It begins with a time-rift, as all good stories do. Not a respectable rift, with equations and wormholes, but the sloppy kind you find wedged between a Pac-Man cabinet and a hay bale.
Billy Mitchell, hair slicker than a buttered riverboat and tie redder than a saloon door at midnight, stumbled through. He was carrying a joystick like a gunslinger carries his Colt. The pixelated ghosts followed him, shrieking “Waka Waka” in 8-bit tongues, before evaporating into the Florida humidity of 1887.
Scene One: The Saloon of Showbiz
Buffalo Bill Cody himself sat at the bar, magnificent mustache twitching like a semaphore flag. He wore a coat lined with eagle feathers and sequins, as if Liberace had gone frontier.
“Well, by the Great Plains and a box of Cracker Jack,” Bill thundered, “who in the blue blazes are you?”
Billy, unflappable, adjusted his tie. “Billy Mitchell. World record holder. I tame machines.”
Annie Oakley leaned across the table, polishing her rifle with the kind of grace that made dust apologize. “Machines?” she scoffed. “I shoot coins out of the air. What kind of records you talkin’?”
Billy plugged his joystick into a player piano. Instantly, it belched out the theme to Donkey Kong. The keys rattled like six-shooters. Frank Butler spat out his sarsaparilla. Chief Sitting Bull tilted his head and said, in perfectly calm Lakota wisdom: “His buffalo are digital. His hunting ground is neon.”
Buffalo Bill clapped his hands. “By Jupiter and Pepsi-Cola! Son, you’re hired.”
Scene Two: Duel at the Midway
The crowd roared. Annie split an ace of spades at fifty paces. Frank juggled rifles while quoting Shakespeare. Then Billy stepped forward.
Buffalo Bill announced like the ringmaster of history itself:
“Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls! Pop-culture apparitions yet unborn! Witness the duel between flesh and pixel, grit and glitch, the sharpshooters of steel versus the joystick jester!”
Billy’s buttons glowed. Donkey Kong appeared on a stitched-together canvas, barrels rolling like thunder. Billy’s fingers flew. Mario leapt. The crowd gasped. Horses neighed in Morse code.
He cleared a level no one had seen before: The Prairie Stage.
Platforms made of tumbleweeds. Enemies shaped like cacti. Annie Oakley whispered, “Now that’s sharpshootin’.”
Scene Three: Bill & Billy Banter
After the show, Buffalo Bill pulled Billy aside.
“You got moxie, kid. You and me – we’re both performers. I shoot rifles, you shoot pixels. Different ammo, same showbiz.”
Billy grinned. “Except my ammo respawns.”
Bill threw back his head and laughed so hard his mustache nearly detached. “Good! We’ll sell tickets on both coasts. Maybe Mars, once they put a railroad there.”
Scene Four: Pop Culture Stampede
The Wild West Show hit Madison Square Garden, now rebranded as Final Boss Arena.
The marquee blared: “Buffalo Bill Cody Presents: The High Score Hoedown!”
Elvis was in the front row. So was Gandalf. Yoda sold popcorn. Meanwhile, George Lucas scribbled notes about “Han shot first.”
Billy played until the machine itself begged for mercy. Annie shot the smoke into perfect O’s. Frank juggled the letters “GAME OVER.” Sitting Bull nodded gravely: “This is balance.”
Buffalo Bill raised both arms. “Folks, you’ve seen rifles! You’ve seen lassos! But tonight – you saw eternity in eight bits!”
Scene Five: Legend Mode
The crowd erupted. A tumbleweed rolled across the stage carrying a Nintendo Power magazine. Billy winked. His tie shimmered like a cheat code.
Sitting Bull said softly: “Some warriors ride horses. Some ride pixels. Both chase eternity.”
And Buffalo Bill added the last flourish, his voice booming louder than the frontier itself: “And if the frontier ain’t wild enough, we’ll make it wilder – with Billy Mitchell, the only cowboy who can shoot lightning through a joystick!”
Epilogue
They say Billy never left. His high score still flickers, ghostly, above the Wild West Arena. Annie claims she once saw his joystick in the stars, right between Orion’s Belt and the Konami Code.
Buffalo Bill, of course, sold posters of the whole event. “Buffalo Bill’s Digital Stampede” toured coast to coast, proving that America could survive rifles, railroads, and retro gaming all in one ticket.
Brian Brijbag 