“Yes, and he swore aloud before her,” says I. “He talked around her like she was his wife.”
“She smiled at me,” grins Chuck sweetlike, and Muley snorts:
“Smiled! Laughed, Chuck. Do you think for a minute that a person like her would smile at critters like you three? That woman’s got a soul.”
“Where do you qualify with soulful women, Muley?” asks Telescope. “Since when has the fair sex designated a hunk of lard as the target for soulful glances? Of course, if you designated a runt like Chuck or a squint-faced hombre like Hen Peck—”
Love has cut a breach in the Four Disgraces. Cupid has poisoned his arrows, and we forgets friendship ties. Maybe it was an accident—maybe not, but anyway we ain’t gone far when Muley steps on Chuck’s ankle. Chuck yowls like a tom-cat and slaps Muley right in the face. Telescope grabs Chuck by the neck, and I kicks Telescope’s feet out from under him.
That took team work, if anybody asks you. I reckon the buzzards were the only ones who enjoyed it. Somebody hit me between the eyes, and I up-ended in a mesquite bush, where I found a snag, about two feet long and as big as my wrist. So I waded right back into the conflict. Then somebody handed me an encore in the same spot, and I got used as a welcome mat. Then somebody laid down on top of me and pushed me into the dirt, but I got out, found an unoccupied boot and hit that somebody several times over the head. My eyes don’t permit me to judge distance, but I felt out my target and made no misses.
Then I laid down, too, and went to sleep.
After a while I woke up and sat there, looking around. I can see Telescope’s legs sticking up over the top of a mesquite, and Chuck is setting in the shade of the same bush, crooning to himself while he tries to light a cigaret on the sole of his boot. Muley is beside me, snoring sweetly, and setting there beside us on a dilapidated white mule is Wick Smith.
Wick sure looks like he had been someplace and met something awful. The mule’s head is hanging down weary-like, while Wick slouches in the saddle, with his jaw hanging down about three inches.
He weaves in the saddle and his mustache acts nervous-like.