Summary
In a hamlet so morally warped its own shadow leans left, the locomotive’s weekly sigh is the sole punctuation in a run-on sentence of graft. Lawmen moonlight as highwaymen, the schoolhouse doubles as a countinghouse for kickbacks, and the station platform is padded like a lunatic’s cell to cradle the bodies of travelers who tumble from still-moving coaches. Into this carnival of rot glides Betsy Beautiful—lips painted like manifest destiny, spine straighter than the railroad spike that will soon nail every hypocrite’s lie. The trustee who dispatches her imagines a prim schoolmarm; what arrives is a cyclone in a lace collar, dragging daylight behind her like a bridal train. Her beau, Hiram Biff—equal parts greased piston and pure chutzpah—rides the undercarriage of the same engine, a stowaway inside the town’s only artery. Their rendezvous point is Big Kick Kitchen, a spit-slick saloon where soda fizz masks the metallic tang of impending blood. Even Pineapple Pete, the local basilisk in a straw boater, sips vanilla phosphate while casing the bank next door. But larceny here is a franchised affair: the sheriff demands a 50% corporate tax on all unofficial withdrawals. The heist is theater, the standoff farce, until Hiram vaults from the wings, collaring miscreants with slapstick precision, scooping the loot and the girl in one fluid pas de trois, and sprinting toward a westbound escape that rewrites gravity itself.
Synopsis
Weazel Tail Bend was so crooked it couldn't see straight. The sheriff and his deputy had the habits of Jesse James, and he also robbed the country by teaching school. The weekly train was the town's only sport. The engineer knew Weazel Bend- so he didn't even hesitated. They had a nice soft mattress on the station platform to catch the passengers that chanced that way. But one day the town was brightened considerably by the arrival of Miss Betsy Beautiful, whom the School Trustee sent to relieve the sheriff of one of his duties-teaching school. Her sweetheart Hiram Biff, had followed her, how ever, riding on his nerve and the engine rod. "Big Kick Kitchen," was the place where society mixed soft drinks with hard fists. Even the bad guy, Pineapple Pete, didn't look so hard, sipping a soft drink. However, looks are not everything. Pineapple decided to pay the bank an unofficial visit to draw out some cash he had never deposited, but he was interrupted by our friend the Sheriff, who demanded half of the loot. Everything was going lovely, when who should appear but Hiram. He rounded up the crooks in fine shape, grabbed the money with one hand, his girl with the other and they both grabbed the first train going the other way.
