Uncollected Stories 2003 (6 page)

"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. It 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 determined 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.
"Well 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 what 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 to."
"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 Carmichael," the stranger said, "and I’m
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 and Deputy Marshall
Hoagy Carmichael 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 is, however,
still faster than greased lightning and meaner than hell. 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 whatyoumacallum,
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
airdropped 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," he 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 running 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 Montgolfier 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 Slade in
the back three times.
"Thank God!" Polly whispered as she and Sam embraced "At last. he's
gone and we are free, my darling!"
Yeah," Sam growled. "How are things going Polly?"
“You don't know how terrible it's been," she sobbed. "Not only was he
killing everybody, but he was queerer than a three-dollar bill."
"Well it's over," Sam said.
"Like fun!" Slade said. He sat up and blasted them both. "Good thing I
was wearing my bullet proof underwear," he said, lighting a new
Mexican cigar. He stared at the cooling bodies of Sam Columbine and
Polly Peachtree, and a great wave of sadness swept over him. He threw
away his cigar and lit a joint. Then he walked over to where he had
tethered Stokely, his black stallion. He wrapped his arms around
Stokely's neck and held him close.
"At last, darling," Slade whispered. "We're alone."
After a long while, Slade and Stokely rode off into the sunset in search
of new adventures.