"Y'ALL HOLD UP THAR, BOY!"
The football field area behind Sunnydale High which had just been about to erupt in pitched battle froze stock-still at that entirely unexpected syrupy bellow in a specific American accent coming from one side. Assorted humans, vampires, other demons, and a newly-transformed Olvikan snake monster digesting the school principal it'd swallowed only a moment ago turned to look and beheld…
A Southern sheriff in all his glory, from the black hat with a star on the front; blue shirt straining against a rotund stomach which clearly showed this elderly man had never stinted on the grits, sweet potato fries, and red-eye gravy; black tie matching the pants; and mirrored sunglasses.
From among the crowd of graduating students, a girl's happy voice squealed, "Grampy Jay!"
This time, everybody stared at Harmony Kendall now enthusiastically waving at her favorite grandfather presently striding with a waddling walk towards the ceremony's stage. As he passed by, this retired law enforcement officer tipped his hat at this young female descendant, but he didn't pause except for saying, "I'll get to you in just a minute, missy. Me and him are gonna have a menfolk discussion, but after that, we'll catch up with each other, all right?"
"Okay, Grampy Jay!" beamed Harmony, still getting some very odd looks from the people around her.
The Southern sheriff stopped at the foot of the stage and then peered up at the enormous serpent looking down at the short man. Right afterwards, he yelped and rubbed the back of his collar where a roll of pudgy fat overflowed. Lowering his chin, the sheriff groused, "I ain't gonna tolerate a crick in my neck talkin' to y'all! Get down here!"
Mayor Wilkins, not quite sure when he'd lost control of the entire absurd situation, slowly did as he'd been told. The snake's head nearly as big as a queen-size mattress unblinkingly eyed the old man who stared back just as beadily, with the pair nearly nose-to-nose.
"Awright, boy, I might be retired now, but J.W. Pepper knows when he's just witnessed a murder which was when y'all swallered that bald feller. Normally, I'd arrest y'all on the spot, but I figger the laws of this fine country don't cover big riptiles eatin' people so I'll deal with this some other way. First, I wanna be absolutely sure 'bout this…"
Sheriff Pepper leaned forward until only an inch separated his mouth from the snake's scales before saying in a very wary tone, "You don't got dip-lo-ma-tic imooonity, do y'all?"
If he'd actually had eyelids then, the mayor would've blinked in complete bafflement. Instead, Wilkins managed, "Er, no. Why are you asking?"
Rather than answering that, Sheriff Pepper just nastily grinned, revealing brown-stained teeth. Next, he hawked a massive gob of coffee-colored phlegm right onto the mayor's nose.
With a roar of rage at being treated so rudely, Wilkins reared up to his full height…only to pause there to gaze cross-eyed at the loogie still perched atop his nose. This was…sizzling?
Almost too fast to see, the mass of phlegm sank into the scales which then dissolved into ashes. This disintegration didn't stop there, traveling onwards while totally rendering demonic flesh and bone to even more cinders. Before Wilkins could even utter a final "Golly!", the rest of his enormous snake body collapsed onto itself, leaving nothing more than several hundred pounds of dry powder onto the graduation stage.
In the stunned hush, Sheriff Pepper slowly turned to send a baleful glower at the rest of Sunnydale's Hellmouth contingent. Inside this man's mouth, a wad of chewing tobacco was implacably shifted from one cheek to the other. If you thought this couldn't be done in a truly menacing style, you thought wrong.
As one, the entire mob of vampires and other unholy fiends spun around and ran for their continued existence. A certain spiky-haired blood-drinker named Spike was demonstrating the proper way to lead his forces in headlong flight. Getting staked by the Slayer in pitched battle was patently dignified. On the other hand, getting dusted by that soddin' copper's deadly spittle could only be described as a gross indignity.
A minute later, Harmony was still demonstrating her gratitude in embracing a very smug grandpa hugging her back. This was interrupted by Rupert Giles plus the rest of the Scoobies pushing their way through the surrounding onlookers.
Giles demanded in his crispest Oxford diction, "Miss Kendall, Sheriff, we'd like some sort of explanation! What in blazes was all that—"
The school's librarian had stopped speaking due to receiving a decidedly evil eye from the elderly man who then carefully but firmly freed himself from the girl. Advancing upon Giles, Sheriff Pepper poked him hard once on the chest.
