Longarm explained, “Deadwood Dick is the creation of an English writer named Charles Perry. In one of the first books he was an outlaw who got killed off, but then Perry brought him back to life as a lawman.”
“In London, England?”
“That’s where Perry lives. He lets Deadwood Dick go all over the place. He got to fight cannibals in the Weird Islands one time, but he mostly pesters folk here in the American West, or the American West as it looks to folk in London Town.”
“But you said you really met him, two of him, in Deadwood, U.S. of A.”
Longarm shook his head. “I met a couple of old drunks named Richard who lived in Deadwood and somehow decided Perry was writing about them. I see there’s one about Calamity Jane, here, and she’d sure like this cover, for I’ve never seen her this skinny and I’ve known her since she was working for Madame Moustache.”
Nolan took the garishly illustrated penny dreadful, held it to the light, and said, “Naw, that ain’t her. Can they make up stories about real folk as well, Longarm?”
“I once told Ned Buntline I’d sue his ass if he put me in one of his magazines, but some old boys get a kick out of it, I reckon. When and if anyone ever gets around to putting down the true history of the things out here, they’re going to have one hell of a time figuring out who did what, with what, to whom. I see they got Buffalo Bill avenging Custer in this one. Oh, hell, look at this!”
It was two cent’s worth of sheet music with a garish orange and purple cover. The title read, “The Ballad Of Black Jack Slade.” When Longarm opened it the first line, sure enough, read: “Gather close around and I’ll tell you a tale.”
Nolan sighed. “You can’t be serious.”
Longarm shrugged. “I never said he was Black Jack Slade. He did. And damned if I don’t think he might have meant it. I hope I’m wrong. The real Jack Slade was mean as hell.”
When Longarm finally reported for work the next morning, Henry, the clerk who played the typewriter in the front office, shot him a now-you’re-gonna-get-it smirk and told him the boss wanted to see him the moment he ever saw fit to show up.
Longarm sighed fatalistically and ambled back to the inner sanctum of U.S. Marshal William Vail to take his chewing like a man.
Old Billy Vail was shorter, fatter, balder, and usually looked meaner than Longarm. But this morning he looked up calmly from behind his cluttered desk, shot a weary glance at the banjo clock on his oak-paneled wall, and said, “Save your excuses. You staked out the nine-thirty northbound Burlington in the vain hope Slade might be headed for his old haunts along the Overland Trail.”
Longarm sat down with a sheepish grin. “It was worth a try. You heard about the shootout?”
“I did. This may come as a surprise to you, but the Denver chief of police and the local federal marshal are supposed to remain on speaking terms. A copy of the police report they were kind enough to give you a copy of was waiting for me when I arrived to open this very office at the time the taxpayers of these United States expect us to start working for them. You’ve had your fun. Now I want you to go get a shave and a haircut, you untidy rascal. For, Saturday or not, the federal district court down the hall is holding a special hearing, and they asked me to supply a deputy to ride herd on an Indian agent who ought to be ashamed of himself.”
Longarm shook his head and said, “Damn it, Billy, this other case is personal. I had the little maniac and I let him walk away and gun two fellow federal agents. You got to let me make up for my awful mistake last night.”
Vail sighed and replied, not unkindly, “I know how dumb you have to be feeling this morning. But, having gone over the whole affair in my head as well as on paper, I can’t say I’d have acted a bit different. You had no way of knowing a taproom troublemaker was anybody serious. Walking away from a pointless argument was the mark of a mature individual. So you not only done right, but now that I’ve read the coroner’s report on them army men, it could’ve been even wiser than you might have thought at the time.”
Longarm grimaced. “Aw, crap. I had the wild-eyed pissant, Billy. Both ways. The blonde behind the bar could have took him in a wrestling match, and he was toting single-action ‘74s. I hate to brag, but you’ve seen me and my double-action.44-40 in action against worse odds.”
“I have. You’re good. So were them two army agents. That’s doubtless how they wound up dead. I calls it the Billy the Kid phenomenon. A phenomenon is like a mirage, only more dangerous.”
Longarm said, “I know what a phenomenon is. What could Billy the Kid have to do with the case? The last I heard, that other little pest was on the dodge down New Mexico way.”
Vail leaned back in his own chair to haul out a nickel cigar as he explained, “That other Kid’s managed to kill more than one growed man with a rep because, like you and them two dead army men, they hesitated the fraction of a second it takes to wind up dead. I’ve just gone over little Joseph Slade’s known history, up to where he suddenly turned horse thief and killer. It’s pathetic as hell. He was too awkward as well as too sickly to engage in schoolyard sports over at Evans. The teachers had to protect him from the usual classroom bullies. One that had him crying to the teacher regular was a ten-year-old girl. Nobody cared when he just stopped coming to school one day because, On top of being a Cry-baby, he was dumb as hell. He was behind all the other kids in reading, spelled awful, and never learned long division at all. Lord knows why the army ever let him join up. I know it’s hard to get men at thirteen dollars a month, but you’d think they’d draw the line some damn place.”
“He was acting a lot tougher last night,” Longarm said.
“I ain’t finished: I said I just went over the report. It’s about a sickly, not-too-bright, lonely boy who read lots of penny dreadfuls until something snapped in his feeble mind. He ain’t never been anywheres near Julesburg, and his family ain’t in any way related to the real Black Jack Slade. That was easy for the Denver police to check out with a couple of night-rate wires to the county clerks involved. But somehow the broodsome loner must have adopted his namesake as a hero As the gent he wished he could be. For if there was one thing the original Jack Slade was not, it was a sickly sissy. The kid no doubt read of the time his hero was hit twice with Pistol rounds and blasted thrice with a sawed-off shotgun in the same fight. It’s a matter of public record that Slade was left for dead, got back up and tracked down the man who’d gunned him to return the favor, slow. Slade winged his man, tied him
