Have reached the sixth page of the second draft; the pounding of keys under my tips. The story´s quite a bit different now, vast explosions have overtaken the original course of the story and diverted it. Characters have been deleted or (worse) merged, and I´ve rethought some of the logic behind the final scenes, which haven´t been rewritten yet.
Calamity! I never really expected to enjoy an Elmore Leonard story, but "How Carlos Webster Changed His Name to Carl and Became a Famous Oklahoma Lawman" is a really solid piece of fiction. It´s in the McSweeney´s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Stories - the one with the red-jacketed masked man getting read to whip a panther-man on the cover. It straddles the line between mythic storytelling and up-close character development, with a lot of brilliant details. So wicked outlaw names, as well.