Dead or Alive
by Chou
Chapter 3 - Never Drink Whiskey, Part 4
They walked into town with steel in their eyes, shoulder to shoulder, guns
ready and looking for a fight. The Devil himself would've gulped a bit at the
sight of Gill Bastar and Bonnie Lass.
Tuco Tucoruco wasn't the Devil. He was a lot less red, for one thing. And he
threw knives, which was a much more practical weapon than a pitchfork.
The bounty hunter town of Whiskey was not Hell, for that matter. It was a
business, pure and simple. Not a pleasant business, but a business none the
less.
So, it's one thing to intimidate the Devil. Intimidating a little less than a
hundred armed people is much more daunting.
Neither Gill nor Bonnie was up to the task. The good news is that they were not
shot on sight. The bad news is that being hogtied and thrown to the dirt, while
less lethal than being shot, still isn't a pleasant experience.
"Well", thought Gill Bastar, gunslinger extraordinaire, "at least I'm still
alive." He was trying to be optimistic. With his bad luck, he had made optimism
into an art form, and often it had kept him alive.
Next to him, hogtied as well, Bonnie was directing language that he didn't
often hear from ladies, or even men, at their captors.
He craned his neck to look at the man he assumed ran this operation. He was a
thin man with skin like slightly used leather, dark hair and a long mustache,
loose clothes and a wide brimmed hat, rugged in a way that was entirely
unhandsome. Gill noted the way he played with the eight-inch knife in his hand,
throwing it up and catching it without even looking at it. Gill was mildly
impressed. He probably would've been more impressed if he hadn't been expecting
the knife to go into his head at some point.
Bonnie had moved on from curses to threats. Gill was amazed at her imagination,
especially when it came to thinking of items he was sure would be both painful
and physically impossible to put where he said she was going to. He turned his
attention back to the boss.
Suddenly, there was a whoosh of air, a twanging thud, and Bonnie fell silent.
Gill rolled and looked over at her, then back at the boss. His knife had
sheathed itself in the ground less than an inch from Bonnie's head, surprising
her into silence. That wasn't what worried Gill. What worried him was the fact
that he had been looking right at the boss when it happened…and he hadn't
seen him throw the knife. One second it was there, the next, not. That was
fast even by Gill's standards, and Gill could usually spot hummingbird wings
moving if he looked just a bit close.
"Now." Said the boss as he walked over and retrieved his knife. "If I am not
mistaken, you are the gunslinger Gill Bastar, no? Your bounty is…quite
impressive for such an unimpressive looking man." He smiled, revealing square,
white teeth.
Gill shrugged as best he could and tried to sound nonchalant. "Yep, but I
shouldn't have that bounty, considering those guys were the ones who always
started the fights. In any case, you know who I am…but who are you?"
"My name is Tuco Tucoruco, Senor Bastar. You could say I am the Mayor here."
Said the boss, idly playing with his knife in one hand and stroking his
mustache with the other.
"Nice town you have here. I'd want to stay if everyone wasn't shooing at me."
Gill said.
"Yes, well, we try to be accommodating, but the shooting, it is the downside,
you know?" Tucoruco shrugged.
"Boy howdy. So, how about letting me go? Gill said quickly, then added, almost
as an after thought, "And her too, come to think of it." He could feel her
glare at his back lessening at that.
Tucoruco laughed, rich and full and rather evilly.
"It is good to see a man with a sense of humor in your position." Said Tucoruco
when his breath returned.
He turned serious "No, Senor Bastar, you will not be let go. There is too much
money on your head for that. And as for the woman…well, she is a traitor. I
have never abided traitors."
Gill's mind raced for a solution. Several ideas came, none of which seemed
remotely possible. Then he went to his last resort.
"Wanna draw?" he said with a level look in Tucoruco's vaguely bloodshot eye.
Tucoruco paused and thought about it.
Then he smiled.
"I don't see why not. You seem to think that you will escape if you can shoot
me. You seem to forget the many armed people around you who will not let that
happen."
"Oh, shit." Was all Gill could think. "Forgot about the people."
"Hey, what about me!?" Bonnie had found her voice again.
Gill looked over "Um, I'll think of something. Trust me?"
Bonnie rolled her eyes. "I'm screwed."
The main street was empty, except for Gill, now untied and rubbing his wrists,
his guns in his pockets, and Tucoruco, knife in a sheath on his hip.
Now, along the street were the townsfolk assassins, several keeping the now
tied to a post to watch Bonnie under guard, the rest watching the two men in
the street.
Gill stopped rubbing his wrists and let his hands drift towards his guns.
Tucoruco tugged on his mustache with one hand, the other hand, closer to the
knife, ready to grab and throw it.
A tumbleweed began it's slow roll between the two combatants. The moment it had
passed between them…
"DRAW!" shouted someone.
Gill fell back as he drew his revolvers, thumbs cocking the hammers in a fluid
motion. Tucoruco's knife tore the hat off his head and drew blood from his
hairline.
The revolver in Gill's right hand fired at Tucoruco. The other revolver was
aimed to the side, the bullet ripping through the rope holding Bonnie to the
post and freeing her. She fought her way though the surprised guards and ran
away.
That's when Gill noticed Tucoruco was still standing. That fact had barely
registered when a second knife he didn't even see coming buried itself deep
into his left bicep. Gill choked back a yell and rolled to his feet before firing
both guns at Tucoruco, who he now noticed had two more knives in his hands.
"Where the hell is he getting those?!" Gill's mind yelled as he saw the knives
suddenly disappear.
Two more knives dug themselves into each shoulder. This time, Gill did yell as
he fell to the ground. When he looked up through pain clouded eyes, he couldn't
believe what he saw.
A bullet was a few yards from him on the ground. It had been cut in half.
Nobody was that fast. Or that accurate. It was impossible.
Somewhere, as if from a great distance, he could hear Tucoruco laughing. He
could hear the townspeople assassin folk laughing. He even thought he could
hear the blood pumping into his shirt, which was white and relatively new.
"Do you give up, Bastar? Time to die, no?"
He had had enough. It took a lot to get him angry. This worked.
He staggered to his feet, pulling the knives out and tossing them to the
ground. It hurt like fire, but at this point, he didn't care. He wiped the
blood from his eyes that had flowed from the cut the first knife had made. He
slowly reloaded his guns, before spinning them by the trigger guard around his
fingers before jamming them into his pockets.
"Round two." spat Gill.
Author's Notes:
Next chapter's the last one. Probably. Then we move onto a new story arc.
Probably.
To be honest, I'm starting to run out of steam on this fic (its all going to
Talking Blues, curse it's jazzy hide), but a few Clint Eastwood spaghetti
Westerns and a Trigun soundtrack should get me back in the swing.
Anyway, next chapter, Gill and Tucoruco finish, and we find out where Bonnie's
run off to (she'll be back)
