Wednesday 15 June 2011

Wild West

Partners, prepare to draw. Your gun, not a picture. Geez. To help you get in the mood, hit play on the below video and listen whilst you read.



The carriage creaked its way over the dusty road, horses lathered and straining in the hot air. Wheels lazily flung up thick clots of mud as the carriage slowly made its way along the pockmarked track. Hooves sucked in and out of the slurry of muddy water, a result of the sudden downpour which had occurred during the ferry crossing not an hour previously. A small village appeared around a bend in the road, and the horses whickered at the smell of livestock and civilisation. The seven inhabitants (known in these parts as the Magnificent Seven, which is a pleasant coincidence) of the carriage dozed, confident in their ability to handle any trouble in these parts with their eyes closed.


People stopped to stare as the carriage moved slowly on through the ramshackle town. This was not the Seven’s destination. Children stared wide-eyed at the silhouettes of the carriage’s inhabitants. Several young ones burst into tears and were shushed quickly by the adults. The ancient phrase ‘Kai Valagi’ was whispered between the townsfolk with a mixture of fear and awe. An uneasy quiet descended, punctuated only by the irregular clucking of hens, and the even clop of the horses’ steel shod hooves. Cookfires smoked unattended, and a sudden gust of wind sent a small (and unlikely) tumbleweed barrelling down the road. As the carriage reached the far edge of the village without slowing, tension trickled out of the shoulders of the locals, and life resumed with naught but a shadow of the carriage’s passage remaining.


The road narrowed now, as mountains reared up into sharp crags of fantastically formed rock on one side and the ocean lapped hungrily on the other. Following the contours of the land, the road led the Seven inexorably forward. They were drawing near. Light began to fade from the sky, colour bleeding into the heavens above the mountains whilst the ocean grew darker and more malicious, hurling itself violently against the crumbling sea wall. A stiff breeze flew from the ocean, whistling and wheezing through the cracks in the carriage, ruffling the horses’ manes as they pulled the Seven ever onwards.


As pink streaks of dusky cloud ran across the sky, masking the first stars as they appeared, the carriage entered Levuka. A dilapidated factory cast a baleful shadow across the road, but the Seven (and their horses) ignored it, their eyes fixed firmly on the goal ahead. A dog, nothing more than skin and bone and fleas, yapped ineffectually as the carriage rolled past.

The track widened into a proper road, lined on one side by weatherbeaten clapboard buildings and a rotting seawall on the other. In daylight the buildings were brightly coloured, but in the dim of evening they may as well have been decaying husks from a long-forgotten civilisation. The town was dead. The buildings were dark, shut up tight, and nothing but the wind could be heard as it whistled and whispered through buildings and trees alike. It was obvious that the magnificence of the Seven would not be questioned this night.

The Magnificent Seven (minus one)



The carriage came to a halt outside a sprawling homestead, an island of light and sound in a sea of near darkness. The Seven disembarked. As one, they made their way towards the entrance, their equipment clinking menacingly against their persons. Inside, lights burned warmly and conversation hovered quietly around lace-clothed tablecloths. Then, like the buzz of a fly whose life is cut short by the flick and the crack of the flyswat, everything ceased as the batwing doors were flung open. Seven Magnificent silhouettes flung lengthy shadows behind them, and silence hemorrhaged  out of them and into the saloon. The leader dropped coin on the counter sharply, eyes glinting dangerously, and the troupe of gunslingers were led to a simple but clean room reminiscent of the dormitory in Madeleine. A massacre of bedevilled mosquitoes ensued, leaving townsfolk trembling in fear and insect carcasses littering the floor.


After a quiet (and menacing, always menacing) night of food and drink, the best in these parts, the Magnificent Seven woke with the town and left their lodging. Word of the Seven’s presence in Levuka had clearly spread, for even in daylight hours, the town remained deserted. Several individuals scurried past, heads bowed, as the Seven walked the town, fingers hovering over their holsters, eyes roaming and hungry. Whilst their bloodlust was not satiated, their appetites were, with a simple lunch of breakfast crackers, tomato and cheese. As they sheltered from the noonday sun under the eaves of the first ever MH store, fondness for this town grew in their hearts. They vowed to return someday to take more sustenance from Whales Tales Saloon, annihilate more mosquitoes at New Mavida Lodge, and duel any and all who would threaten Levuka’s peace. It is, after all, a Crime Free Town.




There were no horses.

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