Photos by CHRIS ZALUSKI | The Roanoke Times

James Monroe, aka High Country Drifter, takes aim and shoots at a target during a recent Old Dominion Fast Draw club practice.

In the middle of the woods, 20 miles outside of Roanoke, is a dusty aluminum shed nicknamed "Boot Hill Alley."

It smells like dirt and gun smoke and could easily be mistaken for a Wild West shooting range.

Men and women with revolvers loaded in leather holsters stand in a line and wait.

"Shooters on the line."

"Shooters set."

The cadence prompts the gunslingers to draw their weapons, cock back the hammer, aim and shoot. The best of them can do this in under a half a second.

But these shooters aren't trying to settle any disagreements, they're simply participating in a sport known as cowboy fast draw.

Nearly 30 of them meet at the Roanoke Rifle and Revolver Club's "Boot Hill" each week to compete. Though the scene could be something from the late 1800s, cowboy fast draw's popularity is growing each day.

Western characters with such names as Fuzzy Fred, Handlebar Slim, Cavern Bill and Thundercolt look like they were pulled from a John Wayne film.

Cowboy fast draw is so popular around this region that Roanoke's Old Dominion Fast Draw Club is the fastest growing one on the East Coast.

"The idea of fast draw is an attractive thing anyway," said club founder Jeff Duncan, whose cowboy fast draw name is Rabid Ringo. "Most people grew up in an era when you were watching 'Gunsmoke' and Matt Dillon would be drawing at the beginning of the show."

'Adrenaline rush'

The premise of the cowboy fast draw is fairly simple.

Shooters stand on a line either 15, 18 or 21 feet away from a round target with a light in the middle. With guns loaded in their holsters, they wait for an announcer to say the lines that start every match: "Shooters on the line. Shooters set."

They then wait anxiously for the light at the center of their target to activate, prompting them to draw their guns, pull back the hammer, aim and hit the target with a wax bullet. Some of the fastest shooters can do it in 0.5, 0.4 and -- the best in the sport -- even 0.3 seconds.

"I can go out and eat dinner before the light goes [on]," said James Monroe, otherwise known as High Country Drifter, of how impatient shooters get while waiting for the light to trigger.

Many of the shooters, who admit they know one another mainly by their nicknames, said it's the thrill of the sport that keeps them coming back.

"The adrenaline rush is unbelievable," said Fred "Fuzzy Fred" Shanks, who has been shooting cowboy fast draw for a little more than a month. He said he didn't plan on becoming a part of the club and just came to watch, but once somebody put a holster on him, he was hooked.

Though shooters are trying to score the fastest time, they are also trying to beat the person beside them. The one-on-one nature of the sport is reminiscent of the old cowboy duels, and, during competitions, winning your duel is what allows you to advance to the next round.

"Back [in the Wild West] if you were second, you were dead," said Tom Wills, whose cowboy name is Rowe-a-noc. Wills is a founding member of Old Dominion Fast Draw and says he enjoys the sport aspect of cowboy fast draw.

"Learning the skills without having to kill," he said.

Historically accurate

The sport seeks to emulate the time period of 1870 to 1890. All equipment -- .45-caliber single action revolvers, pre-1900 style holsters and even the shooters' attire -- must be "period correct," Duncan said.

"It has to be pretty much what the old gunfighters or the old working cowboys in that time period actually carried," said Duncan, who usually wears all black to go along with his Ringo persona. "So that's the attraction to it."

Though the sport tries to mimic the Wild West, it actually originated in 2002 as an offshoot of the larger World Fast Draw Association.

What makes cowboy fast draw different is its attention to keeping the equipment historically accurate, Duncan said. This means no modified guns or holsters. It also means that more people can take part in the sport, as most of the equipment is stock.

Old Dominion Fast Draw is now up to nearly 35 members and is seeing more shooters join every month. It's so popular that the club is hosting the inaugural Virginia Cowboy Fast Draw State Championships this summer at the club's Boot Hill range. The three-day competition will take place from July 9 to 11 and include more than $5,000 in prizes.

"I don't foresee this club dropping off," said Billy "Cavern Bill" Browning, who is also a founding member of Old Dominion Fast Draw. "In fact, I bet it's going to grow and grow and grow."

Though the club has been around for only two years, many shooters said the friendships made through the sport are tremendous.

"It's like a big family, and you may be from different backgrounds, [but] when you get up there, you're all cowboys and cowgirls," said Cheryl Donlon, who goes by the name Thundercolt.

The friendships won't stop the gang from a little bit of trash talking. An occasional growl from Fuzzy Fred while waiting on the line is not uncommon. But at the end of the day, when boots and spurs are put away, it's all in good fun.

"That's probably the biggest attraction is the type of people," Duncan said. "I mean, what type of people will be around all dressed in cowboy gear and shooting at these targets? Just fun-loving people."