then put his boots on again, and climbed into bed. He was asleep in
moments.
Around one in the morning, while Slade was dreaming sweetly of
his chlldhood sweetheart Miss Polly Paduka of Peachtree, Illinois,
the window was eased up little by little, without even a squeak to
alert Slade's keen ears. The shape that crept in was frightful indeed
- for if Jack Slade was the most feared gunslinger in the American
Southwest, the Hunchback Fred Agnew was the most detested
killer. He was a two foot three inch midget with a hump big
enough for a camel halfway down his crooked back. In one hand
he held a three foot Arabian skinning knife (and although
Hunchback Fred had never skinned an Arab with it, he was known
to have put it to work changing the faces of three U.S. marshals,
two county sheriffs and an old lady from Boston on the way to
Arizona to recuperate from Parkinson's disease). In the other hand
he held a large box made of woven river reeds.
He slid across the floor in utter silence, holding his Arabian
skinning knife ready, should Slade awake. Then he carefully put
the box down on the chair by the bed. Grinning fiendishly, he
opened the lid and pulled out a twelve-foot python named Sadie
Hawkins. Sadie had been Hunchback Fred's bosom companion for
the last twelve years, and had saved the terrifying little man from
death many times.
'Do your stuff, hon.' Fred whispered affectionately. Sadie seemed
to almost grin at him as Hunchback Fred kissed her on her dead
black mouth. The snake slid onto the bed and began to crawl
towards Slade's head. Giggling fiendishly, Hunchback Fred
retreated to the corner to watch the fun.
Sadie wiggled in slow S-curves up the side of the bed, and drew
back to strike. In that instant, the faint hiss of scales on the sheet
came to Slade's ears.
A woman was in bed with him! That was his first thought as he
rolled off the bed and onto the floor, grabbing for the sinister
derringer that was always strapped to his right calf. Sadie struck at
the pillow where his head had been only a second before.
Hunchback Fred screamed with disappointment and threw his
three-foot Arabian skinning knife, which nicked the corner of one
of Slade's earlobes and quivered in the floor.
Slade fired the derringer and Hunchback Fred fell back against the
wall, knocking the picture Niagara Falls off the dresser. His
sinister career was at an end.
Carefully avoiding the python (which seemed to have gone to sleep
on the bed), Slade got dressed. lt was time to go out to Sam
Columbine's ranch and put an end to that slimy coyote once and
for all.
Strapping on the twin gunbelts of his sinister.45s, Slade went
downstairs. The desk clerk looked at him even more nervously
than before. 'D-did I hear a shot?' He asked.
'Don't think so,' Slade said, 'But you better go up and close the
