The Shootin' Fool

A lanky drifter with a lightning draw and a grin that could charm the bark off a sycamore rides into a dust-blown border town where the church bell hasn’t chimed since the last man was buried upright in the cemetery. He carries no past, only a pearl-handled Colt and a photograph creased down the middle. In the saloon’s warped mirror he sees himself doubled—one version a hero, the other the very outlaw the sheriff has plastered on every pine-board wall. A gambler’s daughter with ink-stained fingers and a Bible-thumping kid brother trail behind him like reluctant prayers, each hoping to swap the bullet-scarred tomorrow for a yesterday that never existed. When the cattle baron’s riders string piano wire across the main road at neck height, the drifter’s horse stumbles, the photograph flutters into the dust, and the creased face staring up is his own—ten years younger, wearing a deputy’s star. What follows is not a hunt but a resurrection: the town’s shot-up conscience climbs out of the boot hill graveyard, confronts the drifter in the abandoned opera house, and demands to know why the righteous bullet always misses its mark. In the flicker of a kerosene lamp the final duel is fought against the silhouette of a hanging tree; the gun fires, the lamp shatters, and the only thing left spinning is the church bell—finally ringing, though no one remains to pull the rope.