I reckon I can find time to write you a few lines to let you know how I
am getting along, as I am not doing much running around and have lots of
loose time.
Hank, are you sore at me? Sometimes I think I ain’t got no dependable
friends left a-tall. I don’t claim that Windy or Hondo are friends of
mine, but at that I don’t think they’d leave a feller in the lurch.
Remember in my last letter where I asks Emmeline where that thirty-two
dollars is, Hank? And then she says just like this—
“Didn’t you spend it, Dobie?”
Well, sir, it hits me all of a sudden like a ton of bricks, and I
remembers where that money is, Hank. It’s up at Uncle Gabriel’s house,
hanging on the wall in my vest. I changed vests when I came here, ’cause
I didn’t want to wear my Sunday suit all the time. I takes Em up to the
hotel, and I asks her to set down in the parlor, while I asks the prop.
for a sweet of rooms. Then I ducks out the back door and lopes off up to
uncle’s place. I hammers on the door and Uncle Gabe opens up. He squints
at me for quite a while, like I was somebody he can’t quite place, and
then he sort of grins and says:
“Oh! I didn’t know you at first. You’ve changed a lot except in one eye.
Did you come up to have them both made alike?”
“Peace be with you,” says I.
Hank, you know me and you know I ain’t no brawler nor hoodlum. I never
can understand why a man as big as Uncle Gabe wants to range sheep.
“I came for a vest,” says I.
“The nights are getting a little cold for this time of year,” says he.
“I’m about half out of vests, but I can let you have a saddle-blanket if
you promise not to sell it for rum.”
“I ain’t asking for no darned charity,” says I. “I bought and paid for
that vest, and just ’cause it happens to be hanging in your bungaloo
ain’t no sign she’s your property. It ain’t the vest’s fault ’cause I’ll
bet if it could walk it wouldn’t wait for me to come up here after it.”
“What kind of a looking garment was it?” he asks.
“Well,” says I, “I expected to have to describe it, ’cause good clothes
are strange to a sheep-herder. It’s red and yellow checks, got buttons
down the front on one side, four pockets and a place for each arm.”
“Oh!” says he, “So that’s what it was. I heard a lot of noise in that
room, but I thought it was a flock of pack-rats. It will be a pleasure
to get it out of the house. I’ll chase it out to you.”
He shuts the door in my face, Hank. Pretty soon he comes back, with a
sad look on his face, and shakes his head:
“I’m sorry,” says he. “Sorry for Stony Wells. He left here this morning,
and Aunt Phoebe says he took a fancy to that garment. She thought it was
an old one and she gave it to him. He’ll stampede all my sheep.”
“Somebody owes me thirty-two dollars,” says I, after a while.
“That’s nice,” says he. “You won’t miss one vest so much then,” and he
shuts the door in my face, Hank.
What could I do, Hank? Thirty-two dollars all shot to thunder. I sure
wanted to bust that door open and clean out that fambly, but under the
circumstances how could I? Even if he is a villain, Hank, he is still my
wife’s relative by marriage, and I hates scenes, arguments and brawls.
When I has to fight, Hank, I’m a true sportsman, and I don’t want to
lower myself to the level of fighting with shepherds. You know me,
old-timer, and you know that my motter is let well enough alone. I’d
rather starve than to do anybody a injury, so I tries to saunter away
like the loss of that vest didn’t mean nothing to me, and I ain’t
sauntered far when I meets Emmeline.
“Does the owner of the hotel live up here?” she asks, sarcastic-like.
“Or did you forget where you left me?”
“Wife,” says I, “wife, please pardon me, but I was coming right back.”
“Yes, and left me there to be insulted!” she snaps. “Mister Fletcher
came in the room just after you left, and I asked him if Mister Dalton
had got a sweet of rooms here yet. He didn’t know me, and he said:
‘Madam, I hope not. If Dobie Dalton ever gets a sweet of rooms here he’s
got Raffles beat sixteen ways from the jack.’ He said that if you ever
got hold of a two-bit piece you’d think it was so big that you’d hire a
dray to haul it around in.”
