Rating: PG for violence
Beta Read By: DCPriestess
Disclaimer: Definitely NOT mine, I just took 'em on a trip to reality and I got no money for doing it.
Author's Notes: Thanks to The Traveling Dimestore Novelist, and DCPriestess. I really owe you guys for exposing me to this show and its fandom. Also inspired by many stories with many barroom brawls. Last but not least, thanks to the many Magnificent Seven fic authors out there who have provided me with such fine reading over the past six months.
In reality, the current state of affairs started way before this week. It started back after the boys took over peacekeeping in that dry, dusty town.
Each and every brawl in the saloon, caused more and more worsening conditions, which during the warm, dusty days of summer, really weren't a problem. It made for good clean air in an otherwise smoky, smelly, body-odor reeking establishment.
Each and every brawl and gunfight.
Each and every one.
Made holes. Those dry dusty timbers just couldn't handle the power of bullets that ripped through the town on many a day or night.
Each Winchester repeating rifle, derringer, and single action revolver, left its mark on the town's buildings. Shootouts with Eli Joe, Don Paulo's men, and Ma Nickel's boys, all compounding the damage.
So now they all sat, unhappy, cold, miserable, surrounded by cowboys, and drifters, who just like them were damn wet.
Damp air blew in through the perforations in the walls. Water poured from the tin roof, where more daylight and water got in, than could ever be kept out.
Josiah, sat with one of his wool ponchos pulled over his head. The deluge really didn't seem to bother him, but then this poncho was made from an old blanket and was large enough to cover pretty much everything.
Nathan was smart, he stood up and left for drier, warmer confines. Namely his clinic, with its potbellied stove. He already had a large cauldron of his witch's potion brewing. So while there, he was making more, because these fools were all going to need dosing.
JD didn't let the moisture keep him down, but then with the wool tweed suit he wore, his biggest problem was the fact that he smelled like a wet dog. He sat contemplating the merits of calico and denim.
Buck, sat with his hat in his lap. He didn't care about catching a head cold, just a cold in the head (if you know what I mean). Keeping the royal jewels and staff warm for his next encounter was his top priority.
Vin, looked like a drowned animal. Between his stringy wet hair and the warm but shiny with moisture capote, he wasn't his best. And all the water running off of the capote, was milky with dirt. Obviously the buff that donated that skin did so, so it could find a new clean one. All Vin could think was, how warm and dry the bed in the hotel would be, unlike his wagon during the past three nights. So tired of the damp, he was moving indoors.
Ezra, sat with six other men, under a special tarp he had rigged over one of the tables. He was sure there would have been more, but six was all that could comfortably fit and still play the poker that he demanded of all the men crowded under HIS tarp. Needless to say he was raking it in, as he sat there with his feet propped up on a box, keeping his feet dry, and his shirt turning pink. It seemed the red dye used to make the cloth of his coat wasn't as color-fast as he was told. Oh well, the jackpots could go to replenishing his wardrobe.
Inez, certainly wasn't wearing one of her peasant blouses. She wasn't even wearing her slippers. Nope, she was wearing a duster borrowed from Ezra, and boots off of the last patron carted off for starting trouble. Yes, she had to stuff the toes, and borrow a few pairs of wool socks, but she was relatively dry as compared to most of the others inside.
Last but certainly not least was Larabee. To say he was displeased was putting it mildly. At least his hat kept the rain off his cheroot, and his duster kept pretty much the rest of him in the same condition.
Just then a fight broke out at Ezra's table.
It seemed one more cowboy wanted under the awning. But to get there he decided to evict someone else. Slurs were slung, mothers were verbally castigated, and heredity was discounted. Then someone pulled a gun. The melee that broke out had the tarp ripping with a sound that made more of a gush, and a scream as Ezra caught the full brunt of the waterfall. Punches were thrown, and suddenly almost all the very damp patrons were involved.
Chris stood and pulled his gun. Pointing it up in the air, he pulled the trigger. All action came to a screeching halt as the brawlers turned to see where the gunfire was coming from.
Only to see a small piece of the tin roof, which his bullet had broken loose, fall onto his hat, followed by a steady stream of water from hole. The stream flowed directly onto the brim of his hat, and the felt, already weakened by the moisture it had absorbed, collapsed. The only sound was the hiss of steam as the resulting gush of water put out his cheroot.
And Inez, cursing loud and shrill in Spanish, as she threw one of the rags she had used to mop up the bar at him.
It hit his hat and knocked it off. Leaving him bareheaded under the very cold waterfall.
Larabee glared.
At her.
Then at Vin, who had started to snicker.
Then at the three others at his table, who had picked up from Vin's start.
Then at the rest of the patrons, who seemed to forget their similarly wet condition, as laughter broke through the saloon, and tension was released.
And it was amazing how a few moments later, Inez's simple question, "so whose fixing my roof tomorrow?" cleared that place out.
END
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