June 30, 2025 • 19 mins
Dive into the gripping narrative of Thieves Like Us, also known as Your Red Wagon. Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression, it tells the story of Bowie Bowers, a young prison escapee who, along with two accomplices, sets his sights on a daring bank heist. As plans unravel, Bowie finds himself entangled in a passionate love affair with Keechie, a relative of one of his partners in crime. This classic noir tale of doomed lovers on the run has been immortalized in film not once, but twice. Originally by Nicholas Ray in 1940s They Live By Night and later by Robert Altman in 1973s rendition of Thieves Like Us. Join us as we delve into this captivating tale. - Synopsis by Ben Tucker
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter four of Thieves Like Us by Edward Anderson. This
LibriVox recordings in the public domain read by Ben Tucker.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Chapter four.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
The two five gallon cans rattled emptily in the coope's rear,
and the red level of the gasoline gage was below
the half mark. But fort Worth and Dallas were behind
now given the run around without a rumble. One hundred
forty miles out this straight stretch and they would be
in mc master's. Bowie was driving on this side mc
masters at an old abandoned wild catwell that Tea Dub
(00:35):
had described. Bowie and Chickamauw were getting out, and Tee
Dub was going on in to contact his sister in law.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Just as soon as he got a house, he.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Would come back and get them. They talked about houses.
Now when they had about five places, Tee Dub said,
and all had good hotel lobby fronts, he would say
they had a real set up. He wanted a house
in Zelton, and another one in Gusherton, then one in
that resort town clear Waters, and one in Lothian and
twin Monty's. These towns were within a radius the two
(01:04):
hundred miles and not more than an hour's driving, a
park a house in each of them would give you
a hole that you could be cooling off in within.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
An hour after bank was sacked.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Always get places with double garages, Teetub said, And keep
the cars out of sight, and never let the neighbors
see more than one man at a time. And don't
let anybody ever do any questioning. If there was any questioning,
you do it yourself. Now. Up here in Zelton and
Gusherton they could be lease buyers or promoters as soon
as they got good fronts or cotton pickers. Do not
(01:35):
look it, chickamauv said, how much cotton can you pick
in a day? Country boy?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Oh? A pound five worked, real hard.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Bowie said, he looked at the fuel marked and was
gettin damned low. And another thing, teet Up said, Always
give the landlady the best of the deal, keep her satisfied.
I had me a land laid it down in Florida,
Chickamau said, And I want you to know that there
was one woman that could drink me under the table.
There wasn't anything that woman wouldn't do. And just when
(02:06):
everything was going smooth with us, they got me Tee
dup started telling about a house he had in Colorado.
The damnedest smallest thing got him in a rank there,
this right arm almost shot off in a big law
with a double barreled shotgun, jamming it in his eyes,
and him standing there, not even be able to lift
his arms. The thing he had done, though, was going
off and staying a couple of weeks and not telling
(02:27):
the milkman. That bastard got scared over a couple of dollars,
and he went to the woman that owned the house.
She went over to the house and saw it all
locked up, and she just went in.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
She got an eyeful.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
He had that damn machine gun in that house and
a bunch of shells. She goes to the law and
they show her a bunch of pictures, and sure enough,
she picks him out. The laws sit around the house
and here he comes back. They would have killed him
if it hadn't been for a woman on the porch
of a house across the street. She got to shouting
and screaming and telling the laws to stop, or they
would have killed him. We had them black eyes where
(03:01):
that big yellow bastard poked him with that shotgun. For
a month and a half We.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Sure got to stop and gas up pretty soon.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Bowie said, I'd stayed to Colorado, though, teed up said,
you ain't never going to get me back in it.
They were going to try and put the chair on me.
Up there, I was praying for Oklahoma to come and
get me. They had me positively identified in that state. Anyway,
This Colorado cuter was after me right now, and I
just figured that I had been unlucky enough to draw him,
and I wasn't gonna be lucky enough to beat the chair.
(03:30):
There was a little old auditor that used to come
around to us boys and them death cells and talk
kind of wanted to write pieces for magazines or something.
