by W. C. Tuttle
Author of “Tippecanoe and Cougars Two,” “Between Pike’s Peak and a
Pickle,” etc.
There ain’t no question but what me and “Dirty Shirt” Jones would like
to go back to Piperock. Sort of a call of the wild, I reckon, and at
that there ain’t many places wilder than Piperock.
Me and Dirty started in to help “Scenery” Sims, the sheriff, put
“Tombstone” Todd in jail. It was dark and Scenery didn’t have no
handcuffs, so me and Dirty helped him handle his prisoner. Me and Dirty
have peered upon the wine when it was red and neither of us cared much
for Scenery with his squeaky little voice; so when Piperock awoke the
next morning they had to dynamite the jail to get their sheriff out of
his own cell. No, I don’t know where Tombstone went.
Thereupon Piperock riseth in a body and follers me and Dirty plumb to
the border. Maybe they wanted to congratulate us, but we’re very, very
modest. Me and Dirty ain’t bad. We was just joking with Scenery.
Anyway, I don’t think Tombstone was guilty of rustling Seven A cows. He
said he wasn’t, and there wasn’t no reason for him lying about it to me
and Dirty, unless he was afraid we’d want part of the proceeds. This is
why we’re in a strange county, at a strange bar and talking with a
stranger. He’s a pe-culiar-looking _hombre_, sort of sad-eyed, as he
peers through his glass of hard liquor.
“The West,” says he, “is the bunk. There ain’t none such.”
“What for kind of a West does you require?” asks Dirty, like he was
trying to sell the feller a necktie.
“Wild,” says he. “Wild like the writers tell us about. The kind of a
West that Buffalo Bill knew. I’ve hunted for it loud and long, but she
ain’t and that’s an end to it. Have another drink?”
“Mister,” says Dirty, “you came West but you never got there. Somehow
you missed Piperock.”
“Whither lieth said Piperock?”
“Lieth is a good word,” nods Dirty. “In direction, she’s south of here
and as the crow flies she’s a hundred miles.”
“Is that real West?”
“Man, that’s the West. All others is imitations and frauds.”
“You brings me great cheer,” says he. “Bartender, do your duty.”
“You bring cheer to two of us, the same of which makes three cheers.”
“I wouldst have you take me to this Piperock place.”
“Yeah?” says Dirty. “Me and Ike Harper are not taking anybody within
sheriff-shot of Piperock, although our hearts are homesick for the old
village of vice. We wouldst go there, pardner, but circumstances are
against us. We’ll tell yuh some few things pertaining to that hamlet of
horror, but that’s as far as we’ll go.
“The city limits of Piperock are the distance a sheriff can ride in two
hours and then shoot with a .30-30; the same of which marks a spot
several miles removed from the turmoil of town. Me and Ike are outside
that distance and we stays out, eh, Ike?”
“You couldn’t ’a’ said more if yuh hired a hall,” says I. “Why does yuh
wish to see the West in its raw state, mister?”
“I am a realist,” says he, dreamy-like. “I hate the artificial.”
“Gawd bless and keep yuh,” says Dirty. “You’ll find it there, but yuh
may never return back. The sheriff sells cemetery space.”
He absorbs his liquor and seems a heap interested.
“Is there a bank there that might be robbed and does they have a stage
that might have a reason for carrying bullion?”
“Now,” says Dirty, “me and Ike appears shocked at your question, but at
the same time we’re a heap interested. Let’s go outside where there
ain’t no walls to have ears and speak of such things as banks and
stages. Yuh never can tell who might overhear us and suspect us of
philanthropy.”
We goes across the street and sets down on the sidewalk.
“Now,” says Dirty, “there is a bank and there is a stage. Me and Ike are
broke, but up to the present our records are as clean as our six-guns.”
“Would you know how to rob a bank or a stage?” he asks. “Do the job like
it ought to be done?”
“We ain’t got no references from bank nor stage-lines,” says I.
“But,” says Dirty, “we’re honest. We’ll split three ways, mister.”