Ginion, TY: The Events of January 29th.
The Banker, Al Westbrook, has a solid plan to disrupt an important election for Sheriff of the growing town. He and his partner on the town council, a woman named Sally Hughes who runs the largest and most popular saloon in Ginion, hire a local group of ruffians to protect the democratic process. These five exuberant boys, known as The Rowdies, get free drinks and run the card games and engage in a running whisper campaign that what this town needs is a young firebrand of a deputy like Colin Bonney. Bonney is a man with the drive and strength to pacify this town and create the kind of safe economy that will convince eastern investors to pour their money into the region. Unbeknownst to his partner, Mr. Westbrook has also hired a second band of rough individuals, an outlaw gang known as the Hellhounds, to stage a fake robbery of his bank.
To help ensure victory for their chosen candidate, Al and Sally open the Pioneer a few hours early – to ensure that the good citizens who have better things to do all day can have their say, you understand. Men like the local barber, and tailor, and butcher have things to do, they can’t just take off any old time. Of course, the man printing the ballots, Mark Mackland, backs the wrong candidate so he’s late with the paperwork, and luckily Sally has plenty of paper and pencils on hand to allow any number of citizens to vote anyway. We all trust each other here, don’t we? There’s very little chance a dozen or so extra hand written ballots find their way into the box, because the Rowdies are watching it carefully from the bar and the card table.
His plan begins to unravel when the actual ballots never show up. The town council had a quorum a few nights earlier – all three attendees supporters of the wrong candidate for Sheriff, naturally – and elected to move the polling location from the Pioneer Saloon to a park on the outskirts of town. Al knew this, but his Rowdies pulled down all the posters notifying the town, and he had hoped to bluff the election back onto his home turf. When his bluff was called, and he learned that the acting Sheriff and Deputies were over at the town park a few hundred yards away, he was forced to send two of his local boys over there to keep an eye on things, while he kept haranguing any passers-by to go ahead and vote in the Pioneer. His real reason for turning carnival barker was a need to signal to the Hellhounds to call off the staged bank robbery. The commotion at the bank wouldn’t do him any good with most of the town over at the park.
Meanwhile, the outlaws have a man in town watching all the confusion. An old Civil War sniper set up shop a hundred yards south of the bank, and has seen the shouting in the streets and even sauntered up to casually take in Al’s arguments with Sally about what to do next. Dan Gray returns to his post and flags down the leader of the gang to quietly explain the situation. The boss, Cal “Thunder” Caldwell senses a golden opportunity, with a few major weak points. Three of the Hellhounds are local boys who signed up for some rough-rodding around, quiet rustling, and maybe starting a few fights. They didn’t sign up for eternal exile, and he knows that. So he warns Dan to keep an extra eye on those three, and don’t be surprised if it’s just himself and Cornelius, a reliable though bitter old hired gun, that come back down the road from the bank.
Once in the center of town, Thunder takes full advantage of the situation by demanding that an unusually compliant teller, the only one present in the bank and a mousy man who has been given vague orders by Westbrook to stand-down, open not just the tills but the safe as well. Instead of a couple hundred dollars, Thunder and his boys load up several thousand. With that much money he and his boys can start over in California. But the teller wasn’t the only one surprised by the sudden turn of events. Hence his decision to wait until it was too late to back out to tell the three youngest members of his gang. As their protests begin, Thunder warns them that the safest path for them all is to stick together. He’s killed men for less than betrayal, and Dan will be watching all of them as they leave the bank. They all draw their guns, ready to shoot their way out of town.
The brief delays costs the gang precious moments.
As the crew is leaving the scene of the crime, the three Rowdies remaining in the Pioneer have opted to watch the streets rather than the Westbrook-Hughes debate. The Hawthorne brothers notice the strangely busy bank, and catch the faint sight of masked men! Having been paid by the Banker to protect the election, the two older brothers figure to stay out of bank business. They youngest of them sees things differently. Here is a chance to prove his mettle, and become the darling of the banker. Marty always was a rash and unpredictable one. He dashes out into the street, pistol spitting death, and manages to shoot Thunder through the side. Refusing to stand by while their brother fights alone, Glenn and Tim “Kid” Hawthorne back his play by taking up position in the saloon doorway, taking cover and readying to assist their brother.
At the sound of gunfire, the three members of the outlaw gang who grew up in town take off running. They are gone in the smoke and confusion, and a badly hurt Cal just manages to get his horse moving south. More shots ring out from the saloon, and the old man takes a winging shot to the leg. Hurt, galloping away, and unsure of who else might start shooting, the two men whip past their backup who has just mounted his own horse. The three race over the railway tracks, past boot hill (dun Dun DUN!) and into the dry wash of the Wakpa River moments before the local lawmen race into the center of town.
The Hawthornes, who tried to stop the outlaws face a few precarious moments as the lawmen question them, but townsfolk quickly verify their story.
And that concludes one action-packed solo session of Boot Hill.