“Zasso?”
_Swish!_
* * * * *
That’s the worst of working in the twilight--you don’t see all the
little details. Pole-Cat must ’a’ had his sights raised for about five
hundred yards, ’cause he couldn’t ’a’ come anywhere near Liniment
Lucas.
I seen Judge Steele drop flat. The boot sailed over him and hits
Tombstone right at the root of his nose. Tombstone sort of shivers
like he was chilly, and sets up straight in his chair.
“Yuh might give Hard-Pan a rest and get some answers from Tombstone
Todd,” states Liniment.
Tombstone sort of chuckles, and pats himself on the knees. Then he gets
up, and before anybody can stop him he steps right off the stage and
falls into Bill Thatcher.
Comes a crash of brittle wood, the snap of strings, and I knows we’re
going to be spared the agony of “Sweet Marie” on the bull fiddle. Bill
Thatcher limps out of the mess with the wreck of that fiddle in his
hand and glared up at us. Then he holds out the remains.
“Magpie Simpkins, you lied to me!” he wails. “You said there wasn’t
goin’ to be no rough stuff. You said--aw----this ghost show!”
Bill must ’a’ been peeved over that busted fiddle. Bill is slow to
anger, but a artist like Bill is tempermental. Bill done just what I’d
’a’ done, only I’d ’a’ shot straight and hit Magpie with that remnant
of busted chords instead of hitting a innocent bystander--which was
me.
It hit me in the Adam’s apple, and I felt the seeds go one way and
the core the other, but I kept my balance. I unhooked one string off
my right ear, took the thing in both hands and throwed it as hard as
I could. I didn’t care who I hit--just so I hit somebody.
You’ve heard of killing two birds with one stone, ain’t yuh? Well, I
danged near killed two cow-men with one bull-fiddle neck. Zeb Abernathy
and Jay Bird Whittaker must ’a’ been going to leave, and I got ’em
both, but I didn’t know much about it until afterwards ’cause Judge
Steele tripped me and I fell over the edge and lit on top of “Frenchy”
Deschamps, the jew’s-harp virtuoso.
They tell me that Zeb, when he felt that bull-fiddle neck caress his
anatomy, picked up a vacant chair and hung it around Hank Padden’s
neck, and just then some trouble seems to start.
Frenchy is also tempermental, I reckon, being a soloist on one of them
things what sounds like a Digger Injun with congested lungs trying to
sing his swan song. Also, Frenchy is large enough to know better, but
I reckon I sort of took him by surprize when I lit all over him.
Anyway he got me by the ankle and the cartridge-belt and seemed to sort
of pitch me high and handsome. The going up wasn’t so bad, and the
coming down was tol’able, but I lit among four disgruntled cow-men who
were settling their differences out of court, and the landing was what
you’d describe as “kay-o-tick.”
I lit with my legs around Hank Padden’s neck, but before I had time to
spur a cinch I hears Jay Bird yelp--
“Here’s a message from the livin’!”
And I gets a flash of a beautiful light and something seems to rattle
down along my nervous system. I retained enough of my natural senses to
enable me to withdraw from the conflict, and I finds myself crawling
down a crooked aisle of twisted seats with a chair around my neck and
interfering with my progress.
I finally decides that I’d better get rid of that toggle if I ever
expects to get anywhere in this life; so I sets up and yanks at the
chair. Just then a voice very close to me says--
“By ----, I’m goin’ to hang on to one end of this’n until I makes a
hit.”
I rolls my eyes upward, and there is Pole-Cat Perkins kneeling on a
chair beside me, and he’s got his other boot in both hands. He’s got
the most wonderful pair of purple eyes I ever seen. He looks down at
me and raises up that boot, but stops. He lays down the boot, hitches
a little further forward, and then spits on his hands.
“I may be all wrong,” says he soft-like, “but I know I’ve only got
stren’th for one wallop, and I’ll make that a good one.”
