SeaQue City
SeaQue City was a little blogging town on the right fork of the Red State River that got its name from a famous Kiowa Indian chief. Translated, SeaQue meant "He who slaps at the moonbats" and that's how the chief was called by the soldiers and scouts that had known the Indian for whom the sleepy old town was named. But SeaQue City was more restless than sleepy today. Their almost ex-Sheriff was getting married and heading out of town and taking their school marm, his soon to be bride, Betsy, with him.
Betsy and Ed had been going steady since he wrote her that first love note in a late night instant message right after election day; things were quiet then in the little blogging town. She had printed it out and still carried the scrap of paper around in a small locket just above her heart.
"I've been waiting for this day for a long time, Ed ... waiting for you to take off that badge so we could build us a life together," said Betsy.
"I reckon, so," said Ed.
"Tell ya what, continued the Sheriff, "You go on and see to things here. I'm gonna walk on over to the courthouse and drop off this badge. It's feelin' about as heavy as a hunnert miles of 4' 8.5" gauge railroad track just now."
"Okay, Sheriff, I mean, ex-Sheriff", Betsy laughed. "You go on, I'll be fine right here."
Sheriff Ed didn't waste any time getting over to the courthouse. He was looking forward to starting a new life; he might even try farming if he and Betsy could find the right piece of land. Just as he hopped up off the dusty street onto the courthouse steps Curley came running down from the telegraph office.
"Sheriff! Sheriff!" Curly was running near as fast as he ever had by the time he made the court house - bending over to catch his breath. "Well, what's all the excitement about, Curly?" asked sheriff Ed. The telegraph operator stood up and put his hand on his chest, struggling for air as he began to talk.
"It's, ... it's Rall. He done got himself paroled outta that place he was in up north. I just got a message from up the line that he's comin' in on the Noon train, ... and, Sheriff, ... he's a comin' after you."
The dust in the empty street seemed to swirl a bit as the sheriff looked out over the town. He felt a slight bead of sweat well up above his mouth, which was dry. He also felt the sun coming down hot for the first time that day. Sheriff Ed thought about what he knew of the man called Rall. Some folks said he was an artist when it came to a showdown.
A Real Bad Man
Rall had been running with the democrat gang out of the Northeast and the group had terrorized a good part of the country. They took a tax off the top of just about any kind of commerce and had instilled that part of the country with a fear and a depravity that reeked havoc on many a poor soul. But that wasn't enough for their kind: nothing ever was. They had big plans to expand through the Midwest bringing with them an ungodly style of life to every town and city they could. Sheriff Ed and a few other sharpshooters had led one group of a large posse that rose up and stopped them. Sheriff Ed didn't know why Rall was coming after him first.
Rall took it pretty hard when the democrats were all but shut down in late fall. Screwing up a job or two, the losses left him with a knot the size of a wadded up Washington Post in his stomach. Some say he took to the drink. Next thing you know he was doing 3 - 6 in Mrs. Ford's House of Contentedness for the Nervously Embittered and Criminally Untalented. Now, he sat motionless except for the staccato-like sideways shifting of a railroad car thinking about what was behind him and gazing sightlessly ahead. Little Bobbie didn't know he was playing around a real bad man.
"Bobbie!" The little blonde boy's Mother called. "Bobbie! Now you get over here and leave the fine people alone or I'll redden your hide!" But Bobbie didn't pay no mind. His Dad had given him two toy holsters with the cap guns to fill 'em and the boy had been running up and down the center of the train calling out one half-way sleeping passenger after another all morning. Now it was Rall's turn.
"Draw, Mister," the boy confronted Rall, his two pure white little hands each clasping the butt end of a shiny new holstered toy revolver strapped tight to his leg. With reflexes as fast as death's breathe itself Rall reached, pulled out a scribble pad and a beaten up old pen. In a flash, Rall, The Artist had drawn two panels that no young man with a cap gun should have to face down. Bobbie just stood there seemingly mesmerized staring point blank into Rall's double barrel with talking balloons the likes of which he had never before seen.
"You draw people like a retard," said Bobbie, turning and running back to the safety of his Mother's waiting arms. "Don't mind the boy," she said, looking up in Rall's direction. "Sometimes he's just a right too full of himself, Mister."
But Rall didn't mind - he knew he had talent. He knew it ever since the day when, as a young man he had gotten back a letter from the Draw This Deer Matchbook Company. Dear Mrs. Rall, read the letter. We are pleased to inform you that, YES, after careful review by our experienced panel we have determined that your son Theodore displays all the markings of a serious artistic talent. Kindly remit check or money order in the sum of $17.50 and we will promptly send out his drawing implements, free sketchpad, first customized lesson and special bonus eraser. After all these years, Rall still carried the letter with him, even though his Mama couldn't actually afford the send away course at the time.
