“What works?”
“That treadmill jigger they made for the horse race. They explains it to me that we’re all in there, playin’ we’re watchin’ the race, and at the finish Hank rides Tequila onto that treadmill and the audience can see everythin’, except the horse’s feet. Then they drop the curtain.”
Oscar Tubbs, “Burlap” Benson and “Fetlock” Feeney, the blacksmith, show up, and I wonder what they’re the committee for. They talk with Hank, and then climb up on a two-by-six, which extends across above the stage. I don’t sabe their idea, unless they want to git above all trouble. Hank comes to me and takes me up front again.
They’ve got the same room fixed up a little different, and there is Limpy Lucas settin’ at a table, with a bottle of liquor.
“You go in there,” says Hank. “All you’ve got to do is fool around. In a little while Zibe will come in with me as his prisoner. You won’t have a thing to do, until Susie asks yuh to rope both Limpy and Zibe. There’s ropes back there on the floor. This will be easy for you. Now, go ahead and we’ll lift the curtain.”
Well, all fools ain’t dead yet; so I went ahead. The curtain went up and I said, “Limpy, I’m as dry as a lost match in Death Valley.”
“Nigger,” says he, “don’t speak to me. I am Lord Worthington, a scion of British aristocracy.”
“I dunno what a scion is, but the rest of it’s a lie. You was born down in Cochise County and yore father was a squawman. Gimme a drink.”
“That’s the stuff!” yells Dog-Rib.
“That’s real actin’.”