The Last Frontier, Part I

In a clap-board building by the Tetons, 1919, if you’re wondering the year, a man named Sid Hull sat down for a drink in a saloon they called The Last Frontier. Sid had been riding here for quite a bit, he was gonna turn seventy next week, seen the last Indians get driven off, and rustled cattle driven through the peaks. He’d moved here back during the wild years, he’d seen shoot-outs, hangings, and great fires, Sid had seen the vast range divided up with endless miles of thorny barbed-wire. He was a foreman for Anderson’s Ranch, he and Cal had been friends for many years, since Sid had taught him to ride and to rope, and helped the greenhorn get over his fears. Cal had always had a mind for business, while Sid knew the ins-and-outs of a herd, he’d hired Sid on with a ten percent stake, then they’d worked hard and earned what they deserved. Now Cal was a bit of a teatotaler, and had declined coming out here tonight, but the man who has just walked into the bar was not a stranger to drinking and fights. Sid recognized him immediately, though the long decades had wrinkled his face, he’d never forget the face of a killer, the wretched outlaw they called ‘Gutshot’ Pace. Once, way back, he’d been known just as Ollie, an apprentice to the local blacksmith, too fond of the gambling for his on good, soon he had nothing left to wager with. He, his brother Paul, and four other friends decided that they’d knock over the bank, Sid had been in the posse that had chased them, long they had pursued those criminals rank. Sid had cut down Ollie’s younger brother Paul, he still recalled the shocked look he had worn, Paul had died then, but Ollie had escaped, his later crimes made many widows morn. They say he had wandered across the west, forming gangs and preying on all they could, but as the country had become settled the picking had become less-and-less good. The papers all said his gang me their end up in Alaska in 1903, but clearly they had missed old Gutshot Pace, since he stood before him, gray and angry. He was dressed in rough clothes, covered in dust, a pistol mere inches from his right hand, said,”Don’t make a move, or I’ll kill you straight, did you think that I would forget you, man?” Side supposed that he should’ve been frightened, instead he just sighed in sad disbelief, said,”Forty-five years you carried all this, forty-five years you’ve been gunning for me?” COCNLUDES IN PART II.