Couch's Snake Pit

Well, Ol' Thunder's been hanging around town a spell and I got some updates for all of you out there if you have a few minutes.

Things get curiouser and curiouser around here.That much is certain.

Diamond Lil is still working out the kinks in her new place at the old Opera House, the place looking real nice and is crowded and rowdy almost every night. She does serve some watered down whiskey, but if you're real nice to her she'll set you up with some of that fine Kentucky Sour Mash sippin' whiskey.

Sometimes she charges me for it, but I figure that she's a little sweet on me, so she doesn't charge me the full price...usually...Well, sometimes...

It's nice to spend some time with a good lookin' dame like Lil, but she has this thing about being clean. Why, the first day she got to town she had me fixed up with a bath and everything. Now she makes me take one every Saturday night. I ain't used to anything like that I am here to tell you. I think I'm allergic to that stuff they call soap. Gives me the heebie jeebies just to think about it.

Lil even burned my favorite red cotton longies the first day she made me take that bath. As a matter of fact, she burned all of my clothes. I was all worried that I was going to have to walk around town in my birthday suit until she pulled out a fine looking set of clothes complete with a hat so big that I can water three horses out of it. I am tellin all you Rangers out there, That is one fine set of clothes.

Why, she even gave me a pocket watch with a gold chain and leather watch fob on it. She says she won it from some fancy dude she ran into back in Abilene town. She said his name was Doc Holliday and he hung around with this fella named Wyatt Earp.

They came through here once a while ago, but they was just passin' through, heading to a place named Tombstone.

That doesn't sound very promising to me.

Couches snake pit is still holding on, but I guess some of them rattler's that hang around there was run out of town lately with some of the townsfolk chasing them with pitchforks and shovels and picks and axes and even torches.

Mo was on of the latest ones to turn tail after he had a run in with Red and MT down at Reds MB Saloon. I guess he'd been drinking that rotgut stuff over at Couch's place all day and got really loudmouthed and drunk. He was so obnoxious that he got the whole place mad at him and later he got his britches set on fire.

The way it went was that Talkinbull got into some of that smooth sippin' whiskey and forgot to sip it. He was up at the mine all day working in the Sutro with some dynamite and brought some blasting powder home with him.

He says he forgot to clean out his pockets, but I think he had been looking for a little fireworks since it was the Fourth of July.

Mo was passed out on the street and Talkinbull spread some powder around his britches, left a trail back about thirty feet, lit it and watched when he finally woke up with that stuff just a sparkin' and spreading flames all over his pants. Mo ran about ten feet and jumped into the waterin' trough out front of Red's place. That spooked the horses that was tied up there and they took off a runnin.

Well, it seems that Mo got his spurs caught in a rein and ended up getting drug through the Cholla's with a great big hole in the seat of his britches. He was screamin' and just a carryin' on like nothin' I ain't never heard before..

It took Seadoc 4 hours and 3 bottles of whiskey to pull all them thorns out of his backside.

I never knew that Seadoc was a Doctor until that little adventure. I guess he calls himself Seadoc cause he likes to work on fish. Now I ain't never heard of nothing like that, and I have no idea why he is out here in the middle of the desert lookin' to work on fish.

There ain't nothin' but a small pond out back of the mine. Seadoc says he's going to stock it with Catfish from back around St. Louis.

He's still a workin' on that boat out west of town though. He keeps sayin' that California is going to slide off into the ocean someday and he wants to be ready.

Anyhow, Mo said he had had enough of them losers at Couches place and decided to ride on. Of course he didn't sit in the saddle real easy after that and stole a bunch of pillows from the hotel that Extreme runs. Before he left town Extreme caught up with him and demanded that Mo pay for those pillows. Mo didn't have any money cause he kept listening to Couch so Extreme took his horse, his saddle and Mo left town with a pair of saddlebags and four pillows under his arms walkin' in the hot July Sun. Extreme was ready to string him up, but decided it would be better just to let him walk out of town.

I heard Mo ended up in this little place in Lodi California and wrote a poem about being stuck there.

Couch is still his mean old nasty grouchy self and he seems to be letting the bright shiny attitudes that people are feeling since the mine started cleaning up the old messes get to him. He is just as foul as a vulture with his head inside a rotting steer carcass on a hot August day in the Comstock.

He damn sure doesn't smell any better either. I don't know what he's takin' a bath in, but it ain't good.

None of us Rangers will go near the Snake Pit, but Lil went in there one Saturday night. Gotta hand it to Lil, she is one brave woman. Couch took one look at her and decided that he was going to make a play for her. Lil just played him on like a greenhorn on a poker table.

She laid into him with some of the finest insullts you have ever heard. Lil has that way about her, so you gotta be careful and mind your manners.

She told me later about some of the things she saw going on in there and I will tell you straight out folks, those stories she told me about Couch and the rest of them rattlers would be enough to gag a suck egg mule.

Lil told me that Couch has this big old beat up ornate chair set up on this here riser thing and he does this thing he calls holding court several times a day.

Well, this Couch court thing is without a doubt one of the dumbest and most disgusting things I have ever heard of. It seems that Couch gets into this ratty old dress and sits up on the chair. Then them stupid bashers pay him a shiny silver dollar just to look up his skirt.

Now I don't know about any of you out there, but I don't know which is more vile or disgusting, the thought of Couch in a dress with no bloomers or anything else on to cover hisself or them idiot bashers paying a real silver dollar to look up his skirt...

Docjem is still hanging around the place in his Procto Palace thing and this story ain't much better than Couches Court.

I guess them Bashers get lit up on that cheap lousy whiskey and go off into that Palace and get this thing called a high colonic. Some of them bashers are so stupid they actually go in there two or three times a day. I don't know what Docjem does with the stuff, but I wouldn't want to order anything to eat from that buffet table.

Now Lil said that she had seen enough after about an hour in the place and she took her silver flask and left the place and came back to her place. She was wearing a green silk dress, but she looked pretty green after being in Couches place and I couldn't tell if that was the color of her skin or a reflection from the dress.

So after a while of sitting down and a few belts of wine, she got back to the business of tending her bar.

Well Couch was just lit enough and jealous enough to want to find out what made this Dame tick. So he lit out and stumbled down from the bad part of town to Lil's place. Couch was stumbling drunk and slobbering all over himself and everyone he saw. He came into Lil's place, walked right around behind the bar and grabbed onto Lil's Bustier.

Now most folks would have been a little unnerved by this, but Lil didn't miss a beat. She reached over and grabbed the axe handle she keeps behind the bar, swung it underhanded and nailed Couch right in the puppies!!!

Couch let out a war whoop that sent chills down every Indian fighter in town and flew straight up about four feet. He landed on his feet, stumbled back holding himself in the crotch and landed on the edge of the spitoon. The spittoon flew up in the air did a flip and landed right over his mouth upside down with all that gook running into his mouth and all over his face.

Seeing as how Couch couldn't breath very well he laid there and gagged for about ten minutes.

He was the center of attention with everybody watching him trying to get air into his lungs.

Finally Red, Me, and MT grabbed him by the boots and started dragging him out of the place, but not before Lil pulled out her switchblade and sliced off his money pouch scattering all that money he made from the bashers looking up his skirt all over the floor.

We drug him out and dumped him in the manure pile at the end of the boardwalk and went back into Lil's saloon.

Couch had no idea, but he was buying drinks all night long, just like he used to before he got into that basher thing.

It's too bad he went astray, he was a good guy a couple of years ago and we all wonder what happened to him.

Well, that's enough for tonight, I'm fixin to hit the hay.

You all take care and I'll keep you posted.

Thunder...