"What the hell is a skullpipe? Am I really speaking to a police officer? Are you on some kind of medication?"

"What do you want, anyhow? We're awful busy out here in dead man's land while you sit there on your big city seat drinkin' high-priced coffee. A real man don't need none-a-that crap. Except when he's had a hard of day of ropin', of course."

Officer Bill seemed to collect himself via a very deep breath and a sigh, before he finally began speaking again. "Listen carefully. We've been—"

"Alrighty," interjected Zipp.

Officer Bill paused again for a very long time.

"We've been dealing with a big problem for the last few days, constituted by none other than Fang the Sniper. Long story short—"

"Who?" interrupted Zipp yet again.

Bill's exasperated shock could be felt all the way from Station Square, wherever that was.

"What?" cried the officer into the phone.

Zipp tipped back the fancy red cowboy hat on top of his skull, adjusting his booted feet as they lay on his messy desk that was already furnished to the brim with various old west memorabilia. "He some kinda outlaw?"

"No, he's not an outlaw! He's a bounty hunter! For the love of everything holy, how could you not know who Fang the Sniper is? He's regarded as one of the greatest bounty hunters in history. He's one of the most notorious men in the world. He's got the hat, the guns, the mean look in his eye, the—"

"Sounds like an outlaw to me, tinhorn."

"I can't believe you don't know who Fang the Sniper is. I can't freaking believe you don't know where Station Square is."

"Well, I ain't never heard-a-them, so you just behave yourself, city boy. He must not be too important if I don't know him. And I tell you what, not too much gets by old Zipp the Coyote. I was born with the eyes of a hawk and the ass of an armadillo. I can ride that saddle until any lesser man feels his hide tanned by the cruel nature of the wild—"

"That's," Bill mumbled, "that's fabulous. Now will you please listen to what I have to say? I really have a lot of work to be doing—"

"BILL!" came a horrible yell from somewhere in the background. "COFFEE!"

"Ugh," sighed the officer.

Zipp poked at his little black nose. "What'd you say your name was again? It was George Somethin', right?"

"My name— Are you joking?" asked Bill, incredulous. His tone indicated he couldn't remember being so appalled during a telephone conversation. "I'm police officer Bill Billings with the Station Square Police Department. I don't believe this."

"You sure seem uppity for a lawman." Zipp flicked a piece of dirt off the tip of his boot, ignoring an explosive, booming gunshot that seemed to originate from a bar down the street before it sent a thunderous shiver through his beloved Marshal's Office. "A fella like you wouldn't last two seconds out here, I'd say. Out here in the west, a man's gotta know when to talk and he's gotta know when to pull his irons and go in blastin' with no mercy or regard for innocent life—"

"Please," Bill begged, "just stop."

"Stop what? You're the most utterly nonsensical fella I've had to talk to in months. Start makin' some sense of yourself already. I don't have time for small-talkin' small-timers."

"Listen. Please, just stop and listen." Bill sounded like he wanted to cry. "Fang the Sniper came here a number of days ago, and because he wanted more money for a bounty he'd brought in to us earlier, he took off with a great deal of our cash against our wishes. Not only that, but he threatened various officers of the law in the process. We're putting a warrant out on him with a five thousand dollar reward, and we have reason to believe he's in Sand Hill, so we decided to issue an A.P.B. to it. I'm going to assume you need inform—"

"A what?"

Bill paused. "An A.P.B."

"Oh."

"You do know what an A.P.B. is, right?"

"Don't get snarky with me, tinhorn. A good man of justice in the west needs only his wits and his guns about him, for that day when he can go home to his sweetheart Roxy and tell her he's back from that cold, hard trail—"

"You have no idea what an A.P.B. is."

"Must stand for After Police Blow-it, since now you boys are botherin' me to take care of this Fang the Sniper crap. They couldn't catch him over in old Station Square, so now they gotta leave the catchin' to the real men. What do I win?"

"That's not it at all."

Zipp leaned forward. "Listen, bub, I gotta find me an outhouse. Let's ditch the short-talkin' and make this quick, alright?"

"Just hold on a minute—" Bill started.

"Easy. You want this Fang the Sniper fella caught. It can happen in two sexy shakes of a lamb's ass. I'll make up a poster of him and slap it up on the wall outside this here office. That oughta do the trick, 'cause I gotta say, people 'round these parts keep an eye on stuff like that. And if I run across the guy myself, I'll see about slappin' him good with the long hand of the law. Okey-dokey? Talk to you later, city boy."

"Wait, what? No, you need to make a LOT of posters—No! Wait! I still haven't given you his description! He also goes by the name of Na—"

Slam went the receiver back down on to the hook. Zipp leaned back further, tipping the chair's legs off the floor. "City boys."

After he did what he said he'd needed to do, he returned to his desk and snatched a sheet of paper before scribbling down a few words on it. When he decided it was as good as he could get it, he hauled himself from his seat and headed out through the building's front-and-only door. Stepping over on the old-fashioned boardwalk to a bulletin board, his obnoxious spurs clanking noisily in the darkness, he slapped the paper up onto the board and stuck a couple of thumbtacks into it. Then he headed back into the office, where he sat down in the chair and caught a well-deserved nap, enjoying pleasant dreams of herding buffalo and shooting cattle.

It wasn't until nearly thirty minutes later that the new wanted poster was noticed, and when eyes saw it, whispers came. The whispers soon turned to talking, and before long, the name of Fang the Sniper dominated the violent town of New Mettle.