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#204 Wild, Wild West

The days of the old American West have long held weight in the collective imagination of storytellers. There’s a mythic power to it. Tales of survival, revenge, and itinerant gunslingers still draw us in, whether for a bit of adventure or to ask deeper questions about morality and philosophy.

The desolate desert landscapes, the struggles and conflicts between settlers and Native peoples, the wandering heroes, all these elements and more have inspired writers across genres, from George Lucas to Stephen King. Perhaps the best thing about a Western is its malleability and creativity: its ability to be set anywhere from America in the 1800s to a galaxy far, far away. So this week get your cowboy hats (or space helmets) ready as we go to explore the great unknown.

Plus, you're invited! 🎉

The second issue of PROMPTED, our literary magazine, is coming soon — and to celebrate, we're holding a live online event next Thursday! Find out more and get your free ticket right here.

🥇 Winner

The Ungentling

Katy B

Winner of Contest #204 🏆

Bill’s disappeared upstairs with the little sickly girl but me I’m here to see the blind woman. I hear she did it on purpose, tore donkey tail out of the earth and smeared its milky sap directly in her eyes. It must of stung her hands and face bad and maybe left marks on her fingers. Near Santa Fe, men, women and children are always getting possessed of this sort of ecstasy and seem like taking pleasure in swallowing poison and fire and stepping on scorpions and suchlike. But it ain’t superstition like the government try to tell me in the la...

86 likes

⭐️ Shortlisted

Gordita

Delbert Griffith

Shortlisted for Contest #204 ⭐️

You won’t find it on any map. When spoken of, it’s usually by old men drinking coffee at the local Dairy Queen. The town is part legend, part myth, a relic of the old west that left nothing behind to mark its existence save a lot of old bones and a half-buried, rotted sign displaying the town’s name. Not that anyone has lately seen these bones, or the sign; they are lost in the vast West Texas desert, bleached by the sun and sniffed at by coyotes. The sun returns daily to further ossify the bones, and the coyotes abandon the bones in search...

50 likes

To whom it may concern

Kevin Logue

Shortlisted for Contest #204 ⭐️

If all has gone to plan, the name of Joseph Finch should mean nothing to the world. But if it does, firstly, I apologise for what I had to do.Peculiar it may seem for this tale be recounted almost two hundred years after the fact, but those were the instructions given to me by the Stranger.It began in the winter of 1826.The banshee wind shrieked across the great barren plains, bringing a ghostly chill from the high places to torment the shutters and shingles of Redemption. Huddling under several blankets and furs, rocking by a meager log fir...

35 likes

Pride's Pioneers

Shortlisted for Contest #204 ⭐️

No one was worried at first. The minivan lulled them into a false sense of security. Normal has a certain taste and color. It's a perfume that lingers. The neighbors sniffed at the air. The house looked the same as everyone else’s. The beauty of the homeowner’s association’s iron fist over the subdivision. The tan porches blurred into eggshell garages that contrasted subtly with the off-white of the doors. All with more pigment than the residents of the community. The woman carrying the boxes into the home had a few tattoos on her ...

31 likes

Varnacular

Caleb Oney

Shortlisted for Contest #204 ⭐️

THE WESTERN SUN blazed-a-glory. Heatwaves cast against the parched brown grass rose from the caramel sea spanning across Desierto de Chihuahua. The land inhaled and exhaled torrents of brown dust, lifted like twisters reaching for the heavens, forever remaining unsuccessful. The soft wind which whisked against the silence was deafening. Patches of tumbleweed flew in tandem with the floating dirt. Engulfed in these congested clouds were three silhouettes, each stiff and still like a spooked fox confronting a lion. Ain’t he something. One of ...

20 likes

Lady of the Black Irons

Shortlisted for Contest #204 ⭐️

In the end, Man destroyed the heavens and the earth.Man said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. It fell from the heavens and rose in mighty plumes and consumed the earth in fire, and a great poison swept across land and sea.And on that final day, Man ended his work which he had made. Thus did Man destroy nearly every living thing that moveth, and shroud the earth from the firmament, so that day and night were as one.And when the age of silence had passed and the earth had shed its poison, the ancient abominations – which God di...

20 likes

The Bladeslinger of Canary Row

Sabrina Hall

Shortlisted for Contest #204 ⭐️

His face was contorted with fear and pain the moment he died. She knew because she was there, and she couldn’t stop it. As she traverses the pitch black alley, a bead of sweat rolls out from beneath her umber gambler hat and trickles toward the popped collar of her long overcoat. The midsummer night is stifling, humidity hanging in the air. Overturned trash bins and drunken urchins are mere inky silhouettes against the neon lights of Canary Row that flicker beyond the alleyway. She follows the lights like a moth to a flame, the urchins pre...

