Episode 3: A business model, a business strategy and a value proposition … walk into a bar.

Bang!! It splits the peaceful conviviality of the drinkers, and the room collapses into silence. The chattering stops. Glasses stop clinking. Kidd, the Books Brothers, everyone in the Saloon – The Lunchtimes, Le Blanc, Long, Missy- Lou, Slim Jim – all twist and turn, checking for their nearest exit.

At the bar, Wallace shifts his bartending towel to his left shoulder and slides his right hand along the shelf below the counter. His fingers are searching for the reassurance of the ivory handle of his legendary, but rarely sighted, “Sleeping Giant” – a Colt Peacemaker with a 16-inch barrel that he bought mail order direct from the factory; one dollar for each extra inch of barrel. A double entendre masquerading as a business model if there ever was one. Reassured, he lets it rest, for the moment, on its bed of folded bar towels.?

Mac Tyner continues tinkling his piano, providing an awkwardly surreal soundtrack to the proceedings.?

To the patrons, at least those with an inexperienced ear, of which they are not many in Gruesome Gulch, it sounds for all the world like a gunshot. But the bang, a crack really, is in fact the sound of a boot heel, albeit a boot with dramatic intent, hitting the saloon’s floorboards. The boot belongs to a tall stranger who had been standing unseen near the back entrance of the Saloon since Jefferson Kidd distracted the crowd with his lecture. Cracking his boot heel – reinforced with a thick steel plate fixed to its bottom by a farrier’s nails – is his signature move. Designed to mark his arrival and attract attention.

He’s dressed in black. Black coat. A little dusty from his ride into town. Hat (same). Boots. Shirt. Trousers. Thick, black-rimmed spectacles sit on his beakish nose. A silver and black bandana is knotted around his neck to keep the sun off when he rides. Only the blaze of a wild red rose embroidered on the pocket on the left side of his waistcoat disrupts the blackness.

A big black crow perched on a telegraph wire scanning the landscape. One minute invisible. The next, unmissable. In the weeks and months following there would be much talk among the chattering and drinking classes of Gruesome Gulch as to how the stranger had, apparently, materialised out of thin air.

But that was for later. Right now, having attracted the Saloon’s collective attention, the stranger, strides towards the table where the three brothers and Kidd are swapping business theories. As he walks, a pistol in his left-hand sways insouciantly at his side. A scorpion tattoo with a stylised RJ under its curling tail is visible on the webbing between the thumb and fingers of the hand gripping the pistol. All eyes in the bar are fixed on the point of his gun and so it goes unseen.?

“Good afternoon, everybody,” he says to the whole saloon. “I’m sorry to interrupt this highly informative discussion but I have some actual, non-theoretical, business to attend to.“

“And who might you be?” a voice, a little muffled as if its owner is talking through a bandana hiding their face, calls from somewhere in the Saloon.

Startled, the stranger turns to look for the voice. It’s a voice that clearly has an odd resonance with the stranger. Like a half-forgotten voice from the past. He can neither pinpoint its history nor locate its source.

“With respect sir, I think to reveal my name would give the whole game away. So, in situations like this, when I’m conducting business, I go by the nom de guerre,” he pauses to create some dramatic tension, “The Chairman.”

“I’ll bet you would, friend.” It is the anonymous voice again as if its owner knows The Chairman’s real identity.??

The newly minted Chairman flinches again. He spins a full 360 degrees – surprisingly elegantly for a big man with a heavy steel plate on one boot - trying to scope out the crowd and put a face to the voice. He peels off from his spin and starts drifting around the room. Not quite in circles but not going anywhere either. Unsettled. His smooth, thoughtful voice at odds with his increasingly threatening demeanour, the drama of his entrance and the drumbeat of his pistol as he slaps its barrel into the palm of his right hand.

Despite the distraction of the exchange, he continues to hold the room’s attention. A tall stranger dressed in black, wielding a pistol and calling himself The Chairman will do that. All eyes are fixed on him. Some downcast, follow his boots. Others, like Back Bart, have eyes only for the pistol which The Chairman is now swirling in circles over his head in a gesture reminiscent of some of the Books brother’s more flamboyant hand gestures. And probably fulfilling the same function, theatrical distraction. They, and Jefferson Kidd, are paying particular attention.

