The Battle of the Bloody Barstool

With the threat of his relieval a very serious possibility, Potts put his act together and led the command to Tijuana. After three days of hard marching, Dundee's tired, bedraggled command finally reached the small border town. Dundee ordered his men to set up camp outside the town before they moved in. Dundee rode up to Potts, with Michelle and Ben close behind.

"Mr. Potts," Dundee exclaimed.

"Major."

"I'm a long way from Pittsburgh. Any suggestions?"

"Uh, yeah," Potts said, drawing his shotgun from its holster. "Let's, uh, go have a look. . . slow and easy."

At this, Dundee, Potts, and the other two scouts moved into the town. Behind him, Joe Starbuck and Tim deployed the rest of their men in a tight circle around the town.

Potts and Dundee rode through the gates and saw a bunch of drunken hobos lying on the ground. They then came across a bar, where another man lay outside, with a switchblade at his side. As Dundee and Potts rode past him, the man began to stand up, shifting his knife into a throwing position. Potts leveled his shotgun and fired - and missed, blowing out the bar window. It took a volley of shots from Michelle and Ben to dispatch the would-be assassin, who fell to the ground, his body literally blasted apart.

"Mr. Potts," Dundee rejoindered.

"Yes, sir," Potts said, trying to reload his weapon.

"I want you and Ben to go back and get me some good gunslingers."

"Got anyone in mind, Groggy?" Potts asked.

"How 'bout Marco, the Gorches, Peacemaker, Frisco, and Mr. Stubb - if Tim'll loan them out," Dundee said. "They should have experience in this area."

"Yes, sir." Potts began to ride off.

"Jed," Dundee called after him.

"Yeah?"

"Don't get yourself killed. That would. . . inconvenience me."

With a slight smile, Potts and Ben rode off. Dundee and Michelle lashed their horses to a fence post outside the bar. Dundee pulled out a pistol from his saddle bags and put in it his belt, then pulled out his Winchester pump-action riot gun. Michelle reloaded her sawed-off shotgun and put it under her right arm.

"You be alright?" Dundee asked his female scout.

"Who are you, my father?" Michelle asked with a smile.

Dundee smiled at her for a moment, then loaded his gun and checked it.

"Let's go," Dundee said.

Dundee and Michelle walked into the bar. It was a crowded joint, the air was filled with smoke and the smell of stale beer. About two dozen desperadoes were all over the place, seated in chairs or lying passed out on the floor. The walls and ceiling were stained with blood, spilt alcohol, and tobacco juice. Dundee and Michelle walked up to the bar, with several desperadoes leering after them.

"Fuck off, fellas," Dundee exclaimed to them. They moved to answer him, but Michelle leveled her shotgun at them. The men backed off, still leering at her.

Dundee turned to the bartender. "What have you got to drink in this here joint?"

"Tequila and beer," the bartender, a short, portly man with a greasy mustache, said in a thick Hispanic accent.

Dundee took a swig of his drink, then without a moment's hesitation spit it in the bartender's face.

"What's the problem, Senor?" he said in a nonchalant voice, as three hoodlums came up behind Dundee and Michelle, knives drawn.

"You let your bull piss in your beer, eh?" Dundee said. Michelle had a worried look on her face; she had noticed the three guys behind him. They were just about to start stabbing Dundee when the bar door swung open. It was Mr. Stubb, who came into the bar completely unarmed. Several bar patrons turned to him; Dundee's would-be killers turned to the door as well.

"No, not the boy," Stubb said, nonchalantly cracking his knuckles. "Me. You try me."

The leader of the banditos chortled. "Sorry, Senor, but it's not three against three. . ."

At this, at least twenty people sprung up, armed with knives, blackjacks, clubs, and brass knuckles.

"It's twenty-three against three. . ."

The bartender calmly ducked under the bar and hid. Dundee and Michelle stared at each other, than at Stubb, and finally at their assailants.

"Then I guess these guns wouldn't be sporting, then," Dundee exclaimed. He turned and suddenly smashed the butt of his shotgun into the face of the lead bandit. Michelle ducked as a knife flew by her head. The fight was on.

Two men rushed Stubb, who flattened them both with a single punch. Dundee leapt behind the bar as more knives flew at him. He grabbed a beer bottle and broke it. Michelle dove onto the floor, drawing a Bowie knife, as one of the men swung his knife at her. Michelle leapt to her feet, and then faced off against the man.

"You're a pretty girl," he said mockingly. "I'll try to make it as painful as I can!"

"Hey, dickhead!"

The banditos turned again to the door as several of Dundee's men flew into the bar. Several entered through the window and others the door.

The bandito looked at Potts, who stood at the door with his knife drawn.

"Leave the girl alone," he said.

In through the window came the Gorches, Peacemaker, and Marco Leone. Ben, followed by Tim and Frisco, came in through the door.

"I, uh, brought the cavalry," Potts remarked sheepishly.

"You surely did," Dundee remarked.

"Michelle, get out of the way," Potts demanded. "We don't want you to get killed."

"That would be a tragedy," someone else remarked.

Everyone turned once more as another man - an evil, diminutive Mexican - walked into the bar with six men, some armed with knives, others baseball bats through the back door.