I got to feeling him out, and finally I just
showed him a five hundred dollars bill. I'd carried that
in the sole of my shoe for six months. He
tumbles and brings me a twenty five automatic and some
tape too, just like I asked, I take that right
(03:51):
between my legs, and man, I was set. I had
made up my mind that if they went ahead and
started putting that chair on me, I was going to
kill everybody around me that was man enough to die.
They didn't even try you up there though. To day
Chicka Mau said, no, that's how come me to be
back in Alki, Oklahoma. Finally come and got me, little
old jailer up here in the Panhandle, took that gun
(04:12):
off me.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I've been trying to get rid of it for two weeks.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
The highway turned in a banking curve, and then down
the highway they could see the scattered lights of a small,
sleeping town. We got a gas up here, Bowie said.
Everything was closed in the town. Small globes burned in
the rears of the stores over the sacks of grain,
the cans of oil and tire tubes, and the filling
stations and the showcases and the hardware store. Looks like
(04:39):
we're going to have to wake somebody up. T Dub said,
we can just unlutsch one ourselves. Chicka Maw said, b
We drove under the shed of the filling station across
the street from the hardware store. It was dark under
the shed, but in the office a lot burned. He
got out and went up to the door. On the
desk lay a man suspenders down head on a rolled coat.
(05:01):
There was an empty scabbard on his left hip hell,
wake him up, Chicka mo said. Bowie rattled the door
and the man stirred, raised up and began to work
his mouth like his jaws were sore. That old boy
is a law right, Bowie thought. Old boy came out.
He had a pistol in the scabbard. Now what do
you boys want? He said, Hello guy, Selene partner, teet
(05:25):
Up said. Old boy scratched his head. The hair looked
like rope frazzle.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
How much failer up.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Teetub said. Old boy moved toward the coop, looked inside
of it. Teetdub stepped toward him, brought the barrel of
the revolver up into the old boy's back like he
was driving an upper cut unlatch that pump you nosey,
old belch before I beat your ears down, good and proper.
Old boy looked like he was trying to spit acid
off the end of his tongue. Chicka Mau snatched the
(05:53):
six shooter out of his scabbard, and do it right now,
teet Up said. For God's sakes, boys, old boy said,
take it easy now, I got a wife and four kids. Boys,
For God's sakes, now, I'm an old man, you gotta
nine latch that pump for God's sakes, boys, old boy
brought out the rattling ring of keys. The car was
(06:15):
serviced now, and Tee Dub told old boy to get
in the car.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
With m just as well and latch.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
That hardware store over there while we're here. And got him.
Chicka Maull said, te Dove drove the old boy sitting
beside him. Chicken Maull and Bowie stood on the running boards.
They stopped in front of the hardware store. Chickamull pried
at the door with the tire tool, and when the
lock burst, it sounded like all four tires on the
coop had blown out. Bowie pushed back the glass door
(06:41):
of the gun case and began piling the weapons in
his arms like sticks of wood. Chicka Maul was filling
the cotton sack with shells and cartridges. The town was
still undisturbed as they left it. Behind the high signboard
twenty miles from the town. Chicka Maull bound Old boy,
pulling his arms behind a post and twisting wire around
his thumbs. You can holler somebody down in the morning,
(07:04):
Bowie said, that's all right, boys, perfectly all right, you
boys are all right. The white center line of the
black asphalt was running under them again like a spout
of gray water.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I swear.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Chicken Maw said he was looking at the six shooter
he had taken off.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Old boy.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
It was an old Frontier model, a thirty eight on
a forty five frame. I wish you could see this.
What is it? Teet Up said, Hell, I'm driving. There
were six notches on the cedar butt of the revolver.
I didn't know we were doing business with a bad man.
Teet Up said, nigger killer. Chicken Mall said, that's how
we got these on here. The town was full of
(07:41):
niggers back there, alight, I have stuffed it down his throat.
Teet Up said, I got fed up on him right now,
started big eye in this car. He was trying to
pull a smarty all right. Bowie said that back there
might heat us up a little. Teet Up said his
car here now, But I believe these cotton sacks covered
pretty well. You never saw no license on this car.