Suddenly, he stops in his meandering tracks, having regained his derailed train of thought.

“As I said, I have some business to attend to. Some robbing to do. Because that’s what I do, I’m a robber. I steal people’s money.”

Sensing his statement might be unsettling to his audience, he moves to clarify his remarks.

“Now folks, when I say, I like to steal people’s money, I don’t mean good hard-working, god-fearing, salt-of-the-earth folks like you. No, no, no. That’s not my game. As these Brooks Bothers might say, I’m a B2B guy not a B2C guy. So please, relax.

“And in the interests of clarity. Nor am I a bank robber. I don’t like robbing banks. Too hard. Too well-protected. I don't like robbing stagecoaches either. Banks are at least standing still but stagecoaches, they're a moving target. Too hit and miss. And they require way too much organisation. All that fast and furious horse riding. All that whooping and hollering. And that dust.

He shakes his head as if recalling a particularly dusty stagecoach robbery.

“What about trains?” it’s the anonymous heckler again. But The Chairman, having regained some poise, changes tack and engages helpfully.

“Good question, Sir. But train robbery? No thanks. Too many guards, and too many surprises. If you want to rob a train, seriously, you’re going to need a gang. And who can be bothered with employees?”

He gestures pleadingly with his two hands, but the effect is diminished by the wagging of the gun barrel still gripped by his left hand.

“You train them up and at precisely the moment you need – when some joker is reaching for his rifle to blow your head clean off – they’re nowhere to be seen. Gone at the first sign of danger. Or they just don’t bother showing up and weeks later you hear they’ve defected to some other gang where the pay is better, and the robbing is easier. Or the gang has a clearer … purpose.”

He wobbles the tip of his gun on either side of the word to suggest it is a concept he is not entirely on board with.?

“Me. I was always told to show up. From a very young age. Never let anyone down.” He pauses. “But I digress. My business model is ride alone, rob alone. Costs down. Profits up.”

“My modus operandi,” he is clearly on a roll now, “is to go to where the unguarded money is. And how do I find that unguarded money? Simple. I keep an eye and an ear out for what smart gentlemen like these Brooks Bothers are doing.

He smiles, clearly impressed with his little joke even if no one else has noticed. For emphasis, he dips his pistol to where Tex, Crysys and Finn are sitting.

“They’re my channels to market.”

“You see, in my experience fellas like these,” he nods his pistol towards the brothers again in case in those few seconds the crowd has forgotten which fellas he was referring to. “They seem to know where the gold is hidden. Metaphorically, sometimes. Literally most times. Because that’s their job.

“So, when I heard on the wire that they had a meeting lined up with a businessman in the Gruesome Gulch Saloon and Hotel, well, I figured that was a business meeting that I should attend. So, I rode down from my little mountain hideaway up past Unicorn Peak and here I am.”

He pauses, realising that mentioning the location of his lair, even vaguely, was probably a mistake. His audience, however, is all eyes. Intently watching The Chairman’s pistol and only half listening to his business wisdom. Nevertheless, he speeds up to leave his mistake in the dust behind him.

“But now I see that there’s a problem. The three wise men are here but I can’t see the wealthy businessman and the money that I was expecting.”

It is a sexist overtone that Veronica, had she been back from the bank, would have called out, but in her absence it floats away unremarked.?

“And this puts me in a quandary. I could just leave now. Cut my losses. Regroup. Try again another day. But, and it is a big but, I’ve invested time and money to be here and, time being money, I can’t afford to leave empty-handed. Even robbers need ROI.”

A more profound, and louder, slap of his gun barrel into the palm of his free hand punctuates the last statement. The crowd is starting to get edgy. Nervy. The smell of fear is rising in the room. And, like all skilled chairmen, he knows that a restless crowd is a dangerous crowd; that one frightened trigger finger can derail even the best-thought-out plan – business or otherwise. Reading the room, catching the shift in mood, he once again moves to calm everyone down … with a little radical transparency.

