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Read Ebook: Creepin' Tintypes by Tuttle W C Wilbur C
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Ebook has 243 lines and 9796 words, and 5 pages
Produced by: Roger Frank and Sue Clark
CREEPIN' TINTYPES
by W. C. Tuttle
There ain't no question but what me and "Dirty Shirt" Jones would like to go back to Piperock. Sort of a call of the wild, I reckon, and at that there ain't many places wilder than Piperock.
Me and Dirty started in to help "Scenery" Sims, the sheriff, put "Tombstone" Todd in jail. It was dark and Scenery didn't have no handcuffs, so me and Dirty helped him handle his prisoner. Me and Dirty have peered upon the wine when it was red and neither of us cared much for Scenery with his squeaky little voice; so when Piperock awoke the next morning they had to dynamite the jail to get their sheriff out of his own cell. No, I don't know where Tombstone went.
Thereupon Piperock riseth in a body and follers me and Dirty plumb to the border. Maybe they wanted to congratulate us, but we're very, very modest. Me and Dirty ain't bad. We was just joking with Scenery.
"The West," says he, "is the bunk. There ain't none such."
"What for kind of a West does you require?" asks Dirty, like he was trying to sell the feller a necktie.
"Wild," says he. "Wild like the writers tell us about. The kind of a West that Buffalo Bill knew. I've hunted for it loud and long, but she ain't and that's an end to it. Have another drink?"
"Mister," says Dirty, "you came West but you never got there. Somehow you missed Piperock."
"Whither lieth said Piperock?"
"Lieth is a good word," nods Dirty. "In direction, she's south of here and as the crow flies she's a hundred miles."
"Is that real West?"
"Man, that's the West. All others is imitations and frauds."
"You brings me great cheer," says he. "Bartender, do your duty."
"You bring cheer to two of us, the same of which makes three cheers."
"I wouldst have you take me to this Piperock place."
"Yeah?" says Dirty. "Me and Ike Harper are not taking anybody within sheriff-shot of Piperock, although our hearts are homesick for the old village of vice. We wouldst go there, pardner, but circumstances are against us. We'll tell yuh some few things pertaining to that hamlet of horror, but that's as far as we'll go.
"The city limits of Piperock are the distance a sheriff can ride in two hours and then shoot with a .30-30; the same of which marks a spot several miles removed from the turmoil of town. Me and Ike are outside that distance and we stays out, eh, Ike?"
"I am a realist," says he, dreamy-like. "I hate the artificial."
"Gawd bless and keep yuh," says Dirty. "You'll find it there, but yuh may never return back. The sheriff sells cemetery space."
He absorbs his liquor and seems a heap interested.
"Is there a bank there that might be robbed and does they have a stage that might have a reason for carrying bullion?"
"Now," says Dirty, "me and Ike appears shocked at your question, but at the same time we're a heap interested. Let's go outside where there ain't no walls to have ears and speak of such things as banks and stages. Yuh never can tell who might overhear us and suspect us of philanthropy."
We goes across the street and sets down on the sidewalk.
"Now," says Dirty, "there is a bank and there is a stage. Me and Ike are broke, but up to the present our records are as clean as our six-guns."
"Would you know how to rob a bank or a stage?" he asks. "Do the job like it ought to be done?"
"But," says Dirty, "we're honest. We'll split three ways, mister."
He thinks it over for a while, and then says--
"Well, I feel that I've struck what I've been looking for."
"That's what 'Mighty' Jones said when he fell off into Hellgate Ca?on and dislodged a hunk of galena ore, fifty feet from the bottom," says Dirty.
"A feller never knows his luck till the wheel stops."
"You two are going with me," says he.
"That's why you're going with me."
"You're a danged poor fortune-teller," observes Dirty. "Me and Ike would last about as long as a snowball in Yuma and you'd be alone. They'd put us in a nice little jail and then you'd get lost, strayed or stolen.
"No, sir. You write to all your folks, predictin' your demise, leave your watch and chain with the bartender, and then walk into town, unarmed and with your hands in the air."
"Mister, she's a great place for freaks," says Dirty. "You won't be in that place long until you'll join P. T. Barnum."
"Barnum?" says he. "Barnum is dead."
"Sure--I know it."
"Yes," says he, after a while. "You're going with me. I'll disguise you so nobody will know you, you understand? I must have you with me."
"I am a realist, as I said before. The West has never been depicted as I feel it really is and I am going to show them something new. I have a story, 'The Twilight Trail,' which has been partly done, but I want realism. I want the spirit of the old West in it. I want a stage hold-up, a bank robbery, with real people in it, in a Western town--real West. Now, do you understand?"
"Yeah, he's plumb modest and meek, Ike. Are you a writer?"
"Moving-pictures, gents. I am Llewellyn Waldemar."
"Sounds like a breed of bird-dogs," says Dirty, "but his ears are too small."
"You don't need to insult me," he snaps.
"Now, wait," begs Dirty. "Did you ever see a Llewellyn dog?"
"No, I never did."
"No, I take 'em."
"Hm-m-m-m," says Dirty. "I never seen any, but I've heard tell about 'em. Does them pitchers make yuh think they're movin'?"
The feller looks at Dirty, like he was a new species of animal, and then wipes his eyes. He wipes his eyes several times and acts like he had a fish-bone in his throat, but he gets all right after while and says:
"Come on. I'm going to find a disguise for you to wear."
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