2 Gun Western, May 1957 — page 93: what you’re looking at

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

GRAB A HORSE, HELLION-OR A GUN! | 93 slowly toward them. “So you come back,” said Jim Deever as he stopped. “I told you not to.” Jake Serle smiled—crookedly, from the corner of his mouth, “We're in a jam,” he said. “We need you. There’s a bank to rob and two men ain’t enough. We have to have another man, and you're it.” Jim Deever shook his head. “Not me,” he said definitely. “I’ve been straight twenty years. It’s hard for me to remember when I was crooked.” Pinto Simms ehuckied: “The law could remember,” he said suggestively, “if a hint was dropped that Jim Deever is the fellow that used to call himself the Brazos Kid.” That haunted look deepened ‘in Jim Deever’s eyes. A bitter smile tinged his lips. “I know I’m in a spot,” he said. “I know you'd do anything to get what you want, But listen to me and may- be you'll have a heart. Maybe you'll realize how much bein’ square means to me.” Both Jake Serle and Pinto Simms smiled skeptically, looked bored, im- patient. “I never told you about the but- ton,” Jim went on, “I found him ina smashed up stage coach. Everybody was dead except him. He had a locket with his name in it about his neck and I discovered that he was Guy Rank’s baby. Rank’s wife was dead in the coach. I took the kid and wrote Rank a letter, and told him I had his brat and would make an outlaw out of him. I hated Sheriff Guy Rank more than anybody on earth. I did that to get even with ae I thought that was smart as ell.” Se JIM DEEVER | stopped, smiled and went on again. “But I discovered it wasn’t smart. I had to take care of th’ baby. I fed him and put him to sleep and pretty soon I begun to think he was cute as hell, He’d take hold of my finger and laugh when I tried to pull it away. He was a strong little son of a gun, and he was a pretty healthy baby.” Simms and Serle were grinning sardonically. “I was running like hell from Guy Rank,” Jim went on. “He chased me all over the southwest to try to get his boy. And while I was runnin’ from him I begun to realize that I wasn’t as much afeared of Guy Rank gettin’ me as I was of him takin’ the boy away from me. The kid was doin’ things to me. He could grin at me and I was sunk. He could cry and I dam’ near went crazy won- derin’ what was wrong with him, I woke up all of a sudden and knew I wanted to be a pretty swell gent so the kid would think as much of me as I did of him. In fact I thought so much of him that I started to take him back to give him to his father. I wanted him to have an old man that was honest. But just then [ heard that Guy Rank had been killed. So I turned honest myself. I haven’t done a crooked thing in twenty years. I’ve told you gents that I was straight be- fore this. But that’s why. That’s why it’s definite as hell. I wouldn't steal a nickel for anything on earth. I want that young fellow that just drove the buckboard away from here to be proud of me. Sabe? Now you go on about your business.” Serle’s expression didn’t change. Pinto Simms spat a long stream: of tobacco juice out in front of him and sneered. “We still need a third man to rob a bank,” said Serle. “Get a gun and a horse. Go with us or we’ll tip the law off about the Brazos Kid. It’s just one of them things, Jim, Two of us can’t do the job, and we don’t know who else to get. So you're it. You go with us run from the law. You better hurry. We want to get to Tor- nillo early.” Old Jim Deever seemed to shrink up within himself a little as he stood there studying those two faces be- fore him. He took a deep breath. He knew damn well they’d tip of the law if he didn’t do what they asked him to do. If they did that it was a cinch the kid would know, and Jim Deever would be running from the law again. But it was a gamble that if he went with them that he could get away. Maybe the law Westie econ