I received the following challenge off-list from our own Firefly:
> (I expect to see a vignette with the Baron meeting a cowboy--now, that
> WOULD be a good one. But what the heck, if Mark Twain could meet & out-talk
> a vampire, why not?)
Never being one to turn down a challenge, this was my reply:
HIGH MOON
(copyright 1995 by Anne Fraser)
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Scene: A dusty Western town, with the usual clapboard buildings, the
saloon doors swinging slowly in the hot breeze. A tumbleweed passes
idily by. A tall dark stranger barges into the saloon after gallopping
up on a lathered horse and tying it to the hitching post
--half-strangling the poor animal in his haste. The grizzled regulars
at the bar guzzling their five fingers of red eye all turn and eye the
stranger.
"Yer not from around these here parts," says one old gaffer, who learned
his dialogue from bad Clint Eastwood movies, "We don't CotN* to strangers
here."
"Ay'm lookin' fer the man they call The Baron," sneers the stranger, who
was obviously also influenced by spaghetti westerns.
"Son, you doan wanna mess with him, he's bad news."
"Ay don' care, Ay got a score to settle with him."
Enter the one they call the Baron. He is short and unprepossessing in
appearance, and his immaculate English evening clothes look more than a
tad out of place in Doomstone. The regulars all shriek, "It's the
Baron!" as if on cue and run for cover. One hides in the player piano,
which promplty begins to churn out the tune "I wish I were in Dixie."
Another dives behind the bar and grabs the bartender by the knees.
"Why, Tex," drawls the barkeeper, "I didn't know ya felt that way." He
proceeds to join the quivering cowpoke on the floor behind the bar.
Another tough does his best to cram himself into a spitoon. Only the
tall dark stranger remains calm.
"Ya be the one they call the Baron?" he demands.
"And who wants to know, my good man?" the educated upper class English
accent marks the Baron as much as his clothes do as one who belongs in a
British mystery, not a in a spaghetti western. Obviously he is on the
wrong set.
"Ma name's Laramie, and Ay'm a-callin' you out."
"My dear fellow--Laramie, is it? What an unusual name. Laramie, if I
may be so bold... I have been 'out' for centuries." The Baron brushes
an invisible speck of dust off of his impeccable tuxedo.
Laramie looks confused, as well he might. "Ay've got a score ta settle
with you, Baron," he insists.
"And what would that be?" The Baron raises an elegant eyebrow. "As far
as I know, I've never set eyes on you before."
"Meybe not, but ay've still got a score to settle with you."
"Very well." The Baron sighs. "What is it?"
"In the last cricket match on Hampton Heath, by how much did the Players
win over the Gentlemen? Ye're the only one around these parts who
follows cricket."
*for those not in the know, this is a pun. "CotN' is the generic
nickname for the deizens of Vampyres, and stands for "Children of the
Night".
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so, what do y'all think?
*grin*
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BARON GIDEON REDOAK fraser@library.utoronto.ca
"If you hunt for something long enough, it finds you."
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