Jack Swartz, a Charleston saloon-keeper, buried his Mexican wife in the morning, killed a Mexican man at noon, and married another Mexican woman before sundown. Jim Wolf, catching a tramp robbing his house, resolved himself into a one-man lynching party and hanged the thief to an apple tree, relenting and cutting him down just before his life was extinct. Jerry Barton, a saloon man noted for his strength, was said to have killed seventeen men, three in handkerchief duels and two with his fist. When Jim Wolf inquired how many men Jerry had in his private graveyard, the giant pursed his brows reflectively. “Do Mexicans count?” he asked.
Justice of the Peace Jim Burnett, erratic czar of the town, having trouble with the Board of Supervisors over his fees, announced that in the future “this court will take care of itself,” and thereafter remained in rebellion against the county authorities and put all fees in his own pocket. A coroner’s jury, under instructions from the justice, brought in a verdict that “it served the Mexican right for getting in front of the gun.” Justice Burnett issued his own warrants and served them with a shotgun. No matter where he arrested a prisoner, in street or saloon, he at once declared court open, assessed the fine, and usually collected it then and there. When Jack Haarer, a ranchman, was drunk and shooting up the town, the justice dragged him from his horse and fined him twenty head of three-year-old steers. Having fined Jaw Bone Clark, who ran a dance hall, fifty dollars for being drunk, Justice Burnett lost the money in a poker game. Then the Court left the table long enough to arrest Jaw Bone again on the additional charge of disturbing the peace, and having fined him another fifty, bought a fresh stack of chips.
The Rev. Tuttle came over from Tombstone and held religious services one evening in the schoolhouse, Charleston being shy on churches. Curly Bill, having some curiosity to see what church was like, rounded up Ike Clanton, and the two outlaws went to the meeting. As these noted robbers and desperadoes stalked up the aisle with their six-shooters on and took front seats, the congregation became panic-stricken. One slipped out and then another until the minister was left with Curly Bill and Ike Clanton. Preacher Tuttle, sharing in the general consternation, was edging toward the back door when Curly Bill drew a bead on him.
“Come back here,” shouted Curly. “We’ve took out chips in this game and we aim to see the deal through to the last turn.”
The reverend gentleman, keeping a dubious eye on Curly’s gun, came back.
“Me and Ike was feelin’ low-spirited,” Curly explained, “and we ’lowed we’d come in and hear you preach, thinkin’ maybe yo’ sermon might cheer us up. Yo’ congregation’s done sneaked out on you fer no speshul reason clear to us, but we’d admire to have you open up yo’ game regular and,” Curly added with an offhand gesture with his six-shooter, “ef this here sermon don’t come off on the square, it’ll come off in the smoke.”
Whereupon the minister launched into a pulpit oration of regulation length. But he took occasion as he went along to give his congregation of two outlaws some pretty hard digs, and did not fail to paint a telling picture of the hell of fire and brimstone that awaited all robbers and murderers who perished in their sins.
“Now,” said the preacher with a sly smile at the conclusion of his discourse. “If the congregation will rise, I will pronounce the parting benediction.”
“None whatever,” declared Curly Bill. “This here roundup ain’t over by no means. Yo’ sermon’s done got me and Ike millin’ round and pintin’ the right way but we ain’t saved yit. However, in the present excited state of our feelin’s, we allow a hymn might shove us on into the gospel corral.”
Preacher Tuttle, who had a sonorous baritone voice, sang a hymn. He sang it so well that Curly Bill suddenly developed a great taste for religious music and, casually fingering his six-shooter, demanded more. And for an hour the preacher sang hymn after hymn loudly and with great fervour before Curly’s new passion for psalmody was appeased.
“You’ve done give us a good show,” said Curly Bill finally. “Ef me and Ike ain’t got enough religion now to git us through the pearly gates, it shore ain’t no fault o’ your’n. Seein’ as how yo’ throat must be tolerable dry, we’d be plumb pleased ef you’d step down to Schwartz’s bar with us. The drinks will be on me.”
Dozing in a chair next morning under the alamosas in front of Charlie Tarbell’s Eagle Hotel, Curly Bill opened his eyes to see Justice Burnett pointing a double-barrel shotgun at his head.
“Curly Bill, hear ye, hear ye,” intoned the justice solemnly, “this honourable court is now in session and you are hereby tried and convicted on the charge of illegally, unlawfully, and without warrant of law breaking up the church services in the schoolhouse last night. And it is the judgment of this here court, to wit: that you be fined twenty-five dollars, and that you pay this here fine forthwith, immediately and at once.”
“All right, Jim,” said Curly good-naturedly, getting out a roll and peeling off several bills. “Here’s your money, and the fun was cheap at the price.”
Curly Bill used to tell this story on himself with great glee. “And that low-down ornery old robber,” he would say, “who didn’t know no more ’bout law than a range bull, kept them two barrels of his’n p’inted