Up the track just ahead in SeaQue City Betsy wasn't taking things quite as calmly Rall. "Ed," she said, "If ya loves me, you'll take off that badge right now and we'll leave this town and Rall behind us once and for all." But the sheriff knew that wasn't true. There were certain things you could never run away from in life - and a hack cartoonist fresh out from a laughing academy happened to be one. Besides, Rall would only track the couple down eventually, he thought.
"Betsy," you're my gal just as sure as there's a bubble in the thermometer come an early spring ... but I just got's ta stay." Every once in awhile the sheriff made an offhand reference that, for the life of her, Betsy couldn't make a lick of sense out of - this was one of those times. She let it go. "Ed," ya knows I love ya, but I'm not going to stay and watch you do this to us - not now, not ever." I'm going on to my Ma's place up in Wichita, you can join me there later if you like ... if you're able," she began to tear. Not one to dawdle, Betsy took up her last hat case, found her way to the wagon and headed north out toward the edge of town.
The Real Rall Showdown
"Well sheriff," said Curly, "I guess it's just you and me now." The two men stood alone on the west side of town under a swinging wooden sign that marked the hardware store. "Reckon so," said the sheriff. "Well, if you'll excuse me for a bit, it's just about my lunch hour. I'm gonna mosey along home and see what the Mrs. has cooked up." "All right, Curly," replied the sheriff. "What time’d you say that train was gettin' in?" he asked. "Oh, 'bout noon," said Curly, as he made for home. The time on the bank clock up the street was five minutes to twelve.
The spur of Rall’s boot chinked in the dust as he stepped down from the train, stretched his arms up toward the sky and had a look around. Curly had gone beyond his duties as a telegraph operator in getting the word out and the townfolk all kept a safe distance, but couldn’t keep from being there, either. Walking with the skinny swagger of a not overly well-fed angry man, Rall made his way up the middle of the street toward the center of town. Sheriff Ed waited until he was about half way to him before he stepped down from the plank walk in front of the hardware store. “Sheriff,” Rall called out in an acknowledging tone, smiling disingenuously. Ed just took his place in the middle of the sunlit street, tipped his hat once and settled in.
“What brings you to these parts, Rall?”
“Well, sheriff, I’ll tell ya. I think maybe you and me, we got a score to settle. Don’t you?
“Not so’s I know of,” Ed replied softly and spat.
A menacing toothy grin seemed to be spreading across Rall’s face, his hands hanging low and loose. Sheriff Ed could feel himself tensing up just the slightest bit so he flexed his fingers where they hung next to the gun belt strapped just below his waist.
Betsy Leaves a Mark
Looking like nothing more than a flash in the sheriff’s peripheral vision, Betsy seemed to come out of nowhere quickly making her way around the corner of the hardware store, barely lifting the hem of her long dress to traverse the dusty street of the cowboy town and exposing her worn size seven leather boots. She came up fast behind Rall and smartly planted the old shoe on her right foot smack into the artist’s backside. “You son of a biatch!” she yelled, angry. Rall started then jumped to right himself and a horrifically long tearing noise filled the street as the lanky artist’s leather britches split from seam to seam.
“Time-out,” cried Rall.
“Huh?” said Sheriff Ed.
“Time-out!” said the wobbly Rall. Sheriff Ed just lifted his hat and scratched at his head looking at the man while Betsy stood behind still huffing in exasperation.
“There’s no “time out,” said the sheriff. “What do you mean, “time-out?” he asked.
Rall spoke defiantly and a bit unsure. “I tore my cowboy suit.” At first it wasn’t plain just how upset the man had become but the perspiring and some shakiness soon began to emerge. “Do you have any idea how long I have had this cowboy suit?” he demanded. “My Ma gave me this cowboy suit,” said the artist, the slightest bit of a quiver starting to set into his lower lip. Most folks didn’t know what to make of the man standing there alone in the street. A few steps back, Betsy almost found herself starting to feel sorry for Rall.
And that’s pretty much how it went the day The Artist, Ted Rall came into town … looking for sheriff Ed with the notion of a payback in his mind. Ed and Betsy, they went on to have a pretty fine ceremony, some said the cake Mrs. Ray made for the affair was one of the best she'd ever done. And Rall? Well, some said he fell back into the bottle, others said he moved a few towns down the rail line and went into the linen goods or the dry cleaning business, no one was really sure. But you have to believe he must have had that cowboy suit repaired – it seemed to have meant a lot to him - shame it tore on 'em just when he needed it most. And, truth be told, it didn’t really look so awfully bad in the wearing, neither.
Info on the original movie High Noon.
Update, I've also posted this piece with Blogger News.
