The sheriff and his men, they called it a dance. Jokingly of course, for this weren’t gonna be some fancy waltz, or any other dance, for that matter. Just a bit of twitching, unpleasant spasms and the eventual stillness.

But unpleasant spasms weren’t really my sort of dancin’, especially not these spasms. I preferred the exceedingly pleasant sort of spasms, but that’s what had got me into this mess, and would be wholly inappropriate to do in front of a crowd. There would be ladies present there, or at least, those who liked to call themselves ladies.

So I chose the other option. The sort of dance that is done with a knife, a tango of sharpened edges and a swing of sabers. The rope gone, I ducked down before a fiery drumroll, a gunpowder tune provided by the sheriff’s men. We traded partners as we traded blows, and soon the musicians had stopped playing, with only a man left singing, the sheriff becoming hoarse yelling at his men. He didn’t want to dance, but he had no problems with twitching a bit.