“As I alluded to before, I mean you good people no harm at all. I don’t rob groups of folks. My business is not set up to do it. Not only that, and you might be surprised to hear this, but I actually hate all that waving of guns in people’s faces. It’s rude. Not how I was brought up. And between you and me, it has been done so often that no one believes it anymore.

“But say you can be bothered and you bag some loot. And you make your escape through the crowd avoiding the inevitable wannabe hero in the crowd who thinks he‘ll make a name for himself by shooting you in the back of the knee but only manages a stinging flesh wound or two. You high tail out of there, flailing your poor horse from side to side till you make it to the safety of your hideaway.

“Wherever that is,” he throws in hoping that’ll throw them off the scent of his earlier location-based misstep. Barely stopping to take a breath, he is off again. His words come out faster and faster as if they’re being chased across the desert. He is no longer happily explaining to a group of friends the trials and tribulations of a misunderstood robber.

“You’re hot. Your throat is caked with dust. Your muscles ache. Your head aches. All you want is a shower. But first, there are the horses to take care of. Not just loyal animals, you see, but crucial business assets to be maintained. And the obligatory scanning of the horizon for dust clouds to make sure you haven't been followed. For what? For the embarrassingly small pile of loose change and cheap jewellery that was dumped into the hat your hopeless offsider passed around – assuming they had turned up for work.

“It’s messy. It’s fiddly. It’s time-consuming. And the ROI is rubbish. And I hate it. Hate it. Hate it. It drives me insane. It’s not my model. It’s not my strategy. And it sure isn’t my value proposition.”

Just the thought of it had clearly brought up some bad memories and he delivered the last torrent in a low-range manic rambling. He had managed to work himself up into quite a state. Intentionally or otherwise, he had hit peak menace. The highwayman bonhomie of earlier, what little of it there was, had evaporated into the cloying air. Where once there was thoughtfulness there is now implied threat. Actually, not so implied. There is more gun-toting. More pacing.

The Saloon has remained transfixed by the whole performance. No one has left. No eye has been averted. No ear turned away. Silence has replaced his rambling. A silence that is doing nothing to diminish the threat. The sounds of shuffling feet and fidgeting trigger fingers, the off-beat whirring of the ceiling fan and the tinkling of Tyler’s piano do little to fill the void.

The Chairman wobbles his head from side to side, suggesting he has decided on his next move. He pumps up the threat, pumps up his chest, rises up to his full height and, gun in hand, announces...

“Right, here’s what I’m going to do.”

And that’s when the shooting started.

Gunshots and screams ricochet around the room. Glasses smash. Bottles on shelves behind the bar explode showering Whisky Bill with whisky and shards of glass. The mirror that earlier in the afternoon Veronica had used to keep half an eye on the saloon crashes to the floor shattering into a thousand pieces. The blades of the ceiling fan, hit by sprays of ill-directed bullets, are severed one by one until the fan’s hub hangs limbless from the broken belt that once powered it.

A stray bullet hits the rope that once secured the chandelier to the ceiling sending it crashing to the floor, only feet from where Jefferson Kidd had been reading the Gazette. Tables are upturned and peppered with bullets. Bar stools and chairs are tossed out of the way and splinter against walls like toothpicks. Patrons run for cover. For the side exits. To the safety of the restrooms. Those at the front of the bar, led by Lord and Lady Lunchtime, who’ve seen their share of gunfights, collect their things and leave, unhurried, into the heat and blinding sunlight of the street.

Then, just as suddenly as it started, the gunshots stop. Tex, Finn and Crysys are huddled behind the pushed-over table that earlier had been covered by Tex’s strategy map. It was true, everyone’s got a strategy until the bullets start flying. Wallace is standing on top of his bar, like the captain of a sinking ship. Sleeping Giant in his hand, no longer resting. Jefferson Kidd is shielding Missy-Lou and her ladies from the temperance league. Louis Le Blanc is cowering behind Mac Tyner’s now silent piano. Tyner has fallen face-first onto the piano keys. A single pool of bright red blood has stained the black and white keys. Black Bart has risen from his vantage point on the sidelines from where he watched the mayhem unfold. He stands tall. Hands on hips. His holsters are clipped closed, his guns have not been drawn. He has not fired a shot.

