Galaxy 32: Dorrango Frontier

The second rift opens onto a wild frontier, in the age of the pioneers. Poussiéra is a town that sprang up overnight around a seam of stars. Here, the law belongs to whoever draws fastest.

A tumbleweed rolls down the empty street. Shutters bang.

The buttes of Mesa-Rouge overlook the only trail in the region. The gunslingers lie in wait for the stagecoaches there, stretched out on the hot rock. They never miss, and they know it.

Something glints at the top of a butte. Then something else.

The saloon of Saloonia is the most notorious on the frontier. People play cards there, cheat there, and settle scores there. The piano player never stops playing, not even during brawls.

The swinging doors creak. The whole room turns around.

The space stagecoach that linked the colonies has been attacked. The passengers have vanished, and the undertaker is already on the scene. He has a strange talent: his clients get back up.

A man in black measures an empty coffin. He looks at you. He smiles.

On Pépitia, someone found star-gold, and everyone went mad. The miners fight over every shiny pebble. The Black Sheriff’s bandits take their share, and everything else.

A nugget rolls to your feet. Ten rifles turn toward you.

The bison-men live on the plains of Bisonia. They charge in herds, and nothing can withstand them. The Black Sheriff recruited them by promising them the plains.

The ground shakes on the horizon. A cloud of dust rushes toward you.

Dorrango is the Black Sheriff’s town, and he lays down the law there. He wears a sheriff’s star, but he has never protected anyone. He found the rift before anyone else and turned it into his safe. Through it, he plunders other eras and sells off their treasures. They say he draws four times before you can blink. His gunslingers hold the rooftops, his bison-men guard Main Street. At noon sharp, he waits for strangers in the middle of the street.

The town clock strikes noon. The Black Sheriff pulls back his coat.