Pulp Fiction, 1955 · page 8 of 101
15 Western Short Stories — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Content Analysis This page contains story prose from a Western pulp fiction magazine titled "Western Short Stories." The text appears to be the continuation of a narrative involving a character named Bob who works on the McLeod ranch. The passage depicts Bob's internal deliberation after McLeod's apparent death—he considers stealing cattle meant to pay off the ranch's debts and fleeing north, rationalizing the theft as unpaid wages. The prose explores Bob's conflicted emotions about leaving the ranch, his gratitude toward McLeod despite past resentments, and his growing temptation toward criminal action. The narrative ends mid-sentence as Bob begins his day.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
WESTERN SHORT STORIES 8 To GLIDDENS had sat perfectly still, the shallow black eyes un- flickering. Then Luke had grinned. “Anything to oblige a neighbor,” he said. “If we see your horses we'll chouse them down.” Two days later the horses had come out of the hills. Bob, backtracking them one morning before sunup, had discovered a corral thrown up in a small canyon. . Bob wondered at that again. There hadn’t. been anything in what was said. McLeod hadn’t offered a fight, but the feeling was strong he was ready for one. He’d asked McLeod about it one time. Big John had grinned. “The Gliddens know me; they know the kind of man I am, they weren’t ready for trouble with me. Besides, you were sitting right behind me, and I hear you're a pretty rough boy. This don’t mean they won’t try again.” From the looks of the tracks now, perhaps the Gliddens had made their second try. And this time John Mc- Leod wasn’t around to bluff them. Bob shook his head, shying away from his suspicion. The cattle had been on the range untended all summer; if the Giiddens had intended to pick them off they’d have done so before now. If the tracks were Luke’s and Pete's, they were probably on a hunt- ing trip. At nightfall he drove the cattle into a side canyon, tying his lariat across the entrance to hold them, then camped just outside, along a gravelly bar. For the first time he felt a sense of loss, of loneliness, like the first nights at the reform school. McLeod had been all the time trying to teach him something, but outside of that, life with him hadn’t been too bad. He wondered where his next stop would be. After he sold the cattle and paid off the banker, Washburn, he was all through around here. McLeod had been the only one in the whole country who hadn't looked at him as if he’d had a rattlesnake in each pock- et. Except Gretchen Mueller, maybe, and it was her natural disposition not to be mean to anybody. He’d been heading for Portland when the railroad bull had picked him off the freight. Maybe he could go to sea from there. He wondered what would happen to the McLeod ranch. Gretchen’s father, old Henry, had had his eye on it for a long time. Well, it wouldn’t make any difference to him. He felt a vague regret at leaving. Being on the McLeod ranch was the next thing to being in jail, and maybe that was why he hated to leave; he’d seen old convicts pull some petty job to get back into jail. He remembered the times of his bitter resentment against McLeod; the times he’d want- ed to slam away the tools of his chores and slope over the hill. That was it, he was fresh out of jail now, and ina day or two, after he’d cleared up Mc- Leod’s debt, he’d be on his way. An idea tugged at the corner of his thinking. Why go to all the bother of paying McLeod’s debt? If the Glid- dens could take cattle north to the mines to be beeved, he could do it, too. It sounded good. By the time Wash- burn got wise, he could have the cat- tle north and out of the country. He'd never got any payment from McLeod for all the work he’d done. He could call the cattle his wages. First he’d have to take McLeod's body in and see that it was buried, then he could start the cattle toward town in case old Henry Mueller was suspicious. Once around the hill out of sight he could swing north and keep going. E ROLLED into his blankets, so excited with the idea that he thought he could not go to sleep, but he dozed and awoke startled in full daylight. He hurried through breakfast and started the cattle down the creek to- ward the McLeod ranch. A mile down he crossed the tracks of two horses again. This time they were stepping in the tracks of three cows and two calves. The tracks came down a faint game trail from one shoulder of the Wishbone and crossed over to a low saddle on a ridge. Beyond that ridge lay the Glidden, ranch. There wasn’t any doubt about it. The Gliddens had picked off some beef for the mines. The day before he’d seen it as a possibility, then it hadn’t worried him COmiclboo SS CO