After a wary pause, Crysys Book steps out from behind the upturned table watched closely by his two brothers. He holds his drawn gun in one hand, at waist level. Ready if needed. In his other hand he is holding Veronica’s pack of cards.

The domineering, taunting Chairman of a few minutes ago is a boy again. Slumped against the wall, he is breathing hard, watching the approaching figure. Behind the black frames of his spectacles, his eyes dart between the cards and Crysys’ pistol. Blood is oozing from a wound in his thigh, forming a pool of blood the shape of Texas on the floorboards between his outstretched legs. His left hand, the scorpion tattoo now smeared in blood, is pressed hard against the wound stemming the bleeding. His gun sits on the floor beside his leg. Like the rest of the Saloon, he is unsure what has just happened.

“How may I help you,” he enquires of the approaching Crysys, showing surprising bravado – and good manners - for a man with a bullet lodged in his leg and no obvious means of escape.?

“Perhaps, it is I who can help you,” says Crysys as he takes a few steps closer.

“I am, generally, a man who is happy to negotiate. But from where I stand and I suspect from where you sit, it looks like I‘m holding all the cards,” he says without apology or hint of sarcasm.

In a single swift movement, he tosses the pack of cards to the boy. As if time has stood still, everyone in the Saloon watches the pack as it tumbles end over end through the air. With surprising reflexes, he catches the pack and, thinking it a diversionary tactic, stuffs it into his waistcoat pocket behind the embroidered rose.?

But to the others in the Saloon, who are already on edge, his sudden movement is misinterpreted as a lunge for his gun. From opposite sides of the room a single shot and a single word ring out, passing each other without acknowledgement, like strangers heading in opposite directions on a deserted street.

“Maman,” the boy cries out in a tone beyond physical pain, as the bullet smashes into his chest.?

From the other side of the room Veronica, who has just returned from the bank and stepped her way through the Saloon in time to witness this final act, gasps in horror as the boy’s head recoils with the impact and his chin drops onto his chest. She screams a silent anguished scream. Inside her chest, her heart is thumping. Inside her head, her mind is blank with disbelief. She races the handful of steps to where her son is slumped.?

“Cadeau!” she screeches between gasps.

She wraps her boy in her arms. Blood stains her lavender skirt. She lifts Cadeau’s head and kisses his face with desperate mothering kisses. Slowly Cadeau’s eyes open.

The Saloon patrons look from one to another to where Veronica and Cadeau are embracing. And back again. They too are unsure of what has just happened. Behind their puzzled looks they were starting to ask, themselves and each other, who had fired the gunshot that had struck the boy.?

At that moment in the stifling air of the Gruesome Gulch Saloon and in the weeks and months following, the townsfolk, usually a tolerant bunch, would cast the net of suspicion over just about everybody in the Saloon. Was it Crysys from obscenely close range, looking to impress Veronica? Was it Black Bart, still the deadliest shot in these parts? Or Wallace’s legendary Sleeping Giant looking to restore peace to his smashed-up premises? Or the comically bumbling Sheriff John Rausch who, when his afternoon recreation at the Golden Circle had been disturbed by the sound of gunfire had scrambled comically into the street and arrived at the Saloon as the gun smoke was clearing, but intent on enforcing law and order? Or one of the other Books Brothers? Or the thoughtful Kidd defending Veronica? Or Louis Le Blanc taking matters into his own hands? Or Missy-Lou from the Gruesome Temperance League, letting everyone know she’s had her fill with all this intemperance? Or Frankie Picton, frustrated by the outcome of her meeting at the Gazette, settling a strange score? Or, as many of the chattering townsfolk would later speculate, an anonymous shooter who, before anyone has realised, had padded their way through the Saloon’s swinging doors and ridden off across the dusty plains? A disgruntled partner who used to ride with The Chairman?

