Welcome, partner. Why don'tcha mosey on over here, grab a stool and a whiskey, and we’ll trade some tales of our times. I’ve got one for ya that don’t just beat a pack o’ coyotes all to hell and back – the story of “Dandy Jim” Gravy and the great elf heist. Used to just be called “Dandy Jim and the elf heist,” but some know-it-all newspaper fella went and told everyone that there was this other elf heist back East, so folks around here added in the “great” part, because that’s what Dandy Jim was – great.

You never heard of Dandy Jim Gravy? Why, he was the leanest, meanest nice guy you ever met. Had a heart o’ pure gold, he did. Just liked to pretend he was the cock o’ the block and that he was the meanest sumbitch that ever walked these here parts. And actually, he wasn’t even all that lean. Probably more of an average build, had a little bit of a gut and all… but I’m getting’ all off topic on you.

Folks called him “Dandy Jim” because of his mustache; all twirled up in what that candy-ass barber down the street calls a “handlebar.” They say Jim grew that back when he started trying to pretend that he wasn’t really a nice guy, that all them “Bad Guys” you always hear about have them kinds of mustaches. Buy they say it just made him look like some dandy from the city, the kind that goes around singing in them barbershop quartets. So they started him calling him “Dandy Jim,” which was kind of funny because his name wasn’t even “Jim,” it was “Gravy,” on account o’ his legendary and unnatural birth. But that’s a story for another day.

Point is, Dandy Jim was a legend around these parts, up until he died. Well, I should say that he was a legend after he died too, on account o’ the fact that he was killed by a pack of bears. Mauled? Naw, that’s pile o’ horseshit – them bears was armed. Pack or no, bears alone couldn’t have taken out ol’ Dandy Jim – them bears was fixed up with six-shooters they stole from the 5:15 stagecoach the week before. God rest his soul, Dandy Jim damn near kicked them bears all to hell and gone until one of them got off a lucky shot. His horse, Eagle, brought his body back to town and we laid him to rest up on Lookout Mountain. We hold a dance every year in his honor, topped off with one o’ Miss Sally’s dancin’ girls doin’ a little shimmy on top of his grave, because we figured ol’ Dandy Jim would’ve appreciated that. Dandy Jim did love the ladies, and to be perfectly true with ya, they did love him as well, what with that proud chin o’ his and that mustache. Them fillies always go for the “bad boy” types, after all. 'Least the pretty ones. Alls a fella like me can get are the homely ones that like barbeque sauce and church on Sundays.

Where was I? Ah, right… the great elf heist.

Word has it that Dandy Jim had just turned in some alligator wranglers from back East -- dang fools was trying to smuggle them buggers across the Rockies into California or some such nonsense -- and was headed over to the saloon for a little drink. What? No, not this here saloon -- not to say that Dandy Jim didn't spend his share o' time under this roof, but this was the Angry Blacksmith three towns over -- or was it the Pasty Lady? Shoot, no, the Pasty Lady burned down two winters ago. We'll say it was the Smith. Anyhow, he'd just pulled himself up a stool when some dang fool of a kid from the telegraph office -- you ever notice how it's those wiseass youngin' that seem to pick up these new fangled electrical thingamabobs? -- came a runnin' in flappin' his arms and his gums about how he'd just passed along some telegram that was headed back East. Seems that the Holly Ivy gang was workin' out of the area and -- damnation Zeke, it was too the Holly Ivy gang, you just mind your own damn business and let me tell this fella the great elf heist story. So Holly Ivy was one o' them fellers whose mama who thought she was the funniest thing this side of using beaver fur to cover up your head if your hair done fall out, 'least that's what everyone figured since she'd named her little boy "Holly" after some Christmas song or other, because Holly's daddy had been some pansy bastard from England and he used to sing around Christmas, at least before he was killed by the Sneaky Pete gang the Christmas that ol' Holly was born. 'Course this was all before my time, I just know 'cause the Holly Ivy gang used to run these here parts until Dandy Jim decided he'd finally had enough of their horseshit and whupped them until they went off to Mexico or some such place.

Now the telegram kid was blabbin' on about how he'd seen a ransom note sent from Holly Ivy to Santa Claus. Now, I know what you're gonna say -- you can't send Santa a telegram. You're damn right, you can't! Every fool in this state knows that you can only write Santa letters, but it seems that Holly Ivy was too impatient to wait on a letter to make it to the North Pole, even if he used the Pony Express. So he'd tried sending a telegram, and since nobody knew how to reach ol' Santa by telegram, it was just bein' passed back East toward St. Louis. So this kid had seen that Holly Ivy had somehow come across some of Santa's elves and was holdin' them hostage until they gave him their gold at the end of the rainbow. Now every damn fool in the saloon laughed his ass of when the kid said this 'cause we've seen our share of the micks and we all knew that Holly had gotten confused and though that Santa's elves were them little leprechaun things. But old Dandy Jim, after he had himself a chuckle and shot of whiskey, he knew what he had to do. So he got on Eagle and rode off to the hideout of the Holly Ivy gang to save them elves from certain death.

To this day, nobody knows for sure exactly how Dandy Jim beat down the Holly Ivy gang so quickly when they was hunkered down for a fight, but sure enough, the next afternoon he came a ridin' back into town with two elves. Oh, hell, of course they weren't actually elves, son! The Holly Ivy gang had tried to rob a circus train a few days 'fore all this happened and they'd done captured two midgets wearin' their long underwear -- except it wasn't all that long, seeing as how they were midgets and all. Holly Ivy wasn't the longest nail in the board, you see. But that's the story of the great elf heist, and how Dandy Jim would've saved Christmas had it actually been in danger. As it was, the two midgets were so happy that Dandy Jim had saved him that they didn't go back to the circus, they just followed ol' Dandy Jim Gravy around for two damn months before an eagle took 'em off. No sir, not "Eagle," an eagle. In fact, it was the Great Eagle of Fire Pass, who was as big as four horses and black as the night -- so damn "black as the night" that the night followed him around even in the daytime. Took those little buggers right off their ponies as Dandy Jim was trackin' the Dusty Rhoades gang all across the Colorado territory. But that's a story for another time, ain't it?