Chapter 5
A Bitter Farewell
The Spire
So good! They thought all. It's a stupid gamble anyway! Good that they made it out alive, better with three chest's they'd left behind at that place! Good-for-nothing riddance and gone ridden! Babe, it's a time we lost. They'd say to their wive's had they any to the future'd care's they'd be up to their ear's in later it seemed like! Three colonels-I mean, now 2 and a captain to boot! Johnny boy turned the well handle and looked up to the sky! "Coming clouds signal a storm on the horizon, mama'd say! But I'm not a boy anymore!" The little boy drank a cantoon of water and spaddled off to be fed by mama nonetheless. The canteen was for vetted soldiermen and no one else! Sorry, little Johnny boy, your's is a tune for you to play alone! "Nothing fetch'd, my man! I'm only gonna be 18 some day!" he 'splained to his pappy away from it all in his bed, a tiny little coon-hound's handle of a mug of milk his only bedside grace! Sleeping in the stable's sooted him butt stuff! It was comfortable, strong and manly! Not like "those fool's" back there! "What! That's a shadow over there!" he spooked himself thinking about thought stuff often those that know's him gonna be pardoned, he hoped. Bad dreams! It's side-stuff to those who know!? "I know", he heard! And it continued! "That you done it! You killed them all and an extra man at that actor's farm! The Town With No Name all blazed up and gone it seem's, and by whom!? If you know thunderstruck!" "Varmint's!" kicked a voice Johnny boy knew well!
It was Colonel Wilkinson's now Captain Wilkinson's? He thought to know! He didn't care for it all that much! He knew'd it be bad to lie? Well, how to lie Johnny boy, you're a man aren't you? A boy's decision glared in his mind! "A foot's all I'm worth hearing that! I know stuff, I mean that mean's they killed them all at that town there we're supposed to protect!" He walked a foot and a half shorter all day to know that! Johnny boy was ecstatic to leave! His stable wasn't his home. He couldn't take it. He was a man! So he wandered off, not forgetting nothing. What a boy! Sing, sweet Johnny boy and forget it! The treasure's still out there in Ol' Paw's wound! Now sunder it together and sod off my lad, better be a murderer than in a liar's gaze you dawn off! "Little Johnny boy's gone, eh Pa?" he wondered as he strode to calm himself never looking back like it mattered to me off! He! Went! And gazed at NOTHING. The star's were above us all! Not God, nor temple, nor the one's who mandated that it was Captain Wilkinson now, no longer befit to be fitted a Colonel's Title! He'd get his new badge in the mail soon someday! But for now his old uniform'd would work! No problem's there, his men had been told that at a meeting with them all together that they were under a Captain now, no longer a Colonel! They could move freely without reckoning up a bandit's camp and could freely dawn color's that said "RED'S DEAD, REBEL YOUTH!" BEGAINED! And regained if you felt well to join them! More pay more's the less it meant well. We marched all the same with them. A smart's youth began in the street's of Washington if D.C.'d had ONE OFF Pinkerton to name! "Aye, that's it! Good shoes!" Rance Spurgeon said to Hallowell! He shot him a glance and tossed a penny in his direction! "What a name, Ol' Spurgeon of the Chicago Spurgeon's!?" It seemed a merryment to blunder into it! What a man, so nice and sound! A Pinkerton agent by day and night like that needed no safe going's-away! "FUCK OFF!" Spurgeon relented in his gaze! "WHAT'S THAT MEAN!?" he said naughtily and kicked the man! "OL' SPURGEON IS A CHEAT!" the old shoe-sway counted and shouted out! "SPAT IN MY FACE AND GAVE ME "ONLY-A-PENNY" FOR IT! KILL THEM ALL! FUCK THE PINKERTON'S AND FUCK THEM ALL TO DEATH! TO DEATH I SAY!" and kicked off! Rance walked around town like a lily-livered youth at a parade! Money was no object. He had outgrown his parents wealth and in amazement had wandered into a new gig oneday when he met a man named Harry Townsend, a Pinkerton man himself mortgaged to primary rosenet! They formed a quick bond on a battlefield in town called Backalley and staged warfare throughout! Rance wasn't a smartman to Harry, or Henry or whoever he called himself! This was it! To be lit up the night's were a pretty good gig, eh ol' Rance Spurgeon himself? He worried to be dead from it by dawnlight! Not cool in these Rance Spurgeon's, he wandered and was seen with his cane! Ol' Rockystoot's was it's name! Never said. Ol' Rockystoot's was beleaguered to say the least! Rance walked around town with Harry now! Mr. Townsend went by his name all the time! If you heard it, you were dead! A dearthful lad with a trigger-finger! Dead on the wire by a landmine! He had no passion's save for being himself! If he shot you, you were dead and that was it! Or wasn't it? Never a ghost-fearer, the man would calm himself never! A passionless freak you'd consider a cannibal if he wasn't a man! Or American! He lived in Pennsylvania with his life. A family in a fortune forever of love and merryment! They danced in Philadelphia as well like a Roman statue. Their kind stretched back to the States! I'm sure, if you know me, Ol' Pinkertonorry, though less for it, died down there! "Whisper's say it's us