Frontierville

Jake tied Old Paint to the hitching post, close enough to the trough for a drink. Like Jake himself, his horse had seen better days but was too proud and ornery to admit it. Jake pulled his shotgun from the saddle holster and checked to make sure there were two shells ready to go in the chambers. Today was the day, he was either going to put an end to this once and for all or it was going to put an end to him.
   Knocking the dust from his boots he sauntered down the raised wooden sidewalk, headed for One-Eyed Jack's, the only saloon in town. Those gentle citizens who found themselves in Jake's path took one look at the determined glint in his eye - and at the shotgun in his hand - and made themselves scarce. It didn't take a Pinkerton to see what was about to happen.
   When the swinging doors to One-Eyed Jack's parted everyone turned to the man with the shotgun. Lefty stopped his one-handed plinking on the black-and-white keys and stared at Jake with wide, rheumy, alcohol-rimmed eyes before he scrambled for cover behind the piano. The miners at the first table looked up from betting their week's wages on a rigged card game then scattered like straw on the wind, leaving behind chips, cards, and a half-empty bottle of rotgut whisky. The swinging doors fanned the air as people beat a hasty retreat. Like a wave rolling across the beach, when the saloon's inhabitants saw Jake they flowed somewhere else.
   Clara, the town whore and Jake's sometime fling caught sight of him as she descended the stairs. "Jacob Ulysses McGrath, what do you think you're doing with that shotgun?"
   "I'm gonna take care of it, Clara," Jake snarled. "Once and for all. Or go to Boot Hill tryin.'"
   Skirts flying and bosom threatening to burst from her corset, Clara raced in front of him. "Jake, you just leave that Facebook alone."
   The twin barrels of the shotgun pressed against the laptop Clancy the bartender kept there for his customers to use. He stole broadband from the Chinese laundry next door.
   "I'm tired of it," Jake snarled. "Had about enough of them keepin' my personal, private information. Sharing it when they see fit, not when I do. All those ads based on my birthday. Whose business is that?"
   Clara put her soft hand on his shoulder. "You're working yourself up to something you don't want to do. Why don't you come on up to my room? We can get rid of some of this tension."
   Jake shrugged her hand off. "I know you check in on FourSquare all the time. I told you I want out. I don't want any more 'friend' suggestions, I don't care what other people 'like' and I ain't aimin' to be 'tagged' in anyone's gol-durned pictures."
   "Nobody said you had to do any of that," Clara stuttered. "Put the gun down, why don't you?"
   "Somebody has to stand up to them," Jake growled. "This is my information, not theirs. I own it, it's mine to do with as I please. And they ain't pleasin' me right at the moment."
   He pressed the shotgun tight against his shoulder and pulled the hammers back. The laptop was going to get both barrels, point-blank.
   Clara's face went pale. "Jake, you need to reconsider..."
   "You want to know the worst of it?" Jake's voice was a cold whisper. "Mafia Wars. I'm like Bert, over there in the corner, sleeping in his own vomit because he can't give up the hooch. But my hooch is Mafia Wars. This is the only way, Clara. The only way."
   Jake heard the click of the derringer's firing pin as he felt the cold metal on his temple. "I can't let you do that, Jake. I keep in touch with my cousin in Dodge City on Facebook. And I play Farmville every night."
   "Why are you playing Farmville when there are twenty farms within an hour's walk of this saloon?" Jake barked. "I'm gonna put an end to the madness."
   "Back away from the laptop," Clara ordered. She pressed the derringer tighter to his head.
   "Seems like we got us a Mexican standoff," Jake said.
   "Yup," Clara said.
    "I'll give you to the count of three to put that little toy back in your garter," Jake said. "Or you and I are gonna have us a problem."
   "I'd say we got us a problem now," Clara whispered.
   Jake's jaw clenched. "One... two..."
   A shot rang out.