ZKWeek14- Bedtime Stories No. 5

“Stick ‘em up, partner!  You’re gonna tell me where you buried the loot.”

The little boy held a pointed stick to the stuffed toy’s head.  It’s stitched on frown and round button eyes gave the impression of fear, which worked well for the boy and his game.  He cared not for darkening sky outside his window, nor for his sister sobbing in the corner.

“Give my doll back!” she shouted at him.  When he ignored her pleas, she ran at him and tried to push him away.  “Give her back!  You’re gonna hurt her!”

“She’s a criminal and I’m the sheriff,” the boy insisted. 

He picked up the toy and ran across the room.  The girl gave chase, but her stubby legs made it hard to keep up.  Buckets of tears streamed down her face while the boy berated the unresponsive doll.

“Tell me where the loot is!” He smashed his fist into the doll’s face, making it squeak.

“Noooooooo!”

The door burst open, the sitter rushing inside out of breath.

“What is going on in here?”

 “He’s hurting my doll!” cried the little girl as she ran to cling to her sitter’s ankles.

 “This doll is a criminal.  It robbed the city bank,” said the boy.  He held the doll by its leg and pointed at his toy box, which had a piece of paper with the word bank crudely misspelled on taped to it.

The sitter sighed and got down to her knees, bringing herself level with the boy.  She wore a hard expression, the same kind his parents used when it was time to give their kids a stern lecture on sharing or eating right.  She waited for him to be properly intimidated, then her eyes widened and she gasped.

“What is that behind you?!” 

The boy whirled around, searching for a non-existent entity as the sitter took advantage of the distraction and snatched the doll out of his hands.

“Hey!” he whined once he figured out the trick, but by then it was too late.  His sister had her toy back, and the sitter had picked them both up and carrying them them under her arms to the bedroom.

“Alright guys, time for bed.  You don’t get any story tonight if you don’t do as I say.”

“You’re not my mom,” grumbled the boy.

“No, but I have authority over you that your mom gave me.”

She dropped them onto their respective beds and pulled her chair from the corner.  Sitting down, she waited for the children to get settled to start.

“I guess you’re into that cowboy thing now, huh?” she asked the boy.

“We saw a film reel today,” the boy said, resting his head on his hands so he could stare at the ceiling.  “It was for babies, though.  I bet you saw the grown-up one, didn’t you?”

The sitter hesitated to answer.  It was true that she’d gone with her friends to the theater today, but the film reel he was talking about was labeled ‘adults only’ for a very good reason.  If she didn’t already know how determined these kids could be to get their way once they set their minds to it, she’d try and suggest a different kind of story.  Maybe they could go back to the motorbike thing.  She never got to finish that one.

“Er… well…”

“You can make it about Zuko and Katara if you have to-“ the boy cast a glance at his eager sister, “just make sure you don’t leave any of the cool parts out, because one day, I’ll be old enough to see the film reel for myself, and if I find out you skipped something cool, I’ll have you arrested!”

The sitter narrowed her eyes.  She’d like to see him try it, grown up or no.  Still, she knew there was no way out of this now.  The best she could do was go straight to the one good part that wouldn’t get her in trouble with the parents, and hope this kid mellowed out once he got older.

“Okay, so it all started on a hot afternoon in a tiny town to the west…”

**

The sun was high in the sky, and a passing crow gave a mournful cry.  The town had but one main street, lined with smiths and saloons and even a small hotel, but all their doors and windows were sealed today.  No one dared leave their homes before nightfall.  The brave ones peaked out through the holes worn into the wood that blocked their windows.  Everyone else crouched down into corners, clutching children and comfort items to their chest, praying it would end soon.

Two men stood opposite each other, staring down wide-brimmed hat at their opponent.  Gloved hands were held over their weapons, holstered to their belts in thick leather.  Their spurs jingled as they each took one step closer in turn, first one, then the other.  When just ten or so feet separated them, they stopped.  The man on the left side stared grimly at the other, who grinned like he hadn’t a care in the world.  A piece of straw stuck out of his mouth as he chewed on the bottom end.  The man on the left, though much younger and smaller, felt like he could ring the man’s neck if he didn’t stop that soon.