Truth be told in the heat and the haze and the commotion it is impossible to tell. And to this day, no one knows.?

But the greatest suspicion and scorn were reserved for Veronica du Plassans. The original stranger in town years ago. Was that even her real name? The mother who didn’t show sufficient emotion or the right emotion or was too cold, when her son was gunned down. She was a bordello madam after all. In that line of business, she was no stranger to guns. And how had she managed to return at that precise moment, no longer encumbered by the saddle bag she had been seen carrying earlier in the day? She was free to fire. A small ladies’ pistol easily hidden in the palm of her gloved hand.

As Veronica and Cadeau sat together on the floor trying to make sense of the events – that afternoon and in the years before – Cadeau reached into his waistcoat pocket, took out the pack of cards and handed it to his mother.

Doc Long and his nurse, Valerie, came over and tended to Cadeau’s wounds. Doc’s hands and the tweezers they held as steady as a rock as he extracted the bullet from the boy’s damaged thigh, dropping it into a tin dish with a clink. Valerie then cleaned the wound with a bandage and a bottle of William Wallace’s (undiluted) whisky, causing Cadeau to flinch and grimace.

Around them, the rest of the bar was already starting to put things back to how they were before. Tables were lifted back up. Stools stood up again. Glass and debris swept up. The smashed mirror behind the bar taken away. Hats restored to heads. Skirts and dresses straightened and dusted down. Whisky glasses refilled. Louis Le Blanc took Mac Tyner’s lifeless body to the morgue as if it were another piece of broken furniture to be cleared away. The Books Brothers strode over to Veronica and led by Crysys offered an apology that had hints of true emotion. But as they turned, Tex offered Veronica a business card, “Next time ...” before Crysys grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him away.

Everything would soon be just as it had been. Nothing would change.?

Veronica turned her attention to the pack of cards, turning them over in her hand, just as she had done when she was waiting at her table earlier that day. The once pristine box now ripped apart by the impact of a single bullet. Veronica opened the pack, removed the cards – bullet still in place – and fanned them out in her hand. The bullet’s flattened tip, after piercing the box, had smashed through the inky blackness of the thirteen Clubs. Ripped through the thirteen Spades. Torn through the thirteen blood-red Diamonds and on into the Hearts where its progress was slowed, first by the ace and then by the 2 … then the 3 … the 4 … 5 … 6 … 7 … 8 … 9 … 10 and Jack, before coming to rest quietly against the immaculate face of the Queen of Hearts.

Sitting there on the floor, reunited with her long-lost son, surrounded by onlookers and strangers, Veronica realised that even if Gruesome Gulch wasn’t going to change, she would. Was being the madam of the best bordello in the region how she wanted to spend the rest of her life? She was just as exploitative as all the other businesses she decried. What was the difference, really between her and Slim Jim? As an exploiter of “her girls”, she was forced to acknowledge, she was probably worse. She could paper over the exploitation with all the care and motherly concern and medical check-ups in the world. In the end, she was trading in human capital. Trading in the misery of her employees and her customers. It was a business without a heart.

There and then, bullet-riven cards in her hand, she was inspired into action. Sure, there was the shock of the reunion and the brutality of the violence. But there was more to it than that. The impish insights of Crysys Book? The drama, if not the content, of the Books Brothers’ performance? And though it pained Veronica to even contemplate the possibility, the words of the fast-talking snake oil salesman with the shiny watch and sinister shoes from Silver city were stuck in her ears like some kind of worm. In that moment, The Golden Curcle – the best little matchmaking service from Gruesome Gulch to Silver City, where there’s no I only you – was born.

