“We obtained money under false pretenses, Ike,” says he. “We agreed to
rob a bank and there wasn’t nobody to hold up.”
“He agreed to plant a couple of horses for us,” says I, “and he either
has a danged poor idea of what a feller rides to a bank robbery or we
picked the wrong steeds.”
“Prognostications don’t alleviate the crack in my head,” says Dirty.
“’Pears to me that my brain is runnin’ out.”
“Cast aside all fear,” says I. “You never could hit that hard. I’ve got
a splintered wish-bone and my stummick has been turned wrong side out.
What will we do next, Dirty?”
“Get away from here,” says Dirty, which shows that his brains ain’t
leaking to no great extent.
“How?” I asks. “Looks to me like this quiet little jail is about the
only safe place for me and you.”
“Well, why in —— don’t somebody come along and chide us?” complains
Dirty, nervous-like. “It ain’t like Piperock to do things like this,
Ike. Why don’t they kill us and have it over with?”
“Want to die, feller?” I asks. “Pinin’ away for death, are yuh?”
“No, I ain’t, Ike, but if I’ve got to die—hurrah for ——! Who’s afraid of
fire?”
“Shall we sneak back to the shack and get our disguises, Dirty?”
“Not me! If I’m goin’ to die, good. I’ll die as Dirty Shirt Jones, not
as a buzzard-headed bug-hunter who is lookin’ for somethin’ that crawled
away and died a million years ago.”
“Well, what yuh goin’ to do, Dirty? Figure a little, can’t yuh?”
“Figgers be ——! I’m to camp right here until dark, or until some figger
of vengeance cometh along and herds me hence. _Sabe?_ Give yourself up,
go out and get shot, choke yourself to death with your own fair hands—do
what you think best, Ike, but old man Jones’ little fair-haired child is
goin’ inside a nice cool cell and sleep off a headache.”
“I can’t do nothin’ but foller yuh,” says I, sad-like.
“Your attachment for me is sweet,” says he. “I’m all choked up with
e-motion, and if I didn’t feel so bad I would cry.”
Sometimes I wonder who left that quart of hooch under that bunk. We
moved the bunk over, so nobody could see us from the sheriff’s office,
and there she stood, brave and bold. Me and Dirty surrounds it, inhales
the odors of Araby, originated in Kentucky and fixed with equal parts of
alkali water, copperas, chewing-tobacco and coal-oil, for the
consumption of Piperock’s leading citizens.
Then we humps up on the bunk and wishes each other a great deal of
pleasure in the future. I reckon we done a lot of wishin’. I dreamed of
a whole danged string of wishes hanging on a line like laundry out to
dry, and when I woke it was dark. Dirty Shirt sounds like a dry saw
going through a greasewood butt. I’m about to wake him up, when I hears
voices. I jabs my heel into Dirty’s shins, and he sets up like one of
them mechanical toys.
“Yeah, and I hope yuh gets ninety-nine years and the balance of your
life,” we hears Scenery Sims saying in his rusty voice. “I’m goin’ to
put yuh in and then I’m goin’ up-town and tell all about it. Some of
them snake-hunters think I’m no good as a sheriff, but I gets my man.”
“Some old lady must ’a’ got drunk and fell down and busted her leg,”
says Dirty in a hoarse whisper. “Hear that woodchuck peep?”
The door of the cell is yanked open, and two men comes inside. Me and
Dirty ain’t ready for to be locked in, so as they comes in we goes out.
Scenery stands there in the dark, sort of stiff-like. Dirty Shirt lights
a match and holds it up. I hears Scenery give a gasp and then the match
went out. Then his gun falls on the floor.
I feels two men slip past us in the dark, but I don’t reckon that
Scenery heard ’em. He moved over the table, knocked the lamp-chimney on
the floor, and then managed to light the rest of the lamp. He squints at
us, and then goes over to the cell, where he peers inside. Then he sets
down in a chair and stares at us. We don’t say a word, but we’re dang
near bustin’ inside. Pretty soon Scenery gets up, like a feller walking
in his sleep, and goes inside and pulls the door shut after himself.
“I—I don’t know,” he squeaks in a whisper, staring at us through the
bars. “I ain’t felt good for a week—dang it! Seein’ spots in front on my
eyes. It sure is —— to see things thisaway. Must be my stummick.”
Dirty stepped over, blowed out the light and we went outside.
“Where to?” I asks.
“Any civilized port,” says Dirty.
“Somewhere, Ike, there must be a place where a feller can use up the
rest of his misspent life without hidin’ behind a stump every time a
human bein’ shows up.”
“We’ve got to get transportation,” says I. “Let’s go boldly and take a
horse per each from the tie-rack, and go hence rapidly.”
There’s a crowd in front of Sam Holt’s place. Me and Dirty went right to
the rack, picked a likely looking bronc per each and got aboard, minus
saddles and with nothing on their hammer-heads but hackamores and hair.
Man, I thought that mouse-colored animile could do everything in the
book, but this long-legged roan proved to me that my other mount was
peckin’ along in the kindergarten class.
* * * * *
High and mighty we went. We changed ends, sunfishin’ and worm-fencin’,
but Ike Harper didn’t pull leather—’cause there wasn’t any; but he sure
did anchor himself to that bronc’s mane with both hands, got a toe-holt
under each shoulder and rode regardless of sun, moon, or tide.
I gets a glimpse of Dirty Shirt Jones ahead of me, and I’d tell a man
Dirty is high above that animile’s back, the same of which ain’t healthy
to nervous systems nor stummicks.
Into that crowd we went, ——ity blip. I got a rope under my chin, the
same of which cut off my wind. Somebody got one arm around my neck and
seems to caress me, and then I’m out in the open, far from the maddening
crowd. I manages to get a breath, shoves the encircling arm from around
my neck and finds that there’s two of us.
I’m all mixed up in a rope. Out of the dark comes another rider, just as
my bronc gets hoppled in this danged rope, and turns a handspring. This
other horse goes over the top of us, and as far as I’m concerned the
earth and sky have met.
Later on I removes the veil and comes back to material things. All is
dark and dreary. I hears Dirty singing, soft and low—
“I sa-a-a-a-w the-e-e-e new Jee-e-e-ru-u-u-u-sa-a-a-lem—” and on every
word he quavers like some one was shaking his soul.
“——!” says I. “I went further back than that, Dirty. I saw the old
town.”
“—le-e-e-e-e-e-ft up your voice and see-e-e-ng,” wails Dirty.
“I ain’t got none to lift!” I yells, and Dirty stops. Then he says—
“Ike, I—I feel that my days are numbered.”
“Mine too—thirteen,” says I, and just then we hears a faint voice
saying:
“O-o-o-oh! O-o-o-oh!”
“Does your horse talk English, Ike?” whispers Dirty, and just then a dim
figure reels up to us and sets down. It’s still got some rope around its
neck. We peers at it, and then Dirty scratches a match. It’s Waldemar,
wearing a half-inch rope for a necktie. He was the man I picked up on my
way through the crowd.
“Waldemar,” says Dirty, “we welcome you to our graveyard.”
He wheezes for a moment and then manages to croak:
“Take that money back! Take it back!”
“Back to the bank,” he wheezes, when we don’t say anything. “They—they
was hanging me, bub-because I—I told ’em it was just a picture stunt.
Take the money back!”
“Way around ’em, Shep,” gasps Dirty. “We didn’t get no money. Dang it,
there wasn’t anybody in the bank!”
“Don’t say that,” wails Waldemar. “I seen you. I got a hundred feet of
the best hold-up on earth, and they were going to hang me.”
“But we didn’t rob the —— bank!” I yowls.