“What kind of a sheriff have they got in Piperock?” he asks.
“He’s a wonder,” says Dirty, “and very fast with a gun.”
Then me and Dirty thinks about Scenery Sims. He’s about five feet two inches tall and his face is so danged thin that his mustache looks like a buffalo-robe hanging on a hatchet. I could rummage around in a sack and get a gun faster than Scenery could pull one out of his holster.
Waldemar got us a pair of valises to pack our own clothes in and then we drinks to our disguises and pilgrims to the depot.
“I know,” says Dirty, as we climb on the train, “I know —— well that we’re pilin’ up for grief for our side. We ain’t got no sense, Ike.”
“They’ll never know you,” says Waldemar.
“After we’re dead they will,” wails Dirty, “and I ain’t never deceived anybody yet. I can just hear ‘Old Testament’ Tilton sayin’, ‘Man is of few days and full of trouble, O, my brethren, and these two grabbed off more than they could chew,’ and then the Cross J quartet will sing, ‘Jee-e-e-roo-o-o-sa-lem, Jee-e-e-roo-o-o-sa-lem, lee-e-ft up your voice an’ see-e-ng.’”
“The Holy City,” says Waldemar. “A beautiful thing.”
“She’s only skin-deep with that bunch,” sighs Dirty. “I hope they just bury me and dispense with the sermon and songs.”
“We won’t hear none of it,” says I. “We’ll be layin’ there with our smoked glasses on and a cactus flower on our breast.”