Today that pack of cards, now fanned out in a circle, with that bullet in the centre and mounted in a carved timber frame, can be seen by all the lonely hearts looking for love who enter the marble foyer of the former premises of The Golden Circle. Veronica’s “girls” retrained as counsellors. Her son, Cadeau, after six months in the Silver City Goal, reformed and re-cast as her partner in business. The once boarded-up widows trimmed with Chintz curtains. The iron bed bases swapped for velvet lounges and wingback chairs. The chipped washbasins, once filled with lonely tears and lonelier tales, replaced with vases of flowers, adding previously unimaginable splashes of colour. The dimly lit hallways illuminated with the latest gas – and soon-to-be electric – lamps. The walls of the dingy halls brightened up with the latest fabric wallpaper that Cornelius Homburg could find in Silver City. The bleakness of the Circle, over which sadness, loneliness and despair had hung like a dark cloud, had been replaced by the brightness and optimism – romantic and commercial – of The Golden Curcle. A business with a heart.

Many say it was lady luck that brought in the winds of change. Some call it destiny. Some call it a value proposition. Others a business model. Some a business strategy.

Or as Veronica du Plassans, happily plain Ronnie Jones again and co-proprietor of The Golden Curcle simply calls it … business.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- The End. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Where are they now??-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Mac Tyner – R.I.P.

The only victim in the Gruesome Gulch Hotel and Saloon that fateful day to lose his life. Mac’s life was commemorated with the naming of Gruesome Gulch’s new concert hall which was funded through community donations and a large donation from the Jones Family. The Mac Tyner Concert Hall and Auditorium was opened with a family concert 12 months to the day after the Incident. A commemorative concert is held there every anniversary and it always opens with “Heaven’s Gate” the tune Mac was playing at the time of his death (cause unknown). He is buried in the Lonely Tree Cemetery on the hill about a mile east of Gruesome Gulch. His plot is marked with a marble headstone with a black and white piano keyboard motif across the top. If you look closely, you can see a tiny red ruby set into one of the white keys. It has had to be replaced every two or three years.

Lord and Lady Lunchtime (not their real names)

Six months after that hot afternoon, in the midst of the worst winter Gruesome Gulch had ever known, Lady Lunchtime caught a severe bout of pneumonia and despite the best efforts of Doc Long and his team, she died late one snowy Friday evening. A broken-hearted Lord Lunchtime pushed on mightily in the mansion he had shared with Lady, but he grew lonelier by the day until one sunny Sunday dressed in his signature white linen suit, he died of that broken heart. At the time he was placing a single lily on Lady’s grave, as he had done every Friday since her death. Sadly, he was not found for a week by which time a pack of wolves had mauled his body and crows had pecked out his eyes. His remains were gathered up and he was buried next to Lady. A single stone tombstone reads:

“Here lie Lord and Lady Lunchtime. Fare well old lunchtimers.”

Louis Le Blanc

On the back of the notoriety achieved by Gruesome Gulch from the incident at the Saloon, the town’s favourite undertaker went on the celebrity speaking circuit touring just about everywhere the Silver Rocket reached. He sold his undertaking business to a large multinational firm that promptly cut corners and reduced the service and trashed the brand Louis had built up over his years serving the people of GG. Louis invested the funds he received from the sale in a start-up that automatically adjusted the population signs you see on the outskirts of towns as residents die and are buried. The business was a flop. Louis lost all his money and died penniless. He was buried in a pauper’s grave outside the walls of Lonely Tree Cemetery.

Black Bart

After announcing he had fired his last shot in anger after the fracas at the Saloon, Bart joined the Gruesome Gulch Temperance League and married the League’s leader, Missy-Lou. They settled in a small cottage out of town and spent the rest of their lives together, happily and temperately. Until one fateful night when Bart was tracked down by The Kid Alvarado whom Bart had captured alive in his bounty hunting days. Alvarado had escaped earlier in the day from his cell in the Silver City Jail by bribing the jailkeeper. He shot Bart in cold blood at close range from behind the cottage’s white picket fence when Bart had come outside, unarmed, to investigate a noise he had heard.

