Welcome back, Charmy’s Army fans! In today’s mind-bending chapter of our 12-part frontier saga, Gooser Dadburn is locked in an ideological showdown inside the Canyon City Sheriff’s office. Determined to honor his promise to Clementine, Gooser stands tall and demands a fair trial for the cold-blooded killer. But instead of dusting off a law book, the Sheriff hits him with a wave of baffling, pseudo-intellectual nonsense, casually arguing, “Oh, look. Who’s to say what is fair? No matter who loses, the other party swears that the outcome is unfair.” When the Sheriff doubles down by asking, “I mean, who can honestly place any judgment on another human being?”, Gooser nearly loses his mind, firing back with common sense: “UM, AN HONEST SHERIFF, A JUDGE, AND A JURY OF ONE’S PEERS.”

The Sheriff slowly tilted his head back, letting out a heavy, world-weary sigh that rustled the loose papers on his desk. He looked at Gooser with the kind of deep pity usually reserved for stray dogs caught in a sudden rainstorm.

“A jury of one’s peers,” the Sheriff muttered, rolling the words around his mouth like a piece of bitter chewing tobacco. “Son, have you actually taken a look out that window at the ‘peers’ residing in this municipality?”

Gooser blinked his single exposed eye, crossing two of his arms over his chest while propping the other two on his hips. “What’s wrong with the townspeople? They’re citizens! They’re regular folk!”

“They’re a catastrophe waiting to happen,” the Sheriff corrected smoothly, leaning back against the wall. “Last month, I tried to assemble a jury for a simple dispute over a stolen goat. Do you know what happened? Old Man Higgins fell asleep during opening statements, woke up forty minutes later, and voted to hang the goat. Halfway through witness testimony, two of the jurors realized they were second cousins and started an armed brawl over a family heirloom cast-iron skillet. And Barnaby—who was supposed to be our jury foreman—spent the entire afternoon trying to eat a piece of chalk because he thought it was hard peppermint candy.”

“That was just one bad pool!” Gooser argued, his voice rising an octave. “You don’t throw away the entire bedrock of territorial jurisprudence just because one guy tried to snack on courtroom supplies!”

“It isn’t just the jury, Gooser. It’s the whole production,” the Sheriff said, gesturing with his hat as if describing a theatrical play he had no interest in attending. “A fair trial is an enormous amount of unnecessary friction. You gotta find twelve matching chairs that don’t have termites. You gotta hire a court reporter whose hand doesn’t cramp up after three sentences. Then you gotta locate the Circuit Judge, who is currently three counties over, probably napping by a creek or judging a pie contest in Dry Creek. By the time you get everyone in the same room, half the witnesses have moved to California to pan for gold!”

“That’s called the due process of law, Sheriff!” Gooser shouted, leaning forward until his large red nose nearly touched the Sheriff’s vest. “It’s supposed to take effort! It’s supposed to be thorough! When a man takes a life in cold blood, you don’t just wave your hand and shrug your shoulders because finding twelve chairs is an inconvenience!”

“I’m not shrugging, Gooser. I’m streamlining,” the Sheriff countered with an easy, unbothered smile. “Think about the emotional toll of a trial. You bring the outlaw in. You sit him down. A prosecutor stands up and shouts, ‘You did it!’ The outlaw stands up and shouts, ‘No, I didn’t!’ Then they argue for six hours about whether the footprints in the mud were size nine or size ten. In the end, someone has their feelings hurt, the jury gets cranky because they missed supper, and the whole town is bitter. Where is the harmony in that?”

Gooser stared at him, absolutely flabbergasted. “Harmony?! He’s a MURDERER! We aren’t trying to form a choir with him! We’re trying to establish guilt and deliver a lawful verdict!”

“Guilt is a very subjective social construct,” the Sheriff said airily, waving a hand in the air. “Take yesterday, for instance. A fellow walked into the mercantile and walked out with five pounds of dried bacon without paying. Now, an old-fashioned, narrow-minded lawman like yourself would call that ‘theft.’ But when I spoke with the gentleman, he explained that he was simply testing the merchant’s inventory security protocols. He provided a valuable civil service! We settled the matter peacefully, he gave me two pounds of the bacon as an administrative consultation fee, and everyone walked away happy.”

Gooser grabbed the brim of his cowboy hat with all four hands and yanked it down tight, letting out a prolonged groan of sheer existential agony.

“You took a bacon bribe,” Gooser deadpanned. “You’re sitting here giving me a lecture on moral relativism, and you literally just traded law enforcement for smoked pork.”

“It was pepper-crusted,” the Sheriff clarified proudly. “Very high quality.”

“Listen to me!” Gooser roared, pointing a trembling finger at the Sheriff’s chest. “I made a solemn promise to a twelve-year-old girl named Clementine Vance. Her father was shot down in cold blood at Dead Man’s Gulch. I am not going to ride back out into the desert, look that brave kid in the face, and tell her that we couldn’t hold her father’s killer accountable because the Sheriff didn’t want to sweep the courtroom floor!”

The Sheriff paused, looking at Gooser’s intense, unyielding gaze. For a split second, it looked like a tiny flicker of genuine lawman duty might actually spark behind the Sheriff’s weary eyes.

The Sheriff rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Well… when you put it like that… with the little girl and the solemn promise and the dramatic Old West moral code…”

“Yes?” Gooser leaned in, hopeful. “You’ll hold the trial?”

“No,” the Sheriff said cheerfully. “I was going to suggest we try a game of horseshoes instead.”

Gooser’s single eye twitched. “Horseshoes.”

“Best two out of three,” the Sheriff nodded enthusiastically. “You pitch for the prosecution, the outlaw pitches for the defense. If you get a ringer, he spends a week in jail. If he gets a ringer, he agrees not to shoot anyone within city limits until after sundown. It saves paper, it saves time, and folks can watch from the porch while having a cold drink. It’s the ultimate fair trial!”

Gooser stood frozen in silence for ten agonizing seconds. He slowly reached down, picked up his half-empty mug of cold coffee from the corner of the desk, and poured it directly onto the floor between their boots.

“What was that for?” the Sheriff asked, looking down at the puddle.

“That,” Gooser growled, turning on his heel toward the door, “is my official payment to the town for the emotional distress this conversation has caused me. I’m going to catch that killer myself. And when I bring him back, Sheriff… you’d better start practicing your horseshoe toss.”

“Make sure he brings his own ringer!” the Sheriff called out pleasantly as the door slammed shut.

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