Western Frivolity

Tumbleweed.

Tumbleweed, a howling wind carrying choking dust and the sun descending behind the only bar in this godforsaken town.

A cowboy, a sheriff maybe, his boots so pointed the toes have never kissed the ground; legs akimbo, hands on his gun-belt, cheroot between his teeth.

Eyes narrowed to mere slits, periodically he spits to the side without looking to see what he's hit. Casually, he wipes his chin with the sleeve of his seersucker shirt and his hand resumes its position, millimetres from his gun.

He's waiting. Watching. Expectant. Alert.

The sky is about to crash down around him. He knows it, I know it. Whoever he is anticipating is going to be the meanest hell-raiser in all Christendom. Not just a bad dude: a baby-eater. A dog-shooter. A wife-beater. As a kid, he cut the legs off frogs because he was bored.

What would happen, though, if instead of this show-down - this all guns blazing, shoot 'em up, hang 'em high - a stagecoach full of chorus girls thundered around the corner?

Would the sun grind to a creaking halt on its chain and begin a re-ascent? The tumbleweed check its progress? The wind cease to howl? Would the band, resting on its laurels for the explosions of gun-fire, tune up and begin a natty little two-step while girls of all shapes and sizes, colours and costumes alighted from the coach giggling and chatting, rehearsing for the knees-up?

Would that be so bad?

What is a happy ending?