Don't Mess With Billy The Kid(Herm Sherwood-Sitts) Don’t mess with Billy The Kid”
By Herm Sherwood-Sitts

July 12th, 1856
It was high noon, when the Wells Fargo stage pulled outta’ town; through the dust there stood Billy. He was in front of the dress shop, across from the Golden Nugget Saloon. His left foot planted forward, as he stood sideways to make a quick draw with his right hand and a rapid fire with the palm of his left on the hammer. His sleeves were rolled up and he had a piece of straw sticking outta’ the corner of his mouth. With his cowboy hat tilted low and with a squint in his eye, he called out to the saloon.

“BAD BART! Get your horse stealing, card cheating, butt out here!”

The barber, sitting in front of his shop, looked over the top of his news paper. The town coroner had already loaded a coffin in his buckboard. The owner of the general store stopped sweeping his boardwalk and leaned on his broom to watch. Girls in their petticoats came out on the balcony of the saloon and the busy towns’ people all stopped to see what the commotion was all about.

The saloon doors crashed open, and with two giant steps Bad Bart stood in the street. Clad in black, with his holster slung low. The sun reflected from the silver and turquoise studs on his cowboy hat. The brass bullets on his gun belt seemed to give a glow. He stood six foot four, a mountain of a man, with eyes as cold as steel. It looked like Billy might have bitten off more than he could chew.

With his hands out wide, Bart drew his pearl handled, six gun in record time. He spun it on his finger several times and put it back in the holster, turned and went back into the saloon.

Billy pretended to blow the smoke from his hand carved, six gun. He then shoved it into the pocket of his overalls. As he turned to go up the steps his spurs on his oversized cowboy boots tangled and he fell over his best friend. Duke licked his face while Billy tried to straighten his cowboy hat. Billy looked up just in time to see his mom standing in the doorway of the dress shop. She rolled her eyes and said, “ Billy get yer’ six year old butt in here and eat yer’ lunch. For crying out loud boy, Yer gonna’ get yerself shot!”

Everyone gave him a chuckle and the towns’ people went on with their day.

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