The man with the gun.(Kevin Hughes) He was tall. Lanky. Long. Slim.
He was quiet too.
He was as independent as the weather, and just as unpredictable.
If leather was a personality, it would be him.
He was…the man with the gun.

Right now, that gun was out.
Oh, nobody saw the gun come out of his holster.
One minute he was calm, the next he was just as calm, except, now, well, now he held a gun in his hand.
The man facing him, had guns. Two to be exact.
He meant to draw them both. He never got the chance.
He wasn’t the man with guns out, merely the man that had guns.

As he looked down the barrel of the gun, in the hand of the man with the gun; his life flashed before his eyes.
A good thing it only took a flash,he wasn’t alive to think about his life... by the time the “bang” hit his ears.
It was only later, when they prepared the body for burial, that they discovered three bullets, not one. Witnesses only heard the one bang, not three.
The Undertaker fainted. The Sheriff trembled. Three. Three shots that sounded like one. Even more scary is this- they all went through the same hole.
The Sheriff, for the first time since he was ten years old, prayed.

The man with the gun was long gone by that time. He found that staying in town after killing a man, meant killing more men. He did not like killing men. At least not men who were only trying for bragging rights. Many times the man with the gun, was the first to back down, apologize, or even walk away. Once. The second time was your choice, not his. You paid the price of wanting to know: “Is he really that fast? Is he really that strong? Is he really that quick. He knew the answer: “Yes.” You did not, and you died finding out.

Lots of gunslingers (they called them “Shooters" in the Old West) got nicknames, and gloried in their short fancy lives. Briefly they reigned as the fastest gun in the West, or the Deadliest man in Tombstone, until some kid named Billy, Jessie, Earp, Hardin, or even Bat…became the newest legend. You have to be dead to be a legend. The man with the gun never picked up a name. He never bragged. He never paraded his skills. He never gave his name. His legend was a living one. Because you never knew his name. You just knew, you were standing here…and over there, stood the man with the gun. It was the last thing you would ever know.

By Kevin Hughes

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