2 Gun Western, May 1957 — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

22 2-GUN WESTERN jaw; his cheek was white there, against the tan of the rest of his face, from shaving, which Curt did silently every morning at the cracked mirror over the wash trough behind the bunkhouse. His eyes got a wall- eyed cast, so that he seemed to be looking past both sides of Miss Dooley’s head. “T’ll make it easy for you, Mr. Lit- tle. I hereby order you to go for a ride with me. You may bring two saddle horses up here in fifteen min- utes.” Curt Little didn’t move for a full thirty seconds. Not even the wall- eyed look shifted. A kind of paraly- sis seemed momentarily to take hold of him. Then he put on hisstetson and turned to go. “IT can’t seem to fasten this belt buckle,” Catherine Dooley said sud- denly as Curt put his hand on the door knob. “Will you see if you can do it please before you go, Mr. Lit- tie,” There was no question in her tone, it was another order rather than a request, and Curt turned back slow- ly into the room. She came close in front of him, so that when she low- ered her head to the problem of the broad, gem-studded leather belt around her waist, her shiny dark curls brushed his face. Then her big, wide, limpid green eyes were di- rectly in front of his face when she looked up again. And her full, ripe- red lips. “You see?” she said softly. “It won't fasten properly.” Curt Little took his hat off again and put it back under one arm and addressed the recalcitrant buckle. He frowned and the corners of his mouth thinned bleak and white. And the perfume of this bold and very pretty girl enveloped him, and he raised his eyes as far as her mouth and kissed her... US BALL saw the lip rouge on Curt when Curt came back down the hill and he slammed his right fist full in Curt’s mouth where the red showed. “Get up,” Gus said, though Curt was not entirely down. “Get up and take what’s coming to you, you dam- - Shack stoop; ned sneak. Who the hell do you think you are anyway.” Curt wiped the back of his free hand slowly across his mouth and looked at the blood; he had his left hand back on the ground, where it had gone to prevent his sitting down in a hard bounce. All the men within earshot or eye- shot dropped what they were doing and came running. “Oh boy,” one of them chortled. “Get up,’ Gus Ball said again. Curt got up. Gus went at him at once, the tip of his tongue appearing between thinned-back lips. Curt swung at Gus but Gus’s haymaker clouted Curt at the same time. Gus quickly followed up this staggering blow to the head with a low one to the belly. This last obviously hurt Curt Lit- tle, but he stood toe to toe with Gus Ball for a full two minutes before he lowered his arms and was sick. “His girl friend ought to see him now!” one of the men guffawed. “Now get back to work,” Gus said, “and you’d better by hell not try any more funny stuff.” : Getting “back to work” didn’t make much sense, as far as that went, because Gus Ball had just about run out of chores with which to keep the men busy, so Curt Little was whit- tling the following afternoon right after dinner when Catherine Dooley came down the hill again. “Hello,” She said to Curt. “Hey, Curt!” Gus Ball yelled at once from the corral. “You takin’ the day off or something?” “Have you been fighting?” Cath- erine Dooley spoke again to Curt, looking at the line of caked blood slanting away from Curt’s puffy lower lip. : “Yes ma’am.” “What about?” Curt half squinted almost up at Catherine but not quite, He was sit- ting on the bottom step of the eat- he always whittled down close to the ground like that. “Jest a little ruckus, ma’am.” Catherine Dooley stood there in her bold way watching Curt Little. Her green eyes probed him restlessly in her turn, she was as irritated at — Comichooksrzcom