Well, Ol Thunder is back with you. I gotta tell you foks I just dodged a great big bullet and barely got back here alive.
So let me tell you how the story goes, and I am telling all you folks, this is the God's honest truth. There aint one lie in the story.
I swear...
Really...
I been hangin' out at Lil's quite a bit lately and have pretty much gotten used to the place and Lil. She's a good gal, but she seems to like to be in control most of the time, what with making me take baths every Saturday night. She even makes me wear britches when I am walking around her place upstairs.
She has this thing about seeing me in my red longies and doesn't appear to enjoy it.
I had to wash my face and hands and clothes all the time and I even have to clean up my moustache after I eat.
See, I like to keep the food in it for sampling later on during the night.
It was getting a little boring for me and I am not accustomed to having such a tight rein kept on me.
So I have been wandering around town quite a bit. I been hitting some of the other saloons and generally just hanging around playin' poker with the Rangers and all that.
The Mine had a real quick price increase in shares, so I sold most of my shares at the high point and then bought back in when the price dropped down to below where it had been before the jump.
I did real well on that move I gotta say.
Like I said, I been playin' poker and such and I ain't got into any trouble with any body else, but I guess you could say that Lil and I aren't really on speaking terms anymore.
It all started when I went into that library place with all them books in it just to see what was so good about books.
Now, I ain't much on letters, but there was this sweet looking lady working in there that kind of caught my eye.
She goes by the name of Library Mary and she spent almost a whole day showing me books and explained a lot of what was in them to me. It seems like she knows quite a bit about things and has read most every book in the place. She also went to college at the Corsicana Female Lterary Institute in Texas and is one smart cookie...
Not to mention she really is a fine looking gal.
She knows lots about a lot of things.
She tells me that she used to work in one of those laboratory places back east and even told me about looking through this looking glass thing that makes really small things look big.
So anyway she brought out this book filled with pictures and I spent the better part of the afternoon lookin' at the book and asking all kinds of questions.
Mary was helping me out with the letters that told what them pictures was.Those books was filled with all kinds of them three dollar words and she was kind enough to help me with them. I was right impressed with all that she knew and if I hadn't had to go back for a fancy sit down supper with Lil, I would have spent a lot more time with her.
Now the next day, I decided I would go out for a ride on my Palomino, Sally, and headed up toward the mine.
Sally threw a shoe so I ended up walking a spell and seeing as how it was so hot I decided to head to the swimmin' hole to cool off a bit.
Much to my surprise when I got there I saw Library Mary in the pond. I couldn't believe my eyes and not wanting to be any kind of nasty I let out a shout so she wouldn't be too surprised when I came over the rise.
Well, she heard me and told me that it was ok for me to join her in the pond. So I went over the hill and was so surprised at what I saw, my eyes almost fell out of my head.
I was expecting to see her in some sort of a petticoat in the water and I was going to wear my longies into the pond so I didn't appear any kind of rude, or embarrass her in the least.
Folks...she was skinny dippin... and I ain't never seen anything like it before in my life.
She was up to her waist in water and had nothing else covering anything !!!
HOOOO-EEEE!!!
So being all gentlemanly like my sister Otie Mae used to teach me when I was young I asked her if she was sure it was ok for me to be there.
She told me she was glad it was me and told me that I shoulld jump in with her. Believe me, it didn't take me but a New York minute to get down into the altogether and jump right in!!!
Now, I been swimmin' since I was a young pup growing up in Wapello County Iowa on the Des Moines River back home, but I ain't never had so much fun.
Library Mary turned my stop at the swimmin' hole into one of the best times I have had in years.
Now I told you earlier that I am not too liking of that soap thing, but she had some of that lavender smelling soap that comes from out New York way and she suds me up and down and all over the place and got me just as clean as a whistle.
We spent the entire afternoon together swimmin' and having the time of our lives.I had no idea that taking a bath could be so much fun, and I would gladly volunteer to take one every day if it was that much fun.
We decided we had better head back into town before the sun went down too far so we climbed into her wagon, tied Sally's rein to the back of the wagon and rode along holding hands, singing and kissing all the way.
When we got back to town, she headed back to her place and I took off walkin to the livery stable to get a shoe put on Sally.
While I was walkin' over there, the feller from the Western Union place hollered at me and told me that I had a telegram waiting at the office.
I stopped over there and got the telegram and since I don't do letters very well the only thing I could read on it is that it came from my little sister Otie Mae. I stuffed it into my pocket and kept on a walkin.
While the farrier was putting new shoes on Sally I decided that I was getting pretty tired of being rode hard like I was by Lil and went to Rebecca 47's hotel and picked up my things. Rebecca 47 gave me a look and told me that I had better walk lightly around Lil, but didn't let me know anything else was up.
I went back to the livery stable got Sally, put my saddle bags on her, loaded up my Winchester, put on my Sam Colt revolvers and headed out to Lil's.
On my way over there, I walked by Couch's Snake pit and heard all them basher trash types in there just a hollerin' and yellin.
The Snake pit is about the same except that most of them rattlers got their fangs taken out.
