The Fastest Gun Dead BY JULIAN F. GROW The skeleton had the fastest draw west of the Pecos. Too bad he was such a lousy shot. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] He was a big man, broad of shoulder, slim of hip. His Stetson was crimped Texas-style, over slate-gray eyes that impassively had seen much good and more evil in their twenty-six years. He stood in the saloon door with the dust of the streets of Dos Cervezas Pequenas still swirling about scuffed, range-rider's chaps. His left hand held open the weatherbeaten swinging door. The right hovered over the worn peachwood butt of the Colt holstered on his right thigh. The slate-gray eyes, emotionless, swept the crowd bellied up to the bar, and stopped at one man. When he spoke it was flat, but with the ring of tempered steel, and every man but that one drew back out of range. "I want you, Dirty Jake," the big man said. "Now." Dirty Jake shot him into doll rags, naturally. * * * * * Dirty Jake Niedelmeier was, you might say, the most feared ribbon clerk in the Territory. Easily the most. I remember him from the early days, from the first day he came to town, in fact. I remember because he got off the stage just as I was leaning out the window nailing up my brand-new shingle, and my office was and still is upstairs next to the stage depot. I was down on the boardwalk admiring it, all shiny gold leaf on black like the correspondence school promised: Hiram Pertwee, M.D. His voice broke in on me, all squeaky. "Beg your pardon," he said, "where's the YMCA?" Well, that isn't the usual sort of question for here. I turned around. There he was, a scrawny little runt about knee-high to short, wearing a panama hat, a wrinkled linen duster and Congress gaiters. He wasn't especially dirty then, of course, only about average for a stage passenger. He kind of begrudged his face, with little squint eyes and a long thin nose, a mustache like a hank of Spanish moss and just about chin enough to bother shaving. Under his duster he wore a clawhammer coat, the only alpaca one I ever saw, and I never from that day out saw him wear any other. He stood there looking like he'd never been anyplace he really cottoned to, but this might just be the worst. I was just a young squirt then and not above funning a dude. I told him the YMCA was around the corner, two doors down and up the back stairs at the Owl Hoot Palace. He nodded and went the way I told him.