Howdy, pardners. The name’s Gunderson. Sheriff Bill Gunderson. You might remember me from the unattirin’ at Black Gulch or the full moon at high noon. That’s right, one and the same. Well, I got a message for you all: If’n you’re a wrongdoer what dons a single stitch, you best mosey along. You heard me right: There’s a nude sheriff in town, and he’s gonna stay put.
Taking off my clothes and enforcing the law has been my business for some 20 years now. I learned shootin’ and crook-catchin’ at the side of my pappy, Bare-Bottomed Jake, the nudest shot in the West. Leastaways, he was, until some varmints ambushed him for his bounty money just as he was leaving the outhouse. As he lay with his bottom to the sand, before he passed into the great ranch in the sky, he asked me in his dyin’ breath to carry on both his noble work and his naturalist lifestyle. Ever since that fateful night, I’ve been a lawman of one sort or another, and I’ve kept the homespun off my backside. No sir, you’ll never see no buckskin on this foreskin.
Now, don’t turn tail and skedaddle when y’all see me comin’. I’m here to make sure things run more orderly-like, and I encourage you all to go on about your business as usual. True, I do things a little different from your last chap-slappin’ sheriff, but I said it before and I’ll say it many times again: There may be a Code Of The West that we all live by, but last I checked, there wasn’t no Dress Code Of The West.
If y’all got nothin’ to hide, well sir, I got no beef with you ’tall. Yep, I do pack quite a hogleg there. Hopefully, I won’t have to use it, but if push comes to shove, I’m a straight shooter.
As I’ve been settling in, I’ve taken to standing on the clock-tower balcony atop the jailhouse, observin’ as I do the happenings in town. Know what I see in the eyes of the townsfolk with the guts to meet my gaze? Fear and envy. Well, I pledge that I’ll clean up this town right direct. Unlike that last sheriff, you won’t see my behind glued to a saloon stool, a-starin’ off at nothing. Naw, this naked hombre is real an’ in the flesh, an’ you’ll find him in a saloon only when he’s roustin’ out the drunks and cardsharps.
I take my job as a lawman real serious-like. I already made the rounds, checkin’ out the general store, shootin’ the breeze with ol’ Gus, the shopkeep. Why, y’all should’ve seen his eyes when I offered him cash fer that li’l vial o’ anti-chafin’ liniment. Other sheriffs may have taken advantage of store credit, but this one believes in paying his way. Once I took my leave o’ Gus, I just stood in the town square, hands on my hips, lettin’ the Santa Ana winds cool my nethers.
If’n you’re thinkin’ to buy me off, well, think again. I ain’t a crooked lawman. I got few needs, and even fewer places to put bribe money, so best put that notion out yer head. There’s a mess o’ corruption in this town, and I aim to expose it, an’ myself.
Back yonder in Rattlesnake Junction, a clever li’l feller no higher’n a hitchin’ post pointed out that I ain’t a hunnert percent nude, an’ dang me if he weren’t right. This here 10-gallon hat is pert near the only thing I’ll wear. Got it back in San Antone. Keeps the sun off my eyes, and I can use it to cover up when I’m in the presence of the minister’s wife. Oh, an’ my holster too, but that don’t count none. That’s more of an accessory. ’Course, when I’m a-courtin’ Miss Modesty, that’s when I put on my Sunday kerchief.
If y’all need me, y’all know where I can be found. If’n I’m not down at the jailhouse, I’ll be wherever there’s injustice, or in a nice warm spot of sun, with my legs up on a stump, an’ my hat over my eyes. That’s how I relax, y’see. It soothes the mind and warms the testes, and when you’re fightin’ wrongdoers naked, that’s the best tonic for an occupied mind.
