15 Western Short Stories — page 83: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

STARPACKER STAMPEDE Finish your beer and let’s be driftin’, We're down to our last sawbuck, and if we don’t hook onto a job soon—” It’s like talking to the wind. McCarthy finds out from Solly Weizenheimer, who is almost as full of information as an encyclopedia, that all you need to do if you want to run for public office in Tanktown is get fifty bonafide voters to sign a petition and then file it with the county clerk in Longhorn City. By half-past ten the same mornin’ my energetic pardner is back with forty- nine names--and he’s only had one refusal, That’s from Artemus Squidge, general manager and chief and only teller of the Tanktown Cattlemen's Bank. I ain't surprised, either. Grumpy Gordon is a stockholder in this bank, and besides, under Grumpy, there hasn’t been a holdup in Tank- town in ages. “Why don’t you sign it?” suggests Windy, back at the Moosehead with his heel hooked into the identical Same spot in the brass rail. “You're a citizen—you could do it.” | “I could,’ I says firmly, “but I won't. And I hope you don’t find any- body else that’s loco enough to—” He herds me impatiently through the batwing doors to the board walk. I goes, for his own safety and protec- tion. There’s no way of tellin’ what fool thing he may do if left alone, and I had sorta promised his mother— “Well,” says Windy, “forty-nine signers ain’t bad for a town of this size, considerin’ I was only at it for about an hour.” “You got plenty signers all right,” I admits. “But all them hombres done was sign their names, and what you're signin’—runnin’ against old Grumpy Gordon—is your own danged death warrant! Anybody honin’ to run against old Gordon—instead of away from him—must be plumb outa his head to start with.” “Say, look!” Windy grabs my arm, and points. “Here comes Gordon now!” We stops at the hitch rack in front of the Cattle King Hotel and watches the grizzled old lawman come jounc- in’ up the street on his big bay geld- in’, Cricket. He pulls up in front of the hotel and creaks down outa the 83 saddle. Pausin’ a moment, he glares at McCarthy, then says, “harrrrrrump!” in kind of a warnin’ voice and heads for his office and one-room jail in the little pine board buildin’ next to the Cattle King. “Come on,’ says Windy suddenly, “T got a scheme!” Before I can stop him, he steps for- ward and lays a detainin’ hand on the old man’s shirtsleeve! “Howdy, marshal,” says my rattle- brained pardner. “Like to talk to yuh a minute.” I forgot to mention, I guess, that in spite of his runt size Windham B. Mc- Carthy has one remarkable and out- standin’ attribute. Nerve! The marshal whirls as though Mc- Carthy has prodded him in the back with a six-gun. “Tf you aim to palaver with me,” he barks, “come in my office. But git ready to high-tail if it’s about Luella! IT ain’t got no time for saddle tramps.” INDY FOLLOWS the marshal into the little office and waits for Gordon to drop himself into a bat- tered swivel chair behind his roll- topped desk, I trails in behind ’em, figurin’ maybe I could give the mar- shal some help afterwards about the disposition of the body. _ Windy pulls the petition out of his pocket and begins: “Marshal Gordon, for four years you, as peace officer of Tanktown, have give us Tanktowners a good honest administration and we’d be mighty ungrateful if we wasn’t—er —erateful.” Grumpy Gordon’s eyebrows lift a bit when he is pleased. They pop up now and his weather-beaten jowls crease in a pretty fair imitation of a smile, “Harrrrumph!” He picks up a desk pen, scratches his head with it, then tucks it behind his right ear. “So,” continues Windy, clearin’ his throat importantly, “as your populari- ty ain’t never been questioned, me and Piccolo here has got the voters to sign a unanimous petition for the continua- tion of justice, law and order, but”— he adds after an impressive pause— “on a even bigger and better scale than previous.” The marshal’s bushy gray eyebrows bob up again and he strokes his strag- COMmicboOoks CO