The Lore of the Eternal West, Chapter 1: Enter the Gunslinger

This is the first chapter of the audiodrama part of the show, which I am producing in tandem with the Show.

Here's Chapter 1, as heard in S1E1.

Enjoy!

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'The Lore of the Eternal West'

by Panos K

Chapter 1: Enter the Gunslinger

The night is dark, nebulous… pitch black.

You can hear the wind - strong and raging, buzzing with excitement and potential as it gusts through creeks and ruffles no trees, for there are none in the vicinity…

Perspiration droplets form all over your face, coursing down your upper lip, making their way into your mouth, salty and unwelcome.

Parched.

You have been walking for hours on end and your patience is wearing thin.

Your watch says… well, there is no light nearby to shine upon it, so it could just as well not be strapped tight on your hand.

Which it should, and it is, as it’s one of your most prized possessions.

You drag your boots through the sand and you feel goose bumps all over your body. Not because you are scared, for you have witnessed legends in the making and cannot be shaken up by a mere hallucination. But because it really is getting colder by the minute. So ironic - that you used up the entirety of your water supply during the day – that’s how hot it was! Yet that seems a century ago…

 

All of a sudden, as if out of nowhere: a building.

2 stories – ground floor plus one.

Its wooden, batwing doors look like the nose of a monster in the night, illuminated only by a faint glow coming from the inside, presumably from a ceiling fixture; the few windows on the top floor serving as the sleepy eyes of the beast. No mouth.

Yet it yawns…

You feel neither threatened nor… invited.

Yet you need a few pints to quench your thirst and some grub to calm the rumbling in your stomach. A bed to crash on.

You think about it for a minute, then you walk towards the entrance.

There’s enough light for you to see your watch now.

It’s midnight.

 

***

 

 You take a few steps closer and halt yourself, to take it all in.

The smell of the damp soil is sweet as it absorbs humidity from the air; the raging wind seems to have dissipated – for now. More stars have appeared in the sky and the moon is still more than 2 quarters shy.

A good omen.

There is only one thing that does not add up: what is a cantina doing in the middle of nowhere?

There is red rock in the distance: huge boulders of it on either side of a little stream, as if marking a goal post. Followed by even more gorges and creeks, as far as the eye can see, left right and center.

Yet, at the center of it all, a sizeable clearing and… the saloon.

In the dead of night, your vision can be treacherous and you wouldn’t stake your life upon it. Yet, you are known as the Eagle Eye among some circles – in those that matter, anyway, and you have developed a certain sense of trust in what your eyes tell you is the case.

And all the evidence here is inconclusive: there appear to be no skid marks from a car or prints from a horseshoe in the pathway leading to the building. Hell, there is no pathway leading to it.

The sandy soil is pristine, untouched, and no sound seems to be making its way from the inside of the establishment out. At least there is something that adds up.

You turn back just the once, to make sure that they have stopped following you. Like a tic, almost – an old habit that will never die. And what you  see might satisfy your compulsion, but it sure doesn’t calm your nerves.

For there is no one lurking in the distance – which is good. There aren’t enough places to hide in this clearing and you would have been able to discern a silhouette or two if they were there.

 

Yet, you see something else that is even more untoward.

There are no boot prints on the ground.

Your boot prints have been erased.

 

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You step in.

The doors swing on their hinges smoothly, without any resistance, as you brush through them. As if inviting you. As if pulled by some unknown force, you forsake your last misgivings and slide the insect screen open. The last barrier between outside and in.

It only takes a few seconds to realize the place is teeming with activity.

You ask yourself how come you hadn’t been able to hear it or… smell it while you were standing at the entrance. Or… see it, for that matter, through the big yawn of an entrance only partly concealed by the two doors and the screen.

