Playing Safe in Piperock

Author of “Alias Whispering White,” “When Civic Pride Hits Piperock,” etc.

“I have been in lots of places, Fair as lilies in the dell. Some of ’em I kinda favor, Others I don’t like so well. There is one that’s ever calling, Come on back and hang your hat, Tough old, rough old town of Piperock, You’re a danged good town, at that.”

“‘Magpie,’” says I, “if my corns wasn’t hurting —— out of me I’d have tears in my eyes from such sentiment. I’m all choked up—with alkali.”

“You’ve got to admit that she rhymes,” says Magpie Simpkins, spitting out a mouthful of dust and lifting his canteen to his lips. “I done figured ’em all out of my own head, Ike.”

“You better leave off taking things out of your own head,” says I. “First thing you know, old-timer, you’ll be taking out what prompts you to chaw your grub, and I’ll have to feed you with a stummick-pump.”

Then we pokes off the mountain and hits the trail toward Piperock. For you who ain’t never heard of Piperock, I’ll say this much: Piperock was the place the feller was thinking about when he wrote “Let sleeping dogs lie.”

Piperock looks like a siesta settlement, but she sure is deceiving. Few folks ever get killed in the town. The good old village usually invigorates ’em to a mile-a-minute clip, and we makes it a point never to shoot anybody in the back.

She ain’t the birthplace of nobody, and nothing much except horse-thieves are buried there. When it comes to law and order, we’ve got old Judge Steele. He’s got two law books and a copy of the Congressional Record for 1885, which about covers all the crimes that mankind is heir to, I reckon. Piperock ain’t on no map nor railroad and she ain’t never been sung in song or story, but if you don’t think she’s there, just get off the train at Paradise, ride north on Art Miller’s stage to where he unhitches his team, and then start something.

She’s there like sixty per cent dynamite and no questions answered. Me and that long-mustached, brainless, asinine arguer of a—well, me and Magpie have been away for two months doing assessment work on some mining claims that nobody would jump if we moved ’em down to the railroad and offered to develop ’em free of charge. We sort of hankers for the bright lights of Piperock. Even kerosene dazzles after using candles for two months.

Magpie stops, sudden-like, and appears to be looking down at a little flat below us. I adds my gaze to his and gets astonished right away. There is “Half-Mile” Smith and “Yuma” Yates: Half-Mile is one of our own home folks, but Yuma is sort of e pluribus unum with me and Magpie.

Half-Mile has got his boots and vest off and is standing a little ways from Yuma, who is arguing with a gun in his hand.

“I don’t sabe this play,” says Magpie, wondering-like. “Appears to be a one-sided proposition with Half-Mile on the weak end, Ike.”

Just then we sees Half-Mile make a break for liberty, and Yuma’s gun whangs out loud and clear. If he hit Half-Mile he didn’t get him in a vital place, ’cause he sure is hitting the high spots.

Magpie unhooks with his gun and I sees Yuma’s hat spin off his head. By the time I gets into action Yuma is hived up behind a tree, and his first shot cuts three shells out of my belt. Magpie was a danged fool to miss his first shot, ’cause cover is mighty scarce on the side of that hill.

“Danged assassin!” yelps Magpie and spins lead past that tree so fast that Yuma don’t dare to look out. “Shoot a unarmed man, will you?” And then his gun clicks on a empty shell.

“Give him ——, Ike!” yelps Magpie, but I wasn’t giving anything away right then. I was trying to get my head down behind a rock which only stuck three inches out of the ground.

Yuma must ’a’ got excited, ’cause his shots were all going high, and as soon as he shoots six times I breathes a sigh of relief. Just then a hunk of lead comes from another direction and knocks the plug of tobacco out of my hip pocket.