Tied Up for Tombstone

“Magpie?” I asks, and they both nods. “That’s his first edition,” replies Buck. “He took over the office when a few of the local boys ran the editor across the border for slandering the community. That paper invades this here country about a month after you leaves, and she runs high along until the editor gets a call to uplift the community. Yesterday he beat the posse across the line, and Magpie gets out his maiden sheet. This here feller speaks feelingly of lawlessness, and even goes so far as to make personal remarks about our morals. What he said about the town of Paradise was awful.”

“Is Magpie still sheriff?” I asks.

“Uh-huh,” admits Tellurium, who ain’t friendly with Magpie. “Abe Anderson was running against him, and had a grand chance to win, but Abe’s old weakness crops up and spoils things.”

“Abe seen a chance to run off some Circle Star cows,” explains Buck. “He runs foul of Magpie and three of the Circle Star punchers, and when they gets through convincing him that, ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ he ain’t in shape to use votes. Magpie races alone and is elected by five votes.”

“Well, well,” says I, “a few months sure does change the map. I’ll go down and see if that benighted son of a lodge-pole don’t need some help.”

I prods Lodestone down the street to where I sees a sign, which proclaims there’s a newspaper office. I hitches my rolling stock and goes inside. Magpie is there. All I can see is the bottom of his boots, the seat of his pants and his elbows—the rest of him is behind a newspaper, as he leans back in a chair, with his feet on the table.

I leans against the table and rolls a smoke. He glances at me, switches his cigaret over to the other side of his mouth, and goes on trying to read. I say “trying to read” for the reason that he’s got a paper he printed himself.

Pretty soon he yawns and lays the paper across his knees.

“Ike,” says he, “that’s some paper.”

“Some ink, too, if that’s anything to brag about,” I replies. “When did you learn to write Russian? Maybe it’s Chinook with the blind staggers, Magpie, but anyway she’s a terrible language. What does them big letters at the top proclaim?”

“That? Huh! The Piperock Pilot!”

“Won’t the letters run the other way, Magpie?”

“I reckon they would, Ike, but how in —— am I going to know what she reads? It’s a danged sight easier for the public to read the print backwards than it is for me to read the type thataway. I’m glad to see yuh, Ike.”

“Still follering the line of least resistance, eh, Magpie? I’m glad to see you, too.”

“Accumulate anything on your trip, Ike?”

“Wood-ticks, fool-hens and a growing conviction that rich rock is scarce. How’s things at the sheriff’s office?”

“Tolable, Ike. Won by a narrow majority. I reckon if Abe had ’a’ lived we’d needed a recount. Lot of folks voted for him after he was dead.”

“They would,” I agrees. “Lot of folks around here ain’t got no more ambition than to vote for a corpse. How comes it you’re a editor? Has all the bad-men died off or has a moral wave hit Piperock?”

“I always been a critter of circumstance, Ike,” he states, unfolding his long legs, and easing his gun handy-like. “I always been a disciple of advance, and I’ve worn all the skin off my shoulder trying to give the wheels of progress a lift. At times them wheels have slipped and sprained my immediate future, but I never peeped.

“When this here misguided editor fades across the horizon, me, being sheriff, appropriates this here plant and opines to run it as a public institution. There’s twenty-five sheets of paper left and one can of ink. My first edition takes twelve sheets, and I hereby claims that a man, without no experience, what can rise to the occasion and put out a paper like that is a credit to the community.”

“Didn’t you have trouble finding all them letters, Magpie?”

“Trouble? Say, the ends of my fingers are so tender I can hold out my hands and feel the sun slide behind the hills. The next publication is problematical, Ike. I’m short of material, but I only figures on one more issue. I got a article set up, and I can’t publish until the time is ripe.”

“Something special?”

“Uh-huh. ‘Tombstone’ Todd’s obituary.”

“From Wilier Crick?” I asks, and Magpie nods.

“Uh-huh. Him and ‘Cactus’ Collins comes over here to help elect Abe Anderson, being as Abe was a relative. When Abe departs this here vale of tears they up and proclaims they’re a pair of howling wolves, and that they’re a permanent fixture around here until such a time as they lays me on my back and gestures over me with a spade. Awful pair of gobblers, Ike.”

“Why not an obituary for Cactus, too, Magpie?”

“He’s hiding out until such a time as his stummick is normal, Ike. He horns in on me yesterday, and gets pessimistic to my face. I’m busy on that obituary and don’t like to be interrupted, so I beats him on the draw, accepts his gun as a subscription and induces him to eat a bucket of paste. Awful smelling mess, Ike. I’d opine that as far as my future horoscope is concerned his lips are sealed.”