A/N: The boot is on the other foot now in a short sequel to the 1973 film "My Name is Nobody".

Nobody No More

Jack Beauregard sat back in his chair and tilted his head upward. Above in the night sky, fireworks could be seen at irregular intervals blossoming in the night. Technically it wasn't 1904 until after midnight, but he didn't fault the festivities if they had started in 1903 - by the stroke of midnight he planned to be in bed asleep anyway. As a retired gunfighter from the old west, he was long used to the smell and loud report of gunpowder. It was relaxing to not have to worry about any lead projectiles accompanying the light and sound.

He reached for his drink on the table and contemplated his position. He had beat the odds and made it out of his lifestyle alive. How many had he gunned down? He had lost track many years ago. Now as John Beauregard he was living out his retirement thanks to the two bags of gold he managed to get from Sullivan.

A particularly large firework exploded over the water with a loud bang. Jack smiled but then felt something was wrong. He reached up and felt; his hat was missing from the top of his head. He reached down to retrieve his trilby from the ground and when he picked it up he noticed a hole in the front and back, high up away from the brim. He puzzled for a moment and then turned around to look behind him. Sitting several tables away was a man who was grinning like the Cheshire cat. Casual observers might think the man grinned like a fool, but Jack knew otherwise as he watched the man eat from a bowl of beans.

"Are you going to sit over there or come join me?" he called out loud enough to be heard. "I don't make the invitation to Everybody."

"It would have been rude just to sit down without being invited," the man replied. His hat had a hole in it too.

"More rude than shooting the hat off my head?"

"Uh," the man said with a shrug while grinning. However, he did get up and join Jack at his table.

"I particularly like the way you timed the shot with the fireworks. No one else would suspect a thing."

"It seemed the best way to get your attention out in public." The man looked around at the other dozen tables, of which half were occupied.

"What, not performing for the audience now? There was a time you couldn't wait to have one," Jack observed out loud.

"It served its purpose at the time. It got you out of America alive." The stranger had met Jack while he was getting ready to retire, leave America and go to Europe. Although Jack had a reputation as a deadly gunslinger, the man was convinced that he needed to go out in style - in his mind, going up single-handed against the Wild Bunch was the perfect setup. Jack didn't like the odds of 150-1, but the man - who called himself Nobody - insisted and even set Jack up so that the scenario played out. Jack survived, and eliminated many of the gang at the same time. Together they staged a duel afterward in New Orleans to make it appear Nobody beat Jack to the draw and killed him in the street; this allowed Jack to secretly board the Sundowner passenger ship and sail to Europe with a legacy and no one coming after him.

This of course cemented Nobody's position as THE top gun in the West, and as a result he lost his anonymity. "Turned you into a Somebody, didn't it?" Jack asked.

"They even gave me a knickname: John 'Lightning' Doe."

"No more fun after that, I suppose."

"Oh, I had my moments after you left. There were still some members of the Wild Bunch left that needed to be taught to be nice. The first one pretended to be a barber to slit my throat, but I took your advice and all he got was two bits for his efforts before I left. Then he got his friends riled up, so I had to go see what I could do."

"How many did you kill?" Jack asked.

"The nearest I could figure, you killed seventy-five when you shot the dynamite in their saddle pouches. At least thirty ran off after that."

"So you ended up with forty or so left. Like I said, the west is getting smaller all the time. It wouldn't be long before you'd bump into them again even if they WEREN'T looking for you. What did you do?"

"Well, the way I thought about it is that a man can't learn a lesson if he's dead. So I just figured out where they were going to ride - they don't make near as much thunder now as they used to - and when they rode through a pass I just kind of leaned a little too much against a boulder and it rolled down the hill right into the middle of 'em. That ran about five off, I figure. Then I set up a fake wagon with a straw family stuck in the sand. When they came a hootin' and a shootin' at it, something must have triggered the dynamite I had accidentally left in the back. That scared off another ten."

"They were down to twenty-five or so by then," Jack calculated. "Unless they got some more to join up." By now the fireworks had stopped for an intermission.

"I don't think anyone wanted to throw in with them when word started getting around. Plus, I think the law might have taken a few out when I wasn't looking. It was more like twenty or so left when I sort of started a stampede through their camp one night. Silly me. That ran off another half dozen, and the other fellers were getting spooked for sure. I got some Indian friends to sneak up and stand behind them one day, real quite like, and just stand there. Over a hundred Indians staring at 'em, not moving or saying a word. Another eight got the message and rode into town the next day to give themselves up."

"I'm starting to see a pattern here. Go on," Jack prodded.

"Not much to tell after that. Oh, the last six tried robbing a train but funny how just when they were catching up to it on horseback they gave up after someone decided to dump the contents of the passenger commode all out the back." The man giggled. "The horses didn't like it either. Let's see...then the bank they tried to break into was empty after it had moved to another town. Guess that tip from a stranger wasn't so good after all. I even heard that one outlaw tried to join them, and they were so paranoid that they run him off just to be safe. You think such folk would be friendly to their own kind, but I guess not these fellers. The last I heard they high-tailed it off to Mexico and got caught up in some fighting down there with General Diaz."

"And during all this time you never got challenged to a shootout?"

