Goliath, Wild West Outlaw

I plan to incorporate this short into my new novel as the second chapter. See my short story "Dead Man's Hand" for the first chapter.

The giant outlaw Goliath stormed into the Genoa Saloon just as the undertaker arrived to remove the body of the Comanche Kid.

“Who the hell did that to my friend the Kid?” Goliath roared. “Somebody ripped out the poor boy’s throat.”

“Yes, they did,” the bartender and owner Wooly Olsen responded. “And he chopped off the Kid’s hand and took it with him, the hand that had the ring on it. You know, the ring that he won from you in poker.”

Goliath moaned, “The Kid promised to give me a chance to ring that damn ring back. I got shot when I stole it. Who knew that old lady on the stagecoach had a Philadelphia derringer.”

“The killer also took your favorite whore Rhonda with him,” said Slim, the patron who had fetched the undertaker. “She was hanging all over him,” he added.

“Who the hell killed the Kid?” Goliath screamed.

Nobody answered. Goliath grabbed Wooly by the throat, lifted him easily in the air, and slammed him up against the wall. Wooly mumbled, “It was some gambler dressed in snakeskin that killed the Kid. Never seen him before, but he came from San Francisco so some say.”

Goliath dropped Wooly and stomped toward the door muttering, “I’ll skin that polecat. And the whore too. Even though she’s the prettiest redhead with freckles I ever seen.”

#

Reuben Taz and Rhonda stopped about ten miles north of Genoa, Nevada, to rest the animals briefly. Reuben sat with his back up against a tree and lit a cigar. He began to read Hornswoggled at Hell Creek, the dime novel he had won from the Comanche Kid at the saloon.

Rhonda asked, “So where are we going?”

“The Montana Territory I told you,” Taz snapped.

“Yeah, that’s a long way,” Rhonda said. “Where are we going next?”

“Carson City,” Taz said. “Where there’s a hotel and will be a poker game. Money, we need money, if you want to eat and sleep in a bed once in a while. Unless you want to sleep on the hard cold ground every night. Don’t matter to me, I’ll be sleeping on top of you, with my pecker inside you keeping my best friend warm.”

“Yeah, you better find a way to get more money to make that happen. What are you reading about?” Rhonda asked. “You are obsessed with that dime novel.”

“Yes, I am,” Taz snarled. “I’m learning about my father, how he died.”

“So how was he killed?” Rhonda inquired.

Taz answered, “He was decapitated by a crazy squaw. Apparently she was rather fond of chopping off heads. Not just people heads. The heads of snakes and peckers too.”

Rhonda looked skeptical. “The hell you say,” she blurted.

Taz said, “Listen to this.” He began to read from the end of the book:

‘The mood was shattered when the Arapaho princess Sweet Water came charging up to the gravesite on her horse.

“Oh, look who it is!” Tiny Tim exclaimed. “Me wee lassie, Sweet Water. What’s in that bag she’s carrying?”

“That’s her yannigan,” Thomas Blake said. “Her war bag.”

Sweet Water dumped the contents of the bag on the ground. Captain Taz’ head bounced on the ground a couple times.

Shorty cried out, “See, I told ya all that Captain Taz would be showin’ up at the funeral of his brother!”

“How can you be so sure that’s him?” Reverend Nelson asked.

Sweet Water pulled something out from under her shirt, threw it on the ground, and said, “I cut off his other head too.”

Helen picked up the object and held it up for inspection. “Yes indeed, that’s the tattoo I saw before on his pecker. That’s him, Captain Taz, serial killer, rapist, cannibal.”

Reverend Nelson said, “Throw that damn thing in the grave and we’ll bury what’s left of him with his brother.”

“What should we put on his tombstone?” Shorty asked.

“Hornswoggled at Hell Creek,” Helen replied.’

“Your father was a serial killer, rapist, and cannibal?” Rhonda exclaimed. “That’s some pedigree. Who are all those other people you just mentioned?”

Reuben replied, “Sweet Water is the crazy squaw, Tiny Tim is a crippled Irish leprechaun who got his legs blown off when my father sank his steamboat with a bomb. Thomas Blake is a newspaperman. Shorty is Leslie Baxter, sometime circus clown and Sheriff of Helena. Reverend Nelson is a prattling preacher who annoys everyone with his King James English. Helen is a Pinkerton agent. All this just from the brief passages of the book I’ve read so far. But I plan to read it all, every word.”

“A female Pinkerton agent?” Rhonda questioned.