Regardless of how this can even be, this is what you walk into; a scene frozen in time, kind enough to resume only when you’ve had enough time to acclimate to it:

To your immediate left, a group of able bodied men with Stetson hats on and thick beards concealing most of their facial characteristics or-most importantly, expressions- are sitting at a round table of considerable width playing a card game. Their … proportions, as well as the tobacco smoke hovering over the table doesn’t let you in on what really transpires there, but you guess they must be playing poker.

As if to break the tension, a light-hearted association forms in your mind:

If playing poker is indeed what they are doing, it only stands to reason that they chose the table by the entrance. This way, if anyone is caught cheatin’, they can be sent flying through the doors all the more immediately.

You chuckle, but an invisible soundproofing force stifles it, for now.

The smell of smoke is overpowering but competing with it is the aroma of wood seeped in hops, probably from spilt beer that was never cleaned properly despite the best effort of the bar staff.  This makes you instinctively picture all the wooden furniture as sticky to the touch, something you don’t exactly look forward to testing with your own hands. It can wait.

To your right, there is another table where what appears to be a family of four are having some sort of dinner. What you see on their plates is some mystery meat and a dodgy-lookin’ green paste on the side that must serve as the fiber portion of the meal. Next to the little boy’s plate, stands proudly a glass of dark sodie water – probably ginger ale, matched by an identical one on the side of his sister’s . At the time of the freeze, the father had been busy washing down a huge chunk of meat with free-flowing beer he was voraciously gulping down straight from the growler. Meat juices and beer form two distinct rivulets gushing from either side of his mouth. You make a mental note to look the other way as soon as the scene unfreezes later.

The mother is alone in not feeling any enthusiasm towards her food. Instead, she is staring vacantly in the distance, seemingly finding interest in the coarse white paint on the wall and its various cracks here and there. She seems devoid of sentiment. Almost devoid of life. And that’s when it strikes you that she and the kids have no business being in a saloon in the middle of the night (or at any other time of day, for that matter).

Are they out of their minds?

What about the pater familias? Has he no concern about the safety of his kin?

You can’t hold that thought for long, though, because there is something else that catches your eye straight ahead from where you are standing. A painted lady is blocking your way toward the bar counter across the room holding a sign in her left hand. Brandishing it, would be a better term. For she is holding it at about 3 feet from your face, as if to force you to read what is written on it. While her other arm forms a flattering cup handle from her shoulder to her slim waist. She is dressed in a revealing outfit that you have come to expect of parlor girls: complete with stockings under her multilayered skirt, the top of which hides the bottom of her red corset. A bit of a strange combination, you think, accentuated by her large, black Sombrero-like hat that covers the top part of her long, curly hair. And her blue eyes – an outlandishly pale shade of azure-  beckon to you. To LOOK AT THE SIGN.

Which makes you realize you didn’t see one hanging above the entrance of the saloon as you walked in. Maybe in this fine establishment, they hold the sign with the bar’s name in hand, rather than position it on the exterior. Who knows?

You do.

You look at the sign and it reads in red block capitals: NO SHOOTERS ALLOWED, SHOUT ALL YOU WANT! With an exclamation mark bringing the whole statement to life.

So alarmed are you at the thought of parting with your insurance policy only seconds after entering foreign terrain, that you stop taking a view of the rest of the saloon hall: its copious patrons chasin’ one drink after another like it’s high hunting season, sitting at the few tables or just standing up, strewn all over the place. You don’t even notice how some of them seem to be passed out on the floor, little patches of some sort of yellowish goo marking on the corner of their mouths.

No, your immediate reaction upon reading the sign is to grab your six-shooters and make sure they are ready for action. You know better than to walk into a saloon with your guard down. So you move your hands straight to your two holsters to prepare for the inevitable. When the whole scene unfreezes, sound returning.

As you go for your shooters, the saloon girl’s smile turns to a grin.

A knowing grin, as she looks at you holsters.

Your hands panic and make a run for your revolvers, as if in an effort to get there before the lady’s eyes make it. But instead of your guns, you snatch at thin air.

Your guns have vanished, a though they had never been there in the first place.

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