to the tinder-dry linen drapes. I ran to put it out and knocked against the desk, dislodging the lawman's loaded revolver, which fell to the floor, discharging a single shot which cut the cord of a hanging stuffed moose's head which fell upon Bradshaw. So there were the three of us; me trying to put out the fire, the sheriff covered in water and Bradshaw walking into furniture as he tried to get the moose's head off. It was
'Sheriff, I'm so sorry about this,' I muttered apologetically, having doused the fire, de-moosed Bradshaw and helped a very damp lawman to his feet. He was over six foot tall, had a weather-beaten face and deep blue eyes. I produced my badge. 'Thursday Next, head of Jurisfiction. This is my partner, Commander Bradshaw.'
The sheriff relaxed and even managed a thin smile. 'Thought you was more of them Baxters,' he said, brushing himself down and drying his hair with a 'Cathouses of Dawson City' tea cloth. 'I'm mighty glad you're not. Jurisfiction, hey? Ain’t seen none of yous around these parts for longer than I care to remember — quit it, Howell.'
The drunk, Howell, had awoken and was demanding a tipple 'to set him straight'.
'We're looking for the Minotaur,' I explained, showing the sheriff the photograph.
He rubbed his stubble thoughtfully and shook his head.
'Don't recall ever seeing this critter, Missy Next.'
'We have reason to believe he passed through your office not long ago — he's been marked with Slapstick.'
'Ah!' said the sheriff. 'I was a-wonderin’ ’bout all that. Me and Howell here have been trippin' and a- stumblin' for a whiles now — ain’t we, Howell?'
'You're darn tootin’,' said the drunk.
'He could be in disguise and operating under an alias,' I ventured. 'Does the name Norman Johnson mean anything to you?'
'Can't say it does, Missy. We have twenty-six Johnsons here but all are C-7s — not 'portant 'nuff to have fust names.'
I sketched a Stetson on to the photograph of the Minotaur, then a duster, vest and gunbelt.
'Oh!' said the sheriff with a sudden look of recognition. '
'You know where he is?'
'Sure do. Had him in the cells only last week on charges of eatin’ a cattle rustler.'
'What happened?'
'Paid his bail and wuz released. Ain’t nothing in the statutes of Nebraska that says you can't eat rustlers. One moment.'
There had been a shot outside followed by several yells from startled townsfolk. The sheriff checked his Colt, opened the door and walked out. Alone on the street and facing him was a young man with an earnest expression, hand quivering around his gun, the elegantly tooled holster of which I noticed had been tied down — a sure sign of yet another potential gunfight.
'Go home, Abe!' the sheriff called out. 'Today's not a good day for dyin’.'
'You killed my pappy,' said the youth, 'and my pappy's pappy. And
'You said Peregrine twice.'
'He wuz special.'
'Abel Baxter,' whispered the sheriff out of the corner of his mouth, 'one of them Baxter boys. They turn up regular as clockwork, and I kill ’em same ways as regular.'
'How many have you killed?' I whispered back.
'Last count, 'bout sixty. Go home, Abe, I won't tell yer again!'
The youth caught sight of Bradshaw and me and said:
'New deputies, Sheriff? Yer gonna need ’em!'
And it was then that we saw that Abel Baxter wasn't alone. Stepping out from the stables opposite were four disreputable-looking characters. I frowned. They seemed somehow out of place in
The sheriff sensed it too.
'Where yo' friends from, Abe?'
One of the men hooked his Winchester into the crook of his arm and answered in a low Southern drawl:
'Mr Johnson sent us.'
And they opened fire. No waiting, no drama, no narrative pace. Bradshaw and I had already begun to move — squaring up in front of a gunman with a rifle might seem terribly macho but for survival purposes it was a non- starter. Sadly, the sheriff didn't realise this until it was too late. If he had survived until page 164, as he was meant to, he would have taken a slug, rolled twice in the dust after a two-page build-up and lived long enough to say a pithy final goodbye to his sweetheart who would have cradled him in his bloodless dying moments. Not to be. Realistic violent death was to make an unwelcome entry into
The gunmen stopped firing as soon as there was no target — but Bradshaw, his hunting instincts alerted, had already drawn a bead on the sheriff's killer and fired. There was an almighty detonation, a brief flash and a large cloud of smoke. The eraserhead hit home and the gunman disintegrated mid-stride into a brief chrysanthemum of text which scattered across the main street, the meaning of the words billowing out into a blue haze which hung near the ground for a moment or two before evaporating.
'What are you doing?' I asked, annoyed at his impetuosity.
'Him or us, Thursday,' replied Bradshaw grimly, pulling the lever down on his Martini-Henry to reload, 'him or us.'
'Did you see how much text he was composed of?' I replied angrily. 'He was almost a paragraph long. Only
'But,' replied Bradshaw in an aggrieved tone, 'I didn't know that before I shot him, now, did I?'
I shook my head. Perhaps Bradshaw hadn't noticed the missing button, the sweat stains and the battered shoes, but
'So what do we do?' asked Bradshaw. 'Ask politely for them to surrender?'
'I'm thinking,' I replied, pulling out my footnoterphone and pressing the button marked Cat. In fiction, the commonest form of communication was by footnote, but way out here . . .
'Blast!' I muttered again. 'No signal.'
'Nearest repeater station is in
He was right. We had been crossing from book to book for almost six days, and although we could escape in an emergency, such a course of action would give the Minotaur more than enough time to escape. Things weren't