Taz said, “Anatomically a male, a woman in a man’s body.”

“Is that possible?” Rhonda asked.

Taz asked, “Don’t you sometimes wish you were a man?”

“No, not really,” Rhonda said. “I mean, I really like peckers but I don’t want one attached to my body. I like to pee sitting down. Gives me a chance to rest. Coincidentally, I am going to have to pee very, very soon.”

#

Goliath decided he needed some travelling money. He had left the saloon, but he turned and went back in after pulling a double-barreled shotgun off his horse. He robbed the card players and other patrons of the Genoa. When Wooly the bartender and owner protested, Goliath blasted him in the chest.

“More work for the undertaker,” Slim noted sardonically. “Where the hell is that sheriff of ours?”

The undertaker, a thin as a nail black man they called Bones, advised, “Sheriff Watson went off riding in a wagon with that buxom Mexican matron Maria with the round apple-cheeked face. I saw them leaving, and she giggled when he said they were having a picnic but didn’t have any food.”

The pickings were slim at the Genoa Saloon so Goliath headed for Walley’s Hot Springs a few miles away. He knew there would be money and valuables at Walley’s belonging, for the moment, to the Comstock trade who came to linger in the hot springs. When Goliath entered Walley’s he saw clothes and gun belts hanging from large pegs on the walls. He went into the bathhouse area with his guns and beheld a dozen or so naked men engaging in various sexual activities.

“Die you sodomites!” Goliath screamed as he fired both shotgun barrels and then pulled his Walch twelve-shot revolver with superimposed chambers and emptied it.

Goliath spared only one of the patrons who begged for his life and offered up his teenage daughter for Goliath’s future pleasure. Goliath warned, “If your daughter isn’t where you said she’d be at your ranch and she isn’t ready, willing, and able, I’ll be back to kill you. It won’t be pretty. But she better be, pretty.”

#

Goliath took all the valuables from the patrons at Walley’s Hot Springs and headed north at a leisurely pace. After a few miles on the road, he noticed Sheriff Watson’s vacant wagon near a stream. He secured his horse and began to stealthily look around, which was difficult for him because of his immense size.

As Maria knelt on the ground performing oral sex on Sheriff Watson, she caught Goliath out of the corner of her eye. Before she could warn the sheriff, difficult what with her mouth being full, Goliath rushed up and stabbed Watson in the back with his Bowie knife. The sheriff screamed in pain and terror. Goliath wasn’t sure if the scream was because of the wound in the man’s back or due to the fact that Maria bit off his pecker as she was traumatized.

Goliath roared at Maria, “Spit that one out!” He lowered his pants and demanded, “Put this one in your mouth!” He pointed his Bowie knife at her. “And don’t spit! If you bite this one, I’ll cut your throat. You better be better than that fat old man at Walley’s, that lone survivor who offered up his virgin daughter for my pleasure.” Maria’s terrified whimper rose to a shriek as she tried to block the sounds of death and beg for her life. Goliath cut her throat anyway after she finished him off. He left with their valuables, including Maria’s expensive necklace and Sheriff Watson’s fine gold watch.

#

For some privacy, Rhonda had gone off some way into the bushes to attend to her personal business. Goliath snuck into camp and surprised Taz who still sat against the tree reading the dime novel Hornswoggled at Hell Creek.

Goliath snarled at Taz, “You bastard! You killed my friend, the Comanche Kid! You took my woman, that redheaded whore with all the freckles. Rhonda I think is her name.”

“The redhead is out yonder taking a pee. The Kid deserved to die,” Taz insisted. “He cheated me at poker. He probably cheated you too. He killed innocent Comanche women. After he raped them and then he scalped them. Rhonda wasn’t your woman. She belongs to whoever pays for her services. Right now, I’m paying for her services.”

“Yeah he killed Comanche, so?” Goliath snapped. “The U. S. Army and the Texas Rangers have been killing Comanche for years. Are you the friend of the Comanche? You got any last words? Before I blow your stupid head off? Where the hell is Rhonda anyway?”

Rhonda carefully crept up behind Goliath. She picked up a large rock and whispered, “I’m right here,” as she smashed him over the head with it. Goliath crumpled on top of Taz. She rolled him off and took his pouch of gold dust and dozens of double eagles from his pockets as blood trickled from his temples.

“Now we have money,” Taz said. “Now we don’t have to go to the hotel at Carson City, but we will anyway. It’s on the way to the Montana Territory and my father.”