Missy-Lou

Following Black Bart’s death, Missy-Lou channeled her despair into a successful country and western singing career, travelling and performing in concert and dance halls all over the country and internationally. Her best-known song, “My Tear-Stained Cottage Rose”, retells the story of the murder of her husband. Missy-Lou performed the song as the closing highlight of every show she performed. It was always met with cheers and tears and a shower of cottage roses being thrown onto the stage by the audience. It would later become a huge seller on both sides of the Atlantic. First for the Slow Hands Pianola Roll company at the end of the 19th century and as a No1 hit on the C&W charts in the second half of the 20th century. It’s timeless, they say.

Ol’ Whisky Bill

Bill was invited to join the Gruesome Gulch Temperance on six occasions by Missy-Lou but never accepted. On the seventh attempt, he was dragged to a meeting by the League’s most persuasive member, Black Bart. After 12 weeks under Missy-Lou’s tough-love regime, Ol’ Bill (he and the town dropped the “Whisky” moniker) became sober and never touched another drop in his life. He became the town’s sheriff after the incumbent, John Rausch, was run out of town. He used his legal background to bring justice to all the townsfolk and he went on to become Gruesome Gulch’s longest-serving and best-loved sheriff.

Frances “Frankie” Picton (Listening Wind)

On that baking hot afternoon, Frankie hadn’t managed to sell her business idea, a joint production company that would develop multi-media content (newspapers, books, theatre, songs). The company would kick off, Frankie pitched, with a series of fly-on-the-wall articles about the women behind the men (and occasionally in front of the men) who were taking over the frontier lands. Thanks, but no thanks, the Gazette’s owner had told her. Later, with backing from Veronica du Plassans, Frankie would start the business herself, under her birth name, Listening Wind Productions. For some reason, the business world was happy to engage with Frankie Picton of Listening Wind Productions but to call herself Listening Wind was too confronting. Her first production: The Real Women of Gruesome Gulch.

Slim Jim

I’d love to be able to tell you that Slim Jim lived a sad and miserable life, a pariah in his hometown; shunned by the townsfolk for his exploitative business operations that saw people displaced and forced to live in misery as outsiders on their own lands. That last bit is true, but Jim, once all the silver had been dug up fled Gruesome Gulch and Silver City and headed to the coast where he caught a steamer to South America and opened a tin mine on someone else’s land.

Sheriff John Rausch

Rausch, as noted elsewhere, was run out of Gruesome Gulch. There were rumours that he joined Slim Jim in his tin mine in South America and started manufacturing toy sheriff badges which he exported around the world. No evidence of this has ever been found.

Crysys Book

Crysys left his brothers’ consulting business due to “creative differences” and set up his own practice. His first client was Ronnie Jones who asked him to join the Face of Hearts’ advisory board. He would later marry Nurse Valerie and the two of them had ten kids. Best not to ask them names, nor make the obvious joke about a children’s library.

Tex and Finn Book

Tex and Finn hired a high-achieving graduate from one of those Northeast universities that Veronica du Plassans so derided, Melissa LoVe Phoenix III, to be their CEO* and reinvented themselves under Melissa's guidance as an empathy-laden business consulting company providing tailored advice to companies small and medium. They used their trademarked Bookwork process which can be extended and contracted and extended and contracted like a squeezebox to meet the needs of businesses, complex and simple. Over the next 150 years, the company would grow into a global behemoth. Although happy and prosperous, Tex secretly harboured a desire, ultimately unfulfilled, to open a small-town bookstore.

*Actually, this was a last-minute appointment that only came about after my daughter pointed out that the Books were all men. Fair cop, I thought.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Credits -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Another biz-lit piece. Copyright Tony Shannon 2022.

Cover illustration by Matt Taylor.

All characters and events depicted in this book are entirely fictitious. Any similarity to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Acknowledgements

“If you’ve got straight trousers, it’ll give you flares.” – sampled from “Medicine Show” by Mick Jones and Don Letts from This is Big Audio Dynamite by Big Audio Dynamite. Performed by Big Audio Dynamite (BAD).

?“Listening Wind” performed by The Specials featuring Hannah Hu. Written by David Byrne (Talking Heads)

Captain Jefferson Kidd is sampled from the Universal Pictures Production, News of the World (viewed on Netflix), itself based on the novel, News of the World by Paulette Jiles published by William Morrow.