Wild Town Read Free

selected, Kafka, Schopenhauer, Addison and Steele—now, really, officers!
    The cops asked Bugs a few questions. Bugs responded with a wholly impossible suggestion involving their nightsticks and a certain part of their anatomy.
    Skip the details. Bugs got a rough roust out of Dallas, leaving town with new knots on his head and fresh bruises to his spirit.
    Walking through the outskirts of Fort Worth, he saw a little girl fall off her tricycle. He picked her up, and dusted her off. He hunkered down in front of her, joking with her tenderly, getting her to smile. And a patrol car drifted into the curb…
    Bugs spent two weeks in the Fort Worth jail. At Weatherford, the next town west, he was jugged for three days. In Mineral Wells, he drew another three days of “investigation.” He was spitting blood when he emerged from it, but it hadn’t softened him a bit. His last words to the cop who escorted him to the city limits were of a type to curl the hair on a brass monkey.
    Still, he knew he couldn’t take much more; not without a little rest anyway. He had to get the hell away from the cities, the heavily settled areas, and do it fast or he’d damned well be dead. So he left the highways, and took to the freights. He stuck with them, moving inconspicuously from freight to freight, moving steadily westward. And eventually he arrived at the place called Ragtown. That was about as far west as a man could go. As anything but a jack rabbit or a tarantula would have reason for going.
    Thirty minutes after his arrival he was in jail.
    It was partly his own fault, he admitted reluctantly. Just a little his own fault. Having dropped off the freight, he was in the station rest-room washing up, when a leathery-faced middle-aged man walked in. A silver badge was clipped to his checked shirt. He wore a gunbelt and an ivory-handled forty-five.
    As he started to bend over the drinking fountain, Bugs turned from the sink and faced him. He stared at the man, his eyes hard and hateful. Leather-face straightened slowly, a puzzled-polite frown building up on his face.
    “Yeah, stranger?” he said. “Something on your mind?”
    “What do you mean, what’s on my mind?” Bugs said. “I’m not stupid. You saw me drop off that freight. You’ve got me tagged for a bum. So, all right, let’s drop the dumb act and get on with the business. I’m David McKenna, alias ‘Bugs’ McKenna; last permanent address, Texas State Penitentiary; recent addresses, Dallas city jail, Fort Worth city jail, Weatherford city jail, Mineral Wells city—”
    “Now, looky”—the man made a baffled gesture. “I mean, what the hell?”
    “Come on! Come off of it! I suppose you just followed me in here to get a drink, huh?”
    The man started to nod. Then, his squinted gray eyes turned frosty, and his voice dropped to a chilling purr. “Lookin’ for trouble, eh?” he said, the words cold-edged but soft. “Just ain’t happy without it. Well, I always like to oblige.”
    The gun whipped up from his hip. Bugs hesitated; nervous, oddly ashamed, wondering why it was that he always had to be in such a hell of a hurry with the mouth.
    “Look,” he mumbled. “I-I’ve been catching it pretty rough. I didn’t mean to—”
    “You look.” The hammer of the gun clicked. “Look real good. Now, you want to move or do you want me to move you?”
    Bugs moved.
    The jail was in the basement of the ancient brick courthouse. The ventilation and the light were bad, but the bunks were clean, and the chow—brought in from one of the town’s restaurants—was really first class. Each prisoner got three good meals a day, as opposed to the twice-a-day slop in most jails. He was also given a sack of makings or, if he preferred, a plug of chewing.
    Bugs supposed there was a gimmick somewhere in the deal. Probably you’d have pay off with a road gang at twelve hours a day. But such, according to the other prisoners—no local talent, all floaters like himself—was not