271. Amy Gets Stuffed
Amy decides that there's always time for a good book (and even time for some silly genre literature!). She clears a space, takes a seat, and starts reading.
“Joanna Hex took a deep sip from the glass of whiskey sitting in front of her, then stared at her reflection in the mirror behind the bar. How did she wind up in this mess? Joanna was one of the West's nastiest gunslingers, with a reputation for hunting bounties that usually wound up in body bags. She didn't care about anyone or anything except getting paid. But something about this town had made her do something damned foolish. She'd agreed to stick around and become their sheriff. Not permanently; just long enough to get rid of the bandits who terrorized the town. She took another drink. Maybe it was that young lass, the one with the story about how the gang leader, Jake Daltry, had bragged that he intended to make her his woman the next time he came to town. There were few things Joanna couldn't abide, and one of them was threatening the purity of innocent young women. Reminded her too much of her own life. That time, long ago...”
Amy finds herself enraptured by the book, so much so that she doesn't notice herself picking up the whiskey glass, bringing it to her lips, and downing a big gulp of the fiery liquid. She does notice when it burns her throat, causing an involuntary spasm as her body tries to reject it. She nearly falls off her stool as she looks around. Somehow she has been transported to the Wild West, into the body of Joanna Hex. She looks at herself in the bar mirror. Her skin is tanned from long days out in the sun. Her brown hair is cut short and messy, in basically a men's cut. Her eyes are dark brown, nearly black. A big scar runs down the right side of her face, from the forehead to the chin. It runs straight across her mouth, splitting her lip. Still, but for the scar, her face is quite attractive, in a rugged, mannish way. If you just looked at the left side of her face, she'd be quite fetching.
On her head is a big hat with a metal pin depicting crossed sabers on the front. The hat looks to have once been white, but long years of wear have turned it a pale gray. Looking down, she finds she's wearing a gray confederate cavalry officer's jacket, double breasted, with gray pants and brown leather riding boots.
“Sheee-it, Joanna,” says a drunken fellow at the end of the bar, “An' here I thought you could hold yer liquor. Mebbe we oughta have gotten us a real man to defend this town, 'stead of a fake one!”
Amy feels an uncontrollable urge welling up in her. Before she has a chance to stop herself, she's across the room, holding the man's shirt collar in one hand, a pistol pointed at the drunk's head in another.
Amy growls through gritted teeth. “I don' know but that you got any men in this town willin' ta stand up fer anythin',” she finds herself saying, “So my sense is you better quiet yerself or find your brains decoratin' that wall over there.”
The man only laughs, “Aw, yer full of it. Ain't no woman gonna blow a man's brains out over a nothin' insult. Besides-”
BLAM!
Horrified, Amy finds that she's pulled the trigger of her gun, sending a red explosion out the opposite side of the man's head. He falls off his bar stool into a pile on the ground. Amy holsters her gun and walks out.
Someone shouts “Joanna Hex! You can't jes go 'round killin' folks fer makin' cheap talk!”
Amy pauses. “Hmm,” she says, contemplating for a moment. “Reckon ah cain't. Yuh'd better go tell the Sheriff 'bout it.” She then strides out of the saloon.
Amy can't believe what she's done. She takes two steps past the saloon doors, then collapses to her knees. “I just killed a man for no reason!” she says to herself, “How could I have done that?”
She shakily clambers to her feet, then makes her way to an alley to sit down and try to work out what's happening. She finds a convenient barrel and begins puzzling it out.
“Looks like I've been pulled into the book I was reading. But it took a while before I was fully in control. I was just along for the ride in the saloon, but now I'm in charge.” To prove it, she flips off her hat, then puts it back on. “I wonder if I still have the motor skills of my character...”
Amy quickly whips out her pistol and fires at the plug on a barrel across the alley. She hits it, sending its contents, molasses, streaming goopily out to puddle on the ground.
Satisfied, Amy holsters her gun. “All I have to do is keep the violence to a minimum. I'll probably get out of here once I finish the story, which means defending the town.”
She doesn't have to wait long. As she strolls out of the alley a group of riders dressed in black rides up.
“Hex! I'm callin' you out!” shouts the leader, who, based on the earlier narration, must be Jake Daltry. He dismounts, handing the reigns to one of his men. “I couldn't believe my luck when I heard you was in town. They say yer faster than any man alive with a pistol, and I aim to test that.”
Amy does her best to imitate how she thinks a cowboy would talk. “Now, come on, con sarn it. We don't need to be a fussin' and a feudin'. Why don't we go share us a sasparilly and then you can get along... little doggie?” Amy has very little familiarity with the conventions of Western genre fiction.
Daltry laughs. “You tryin' to back down? Well, I don't blame ya. Still an all, we got us a pretty good thing here, so I don't think we'll be leavin' less'n ya make us. Now howsabout this. You an' I duel. You win, the rest of my gang leaves fer good. I win, well, you'll be dead then, so you won't much care, will ya?” He starts laughing and his gang joins in, though they seem a lot more nervous about the situation than he does. Apparently Joanna's reputation precedes her.
Amy doesn't seem to have a choice. “Alright,” she says, “I accept your challenge. High noon?”
Daltry grins, “How 'bout right now?” Without warning, he reaches for his gun. Time slows down for Amy as her instincts take over. Her right hand flies to her hip, grabs the grip of her pistol, pulls it from its holster, and aims it straight at the bandit leader's head. Her index finger tightens on the trigger, but then....
Amy can't do it. She doesn't have the killer instinct to take a life without thinking. She pauses for a second, contemplating the moral ramifications of her action.
Her delay costs her.
BANG!
Daltry fires his gun, pointed straight at Amy's midsection, the bullet speeds toward her, then-
KA-PWING!
It bounces off her belt buckle. Amy, Daltry, and the whole town are stunned. Her buckle was blown off by the bullet. Her pants loosen at the waist, then slowly slide down her legs, revealing a pair of white panties with a gold sheriff's star on the crotch, another on the butt. Daltry laughs, and soon the entire town is laughing with him. Amy blushes, dropping her gun and bending at the knees, using her hands to try and hide her embarrassing undies. At last she is put out of her misery.
BANG!
Daltry's bullet hits Amy square between the eyes, sending her sprawling backwards. She's dead before she hits the ground.
The bandits, however, are not done with Amy. After Daltry has his way with the young miss who plucked at Joanna's single remaining heart string, he decides to have a little fun. Amy is stuffed and mounted on a wooden stand, still wearing her hat and jacket and with her face molded into a grimace, but with her pants placed around her ankles, showing off her Sheriff's panties. The caption on the stand reads, “JOANNA HEX – CAUGHT WITH HER PANTS DOWN.”
Amy is placed on display in front of the Sheriff's office. As time passes and the town modernizes, Amy's body is moved to the town hall, where she becomes the centerpiece of a history of the town of Pleasant Junction. Attempts by some historians to give her a proper burial are met with firm resistance from the town, who insist that she belongs to the people of Pleasant Junction as an important part of their cultural heritage.
Amy is in no state to continue her adventure or her life.