Santee of Arizona Ghostriders, a re-enactment group contacted me about helping with a video on actual gun fights vs. movie gun fights. I sent him an intro I wrote with Santee and my buddy Batjack J.W. as the main characters. Now if you know Santee and Batjack from watching their videos they are two of the nicest guys around and do a lot of humor in their videos, so my fictional depiction is far from the truth. Below I put the intro, and I also put up Santee's most recent video on cowboys fanning their guns.

The Saga of Beckinridge Santee

Breckinridge Santee reined his horse. He untied his kerchief and wiped his neck and under his collar. His throat was as dry as the desert dust. Up ahead was a wooden sign. Desperation it said. Desperation being the last stop on the line; a haven of killers, criminals, and ne’er-do-wells. Santee checked his six-gun and loaded a sixth round into the chamber. It was time for a reckoning.

Riding his horse at an easy gait, his hat pulled down low, his eyes looked right and left without turning his head. The only thing not seeming easy going was the duster pulled back behind his six-gun.

The town was a few clapboard buildings thrown together, and a corral. A saloon sat at the end, in the shadow of Big Sandy Mountain. The few men out on the street gave Breck a hard and sly look. Was this prey some wandering cow-hand, a lawman or another outlaw on the run? That tied down six-gun was a warning, but he had to sleep some time.

A girl with painted face and a low cut dress stood outside the saloon eyeing Breck as well. With a practiced smile she said, “Tie your horse and come on in stranger.”

Breck giving a slight smile tipped his hat and said, “That’s might neighborly of you.”

Throwing a half hitch over the post, his horse greedily began to take in water from the trough, and Breck followed the girl inside. Before walking into the dim lighting of the saloon, Breck squeezed his eyes open and shut a couple of times to readjust his eyes to the gloom.

At the bar was standing a man who wore a fancy black frock coat and black trousers with highly polished black boots. Thickset with a face that was Asian, he wore a derby hat and supported himself with a dog headed cane in his right hand. On that right hand was a diamond pinky ring. It was the man he had travelled many a hard mile to find; Chinatown Charlie.

He looked at Breck with no fear in his eyes; just a sardonic smirk of contempt. Lesser mortals deserved no consideration.

“So Santee, you’ve finally found me,” he said. “Do you want to let me know why you’ve been trailing me all these months?”

Breck’s senses were at high alert. Chinatown Charlie was too calm and two assured of himself. There was no one else in the bar except the girl, Charlie, and a man with head buried in his arms in the corner.

Breck grimly looked at Charlie. “I’m here about Molly Malone.”

Charlie looked bemused. “Molly Malone, Molly Malone, I can’t seem to place that name.”

Then he squeezed his brows together and laughed. “Oh yeah, that Molly. From Deadwood. Yeah, she was whore, and not a very good one.”

With a cold look of fire and ice, Breck said, “She was my sister.”

For the first time a tinge of fear flashed across Charlie’s face. He made a slight motion with his hand. The cock of a revolver from behind brought Breck’s hand to his six-gun. Turning into a crouch he brought his own gun hip height and fanned it twice at the sitting man who was now bringing his own six-gun to bear on Breck. Twin sounds of rolling thunder lighted out, knocking the man back, with a gurgle and a gasp and onto the ground before he could fire.

Turning immediately through the smoke, Breck saw Charlie going with his left hand to the hide out gun he kept in a shoulder holster under his coat. He pulled and cocked it as Breck turned, everything seeming to slow down for that fraction of a second. Breck fanned his six-gun once, hitting Charlie in the chest. Charlie fired at the same time; the bullet going through Breck’s left shoulder. Breck jerked his shoulder back, the pain excruciating, and with his right hand thumbed the hammer and put a second shot through Charlie as he was falling back.

Breck walked over to Charlie. Dead. He walked over to the unknown gunman who had been sitting at the table. Sprawled across the chair, he would sit no more.

Breck’s heart was racing and his head hurt from the noise and the acrid smoke of the gunpowder. No one else was in the saloon. The girl had scurried off. He emptied his gun and thumbed some more cartridges in. There was a bottle on the bar. Breck poured a drink into a shot glass. He drank down trying to kill the bitter taste of fear, anger, and smoke. He felt sick to his stomach. Killing was a nasty business.