Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear…
Anderson’s Gulch has changed a bit in the past few years. Mining slacked up due to the uranium deposit being a fluke but the phosphate industry is still going strong. Crews of surveyors have been periodically going out to scout where the main uranium deposit might be.
Zeke slowly settled in to his sheriffing duties while he trained an apprentice blacksmith, a teenager named Daniel Dawson. Danny isn’t an impressive figure like is mentor but knows how to swing a hammer, and Sally Ann Charging Bear took a liking to him immediately when he came down from Solace. Danny still goes to school during the day, which gives Zeke time to get to know Deputies David and Alan McReynolds, and get used to being sheriff.
The Darkhorse caught fire while being remodelled; it’s suspected that a workman accidentally knocked over an oil lamp. Much of the interior ended up being gutted but the outside walls had been saved. The McLeods, with the help of Bertha Beauregard, reclaimed the hulk and rechristened it the Phoenix Inn and it’s become a big attraction in the area. Turns out Ian was a regular 19th Century Ed Sullivan, booking great stage acts on their way West.
The re-christened Darkhorse Inn isn’t the only chage to the commercial landscape. Bertha sold her restaurant to the McReynolds boys, whose wives run the place. This enabled her to get in with the McLeods. Max McReynolds, the boys’ uncle, came along from Denver and re-opened the tannery. A fellow named Stan Goldstone opened a dry goods store, competing with the Hastings and tentions between the parties have been running high.
It had been a big week for Anderson’s Gulch. Sally just turned 16 yesterday and today marks the grand opening of the new courthouse. Ian pulled some strings and hired a marching band and a Wild West show for the event! Townsfolk delighted at the trick riding; Belle and Sally were especially interested in the dancing horses. In the shooting competitions, Zeke tied with the show’s sharpshooter in the rifle competition but Slim surprised everyone by winning the pistol competition!
Everything was running smoothly until it came time for the sharpshooter, May Fenno, to do a solo act. She did the usual tricks, from snuffing candles to plugging the center of an ace of spaces with her back turned and holding a mirror. Just before her finale, she picked up a crossbow and demonstrated how it works. Most folks in attendance had never seen one before. May took aim at the edge of a playing card and fired. And missed! May held up her crossbow, examining it. I missed? I never miss! A few moments of stunned silence was punctuated with a scream. It was Martha Hastings; her husband was lying next to her, a crossbow bolt in his chest. He was bleeding profusely but still alive. “Doc McCaulley, get over here!” yelled Slim, who had been seated behind the shopkeepers. May and Zeke ran up from the center of the ring, she carrying her crossbow and he still with the cigarette in his mouth. “I think somebody tampered with my weapon!” declared the sharpshooter.