3 player Fiasco game using the Boomtown play set.

Jericho "Ringo" Smalley thought he was a good man. The honest proprietor of the Fremont Saloon was married to Kao, a mail-order bride from China. They had a good but hard life; there was enough money for turnips, hooch was readily available from the nearby Chinese labor camp, and even the Sheriff stopped in every night for a belt or three. Kao and Ringo worked hard and turned a righteous dollar or two.

One dark and stormy night, Dave "No-Nose" Smalley came back into Ringo's life. His younger brother appeared like an apparition banging on the front door of the saloon. Rain-soaked and starkly lit by streaks of lightning flashing Hellfire across the ebony sky, the blood from Davey's leg wound looked black against his pale skin. Ringo had no choice but to let his wayward brother in.

He'd worry about why Kao scurried from the door so quickly later.

"That sidewinder Dutch shot me as I was tryin' ta leave the gang," Davey told Ringo. "I've given up that life, brother. Losin' mah nose, my money, and my trust in fellow criminals have set me on the Lord's path. I came ta beg you for a place ta sleep, and maybe some honest work if you'll have me." The mountain of a man looked almost small as he petitioned his older brother.

"Ah guess you kin keep order here in the saloon, brother," Ringo said. "Jus mind that ya throw 'em out the door and you aim good. Last bouncer ah had weren't much good fer aimin'." Ringo looked woefully at the shattered plate glass window, now boarded over against the weather. It was the third one he'd had in six months.

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"Kao, what are you and ma brother whisperin' about, dammit!" Ringo roared. Ringo barged into the kitchen, angry as a hornet. "I'm sick of all this pussyfootin' around between you two!"

"I-it was a-nothing," Kao replied, head lowered.

"Yeah, Ringo. We was just, um, plannin' your anniversary surprise," Davey jumped in. Ringo eyed him suspiciously.

"Our anniversary was last month," Ringo replied.

"Uhm, oh yeah. Well ain't it yer birthday soon? or.."

"Shut up," Ringo interrupted. "There's somethin' goin on between you two and I aim to find out what it's all about."

"It was a-nothing," Kao again replied. "Here, you have-a some turnip soup. You like a-turnip soup." Kao handed Ringo a large bowl, steaming hot and filling the kitchen with its starchy aroma. "Is very good for you," she said.

Eyeing both of them warily, Ringo accepted the bowl and sat down. "Oh the magic that is turnip soup," he thought to himself. "Lawd, that woman can cook!"

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"Ah didn't want to tell you, cause after all she IS yer wife," Davey whined. He'd just confirmed that he had, indeed, known Kao back east, before she'd come to Ringo. "I saw her in a brothel in Baltimore. She weren't a, you know...she was a chamber maid, cleaning up the, uh, sheets and sweepin' up and the like. I was surprised when I saw her here, ah kin tell you!"

Ringo drew his pistol and pointed it at his only living blood relative. The pistol wavered in Ringo's booze-numbed hand. "You swear to me on the Good Book that's all you know about Kao." He tossed a tattered copy of the King James on the bar. "Swear it now! Swear it on the Bible!"

Davey placed is right hand on the Bible and looked his brother square in the eye. "Ah swear that's all I know about Kao," he said solemnly, even through the whiskey haze that enclosed them both.

Ringo looked down. "You lyin' bastard! You son of a bitch! Yer left handed, ya bastard!" Ringo pulled the trigger, piercing his brother's right hand with a bullet, a lead-induced stigmata.

----
"I think this good opportunity for us," Kao whispered conspiratorially. "It very easy. I fake deed and you take silver ore from general store. Clem half blind and cannot hear. He won't even know you in building. Then you take ore to empty mine in hills and leave it there. You know?"

Davey nodded his head ."And then we hornswaggle the next green horn that comes into town and sell him the place lock stock and barrel, right?"

"Yes, very much so. Just-a like old time. We make some money then we can all go away from here, all three of us." Kao smiled and her eyes lit up with the twinkle of a con playing the long game after too much time from the action.

---
"Horatio Bumstead of the New Hampshire Bumstead's, that's me. Ah'm a Bankah, and ah'm heah ta invest in the New West." The poncy, balding man was drawn like a very rich moth toward the red hot flame of easy money. It was dead simple to lead him to the mine, let him find the ore Davey'd sprinkled about, and talk himself into a pig in a poke and out of $800.

What wasn't so easy was the confrontation when he eventually discovered the scam. In the dusty Main Street he called Ringo out, calling him a cheat and a lyin' bastard in that braying East accent. Bumstead had the temerity to draw on Ringo while still making threats and calling names. He should have just fired but, as they say out west, he decided to monologue instead. Kao broke the new plate glass window with the shotgun blast that tore the New Englander in two.

It was probably a slip up, Kao burying the fancy banker in broad daylight like that. Just like it was a slip up that brought the Sheriff down on them as well. "Chinese lettering on the deed to the mine, Ringo?" he shouted in the bar just three hours after the shootout. "Kao's gonna hafta come with me, and you and yer brother too. I'm the law around here, and I can't let this fraud and trickery go unopposed."

Exactly how the Sheriff got so dead so suddenly is a tale best left for another time. Suffice it to say that the trio hightailed it outta Dodge with $800 and no trust of their fellow criminals.

---
Dutch caught up with them 4 night later as they made their way across the high desert. Seems he didn't like to lose such a man as Davey; nobody retired successfully from Dutch's gang except at the end of a rope or with a few extra holes in them. Davey went the latter way, slaughtered with glee by the leader of his erstwhile gang. Kao, well, she was put back into circulation as a mail order bride and -- probably -- confidence criminal. Ringo wasn't as lucky as either of his relatives. Tied to a Saguaro cactus by Dutch and his gang, it wasn't long before the coyotes overcame their natural fear and had a feast.

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This was the second ever Fiasco game for James and me, and the third for Bryan who facilitated. It was the first game I'd played all the way through, so that was very cool. We found that having two books and passing them around during set up really sped that section up, as did having only a single Aftermath round.

Dave