again!?" Rance Spurgeon pecked at a pocky-meal! Steak, peas, carrots and corn all mixed together with a bit of greenbeans and in a nice oil that mighta been olive to canola or rapeseed! "It's olive, Rance!" Harry looked at his boytroubled friend! "They're out there!" Shadows danced in the glare of a window! "Should we show them off?" Rance hated it! He had to be cool. "Sure, let's go friend!" And Harry got the right stuff! Rance the little fuckball would do it Harry no "off" for it! "FUCK, FUCK, FUCK THAT!" Rance shot off with his Army Dragoon all blue-built and studly himself for it! "Go Rance, go for it!" Harry guided him to a spittoon that the little lad used to FUCK THEM UP! "YES, I got it Harry! Mr. Townsend TAKE THIS!" and he hocked a flamelight to the man to his left! "RANCE! THAT'S DANGEROUS, SPLIT IT!" He remembered his time with the Man in the Covered Suit and SHOT IT RIGHT THE FUCK BACK AT THEM! "HA-HAHAHAHA! RANCE, THIS IS SO FUN! KILL THEM ALL! LET THEM KNOW "A PINKERTON MAN IS A REAL MAN"! WE WON'T LET OL' COLONEL COWSHOES BACK HOME FORGET WE NEED A PAYCHECK!" "ALRIGHT, SO FUN WE HAVE IT DO!" Rance kicked the man who shot them first! "Ol' Cowshoes, eh!?" Rance spat and tuttered back a turn! "AND A PAYCHECK TOO, I NEED IT I'M A MAN OF THE PINKERTON AGENCY! KICK 'EM SOOT!" "LITTLE FUCKBALL'S LIKE ME NEED A PAYCHECK!? TOO DEAD TO BURN! WE'LL LEAVE 'EM GASOLINE SOAKED AND READY FOR THE BARN TOMORROW KID'S!" "FUCK THEM UP, RANCE SPURGEON!" The king shouted back! They left the town ALIVE! Back turned to a blazing glory of an old farmstread, Alholmsville was BURNED TO A CRISP! by the Pinkerton Agency! They left a sign to FEEL GOOD! and walked off forever! They felt like it was time to leave it AT THAT! So, here we go "PINKERTON BOY'S" they chanted as they galloped, forgetting to untie their horses before they left the town IN HELL! UN-ALIVE! And so on! "Eh, Rance Spurgeon?" "Huh? What's that? Going crazy my old man? Want me to hold that? You know you FUCKED US UP LAST TIME brotha!" Harry speen-punched Rance in the spurgeon! And down he went! "MY OLD HORSE WENT DOWN IN THAT BLAZE-OF-GLORY RANCE! AND I GOTTA WALK HOME NOW! MAKE IT HOME YOURSELF BROTHA?" Harry left Rance again like before! Knocked out and climbing back to life! "NOT A HELL'S WORTH IT WITHOUT A PAYCHECK!" Harry Townsend leapt up and kicked his heel's like a cowboy! 'Ol Sam would be dead TOMORROW!? he felt it in his gut's! Pinkerton's got no love, but THEY GOT A PAYCHECK! he shouted at RANCE SPURGEON'S dead body he hoped! Spittaw. Not in spitting distance, Rance laid there like a mean caboose! Faggot-layin's my game he musta said that day, because now he played those card's! "Faggot-boy's back there, old soots!" Harry told his boss Max Reinfeld back in Washington or Chicago or wherever it was that wasn't Philadelphia or Pennsylvania like he hoped! "Dead in the dust!? Harry, what have you done!? That man was a PINKERTON agent! What are we gonna do with you!? "FIRED, I guess?" "Nah, too easy Harry! We need to demote you to feel safe and sound 'round these part's! Oh now, how about Captain? Captain Wilkinson is out there now! Kinda hard to admit that. We let ourselve's burn that town down! You there!?" Harry was sick to his stomach! "So, I need to go get Rance Spurgeon back and pay him half a million dollar's so he don't kill me back there again?" "YEAH, so be it!" Max left the scene to know for sure, the boy's needed their space, oh noes oh no again he worry on home to his mama'd! "What a DAY!" Harry said to his hat-what's-his worryfelt and left to go find RANCE SPURGEON and get him BACK HOME again safe and sound! Mean old man musta dozed off! "AH, forgot your hat Harry?" Rance spat at Harry Townsend and through him for a loop! "My boy, you're safe and sound at home! What took you so long?" "Half a million dollars!" Rance shot Harry dead! "And it's all for me!" Max Reinfeld wouldn't hear of this; Rance had quit! Harry was livid dead-on-the-floor. "And that's it! Time to go back home!" Rance's story was done! EPILOGUE: Rance made his way back to Chicago and lived a merry life as far as you know with his family! They were too rich to deliver the boxes from ship to shore anymore, so he made them egg's benedict daily and loved to be at home finally in peace again with his family! Mother, Wilma Rance Spurgeon III, Uncle Rhimely Escord Nightly III, Daddy dead from typhoid disease or whatever when Rance was a wee child and almost bit it himself of that fateful tumour that beleaguered us so long ago that Daddy's today can't stomach it and get you baptised by a Doctor not a priest to rid the world now of that thankfully gone Demon! Typhpoid Fever was a disease as old and legendary as it is GONE NOW! And Rance Spurgeon was inoculated against it now, though unknown to most if not everyone! Catching it was not likely again! He felt for it. His canegun had never been used. He'd never sell it, of course. That'd be not himself, as Harry Townsend knew. Harry was left there all-alone and in his full regalia. Rance was too pissed off to loot him and scared someone would know he was alive for it! No one did. Spooked him to continue the tale to his mama. She knew he was a Pinkerton Agent still and forever. THE END OF RANCE SPURGEON AND HARRY TOWNSEND'S STORY, OR WHOEVER THEY WERE!