coming they took to the other side of the street. One small boy
came up and asked for his autograph. Slade, who didn't want to
encourage that sort of thing, shot him in the leg and walked on.
At the hotel he asked for a room, and the trembling clerk said the
second floor suite was available, and Slade went up. He undressed,
then put his boots on again, and climbed into bed. He was asleep in
moments.
Around one in the morning, while Slade was dreaming sweetly of
his chlldhood sweetheart Miss Polly Paduka of Peachtree, Illinois,
the window was eased up little by little, without even a squeak to
alert Slade's keen ears. The shape that crept in was frightful indeed
- for if Jack Slade was the most feared gunslinger in the American
Southwest, the Hunchback Fred Agnew was the most detested
killer. He was a two foot three inch midget with a hump big
enough for a camel halfway down his crooked back. In one hand
he held a three foot Arabian skinning knife (and although
Hunchback Fred had never skinned an Arab with it, he was known
to have put it to work changing the faces of three U.S. marshals,
two county sheriffs and an old lady from Boston on the way to
Arizona to recuperate from Parkinson's disease). In the other hand
he held a large box made of woven river reeds.
He slid across the floor in utter silence, holding his Arabian
skinning knife ready, should Slade awake. Then he carefully put
the box down on the chair by the bed. Grinning fiendishly, he
opened the lid and pulled out a twelve-foot python named Sadie
Hawkins. Sadie had been Hunchback Fred's bosom companion for
the last twelve years, and had saved the terrifying little man from
death many times.
"Do your stuff, hon." Fred whispered affectionately. Sadie seemed
to almost grin at him as Hunchback Fred kissed her on her dead
black mouth. The snake slid onto the bed and began to crawl
towards Slade's head. Giggling fiendishly, Hunchback Fred
retreated to the corner to watch the fun.
Sadie wiggled in slow S-curves up the side of the bed, and drew
back to strike. In that instant, the faint hiss of scales on the sheet
came to Slade's ears.
A woman was in bed with him! That was his first thought as he
rolled off the bed and onto the floor, grabbing for the sinister
derringer that was always strapped to his right calf. Sadie struck at
the pillow where his head had been only a second before.
Hunchback Fred screamed with disappointment and threw his
three-foot Arabian skinning knife, which nicked the corner of one
of Slade's earlobes and quivered in the floor.
Slade fired the derringer and Hunchback Fred fell back against the
wall, knocking the picture Niagara Falls off the dresser. His
sinister career was at an end.
Carefully avoiding the python (which seemed to have gone to sleep
on the bed), Slade got dressed. lt was time to go out to Sam
Columbine's ranch and put an end to that slimy coyote once and
for all.
Strapping on the twin gunbelts of his sinister.45s, Slade went
downstairs. The desk clerk looked at him even more nervously
than before. "D-did I hear a shot?" He asked.
"Don't think so," Slade said, "But you better go up and close the
window by the bed. I left it open -"
"Yessir, Mr. Slade. Of course. Of course."
And then Slade was off, grimly deterniined to find Sam Columbine
and put a crimp in his style once and for all.
Slade shoved his way into the Brass Cuspidor where the foreman
of Sandra Dawson's Bar-T, Mose Hart, was leaning over the bar
with a bottle of Digger's Rye (206 proof) in one hand.
"Okay, you slimy drunkard," Slade gritted, pulling Hart around
and yanking the bottle out of his hand. "Where is Sam Columbine's
ranch? I'm going to get that rotten liver-eater, he just sent
Hunchback Fred Agnew up against me."
"Hunchback Fred?!" Hart gasped, going white as a sheet. "And
you're still alive?"
"I filled him full of lead," Slade said grimly. "He should have
known that putting a snake in my bed was a no-no."
"Hunchback Fred Agnew," Hart whispered, still awed, "There was
talk that he might be the next Vice President of the American
Southwest."
Slade let go of a grating laugh that even made the bartenders dog,
General Custer, cringe.
"W'ell I reckon that now he can be Vice President of Hell!" Slade
proclaimed. He motioned to the bartender, who was standing at the
far end of the bar reading a western novel.
"Bartender! What have you got for mixed drinks?"
The bartender approached cautiously, tucking the dog-eared copy
of Blood Brides of Sitting Bull into his back pocket. "
Wal, Mr. Slade, we got about the usual - The Geronimo, The Fort
Bragg Backbreaker, Popskull Pete, Sourdough Armpit -"
"How about a shot of Digger's Rye (206 proof)?" Mose Hart said
with a glassy grin.
"Shut up," Slade growled. He turned to the bartender and drew one
of his sinister.45s.
"If you don't produce a drink that I ain't never had before, friend,
you're gonna be pushing up daisies before dawn."
The bartender went white, "W-well, we do have drink of my own
invention, Mr. Slade. But it's so potent that I done stopped serving
them. I got plumb tired of having people pass out on the roulette
wheel"
"What's it called?"
"We call it a zombie," the bartender said.
"Well mix me up three of them and make it fast!" Slade
commanded.
"Three zombies?" Mose Hart said with popping eyes. "M'God, are
you crazy?"
Slade turned to him coldly "Friend, smile when you say that."'
Hart smiled and took another drink of Digger's Rye.
"Okay," Slade said, when the three drinks had been placed in front
of him. They came in huge beer steins and smelled like the wrath
of God. He drained the first one at a single draught, blew out his
breath, staggered a little, and lit one of his famous Mexican cigars.
Then he turned to Mose.
"Now just where is Sam Columbine's ranch?" He asked.
"Three miles west and across the ford," Mose said. "It's called the
Rotten Vulture Ranch"
"That figursh," Slade said, draining his second drink to the ice-
cubes. He was beginning to feel a trifle woozy. It probably had
something to do with the lateness of the hour, he thought, and
began to work on his third drink.
"Say " Mose Hart said timidly, "I don't really think you're in any
shape to go up against Sam Columbine, Slade. He's apt to put a
crimp in your style."
"Doan tell me w'hat to do," Slade, swaggering over to pat General
Custer. He breathed in the dog's face and General Custer promptly
went to sleep. "If there'sh one thing that I can do, it's lick my
holder, I mean hold my liquor. Ho get out of my way before I blon
you in tno."
"The door's out the other way," the bartender said cautiously.
"Coursh it is. You think I doan tinow where I'm goin'?"
Slade staggered across the bar, stepping on General Custer's tail
(the dog didn't wake up) and managed to make his way out through
the batwing doors where he almost fell off the sidewalk. Just then a
steely arm clamped his elbow. Slade looked around blearily.
"I'm Deputy Marshall Hoagy Charmichael," the stranger said, "and
rm taking yuh in-"
"On what charge?" Slade asked.
"Public intoxication. Now let's go."
Slade burped. "Everything happen'sh to me," he groaned. The two
of them started off for the Dead Steer Springs jail.
After Slade was sprung from the pokey, Sandra Dawson's top
hand, Mose Hart, went his bail. Slade filled both Hart an Deputy