Fire Point

[leepback]

Must admit I had trouble with the account keeping and who owed who what.

I also agree with ChrisK in relation to the brothers plan to get the wife back. Not well thought out. Seems they have more courage than brains (but then you did want them to die so I suppose that's why). This is where you lost me for the most part.

Fairly grim but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Cheers

 

[arroway]

this was a difficult read (way too descriptive, way too much passive voice) and i'm not entirely sure i understood all the intricacies of the debts and and who owed what to whom for how long...?

i also didn't understand what that duel had to do with anything other than showing how bad a guy, GUY, is. unless i missed something i think that whole thing could be removed or shortened substantially.

BUT...i love how little dialogue it contains. westerns are notoriously devoid of dialogue. so far, yours has been the best example of this. a lot of the other entries are very dialogue-driven, to a fault, in my opinion. yours wasn't at all and what dialogue it did have was pretty good.

this was my favorite bit of description:

"The middle aged man and woman aren't helping. The woman is
seeking comfort in the man's arms. She's crying. The man
has his arms around her, but he doesn't seem to notice her
very much. He stares at nothing."

although i didn't completely understand the end, i love the mysterious man and i love the last train pulling out reveal the gunmen--really an amazing visual.

and i love the post fade out "concert" of guns going off. very stylish.

high marks from me.