This is a work of fiction, using characters from the film, “The Quick and the Dead".  No insult or invasion of privacy or infringement of copyright is intended. The story is for readers over the age of 18 only, and contains adult language. The writer is not responsible for any "discomfort" caused to the reader by this language and these situations.

 

 

This will be a ROUND ROBIN series of episodes.  Anyone who wants to continue the story with

her / his own twist or turn, have at it!  I'll start it out...  Begins 5 years after "The Quick and the

Dead" ended.

 

 

What Came Next

 

Episode 1

by:  Mare

©12/2005

 

Warm Sunday evening, a good time for a ceremony like publishing the Bans for a couple of

kids eager to wed.

 

Katie's father, proud and portly, stood behind his petite daughter.  Kevin, her  beaming

betrothed, was an  orphan with no one to stand behind him, but the whole town knew and liked

him.

 

Cort waited for the musicians to finish "Amazing Grace" on trumpet and guitar.  Seldom did

his sparse congregation get to hear more than its own voices; the two tall men from Albuquerque

had played for Cort's orphanage several times, and Cort didn't have to pay them much for an

occasion like this.

 

Reading the bans after the music ended, Cort was relieved that every one 'held his peace'.

There was one moment last night when Cort thought he'd recognized Byron Starr watering a

horse in the fountain down the street.  Byron, renegade son of a circuit judge, was smitten with

Katie.  He was also mean and loco.  If he "found cause why these two should not be joined," his

objection would not be polite.

 

And in fact it wasn't.  Grabbing his rope with both hands, George Starr rappelled down from

the bell tower to the church garden below.  Seconds later the tower exploded.

 

Inside the church men with military backgrounds threw themselves on women or children and

hit the floor.  Amid screams and pelted with debris, Cort found he'd fallen on a girl.  His face was

smothered in her petticoats. Yanking them away he stared eye‑to‑eye at Carmen Soldana.  Hers

were wide with shock.  And beautiful...  With as much decorum as he could muster, he got them

both on their feet and led her outside, clinging to his arm and coughing in the thick, harsh, gritty

smoke that soiled the church.

 

"Sheee‑it!"  Cort heard the groom‑to‑be shout.  "I guess the Kid stashed some sticks we didn't

find!  Katie? Hey, Katie!  Where are you?"

 

But she didn't answer.  As the din of crowd and falling fragments tapered off, the sound of

pounding hooves could be heard, retreating.  At the far end of the street a sleepy laundress was

nearly run down by a galloping grey horse.  A woman's small stockinged feet protruded, kicking,

from a grain sack held down by the rider's left leg bent over the horse's neck.

 

***

 

Ellen dropped flowers on to the coffin as it was lowered in to the grave.  She felt sad yet

thankful his ordeal was over.  Next to her father, Colonel Martin Murray was the best man she

had ever known.

 

Around her, soldiers in dress uniforms formed a rank and brought rifles up to their shoulders.

Ellen stepped back and watched them fire off their final salute to their Commandant and her

lover.  When their guns were silent, she reached up under her skirt and withdrew her Derringer


One Shot.  Lifting it high, she fired her own last tribute.

 

Followed by the interested gazes of several soldiers who hoped to console her, Ellen left the

cemetery.  An eager Captain hastened to assist her in to her trap. She spoke only to her horse:

"Home."

 

As the trap pulled away a post rider clattered in to the lane, yelling, "Wait, Ma'am!"  Reining

in beside her, he passed her an envelope.  "They said you'd be here."

 

Her horse knew the way home so she let the reins drop in her lap and read as she drove.

Cort!  Not good news, of course, from that town.  Cort's carefully worded account of the

abduction of Katie made her groan.  The girl had earned her chance at happiness, and some

crazed bastard had stolen it.  Yes, Ellen had heard of Byron Starr.  She had even met a jackass

author of dime novels who was writing one about Starr.  The only thing worth recording in that

monster's life was his name ‑‑ on a grave marker.

 

Cort...her memories of him evoked a confused mess of emotions.  Not a man any woman

could forget, especially after she had pleasured him, shackled, in a way that would have been

rape had he not responded so...  Yet she had shoved him in to a dark corner full of images she

refused to look at.  A whole blood‑spattered town was crammed in there.

 

But with nothing on her agenda now...  Maybe it was time to clean out that corner.

 

***

 

Four men stood on the planked porch outside the Marshall's Office peering at the metal stars in

their hands.  They were surprisingly well wrought.  Dave, Dean, Alan and Paul were all former

U.S. Cavalry men, used to government‑issue insignia, not home‑made.

 

"What's the pay for this, again?"  Paul wondered if it had increased.

 

"Not much," Cort admitted.  "New blankets, that's something."

 

Five mounts drank at the trough beside the porch, freshly shod and saddled.  Both under the

saddles and in bedrolls, the colorful blankets were conspicuous.  Townswomen with looms had

made them and they were soft and densely woven.

 

"Anybody report seeing them yet?"

 

"Nope.  Disappeared."

 

Three side streets down, three women were loading a carriage drawn by two fidgety horses. 

Jennie, shoving her big basket under the driver's bench, turned to Mattie.  "You really believe

they're gonna let us follow them?"

 

"For a while, at least," the tall redhead replied.  "That devil has met up with his gang by now.

Could be weeks, or never, before our men catch up and get Katie back.  We can help.  Get

provisions, keep camp while they're out lookin'."

 

An older women, skirts snatched up, came running around the corner.  "She's here!  I just saw

her!"

 

"Hurry up!"  Selma urged.  With the carriage packed and boarded, she guided her team on to

the main street and soon pulled up in front of the Marshall's.

 

"Whoa.  Trouble," Dave warned, unnecessarily.

 

Ellen had dismounted and left her horse at the trough while she went inside with Cort.  The

four new deputies descended the steps, inspected the carriage.

 

"You can't come with us," Dean told Jennie, through the carriage's curtained window.  Dean's

wife was home with their twin babies, where she belonged.

 

"We can go wherever we want.  We're going to follow you for a while."

 

"You need us,"  Mattie declared.

 

Selma from the bench added, "We'll be real useful."

 

"How, exactly?"  Alan asked, grinning.

 

"Oh, hell's bells, man, don't ask that!  They might just tell you," Dave groaned, and beat a

frisky rhythm on the railing with his hands.

 

Cort emerged with Ellen.  "Might as well get going."  And observing the waiting carriage, "Uh

oh."

 

Ellen and Selma sized each other up.  To Selma, a new resident with her eye on Dave, Ellen

was a legend.

 

"They say they'll be useful," Alan told Cort.

 

"In my opinion, definitely useful," Dave said.  He had his eye on Selma.

 

"In my opinion," Paul added, "plenty useful."  His eye was on Jennie.

 

Cort chuckled.  "If there's a Judgment Day, it doesn't fuckin' matter what your opinion is.  I

think you'd better stay, ladies."

 

"You and your ordinary fear of God," Alan noted with a sigh.

 

Of course the carriage followed the posse out of town.

 

 

 

Episode Two

 

 

 

Want to add the next chapter?  Email it to me at darrinlee7@yahoo.com!

 

 

 

 

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