Attack of the Lightning Bugs

By Patrick Dorn

When stinging, sparking gnats swarm a crowded saloon, the citizens of Dry Gulch must find a way to squash the threat before it grows into a full-blown conflagration.

This fast and funny weird western story features a town and stock characters originally created by David B. Riley.

Approximately 6600 words.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patrick Dorn
• Release date: Feb 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393438892

Patrick Dorn

Patrick Dorn used to write weird westerns set in Old California, New Mexico, and Colorado, but then he visited Ireland. Now his supernatural fiction alternates between The West and The Emerald Isle, but is always, always weird. He's also an Anglican priest and a full-time chaplain. Check out Patrick's blog, stories, plays, musicals, children's books, and more at www.PatrickDorn.com. You can reach him at [e-mail]

Book preview

Attack of the Lightning Bugs

Attack of the Lightning Bugs

A Weird Western Tale of Dry Gulch

Patrick Dorn

Copyright © 2020 by Patrick Dorn

All rights reserved.

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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Description

When stinging, sparking gnats swarm a crowded saloon, the citizens of Dry Gulch must find a way to squash the threat before it grows into a full-blown conflagration.

This fast and funny weird western story features a town and stock characters originally created by David B. Riley.

Approximately 6600 words.

Contents

Attack of the Lightning Bugs

1. How Hot Is It?

2. Mudball

3. The Pied Piper of Dry Gulch

4. Fire and Rain

Afterword

About the Author

Attack of the Lightning Bugs

A Weird Western Tale of Dry Gulch

Chapter One

How Hot Is It?

Chief Running Bear felt a bead of moisture seep past the sweatband of his derby hat, trickle down his forehead, turn left at his eyebrow, roll down his high Arapaho cheekbone, perch there for a second, then drop with a splash onto his cards.

The pasteboards, parched as everything else in drought-ridden Dry Gulch in the summer of 1881, thirstily sucked up the moisture. But even damp, they still only amounted to a pair of deuces.

I fold, he said and tossed the cards onto the felt-covered table, right on top of his lucky whiskey stain, the one that looked like a thunderbird.

Marshal Jedediah Jones doffed his battered pinched crown hat and mopped his balding head with a sleeve. Chief, you beat me to it. Fold. He tossed his cards down.

It appears I win by default, Mayor Elmer Crabtree said. He waved a pair of tens and quirked a gloating smile. He drew the pot,