Part 2

“The celebration is on,” says I. “It was due to start at ten o’clock. Let’s take a chance. I hope to gosh them broncs are there for us.” I takes my life in one hand, a six-shooter in the other and leads the way. There’s more than two broncs at the rack, but there ain’t no time to figure out ownership, et cettery. There’s considerable humanity in sight.

“Take that gray one, Dirty,” says I, and then I happens to think that we ain’t figured out who is to go inside the bank.

“Wait a minute,” says I. “Do you go inside or do I, Dirty?”

“It makes no difference who goes in, Ike. We’ll be deader than —— in about three minutes anyway. You go in, will yuh?”

“A-a-a-board!” says I, and hops on to that mouse-colored bronc, which looks like it might go as far and fast.

Somehow I don’t no more than hook the right stirrup before I realizes that I’ve made a mistake. I hears Dirty sort of hiccup a curse, and I’m betting that he has the same thoughts. I don’t know about that mouse-colored bronc going fast and far, but I sure know it went high. Also, I soon realized that my saddle wasn’t cinched tight. Every time we went high and handsome I can feel the slack in that cinch and it makes me nervous.

“Git to —— out of the way!” I hears Dirty yelp, and into me comes that gray bronc, sunfishin’ like forked lightning and whistling like a scared buck. It’s about sixty feet across that street to the front of the bank. Know how long it took us to get there? I ain’t there yet, if you’re curious to know, and this happened a long time ago.

But Dirty got there. Yessir, he got there. At the edge of the sidewalk his cinch busted and he went right in through one of the front windows. He went in feet first, into the window with the sign painted on it, and he stopped with one leg through the cashier’s window and the other leg waving for help.

My bronc stopped bucking long enough for me to see all that and then we turns right around—me and that high-minded piece of deviltry—and we bucked straight for Buck Masterson’s saloon. There’s a big crowd there, and they sure give us room. Some danged fool must ’a’ tried to kill that bronc, but missed and one bullet burned my ear, and the other peeled my knuckles on my left hand. Yes, we went in. By that time the cinch is back in the bronc’s flanks, and I’m riding wild and free on its rump, with the saddle going further back all the time.

I didn’t dare to fall off, so I done my dangdest. I got a view of scared faces as we made a mulligan of a perfectly healthy poker game and then I went up and jammed my head through the bale of a hanging-lamp, and took it with us, hanging around my neck.

The back door was partly open and we took it away, hinges and all, and then we’re out in the open again, with Piperock, et cettery, howling in our rear. I banged the bronc with my hat and swung him back toward the street, where I runs into Dirty, backing across the street, shooting every direction. I skids that bronc to a standstill, and yells—

“Get up behind me!”

Dirty stubs his heel and falls down and danged near shot me. Then he gets to his feet and runs up to me.

“Get on behind you?” he yells. “How in —— can I? You’re as far back as you can get! I’ll get on in front.”

Dirty got on. The first jump that bronc made landed him up on its neck, where he locks his legs around under its jaws and away we went, me way back on its rump and him almost on its head, while Piperock fired salutes and cheered in a loud voice.

We turned a corner and bucked around and around until we slammed up against the jail, where my cinch slid down around the bronc’s hind legs and I got kicked in the belly with both hind feet. Then the bronc whirled sideways, and slammed Dirty against the corner of the building. He just lets loose and drops like a suit of clothes, while the bronc whistles again and hits for the open country.

I ain’t got no ambition left, but I’ve got sense enough to throw the saddle and Dirty Shirt Jones inside the jail, and then fall in after him. I kicked the door shut, but Piperock cometh not. There ain’t no sign of pursuit. Pretty soon Dirty’s lips open and he begins singing:

“—le-e-e-ft up your voice and see-e-e-e-ng. Ho-o-o-o-o-sa-a-na-a——”

“Shut up!” I croaks. “You ain’t dead—yet.”

* * * * *

He sets up and licks his lips while he feels of his head.

“What did yuh say?” he asks, weak-like.

“I said, you ain’t dead.”

“Feller, there’s a lot of things that you don’t know. Where are we?”

“In the jail.”

“Thank the Lord! This is better than I expected. What are we charged with?”

“How much did yuh get in the bank?”

“There wasn’t anybody there,” he wails. “I left one boot. It hung in the cashier’s window and I didn’t have time to get it loose. How did we get here?”

I told him all I knew about it, and he marvels exceedingly.

“We obtained money under false pretenses, Ike,” says he. “We agreed to rob a bank and there wasn’t nobody to hold up.”

