"I'm gonna skin you ALIVE boy!"
Th posse watched the bickering father-son pair from the safety of the canyon edge, the Sheriff peering at them through binoculars.
"Choleric varmints aren't they?" he muttered, his grip slipping every so often.
"Dysfunctional family. Need intervention." Wounded Bird stated, watching as the mole elder continued to smack the younger with a stick.
"What's that coming?
The sound of a wagon turned their attention to the youngest mole as he rode into the canyon, a giant tarp-covered jug in tow. The rest of the party rose up thirstily, just begging to get a taste of the precious liquid treasure.
A sudden idea came to the Sheriff. A silly but effective idea that would need a lot of cooperation. "I have a plan, and each and every one of you has a part to play."
"What do I do?" the old mouse held up his hand warily.
"Spoons you got the most important job of all. You stay up here on the ridge and if anything goes wrong, you give the signal." Rango wasn't very sure why they needed an eye in the sky but if westerns have taught him anything, it's that there's all ways someone with a signal.
"Please indulge us why we even need a whistle-blower?" Jake asked, situated well away from the party and irritated by last night's broken sleep.
"Just in case things go awry." the python explained happily. "Of course the plan requires a grand diversion and a heap of fabric."
"Pardon?" the outlaws eyes widened as the Sheriff slithered over to the wagon and pulled out a chest filled with costumes and theatre effects.
"I packed these just before we set off. Okay now can anyone fit into a size 6?"
Jake stood agape. The posse were, without protest or uncertainty, putting on brightly coloured joke attire and filling their guns with bullets, the Sheriff inquiring Miss Beans on her dress size before the two disappeared behind the wagon.
Doc chuckled at the rattlesnake's confusion and commented "Best we not question Sheriff Rango. He might be just short of crazy but we need all the crazy we can get." He squeezed on a metal helmet and hopped off to complete his disguise.
Rango and Miss Beans appeared seconds later with a swapped wardrobe.
"What...in the name of all that is hell fire are you wearing?" Jake asked, wishing that he could block the image from his mind.
"Oh come on now, I'm not that ugly!" Rango nearly sang, practicing a falsetto for his role.
Miss Beans shrugged from within her poncho-turned-dress and grumbled "He fits it better than me."
"Mister Rattlesnake Jake, there's a costume for you too!" the suited horned toad called over, holding up a very long tubular piece of cloth.
The outlaw swore internally and shot a look that could kill a thousand men towards the smaller snake, who simply grinned into a mirror and fixed a red ribbon onto his hat.
Below them the three moles praised the Lord as they held the water jug in their grasp, blinded to how the youngest was trying to speak.
"Ya did it son!" Pappy belted out in pride, slapping his offspring on the shoulder.
"Well actually-" Ezekiel tried to explain but to no avail.
"Why can't you be all brainy like your brother?" the mole elder continued to berated and smack his older son about with his seeing stick.
"Pappy, about that water, there's something I gots to tell you."
"Hush-hush up now. Somebody's coming."
Rumbling steps and twirly fluted music filled the still air, announcing the arrival of the posse.
Decked to the nine in multicoloured theatre garb and tossing flowers and confetti into the air.
Jake was slithering in unison with the Sheriff, adorning what was likely the ugliest pinstripe suit he'd ever seen. It took a great deal of effort to wrangle the outlaw into the suit but after the Sheriff had to literally wrestle on a bow tie he had lost the will to fight.
"If god be my witness I'll kill anyone who laughs." Jake growled under his breath, the Sheriff responding by slapping his snout with a handkerchief.
"Good sirs, gracious good afternoon to thee and thee and thee. May I present Monsieur & Madame Lupone's Terpsichorean Troupe of Traveling Thespians!" the python called out in a high pitched feminine voice, the blue dress he borrowed from Miss Beans flouncing all around him.
The four mariachi owls from earlier were there to provide the music, they themselves dressed up as medieval jesters.
"What is that?" Pappy asked, confused out of his mind by the avalanche of noise clogging his ears. The two younger moles enraptured by the colours and fake programs.
"I think they's thespians."
"Thespians? That's illegal in seven states."
"The stage is set. The princess prepares to take her own life." Rango pulled back two fake palm leaves to reveal a very bored Beans.
"I yearn for love."
"Meanwhile a lone sentry stands watch at the castle gate."
Elgin stood to the side, obviously suffering from stage fright and not remembering the pre-rehearsed cues.
"Stands watch at the castle gate." Rango reaffirmed, gesturing to the bobcat to pick up the slack.
"Hark! Who goes there?"
"This plot's highly predicable!" Pappy complained, only to have his younger son hush him up.
"Arriving to great fan fair was her ageing father..." the owls blew out a loud generic fanfare, alerting the arrival of the geriatric turkey. "...Strucketh by Cupid."
"Uh...prithee unhand my fair daughter and reach for the...uh...the." leaning over he asked the audience. "Line?"
"Reach for the skies!" Ezekiel yelled.