“You knew this day was coming,” he said.

The other man spat out the straw, much to his opponent’s relief.

“Yeah, but I’ve been looking forward to it.”  He lifted his head, letting his eyes show beneath the hat.  Sweat poured down his face and soaked the top of his poncho.  The other man could relate.  His sheriff uniform was killing him today.  It might have been a better idea if they’d dressed a little lighter for the duel, but suggesting such a thing would get the sheriff labelled as yellow, and he couldn’t have that.  There was far too much riding on this duel.

“You know how this is going to go, right?”

The sheriff shook his head.  “It doesn’t have to be this way, Jet.”

Jet gave a laugh, then reared back and hocked a massive loogie right at the sheriff’s newly polished boot. 

“Yeah sure, you just want me to surrender so you can have her for yourself,” said the bandit.  “You want me locked up in a cell until I’ve turned to dust and bone, while you and my girl get to right off into the sunset and live happily ever after.”

The sheriff had nothing to say to that.  It wasn’t like Jet was wrong (aside from the part about Katara being his girl.)

As the standoff commenced, the building closest to the danger was the saloon.  Inside, the bar owner, Sokka, was sitting in front of his window, peering out the gap he had made in the plywood nailed to the frame.  His blind piano player clawed at his back, demanding to know what was going on every two seconds and refusing to stop no matter how many times Sokka told her the fight hadn’t started yet.

“Can’t you feel vibrations?” he snapped at her at one point.  “You’ll probably know before I do when the shooting starts.”

“Forgive me for trying to let you have a role in this crazy story,” Toph replied with a flat look on her face.

“What does that even mean?” asked Sokka.

“It means ‘tell me what’s happening now, chop chop.’”

Sokka growled, and a potential secondary fight was only prevented by the timely arrival of one of their showgirls, in her tightly sewed bodice that always had men looking… away from her face when they spoke to her.

“Oh my!” Ty Lee shouted, bringing her hands to her cheeks in great shock.  “What in tarnation is going on here?  Looks like a right hootenanny ‘s about to go down in this here town.”

Sokka stared at Ty Lee, while Toph muffled her laughter in the lining of her collar.

“What are you talking about?”

A gunshot sent cracked through the air and sent them all diving for cover.  Outside, the sheriff had whipped out his pistol to defend from a bullet that never reached him.  There might have been a dead bird falling out of the sky somewhere, but it seemed Jet would not be playing around anymore after this.  His gun was trained right between the sheriff’s eyes now, and though it pained the sheriff to think about returning fire, circumstances were coming to force his hand. 

“Jet, this will not end well for you, and you know it!”

Jet chuckled.  “You think just because they say you’re the best shot in this town, I’m going to walk away with my tail between my legs?  Dream on, Aang.  Katara is mine, and you’re dead!”

He fired again, and Aang countered with a shot to the left of Jet.  It hit a glass bottle left empty on a foot stool in front of the blacksmith.  The smithee had been out since yesterday, but Aang was sure he’d forgive him for the mess.  He just couldn’t think of a better way to demonstrate his prowess with a gun.  While cheers and whistles came from all directions, Jet stared wide eyed over his shoulder at the shattered remains of the bottle.  He slowly came around to face Aang, who brought the barrel of the gun to his mouth and blew.

“You understand yet?” he called out.  “You won’t win this.  Just leave town.  I’ll let you go quietly if you promise to leave Katara alone.”

“You still think you can trick me, huh?”

Jet fired three more shots at the sheriff’s feet to make him dance.  Aang yelped as he fell to the ground, the dust caking his behind and the bottom of his pants.  Jet’s spurs that jingled in the wind grew brilliant in the glow of the sunlight.  Closer and closer he came, the shade of his shadow allowing Aang to open his eyes without fear of the sun’s blinding rays.  When he did, it was the round barrel of a gun that sat in his vision instead.

“This is it, sheriff,” Jet said.

