Mid-morning frost hadn't yet turned to sludge and mud on the edge of the dirt track leading in between the trees and overgrown, more-wilderness-than-lawn encroaching insidiously into the driveway when the low growl of an old engine and the crunching of gravel under new tyres rumbles into silence in front of the old family home.
Uninvited holiday guests are rarely a treat, but when the cowboy emerges from behind a thrown-open car door, brim of an old black hat shielding his eyes from the sunlight, there appears to be a bottle with a festive red and green ribbon tied around the base of its neck intended to make the unplanned visit a little easier to swallow. If it happens to be a little early to start drinking - at least, according to proper gentlemen following proper decorum - thankfully, there happens to be none within a hundred miles of this place.
Narrowed eyes make a quick, casual study of the town car that he's pulled up right next to and all the little oddities peppered around the vicinity. It's no small miracle that a place like this can survive any manner of natural and unnatural disasters. By the time those boots chew stones and crisp bark up to the porch, two steps of floorboards creaking under his weight, half a cigarillo had been smoked away. With any luck it'll be all gone by the time the marshal answers those cold knuckles summoning him over to his front door.
"Pardon the intrusion," Doc drawls, tilting his head just enough to make eye contact. He always sounds like he's teasing, but in a good-natured, disarming and playful rather than a cruel or needling way. "But I heard on the wind that you took a bullet for Christmas. That's awful kind of you, standing there letting 'em get one in for a change. Brought you some get well whiskey."
😏
Uninvited holiday guests are rarely a treat, but when the cowboy emerges from behind a thrown-open car door, brim of an old black hat shielding his eyes from the sunlight, there appears to be a bottle with a festive red and green ribbon tied around the base of its neck intended to make the unplanned visit a little easier to swallow. If it happens to be a little early to start drinking - at least, according to proper gentlemen following proper decorum - thankfully, there happens to be none within a hundred miles of this place.
Narrowed eyes make a quick, casual study of the town car that he's pulled up right next to and all the little oddities peppered around the vicinity. It's no small miracle that a place like this can survive any manner of natural and unnatural disasters. By the time those boots chew stones and crisp bark up to the porch, two steps of floorboards creaking under his weight, half a cigarillo had been smoked away. With any luck it'll be all gone by the time the marshal answers those cold knuckles summoning him over to his front door.
"Pardon the intrusion," Doc drawls, tilting his head just enough to make eye contact. He always sounds like he's teasing, but in a good-natured, disarming and playful rather than a cruel or needling way. "But I heard on the wind that you took a bullet for Christmas. That's awful kind of you, standing there letting 'em get one in for a change. Brought you some get well whiskey."