The Ballad of Junior Bailey

and the Peacemaker

Junior Bailey, the carefree vagabond, wondered o’er hills of burden and down vales of death throughout the scorch of the day, only to spend a sleepless night under the sparkling black velvet pulling out the angry cactus quills in his torn buckskins. The bandana that hid his face was as thin as a snake’s dry shedded skin and was likewise riddled with holes. Thankfully, he had his Stetson cowboy hat to gave him his much needed protection from the relentless, sweltering sun. He would go blind on his way to a slow death without it.

Speaking of protection while deserving of confidence and trust, Junior Bailey could always rely of his revolver, the 1873 Peacemaker, that shone brightly in the Nevada sun from time-to-time. Days were not judged by the heat nor their closeness to holidays. Nor were they judged by hunger nor thirst. Rather, they were judged by whether Junior Bailey had to use his pistol or not. Allow me a moment to explain.

1875, somewhere in the red and dusty land of Utah, Junior Bailey bought a Splash Paint with beautiful blue eyes and pink skin. He bought the horse for $240 from a man who said the horse could turn on a dime and was the fastest he had ever seen in all his years on this Earth. Fast or not, it was indeed beautiful and healthy looking.

Junior paid the man and began to ride away on the steed back to New Mexico. Suddenly, four men rode up and circled Bailey from out of nowhere with their guns drawn. It was a set-up. They wanted the money they knew he had and they wanted his new purchase as well. Junior, well, he wasn’t the type to go down without a fight. He would literally shoot himself in the face just to win an argument.

Needless to say, that day was a pistol day. The next day, mostly tired and weary from spurring his way back to New Mexico at a high pace is what Junior would refer to as a rifle day. He shot a jackrabbit and a roadrunner.

Pistol days were more burdensome than rifle days. The pistol was used in gunfights when a man’s life was on the line. The rifle was used for killing food. Seldom did a man shoot at another man with a rifle unless he was a bounty hunter. They usually had the landscape staked out for a clean shot days in advance.

Junior Bailey on the other hand was a gunslinger. He wasn’t the type for being a rifleman. Riflemen were usually on the good side of the law: bounty hunters, federally, sheriffs, and such. They could shoot a rifle with accuracy at long distances while riding out full speed on their painted ponies. Usually the good guys fired their rifles straight ahead at the bandits and bad guys who were trying to get away, and the bad guys fired their pistols behind their backs trying to slow down the good guys. Each weapon served its purpose.

Last count, 21 coffins had been placed in the ground because of Junior’s Peacemaker over the years, so he felt confident a judge wouldn’t see fit to place him on the right side of the law. But when most justice is “frontier justice,” there is no real justice. Out west, a wild coyote had a better shot at real justice than any man ever would.

But enough with the early morning pondering and reminiscing. Junior Bailey stood up after his sleepless night and briskly slapped his Stetson on the knees of his buckskins several times. As a condition of this circumstance, dry dust particles from the barren landscape filled the air. He climbed slowly and stiffly onto the back of his painted steed. He rode downhill into the first town he came to, finally crossing over the New Mexico border.

He tied his thirsty steed to an old, rugged, dusty post outside Black Maria’s saloon. The eager horse immediately began to allay his thirst, drinking from a water trough that Junior Bailey also used to partially wash his face. A large pensive sun was setting low behind his back.

His spurs rang out uniquely and distinctly declaring boldly the newcomers arrival as he methodically opened the double-hinged swinging doors to the smokey saloon.

What appeared at first to be a lively saloon full of dancing girls and women, periodically interrupted by the sharp clanking of beer mugs and whiskey bottles, was quickly becoming cloaked in a stale hush as each minute of Bailey’s presence intensely progressed forward.

Junior’s spurs rattled piercingly across the creaking planks of the old wooden floor as he walked with purpose to the bar. Many people stared flagrantly at the young stranger. Junior Bailey knew to keep his eyes and ears open at all times. He wore the big iron on his right hip for all the world to see. Not many who saw it had much to say. It spoke for itself.

“Whiskey,” said a parched Junior Bailey. The saloon was so quiet at this time that the horses could be heard drinking water.

“Friend, perhaps some water as well,” said a nervous bartender to the strange man who confidently wore the dusty Stetson. Junior Bailey glanced around the saloon searchingly from under his large hat.

“I don’t recall asking for water,” Bailey said.

“Yessir, right away, friend. One whiskey it is,” and the jittery bartender was back instantly pouring a shot of the golden brown stuff. The bartender poured quickly and corked the whiskey in a hurried attempt to leave the stranger alone.

“What do you want me to do with that?” asked Bailey looking at the single shot glass.

“You said whiskey. You said you wanted a whiskey,”  stumbled the bartender.

