2-Gun Western, February 1954 — page 72: what you’re looking at

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

72 It was then that baldish little Curly Blair waddled up. “Guess who’s in town, boys!” he panted. “A crystal- gazer! Five-foot three, blonde. Blue eyes, an’ lips like cherries. Boy! Is she a looker!” The punchers piled off the rail fence as if induced by a scythe. Shorty Dixon, big and whiskered like a chaparral thicket, straightened his tie, slicked down his unruly black mop of hair. “Mebbe she could larn me a few things at that,” he admitted warmly. “Let's go.” They proceeded to saddle up their broncs. “What's a crystal-gazer?” asked Burlap, still on the fence. He was fingering the card deck in his broad palms. RED TROWBRIDGE grinned over his sorrel mare. Fred was handsome as all get-out, a sure-fire trick with the women. So he thought. “Fortune-teller, yuh dumb galoot,” Fred grunted. “Ain’t you never go- ing to learn nothin’? Fork that cayuse and follow us.” Burlap sighed and pocketed his deck. Soon he was mounted and dust- ing over the stubble after the gallop- ing Crescent Bar boys. In Piute town, some five odd miles to the north, they thundered down the main street, whooping to high heaven, and shooting their guns into the air. Citizens on the boardwalks dove for cover, and the storeowners removed valuable articles from the windows, cursing roundly. “Them polecats!” groaned livery- man Shultz, quieting his bucking horses with difficulty. “Blow the lid 9 99 off the dan, town with their hellin’. His wife, knitting quietly in her rocker, nodded. “Boys will be boys. That Bates lad, now, he seems a nice sort. Not as rambunctious as the rest. I hear he wants to be a deputy.” The liveryman snorted. “Deppity— huh! Burlap couldn’t catch a cold. Slower’n molasses. Stowe’d never want him draggin’ around his office.” The Crescent Bar men dismounted before Tad Geshault’s Saloon. By craning their necks, they could make 2-GUN WESTERN out the large sign below the second story window. “Princess Zaza,” the big letters an- nounced, “palm-reading and crystal gazing. Why consider the price, with the past and the future at stake? All readings guaranteed accurate. Hours —9 AM to 9 PM.” “Curly says she charges five bucks a visit,” murmured Cactus Hardin. “Phew!” whistled Shorty Dixon. “There goes that silk shirt I was gonna get me. But if she’s as good as yuh say, Curly—” Curly Blair was looking like a moonstruck cali. “Them lips, them eyes, thet figger—” “What in hell we waitin’ for?” jerked Ted Trowbridge. He was the first to mount the rickety back stairs. Burlap trailed in with the rest, em- barrassed. Women made him blush to the core, especially the pretty ones. And he could see at first glance that the scantily-clad young woman seated in the heavily curtained room wasn’t hard to look at. Gingerly, Burlap re- moved his hat, fingering the brim nervously, Princess Zaza was an eyeful. Orien- tal silks served to accentuate her well rounded figure. Her face, slightly veiled, was marble smooth, her blue eyes like moon-silvered pools above the carmen curve of her lips. When she moved, it was with the grace of a young fawn. “Please be seated, gentlemen,’ she said softly, “about the crystal. Now, do you wish a group reading, or in- dividual ones?” Burlap was edging toward the door. Cactus Hardin grabbed him by the seat of his pants. “Whoa, bashful. You ain’t gettin’ out o’ this. You're forkin’ over five bucks like the rest of us. Yuh wanna hurt the young lady’s feelin’s?” Princess Zaza’s mellow voice was crooning on. She was reading Shorty Dixon’s past, present and future in the clear glass ball before her. “I see a tall man. A top hand wad- die, I think you call him. He is so strong like the bull. He can tear a mail-order catalogue with his bare hands. Last year, he saved his horse from a bog, almost losing his life. He CORMICLOOOKS (C@)