He picks up that boot, sort of takes a few hitches to relax his muscles,
and then lifts the boot, heel down. I know how a fool sparrow feels when
a diamond-back gets it hypnotized.
I knowed that Polecat was going to bounce that boot right off my
alabaster brow. I knowed he was going to plant that heavy heel, spur
and all, upon my lily-white forehead, and I wondered what ---- lie
he’d figure out to tell the jury. I wondered if they’d ever get any
messages from me with their danged wee-gee board, and I mentally
boycotted ’em right then.
No messages would they ever get from me; and what was more, I intended
to frame up with Hard-Pan to incriminate every danged one of ’em from
Scenery Sims to Magpie Simpkins. Ain’t it funny what a feller will think
of when he’s about to be booted off this mortal coil?
I figured that Polecat’s face would be the last one I’d ever look upon
in this life; so I looked up at him. It’s ---- to have to shuffle out
knowing that your mortal eyes has got to finish their duties by gazing
upon a face like that, but--well, I looked.
Polecat wasn’t looking at me! I dragged myself half out of that busted
chair and stared up at Polecat, who is froze solid in one position--with
the boot raised over his head, and looking straight toward the back of
the room.
I tries to look too, but a leg of the chair got into my ear and
handicaps me. I glances up at Polecat again. His mouth drops open
like somebody had cut the draw-string out of his lower jaw, and he
gasps--almost a prayer, “My ----!” and lets fly with that boot.
Then he hops off that chair and lit right on my neck with his heel, and
squashed all the sensibilities out of me for a second.
Somebody stumbled and fell over me and then got up and staggered ahead.
“Keep away from me!” yelps Hank Padden’s voice, and then comes a rattle
and a crash, and four or five men wiped their feet on me in passing.
I grabbed the last boot to hit me, and its owner sat down on my face.
I twisted out from under him, and looked into the face of Dirty Shirt
Jones.
Dirty ain’t looking at me a-tall. No sir, Dirty Shirt ain’t with us,
except materially.
“What’s the matter?” I asks, and I finds that my voice is weak as
shoestring soup.
Dirty looks at me and licks his lips. He tries to say something, but the
words don’t seem to come. Comes a sound of folks moving, and I turns my
head to see Magpie and Buck and the judge walking toward the door. They
don’t seem to mind the seats which impede them.
I sees Magpie stumble over some chairs, but Buck helps him up, and they
goes out the door without saying a word. Everything looks sort of spooky
in that weak light.
I turns and looks at Dirty Shirt. His eyes are closed, like he was
praying, but pretty soon he shakes his head and looks at me.
“It ain’t no use,” he mutters; “I can’t think of a darned word that fits
my case.”
“What do you want--cuss words?” I asks.
“Sh-h-h-h!” hisses Dirty. “Don’t be sacrilegious, you ---- fool!”
Then he unhooks from me, crawls slow-like to his feet and weaves out of
the door.
I rubs my sore head and gets to my feet. The figure of a man turns from
up by the stage and walks down to me. His back is to the light, and I
can’t see his face. He stops, sort of weaves on his feet, and says:
“What in ---- is the matter around here, Ike? Is this the way to treat
a feller when he comes back to his own home town? My gosh, is everybody
loco? I tried to shake hands with Magpie, and look what he gave me.”
He holds it out to me, and I took it. Uh-huh, I took it in both hands. I
ain’t no hand to monkey with the unknown, but I knowed right then that I
wasn’t monkeying with no ghost, ’cause that hardwood wee-gee splintered
all to ---- on the head of Hard-Pan Hawkins.
Magpie Simpkins says there is lots of things beyond the veil that we
don’t know a danged thing about, and all that may be true, but it’s
a cinch that Yaller Rock County ain’t never going to take a chance
on getting any more messages from departed horse-thieves--they might
be dead.
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the Mid-September, 1920
issue of Adventure magazine.]