Marshall Hoagy Charmichael full of lead (blame it on his terrible
hangover). Then, mounting his huge black stallion, Stokely, Slade
made it out to the Rotten Vulture Ranch to have it out once an for
all with Sam Columbine.
But Columbine was not there. He was off torturing ex border
guards, leaving Sandra Dawson under the watch of three trusted
henchmen - Big Fran Nixon, "Quick Draw" John Mitchell, and
Shifty Ron Ziegfeld. After a heated shootout, Slade dropped al
three of them in their slimy tracks and freed the fair Sandra.
The acrid, choking smell of gunsmoke filled the room where the
lovely Sandra Dawson had been held prisoner. As she saw Slade
standing tall and victorious, with a sinister.45 in each hand and a
Mexican cigar clenched between his teeth, her eyes filled with love
and passion.
"Slade!" she cried, jumping to her feet and running to him. "'I'm
saved! Thank heaven! When Sam Columbine got back from
torturing the Mexican border guards, he was going to feed me to
his alligators! You came just in time!"
"Damn right," Slade gritted. "I always do. Steve King sees to that."
Her firm, supple, silken fleshed body swooned into his arms, and
her lush lips sought Slade's mouth with ripe humid passion. Slade
promptly clubbed her over the head with one sinister.45 and threw
his Mexican cigar away, a snarl pulling at his lips.
"Watch it," he growled "my mom told me about girls like you."
And he strode off to find Sam Columbine.
Slade strode out of the bunk-room leaving Sandra Dawson in the
smoke-filled chamber to rub the bump on her head where he had
clouted her with the barrel of his sinister.45. He mounted his huge
black stallion, Stokely, and headed for the border, where Sam
Columbine was torturing Mexican customs men with the help of
his A No.1 Top Gun - "Pinky" Lee. The only two men in the
American Southwest that could ever approach "Pinky" for pure,
dad-ratted evil were Hunchback Fred Agnew (who Slade gunned
down three weeks ago) and Sam Columbine himself. "Pinky" had
gotten his infamous nickname during the Civil War when he rode
with Captain Quantrill and his Regulators. While passed out in the
kitchen of a fancy bordello in Bleeding Heart, Kansas, a Union
officer named Randolph P. Sorghum dropped a homemade bomb
down the kitchen chimney. "Pinky"' lost all his hair, his eyebrows,
and all the fingers on his left hand, except for the forth, and
smallest. His hair and eyebrows grew back. His fingers did not. He
has, however, still faster than greased lightning and meaner than
heIl. He had sworn to find Randolph P. Sorghum some day and
stake him over the nearest anthill.
But Slade was not worried about Lee, because his heart was pure
and his strength was as ten.
In a short time the agonized screams of the Mexican customs
officials told him he was nearing the border. He dismounted, tied
Stokely to a parking-meter and advanced through the sagebrush as
noiselessly as a cat. The night was dark and moonless.
"No More! amigo!" The guard was screaming. "I
confess! I confess! I am - who am I?"
"Fergetful bastid, ain't ye?" Pinky said. "Yore Randolph P.
Sorghum, the sneakun' low life that blew off 90% 0' my hand
durin' the Civil War."
"I admit it! I admit it!"
Slade had crept close enough now to see what was happening. Lee
had the customs official tied to a straight-backed chair, with his
bare feet on a hassock. Both feet were coated with honey and Lee's
trained bear, Whomper, was licking it off with his long tongue.
"I can't stand it!" The guard screamed. "I am theese
whatyoumacalluma, Sorghum!"
"Caught you at last!" Lee gloated. He pulled out his sinister
Buntline Special and prepared to blow the poor old fellow all the
way to Trinidad. Sam Columbine, who was standing far back in
the shadows, was ready to bring in the next guard.
Slade stood up suddenly. "Okay, you two skulkin' varmits! Hold it
right there!"
Pinky Lee dropped to his chest, fanning the hammer of his sinister
Buntline Special. Slade felt bullets race all around him. He fired
back twice, but curse it - the hammers of his two sinister .45s only
clicked on empty chambers. He had forgotten to load up after
downing the three badmen back at the Rotten Vulture.
Lee rolled to cover behind a barrel of taco chips. Columbine was
already crouched behind a giant bottle of mayonnaise that had been
air-dropped a month before after the worst flood disaster in
American Southwest history (why drop mayonnaise after a
disaster? None of your damn business).
"Who's that out there?" Lee yelled.
Slade thought quickly. "It's Randolph P. Sorghum" Hh cried. "The
real McCoy, Lee! And this time I'm gunna blow off more than
three fingers!"
His crafty challenge had the desired effect. Pinky rushed rashly (or
rashly rushed if you preferred) from cover, his sinister Buntline
Special blazing. "I'll blow ya apart!" he yelled "I'll -"
But at that moment Slade carefully put a bullet through his head.
Pinky Lee flopped, his evil days done.
"Lee?" Sam Columbine called. "Pinky: You out there:" A craven
cowardly note had crept into his voice. "I just dropped him,
Columbine!" Slade yelled. "And now it's just you and me...and I'm
comin' to get you!"
Sinister.45s blazing, a Mexican cigar clamped between his teeth,
Slade started down the hill after Sam Columbine.
Halfway down the slope, Sam Columbine let loose such a volley of
shots that Slade had to duck behind a barrel cactus. He could not
get off a clear shot at Columbine because the wily villain had
hidden behind a convenient, giant bottle of mayonnaise.
"Slade!" Columbine yelled. "It's time we settled this like men!
Holster yore gun and I'll holster mine! Then we'll come out an'
draw! The better man will walk away!"
"Okay, you lowdown sidewinder!" Slade yelled back. He holstered
his sinister.45s and stepped out from behind the barrel cactus.
Columbine stepped out from behind the bottle of mayonnaise. He
was a tall man with an olive complexion and an evil grin. His hand
hovered over the barrel of the sinister Smith & Wesson pistol that
hung on his hip.
"Well, this is it, pard!" Slade sneered. There was a Mexican cigar
clamped between his teeth as he started to walk toward Columbine.
"Say hello to everyone in hell for me, Columbine!"
"We'll see," Columbine sneered back, but his knees were knocking
as he halted, ready for the showdown.
"Okay!" Slade called. "Go fer yore gun!"
"Wait," Someone screamed. "Wait, wait, WAIT!"
They both stared. It was Sandra Dawson! She was runniug toward
them breathless.
"Slade!" She cried. "Slade!"
"Get down!" Slade growled. "Sam Columbine is-"
"I had to tell you, Slade! I couldn't let you go off, maybe to get
killed! And you'd never know!"
"Know what?" Slade asked.
"That I'm Polly Peachtree!"
Slade gaped at her. "But you can't be Polly Peachtree! She was my
one true love and she was killed by a flaming Montgolfer balloon
while milking the cows!"
"I escaped but I had amnesia!" She cried. "It's all just come back to
me tonight. Look!" And she pulled off a blond wig she had been
wearing. She was indeed the beautiful Polly Peachtree of Paduka,
returned from the dead!
"POLLY!!!"
"SLADE!!!"
Slade rushed to her and they embraced, Sam Columbine forgotten.
Slade was just about to ask her how things were going when Sam
Columbine, evil rat that he was, crept up behind him and shot