Aang let out a sigh, and with quick reflexes pressed his gun into Jet’s juglar.

“Yeah, this is it,” he said.

Jet narrowed his eyes.

Aang closed his.

Their fingers itched on the triggers.

Sokka stuck his entire head out the window, with white knuckles clutching the window frame.

“Anyone dead yet?” Toph asked.

“Sweet niblets, butter my biscuit and call me an auntie,” said Ty Lee.

Sokka started to stare at her until he remembered there was something suspenseful happening right now.

Hungry vultures were perched on the roof tops in wait of a body to chew on.

The gun in Aang’s hand shook.

Jet’s was perfectly steady.

At the exact same time, they pulled the triggers.

‘click’

‘click’

A hundred people exhaled at the exact same time.  About half of those same people immediately started shouting.  Jet was one of them.

“What the heck just happened?!” He fumbled with his gun, pulling the chamber open.  While he was busy with that, Aang got to his feet.

“Looks like you ran out of bullets too,” he said with a shrug and a boyish grin.  “I guess we can’t fight anymore.”

Steam came out of Jet’s ears as he grabbed Aang by the collar and held him aloft.

“What do you mean we’re out of bullets?!  Even if I am, you only fired two rounds!”

Aang look away, a blushing appearing on his cheeks.  He twiddled with his fingers and coughed once or twice.

“Well, the thing is, I really do want to arrest you and keep you from marrying Katara, but I’m also a pacifist and I don’t like killing people.  So I kind of only put two bullets in my gun today, and-“

“ARE YOU TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY AT ALL?”

It seemed, by then, that Jet had forgotten all about honor among hombres or whatever it was.  He threw a punch that got Aang right in the jaw.  The kid went flying into a nearby horse feeder, but a quick application of airbending had him in the air and out of danger.  Jet grabbed a broadsword tied to his other side and sliced at Aang.  He caught the air where Aang had just been and cried out in frustration as he ran around the street, trying in vain to catch the speedy airbender. 

While the townspeople cheered their sheriff on, two figures in the distance stood by their horses, watching the spectacle through a pair of binoculars.  Lowering them, the young woman in her bright blue dress glanced at her partner, a tall young man in a smithee’s apron who wore red underneath and played with a wedding band on his finger.

“You think we should tell them that we eloped yesterday?” Zuko asked his new wife.

Katara smiled as she raised the binoculars to look again.  Aang was on the roof of the saloon and Jet was trying to climb up.  Aang would have jumped to the stable by the time Jet was halfway there.

“Nah,” she said.  “Let those two deal work out their own issues.  It can wait until after the honeymoon.”

She and Zuko hoisted themselves up onto their horses and snapped the reins.  Together they rode off into the sunset to parts unknown, content to have the sun at their backs, the moon in their eyes, and the person they loved most in the world forever at their side.

**

The little girl’s tinkling laughter filled the room.  She rolled over on her side over the doll she had fought so hard to protect, and laughed until she could laugh no longer.

“Wow, those guys were really dumb!”

The sitter smiled and tried not to think too much about how the real duel had ended, and what a good meal those vultures must have had after the film stopped and the lights turned on.  She looked at the boy to gauge his reaction.  He wasn’t quite as amuse as his sister was, but he at least seemed to have felt something about the story.

“What I don’t get is why Jet thought he could take Aang in the first place,” he said though he seemed to be speaking more to himself than anyone else.  “Cause that’s just dumb.  Everyone knows Aang would beat him easy.”

“They do not,” shouted the girl, for no other reason than to be belligerent, the sitter supposed.  “How would you know anyway?  You never even met Aang!”

“Neither did you!”

“Nyeh!”

“Nyeee-eh.”

“Nyeeeeeeeeeeeeeh!”

“Alright, that’s it!”

The sitter faked a roar and grabbed the kids out of bed, tickling them into submission amid shrieking giggles.  The three of them collapsed onto the floor, completely exhausted, and would’ve fallen asleep were it not for the guard outside the door running in with his spear raised, thinking that someone in the room was being attacked.