18 likes

Coyote

Shortlisted for Contest #204 ⭐️

TW: Animal death, violence“Coyotes have the gift of seldom being seen; they keep to the edge to the edge of vision and beyond, loping in and out of cover on the plains and highlands. And at night, when the whole world belongs to them, they parlay at the river with the dogs, their higher, sharper voices full of authority and rebuke. They are an old council of clowns, and they are listened to.” —N. Scott MomodayAlan shot the coyote on a Saturday, just before sundown.It was a good, clean shot, maybe through the heart. He’d been sitting out on t...

15 likes

This week's prompts

Write a story about a stranger coming to town and shaking up the order of things.

Character – 56 stories

Set your story in a desert town.

Adventure – 52 stories

Write a story about someone undertaking a long, dangerous journey.

Adventure – 39 stories

Write a Western-inspired story in a new genre or setting (e.g. a space western, fantasy western, etc.)

Fiction – 78 stories

Write a story about someone seeking revenge for a past wrong.

Dramatic – 72 stories

Stories

The Ungentling

Katy B

Winner of Contest #204 🏆

Bill’s disappeared upstairs with the little sickly girl but me I’m here to see the blind woman. I hear she did it on purpose, tore donkey tail out of the earth and smeared its milky sap directly in her eyes. It must of stung her hands and face bad and maybe left marks on her fingers. Near Santa Fe, men, women and children are always getting possessed of this sort of ecstasy and seem like taking pleasure in swallowing poison and fire and stepping on scorpions and suchlike. But it ain’t superstition like the government try to tell me in the la...

86 likes

Gordita

Delbert Griffith

Shortlisted for Contest #204 ⭐️

You won’t find it on any map. When spoken of, it’s usually by old men drinking coffee at the local Dairy Queen. The town is part legend, part myth, a relic of the old west that left nothing behind to mark its existence save a lot of old bones and a half-buried, rotted sign displaying the town’s name. Not that anyone has lately seen these bones, or the sign; they are lost in the vast West Texas desert, bleached by the sun and sniffed at by coyotes. The sun returns daily to further ossify the bones, and the coyotes abandon the bones in search...

50 likes

To Live and Die in Cemetery Creek

Zack Powell

Submitted to Contest #204

We didn't think much of him at first. We'd seen our fair share of strangers tumbleweed their way through Cemetery Creek over the years. We'd come to recognize the peddlers: their honeyed words, their dirt-free mustaches, the way they'd ride into town on mules, never horses, so we lowered our guards, so we'd think they were one of us. This man, we reckoned, was no different.Said his name was Ambrose. Suppose he saw us on that Sunday afternoon three weeks ago, spilling out of the church's double doors, all of us in our chaps and vests, our blo...

50 likes

Splinters and Silt

Michał Przywara

Submitted to Contest #204

The mule died and John Barris was alone. He tugged the rope. The beast didn’t stir from the baked dirt. It might have been sleeping if not for the silence. No more broken wheeze, no more ragged clop, no more irritated snap of the teeth. All John heard now was the wind whispering promises of another day in hell.He dropped the rope, stretched, and then got to rummaging through the animal’s bags.It wasn’t his mule. It was his by rights but he didn’t own it. But he was owed it. He was owed much, oh so much, but the men in this country were all c...

39 likes

To whom it may concern

Kevin Logue

Shortlisted for Contest #204 ⭐️

If all has gone to plan, the name of Joseph Finch should mean nothing to the world. But if it does, firstly, I apologise for what I had to do.Peculiar it may seem for this tale be recounted almost two hundred years after the fact, but those were the instructions given to me by the Stranger.It began in the winter of 1826.The banshee wind shrieked across the great barren plains, bringing a ghostly chill from the high places to torment the shutters and shingles of Redemption. Huddling under several blankets and furs, rocking by a meager log fir...

35 likes

Fancy Ranch

Mary Bendickson

Submitted to Contest #204

Fancy RanchThe stalker couldn't believe his luck. Like a fragile black butterfly, his quest was sipping tea at the cafe having finished her morning errands. Finally alone!“Ah, My Dear, so nice to see you again. You look as lovely as ever even though you are still wearing that dreary black gown which doesn't fit your vibrant personality. Are you still mourning that long dead husband?” The man sat next to her without an invitation. “Allow me just a moment. You must grace my dinner table this evening. I insist. You will be the most mouth wateri...

34 likes

Pride's Pioneers

Shortlisted for Contest #204 ⭐️

No one was worried at first. The minivan lulled them into a false sense of security. Normal has a certain taste and color. It's a perfume that lingers. The neighbors sniffed at the air. The house looked the same as everyone else’s. The beauty of the homeowner’s association’s iron fist over the subdivision. The tan porches blurred into eggshell garages that contrasted subtly with the off-white of the doors. All with more pigment than the residents of the community. The woman carrying the boxes into the home had a few tattoos on her ...

