The Magic Wagon by Joe R. Lansdale Read Free Book Online Page B

be glazed over good, like a horse that's fixing to die on you, and they'd be darn near ready for most anything but another dose of Get Jesus Saltz.
    Another thing, those preachers were good for three, maybe four bottles of Cure-All. Reckon they liked to have that much on hand in case of snake bite, as they had to travel pretty far out in the country sometimes to find the sinners that are minding their own damned business and not putting anything in the offering plate. And all those dinners and suppers preachers ate, as they have a way of showing up at meal time, were bound to upset their stomachs now and then. And a good slug of Cure-All after a meal of fried chicken, flour gravy, mashed potatoes, buttered biscuits, and two slices of fresh apple pie with cream on top was just the thing to set a belly straight.
    Finally I came to the saloon and hesitated outside the bat wings, sort of getting the lay of the land. Sometimes a bartender will consider me too young to be in a place and will throw me out. But most of them could care less if I was twelve years old, armed and dangerous, long as I was white and had the price of a beer. I was trying to decide which kind of place this was.
    Like most saloons it smelled like beer, sweat, and cigar smoke. I thought it over, decided the odds were on my side, put a hand on the bat wings, and went inside.
    For early morning, there was a right smart crowd in there. I figured with the sheriff gone the owner had most likely kept the place open all night, grubbing for the extra drunk dollars.
    There was a farmer and a bony saloon gal at one table, and they were entwined tight as a couple pieces of cheap rope. They had their eyes closed to show how in dreamy wonder they were of each other's company, and since it was as hot as a bitch dog in heat in there, they had a sheen of oily sweat on their faces thick as a swath of hog lard. I reckoned that farmer s wife thought he was in town buying seed, not sowing it.
    At another table a fellow lay face down, and the only thing holding him up was his face and the edge of his butt in the chair. His arms hung by his sides like limp horse tails, and the one nostril that wasn't mashed into the table was making a noise like a busted bagpipe.
    At a table behind him were two other fellas. One of them was about my age, and duded up. He had on a tall sky blue hat and his brown hair grew long out from beneath it. A red neckerchief was tied loosely around his neck, and he wore a fringed cotton shirt all the colors of the rainbow. The boots that stuck out of his cuffed jeans were so bright and new-looking I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd mooed at me.
    He was holding a dime novel close to a low-lit lamp at his table, moving his lips over the words. I could have saved his lips a lot of work. I could make out the title of what he was reading, Young Wild West and the Salted Mines, or The Double Game for a Million, and I had read it. It was about five years old and it wasn't worth the match it would have taken to burn the sucker up.
    Wasn't no use saying anything, though. Just my opinion. And it might have resulted in me being beat up by a little fella in a dude outfit. He had that same look Billy Bob gets when he's reading those things. It's somewhere between the one a man gets when he's having his first peek at a naked woman, or is getting pulled into a religious soul-saving fever. Either one makes for a dangerous time if interrupted or disagreed upon.
    Sitting next to Blue Hat was a fiftyish man, thick around the middle, with bullwide shoulders, a black derby hat gone green, and a face that looked like lumpy gravy poured over peanuts. I figured he'd once had the pox. On his upper lip were a few stray hairs that he probably called a mustache, but they reminded me of the prickles around a porcupine's butt. The way his eyes were squinted, you got the impression he was bored and wanted to shoot someone, just anybody, no matter how small the cause.
    And he had the