“He agreed to plant a couple of horses for us,” says I, “and he either has a danged poor idea of what a feller rides to a bank robbery or we picked the wrong steeds.”

“Prognostications don’t alleviate the crack in my head,” says Dirty. “’Pears to me that my brain is runnin’ out.”

“Cast aside all fear,” says I. “You never could hit that hard. I’ve got a splintered wish-bone and my stummick has been turned wrong side out. What will we do next, Dirty?”

“Get away from here,” says Dirty, which shows that his brains ain’t leaking to no great extent.

“How?” I asks. “Looks to me like this quiet little jail is about the only safe place for me and you.”

“Well, why in —— don’t somebody come along and chide us?” complains Dirty, nervous-like. “It ain’t like Piperock to do things like this, Ike. Why don’t they kill us and have it over with?”

“Want to die, feller?” I asks. “Pinin’ away for death, are yuh?”

“No, I ain’t, Ike, but if I’ve got to die—hurrah for ——! Who’s afraid of fire?”

“Shall we sneak back to the shack and get our disguises, Dirty?”

“Not me! If I’m goin’ to die, good. I’ll die as Dirty Shirt Jones, not as a buzzard-headed bug-hunter who is lookin’ for somethin’ that crawled away and died a million years ago.”

“Well, what yuh goin’ to do, Dirty? Figure a little, can’t yuh?”

“Figgers be ——! I’m to camp right here until dark, or until some figger of vengeance cometh along and herds me hence. _Sabe?_ Give yourself up, go out and get shot, choke yourself to death with your own fair hands—do what you think best, Ike, but old man Jones’ little fair-haired child is goin’ inside a nice cool cell and sleep off a headache.”

“I can’t do nothin’ but foller yuh,” says I, sad-like.

“Your attachment for me is sweet,” says he. “I’m all choked up with e-motion, and if I didn’t feel so bad I would cry.”

Sometimes I wonder who left that quart of hooch under that bunk. We moved the bunk over, so nobody could see us from the sheriff’s office, and there she stood, brave and bold. Me and Dirty surrounds it, inhales the odors of Araby, originated in Kentucky and fixed with equal parts of alkali water, copperas, chewing-tobacco and coal-oil, for the consumption of Piperock’s leading citizens.

Then we humps up on the bunk and wishes each other a great deal of pleasure in the future. I reckon we done a lot of wishin’. I dreamed of a whole danged string of wishes hanging on a line like laundry out to dry, and when I woke it was dark. Dirty Shirt sounds like a dry saw going through a greasewood butt. I’m about to wake him up, when I hears voices. I jabs my heel into Dirty’s shins, and he sets up like one of them mechanical toys.

“Yeah, and I hope yuh gets ninety-nine years and the balance of your life,” we hears Scenery Sims saying in his rusty voice. “I’m goin’ to put yuh in and then I’m goin’ up-town and tell all about it. Some of them snake-hunters think I’m no good as a sheriff, but I gets my man.”

“Some old lady must ’a’ got drunk and fell down and busted her leg,” says Dirty in a hoarse whisper. “Hear that woodchuck peep?”

The door of the cell is yanked open, and two men comes inside. Me and Dirty ain’t ready for to be locked in, so as they comes in we goes out. Scenery stands there in the dark, sort of stiff-like. Dirty Shirt lights a match and holds it up. I hears Scenery give a gasp and then the match went out. Then his gun falls on the floor.

I feels two men slip past us in the dark, but I don’t reckon that Scenery heard ’em. He moved over the table, knocked the lamp-chimney on the floor, and then managed to light the rest of the lamp. He squints at us, and then goes over to the cell, where he peers inside. Then he sets down in a chair and stares at us. We don’t say a word, but we’re dang near bustin’ inside. Pretty soon Scenery gets up, like a feller walking in his sleep, and goes inside and pulls the door shut after himself.

“I—I don’t know,” he squeaks in a whisper, staring at us through the bars. “I ain’t felt good for a week—dang it! Seein’ spots in front on my eyes. It sure is —— to see things thisaway. Must be my stummick.”

Dirty stepped over, blowed out the light and we went outside.

“Where to?” I asks.

“Any civilized port,” says Dirty.

“Somewhere, Ike, there must be a place where a feller can use up the rest of his misspent life without hidin’ behind a stump every time a human bein’ shows up.”

“We’ve got to get transportation,” says I. “Let’s go boldly and take a horse per each from the tie-rack, and go hence rapidly.”

