Ripping Time by Robert Asprin & Linda Evans

Kit chuckled. “Paula always was a smart lady. Good for her. She hasn’t taken a vacation in years.”

“She was all excited about the competiton. They can’t use anything but single-action pistols in up-time sanctioned competitions any more, which kind of takes the variety out of a shooting match that’s supposed to be based on actual historical fact.”

Kit snorted. “I’d say it would. Well, if that idiot,” he nodded toward the wake of destruction the drunken tourist was leaving behind him, “would sober up, maybe he’d have a chance of hitting something. Like, say, the side of a building. But he’s going to waste a ton of money if he keeps pouring down the whiskey.”

Li chuckled. “If he wants to waste his money, I guess it’s his business. I feel sorry for his porter, though. Poor guy. His boss already needs a bath and they haven’t even left yet.”

“Maybe,” Kit said drily, “they’ll dump him in the ghost town’s gold-mining flume and scrub him off?”

Robert Li lifted his glass in a salute. “Here’s to a good dunking, which I’d say he deserves if any tourist ever did.”

Kit clinked his glass against his friend’s and sipped, realizing as he did that he felt less lonely and out of sorts already. “Amen to that.”

Bronco Billy’s cafe was popular during a cycling of the Wild West Gate because its “outdoor” tables stood close enough to the departures lounge, they commanded a grand view of any and all shenanigans at the gate. Which was why Robert Li had commandeered this particular table, the best of the lot available. They spotted Paula in the departures lounge and waved, then Kit noticed Skeeter Jackson working the crowd. “Now, there’s a kid I feel for.”