"Y'all are one of them English peckerwoods, ain'tcha?"
Unable to believe what he'd just heard and undergone, Giles gaped at that annoyed oldster still waiting for an answer. Eventually, Giles ventured, "Ah, I don't think I've ever been described as that before, but if I take your meaning, yes. I'm from England."
Putting his fists on both hips, Sheriff Pepper scowled at that prissy Limey. "Y'all know somebody over there called Bond? James Bond?"
Now totally bewildered, Giles shook his head. He then pointed out in the hopes that genuine sanity would commence here, "It's not like we're all acquainted with each other in my native land! Would that person have anything to do with the outcome of recent events?"
The sheriff let loose an indignant huff, "Sonny, he sure as hell does!"
J.W. Pepper next glanced around at the crowd listening with evident fascination. This clearly spurred him into revealing, "It started way back, 'fore mosta y'all were born. Me and that Bond feller meetin' for a short while, it didn't end well, what with him escapin' scott-free from alla the mess he created! Well, a coupla weeks afterwards, a local voodoo man got in touch with me. Seems his cousin in Jamaica got locked up due to runnin' across Bond, and he was lookin' for payback. Told him to quit botherin' me, and that was that, or so I thought."
A wrathful expression then passed over Sheriff Pepper's face. "Things didn't work out like I hoped. Goin' on vacation in Thailand later with the wife, that bastard Bond, he got me involved again in one big fuss which finished with me gettin' thrown outta the country for stealin' a car! This time, I was the one settin' up a meetin' with the voodoo man. We came up with a plan for some serious revenge in case Bond ever showed up again, and it hadda do with this."
With that last statement, Sheriff Pepper proudly pointed at the bulge in his right cheek where he was storing his chaw. Judging from the bewildered expressions shown by everyone besides a bored Harmony who'd heard it all before, more was needed as further provided by the former lawman.
"From what missy's told me, y'all got one weird town with lotsa magic here. Well, so's this. The voodoo man spelled my chaw so that it never runs out and has a few other little tricks in it. See, that way, when next time Bond and me met, I could lay one juicy curse on him, but he'd nevah know this was me even when it started a few hours later."
J.W. Pepper looked a bit glum then. "Problem is, it didn't happen. That Bond feller, I mean. I nevah saw him again. At least the curse's still workin' which was damn lucky 'bout a year later when one night a vampire grabbed me on patrol. Figgered I might as well as go out showin' some guts, so I spit in that bastard's eye. Coulda knocked me over with a feather when that vamp turned into dust right then and there. Didn't exactly go lookin' for more of this trouble, but it turned out oncet or twice afterwards that I could take care of those creeps the same way. When missy here—" (the sheriff nodded towards Harmony looking proud of herself) "—told me about your upcomin' rumpus, I wasn't gonna have any of that. Nobody touches my granddaughter! So, a quick plane trip from Louisiana to here, and y'all know the rest."
At that point, every member of the listening crowd had their mouths open in sheer awe. This included Giles, who still had something troubling him. "Pardon me, but inflicting a potentially fatal magical curse upon a human is still a crime—"
"Oh, I wasn't gonna kill that Bond feller, same's as I told the voodoo man back then," cheerfully responded Sheriff Pepper. "What it does to demons, this turned out to be a complete accident, but I ain't complainin'. Naw, I had somethin' else in mind for James Bond."
A really malicious grin was sent around at the crowd by J.W. Pepper at this point. "The way it was s'posed to work, I'd spit near him, hit the guy somewhere on his spiffy outfit, and pretend it was the wind's fault. He'd clean it off for sure, and nevah give it another thought, even when the curse got to work. Why would he? Not like I could possibly be responsible for him magically smellin' the rest of his life like a skunk which fell into some outhouse what ain't been cleaned since the War of Northern Aggression. That'd for damn sure put a serious crimp in his secret agent job in between seducin' the ladies and puttin' honest cops in jams they didn't deserve!"
Author's Note: Written in fond remembrance of Clifton James, who passed away on April 15, 2017. Appearing in the James Bond films Live and Let Die and The Man With The Golden Gun, Mr. James achieved cinematic immortality with the indignant protest from his Sheriff J.W. Pepper character: "Secret agent? On WHOSE side?!"