Skeeter Bill Comes to Town
This salty seven-footer heads for Yellow Butte to celebrate a kid’s birthday—and does some plumb fast shooting on the way!
William Harrison Sarg, known as “Skeeter Bill,” leaned against the bar of the only saloon in Temple Rock, and considered the fly-specked back-bar. Skeeter was at least seven feet tall, in his high-heels and sombrero. He had wide shoulders, which tapered sharply to a wasp-like waist and a long pair of skinny legs, encased in tight-fitting, faded overalls. He wore a colorless shirt, a wispy, red handkerchief around his long neck, the ends held tight with a blue poker-chip. Around his thin waist was a home-made, form-fitting gun-belt, and his holstered Colt .45 hung low along his thigh.
Skeeter Bill was not handsome. His face was long, thin, with high cheek bones, and a gash-like mouth, and eyes that were just a little green tinted. He was not handsome, but he looked efficient. A fat bartender, one damp lock of hair plastered down over one eyebrow, looked questioningly at the tall cowpoke. Skeeter shook his head.
“If it was ice-cold I’d take more,” he said quietly, “but I jist cain’t go more’n three bottles of luke-warm pop.”
“Yuh’re the only pop-drinker I’ve met,” said the bartender. “Yuh won’t never git happy on that stuff.”
“No,” agreed Skeeter, “nor unhappy, either, my friend. How are things these days in Road-Runner Valley?”
“Oh, all right,” replied the bartender. “You’ve been there?”
“Not for a couple of years. Been down in the Panhandle, where I didn’t hear much news of this country. You been down there lately?”
“Couple months ago. I worked there for a year, tendin’ bar in the Seven-Up at Yellow Butte.”
“Yea-ah? I used to know Buck Hadley. He still own it?”
“Not now. It belongs to Slim Lacey.”
“Slim Lacey?” Skeeter stared at the bartender. “Yuh say that Slim Lacey owns the Seven-Up?”
“Well, he did a month ago, I know.”
Skeeter shoved his hat back and scratched his forehead. He seemed a little astonished.
He said: “Well, mebbe it’s all right. You’d prob’ly know Hooty Edwards.”
“No, I didn’t, but I’ve heard of him. He left there before I went to Yellow Butte.”
Skeeter cuffed his hat sideways on his head, leaned his elbows on the bar and scowled at the fat bartender.
“You mean that Hooty Edwards ain’t down there no more?” he asked incredulously.
The bartender shook his head. “Didn’t you know about him?”
“Know what about him?” asked Skeeter quickly.
“That he went to the pen for twenty years.”
Skeeter’s head and shoulders sagged momentarily, and he blinked in amazement.
“You ain’t jokin’—I hope you are, Mister,” he said huskily.
“I wouldn’t joke on a thing like that. He’s been gone quite a while, they told me. He wrecked the bank in Yellow Butte. Never did have another one.”
“I’m a sea-serpent’s sister!” whispered Skeeter. “Tell me what yuh know about it, will yuh?”
The bartender told him that “Hooty” Edwards had forced the banker and his wife from their home to the bank. There he had compelled the banker to open the vault. Then he tied them both up and took his own time in looting the vault. It was close to morning, and the sheriff, coming from an all-night poker game, looked into the bank window and saw moonlight shining through the open doorway at the rear of the room.
He ran around to the rear of the building, just as the robber was riding away. They exchanged shots, and the sheriff said he scored a hit, but the man got away.
Later in the day they found Hooty Edwards sprawled beside a trail near his own ranchhouse, his white horse tangled up in the brush near him. The bandit had ridden a white horse. Edwards still had the black mask around his neck. The doctor said he had been shot and would have eventually bled to death, if they hadn’t found him.
Skeeter listened to the whole tale, his face a mask of his feelings.