What’s the use of arguing with a woman, Hank? Take the advice of a
married man and don’t never do it. I said to her:
“Honey, it’s too late now to listen to things against your husband. If
you live a while longer you’ll find lots of scandal-mongers who will try
and knock your husband, but the best thing to do is to turn a deef ear
to their voices. You go on up to Uncle Gabe’s and stay inside out of the
noise, ’cause your legitimate protector is going right down-town and
make somebody eat their words.”
“Don’t you never think of nothing but fight?” she asks. “If you’d use
some of your energy in work we’d be better off. Either do that or join
the army.”
“Well, Emmeline,” says I, “if that’s the way you feel about it I won’t
go down and beat their heads off. I was just going to do it on your
acc’t, but if you don’t wish me to I won’t.”
I didn’t, Hank. A promise is a promise with me, and when I tell you I
ain’t going to lick nobody you can bank on my word. Remember that gold
watch I won at Pendleton, when I rode Outlaw? It’s been bucked out of my
pocket so often that it don’t keep no more time than a rabbit, but just
the same I’m sleeping on it, Hank. Sam Fletcher gave me three nights’
room rent free for it, and I still got one night coming. Don’t know when
I’ll collect, but it’s nice to have something coming to you. I felt the
same about your letters, Hank, but I never got any.
Now I’m going to tell you a secret, Hank. Don’t tell Hondo or Windy, and
when you get in the same fix I’ll keep my mouth shut. I never told my
right name, but I reckon they’ll find it out, ’cause they say there’s a
detective on the case.
That day after Emmeline, my wife, goes back to Uncle Gabriel’s I goes
down to the Palace saloon. I ain’t got a cent, Hank, but once in a while
a feller comes along what don’t like to drink alone. Two of them came
this time. They’re punchers from over in the Blue Joint country. One is
named “Blazer” and the other “Sleepy.”
I has quite a few drinks with them and then they sets up the supper to
me. I told them how I’m fixed, Hank. I told them about the suffering I
been undergoing, and they’re sympathetic you bet. We’re up in their room
when I tells them about it, and one of them shed tears.
“If my folks treated me thataway I’d get desperate,” states Blazer. “I
wouldn’t care how I got money just so I got it.”
“You’re darn right,” agrees Sleepy. “I’d show up that bunch if I had to
rob a bank to get the money.”
“I ain’t got no gun,” I reminds them. “You can’t do no bank robbery if
you ain’t got no gun.”
Well, Hank, what do you think? Blazer hauls out a gun and hands it to
me. “Here,” says he. “I got another one.”
I sure took it, Hank. She’s a .45, single-action Colt, and hangs just
like my old one. We sets there on the bed and has a few more drinks out
of a bottle.
“Good banks are scarce,” states Sleepy, “mostly always they ain’t worth
your time, but when you does hit a good one you’re fixed to be lazy
quite a while. What kind of a bank they got here?”
I tells them that I don’t know, but in a thriving community there ought
to be some money. Blazer peeks out in the hall to see if anybody is
listening, and then he says to me:
“Dobie,” just like he knowed me as long as you have, Hank, “Dobie, let
us solve your problem. We’re friends in need. Sabe? We’ll keep under
cover and let you do the scout work. Tomorrow you go into the bank, sort
of casual-like, and look it over for us. See how she frames for doors,
windows, safes and so forth. A man of your perceptions and standing in
the community ought to be able to stroll in there and see it all at a
glance. If you wasn’t an intelligent looking person, and packing a lot
of brains I’d never let you do it, but you got a lot of sabe, old-timer,
and you seems to know human nature to the core. How does she suit you?”
“Money is the prime objection to me right now,” says I. “I ain’t got no
place to sleep and nothing to eat upon.”
