Humbug Mountain (14 page)

The crows caught my eye. They were flocked in the distance like flecks of pepper over the stranded and done-for
Prairie Buzzard.
It seemed to me I could make out Captain Cully himself. He was digging a hole at a fierce rate. Shovel dirt was flying.

I watched him a long time. It was
Captain Cully
who had buried the humbug Petrified Man! No doubt about it. He was digging in the very spot.

Grandpa chuckled. “It was you, was it, Colonel, who wrote up those grandacious lies about Quickshot Billy! I don't mind confessing he was hired on the strength of the bully reputation you gave him. Good reading, those yarns.”

“Confounded trash,” Pa snapped. “I regard myself as both a newspaperman and a serious man of letters, Captain. A poet. Those nickel novels are an intense embarrassment. But from time to time we needed money.”

“Rufus,” Ma sighed, and then gave her head a toss. “I don't know how much longer I could have kept your secret. You're a splendid poet and you must get on with your new book. But you've got more pride than a
roomful
of poets.”

“Pa, I
liked
those stories,” I said. “Is that what you were doing over in Wolf Landing? When you locked yourself in the hotel room? Were you writing another story?”

Pa hesitated. Then he gave a small shrug.
“Quickshot Billy, Whirlwind of the West.”

“Well, I hope you put some girls in it this time, Pa,” Glorietta said.

Pa's eyes settled on us for the first time. “It was hard on you the way I'd disappear. I know that.”

Glorietta stood mum, staring at Pa. So did I, thinking back.

Pa said softly, “I may have kept a secret, but I've never lied to you. When our money ran low I had no choice but to lock myself away in order to scribble out that nonsense. Around the clock, for days and sometimes weeks, in secret. I wrote under a dozen different names.” He took a long breath. “Hang it all, I not only made Quickshot Billy's reputation, but one for myself—
King of the Nickel Novels
!”

My eyebrows rose. “Honest?” I exclaimed. I thought it sounded glorious!

Pa looked from one of us to the other. He appeared confounded that we weren't embarrassed to have a father who was King of the Nickel Novels.

“Then
you won't have to disappear again, will you, Pa?” Glorietta said.

Pa's eyes slid to Ma. “Jenny, do you have that catalog of Lyman Bridges Ready-Made Houses? Study it over and pick out a home to your liking.”

“I already have. House Number 27. It has a lovely parlor with a bay window, and three bedrooms and the prettiest front porch.”

Pa withdrew an envelope from his pocket. It was the letter Mr. Slathers had brought back from Wolf Landing. “Captain, this is a check from my publisher. When you return with the general store, the schoolhouse, and the church, will you kindly bring us House Number 27?”

It was late morning when Grandpa boarded the tin-clad to leave. But then he turned to Pa. “I'm afraid those asbestos coffins you advertised will draw a rough brand of citizen, Colonel.”

“It takes all kinds to make a town, Captain,” said Pa.

“I think we're going to need a sheriff to handle the sinners who show up.”

“You're not thinking of Quickshot Billy?” Glorietta said with a faint groan.

I found myself standing up for him. “He did get back his nerve at the last minute, Glorietta.”

“Appears to be an ounce or two of grit in him,” Grandpa said. “I'll confess, it surprised me.”

And Ma said, “We'll get busy on the next issue of
The Humbug Mountain Hoorah.
Didn't he save two tons of gold dust and capture two notorious outlaws?”

Pa gave me a wink. “With Wiley's help. Oh, Quickshot will walk the streets of Sunrise with such a strong reputation that ruffians will run like rabbits at the sight of him.”

Grandpa gave us a wave, and before long the tin-clad was churning out of sight downriver.

I looked at the mirror ring on my finger. I'd give it to Quickshot Billy Bodeen. He might need all the help he could get.

THE
END

Sid Fleischman wrote more than sixty books for children and adults. He was awarded the 1987 Newbery Medal for The Whipping Boy and also received the California Young Readers Medal, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, The Mark Twain Award, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and was the U.S. nominee for the international Hans Christian Andersen Award. His lifelong fascination with history, magic, movies, and the American west filled both his fiction and the biographies he wrote of Harry Houdini, Mark Twain, and Charlie Chaplin. He told his own tale in The Abracadabra Kid: A Writer's Life.

Also by Sid Fleischman,
JINGO DJANGO
– available as an ebook from AudioGO.