There’s a crowd in front of Sam Holt’s place. Me and Dirty went right to the rack, picked a likely looking bronc per each and got aboard, minus saddles and with nothing on their hammer-heads but hackamores and hair.

Man, I thought that mouse-colored animile could do everything in the book, but this long-legged roan proved to me that my other mount was peckin’ along in the kindergarten class.

* * * * *

High and mighty we went. We changed ends, sunfishin’ and worm-fencin’, but Ike Harper didn’t pull leather—’cause there wasn’t any; but he sure did anchor himself to that bronc’s mane with both hands, got a toe-holt under each shoulder and rode regardless of sun, moon, or tide.

I gets a glimpse of Dirty Shirt Jones ahead of me, and I’d tell a man Dirty is high above that animile’s back, the same of which ain’t healthy to nervous systems nor stummicks.

Into that crowd we went, ——ity blip. I got a rope under my chin, the same of which cut off my wind. Somebody got one arm around my neck and seems to caress me, and then I’m out in the open, far from the maddening crowd. I manages to get a breath, shoves the encircling arm from around my neck and finds that there’s two of us.

I’m all mixed up in a rope. Out of the dark comes another rider, just as my bronc gets hoppled in this danged rope, and turns a handspring. This other horse goes over the top of us, and as far as I’m concerned the earth and sky have met.

Later on I removes the veil and comes back to material things. All is dark and dreary. I hears Dirty singing, soft and low—

“I sa-a-a-a-w the-e-e-e new Jee-e-e-ru-u-u-u-sa-a-a-lem—” and on every word he quavers like some one was shaking his soul.

“——!” says I. “I went further back than that, Dirty. I saw the old town.”

“—le-e-e-e-e-e-ft up your voice and see-e-e-ng,” wails Dirty.

“I ain’t got none to lift!” I yells, and Dirty stops. Then he says—

“Ike, I—I feel that my days are numbered.”

“Mine too—thirteen,” says I, and just then we hears a faint voice saying:

“O-o-o-oh! O-o-o-oh!”

“Does your horse talk English, Ike?” whispers Dirty, and just then a dim figure reels up to us and sets down. It’s still got some rope around its neck. We peers at it, and then Dirty scratches a match. It’s Waldemar, wearing a half-inch rope for a necktie. He was the man I picked up on my way through the crowd.

“Waldemar,” says Dirty, “we welcome you to our graveyard.”

He wheezes for a moment and then manages to croak:

“Take that money back! Take it back!”

“Back to the bank,” he wheezes, when we don’t say anything. “They—they was hanging me, bub-because I—I told ’em it was just a picture stunt. Take the money back!”

“Way around ’em, Shep,” gasps Dirty. “We didn’t get no money. Dang it, there wasn’t anybody in the bank!”

“Don’t say that,” wails Waldemar. “I seen you. I got a hundred feet of the best hold-up on earth, and they were going to hang me.”

“But we didn’t rob the —— bank!” I yowls.

Waldemar is silent for a while and then he says, weary-like—

“Well, somebody did.”

“I dimly remember tellin’ Big Foot and Hoodoo what we was goin’ to do,” says Dirty, sad-like. “That must ’a’ been them two that Scenery brought to jail.”

Me and Dirty gets to our feet. My feet don’t line up good, but I’m too good to lay down and quit.

“We’ll just walk,” says Dirty, sad-like; “just walk and walk until we finds the place which is farthest from Piperock, and then we’ll beg, borrow or steal some broncs and keep on goin’.”

“How about me?” wails Waldemar.

We stops and looks at him, kinda wondering-like.

“I must go back and get my film and camera before I leave,” says he, apologetic-like. “Then where shall I go?”

“Do just as yuh please,” says Dirty, “but as far as me and Ike Harper are concerned, all things bein’ equal, you can take your —— creepin’ tintypes and go plumb to ——!”

We pilgrims away in the darkness, two sufferin’ souls, holding hands that our feet may keep pointing ahead. We’re in no shape to walk and Dirty says:

“Slow up, can’t yuh? They’re lookin’ for Big Foot and Hoodoo, not us. Scenery likely thinks he’s got snakes. Don’t go so fast, yuh——”

“Sa-a-a-y!” yowls Waldemar, far away. “They made me tell who done it.”

We didn’t answer him. Dirty said—

“My ——, ain’t yuh got no speed a-tall, Ike?”

THE END

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the June 18, 1921 issue of _Adventure_ magazine.]