Hank, them fellers were perfect gentlemen. They immediate and soon hands
me a five-spot, and don’t even want a mortgage on my life in security. I
wish that Windy and Hondo could see how them fellers acted, ’cause it
would be a lesson to them in generosity.
The next day I wanders into the bank, and I plays my part so well that I
even talks with the man what handles the money. I looks that place over
fine, and when I tells Sleepy and Blazer what I seen they are tickled
stiff.
“Tomorrow night,” states Sleepy. “From now on until then you keep away
from us, Dobie, so nobody can say that you was in with us if we get
caught. We’ll all meet here tomorrow night at 9 o’clock, and then inside
half an hour you can buy some sheep of your own. Sabe?”
I has to laugh after I left them, Hank, ’cause the joke’s on them if
they think I’m going to buy sheep. Of course I knowed he was joking but
if he wasn’t, Hank, I’d make him hard to catch.
I seen them in the High Light saloon that night, playing pool, but they
don’t act like they ever seen me before, which was the proper wrinkle. I
look at them like I don’t know them from Adam’s off ox, and they both
nods, like I done the right thing. That night I oils up that old gun and
prepares for tomorrow night.
But, Hank, I has a dream that night that sure changed things. I dreamed
that I was wearing a striped suit, and was breaking rocks. And Uncle
Gabriel is watching over me with a Winchester, and when I don’t break
them fast enough he prods me in the wishbone with the gun barrel. I
wakes up in a cold sweat and my whole future is changed, while I lays
there and thinks things over.
Suppose I get caught, Hank? What will become of Emmeline? Without no
strong arm upon which to lean what’s she going to do? If the law grabs
away the protector what’s to become of the women and children? You know
me, Hank, and you know I always thinks of the right thing at the right
time. Thinks I like this: if I sneak over to the bank early, Blazer and
Sleepy won’t see me, and I can tip the whole thing off to the banker. A
thousand dollars or two rewards in the hand is worth a lot of money in a
safe. Hank, I don’t like no squealer. I ain’t the kind what fattens on
nobody’s misery, but I figure that right don’t wrong nobody.
The next morning early I sneaks out the back way and goes down to the
bank. I walks right inside, and there ain’t nobody there but the man
what runs the place. He looks me over, chilly-like, and says—
“The bank ain’t open for business yet.”
“It is for my business,” says I, grinning at him. “You can thank your
luck that a honest man is facing you, and any other rewards you may
mention will be accepted, for what I’m going to tell you. Tomorrow night
me and two other fellers are going to rob this bank.”
“Wait a minute,” says he, and then he leads me into a separate room.
“Now,” says he, “go ahead where you left off.”
I told him all about our plans and specifications and he seems real
interested. I tells him how slick I was in getting the plans of the
place, and when I gets through he says to me:
“You set right here for a little while. I’m going to get another party
what will be interested in your story.”
Well, Hank, he’s gone about the length of two cigarets, and then he
comes back with the sheriff.
“You planned this robbery, did you?” asks the sheriff.
“You bet I did,” says I.
“I’ll just take you along with me,” says he, taking me by the arm.
“You’re too wise to be loose on an unsuspecting community.”
“Wait a minute, Mister Man,” says I, “you’re too hasty. I’m the honest
one of the bunch, and I don’t go to jail. I’m turned honest. Sabe?”
“Yes,” says he, “you may be honest, young feller, but you didn’t turn
honest soon enough. The bank was robbed last night.”
Now, wouldn’t that frost you, Hank? Them fellers must have got their
days mixed, ’cause they sure picked the wrong night. They got three
thousand dollars in paper money and about a thousand in gold.
Well, Hank, I don’t know of any news to write, so will close. I ain’t
got much of anything to do, so I’ll write you again maybe. Don’t tell
Windy or Hondo. Write to me in care of gen. del., sheriff’s office,
courthouse.
y’rs very truly
Patrick Antonio Schmidt.
P. S. This is the name I gave.
* * * * *