Shotguns hidden under clothing were pulled out and aimed at the three bank robbers, the act dropped completely. The lawman and the outlaw nearly circling the three criminals. "We got you surrounded. Put your hands were I can see em."
"W-w-w-what was that?" the elder mole asked as confused as ever with a 24 caliber poking under his chin.
"Must be a very immersive theatre."
Pappy took a long sniff of the air and smiled warmly despite the gun barrels surrounding him. "Well what'd ya know! Jacob and the Sheriff! What are you two crazy kids doing here?"
The posse lowered their guns to let the hell beast pass. Jake's eyes burning with anger and his voice lowering to his signature intimidating octave. "Balthazar you told me you'd get the HELL out of my town! Now the banks' empty, the bankers' dead, and you got water. Doesn't take a scholar to figure this mystery out."
"Actually Pappy, I've been meaning to tell ya 'bout the jug see..." Ezekiel walked cautiously over to the wagon and pulled off it's tarp. The whole group gasped as they realised that the contents...were none. "I found it in the desert."
"Then why in TARNATION would ya bring it here?!" Pappy thwacked his son on the back of the head, disappointed by the lack of liquid.
"Hold up now." Rango slithered forward to block the angry posse from tearing the rodent trio a new one. "You saying this was empty when you found it?"
"We kept our word and tunneled to the lake side few mile 'way." Jedidiah mumbled, twiddling his fingers. "But people in yellow hats and vests told us to buzz off. Dead feller musta been whacked by someone else."
"What sort of people?" the Sheriff asked suspiciously, getting a gut feeling that his employer had something to do with this.
"An entire days worth of tunneling' wasted!" Pappy hollered in rage, waving his seeing stick like a rifle. "These city slickers come up to us and say 'you're not supposed to be here, this here be a construction site'. Ahh phooey! Who ever heard of a lake being under construction? I was 'bout to chase 'em off when some ugly bastard started blasting his gun at us!"
Jake pushed forward and urged with a raised brow "May I inquire on what the 'ugly bastard' in question was like?"
"Lizard. British or something. All bad tobaccy and no manners."
The Sheriff and the bounty hunter immediately locked gazes, sharing the same look of clarity and declared with utmost certainty "Bad Bill."
"Now this dun make a lick of sense."
"Let's string em up now!"
"Who'd dump water in the desert?"
"Sorry Pappy, but without proper evidence of the contrary, I'm gonna have to take you and your boys in." Rango said sadly, not exactly wanting to arrest the three screwballs.
The elder mole sighed in annoyance and whistled loudly to the air. "I got a buncha witnesses Sheriff."
The ground shook as hundreds of moles and prairie dogs tore out of the rock and dirt. Some of them were chanting a strange poem as they wiped grime and dust off of themselves. They completely surrounded the group, just daring them to make a wrong move.
"O-kay that's a lot of witnesses." Rango near whimpered at the sheer size of the clan. "But seeing how y'all from the same familial group, I can't say for certain that their word would be valued. I'm gonna have to take statements from all of them before I bring ya in."
The posse groaned as they were instructed to take down notes, times, and locations from the hundreds and hundreds of suspects.
/X\
The posse rode back to town grimly. The ride back was uneventful and went surprisingly quick as the moles suggested a short cut through some of their tunnels.
With no water in tow and with three suspected bank robbers, the situation was looking mighty bleak for the town of Dirt. People hung off the sides of store fronts, clutching their chests in fear of a despair-induced heart attack.
Priscilla walked up to the posse and asked innocently "Where's the water?"
"There was no water." Beans answered honestly with a dead tone, drawing small disheartened gasps from the townspeople.
Jake looked at the snake riding with him. Rango was in shock at what happened, his cosy little picturesque western world was now falling all around him, his tale being eaten alive by lies and corruption. With an unfamiliar look in his bright yellow eyes, the Sheriff slithered away without so much as a word, sending massive chills up the peoples' spines that usually only occurred when Jake was about to kill someone.
"Where's he going?" the posse asked fearfully, hoping that the python would show mercy to who ever he was about to condemn.
"We..." the outlaw corrected, following his work partner. "...are going to see the Mayor."
Finding the Mayor was quite easy. Upon hearing that his favorite hit-men were back in town with a decent trio of scapegoats, he invited them to his daily golfing match.
Rango was about to reject the offer but a quick glare from Jake changed his mind into accepting. If anything the Sheriff could at least get enough information to accuse and or arrest the Mayor himself.
The two were led about a mile and a half away from town into a large empty plain marred with holes and flags. Bad Bill and his cronies were dressed up in well made clothes, clinking martinis, putting and conversing as if they weren't the dregs of society Rango met just two days ago.
"I will admit it Mister Mayor, I have ulterior motives for comin' out here today." he stated clearly for all to hear.
"Ohh?" the turtle asked jokingly, looking up from some blueprints a gopher in a yellow vest was holding up for him. "What motives would those be?"
