Jim Saddler 6 by Gene Curry

Author:Gene Curry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: colt 45, butch cassidy and the hole in the wall gang, gene curry and jim saddler, old west ficition story, outlaws and gunmen in the old west, violent western fiction ebook series
Publisher: Piccadilly

Eight

I got the hinges fixed and after that there was nothing to do for the rest of the day. A few squalls blew up but passed as quickly as they came. My horse was corralled with the rest of the mounts down at the other end, and I went there to have a look. When I got to the corral, an old man with a grizzled beard and a peg leg came out of the worst looking cabin I’d seen thus far and bid me good day. I hadn’t seen him before. He was well into his sixties, or beyond, and wore a worn Colt .45 on a cracked leather belt.

“I’m Butch Cassidy,” he said.

“Howdy, Butch,” I said, thinking he was crazy.

He cackled and scratched his dirty white beard. “It’s not what you’re thinking, son. That’s my real name. Young Butch took my name ’cause he liked the sound of it, ’cause I been knowing him since puppyhood. Butch never did like his own name, which was George Parker in them days. These days I tend to the horses for Butch and the boys. I look after the horses and I do it good. Been working on cow and horse ranches a good part of my life.”

I asked him how he got his present job, which seemed to please him mightily.

“The law caught me making off with a few cows and sent me to jail for ten years. Guess I was lucky to get caught by the sheriff instead of the stockman. Had he caught me I’d of dangled. I got old in jail and wasn’t good for nothing but odd-job work when I come out. I was swamping in a saloon when one night Butch come in and knowed me for an old friend. At that time Butch was just getting started in the bandit business and figured he ought to have a catchier name than George Parker. One that folks would remember. So he give me fifty dollars for the full use of my name. Not only that, he didn’t make me call myself George Parker.”

“You ask for this job or did Butch offer it?”

“Butch offered it,” the old man said. “Was glad to take it. Easy work, the wages good, not a worry in the world.' Naturally I’m too old to go out on any raids, and don’t want to go.”

“Doesn’t sound like a bad life,” I said. And for an old, half-crazy jailbird it wasn’t.

The old coot liked my way of looking at things. “You’re the first man ever said that to me, so I’ll give you some free advice.”

“What’s that?”

The original Butch Cassidy stuck a short pipe with a cracked bowl in his toothless mouth. That made him spit. “From the cabin yonder I seen you looking at the valley walls. There’s no way out, son. Butch, I would think, told you that already. Now I’m telling you in a friendly way, and I know this Wyoming country better than any man alive. There’s nothing out there but badlands.

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