Their hiss and rattle is a lot more show than go anymore. What with Couch talkin' them out of their claims for cheap money they ain't got no shares left to cover their gambling losses to the boys and gals at the high class places.
Doc Jem caled it quits and left town on his donkey named Minerva with no money at all and not much else left to show for his time in the Comstock short of a good case of the piles.
Oh, sure them basher trashers are all nasty and loud and all that, but nobody listens to them anymore and they just get boring after a real short time.
So I walked into Lil's place and she caught me out of the corner of her eye.
Lil had found out about my excursion at the swimmin' hole from some basher trash fella that was spyin' on us and went back and told her all about my new bathing method.
Lil took one look at me, picked up a shot glass and heaved it and just missed my head.Then she started swearin at me and throwing more shot glasses, whiskey bottles, and beer glasses at me.
Fortunately for me I'm real quick so I was able to dodge all the flying stuff and even caught the brand new bottle of Jim Beam she threw before I lit out the door.
I tell you what folks, I have had flamethrowers on my ass before but Lil was mad as hell and wasn't about to let me get away scott free without some sort of injury.
So she grabbed her shotgun and came a runnin' down the street after me.
She let off one shot that went wild, but it was a double barreled Remington 12 guage and her second shot caught me in the right leg with about a half a load of number 5 buckshot.
I wasn't about to stick around to see Seadoc, so I kept on a ridin' full tilt until I got about eight miles out of town.
I pulled over at this abandoned miners shack and started to dress my wound. It was nasty lookin' and there was blood all over the place.
I drank about a quarter of that bottle of Jim Beam in one gulp, pulled out my Bowie Knife and cut the heck out of that brand new pair of Levi's. I even had to cut my red longies so I had to take another swig of the Jim Beam just to help with the sorrow of losing a good friend.
So I dressed it up quite a bit using some of the things I learned back when I was in the Union Army back in the Civil War from one of them Yankee Surgeons.
I made me a poultice from some moss and found an old piece of moldy bread. I scraped off some of that mold , put it on the dressing and got the whole thing as cleaned up as I could.
Then I drank some more of that Jim Beam and passed out.
Next morning I heard some movement outside the door and realized that all I had was my Sam Colts and went divin' under the table six guns at the ready.
I heard the most wonderful voice I could have heard at that point in time. It was as sweet as a whole field of clover.
It was Library Mary tellin' me not to blast her, that she was there to help and she didn't have anyone else with her.
She came in, gave me a great big hug and kiss and started fussin' over me and my leg.She opened up the dressing and said I did a good job dressing it but I was going to have to go see a doctor right quick or there was going to be real trouble.
So we went outside and I saw she had her wagon full of all her stuff. She tied Sally to the back of the wagon, helped me climb in and we took off headin' down south. She said she had heard all about the fuss and loaded her stuff on the wagon and left town looking for me.
She even brought some laudnum with her.Now I ain't much for that laudnum stuff, but I tell you it made that day's ride in that wagon a whole lot easier to take.
We stopped in at this little town where she said she knew this doctor that was also in the war, but served General Lee.
I wasn't real keen on havin' some Johnny Reb workin' on me but she told me she had known him since before the war and it would be ok.
Well what with my leg a hurtin' the way it did I didn't have much choice.
So we went in to see him and he was a right nice old fella, Doc Vern. He was a little gray in his beard but it turns out that he worked at that Andersonville place and was trying to make up for all the bad things that happened while he was there.
He started tellin' me about it and from what he told me it was hell on earth. He said he tried to keep as many Union boys alive as he could, but the Confederacy didn't have anywhere near enough supplies to keep them all going. So he was buying stuff out of his own pocket to use for food and medical supplies and whatever else he could. He said he was right sorry for the things that happened and was bound and determined to right as many wrongs as he could.
He was a good man and I became real fast friends with him and trusted him as much as any Union Infantryman from the 14'th Iowa Infantry could trust a Rebel.
He made me get down to the altogether again and Library Mary was happy to assist me getting that way.
I think she likes the way I look when I'm buck nekkid.
I couldn't imagine why, but she seems to enjoy it...
Anyhow, when Mary was takin' off my britches she found that telegram and read it to me.
It was from Otie Mae and she wanted me to come out there and help her and her husband Doc Miller on this project they was working on.
So I stayed there for a couple of weeks and Mary stayed with me and was nursing me back to health.
She told Doc Vern all about the new things she had been reading about and they worked together real hard and saved my leg.
She said she didn't want to go back to the Comstock any more cause them bashers had pretty much ruined the place Lil certainly didn't want her around, and since I had loaded up all my gold, and all my shares, we was pretty well set.
I had already planned to leave town so we took off for this little Texas town called Corsicana and Otie mae's ranch, The Rockin T...
Well, I'm walkin' with a heck of a limp, I can't ride a horse yet, but I seem to be recovering and with all this good nursing care I have gotten I guess you could say that even though it was technically buckshot I dodged another bullet.
I'll tell you more about our trip back to the Great State of Texas in a bit, so ya'll pour yourself a snifter of that good brandy light yourself another cigar and stick around.
