Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down Read Free Page A

package and placed its contents on the table.
    Â 
    This is a brand new revolving cylinder. It has eight chambers. A murderer’s dream with a rapid firing breech-loading firearm.
    Â 
    The cowpokes’ eyes lit up and foam began to form around their lips.
    Â 
    It was invented by a nice gent lecturer named Dr. Coult of New York London and Calcutta. Just bought it from Royal Flush Gooseman, the shrewd, cunning and wicked fur trapper, the one who sold them injuns those defected flintlocks allowing us to wipe them out.
    Â 
    The kids are down there with a circus I booked under a pseudonym. I been watching them through my long glass. Now get busy and before you know it Drag Gibson will be the big name in Yellow Back Radio then Video Junction then va-va-voom on to the East, heh heh heh.
    Â 
    The cowpokes from Drag Gibson’s Purple Bar-B drank some two-bits-a-throw from a common horn and armed with their shiny new weapons headed towards the outskirts of Yellow Back Radio on their nefarious mission.
    Â 
    The Dancing Bear, the Juggler, Loop and Zozo entertained the children far into the night. The Dancing Bear did acrobatic feats with great deftness, Loop his loco lariat tricks, and Zozo read the children’s palms and told their fortunes.
    Â 
    Finally Jake the Barker gathered them near the fire to tell of the Seven Cities of Cibola, magnificent legendary American paradise where tranquilized and smiling machines gladly did all of the work so that man could be free to dream. A paradise whose streets were paved with opals from Idaho, sapphire from Montana, turquoise and silver from the great Southwest:
    Â 
    In the early half of the sixteenth century about 1528 an expedition which included the black slave Estevancio landed at Tampa Bay. He and his companions were lost trapped and enslaved by Indians. Other expeditions also vanished mysteriously. Legend has it that the city can only be found by those of innocent motives, the young without yellow fever in their eyes.
    Â 
    Stupid historians who are hired by the cattlemen to promote reason, law and order—toad men who adore facts—say that such an anarchotechnological paradise where robots feed information into inanimate steer and mechanical fowl where machines do everything from dig irrigation ditches to mine the food of the sea help old ladies across the street and nurture infants is as real as a green horse’s nightmare. Shucks I’ve always been a fool, eros appeals more to me than logos. I’m just silly enough to strike out for it tomorrow as soon as the circus splits up.
    Â 
    A place without gurus monarchs leaders cops tax collectors jails matriarchs patriarchs and all the other galoots who in cahoots have made the earth a pile of human bones under the feet of wolves.
    Â 
    Why don’t we all go, the children shrieked.
    Â 
    Wait a minute, Jake said, we don’t have enough supplies for the trip. It lies somewhere far to the south.
    Â 
    That’s no task, supplies, one of the children said.
    Â 
    After huddling together they all started into the town, leaving the troupe behind. Finally having had a loot-in on the Hat and Boot store, the Feed store and the Bank they returned with enough supplies to make the long journey.
    Â 
    I guess I can’t argue against that, Jake said turning to Loop, Zozo and the Juggler. Welcome to my expedition into the unknown.
    Â 
    The children reveled and danced around.
    Â 
    When they finished storing provisions into the wagons the entire party went to sleep. The next morning there would be much work to do. The troupe bedded down in their wagons and the children slept beneath warm buffalo robes.
    Â 
    Loop Garoo was dreaming of bringing down the stars with his tail when all at once he smelled smoke. He awoke to find horsemen surrounding the circle. The children began to scream and some of their clothes caught fire from torches the bandits had tossed into the area. Rapid gunfire started up