Final scene from To The Gallows By Carriage, If You Please (1974)

  "Have you any last words, you ignominious cur?!" the ultra-religious sheriff screeched.

  Hank Fortknox regarded the man with a breed of contempt one'd usually ascribe to a diabetic coyote.

  "All's I gots to say is this...."

  The crusty townspeople fell silent and bent their stranger-hatin' ears towards the hated stranger who had ambled his way into their dreary, dusty town just this yesterday morn and done nothin' but stirred up a whole hornet's nest o' trouble with his drunken galavanting and general horseplay.

  "You anti-horseplay types out there today. Ya'll can kiss my galavantin' ass!" he bellowed.

  As the freshly-offended mob of probably diseased townspeople descended into a crescendo of bloodlust, the sheriff cackled and flamboyantly slapped the lever at his side, unlatching the boards 'neath Hank's feet and causing him to choke on the loop draped 'round his neck that he had totally forgot about but now totally remembered.

  Hank's body spasmed uncontrollably. Vomit-like spittle vomited out of his mouth in a spittling spray. The roar of the townsfolks' slobbering approval blinded his ears. 

  Just as Hank was about to succumb to the big sleep, the sheriff's maniacally laughing face exploded. Pieces of skull and brain ricocheted off the gibbet, with one of the man's molars severing the rope Hank was dangling from. He fell to the dirt below the gallows, gasping hoarsely. People began fleeing from the scene in any direction they could.

  "I reckoned you could use some help!"

  It was Hank's longtime friend and bedwetting confidant, Jodie Bridger.

  "Jodie!" Hank belchcoughed, "I pegged you fer dead! How'd you escape from that Juarez salt mine?"

  Jodie tipped his hat and spat a wad of tobacco at an ugly pregnant woman.

  "Shit, ain't nothin' a man can't accomplish with a little gumption and some nitroglycerin, Hank!" he winked, recalling the warm, jiggling chunks of Mexican flesh that had rained down on the mesa not a fortnight previous.

  Hank lurched to his feet, brushing the filth from his pants.

  "I see you're still a goddamn miracle with a six-shooter. And I'm sure the late sheriff here would attest to that, had he anything left atop his neck to attest with."

  The two of them broke out into riotous guffaws. 

  Suddenly, Lily McBroof, the shopkeeper's weirdly hot widow, came running up to them. Hank adjusted his drawers. The rattlesnake in his britches was getting restless, as it often did when he was in the vicinity of anything sporting a serviceable set of boobs.

  She cautiously ran her hand through her flaxen hair, wrapping the curls around her fingers like you would if you had hair like that.

  "I was wonderin'... was you just gonna mosey on outta town with nary a glance in my direction?"

  He winced. Hank Fortknox and goodbyes were like oil and holy water.

  "Listen Lily..." he said. "These beat up boots a'mine ain't gonna hold up forever. One day I'm gonna take 'em off and I ain't never gonna put 'em on again. And when I put my newly freed feet up on a table while I'm sittin' on my front porch in good ol' Montana, watchin' that good ol' Montana sun disappear behind some good ol' Montana mountains, sippin' on some good ol' Montana boar's milk, I'm gonna think about you..."

  Lily wiped away a tear, angry at it for obscuring Hank's view of the fuck-me eyes she was giving him.

  "...and why I didn't kill you sooner!"

  Jodie started, "Hank, wait--"

  But it was too late. Hank had already drawn his piece and emptied six slugs into Lily's chest, instantly ruining any chances of a bare-breasted funeral. And he wasn't done. He pulled out his other pistol and set to work burying another six in her.

  Jodie shrugged and dutifully unholstered his own guns. The two of them spent the next hour or so riddling Lily's torso with bullets, reloading when necessary. It was hard work, but it had to be done. Only once they had run out of ammo did she keel over and finally die, her bloody applecore-like body unceremoniously flopping to the ground with a slurch.

  Hank mopped his brow with a hankerchef.

  "Tarnation, that was positively grueling!"

  Jodie was bent over, sicking up on a pile of his own sick that he had sicked up earlier.

  "Yessir. That was downright the most nastiest business I ever been a'party to, I reckon. What was that all about?"

  Hank exhaled slowly and holstered his guns.

  "She drove the carriage, Jodie."

  He fixed his eyes on the horizon as he mounted his horse.

  "She drove the carriage."

[ ROLL END CREDITS ]