2-Gun Western, November 1955 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

THE WILD TIME | 9 Landry was in the neighborhood. “At first they were sayin’ in town that he was just ridin’ this way and would like as not ride right on through,” Spooner told Martha Fos- ter. “But now they say the Rangers are combin’ this section for Landry, and that he’s apt to hole-up in town for a spell. That’s what they do when it gets hot: there’s places to hide in a town, they can get food and liquor, they can fort up if necessary, they can take hostages. “So what I meant was—if we could somehow keep Dick out of town for a few days—it might be a good idea. These young-uns get ideas. When they first get handy with a gun, they figure they can take on Jesse James.” Martha Foster dropped her sewing in her lap, and she put tired eyes on Spooner, the glow from the table lamp deepening the circles under them. “He’s his own boss now, Ed,” she said softly. “He would never stay away from town if I asked him to. eae he won't take the work serious- y—’ “He ain’t a bad boy, Mrs. Foster. He ain’t nearly as disrespectful as you think. Young-uns act that way at his age, them with any get-up-and- go in them, especially. You wait; Dick’ll be all right.” “If some Charlie Landry doesn’t kill him first.” Ed Spooner came up from taking a long sip of coffee from his saucer, into which he always ceremoniously emptied his cup, with his head on one side. “That's what we got to keep. from happenin’,” he said. “So what I fig- ured, Mrs. Foster, you’ll have to play- act like you're sick.” Spooner’s eyes went as round as his saucer with the daring of this unaccustomed conniy- ance, waiting for her reaction. - But Martha Foster shook her head. “T doubt if even that would keep Dick here, Ed. I—I’m not sure that he really—loves me any more—” “Sure he does. He just acts like he’ don’t, like I told you. Deep-down he loves you same as ever, you'll see. So what I figured was—i'd ride into town and see if I can find him, and while I’m gone you hop into bed with a hot compress on your head.” Spoon- er’s eyes went still wider with this imaginative scheming. “Yeah.” Martha Foster had to laugh at that. Then she shook her head and her eyes were moist when she said, “You're very sweet, Ed, and I'll never forget your— “I ain't sweet. I just want to keep young Dick in one piece, so’s when he gets over his growin’ pains he can take up where his daddy left off. So’s I can start gettin’ my pay reg’lar again,’ he added with a twinkle in his eye. ¢cPTHAT ANIMAL could stand some attention, son,” the white- haired hostler finally made himself say to Charlie Landry. Like everybody else in town, he’d been frozen into slow-motion ever since the word had flashed about an hour past sunset that the notorious young killer was riding in, but no man who loved horseflesh could have stood to look very long at Landry’s beaten mount and not spoken up in its defense. Sitting ‘the shiny sweat-wet palo-. mino indifferently where he’d let it come to a stop halfway along the main street, Charlie Landry put his gaze on the aged liveryman, while the town waited breathless. Landry said, as though he hadn’t heard the hostler’s words, “What’s the town all lit up for, old man?” The street was indeed, for a Tues- day night, inordinately illuminated, with the swaths of yellow light that extended from the saloon, the em- porium, the hotel, the livery, the law office, the restaurant, blended by a full moon into an effect almost re- sembling daylight. Not, of course, actually like daylight; rather like a stage-set denoting it, with a tension about it such as one feels in the weird glow that precedes a tornado. “It ain’t lit up ’specially,” liveryman said. “What's it, lit up for me or for the Rangers?” The liveryman frowned, Rangers?” “The Rangers that are on my tail. Fifteen of ’em. Big, tough Texas Rangers, I sat that hill you got out there and I watched ’em comin’, May- the “What Comiclsooks.€©