Prairie Pirates

Untitled Part 1

"Prairie Pirates"

An incident of criminal misadventure in the waning days of the Wild West, as recorded by the famous western scribe and journeyman dentist

Bud Fopp, D.D.S.

Author's Prologue

As oft occur in my wayfaring to-and-fro acrost this bountiful expanse of continent (blest by Providence with a cornucopia of copious mineral deposits, airy plateaus, and an abundance of fragrant, verdant, and woody woodlands), whether by leisurely perambulation, humble horseback, modern mechanized auto-carriage, or steam-fueled dirigible, whither to the Posedian Plenty of the Atlantic, to the Neptunian Nector of the Pacific, to the shrouded, polar mist of the British-Canadian north, to the wild and exotic tropicalia of the popish and indigenous southern extremes, or the myriad visti–as vivid as they are various—which give form and firmament to the spacious interim, I hap upon every category of creed—from Abrahamic to Oriental, scientifical to phantasmagorical—which astound and amaze, by their heterogeneity, even such a staunch and consummate excursionist and (if I may say) cosmopolite, such as myself, who has witnessed, in his modest way, a muliplicity of splendour, romance, and derring-do, having been employed in a miscellany of tasks, of such diversity as dancing-instructor (and paramour) to the pulchritudinous mountain-princess of Nepal, roving chandler among the sturdy Chukchi of the remote Chukotskiy region of Siberia, assistant to the junior-clerk at a used-footwear stand in Manchester (during the Holiday rush), semi-professional pugilist working the underground combat pits in the lush jungles of the Likouala region of the Belgian Congo, stowaway-turned-gunner aboard the indomitable cruiser San Marco, engaging in the bombardment and ruination of the perfidious miscreants at Darnah who had imprudently spurned and assailed the hallowed white banner which we magnanimously submitted (and thereafter, charging through the crashing surf , in martial grandeur, at the vanguard of the avengers), and many more adventures not worth relating; who emulates, with the deepest humility, the great scholar-poets of antiquity, by consulting en clandestino with every species of character, from aristocrat and monarch to serf and clown; from prancing shaman to burly professor; from white-bearded greybeard to toddling toddler and babbling, bawling baby; from sun-baked, bow-legged yeoman to limpid, languorous dandy; from fisherman to suffragette, from transvestite to troubadour, from gravedigger to cannibal, from spinster to damsel of the night; supping with every creature from flushed inebriate and garrulous gourmand to pharisaic nephalist and dainty leaf-eater—in short, these collaborations encompass the numerous varietals of homo sapiens that comprise the dramatis personae in the colorful conclave of artistic and aesthetic muse, all of which, and all of whom, bequeath to your humble correspondent, romantical (and occasionally flamboyant) accountings of their adventurings, escapades, saintly virtues, and shameful misdeeds, (be they sacred or secular, prudish or prurient, non sum judex), no doubt flattering their own conceit that I, the seasoned scrivener/raconteur of worldwide renown, whom you all know as Bud Fopp, D.D.S. (though, disguised and mustachioed, none have seen my veritable visage, not even the comandante of this Mexican dungeon in which I now languish under an assumed name, for crimes of which I am innocent), might forgo my own fanciful and verbose formulations and deign to include one of theirs in my thrilling reports, widely read throughout Christendom (and increasingly among the learned Levantine) for both pleasure and profit, regularly featured ad primam paginum in the most select of news-papers and news-magazines , and issued, in compendia, in large, handsome volumes gilt-edged with 24-karat gold, and bound, to my exacting specificae, in voluptuous Peruvian vellum, lovingly assembled by seamstresses from the famous stitchery at the Pittsburgh Lunatic Asylum (employing the technique mastered by Smyth), with pages constructed from luscious, exquisite paper, hand-crafted by elite Japanese artisans utilizing only the choicest specimens of mitsumata (which is grown, in peaceful plenty, amongst the flexuous paths, tranquil ponds, and honeyed, floral aromae of the Imperial gardens at Kyoto), and which are available wherever the finest books are sold—these being quite expensive, (and extremely attractive on-shelf—many people have said so), which contain in summa, the seeds, lovingly watered and, once sprung, pruned by the poet-horticulturalist, channeling equally earthy Demeter and ethereal Bacchus, the one who blesses the soil with the foodstuffs, fleshy and fibrous, which furnish the nutriment sustaining breath, be it the exhalations of megafauna or the tiny workings of the mono-cellular amoeba, while the other provides the poesy, the holy manna of the aesthete, the calculus of composition, the arithmetic of artification, the wispy dream-land of fancy, achieved with or without such earthly sanative aid as the fruity fermentation or heady vapours of the seed-bearing structures (not imperative, as I have recently discovered in my era of abstemity-by-fiat, for whimsical realization), but which, regardless of source, needs to be germinated (to pursue the agrarian analogy advanced above) as the sages of yore record, in first nourishment of the body—the natural apparatus that encases our organs and skeletal construction—and subsequently, provender for the soul; and which, in short, the would-be balladeer need cast his net hither and yon, as the committed fish trawler tries port, then starboard in search of aquatic resources scoured from the vast aquatic abditory, or as the stealthy shikari stalks the cheetah through green glade and bubbly stream, lofty summit and shaded vale, occasionally overlooking the scent, yes, but with naught despair, for as he knows the geography of the terrain and the covert dens as well as does the fearsome and wily beast, he perceives that the trail remains perpetually ripe, or, to use another arresting analogy, as the hardy prospecteur sifting the craggy sands for an elusive silvery, golden, or coppery glint, and as he patiently strikes his spade into the tough clay—Pluto ever so reluctant to yield his secretive cache—enduring savage weather and withering doubt, striking at first haphazardly, randomly, sometimes striking a fortunate horde, but after long spans of infertility, either he abjuring the scheme or, painstakingly developing prowess and technique, but, as must be enumerated, still requiring endurance and purposeful fixation on the prize, (for even with skill, one must toil, so sayeth the wizards), and thus contain, from there collect, and then attempt to assemble, in proper humility as befitting an occupation saturated by whim and vicissitude, the trappings and clippings towards his own rhythmic and melodious collage, which brings us to the present "western" tale which I propose to tell, and which is filled with exciting action (including gun battles, fisticuffs, and stampedes) as well as instances of criminal intrigue, thwarted romance and numerous tragical fatalities. So, you may ask, how did this all come about?