Fifteen Western Tales, January 1953 — page 54: what you’re looking at

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

54 | FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES “Hard as hell,” was Barney’s answer. “If you hadn’t given me this job, Seth, it’d have finished me. An’ I sure don’t know what poor Clara would have done either.” “How is Clara?” Barney’s throat tightened. A kind of sick hopelessness hit him at the thought of his invalid wife. He shook his head. “Getting worse, Seth. She just wastes away a little at a time. This town’s killing her, Seth.” Brackson sighed. ‘You'll have to have a mighty big stake to take her back Fast.” Barney nodded. “I appreciate you taking me in and giving me this job, Seth. You pay me good, but a man can’t save any money in this inflated town. I don’t know what to do.”’ Brackson leaned forward. “This town knocked the courage out of her. And it did the same thing to you, Barney. You ain’t a gunman. You ain’t a cattleman. You're a farmer, an’ that’s what you came out here to be. I gave you a job when the Texans busted up your wagon an’ stampeded your team. But you. need guts, Barney. I can’t give you that.” Barney flushed. “It’s money I peed. That’s all. Clara’s got to be taken out of here, and back where we can get a doctor, a specialist. She’ll die in this country, and I got to get the money to take her out of it.” Brackson fondled his long black cigar. “Maybe she just needs some courage, Bar- ney, an’ ain’t gettin’ it from you.” Barney tried to smile. “I know you're tryin’ to help me, Seth, but I know what Clara needs. I got to get her back East. I was a damned fool for bringin’ her out here. But I thought I was gonna be a big pioneer, an’ start me up a nice farm. My dad was a farmer and it’s all I know. But what chance has a man got when the Texans come in and ride rough-shod over your land an’ bring in cattle ticks and disease? They never gave me a chance, anyway. They got me before I even got unloaded.” It had been about six months since he’d come into the outskirts of Dodge. A bunch of Texans, just in with a big beef drive from Texas, had shot up his wagon, run his team off, insulted Clara and scattered his supplies all over the plains. Then they’d made him take off his boots, and’ had chased him through the main street of Dodge, firing ,.45 slugs at his heels. Barney had a six-shooter on him then, but he didn’t know how to use it well enough, he’d figured, to fight back at that band of wild-yelling Texans. But he remembered the leader was a big, raw-boned “man with a thick black mustache, who had worn a grey stetson and a gray buckskin vest. He couldn’t forget him. And he’d never forget Clara atten the way she’d stared, her eyes getting big and dark, and how she'd fainted, when he’d come back, sneaking through the dark like a starved coyote. Then he’d gotten drunk, and stayed drunk for weeks, and gambled away all their money. He’d been in a kind of a daze, until one night, he woke up and shook it off, and taking stock, realized what had happened to himself—and to Clara. And then he’d found out that even in a wild town like Dodge City, cne man can be the friend of another. It was Seth Brackson aio gave him a job bar-hopping. That’s where Barney had been ever since, licking his wounds. Be- hind the bar, he earned a bare living, and spent his spare time hating the West, and above all, hating ‘that nameless Texan who had insulted him. - 6G HIS town ain’t so bad, in itS way, Barney,” Brackson was saying. ‘‘And al! Texans ain’t untamable hellions. That big fella who broke up your wagon and shot the ground from under your feet was a gunman. Blacky Jethro. A damned good gun rannie, but not a thing to make friends with.” “There’s too much money in this saloon of yours,” Barney mumbled. “I need money, and I see all this raw gold dust, eagles an’ double eagles going back an’ forth, an’ I think of Clara up there wastin’ away, an’ it drives me crazy.’ “Money is something — can use only if you’ve already got the qualifications to use it,’ Brackson said. “An’ as I said afore, Barney, that Texan bunch put the fear in your bones, an’ that’s what you’ve got to rid yourself of.” ‘Barney ruffled then. “I ain’t a coward, Brackson. But who the hell would want to stay and fight a town like this, in his right mind? This town just don’t make a pretense a’ being a place to live in.” Voices blurred in over the roaring volume of course laughter. There was the tinkle of glass and tinny music blared from the piano» Coniiclboooks.c© inn