The Ballad of Dingus Magee Read Free Page A

“Them prosty-toots. They still got all them prosty-toots here?”
    “Old Turkey. Now jest what else outside of ripe titty do you reckon would make a feller ride full across the New Mex territory?”
    “Huh?”
    “Git along, Turkey.”
    “Well, hang me for a horse-stealer.” Turkey almost kicked his mount into a gallop at the wonderment of it.
    So then they shot him.
    He was just passing the rear of a livery, the first imposing building in the town, and the light thrown by the single lamp near the back entrance seemed scarcely enough. So when he heard the shout, with whores still uppermost in his mind, he never thought to spur clear. “Great gawd, it’s him!” it seemed the voice said, and then a horse was clomping hard by Turkey’s ear, and then something else was being yelled that he never did comprehend. There were five or six shots, at the least.
    So he had time; he might well have told himself “Turkey, it sure is happening now, it absolutely and truly is happening at that.” Instead he floated there in the saddle, actually with one hand poised to commence scratching, in fact, until something that felt like a thrown anvil nudged him in the ribs, and after that something else he was fairly certain was ground collided with his head, and so all he told himself was, “Well, if that ain’t my luck, sure enough.”
    For a long while then everything was remarkably peace-fid, and remarkably quiet too, except for the soft measured sound of dripping that Turkey was positive came from inside of him somewhere, although he was far too weary to sit up and solve it.
    “Did you git ‘im, Hoke?” a faraway voice said at last.
    “What do you reckon that is alaying out there, you addle-brained fool?”
    “Is he dead?”
    “How the thunderation should I know?”
    “Ain’t you going out to see?”
    “And take a chance I get my brains blowed out?”
    The voices stopped then, or faded beyond hearing, so Turkey began to talk instead. “It looks like I’m kilt, boys,” he said, although not loudly. “Put it down that I were riding with Dingus Billy Magee, will you do me that little thing, boys?”
    But nobody did him any little thing. Turkey could see an incarnadine sky, and the glow from the stable off to one side, but nearby nothing moved. Then the voices came again.
    “You aiming to jest leave him lay there, Hoke?”
    “You go, you’re so all-fired anxious.”
    “Ain’t said one word about being anxious. Jest a mite curious, is all.”
    “Well, shut your yap then and leave me do it my way.”
    “Don’t look like much of a way, jest ducked down here back of a cow.”
    So it might have been ten minutes, perhaps only five. Turkey continued to hear the dripping, which eventually slowed. Finally he was able to perceive shadows looming nearby.
    “Keep me covered good, now—”
    “I got dead bead on his skull, Hoke—”
    “Well, keep it that way.”
    The shadows came closer, with infinite slowness. Then, hovering near him, one of them paused. It hung there for a time, disembodied.
    “Dead, Hoke?”
    “Oh, that miserable varmint! Oh, that double-dealing, nooky-snatching, sneaky-assed skunk! I’ll—I’ll—”
    “What’s that, Hoke?”
    “I’ll crucify him! I swear, this time I’ll murder the little sidewinder if’n it’s the ultimate mortal deed I do on this earth! I’ll bend his mangy dong in half and stomp on it like—”
    “How’s that again?”
    “Ain’t him. Ain’t Dingus.”
    “That’s Dingus’s red-and-yeller vest there, ain’t it?”
    Turkey Doolan smiled. “He give me the hat too, boys,” he proclaimed. “We was right fond chums, me and Dingus William Magee.”
    “Sure, it’s Dingus’s vest,” the voice said, ignoring him. “And that makes three blasted times in six months I done put a bullet clean through the turd-wiping thing, too—with some other hero-worshiping durned imbecile wearing it every blasted time!”
    But Turkey Doolan had stopped attending. He listened to