The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky is a fictitious four-part story written by Stephen Crane. This parody's story line deals with a town marshal arriving with his new bride into his western frontier home, meeting a drunk on a rampage, and narrowly escaping an inevitable gun fight. This "western" story however is not as a whole a traditional western genre, but instead can be seen as a humorous and comic story.
             The plot of the story can be summed up in only a few sentences. Part one begins with Sheriff Jack Potter, the town marshal of Yellow Sky, bringing back his bride from San Antonio to Yellow Sky. The second scene deals with the town members discussing their situation with Scratchy in the Weary Gentleman saloon. Part three is when Scratchy makes his appearance; he arrives at the saloon and then makes his way to Jack's house. Scene four involves the time when the couple has almost reached their home and, Scratchy Wilson, the town drunk, approaches them and pulls out his gun. Scratchy intends to start a brawl with Jack Potter, but when Potter tells him that he has just married, Scratchy is stunned and backs down from a fight.
             True this story on the surface sounds like a typical western, however if one looks and reads a little closer they will realize that this story and some of the characters are not actual norms for a western. The town hero, Potter, is plagued with guilt that appears throughout the long train ride into Yellow Sky. The "crime" that Potter feels guilty for is marring without first informing all his friends from back home. His personality also does not match that of a usual Western sheriff. "The glances he devoted to other passengers were furtive and shy"(Crane, 218). Wanting to impress his new bride, he constantly points out the "dazzling fittings of the coach"(Crane, 218). When the newly married couple approaches Scratchy, Potter is unarmed. The sheriff of ...