So, one afternoon, Mule Slayer was all stretched out on his bunk, catching a few winks, digesting his jail dinner, when the sheriff snuck into his cell, put matches between the fella's toes, lit them, and snuck out.
When the matches burned down to Mule Slayer's foot, he let out a roar, hit the floor two-stepping and barn dancing around the cell.
The sheriff thought this was real funny, and he had to lean up against the bars so he wouldn't fall down laughing. He started clapping his hands and singing one of those do-si-do-grab-your-partner songs, and that's just what Mule Slayer did. He promenaded on around there and shot a hand through the bars and got the sheriff by the goozel, reached the gun out of the old boy's holster, and took the keys off of him.
Damned if Mule Slayer wasn't suddenly in a joking mood himself. He put the sheriff on the bunk, strapped him down with pieces of the sheriff's gun belt and suspenders, and set the bed on fire, and as it was stuffed with feather ticking, it lit up right good.
Albert said folks claimed later they could see smoke, hear that sheriff screaming and Mule Slayer laughing for a half mile or better, but I sort of doubt that myself.
When the townsfolks got there, they beat out the sheriff with a couple of brooms and throwed water on him, but it was too late. There wasn't enough left of him or the feathers to sweep up in a dust pan, Most of the old boy was soot on the walls. Even his badge had hotted up considerable. It had melted into a tiny ball, fallen between the bed springs, and rolled off into the corner.
They hauled Mule Slayer off to a place that wasn't burned up and smelled like a community barbecue, and made him a makeshift jail till things could get repaired at the real place, or until a trial came around.
Now Mule Slayer had caught a sense of humor, and he had caught it good. He laughed through the night, and the shed they had him in practically rocked with it.
This went on for several days, and it got so tiresome to the townsfolks, who could hardly sleep at night for the noise, that the gallows got built in no time, even though they had to rip the front porch off the general store to have enough lumber to get it done in a hurry.
A judge was appointed quickly, and the fella was tried, legallike, though he laughed through the proceedings, which were cut down to five minutes, and he was sentenced to hang. Before they went out to do that, a prayer was said for Old Jesse.
Mule Slayer was still laughing when they put the rope around his neck, and would have kept on laughing if someone in the crowd hadn't yelled something about the sorry thing he'd done to that good mule.
This hit a note with Mule Slayer and he stopped laughing. He looked heavenward and said a few repentive words concerning the sad and unnecessary death of Old Jesse, and how he should have just stuck to his big-mouthed wife and stomach-ailed mother-in-law. Which was the general sentiment of the crowd.
In the process of saying these words about Jesse, he led on up to the jail and what happened there, and darned if he didn't get tickled all over again. This time he was giving all the details on the sheriff burning, which he hadn't before. He told how it was a lucky thing the suspenders and gun belt didn't burn up quicklike, freeing the sheriff, and he gave a real good description with mouth noises that perfectly imitated the sound of fire catching to feathers, bed springs squeaking, and the sheriff yelling. He then went on to the description of the sheriff wiggling around and sputtering like fat pork in a frying pan, and if Albert is to be believed, Mule Slayer was just getting to the good, nasty part when the eager beaver at the switch jerked the lever and dropped that kidder, midstory, through the hole.
There was darn near a riot.
Albert said that it was fair to say some good came out of the entire mess, and you might say the sheriff's fun-loving spirit had been passed onto Mule Slayer. One can only hope that same spirit, like a dose of pox, latched onto the fellow at the gallows switch, so next time there's a story going he ain't interested in, but others are, he'll have the good manners to hold out till the tale is told before giving his charge a hemp necktie.
With the sheriff gone, the permission problem was out of the way too, so I nailed one of my posters over his sign and went on down the street asking folks if I could do the same in their stores. I even went down to the church and tacked one on the door there, just in case the preacher wanted to come.
We liked to save a little space at the first of our show for a preacher, just in case he had a hankering to talk on the sins of the world and such, and how we were all going to hell in a hand basket.
Time he was finished the crowd's eyes would be glazed over good, like a horse that's fixing to die on you, and they'd be darn near ready for most anything but another dose of Get Jesus Saltz.
Another thing, those preachers were good for three, maybe four bottles of Cure-All. Reckon they liked to have that much on hand in case of snake bite, as they had to travel pretty far out in the country sometimes to find the sinners that are minding their own damned business and not putting anything in the offering plate. And all those dinners and suppers preachers ate, as they have a way of showing up at meal time, were bound to upset their stomachs now and then. And a good slug of Cure-All after a meal of fried chicken, flour gravy, mashed potatoes, buttered biscuits, and two slices of fresh apple pie with cream on top was just the thing to set a belly straight.
Finally I came to the saloon and hesitated outside the bat wings, sort of getting the lay of the land. Sometimes a bartender will consider me too young to be in a place and will throw me out. But most of them could care less if I was twelve years old, armed and dangerous, long as I was white and had the price of a beer. I was trying to decide which kind of place this was.
Like most saloons it smelled like beer, sweat, and cigar smoke. I thought it over, decided the odds were on my side, put a hand on the bat wings, and went inside.
For early morning, there was a right smart crowd in there. I figured with the sheriff gone the owner had most likely kept the place open all night, grubbing for the extra drunk dollars.
There was a farmer and a bony saloon gal at one table, and they were entwined tight as a couple pieces of cheap rope. They had their eyes closed to show how in dreamy wonder they were of each other's company, and since it was as hot as a bitch dog in heat in there, they had a sheen of oily sweat on their faces thick as a swath of hog lard. I reckoned that farmer s wife thought he was in town buying seed, not sowing it.
At another table a fellow lay face down, and the only thing holding him up was his face and the edge of his butt in the chair. His arms hung by his sides like limp horse tails, and the one nostril that wasn't mashed into the table was making a noise like a busted bagpipe.
At a table behind him were two other fellas. One of them was about my age, and duded up. He had on a tall sky blue hat and his brown hair grew long out from beneath it. A red neckerchief was tied loosely around his neck, and he wore a fringed cotton shirt all the colors of the rainbow. The boots that stuck out of his cuffed jeans were so bright and new-looking I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd mooed at me.
He was holding a dime novel close to a low-lit lamp at his table, moving his lips over the words. I could have saved his lips a lot of work. I could make out the title of what he was reading, Young Wild West and the Salted Mines, or The Double Game for a Million, and I had read it. It was about five years old and it wasn't worth the match it would have taken to burn the sucker up.
Wasn't no use saying anything, though. Just my opinion. And it might have resulted in me being beat up by a little fella in a dude outfit. He had that same look Billy Bob gets when he's reading those things. It's somewhere between the one a man gets when he's having his first peek at a naked woman, or is getting pulled into a religious soul-saving fever. Either one makes for a dangerous time if interrupted or disagreed upon.