"Now, it's a fair fight," the man said.

"Hardly," came a voice from the front door.

Now entering bar were Sergeant Cullen, Joe Starbuck, and Sergeants Kimmel and Harriman.

"Hey motherfucker," Kimmel shouted to the Backdoor Man. "I wouldn't say eleven against thirty is fair, would you, guys?"

"Not hardly," Harriman rejoindered, batting a board in her hand.

After them, Lorelei and Shumaker entered the bar, followed, finally, by the last three men - Plasmotic Snake, Grenouille, and Mark.

"It's still not a fair fight," Kimmel remarked, pulling out a switchblade. "But, fair enough. . ."

"And we've got more outside," Cullen called to their opponents.

There was a tense standoff for a moment, no one sure of what to do. Dundee, not wanting to wait any longer, grabbed his bottle.

"Let's just start the ball," he said, stabbing one of the three Barstool Banditos with his broken bottle.

Then, an apocalyptic barfight unlike any ever seen on the face of the Earth errupted. Knives, stools, chairs, blackjacks, sticks, beer bottles, fists, and anything else you can imagine started flying. Every single fragment of the glass in the bar was ultimately broken.

For twenty minutes the issue was in doubt. Dundee managed to keep the two other Barstool Banditos at bay with his beer bottle, then smashed in the bar and kicked one in the stomach. The other started to move in on him, but Tim cracked him over the head with a bullwhip. The Gorches were literally hurling men through the bar, but were ultimately cornered, as only Tector carried a knife. (It was not sporting to use a gun in such a situation; drunken barfly code of honor, and all.) Potts stabbed one man, wounding him, and held off six more before he and Ben were finally slammed to the ground. They were saved by Mr. Stubb - the greatest hero of this epic battle - who single-handedly took down the whole lot.

Marco Leone did not have a knife or blunt instrument, but he did have his trusty Henry '66 Carbine, and starting smashing Mexicalis en masse with it. On the other side of the bar, the weaker members of the expedition were projected from the establishment - Grenouille, for instance, was hurled out the window, flying almost half a block into another store. He found himself surrounded there, too, by angry, knife-wielding Mexicans, but was fortunately saved by Plasmotic Snake, who had tracked him there and mowed down all of Grenouille's would-be killers (code of ethics not applying in a dry goods store).

As for Michelle? Well, she didn't do too much fighting, but she did hold her own fairly well, even though she was backed up against hte bar, almost alone, for most of the time. She received a slight wound to her stomach, however, and might very well have been killed were it not for Lorelei, whose skill with an unload Winchester rifle was second to none in the world. Sergeants Harriman and Kimmel seemed to find the whole thing rather amusing; during lulls in the fighting they drank beer and tequila from the banditos empty glasses, then using their mugs as weapons.

Finally, after about twenty minutes of such fighting, Dundee realized that nothing was going to be accomplished. Both sides had done plenty of bleeding, but neither was gaining a distinct advantage, so he decided to withdraw. After a costly rearguard fight, Dundee and every single one of his men and women managed to extricate themselves from the bar.

Dundee, panting, stood next to Joe Starbuck, who had been hurt by a bottle which had been cracked over his head. Joe observed the toughs of the bar organizing from through the broken window, ready to go out after their query. "Sir," Joe said, "What do we do now?"

There was a brief hesitation as Dundee struggled to catch his breath, but he had a very good idea. He nodded silently to Starbuck and Tim. After a few moments, several of the men were assembled.

The roar of the AR-15 assault weapons tore through the air. Hundreds - no, thousands - of rounds tore through the bar. Saunders also ordered his tank, two artillery pieces, and all available machine guns to join in the barrage. Finally, his men ducked for cover, as Sergeant Kimmel, flying her long-sought after Apache helicopter, leveled what remained of the bar with some well-placed Sidewinder missiles. For yes, the command had found their weapons - right outside of town - or did we forget to mention that?

Dundee stared at the smoking wreckage of the bar for a moment. "Captain Tim," he shouted to his online subordinate.

"Sir?" Tim walked up, bleeding from a few wounds on his head and body.

"How would you assess the fighting ability of our men?" Dundee asked calmly.

"Well, they're pretty damn good in a bar scrap," Tim said, "But it will take more than that to fight Charriba."

"All right, Tim," Dundee said to his lieutenant. "Get the men camped out. Let's see if we can't find another bar to celebrate." He wiped his brow from sweat and blood. "God knows everything drinkable there was destroyed."

Dundee walked off, and sat down in a quiet hammock. Keith Richards walked up to him, a furious look on his face. "What is it, Mr. Richards?"

"Two things," he said furiously. "One, you fucking excluded me from your barroom brush up! Two, you fucking destroyed all the liquor! Now how am I going to get loaded?"

Dundee ignored Richards and began humming to himself.

"Well, fuck you, mate," Richards said to his command. "You're one lousy commander."

Richards stormed off, horribly upset, but Dundee quickly fell asleep, despite the hustle and bustle of his men reorganizing themselves. It was his first barroom brawl, and he had held his own. That, at least, he could be proud of. . .