Sam Best, an Easterner from Philadelphia, is back from
the Civil War. Now, with his wife Elvira and ten-year-old
son Daniel--who would rather be in Philadelphia--Sam heads
for the romantic West. He's looking forward to those wide
open spaces, those friendly folks who "rustle up some grub"
and say "Howdy" when they "mosey over" to Sam's place.
What he finds is Parker Tillman, the town heavy who quickly
perceives that Sam is "decent, honest, a man of principle . . .
we may have to kill him"; Frog, Tillman's dimwitted henchman;
Doc Kullens, who cures his own ailments with a stiff shot of
redeye; and Laney Gibbs, a mountain girl who hasn't bathed
in four years. In short, Sam has moseyed into a western
parody rustled up by the pardners who created Taxi.
Sam journeyed west in 1865. His new wife Elvira, a
Southern belle whom he had met while burning her father's
plantation to the ground. Fluttery Elvira and his smart-
mouthed son Daniel were not exactly at home on the rough-
and-tumble frontier. Elvira did her best to tidy up their
new cabin, though. Dabbing daintily at the floor with a
broom she sighed, "I just can't seem to get the dirt off
this floor"--which Sam deadpanned, "It's a dirt floor."
And from city kid Daniel came: "I want you to understand,
Dad, I'm never going outside.
But Sam's problems weren't confined to home. First there
was the Calico Kid, an incompetent gunfighter who terrorized
the town until Sam accidentally drove him off, thereby
earning himself the job of town marshal. A more continuing
source of aggravation was Parker Tillman, the villainous
proprietor of the Square Deal Saloon (and of most of the rest
of Copper Creek). Though his fastidious, prissy demeanor
seemed totally out of place in the West, Tillman had his
manicured fingers in every racket imaginable. When his
construction company put up the new jail, the building
promptly collapsed; when the townspeople had to
fight a flood, he rented them shovels.
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