“Lash” LaRue De La Paix trotted into town on a magnificent Appaloosa which made the street-tethered roans, pintos and sorrels look like so many hippo-mongrels. Lash was a cow-garçon from Marseilles who had come to Dodge City in search of adventure and some poontang. Sitting high in his saddle, he sneeringly steered his stallion among his lessers, sniffing the air for those female pheromones which would lead him to his evening comfort.
“Lash” wasn’t his Christian name; it was Gregorio. But Gregorio assumed this new appellation on the boat over to America somewhere northwest of the Sargasso Sea in order to distract females from his somewhat androgynous appearance. It worked like a charm. Within fifteen minutes of his rechristening, he was playing the ole in and out with a scullery maid from Bristol who was coming to America to wed her 12-year pen pal from Newark.
When Lash reached the only three-story hotel in Dodge City, The Roxy, he guided his horse to its hitching post. In doing so, he swung his right leg back over the saddle and spent the horse’s last ten paces suspended on his left stirrup. This bit of grandstanding was for the benefit of a comely miss who was standing on the hotel porch with at least eight crinolines hiding her pouting charms (on which Lash was already beginning to fantasize.)
With a tip of his 37.85 liter hat to this potential conquest, Lash tied up his horse and took the porch stairs three at a time. This was a grievous error in judgment. He missed the top step by millimeters and fell headlong into a gunslinger named Mickey from Butte, Montana. Without so much as a how-de-do, this desperado pumped all six bullets from his pearl-handled Colt into Lash’s torso ... which quickly twitched into stillness.
© Copyright, George W. Potts
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