Sitting on the couch half asleep, I stared at the newspaper in my hand. But the lines of type wavered, and I found myself reading the description of a made-for-TV movie.
Showdown at Samaria Gulch: In this classic western, Ariel Sharon portrays Hopalong Wayne, aging warrior and gutsy marshal of a small town that finds itself under siege by a gang ofcutthroats. Making it clear that he stands for law and order, Hopalong Wayne declares that his only response to gangsters and cattle-rustlers is his six-shooter.
Drama ensues, however, when he receives word that Mayor Bushwack wants Hopalong to come to terms with Fat Rat Harry, head of the bloodthirsty gang.
Joined by his trusted band of Indian-fighters, the laconic lawman stands up at a raucous town meeting and in a tension-packed scene declares that he is the toughest hombre in the territories. But, he says, they’ve got to find a new way to fight Fat Rat Harry and his desperados. And he lays down the following rules:
1. We’ll deputize Fat Rat Harry to fight for us against his own men. As the crowd starts to protest, Hopalong orders his men to put the ringleaders of the opposition in jail. Once that is done and the crowd is subdued, Marshal Wayne continues:
2. We’ll supply him and his men with a hundred of our best rifles and six-guns. Now the women start to protest, but Hopalong fearlessly has their leaders put in jail, making a special example of the older women, whom one of his deputies tramples with his horse. “OK, are you all finished having your say?” the sharp-eyed gun-toter taunts the crowd. Then he continues.
3. We’re going to give Fat Rat the hundred acres that he stole from the McGraw family when he and his men butchered the men, raped and killed the women and stole their cattle.
4. And we’re also going to put his men on salary.
5. Then we’re going to tell him that we expect him and his men to come into town once in a while — but no more than once a week — and rustle some cattle or shoot a diner in the saloon or break into some widow’s home and kill her baby.
“Yeah, but what if he keeps killing us and robbing our cattle and stealing our women?” a voice from the crowd calls out. After taking careful note of who asked the question, the rough-hewn son of the prairie responds, “Then we’ll go in there and kill some of his men — but not Fat Rat Harry. And then as soon as we can — even while his men are blowing up our granaries and booby-trapping the railroad train and setting fire to our barns with the cattle inside — we’ll do it all over again: we’ll deputize him and give him more guns and more money and more land and put him in charge of stopping all the mayhem.”
“Yeah, but what if he does it again?” the same man asks. After a quick parley with his men, Hopalong Wayne has the man hustled out in leg irons. “Then we’ll do it again as long as we have to, until we have some peace in this here territory!” he shouts. “Now do you all understand?”
The crowd breaks up, as men turn to each other in admiration, whispering, “Man, that sheriff of ours is the most brilliant man I ever did see!” and “I trust that man cause no one could be that dumb!”
Marshal Hopalong rides down the street into the dusk, back straight, visage calm and fearless, resting easy in the saddle, followed by the eyes of men, women and children filled with admiration and trust for Marshal Hopalong, Gunslinger of the West!
As I finished this review, I jerked awake, clutching the pages of The Jewish Press. I lurched over to the television and turned on the news: Six Israelis had been blown up. Here was Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, speaking of painful concessions. Now the Palestinian prime minster declared that without weapons and CIA training, he remains powerless against terror. Then President Bush demanded that Israel make a gesture of good will, and an Israeli cabinet member released a hundred terrorists. Israeli troops evacuated ten Jews from a rocky hill in the middle of nowhere, and a Knesset member appeared and called them the Jewish version of Hamas.
And as the news went on and my eyes bleared over, I thought I could see before me the form of…Marshal Hopalong, Gunslinger of the West!
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