Bailey grabbed the bottle of whiskey and held it tightly without pulling it away from the bartender. The bartender tenderly released the brown square bottle and took a few steps back.

Bailey begrudgingly took out the menacing cork with his sharp teeth and enthusiastically spat it onto the sandy floor. He began to drink impatiently as he systematically and methodically poured one shot after another.

“Music,” was Bailey’s next coarse utterance. The music began slowly. Eventually a better atmosphere was beginning to transpire in the saloon as a few rambunctious women began to dance around, twirling extremely large dresses etched with white lace. Some fat guy began laughing loudly at one of the ladies who was dancing around his table that was stacked with money. One of the men from that same table threw his cigar on the floor and angrily stormed over to the bar. Fireflies flickered from the lighted cigar as it ricocheted across the hardwood planks. The man made his way to the other end of the saloon and stood behind Bailey.

“Look here, just who the hell do you think you are coming in here and drinking our whiskey and demanding music like so?” the man asked as he threw his long coat tail over the pistol that he flaunted on his right side.

“Bailey,” came Junior’s soft reply without turning around or looking up.

“Horse shit! Speak up when a man talks to you,” demanded the stranger from the card table. The music stopped once more and a few of the dancing ladies in big dresses quickly ran out of the saloon.

“Bailey,” was Junior’s quiet reply once again. The man from the card table grabbed Bailey by his right shoulder and spun him around to look sternly at him with large piercing black eyes.

“What’s uh matter boy? Cat gatch yer tongue?” laughed the tall, lanky man looking back at the table with his comrades who howled loudly as well.

“Get him, Billy!” shouted one of the dirty men from the card table.

“You asked who did I think I was, so I told you,” Junior informed the man.

“Horse shit! Maybe I wut’n raised to understand mumbling like yours,” the boisterous man spoke sarcastically.

“Let me be. I’ll be leaving after my whiskey,” Bailey said turning around on his stool once more.

“Oh, is that right? You just rid’n ‘round God’s country doing as you damn well please?” the man said grabbing Bailey again by his right shoulder.

To this, Junior felt a response was necessary. Junior Bailey was the most patient man one could hope to find, but everything has its limits. He grabbed the man’s right hand from his shoulder and in a flash it was palm-side up and stealthily tacked to the bar with an 8 inch knife from Bailey’s waist belt. The man began screaming and shouting trying to stand straight and pull the knife out of his hand.

“Goddamn it! He fucking stabbed me!” the man kept shouting trying to pull the knife out of the palm of his hand. But it was jabbed so deeply into the wood that the man could not remove the knife and free himself from the counter top.

“Fuck you retards just standing there for, help me goddamn it!” he shouted back to his card table. Bailey took out his big iron and shot a whiskey glass from the table which exploded into smithereens. To this occurrence everyone in the saloon put their hands up high into the air.

“I came here for whiskey. After my whiskey I’ll be leaving. Any more problems I have till then will be met with a quick and ready response from the smoke wagon. Am I being understood?” Bailey said looking around.

It was clear that no one was interested in getting to know the 1873 Colt Single, or smoke wagon, any more than they already had. The stranger kept screaming about his goddamn hand as Junior Bailey turned around and jerked the knife out. The man fell to the floor holding his wrist as tightly as he could.

“Fucking necessary!? Was it!?” he shouted at Bailey.

“Go back to your table,” Bailey solemnly told the cowboy who was now writhing around on the dirty floor like an overgrown maggot. Two men from the card table came and eagerly began to drag the stranger back to his corner of the bar. They emphatically wrangled him by his arms as he kicked the floor with the heels of his black boots, cussing and swearing at the injustice.

Junior Bailey poured another drink. Then another. Then another. Suddenly a woman shouted, “Billy, don’t!” It was all that Bailey needed to hear. He grabbed his trusty Peacemaker and slung it around quicker than a jackrabbit out of a sticker bush. Once again a cloud of white smoke gathered around Bailey’s durable handwoven Stetson cowboy hat as the persona non grata lay dead on the hard dusty floor.

“I ain’t just full of whiskey and dip-spit goddamn it!” Bailey shouted. He put the still smoking Peacemaker back in its holster as he motioned for the bartender.

“Down here,” Bailey said as he threw a leather sack of coins onto the counter. “That should cover damages, too.” He then took heavy steps toward the saloon’s double doors. They swung fully open and in a few swift motions Junior Bailey was in his dusty brown saddle riding out across the Badlands of New Mexico.

Those still in the bar rushed to the saloon porch where the bystanders were gathered and all watched in wonder as the stranger galloped away into the declining pink and moribund sun. Eventually, he vanished like a mirage into the dust and heatwaves of the desert whence he rode in on.

The End