Pulp Fiction, 1934 · page 86 of 148
Western Story Magazine, May 12, 1934 — page 86: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Analysis This is **story prose** from page 84 of Street & Smith's Western Story Magazine. The text depicts a scene in which a character named Jade, disguised as "Jim Freed," enters a town mercantile and learns about the previous owners of a ranch he has purchased. An old man named Remis recounts how the Holloway family—the original owners—suffered hardship: the father died twenty years ago, the mother worked herself to death four years later, and their son "young Jade" was shot and killed on the Knife Edge Trail about a year after that, his body found months later in a canyon. The passage suggests Jade is somehow connected to this tragic history, which he appears to know about already.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
84 had been in months, as he left the burying ground and headed for the Circle Dot. E spent two happy days, there, wandermg up and down the old familiar trails, and would have been content never to set his foot outside its boundaries again, had not the pangs of hunger forced him to the town of Little Pine to buy supplies. In spite of repeated self-assurance that all was well—that that grave, up yonder, had lent the finishing touch to his disguise—Jade was nervous as he reined his nag up the dusty main street of the town. He thought that people stared at him unduly, and expected every moment that some familiar face would light with the sudden gleam of recogni- tion. He rode the town’s whole length, sweat pouring underneath his collar, before he realized the stares were for the stranger that he seemed to be. He tied his mount at the familiar rack in front of Andy Allen’s Mercantile, and went in with his halting gait, to dicker for sup- - plies. It seemed to Jade as if three years ago were yesterday—that same old smell of kerosene and vine- gar and harness leather, and the three old codgers, Spreckles, and Cave, and Remis, squatted behind the stove, and Andy Allen coming up, red-nosed as ever, rubbing his hands and saying: ‘Howdy, stranger! Anythin’ I ean do for you to-day?” Jade said: - “I’m Jim_ Freed. Bought in the Holloway Circle Dot, a couple years ago when it went up for taxes. Never figured I’d move out this way, myself, but times is tough up north, and I thought [d try my hand at ranchin’.” “Why, now, Freed, that’s fine,” Street & Smith’s Western Story Magazine Andy replied. “We’re mighty glad to have you with us. Step up, gents,” he called to the loungers in the rear, “and meet Jim Freed.” The men slouched up and shook hands, looking the stranger over, level-eyed and unabashed, as was the custom in these parts. Jade couldn’t help but squirm a little, though he knew that he was getting . by all right. It was uncannily queer —all these familiar faces grouped about him, and himself unrecog- nized. Old Remis said, in his customary croak: ‘Welcome to Windy Basin, Freed. Wishin’ you better luck, though, than them Holloways had —them whose place you bought.” “So?” Jade asked, eager to hear what Remis had to say, but strug- gling to keep a level voice, and the look of calm disinterest on _ his twisted face. “Yep,” Remis said. “Mebbe you never heard. Old Holloway, he died, first year that they was out here—that was twenty year ago. The woman did the work of half a dozen men, coddlin’ and tendin’ that place of theirs like it was somethin’ human, and she raised the kid be- sides. She worked her heart out. Died four year ago, and the next year after that, young Jade is shot and killed up on the Knife Edge Trail. His horse came in, but they didn’t find the feller’s body till six months after, where he’d took a header off the cliff into the canyon bottom. The wolves had had their way with him, by then, but his clothes was easy to identify.” “Uh-huh,” Jade muttered to him- self, “just like I thought.” He forced himself to light a quirly, be- fore he said aloud: “Sho’, now, that was hard luck. Reckon that’s why the place went up for taxes, though..so Pm. the __