Plot
"Gun Blaze West" is a place of legend where everyone, lawmen and outlaws, would be able to live in peace without fear of violence. The journey to Gun Blaze West may be undertaken at the end of every decade ("Zero Year"), but each hopeful must first earn the "Sign To West", an item with the Gun Blaze West insignia that is only valid on the year it is acquired.
The story begins in Illinois with the introduction of its protagonist, Viu Bannes, a nine-year-old boy who wins a gun belt in an arm-wrestling competition. Viu encounters a wandering drifter named Marcus Homer, who trains Viu to become stronger by having him race as far as he can to a cliff in the distance, and tells him he will be strong enough to reach Gun Blaze West when he can reach that cliff before the sun sets. When Illinois is attacked by the Kenbrown gang, its three underlings are defeated by Viu and Marcus, but Kenbrown himself overwhelms the town's defenders at an abandoned fort. Marcus challenges Kenbrown to a one on one duel and is killed. Viu, having witnessed his friend's death, is enraged and defeats Kenbrown himself. Marcus's revolver had a "Sign to the West" on its handle, and hidden inside the gun was part of a map to Gun Blaze West. Viu decides to take it with him.
The story then advances five years. Viu, having completed his training, is now able to move at superhuman speed. He begins his journey to Gun Blaze West with Marcus's revolver as his only weapon. He soon arrives at St. Louis, where he is invited into a shabby saloon whose business has been falling due to the saloon across the street. It is run by a man named Carlo who uses his thugs, in particular a shotgun wielder named Target Kevin, to intimidate people into going to his saloon and avoiding others. Viu and Kevin get into a fight, but the Saloon's "bouncer," Will Johnston, seizes both of them and throws them out. Viu notices a compass Will has that also has a "Sign to the West" on it. Viu later speaks with Will and his sister in their house about the Sign, which Will explains was a focal point of his father's research. Will, however, is reluctant to search for Gun Blaze West because of the massive debt the Saloon owes. Kevin appears and attacks their house, ordering Will to come out and fight him in order to prove that he is stronger. When Will is again reluctant, Viu decides to take up Kevin's challenge.
Kevin and Viu duel each other in a "target fight," where the opponent must strike a target on the other person's body without hitting him anywhere else. Viu manages to defeat Kevin, but does not kill him. When the outlaws in the saloon threaten to attack him, Will arrives, and the two destroy Carlo's saloon using Kevin's most powerful weapons. Will is persuaded to accompany Viu to Gun Blaze West after Viu pays off the debts they owe with the reward money he received for defeating Kenbrown in Illinois.
Viu and Will come across a travelling circus, where the star attraction is a young girl named Colice, who is in fact a native of Japan who had to flee the country after her home was destroyed in the Boshin War. She is an expert knife-wielder. The Ringmaster of the Circus, a large man named Rodriguez, attempts to persuade Viu (by force) that going to Gun Blaze West is a mistake, as it is a haven for outlaws and bandits. Viu refuses to back down however. Rodriguez's old partner, Gualarippa, appears with his two sons, Uno and Dos, and they attempt to convince Rodriguez to rejoin them and travel to Gun Blaze West. Rodriguez refuses however, and Colice and Viu defeat Uno and Dos in a battle. Gualarippa is overpowered by Rodriguez.
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Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)