Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down Read Free

thing we got the people to see it your way, the Banker said, wiping the sweat on his forehead with a crimson handkerchief. Some reinforcements were arriving today. They were in some wagons that was painted real weird and we hanged and shot one who was dressed like a clown. We thought they might be heathens from up North, you dig?
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    You mulish goofies, that was the circus I ordered to divert the kids so’s we could ambush them. Any damned fool knows kids like circuses.
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    Drag we’re confused and nervous. Just today four boxes of drexol were stolen from our already dwindling supply of goods. That’s why we didn’t think when we killed that man. The old people are wandering around the camp bumping into each other they’re so tightened up. All day people are saying hey stupid idiot watch where you’re going. It’s a mad house.
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    And the Preacher Rev. Boyd, he’s in the dumps in a strong and serious way this time. You know how hard he tried with the kids and the town’s heathen, how he’d smoke hookahs with them brats and get stoned with Chief Showcase the only surviving injun and that volume of hip pastorale poetry he’s putting together, Stomp Me O Lord . He thought that Protestantism would survive at least another month and he’s tearing up the Red-Eye and writing more of them poems trying to keep up with the times. Drag you know how out of focus things are around here. After all Drag it’s your world completely now.
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    How can you be so confident your men can take care of them varmits Drag? It takes a trail boss a dozen or so cowboys and a wrangler to get the herd North. You can’t have many cowpokes left behind. Don’t get me wrong I’m not afraid for myself cause I rode with Doc Holiday and the Dalton Boys before I went peace officer—I have handled a whole slew of punks passing through the hopper in my day…why if I hadn’t been up the creek at the Law Enforcement Conference it wouldn’t have happened anyway.
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    You always seem to be at some convention when the town needs you Marshal, Drag said, looking into a hand mirror and with a neckerchief wiping the smudges of mascara that showed above his batting lashes.
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    Drag, the women folk, well you know how women are, what strange creatures they be during menopause. They’re against us wiping out the kids. That’s one of the reasons we didn’t cast lots quicker to give you the hand over of Yellow Back Radio, so that you could adjust all the knobs and turn to whatever station you wished. Anyway we tried to get Big Lizzy to talk to them but they don’t recognize her as one of their own.
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    Pshaw, don’t worry about the women Doc, Drag Gibson said, bringing his old fat and ugly frame to its feet. Start appeasing them and pretty soon they’ll be trying to run the whole show like that kook back in Wichita who campaigned to cut out likker. Now quit your whining and get back to camp and see after them townsfolk. Leave the job up to me.
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    The dignitaries rose and tumbled down the hill. The Banker rolled over a couple of times as Drag stood jerking his shoulders and with one finger in his ear as pellet after pellet flew over the Marshal’s, Banker’s and Doctor’s heads. He relaxed, drank a glass of rotgut and gave the appearance of a statesman by returning to his book The Life of Catherine the Great . As soon as the delegation disappeared, he slammed the book shut and called his boys.
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    Get in here cowpokes, we’re in business.
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    Skinny McCullough the foreman followed by some cowhands rushed onto the lawn and surrounded their boss. Chinaboy! Chinaboy! Bring me that there package.
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    The Chinese servant rushed into the scene with his arms weighed down with a bundle.
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    O.K. men, Drag said, this is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for. They signed the town over to me, the chumps, haw haw.
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    He opened the