The rest of the page is smears and blots.
“Looks like a Russian proclamation, Buck,” says I. “Where did it come
from?”
“Right here, Ike; that ex-pardner of yours published it.”
“Magpie?” I asks, and they both nods. “That’s his first edition,”
replies Buck. “He took over the office when a few of the local boys
ran the editor across the border for slandering the community. That
paper invades this here country about a month after you leaves, and
she runs high along until the editor gets a call to uplift the
community. Yesterday he beat the posse across the line, and Magpie
gets out his maiden sheet. This here feller speaks feelingly of
lawlessness, and even goes so far as to make personal remarks about
our morals. What he said about the town of Paradise was awful.”
“Is Magpie still sheriff?” I asks.
“Uh-huh,” admits Tellurium, who ain’t friendly with Magpie. “Abe
Anderson was running against him, and had a grand chance to win, but
Abe’s old weakness crops up and spoils things.”
“Abe seen a chance to run off some Circle Star cows,” explains Buck.
“He runs foul of Magpie and three of the Circle Star punchers, and
when they gets through convincing him that, ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ he
ain’t in shape to use votes. Magpie races alone and is elected by five
votes.”
“Well, well,” says I, “a few months sure does change the map. I’ll go
down and see if that benighted son of a lodge-pole don’t need some
help.”
I prods Lodestone down the street to where I sees a sign, which
proclaims there’s a newspaper office. I hitches my rolling stock and
goes inside. Magpie is there. All I can see is the bottom of his
boots, the seat of his pants and his elbows—the rest of him is behind
a newspaper, as he leans back in a chair, with his feet on the table.
I leans against the table and rolls a smoke. He glances at me,
switches his cigaret over to the other side of his mouth, and goes on
trying to read. I say “trying to read” for the reason that he’s got a
paper he printed himself.
Pretty soon he yawns and lays the paper across his knees.
“Ike,” says he, “that’s some paper.”
“Some ink, too, if that’s anything to brag about,” I replies. “When
did you learn to write Russian? Maybe it’s Chinook with the blind
staggers, Magpie, but anyway she’s a terrible language. What does them
big letters at the top proclaim?”
“That? Huh! _The Piperock Pilot_!”
“Won’t the letters run the other way, Magpie?”
“I reckon they would, Ike, but how in —— am I going to know what she
reads? It’s a danged sight easier for the public to read the print
backwards than it is for me to read the type thataway. I’m glad to see
yuh, Ike.”
“Still follering the line of least resistance, eh, Magpie? I’m glad to
see you, too.”
“Accumulate anything on your trip, Ike?”
“Wood-ticks, fool-hens and a growing conviction that rich rock is
scarce. How’s things at the sheriff’s office?”
“Tolable, Ike. Won by a narrow majority. I reckon if Abe had ’a’ lived
we’d needed a recount. Lot of folks voted for him after he was dead.”
“They would,” I agrees. “Lot of folks around here ain’t got no more
ambition than to vote for a corpse. How comes it you’re a editor? Has
all the bad-men died off or has a moral wave hit Piperock?”
“I always been a critter of circumstance, Ike,” he states, unfolding
his long legs, and easing his gun handy-like. “I always been a
disciple of advance, and I’ve worn all the skin off my shoulder trying
to give the wheels of progress a lift. At times them wheels have
slipped and sprained my immediate future, but I never peeped.
“When this here misguided editor fades across the horizon, me, being
sheriff, appropriates this here plant and opines to run it as a public
institution. There’s twenty-five sheets of paper left and one can of
ink. My first edition takes twelve sheets, and I hereby claims that a
man, without no experience, what can rise to the occasion and put out
a paper like that is a credit to the community.”
“Didn’t you have trouble finding all them letters, Magpie?”
“Trouble? Say, the ends of my fingers are so tender I can hold out my
hands and feel the sun slide behind the hills. The next publication is
problematical, Ike. I’m short of material, but I only figures on one
more issue. I got a article set up, and I can’t publish until the time
is ripe.”
“Something special?”
“Uh-huh. ‘Tombstone’ Todd’s obituary.”
“From Wilier Crick?” I asks, and Magpie nods.
“Uh-huh. Him and ‘Cactus’ Collins comes over here to help elect Abe
Anderson, being as Abe was a relative. When Abe departs this here vale
of tears they up and proclaims they’re a pair of howling wolves, and
that they’re a permanent fixture around here until such a time as they
lays me on my back and gestures over me with a spade. Awful pair of
gobblers, Ike.”
