"The Plan"

I come in in the middle of an episode of Tales of Wells Fargo.  The outlaws are planning the classic ambush – probably of Wells Fargo roving detective Jim Hardie – and I hear a line I have never heard before in a western.  The line is,

“I’m not that sure-footed.”

Soon as I hear it, I am off to the races.

(Despite my promise to forego westerns for a while.  You know the literary device, “The Unreliable Narrator”?  Fair warning.  I may be one of them.)

Anyway, the outlaws are “holed up” in this… I don’t know where they’re “holed up.”  Somewhere 

in town, planning the textbook ambush maneuver, wherein the gang’s “Boss” strategically positions his henchmen.

BOSS:  “…e’s almost here.”

(I told you I came in in the middle.)  

BOSS:  “I want him cut down in the crossfire. (TURNING TO FIRST HENCHMAN)  Waco?  Go up on the roof.”

WACO:  “What’s that, Boss?”

BOSS:  “Up on the roof. “

WACO:  “You want me up on the roof?”

BOSS:   “I want you up on the roof.  (TURNING TO NEXT HENCHMAN)  Rance?  You…”

WACO:  “Hey, Boss?”

BOSS:  “What?”

WACO:  “I’ve got a problem, goin’ up on the roof.”

BOSS:  (ANGRILY) “I said, ‘Up on the roof!’  (TURNING TO THIRD HENCHMAN) Yancey?  You hide in the alley.”

WACO:  (WHINY)  “But I don’t wanna go up on the roof.”

THE BOSS GLARES AT HIM, UNDERSTANDABLY ANNOYED.  THEN COMES THAT SURPRISING LINE.

WACO:  “I’m not that sure-footed.” 

AFTER A MURDEROUSLY LONG BEAT.

BOSS:  “All right, Waco.  You hide in the alley.  (TURNING TO HIM)  Rance?  Up on the roof. (TURNING TO THIRD HENCHMAN)  And Yancey?... ”

RANCE:  “Wait.  (RE: WACO)  How come he gets a choice, and I don’t?”

BOSS:  “What?”

RANCE:  “I’m stickin’ with the alley.”

WACO:  (TO RANCE)  “He gave me the alley.”

RANCE:  “Not first.”

WACO:  “He can’t change his mind?”

BOSS:  (TO RANCE, RE: WACO)  “He says he’s not sure-footed.”

RANCE:  “He’s lyin’.  He won’t go up on the roof because he knows the old sayin’:  ‘It ain’t the bullet that gets yuh.  It’s the fall.’”

                                               

YANCEY:  “Is that true?”

WACO:  “That’s what I heard.”

BOSS:  (FINGERING HIS GUN HANDLE)  “Did you ever hear the saying, ‘It’s not the fall that gets yuh.  It’s the Boss’?”

YANCEY:  “Is that true?”

BOSS:  (DEAD SERIOUS)  “It’s true.”  (THEN)  All right.  So Rance…

RANCE:  Uh-uh.  (RE:  WACO)  “No roof for him – no roof for me.”

BOSS:  “I need somebody up on the roof!”

WACO:  “What about Yancey?”

RANCE:  (SARCASTIC) “Yeah, like he’d ever put ‘Yancey’ up on the roof.”

WACO:  “Why wouldn’t he put Yancey up on the roof?”

RANCE:  “Because Yancey’s his ‘Favorite.’”

BOSS:  “No one’s my ‘Favorite’!  (TURNING TO HIM)  Yancey, you go behind the water trough.”

WACO:  “‘Behind the water trough.’  Are you crazy?”

RANCE:  (TO HIMSELF) Who ever made him boss?  (TO BOSS, HURT)  You don’t even know us!”

BOSS:  “What’s wrong with Yancey behind the water trough?”

YANCEY:  “They’re right, Boss.  The horses drink there, and I’m allergic to horses.   I start sneezin’ behind the water trough, and I ruin the whole ambush.”

RANCE:  (EXPLAINING, AS TO AN IMBECILE)  “The ‘Element of Surprise’?”

BOSS:  (TO YANCEY)  “Would you go up on the roof?”

RANCE:  “Oh!  Now he’s asking.”

YANCEY:  “I’d prefer to hide in the alley.”

BOSS:  “Three men in the alley?  What kind of an ambush is that?”

YANCEY:  “I’ll take the roof if you order me to.”

BOSS:  “I am ordering you to!  Has everyone here lost their minds?”

WACO:  “Hey, Boss?  Where’re you gonna be?”

BOSS:  (TO WACO)  “You know, you started this.”

RANCE:  “Wait.  I’d like to know too.”

BOSS:  “Know what!”

YANCEY:  (EXPLAINING)  “Where you’re gonna be, Boss.”

BOSS:  (TO YANCEY)  “You were never my ‘Favorite.’  You could have been.   But now.  No chance.”

WACO:  “I know.  (RE:  THE BOSS)  “Let’ put him up on the roof.”

WACO AND RANCE NOD IS CONSPIRATORIAL AGREEMENT.

BOSS:  “Hold on.  Somebody’s gotta watch from the saloon!”

THE HENCHMAN SCOFF AT THIS LAME EXPLANATION.

WACO:  “‘Somebody’s gotta watch from the saloon.’”

RANCE:  “Throwin’ down ‘Rotgut.’” 

WACO:  Munchin’ complimentary hardboiled eggs.”

YANCEY:  “Chuckin’ floozies’ under their chins.”

BOSS:  “Et tu, Yancey?  (THEN)  Now listen up!  I’m ramrodding this outfit, and I say here’s how it is.  Rance?  Up on the roof."  

RANCE:  (PETULANTLY)  “Awww….?”

BOSS:  “Yancey, the water trough.”

YANCEY:  (REMINDING HIM, SING-SONGY)  “Al-lergies.”

BOSS:  “Sorry, I forgot.  Yancey – the alley.  And Waco – the water trough. Everyone happy, now?”

WACO:  “Not with your tone.”

THE OUTLAWS HEAD FOR THE DOOR, READY TO TAKE UP THEIR POSITIONS.  AT THAT POINT, THE DESIGNATED “LOOKOUT” RUNS IN.

“LOOKOUT”:  “What’s keepin’ you boys?”

BOSS:  “We had a ‘Team Meeting.’  Why?”

 

“LOOKOUT”:  “You know that Jim Hardie fella you told me to keep my eyes peeled for?”

BOSS:  Yeah?

“LOOKOUT”:  “Well, he came and he went.”

SO MUCH FOR THE AMBUSH.  THE BOSS STANDS, SPEECHLESS.  FINALLY…

BOSS:  “That’s the last time I’m working with family.”