“A retired sheepherder.”
Mighty picks some splinters out of his whiskers and sends a few shots at
the shop door.
“That’s awful, Ike. Ain’t there no way to dodge it?”
“In my hand I has the antidote. Sign on the dotted line. You pay us five
dollars a month and we guarantee five hundred when you die.”
“When--I--die? Shucks, I ain’t going to die, and besides that money
don’t cheer me none if I do. You better go over and insure that danged
judge and blacksmith, Ike.”
“Why don’t you do it? Kill ’em off and collect the thousand.”
Mighty stares at me and nods.
“I’ll do it. Can you change a twenty? Now, keep down when you get out,
’cause I want a witness left to prove it was all legal. _Sabe?_”
I manages to get behind the shop, where I tells Dirty he’d be safe, but
he contends that he’s in better shape to shoot where he is. I peers
around at the street but she don’t look safe. I’ve got to get across;
so I signs my name to an application, pins a five-dollar bill to same,
tightens my belt and hit that street at a mile-a-minute clip. Uh-huh, I
got across.
A bullet cut the sack of tobacco out of my hip pocket and another
turned my hat around on my head, but I’d ’a’ got across in fine shape
if I hadn’t been running regardless and forgot the hitchrack.
* * * * *
I must ’a’ been looking back when I hit that rail. I feels a awful pain
in my chest and my feet begins to whirl over my head. I reckon I went
over twice before I fell loose, and then I walked right into a loose
buggy-wheel, which almost spoiled all the future I ever looked forward
to.
A loose wheel is peculiar. It never does things according to rule and
has a awful way of acting when you step into it. Me and that wheel kept
company for quite a while. At times it seemed to want to travel and then
again it wanted to lay down on me. It ends up by running across my neck
and pulling one of my boots off at the same time.
As a protection to the coming generation I hung the darn thing over a
post, and it fell down before I got away, and landed on my feet. Then
I got mad, kicked it in the hub with my right knee-cap and went away
with the feeling that five dollars per month was very little to pay
for a decent burial.
I crawled up to the back door of Buck’s place, knocked and fell flat to
let the bullets pass unhampered.
“This is Ike Harper!” I yells.
“Come in,” says Tombstone. “Crawl under the pool table with the rest of
us and let Wick waste his lead.”
Tombstone and Half-Mile are on the floor, but Ornery is laying on top
of a pile of boxes near the roof, where he can shoot into the tops of
Wick’s windows. Every little while a bullet seeps in and travels around
a while.
“Who you gunning for, Ike?” asks Tombstone.
“Business. Who’s going to bury you _hombres_ when you die?”
Ornery almost falls off his perch.
“When we die?” asks Half-Mile, fussing with a stuck shell. “Seems to me
you’re taking a lot for granted. Who says we’re going to die?”
“Wick Smith predicts it.”
“Wick Smith!” yelps Ornery, sitting up. “That penurious----”
_Crash!_
The pile of boxes buckles in the middle and Ornery hits the floor on his
back. Then he gets up and walks circles like a tired pup, and then sets
down on the floor.
“What seemed to occur?” asks Tombstone.
Ornery feels of the top of his head and begins singing soft and low:
“Beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly; beat the dead march as
you bear me along. Take me-e-e-e-e out to the prairie-e-e-e-e and lay
the sod o’er me-e-e-e-e, for I’m a po-o-o-o-o-o-r cowboy and I know
I’ve done wr-r-r-r-r-r-ong.”
“You sure did,” nods Half-Mile, “when you raised up.”
“Knocked senseless,” says Tombstone.
“No, sir,” objects Half-Mile. “He was born thataway. He just couldn’t
stand the rattle when the bullet hit his head.”
“A inch higher and the city would have had to bury him,” says I.
“We’re all thataway, I reckon,” grins Tombstone.
“Which is the reason I am here,” says I. “I am prepared to guarantee
you five hundred dollars when you die, gents, and it only costs you
the measly sum of five dollars per each. Prepare for death.”
“Hurrah for ----! Who’s afraid of fire?” mumbles Ornery.
“Not me,” says Tombstone. “A five in the hand is worth a million when
I’m dead. Somebody’d take that five hundred and drink it up, and I’d
be lucky to get planted in a hole. Anyway, we’re here to kill--not to
get killed.”
“Then consider Wick. Right now he ain’t worth a cent dead. You’d all be
called upon to help bury him. Suppose his demise would pay you each five
hundred dollars?”
“I--I’ll kuk-kill him for a dollar-eighty,” mutters Ornery, “and----”
“Shut up!” snaps Tombstone. “What’s the idea, Ike?”