THE RUSTLERS (WWE, Wednesday Writing Essentials Challenge, 12/12/12, Western)

He came in on a gust of stormy, pale red, wind, his stetson hoodie pulled low over his ears. “Californius,” he drawled, “the smithers have been at our foglebeasts again. There's prob'ly sixty head, just laying there in the permadust, without legs, lookin' pathetic. I'll tell ya, it spooked the saturn out of my dromidus; fool thing nearly throwed me.”

The listener, sitting at the table, put down the twig he was whittling, and hung his head, for a moment. “Saturn's pleated thatch!” he swore. “This is hurting us. Even if I could whittle fast enough to make enough prosthetics, nobody wants to buy legless foglebeasts. Looks like we're gonna' hafta' get mean, Trex.” With that, he ambled over to a cabinet in the far wall, opened a door and hauled out a huge bag.

Trex instantly straightened, shaking his head, and backing up several steps. This was looking bad. They spent the night gathering up the injured foglebeasts; loading them into a carrier, drawn by a team of dromidae. Eyes watched their progress; an occasional snicker was heard.

Dawn found the pair on the open permadust with a small dromidus-drawn sleigh. In the sleigh was the bag Californius had pulled from the cupboard, a funnel with a long hose attached, a shovel and four barrels of water. Their side arms were fully loaded and spares lay on the sleigh. They halted, when they reached the first small mound. In the center of the mound was a depression and a hole. Into this hole, they fed the hose. When its full length had disappeared, Trex held the funnel, while Californius brought a shovel-full of a white substance from the bag. He dumped this down the funnel, followed by a full bucket of water. They moved on to another mound, and another and by afternoon, they were standing beside a much larger mound. Trex looked up. “This is it,” he said. They set up their equipment and began pouring scoop after scoop, then bucket after bucket down the funnel. Instantly, from all directions, a growling noise filled the air. Dozens of small, scaley bodies leapt from holes in the ground and raced toward the two. They were ready. With water guns in all of their six hands, apiece, they shot streams of liquid, with deadly accuracy, bringing down the attackers. One remaining creature seemed unstoppable. It dodged back and forth, avoiding the streams, till it was close enough to launch itself at Californius. Trex held his bucket till the last second, then hurled the full contents at the creature, drenching it. It howled and smoked and, crisped, fell to the ground, where it writhed for a moment before going limp.

The two stood looking around, for a moment more, before loading up their tools for the trek home.

“That'll do it,” said Trex. “Earth grown sugar water; they can't fight sugar water.”

“For now,” agreed Californius. “but they'll be back. Yeah, they always come back.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Challenge: Write a Western. The setting would be in the west of Mars and the mounts are not what we think of as horses. The ranch herd isn't quite like cattle or buffalo.