Stranger’s gun was dangling on his right hip, but, as Frenchy drew, Stranger’s right hand caught his’n, gun and all, and Stranger’s left produced a .45 from nowhere at all and proceeds to bend it over Frenchy’s head. The tin-horn couldn’t get his right hand loose, so he reaches around with his left, jerks Stranger’s gun from his hip. But he only wastes time snapping it, for that one wasn’t loaded.
I thought maybe Brown and the lookout would double up on my pardner, but they didn’t. They just shoved the two pits of their two stomachs up against the muzzles of my two guns, and looked foolish.
“Nuff!” screams Frenchy, letting go his gun. He looks like ration day at Rosebud. Me and Stranger walks out, sticking closer’n brothers, lockstepping, back to back.
“What’d I tell you?” says Stranger, turning in at a butcher shop. And there he asks may we use the scales, and pours our ill-gotten gains into both scoops till they balance. “Take your choice, pardner,” he says. “You’re short on faith, but you’re hell on works!”
Next to a restaurant. Before our order comes, in steps Billy Edwards. He was a deputy sheriff, but white. “Would you mind my asking your name? ’Cause Frenchy doesn’t know. He’s swearing out a warrant for you, alleging assault with intent to kill,” says Billy politely. “They haven’t give me the warrant yet. Course if they had I wouldn’t tell you this, for you might get away before I found you.”
I’d never thought to ask his name!
“Artemus G. Jones,” says he, and he stuck his thumb in his vest. “Set down and take supper with us.”
“Ar—ahem. Er—what does the G. stand for?”
Artie looks embarrassed. “Galatians,” he sighs.
“What? Was you named after—”