“Why not an obituary for Cactus, too, Magpie?”
“He’s hiding out until such a time as his stummick is normal, Ike. He
horns in on me yesterday, and gets pessimistic to my face. I’m busy on
that obituary and don’t like to be interrupted, so I beats him on the
draw, accepts his gun as a subscription and induces him to eat a
bucket of paste. Awful smelling mess, Ike. I’d opine that as far as my
future horoscope is concerned his lips are sealed.”
“Thirteen sheets and one obituary will be something to print,” says I.
“Has Tombstone made any advances?”
“Once. I was standing over there by the window, holding up one of them
dinguses what contains type, when a bullet comes along and hits her
plumb center. She collapses right there and ruins things. Some of that
lead type enters my bosom, and for the space of a foot square on my
manly chest I looks like a smallpox patient. This idea of being a man
of letters ain’t no prosaic pastime, Ike.”
* * * * *
Just then “Scenery” Sims darkens our doorway. Scenery is knee-high to
a short Injun, and his voice hankers for oil. He looks mean-like at me
and Magpie, and chaws some industrious. Pretty soon he expectorates
copiously on the floor, and orates—
“Want to quit taking the paper.”
Magpie snaps out his gun and covers Scenery.
“Get down on your knees and wipe out that —— spot!” snorts Magpie.
“What do yuh think this is—a corral?”
“I—uh—” begins Scenery, but the gun don’t waver, so he takes the
handkerchief off his neck, and scrubs our floor.
“This is a newspaper office, Scenery,” states Magpie. “You can’t start
your oration with a cloud-burst in here. Sabe? What you got against
the paper, and why for don’t yuh wish it no more?”
“I can’t read her,” he squeaks. “She’s too backward to suit me. Of
course I—uh—well, send her along, and I’ll—uh—do the best I can. I got
to go now.”
He slips out with his hat in his hand, and lopes off up the street.
“That’s business, Ike,” laughs Magpie. “I’m going to make ’em like
it.”
“When yuh had the drop on him yuh ought to ’a ’collected in advance
for another year,” says I. “You sure need a manager, Magpie, for _The
Piperock Pilot, Limited_—to thirteen sheets and a death notice.”
“Howdy, gents,” states a voice at the door. “Is this the only
newspaper in town?”
That person is a novelty in cowland. He stands there, exuding perfume
and prosperity from his Sunday clothes. We looks him over, from his
shiny shoes to his hard hat, wonders at his pink cheeks, which match
his necktie, and both nods.
“You answers your own question, stranger,” states Magpie. “We sure got
a monopoly on all news hereabouts. Want to subscribe?”
He ambles over and sets down on a stool and looks the place over. He
takes off his hat, balances it on his knee, and produces some sheets
of paper.
“What’s your amusement rates?” he asks. “Half-page—maybe full.”
Magpie rolls a fresh smoke and studies the feller.
“Well,” he drawls, “the person who operates here ahead of me makes a
fixed price of three dollars for six months, but I don’t sabe no case
in which he split the size. I don’t guarantee to amuse nobody. I’ll be
honest with yuh, though. This here paper is on its last legs, but I’ll
danged near guarantee one more issue, and if yuh hankers for it I’ll
put yuh down for one copy at four-bits.”
“You misunderstood me,” he grins, “I mean advertising rates. I’m ahead
of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’”
He puts his hat back on his head, and shuffles them sheets of paper:
“We are bringing to your town the greatest aggregation of stars that
ever glowed over one set of footlights. Two _Evas_, two _Topsies_,
three fee-rocious bloodhounds and eight—”
_Splang!_
The side window spills its panes over the place, and this person’s hat
flips off his head, and lands in my lap, while a chunk of lead bores a
neat hole in the wall behind the stranger. He freezes right there.
Magpie slips his gun across his lap, settles down a little lower in
his chair, and lights his cigaret. I hands the hat back to its owner,
and slides my chair a few inches further back.
“Eight what?” asks Magpie.
“Ca-ca-cakes of ice,” he quavers, examining his hat. “My ——! Was that
a—a—bullet?”
Magpie nods and scratches his chin.
“Bullet?” he wonders again. “Did—did somebody shoot at me?”
“Nope,” says Magpie. “At me. What yuh going to do with the ice?”