31 likes

A Desert Dream

Submitted to Contest #204

Lost in Arizona, on the holiday of my dreams. A five-figure holiday that I saved up for, for years. Down the toilet it went, whenever my girlfriend kicked me out of the car. We had a stupid fight. She was driving, I was swearing. She blamed the heat, I blamed her personality. She kicked me out of the car, in the back end of nowhere. I’d always wanted to visit the desert. It was on my bucket list, long before I met Angel. She and I had become one of those units that goes everywhere as a twosome, whether it's advisable or not. She was more of ...

30 likes

THE BERDACHE

Submitted to Contest #204

“Bartender, whiskey, and a jug of water, if you don’t mind.” Wynonna Belle’s lips were parched after a long day trundling through sage brush and dusty trail on her way south toward Fort Apache, Arizona. Her arrival in the sleepy little town of Holbrook bade well for resting her horses and her achy bones. Tired and hungry, Wynonna had initially sought out the hotel saloon hoping for a hot meal, a drink of rye, and a comfy bed for the night. However, she quickly doubted her decision of a drink first when the ornery herd of cattlemen and scally...

28 likes

Bewilderness

Derrick M Domican

Submitted to Contest #204

He arrived in the town of Bewilderness on a weary, white mustang with bruised hooves. Dusty trousers, torn shirt, battered Stetson. Stubble that was more days old than he knew. Sunburnt face tired and drawn, throat coarse as gravel, bags under eyes from not sleeping. For many more days than he knew.He’d travelled a great distance, through an endless expanse of sandy nothingness, his faithful steed carrying him on bent shoes. He didn’t know where he’d come from or where he’d return, he only knew he was here, now, in this washed-out town of ra...

28 likes

A Few Credits More

Scott Christenson

Submitted to Contest #204

Four miners point blasters my way–not the welcoming party I was hoping for. Jander told me not to come here, maybe I should have listened to that little guy. Standing in front of my trading ship, the Galactic Kakapo, I await their next move. A man behind a heavy cannon mounted on a mining truck eyes me closely. “You carrying Terra credits?” he asks. “On my ship.”“Good. Are you alone?” “I’m alone–” Their fingers move toward their triggers. “Except for this guy here.” I point down to a Jander VII drone at my feet.The miners stud...

28 likes

Saguaro

Story Time

Submitted to Contest #204

She got sent out with a basket of pecan bread and a bad cough. The flu had whipped through and nearly killed Rebecca the same way it had four other little girls in town. This was going to be her first outing since she recovered, and her mother pulled the red bonnet tight on her head as though sunshine might end up bringing back Death to finish the job. “Straight there,” her mother said, “I don’t want to find out you stopped to look at the horses at Friedman Ranch. This is a test errand. See if you can get there and back without collapsing. Y...

27 likes

Portrait of a Dead Man

Chris Miller

Submitted to Contest #204

The trapdoor groaned under the weight of his sins, hinges wheezing like a thawing lake. If the true weight of his misdeeds had been known, no scaffold could have supported him, but then none would have been needed. The crushing load, accumulated over a lifetime of villainy, would have driven him like a stake through Earth’s crust and straight into hell. There he’d have lain, sniggering at the sickened devil.Mr Dixon’s stories had provided Florence with a welcome distraction from the ungreased squeal of the cart wheels. They had shared the cl...

27 likes

Mitzee and Menace

Michelle Oliver

Submitted to Contest #204

The glass window magnified the warmth of the sun, and Mitzee closed his single working eye as the rays seeped into his weary, old bones. He had a good home, a roof over his head, meals on demand, comfort and luxury all round.It hadn’t always been this way. He’d been a streetwise scoundrel, a ragged ne’er-do-well in his youth and into his early adulthood. A soft smile twitched his lips at the recollection. He’d been a terror. There was not a crime he hadn’t committed, or at least attempted, and he was usually successful. Pickpocket,...

26 likes

A Matter of Interpretation

Delbert Griffith

Submitted to Contest #204

Jarod Cochran was here to hang a man. And maybe to kill a few others who got in the way. The badge of a U.S. marshal came with responsibilities. Amarillo, Texas was growing at the end of the nineteenth century. Almost a thousand souls now lived in the area, carving out a life and a future from the semi-arid and seemingly empty land. Cattle ranches dominated the region; barbed wire and guns determined who owned which parcel of land. Jarod stayed on his palomino and ambled through the town’s main street. It wasn’t much: a saloon, a hotel/resta...

26 likes

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Contest #205

This contest has ended. Thank you for your submissions.

$250

Prize money

297

Entries

94

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jun 30, 2023 EST

Won by Katy B 🏆

Title: The Ungentling

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

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