INTRODUCTION

At last. A story without a plural noun for a title.

Remember "Ethics," the story I replaced with "Faces" for Night Visions 61 This is what happened to it. It became "The Tenth Toe."

The metamorphosis began on November 14, 1988, at the annual SFWA Editor-Publisher reception in New York (which I was overseeing for the fifth time) when Pat LoBrutto asked me if I'd be interested in contributing to this anthology he and Joe Lansdale were editing for Dark Harvest. They were calling it Razored Saddles. The story could be sf, horror, fantasy, alternate history, anything my little heart desired ... as long as it had something to do with the West.

In a word, cowpunk.

I said, Seriously, Pat—what's it really about? He said it wasn't a joke. Could I contribute? I said something like, Gee, that sounds really neat, Pat, but I'm awfully busy. Thanks a million for asking, though.

Avoiding any sudden moves, I backed away, thinking somehow both Pat's and Joe's belts were no longer going through all the loops.

Cowpunk. Sheesh.

I forgot all about it, but Pat called me in February while I was working on "A Day in the Life" to prod me for that cowpunk story. Joe Lansdale called in March. Same (cattle) prod. I was going strong on Sibs then but promised to do my best to write them a story.

I was wrung out after finishing Sibs, but I started wondering if maybe some of the plot elements in "Ethics" could be transposed to the West. I've always found Doc Holliday a weird, wild, and enigmatic figure (this is long before Val Kilmer's portrayal in Tombstone). You can't make up a character like that. Why not use him as the protagonist? It would require a complete rewrite but, approached with tongue firmly in cheek, it just might work.

Pat and Joe agreed that it did.