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eBook Category: Alternate History Sidewise Award Nominee
eBook Description: Author Note: "The Last Ride of German Freddie" sprang fully-armed from my head in a discussion in Joe Haldeman's topic in the online forum Duelling Modems, in which I suggested that it might be fun if someone wrote an alternate-history story in which Nietzsche went West and tested his theories to destruction at the O.K. Corral. No sooner had I suggested this than I realized that I should be the one to attempt the story. As with some of my other alternate histories, all the characters actually existed, from German Freddie and Josie to Fellahy the Laundryman. Aside from introducing Freddie as a witness and eliminating some characters (like Bat Masterson and Texas John Slaughter) who were occasionally present in Tombstone but had no effect on the action, I have followed history very precisely up till the moment of Freddie's intervention in the O.K. Corral gunfight."

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Worlds That Weren't, ed. Laura Anne Gilman, 2002
Fictionwise Release Date: August 2003

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [70 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [64 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [54 KB] , Portable Document Format (PDF) [205 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [59 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [93 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [125 KB] , hiebook (KML) [146 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [92 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [49 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [62 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [90 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [85 KB]
Words: 16567
Reading time: 47-66 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Portable Document Format (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

"Ecce homo," said German Freddie with a smile. "That is your man, I believe."

"That's him," Brocius agreed. "That's Virgil Earp, the lawman."

"Why do you suppose he wants?" asked Freddie.

"He's got a warrant for someone," said Brocius, "or he wouldn't be here."

Freddie gazed without enthusiasm at the lawman walking along the opposite side of Allen Street in Tombstone. His spurred boots clumped on the wooden sidewalk. He looked as if he had somewhere to go.

"Entities should not be multiplied beyond what is necessary," said Freddie, "or so Occam is understood to have said. If he is here for one of us, then so much the worse for him. If not, what does it matter to us?"

Curly Bill Brocius looked thoughtful. "I don't know about this Occam fellow, but as my Mamma would say, those fellers don't chew their own tobacco. Kansas lawmen come at you in packs."

"So do we," said Freddie. "And this is not Kansas."

"No," said Brocius. "It's Tombstone." He gave Freddie a warning look from his lazy eyes. "Remember that, my friend," he said, "and watch your back."

Brocius drifted up Allen Street in the direction of Hafford's Saloon while Freddie contemplated Deputy U.S. Marshal Earp. The man was dressed like the parson of a particularly gloomy Protestant sect, with a black flat-crowned hat, black frock coat, black trousers, and immaculate white linen.

German Freddie decided he might as well meet this paradigm.