The Gunslinger

Only one scar, from a kid in Montana. His mom had him placed in a field of lantana. The kid was still smiling as smoke from his vest plumed when the bullet slammed through his chest. With a split second draw as smooth as fresh cream, another man falls just short of his dream. He doesn't pull quicker to take the man's life but to save the man years of a gunslinger's strife. A welter of faces has challenged his game but the soles of their boots all look the same. The fame he once sought now plagues him in curse; too many men he's lain in the hearse. One day soon he'll give a slight pause and a younger gunslinger will take up the cause. They'll come for him too, from the east to the west and he too in mercy, will lay them yo rest.