One step out of the saloon, and the earth came up to meet him.
Pitching and rolling like a canoe in the Pecos, Rotator Cuff’s dusty thoroughfare — covered in horseshit and six different kids of spit — jumped up and smacked ol’ Jelly Roll Rogers in the noggin. One shot of whiskey too many or one punch in the mug too many, he was too old to tell.
Jelly Roll picked his hefty gut up off the ground and scooped up his ten-gallon, plucked off the bigger pieces of horse puckey and sat it down on his perfectly round head. He shifted his weight backwards and hucked a terrible gob of oily tobacco juice up in the air, tracing a sine curve before dropping heavy on a colony of dung beetles, coating them thick as an oil spill. He used the back of his sleeve to wipe the dribbling juice off a stubbly mouth that would chap even the loosest hussie’s lips.
There was more gold in Jelly Roll’s mouth than you could pan out of a river in the Black Hills, and he flashed it with a smile at Lucretia Leatherbottom and somehow managed at the same time to sneer at her escort Pretty Paul Pickens.
He let loose with a “Mornin’”, ruddying up little Lucretia’s face as he tipped his hat and stumbled on down to the old hotel where he could hang up his Colts.
With a rap or two at the door, sure as a bear shits in the woods, Mincemeat Max slid open a silt in the door just wide enough to accommodate his beady eyes. “Password, please, Jelly Roll.”
“Aw hell, Mincemeat. Ya see it’s me standin here. What the hell er you doin askin me the password?”
“Aint nobody ‘bove the rules, Jelly Roll. Password?”
Jelly Roll let loose another gob of spit, black as a Montana night, and between his teeth uttered, “Polecat Pie.”
The door swung open revealing Mincemeat’s meager frame. “I dunno why Stewie put you up on guard duty anyways. A strong wind blows by and I reckon you’ll blow clear to Bozeman.”
“‘S all I’m good fer,” spat Mincemeat. “That’n scrubbin the blood outta the floorboards.”
“We pull one more heist like down in Deadwood and you’ll be scrubbin more blood outta these floorboards then…” Jelly Roll didn’t even get out a whole sentence, when he heard a crack and his hat sailed clean off his head.
Mincemeat grabbed him and pulled him down, swinging the door closed. As the door swung shut he could see that it wasn’t a case of extra frisky fleas that sent Jelly Roll’s hat off his cueball head. “Damn, Jelly Roll! It’s the Porridge Boys back for their haul!”
Jelly Roll hadn’t sobered that fast since his last encounter with Frisco Fannie in Yankton. Supine, he grabbed for his silver Colts, cocked them back and, flashing his golden grin said, “Mincemeat, looks like you aint scrubbin floors no more. Pull up yer britches and grab yer guns. We’s in fer a real fight!”
…..Stay tuned for more Adventures of the Baker’s Dozen!
By Norm deGuerre
