Rio Loco by Robert J. Conley Page B

start anything with you, I’ll finish it too,” I said.
    He set back down. “Barjack, you’re drunk. I don’t know if I can believe anything you’ve said to me.”
    â€œGoddamn it, Cody,” I said, “it’s all true. I’ve got Owl Shit in my jail cell, and I’ve got Happy and Butcher there a-watching. And then I’ve got Dingle and Sly and the Churkee and Pistol Polly and my big fat Bonnie. And Chugwater’s riding in first thing in the morning with sixty men intending to kill them all. Me too, if I’m back in time.”
    â€œWhy don’t you get you a room and sleep it off?” Cody said. “We’ll talk about it some more when you’re sober.”
    â€œI ain’t got time to sleep,” I said. “I got to get back to my gang. They’re going to need ever’ gun they can get.”
    â€œHell, you couldn’t hit the street right now, the shape you’re in.”
    I jerked out my Merwin Hulbert right fast and tuck a shot what nicked his left earlobe. The blood went to rushing down his neck and onto his shirt. He screamed, grabbed his ear, and jumped up to his feet.
    â€œGoddamn you, Barjack.”
    â€œHow’s that for shooting?” I said.
    â€œYou drunken son of a bitch.” He looked up at me and kinda nodded like, but he weren’t nodding at me, I figgered out later. He were nodding at some son of a bitch what was standing right behind me. Something crashed down on top a’ my head, and the whole world went black as a dark night out on the prairie when the stars is blanked out by dark clouds. Only in a minute I seen the stars anyhow. Then I fell over, and I don’t know nothing else about that night. I woked up the next morning laying on a cot in a jail cell. I moaned and rolled my head and seen that the door was closed.
    I thunk things through, and it come to me that right at that very minute my friends back in Asininity might could be in one big gunfight with Chugwater’s damn bunch. Hell, some a’ them might even be kilt already. I set up on the edge a’ the cot and screamed, “Cody. Goddamn you. Let me outta here.”
    I didn’t get no answer. I screamed his name out another time or two. Still nothing. Damn, I was worried about Happy and Butcher and Sly and Bonnie and Polly and Churkee. I was even worried about ole Dingle some little bit. I wondered if he would ever get to write the book he was messing with. I stood up and looked down at my holsterand seen that my Merwin Hulbert weren’t there. That goddamn son of a bitching Cody had swiped it. I walked over to the door and tried it. Sure enough, it was locked. I grabbed on to two bars and rattled the shit outta that door. Still no one come around.
    There was a bucket over in a corner, and I went and pissed in it. Then I picked it up and walked over to the door a’ the cell. I looked out at Cody’s desk and I swung that bucket and slung its contents as hard as I could. They slopped over the floor and over the top a’ the desk. Then I put it back where it come from. I heard a key in the front door, and I went back to the cot and laid my ass back down, pretending to still be asleep. Someone come in. I rolled my head over and opened a eye to peek out, and I seen that it was Cody’s depitty. I set up.
    â€œHey, Buffalo Bill, Junior,” I called out.
    â€œYou talking to me?” he said.
    â€œAin’t you Cody’s kid?”
    â€œI’m his deputy.”
    â€œThen get the damn keys and let me outta here.”
    â€œI can’t do that, Marshal,” he said. “Sheriff Cody’s the one that put you in here, and he’ll have to let you out. If he decides to let you out. You like to have shot off his ear last night.”
    â€œI shoulda shot off his damn head,” I said.
    â€œThen for sure you’da never got out.”
    â€œLook, Junior, I got problems over in Asininity. I