Subject: Gather round, and I'll tell you a tale out of the Old West.
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Posted on: 2019-12-11 11:17:35 UTC

The Kelley Brian gang were holed up in the mountain fastness. It was getting on towards nightfall, and ordinarily they'd be arming up, ready to take their due from any luckless traveller taking the High Pass.

Instead, they were listening to Kelley rant.

"-- used to own this country!" the bandit chief snarled, his hoarfrost hair whipping back and forth as he paced. "El Ron answered to us, the whole of Dale's Ravine answered to us! We lived like kings, you hear me? Kings!"

Crouched against the rocky wall, the one they called the Goblin nodded. "'s right," he said, picking at his nails with a long knife. "Kings. Kings and queens."

Kelley shot him a silencing look, then turned back to the newer members of the outlaw gang. "And what've we got now?" he demanded. "A hole in the danged rocks, that's what! You think this is why I brought you on, so we could cower in a danged mineshaft day and night?"

One of the braver recruits, a French exile by the name of Manet, held up a hand. "It is those Mormons from their, how do you call it, Deseret; they come up 'ere, and they-"

Kelley spat into the dry dust of the cave. "Don't you talk to me about Mormonites! Ever since 'Brother Brigham' came to these parts we've had nothing but trouble out of Utah Territory; they should've all been shot along with Holy Joe back east."

The Goblin raised his head, his teeth glinting in the lamplight. "Ain't the Saints who're hassling us," he said. "You know who it is, Kelley Brian, don't say otherwise."

Kelley's face darkened, and he shot a murderous glare at his second. "I know what you're getting at, old-timer. But I ain't worried about the Welsh Indian and his bit on the side; they'll get what's coming to them soon enough, them and all their kind."

"Tell of that to One-Hand Iggy," Manet said, emboldened by the chief's discomfort. "He is not here, n'est-ce pas? And I am hearing that it is the bearded Welshman who shot him down, in this our own High Pass."

Kelley rose up against the flickering lamp, his hand dropping to his six-shooter. His chest puffed out, setting to bellow at his unruly follower; but before he could get a word out a slow clap echoed through the cave.

"I do declare," a lady's voice called, in the leisurely drawl of the Deep South, "that's a most delightsome story you've told yourselves."

"It's not true, of course," a deep Welsh lilt added, as the bandits scrabbled for their guns. "The Saints have enough troubles of their own, boyos; they won't be coming this far north."

"Unlike our good selves," the lady continued, satisfaction ringing in her voice. "A very good evening to y'all, boys."

"Who's there?" Kelley levelled his revolver at the cave mouth, watching for any sign of movement in the dark. "Name yourselves, you cowards!"

The lady laughed, a rippling sound that cut through the underground quiet. "I'm so sorry," she said. "Your friend Iggy Lund was all set to introduce us, but wouldn't you know it, he had other places to be."

"It is them!" Manet hissed. "Monsieur Brian, it is the Welshman!"

"Now that's a bit rude," the man's voice came back, "ignoring the lady when she's speaking to you. What are they teaching you here in the mountain country?"

"Show yourselves!" Spittle flew from Kelley's lips as he swung his gun across the entrance. "Come out and fight me!"

An arrow arched out of the shadows, striking the bandit's hand and sending his six-shooter flying. As he clutched the hand to his chest, the Welsh voice went on calmly: "I don't think there's much chance of that, boyo."

"You're hardly deserving of the honour of a fair fight," the lady agreed. Then her voice dropped, almost to the edge of hearing. "Taff... there were only supposed to be two of them."

"I was noticing that, Connie cariad," the man said. "Don't worry - I have a plan."

"Is this one of your good plans?" the lady asked. "Or have you come up with another way to get us killed?"

Manet, his gaze darting between the injured Kelley and the slouching Goblin, had been getting more and more jittery. Now he stepped forward, beckoning the rest of the gang forward. "Come, my brothers!" he called. "Let us drive them from this place like La Révolution against l'Ancien Régime!"

A gun flashed in the darkness, illuminating for the briefest instant a woman's face, framed by tight curls and set in concentration. Manet staggered back, but now the other bandits were firing, shots ricocheting from the rocky walls.

"I'm afraid, cariad, the plan is a little bit of both," the man's voice said, and then there was a flare of light. The outlaws threw their arms up to shield their eyes, the gunfire falling to a stop.

When they could see again, they found the bearded Welshman standing in the very middle of the tunnel, his hand held aloft. All eyes turned to the thing he held there: the red cylinder, and the bright fuse burned nearly down to the paper. Taff bared his teeth at the bandits, then turned to the woman crouching behind an outcropped boulder.

"Connie cariad," he said, his voice ringing clear through the tunnel, "I suggest you run."


I'm sure he'll be fine... maybe?

hS

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