Dan the Dummy, Part II
...Dan looked at him, then slowly scratched his head,
as if challenged by all that he just said,
then shrugged and said, “I guess I will say no,
’cause back to jail I never want to go.”
Alistair then growled, and said, “See here,
you can’t get rich if you cower in fear.”
Said Dan, “I never want to see jail bars,
I did it once and I still got the scars.
Can’t spread the loot on girls, I’ve got a wife,
and got land of my own, what’s more to life?”
The damn stubbornness made Alistair seethe,
“This is you dream? Scratching dirt for pennies?!”
But at that moment, from within the shack,
a woman came, belly round and skin black,
and Alistair, annoyed at Dan’s new ways
now found himself filled with a white-hot rage.
He’d worn the gray, and fought hard for the south,
and what he saw his mind could not allow,
“You’re up here doing miscegenation!
Your dull mind has led you to damnation!
You won’t just us to rut with some negress!
To think I thought you could help us with this!”
Dan replied, “I don’t do crime no more,
and she’s expectin,’ so please do not roar.”
He just looked on, his eyes not reacting,
“You’re so dumb, Dan, you don’t know anything!”
He turned his horse, and looked back at his men,
proclaimed, “This fool can’t ride with us again.”
Then clapped his heels, and shot off at a lope,
half wondering, should he have killed the dope?
Then shook it off, what could punish him more
than that sad life, with a slave and squalor.
Alistair rode, northwards to the treasure,
their cuts bigger, which his true pards deserved.
The found the peak, rode above the treeline,
saw endless rocks where one could hide the find.
“I’ll go ahead, I know how Red Hayes thought,
but stay close by, we may have to move rocks.”
Alistair motioned for Bill to go on,
they rode behind, the distance not that long.
Bill’s eyes looked close at every rock he passed,
looking for some disturbance in the grass.
An hour passed, then near a depression
Bill say fresh mud, said, “This must be the one!’
Before Alistair could ride up to see
a shot rang out, Bill fell without a scream.
Gunfire ran out from high on the slope,
Jed Pritchard’s gang, advancing at a lope.
Alistair drew and short back at the filth,
he some one fall, wounded, but not yet killed.
The loud reports echoed off the cold stone,
a damned ambush! He felt he should have known.
Watched one of his lurch back, he’d been cut-shot,
Alistair fanned his gun and a foe dropped...
CONCLUDES IN PART III.
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