“Let go that bottle!” yelps Pete.
“Put up that hooch, my son,” says the old man. “You’re drunk.”
“Let go that bottle!” yelps Pete. “Let go, or I’ll ride you around the
place and slap you with my hat. Let go, you darn old pelican!”
He gave old Sam a shove, and the old man lit setting down.
“Get up and rush him!” hisses Mrs. Tilton. “He’s supposed to kill you.”
“Look out,” warns Pete. “I’ll bust you one!”
Pete’s left-handed, and he waves that bottle around his head, but old
Sam kept right on coming.
_Ker-bam!_
It might ’a’ killed old Sam if it had hit him, but it didn’t—it hit
Polecat Perkins right in the head.
Polecat shudders all over, sets up as straight as a string and folds his
hands.
“Frank Slade, you have murdered your father,” states the judge
solemn-like.
Everything is still for a moment, and then I hears Yuma:
“Moral, ——! One man ain’t never been married and has two boys, and
another boy has two fathers. Let’s go home, Big Foot. This is awful.”
“Shoot yourself, Pete!” whistles the widder. “You’re supposed to commit
suicide.”
“Into the floor,” whispers old Sam.
Pete pulls his gun quick-like, and I reckon it went off accidental,
’cause it tore a corner out of Polecat’s box. Pete lets out a dying
yelp, slips when he tries to fall easy and knocks that home-made bar
right over on top of me. Pete weighs close to two hundred.
Then I rises up above the wreck and looks around. Polecat gets up like a
man in a dream, picks up that box, holds it above his head for a moment
and then crashes it down in the middle of the stage, where it busts wide
open.
“Kitty, kitty, kitty,” I hears somebody in the audience call, and then
our show begins to fade out.
I seen the suicide hop off the floor and sail right out over the
orchestra. Then I seen the Widder Sanders and Mrs. Tilton foller him
out. I didn’t want to cross the stage; so I ducks the other way, throws
a chair through a window and follers the chair. I lit on top of Wick
Smith’s store porch and slid off into the street. Folks are running out
of the hall. I pilgrims across to Buck’s place.
Seems to be quite a meeting there. Magpie is standing on a card-table.
All them chairs from the Mint Hall are occupied, and the place is foggy
with smoke. Standing on another table is Hassayampa Harris, and on the
bar sets Buck with a shotgun across his lap.
Old Testament and the Rev. Parsley seem to have arrived ahead of me, and
there appears to be a lull in the meeting.
“Just about what are you fellers doing here?” asks Buck, patting his
gun.
“You—you jobbed our show!” whoops Testament, waving his arms. “You hired
Polecat Perkins to skunk up our play!”
“That’s a lie,” states a tired voice behind me, and there stands
Polecat, shaking at the knees. “That’s a lie,” he repeats. “Goin’ to
ship ’em to Helena. Perfec’ly harmless. Who hit me in the—the——”
And Polecat sprawls out full length on the floor.
“Must ’a’ been a pleasant place across the street,” observes Magpie. “If
they can’t win by majority, they opines to win by mortality, I reckon.”