"It's about the moles." Jake said, accidentally breaking a putter when he tried to wrap his tail around it. "They didn't kill the banker and they probably didn't steal the water. Damn close but they got a pretty strong alibi and a fuckton of witnesses."
"It is a little naive don't you think, to take the word of admitted bank robbers." the Mayor looked uncomfortable and gestured towards the Sheriff. "And once they hang, Mister Rango's job is done."
Bad Bill and his goons clapped in false praise, as if egging the Sheriff into killing three innocent people was nothing more than water cooler talk.
The python was staring daggers into the old reptile's back as he hit the ball (actually a rolled up pill bug) a few feet away from the designated hole. "What if somebody did rob the bank before they got there? Then what?"
"And who would do that, Mister Rango?"
"I was hoping you could tell me."
"That sounds marginally like an accusation." The Mayor replied with aggression lining his usual drawl.
"That's cus it is." the outlaw confirmed, impressed by the python's gall to bring his suspicions to light.
They continued to putt for at least a few more holes in the hot afternoon sun before a question in the green snake's head threatened to fester right through his brain.
"Something you said keeps spinning round my frontal lobe." he twirled his putter above his head to mimic said spinning.
"And what is that Mister Rango?"
"Control the water and you control everything." pretending to inspect his ball, Rango shot Jake a knowing look, getting a small nod in reply.
The Mayor chuckled at the almost blasphemous statement. "Come now, Mr. Rango. You attribute divine power to me. How on earth could I possibly control the water?"
A pill bug crawled up the Sheriff's putter, startling him and leading him to comment. "You seem to have mastered this game."
"I've been playing it for many years. I was here before the highway split this great valley, I watched the march of progress, and I learned a thing or two." he wheeled dangerously close to the python and pushed his head towards a telescope overlooking one of the many outcrops of land. "Take a look, Mr. Rango. You can already see time passing."
The land beneath was filled with yellow vested workers going to and fro with support beams and tools. The wrought steel supports and concrete floors told only one thing. The skeleton of a city was being constructed right under Dirt's nose. Rango was suddenly reminded of the city he had seen in his near-death experience.
"What are you building out here?" he shuddered, the more he delved into this mystery the more he feared for his life. It was only the matter of time before this 'Fistful of Dollars' style fairytale became a send up to 'The Godfather' and he woke up at the bottom of a lake in cement shoes (though whether or not he could even wear the cement shoes was a different matter).
The Mayor held a small glass of brandy as he spoke. Addressing the lawman as if he were a child being lectured. "The future, Mr. Rango. The future. Pretty soon, all this will fade into myth. The wild range, the lawman, the gunslinger. There's no place for them any more. We're civilized now."
Off to the side Bill spat on the ground and shouted "That's right, civilized."
"That's what the future holds. You can either be part of it, or you can be left behind."
Almost boiling with anger and suspicion, the python asked bitterly. "What about Mr Merrimack? Did he get left behind?"
"Careful Mister Ran-"
"What about Jake? Will he get left behind too? You said it yourself there'll be no place for gunslingers in the future let alone an outlaw." He cut the Mayor off, true blue anger brewing in his gut for the very first time in his serpentine life. "And what of me, the lawman? Will I get left behind like the hundreds of others?"
In all the years that Rattlesnake Jake has been alive, he had rarely ever saw the type of fury presented by the Sheriff in front of him. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't so much furrow his brow. He didn't advert his gaze for even a nanosecond as angry tears threatened to pour down the side of his face. It was that day that Jake learnt what "tranquil fury" meant.
"Easy, Mr. Rango. You seem to forget you're just one snake." the Mayor attempted to calm the draconian serpent before him. "I'll still have use for you and Jake in future, no doubt about that. But if you continue to give me grief over such matters I can most definitely replace you."
"You seem to forget something Mayor." Rango tipped his hat as a pill bug crawled over the brim. "I'm the law around these parts. And I don't think the people of Dirt will rightly agree to me being replaced."
He threw down his putter and slithered off towards the town, oblivious to the bugs circling his head.
"Our new Sheriff has been playing the hero for so long, he's actually starting to believe it!" the Mayor exclaimed incredulously, absentmindedly trying to choose a putter.
Jake watched as the Sheriff disappeared out of sight, dumbstruck by the former-pet's unexpected display of bravery. Rango had not only denied the Mayor's offer; but he had shown concern for the outlaw. Jake was snapped out of his thoughts by the Mayor slapping him on the side.
"I want that viridian good doer dead or under control Jake." he lined up a shot. With his ego bruised and a link in his plan weakening, desperate times called for desperate measures. "Don't be too scared to use those god-given fangs of yours either."
The bounty hunter nodded silently. A pain in his gut telling him that such an action wasn't the best idea. As the python had said, what if he himself were to go past "expiration date" under the Mayor's hand in future? The Sheriff was a box of fireworks in snakeskin, one wrong spark could set him off and destroy everything.
He didn't like it. But a job is a job. And a lawman is a lawman.
No matter how much you care about him.
