Chapter 4

Jim was familiar with the town of Gonzales and he rode unerringly to the Sheriff's office on the old town square. He tied Chief to the hitching rail outside. He warily dismounted; he limped over to the closed office door and knocked on it. A familiar sounding voice called out, "Come on in."

Jim opened the door and entered the big office. The broad shouldered young Sheriff, Tadpole Wheeler, rushed to the door! "Jim! I'm proud to see you're still kickin', Pard. We got a wire the other day from Austin saying you'd left San Antonio headed for here after getting stabbed in a ruckus with Silas Hawkins. Me and the Captain have been burning up the wires all over Texas and we couldn't find hide nor hair of you!"

Tad pumped Jim's hand energetically. Jim just barely managed to talk with his arm being pumped like that. "Lordy, Tad, I do appreciate all your concern. As a matter of fact, I have been a mite under the weather. Hell, I would'a died if old Chief hadn't toted me into a gypsy camp."

"A gypsy camp? It's a wonder you got out of there with your eye teeth, much less your horse and saddle." Tad was positively wide eyed now. "Then again, maybe you're just meaner than them sneakin' gypsies. I heard tell today about the deal you made with Injun Joe that you wouldn't kill him like you did Hawkins if he was to stay the hell out of Texas!"

Jim was flabbergasted to hear about this new rumor beating him to Gonzales. "Tad, that ain't quite the way it happened. When I turned Joe over to the Sheriff's office in San Antonio, I only suggested to him real politely that he might ought to leave Texas when he escaped."

"Whatever it was you said to him, he surely must have took it as Gospel. He was last reported seen almost to Amarillo and they said he was traveling north like his war bonnet and his breech cloth had both been set on fire."

"Well good!" Jim thought, maybe old Joe has finally gotten his mind right again. He was saddened though, to hear that the rumor mills and gossips were already working full time about his latest kill. Despite the Penny Dreadful books some of the uppity New York and Chicago writers were selling, the west was already relatively tame.

There hadn't been more than maybe a dozen stagecoach robberies in all of Texas during the past few years and very few more bank holdups, but if you read the Yankee writer's stories you would think that they were a daily occurrence. Jim sure didn't like it that his simply doing his job added to the wild stories.

"I guess I'd best go wire Captain Rayford and tell him I'm back on the job. He'll be upset if he thinks I went belly up and died somewhere out in a mesquite thicket and he's lost the state equipment I've been issued."

Tad didn't set any store by that! "I don't think he was only worried about your outfit, Jim. He even mentioned in one wire he and his wife had a passle of girl children, but he never did have a son and you was about as close as he'd ever got to having one!"

"Aw hell!" Jim drawled. "If Captain Rayford spent that much on a wire he must be fit to be hog tied! I'd best get over to that telegraph office, pronto!"

"I'll walk over there with you, Jim; then I'm gonna drag you on over to my house for a big mess of Hattie's cooking. That ought to fix you right up." When they walked into the telegraph office the clerk glanced up and saw it was Tad; he automatically slid a blank form across the desk and went back to the book he was reading.

Jim was impressed by the clerk's actions; he told Tad; "I guess you have been burning up the wires." He reached for a pencil that was left on the desk for customer's use; he quickly wrote out a brief message and then he slid it back across the desk.

The telegrapher put his book down and reached for the form without looking up; he slowly read it out loud. "Capt. Rayford. Ranger HQ Austin, Don't X me off the payroll yet. On Luke Warner's trail. Jim." The man looked up in alarm. "Why, everybody's been thinking you was dead! I was just reading a book about you, 'Two Gun Lone Star Ranger', by Lionel Hamilton; he's a famous writer back east in Boston!"

This fine bit of news got Jim's temper riled up! "I sure don't remember giving any two bit greenhorn writer permission to use my name in any book! That man ain't smart enough to know when talk of that gets around it'll put every penny ante, want to be gunman in Texas on the prod!"

Tad evidently didn't think it would be too bad to be famous! "Yeah, there ought to be a law against it! He puts the greenbacks in the bank, while you have to face the bullets and all of the adoring women!"

"Well, don't put me in that leaky boat alone; he may put you in his next book, and look what happened to Bill Hickock!" If the look on Tad's face was any indication, this thought sobered him up considerably. Bill Hickock had been a rowdy gambler who'd sometimes take a job as a lawman when the cards weren't falling his way, until some writer back east had adopted him and made him famous as "Wild Bill".

The dramatized publicity had scared one of Hickock's enemies so much he'd shot him in the back of his head while he was playing cards instead of standing up to him like a grown man. The bush-whacker had been hung out to dry on the nearest tree by Bill's friends, but that hadn't done Wild Bill much good!

After thinking about that side of the coin for a moment, Tad had to climb over to Jim's side of the fence. "I reckon I see your point, Jim."

The telegrapher had been avidly hanging on to every word they'd spoken. Jim looked his way and noticed his inactivity then he dug a coin out of his poke and tossed it onto the desk. "Would you please send that message? Captain Rayford might like to read it sometime today."