Nero didn’t need any urging. In fact, I don’t reckon that Nero ever heard her, ’cause he was doing his little best without any cheers from the weaker sex.
I manages to twist myself over on my back, swing my free leg up high—which gave me added weight on my outside end—and just as I sways toward the earth I feels the hot breath of a shotgun pass over me. Nero let loose. I reckon that Nero died with the taste of the best sourdough on earth on his palate.
The top of my boot got fringed plentiful, and some of the shot cut fancy designs on my knee-cap. But me and the kid landed in a heap, and I’d tell a man that we didn’t waste no time going away.
I shoved on some extra speed, which enabled me to clear the fence, and then I runs right into Magpie. We both grunts a greeting and lopes away together. We puts a mile or more between us and that shack and then stops to get our wind.
“Close call!” puffs Magpie. “By cripes! Posse hunting for a kidnaper. Half-witted sheepherder swiped a feller’s kid ’cause the woman wouldn’t feed him. Man back there knowed him by sight, and he identifies me as being the shepherd. Said he was the same length and had hair on his face.”
“Must ’a’ been mistaken, Magpie,” says I.
“Wish I’d a left the baby there,” says he, after a while. “Wish I had, Ike. Reckon they’d ’a’ found the owner.”
“You wish you had?” I asks. “Did you say ‘wish you had?’”
“Uh-huh. Could easy, Ike. When that female heard the noise in the other room, she ignored me; so I grabs the kid and ducked out.”
“My ——!” says I. “You got a baby with you, Magpie?”