O nly the meeting place was a se- cret, with everything else more or less known. Old Shatterhand had arrived from the direction of Braća Jerković, Hombre came directly from the night shift. Wild Bill drove a stage coach of Italian production with a young squaw in the back seat, and Shane crashed down from Voždovac on a hundred mustangs with the“Renault”sign on the bonnet. Mad Dog used the smoke signals of “Telekom” to re- port that hides must be placed for new cas- es, while there was also a“release”for Jesse James, who had been delivered some replica “Colts”in Železnik that day.Then this strange team, with “Stetsons” on their heads, mar- shal’s badges on their shirts and car boots filled with Colts and Winchesters, headed south along the road… to Silk City, or rather Svilajnac, to the uninitiated. And there they were awaited, saddled on his horse on his own ranch, by Django. Serbian cowboys, formally members of the Union of Western Shooters of Serbia, set out to convert their imagination into reality for one day. And when, an hour later and in full regalia, they walked around the periph- ery of Svilajnac, they looked as though they’d just fled from the silver screen of Sergio Le- one. Or from a lunatic asylum, depending on the perspectives of those who saw them. MYTH I tried to remember, but was unable. Not that first hand-holding, nor the first kiss, nor the first test results in school, nor the first beating... nothing that would act as a point marking my boyhood. But I always re- member the moment I first held the wood- en handle of a “Colt 45”, and the black round stock, from which I sent five heavy calibre bullets through its long barrel. And on my
Bojana Stevanović kao buduća Eni Oukli Bojana Stevanović like a future Annie Oakley
right hip forever remained the weight of a leather holster with a revolver in it, as a guar- antee of justice, revenge and the unimagi- nable freedom of the imaginary Wild West, while through gunpowder smoke squint- ed Clint Eastwood’s eyes… a split second before he swept aside a heavy cape and, with four bullets, literally sent to the grave Lee Van Cleef, his hat, and then his revolv- er, in that order. And through deafened ears came the icy voice of Blondie in the next scene of the cult Western “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, in which he explains to the unfortunate Tuco (Eli Wallach), who has an empty gun in his hand, the philosophi- cal order of things: - You see, in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend: those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig. Perhaps I just didn’t want to dig, like these thirty-odd Serbian cowboys who bring the Wild West to life in the middle of the gentle Šumadija and around Belgrade’s shooting ranges, firing from the same Colts that were once brandished around the arid American lands west of the Mississippi by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Bil- ly the Kid, Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp etc. Who would know? And perhaps the blame for this boyish fascination among us all, which has endured into these mature years, is to be found in kilo- metres of film used by Sergio Leone, John Ford, George Stevens and other wizards of the Western, forging the myth of fearless cowboys who ride into the unknown, and then dispense justice and death; Perhaps the mouthpiece of the harmon- ica music of Ennio Morricone, which causes every lady to tremble and in whose tones it is so easy to anticipate the angry dust of the prairie, the bitter taste of that last sip of whisky before death, and the murderous
clatter of horses that carry on their backs outlaws and stagecoach robbers; Maybe the comics of the“Gold Series” and “Lunov Magnus comic books” or the pulp novels with the yellow covers, whose dense paragraphs of rich imagination visual- ised that legendary tuberculous-suffering poker player “who comes quietly and heads into legend”, and in the meantime watches the back of legendary marshal Wyatt Earp. Maybe the cartoon of the fearless Lucky Luke, who can draw a revolver faster than his own shadow ... Maybe! Whatever the case, we were all once that amazed boy who looks with wide eyes from beneath the saloon door to peek in- side, while Shane the lone gunman casually leans on the bar and waits for a moment of nervousness from the villain with the black glove on his right hand, so that he can use his Colt to sign the guy’s travel orders for the eternal hunting grounds. And we all rooted for Gary Cooper when, precisely at “High Noon”, as Marshal Will Kane, he headed out alone into the de- serted street to wait for a band of outlaws out for his head, loved JohnWayne in“Stage- coach”, Henry Fonda as Jesse James, Grego- ry Peck, James Stewart and the unsurpassed Clint Eastwood, who, as both an actor and a director, encapsulated the myth of the lone- ly riders through the endless expanses of the American West. A myth on which the free spirit of America is still smuggled, suf- ficiently powerful to become a reality sev- eral thousand kilometres away, in a coun- try where, until yesterday, children played Partisans and Chetniks. SHATTERHAND FROM LIKA
Milorad Sudar, alias Old Shatterhand, is from Lika, originally from the village of Ostr-
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