Shelly McGregor’s Mule

If you ever go to Virginia City’s Tahoe House and gander above the office door, you’ll see an antique shotgun. And if you asked who owned the piece, Shelly McGregor’s name would come up.

Should you ask, “Who is this McGregor woman?” a local might squint at you sideways and say, “Shelly? Oh, she’s the gal with the scattergun and the luck of a two-legged dog in a footrace.”

They’d mean it kindly, but facts are facts, and Shelly’s marksmanship—or lack thereof—is the stuff of legend.

Shelly didn’t own that scattergun for protection, per se. She owned it because it came down through her family like a stubborn curse, and it seemed a shame to waste a good heirloom—even if said heirloom had a habit of hitting everything except its intended target. “I don’t need to hit what I aim at,” Shelly declared. “I just need to scare it bad enough that it runs away!”

This philosophy worked wonders until the day she decided to hone her skills.

It was a warm spring afternoon when Shelly set her sights on improving herself—or, at the very least, improving her chances of survival if a bear ever wandered too close to town. She tacked a paper bullseye to a venerable oak tree that had stood unbothered for a century and stepped back thirty paces.

Squinting one eye and then, inexplicably, closing the other, she muttered, “Here goes nothin’!” and pulled the trigger.

The oak tree stood unscathed, its bullseye still flapping mockingly in the breeze. But thirty feet to the left, and considering every life choice that had brought him to the unfortunate moment, stood a mule named Percival.

Percival, a mule of solid constitution and questionable judgment, had been nibbling sage shoots in blissful ignorance when Shelly’s buckshot re-routed his day and lifespan. With a mournful bray, Percival staggered, tottered, and then collapsed with the theatrical flair of an overworked actor in a fourth-rate tragedy.

Word spread faster than wildfire on a windy day, and it wasn’t long before Elias Bramble came stomping onto the scene. Elias was a wiry man with the disposition of a cactus and a shotgun slung over his shoulder that was considerably friendlier than he was.

“Shelly!” he hollered, his face redder than a boiled beet. “What in tarnation have you done to my mule?”

Shelly, to her credit, attempted a diplomatic approach. “Now, Elias, let’s not jump to conclusions. I was aiming at the bullseye, and your mule—well, he just sort of… volunteered.”

Elias squinted at her like he was calculating the odds of getting away with murder. “You call this a volunteer program, Shelly? Looks more like mule assassination to me!”

A heated debate ensued, where Elias made a compelling argument: You killed my mule, so you owe me a new one. Finding herself outmaneuvered in logic and firepower, Shelly eventually handed over a fistful of dollars in exchange for the late Percival.

Shelly had the mule dragged home, her wallet lighter, and her pride considerably bruised. She tried to make the best of it, telling a neighbor, “Well, it just goes to show—if you can’t hit what you aim at, you might as well hit somethin’ worth talkin’ about.”