That Kind of Day

The bullet ricocheted off the cast-iron skillet with a high-pitched ping , sending the fried eggs airborne in a perfect, yolk-splattering arc over Sheriff Jim’s stupid, wide-brimmed hat. "Goddammit, Billy!" Martha bellowed from the saloon’s kitchen window, waving her spatula like a cavalry saber. "That’s the third breakfast you’ve shot outta my hand this week!" Billy just tipped his revolvers forward with a grin, spinning them with all the grace of a drunkard trying to thread a needle. "Well, ma’am," he drawled, "maybe if your cookin’ didn’t taste like regret and saddle leather, I wouldn’t feel compelled to put it outta its misery." Sheriff Jim sighed, peeling a strip of egg white off his badge like it was the last damn straw in a haystack full of bad decisions. "Billy," he muttered, "you ever consider maybe not shootin’ up the town’s only decent breakfast?" Just then, the saloon doors swung open, revealing Old Man Jenkins clutching a rooster under one arm and a rusty musket in the other. "BOYS," he wheezed, eyes wilder than a coyote in a lightning storm, "that damn stagecoach ghost is back—and this time, it stole my dentures!" Martha dropped her spatula. Billy’s grin widened. And Jim? Well, Jim just poured whiskey straight into his coffee. Seemed like that kind of day. The rooster let out a squawk that sounded suspiciously like a poorly tuned fiddle, and Billy's grin twisted into something downright dangerous. "Ghost, huh?" He twirled his revolvers again, this time with the precision of a man who'd just found religion—or at least a good excuse for property damage. Martha snatched up her spatula like it was a holy relic and pointed it at Jenkins. "You best be sure about this, Earl," she warned, "because if this turns out to be another one of your 'tumbleweed hallucinations,' I swear I'll—" A thunderous CLATTER from the street cut her off as the stagecoach—or what was left of it—rolled past, its spectral horses glowing like moonlight dipped in kerosene. Jim sighed, tossed back his spiked coffee, and muttered, "Yep. Definitely that kind of day."