"Oh, a few. I managed to avoid most. One I won by shooting a tree branch off and it landed on the other guy, knocking him out. Shot a few guns out of the other guys' hands, that sort of thing. You were right - once you have a name, people know who to come looking for."

"It isn't necessary, but it helps. The way most figure it, you can't build much of a reputation shooting nameless people. Hell, you seemed to know the names of everyone I shot."

The man shrugged. "I read the papers."

"Yeah, I've been thinking about that. Thinking about a lot of things. How many people have you killed? Jack asked as he leveled a gaze at his guest.

"I don't know exactly."

"I think you do."

The perpetual grin of the man dropped away. "I get the feeling you do too."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Is it zero?"

"Could be. Why do you ask?"

"A man who's retired has a chance to think a lot about things when he doesn't have to work for a living or watch his back from someone trying to get a reputation the easy way. You're the fastest man I ever met. By far. A lot faster than me, too. Now here's an idea I want to throw at you. Suppose - just suppose - that someone comes along that is the fastest thing around, ever. He don't get beat, and he doesn't miss. He's got the swagger and confidence that he'll never even get touched. He helps a man that rides on the edge of the law finally get out of his line of work, and do it with a whole skin. He doesn't want to have a name, but he wants everyone to see what he's done. And he just happens to be everywhere I was going, gettin' there ahead of me and waiting with this plan of his. You were there fishing when I rode by. You were there with the bomb in the basket. You beat me to the graveyard where my brother was. You beat me to the town where you shot my hat the first time. You even managed to steal that train that I was going to catch a ride. And I heard about you and that drinking game - all that alcohol and you weren't even affected."

"I'm just lucky I guess."

"Yeah, I guess. Take that time in the graveyard when I shot through your hat twice in the same hole." Jack fingered the new hole in his new hat. Well, it used to be new anyway.

"That was good shooting on your part."

"Maybe, but I'm not THAT good of a shot. It's almost like someone helped me."

"Or you got lucky."

"That's too much luck goin' around. And to top it all off, in all the shooting you've done you ain't killed no one. Not even close."

"Just bad luck I guess."

Jack shook his head. "No. Just good. TOO good, if you ask me. One might even say...supernaturally good. One more thing - you're always eating beans. Don't they have beans in Heaven?"

"No, they have..." the man said and stopped suddenly before grinning again.

Jack leaned back in his chair. "Kinda thought that. But you know what the real tip-off was? I reached back into my mind to remember what you looked like while you were walking around. There you were, walking around carrying that saddle of yours behind you. The front parts of it extended over your shoulders. Kinda looked like angel wings, when you think about it."

The man looked away and laughed. "I guess I tried to be a little too clever on that one."

"Don't worry about it, the idea didn't occur to me until a couple of years ago while I was reading about the troubles the old Wild Bunch was having. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Mind me asking why?"

The guest turned back to Jack. "We were making sure about you. At least to start."

"About me? I thought He would know everything there is about me."

"Yes, but it doesn't work quite like that down here. I was sent to check you out and, if you really were sincere in being done with your old lifestyle, to help you exit in a way you wouldn't end up cursing Him and ruin it. From what I'm told, you've led a peaceful life since leaving on that ship." Jack started to object but the guest waved him off. "We're not here to judge the men you killed - that's not my assignment or even my purview. If you were legit, I step in. If not, we let history take its course."

"Then why didn't you just leave in a puff of smoke or ascend to the heavens after I left?"

"Because I was HAVING FUN. Discouraging dangerous folk was something I hadn't done before, and I liked it. So I got an extension and was told to clean up the Wild Bunch. You were right - this country is changing. No more free ranges, a man can't just ride his horse to anywhere he wants anymore, and people are moving out here that can't even shoot much less defend themselves. There will always be those that do evil against the innocent, but being in a gang like the Wild Bunch was too much to hope against - so I gave folks a little hope by running them off. That being done, I thought I'd come by to say goodbye. It's been fun, Jack. Wait...why the long face?"

"I don't rightly know to be happy I was right or sad that you're leaving. To be honest, it kind of tickled me to think there was someone like you out there giving bad guys pause to consider. I think the world is gonna be a duller place after you're gone."

"The same could be said for you, Jack. But truthfully, the world is never going to be dull - it's just going to shine in ways we can't see or don't appreciate. It's the way of the world and the way of history, really. But it's time I got back," the guest said as he stood up.

"Are you supposed to take me with you?" Jack asked. He was comfortable now with how things had ended. If his life finished now, he had no regrets.

"Nah." The former Nobody leaned over and whispered into Jack's ear. "You didn't hear it from me, but you're gonna write a history of the decline of the Wild Bunch. Be sure to use a pen name, remember that you're supposed to be dead." After an intermission, the fireworks had started up again and the guest looked up. "You know, they sure look a lot different from above," he said and in a blink he was gone.

Jack made a mental note to buy some writing supplies tomorrow. No hurry, there was plenty of time.

The End

A/N: An interesting movie, done with that odd Spaghetti Western style and a fair garnishing of humor as well. But when I saw the movie poster (see book art here) I was struck by how the parts of the saddle he carried looked like wings. It was a bit like the poster for the Warren Beatty film "Heaven Can Wait" (or the Paul Hogan film "Almost an Angel") and then I thought Why Not?

I have book cover art for this story but the site isn't allowing me to upload graphics right now.