This week's 15minuteficlets entry.

[camwyn]

This scene is part of the backstory I've been working on for the Silver Corporal- from back in his days in the States, after he'd left his native Wyoming, but before he made his way to Canada. It's 757 words long; this week's word was aggravation.

Jim Coates slumped in his chair and gloomily wondered where he'd gone wrong. It had all seemed so simple back East. Wolf's Ear, Montana, was a town without the formal presence of law, they'd said. Go and be that presence, they'd said. Wolf's Ear wasn't near anything but a couple of copper mines in one direction and a few big ranches in the other. It wasn't of much interest to the kind of outlaws that plagued the rest of the West- there just wasn't enough money there to start with. It should've been easy.

But now there was an angry mob outside, and a runty little fellow in his jail, and the weirdest rope he'd ever seen in his office's safe, and a girl missing. And none of it, NONE of it, was fitting together right. God Almighty, he wondered, what had he done to deserve this kind of aggravation?

He reached for his flask, and thought the better of it. There was still some coffee. Much as he needed the Dutch courage, he needed his wits about him more. And if there was nothing else he could do right, he could at least make coffee. . .

There was a great BANG at the door; Jim fairly jumped out of his skin before he realized it wasn't gunfire. "What? What?" he yelled. He'd be damned if he'd let this rabble get the better of him.

"Sheriff, this is Murph! We're getting' tired of waitin' out here!"

"Too bad!"

"I'd reconsider that if I was you, Sheriff! Some o' these folks're powerful fond of Mouse!"

Jim grimaced. Mouse. Not Katie, the missing girl- Mouse. To hell with it; he emptied his flask into the coffee-pot before pouring his cup. "What folks?" he snapped. "The madam? The bordello girls? Is that it?"

"I mean the men from Pat Granbury's ranch!"

All right, that carried some weight. Granbury's boys put a lot of store by Katie. Jim didn't have to trust the word of the town whores, but the Granbury hands were something else altogether. They might actually be able to get something out of the little man. "I'm coming."

He opened the door, his coffee still in hand. Yup- the mob was still there, and it'd only gotten larger. At a quick glance he could see that every prostitute and dancing girl who worked in Wolf's Ear was there. So were half a score of other women- the respectable sort- and a bunch of what looked like Chinamen. Maybe Indians. Even with the torches and lanterns they carried it was too hard to tell.

Besides, they weren't the important part. Murph, a skinny, sallow fellow, was already pointing. To the left of the womenfolk there were seven or eight men Jim recognized: big, hulking fellows in weathered Stetsons and working clothes. Granbury's hands, to the last man, all looked as if they were about ready to reach into the sheriff's office and tear someone apart. For just one moment, Jim dared to hope.

Frank Gardner, the biggest of the bunch, spoke up. "I'm told you don't like takin' requests from the ladies," he drawled, "so I'm gonna make it nice'n simple. Are ya gonna let us have Mouse, or do we go in there 'n get him out ourselves?"

"No one's breaking anyone out," Jim said, hoping some more.

Frank shook his head, and made a tch'ing noise in the back of his throat. "Will ya look at that, boys? Here I thought the new sheriff was an ejucated man! You ain't got the brains the good Lord gave a skunk iffen you think Mouse could hurt so much as one hair on Katie's head."

Jim's fleeting hope evaporated. He swallowed. "That's as may be," he said, rallying the best he could, "but he's still a troublemaker who cripples men twice his size, a bully who goes around starting fights-"

At that, the entire crowd- from Frank to the Indians to the town whores- burst out laughing. "Mouse?" someone called over the laughter. "A bully? Not even a skunk, Frank!"

Frank grinned mirthlessly. "Sheriff," he said, "me'n the boys really think you're barkin' up the wrong tree. Now, why don't you try pullin' the cork out of that ass o' yours, and-"

There was a sudden, terrible crashing noise. The mug slipped from Jim's nerveless fingers as the crowd, as one, turned towards the source- a cloud of dust rising from the back of the temporary jail.

"Oop," said Frank. "Never mind. Looks like someone got bored waitin'."

Comments

[redwolfoz.livejournal.com]

My only problem with this is that I'd love to know the rest of the story this small piece came from. I guess that's what comes of getting totally sucked into the flow of the ficlet. Loved it.

[camwyn]

Thanks! I'm glad you approve. This is actually part o the backstory I created for a character who only exists in two stories by Lester Dent- a fellow named the Silver Corporal. Despite the fact that the character in question was a Mountie, Dent pointed out repeatedly that the guy came from Wyoming, that he was extremely small (words like 'runty', 'wee', 'elfin', etc. were used to describe him every fourth or fifth sentence), and that he was to some degree afraid of women despite being the sort of guy who thinks 'all women are good women' and that they belong on pedestals. I did what I could to fill in the vast and gaping void that is his history, but I've only got notes on it- haven't written proper stories of it yet, beyond a few other bits of writing about him, some of which were earlier 15-minute ficlets. If you look for the one for the word 'chilling', that particular ficlet is from earlier in Mouse's life in cattle country than this.