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Fredrick Boling -- Writing Western
Category:
Western
Publisher: Bighorn Publishing
ISBN-10: 0972280820
Type: Fiction
Pages: 162
Copyright: 2000-2001
ISBN-13: 9780972280822
Price: $3.00 (eBook)
This book is a collection of short stories covering the life of Tom Geiger from the age of ten until his death at eighty five. He encounters outlaws, Wild West showman Buffalo Bill, President Teddy Roosevelt, Bill Picket, Annie Oakley, and Poncho Villa among many other less famous characters.
All of these short stories were serially published in 2001 byAmerican Western Magazine. Beginning at the age of ten in Lander, Wyoming, Tom Geiger meets train robber, Butch Slade, who comes to town on a mission of vengeance. Each succeeding story covers a significant experience in Tom's life as he grows to manhood and beyond in Wyoming. He encounters outlaws, frontier lawmen, bounty hunters, and celebreties of his time--Buffalo Bill, Teddy Roosevelt, Bill Pickett, Pancho Villa and others.
Excerpt
The main things I remember about Jake Tillie were his high-topped boots, silver-rowel spurs and black sombrero. Those boots came clean up to his knees and had long mule-ear pulls so's he could get them on. Most folks said he didn't need any pulls, because he never took off those fancy-stitched high leathers. And I reckon my pa was of the same mind, because he buried Jake with them still on out on boot hill.
Jake was real proud of those boots. He claimed to have taken them off a Mexican bandito by the name of Juan Martinez down in Juarez just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. That was after him and Juan got into a shootout over a marked poker deck. I never did hear Jake say which one of them had done the cheating, but that doesn't matter 'cause Juan lost his boots and sombrero.
Jake Tillie fancied himself to be a dancing man. What with Juan's silver-studded "Chihuahua" spurs that jingled like harness bells on a Laplander's reindeer, you could hear his fancy flamingo steps every night.
I'd just turned sixteen the day before Jake rode into Casper, Wyoming astride a bandy-legged cayuse that nobody with any sense would even drop a lariat on. Jake stuck out like a Mexican flag run up over the Alamo with his gold-trimmed sombrero, black leather vest, and striped britches tucked inside high-topped boots.
Pa had moved Ma and me from Lander to Casper during the summer of ninety right after Wyoming got taken into the Union. He bought out Henry Slessinger's furniture store and funeral parlor, because Ma wanted to move to a civilized town. She had showed Pa an article in the Casper Weekly Mail that listed the Casper census at 544 living souls. And most ever'body didn't even know that Lander existed. But her winning argument was our getting coffins and furniture shipped in on the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad, which was bound to turn us a higher profit.
Ma discovered that the move wasn't all that she wanted. It seems that there was about as much uncivilized stuff going on as in Lander, but she said nary a word about moving back. That is, until I started running around with Jake Tillie. Then she got her nose out o' joint when Pa told her to quit fussing, because I was just going through growing pains.
Like I said, Jake came to Casper riding that good-for-nothing horse, which died the day after he tied him to the hitching rail in front of Robert White's Saloon. Reckon it just up and died from neglect, at least that's what the town marshal accused Jake of. Jake just kept on playing poker and drinking booze 'cause there wasn't any law against abusing a horse.
Anyways, that's when I met Jake face-to-face. You see, there wasn't anybody in Casper that did away with dead horses. I'll never forget how livid my pa got when Marshal Tigman walked in and ast him what he'd charge t'drag a dead horse out of town. "Dispose of what?" Pa yelled with his face no more'n six inches from Tigman's eyes that had saucered out like those of a spooked mule.
"Now Mister Geiger," Tigman said, sort of backing away while holding up his hands. "I ain't aiming to insult you by what I ast. It's just that I know you got those two Percheron horses that you pull your glass-sided funeral coach with."
Pa peered at the marshal over his pinch-nosed spectacles. "And you figure they can drag a dead horse?"
"That's about it," Tigman said and tongued his chaw waiting for Pa to reply.
"Who's going' t'pay me?"
"That new hombre by the name of Jake Tillie up at Robert White's Saloon."
"He agree to that?"
The marshal patted the big Colt Peacemaker cradled in his holster. "No, but he will."
Pa scratched his bald noggin while pondering how much to charge for dragging off a dead horse. Then he turned to me and said, "Run up to the saloon and tell Mister Tillie that he owes me ten dollars for disposing of his horse."
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