(08:04):
You can tell the world. We gotta get some duplicate plates, though,
pretty soon you can buy them all you want for
a dollar piece.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
We ought to get a dozen sets.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
No, that old boy back there couldn't tell you whether
this was a truck or a packard, Bowie said, squawking
the way he was. Day began to break with a
haze like cigarette smoke in a clothes room, and the
barbed wire and cedar posts of the fences and the
low twisted mesquite trees began to take form. Bowie rubbed
the bristle on his chin. You know, I haven't washed
(08:34):
my teeth since we left Alki, he said. The wild
Cat Well spot was a good place to hold up
for a day or so, all right. It was three
miles from the Zelton Highway, a gully scarred mesquite clump distance.
The weak grown road beside it was as rough as
a cog wheel. It went on north teet Up said,
beyond those cedar timbered hills yonder and connected with the
(08:54):
lateral road that tied up with the Gusherton Highway. The
mesquites were thick and made a fence for the clearing
on which the old derrick rose. Its timbers were as
gray as an old bomp. Away from it a little
piece lay a huge wooden bull wheeled with rusty bolts,
not even possum hunters ever came to this spot. Tee
Dub had said he had holed up here three days,
once after he sacked a bank. This afternoon, the second
(09:17):
that Tee Dub had been away from them, Bowie sat
on a spread cotton picking sack, trying the action again
of his twelve gauge pump gun. He and Chickamau drawn
straws for this baby. He'd had a pistol grip and
a ventilated rib, but the rib was coming off and
about four inches of the barrel. Just as soon as
Bowie got hold of a hacksaw near the edge of
the sack, lay more of the guns they had gotten
(09:37):
in the hardware store, the polished stocks and barrels glittering
in the afternoon sun. There were two twelve gage shotguns,
a thirty thirty rifle, and at thirty odd to six
there was a twenty two pump rifle. Chickamaw patted the
scarred stock of the shotgun he had sought off at Dee's.
I'll still take old Betsy, he said, all you have
(09:58):
to do with hers pointer in a gymeral direction. He
was drinking. He had found a half gallon of whiskey
in the back of the coop that D. Mobley must
have left. This baby here has got a trigger pull
in action like a watch, Bowie said. He brought the
gun to his shoulder and drew a bead on a
pulley at the top of the derrick. Boy, oh boy,
he said, what I could do to a covey of quail.
(10:21):
Jackama picked up the fruit jar and started unscrewing the cap.
He extended it towards Bowie. I pass this time. Jackimau
drank and then shuddered and clenched his teeth. Now, when
I get a pistol on me, I'll be willing to
call it a deal.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Bowie said.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
There's an army store in Gusherton teed upset, and I
might be able to pick me up one there. We
got us enough guns now to start us a little war,
all right, Chickamu said. Bowie squinted down the sides of
the gun. I'll take a thirty thirty myself, Chickamau said,
I can cut capers with them, little gentleman. I know
one thing, though. You can shoot him in through the
(10:57):
prat with one and it won't bring him down, That's all.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
It happened. I did it.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Me and a couple boys were running out of Wichita.
Car load of laws jumped us. That old wreck we
were in wouldn't do forty, So I just told these
boys to let me out of that bridge and I'd
stopped them gentlemen. I got out and here they come.
I cracked down and them laws started flushing out of
that car like it was going to explode. One of
them weighed around two hundred pounds easy, and I popped
him while he was running across a field. He just
(11:24):
kept going. He didn't drop until he got in a timber.
He finally dropped, though, huh. He told me about it himself.
Later he come up to ALKI he knew who did it,
laughed about it, thanked me for not killing him. I
could have killed him, all right, And I don't care
about being jumped myself, Bowis said. I just assuon they
stay away from me. Laws never got me in a
(11:47):
rank but twice in my life. First time was in
this state, and I was just a snotty nose punk.
I've been unlatching so many safes that I'll swear. I
began to think it was on the level. They got
me all right in this state at once, four years
done down here on one of these prison farm boy. Man,
I hear they're tough. He's prison farms. You heard right,
(12:08):
chick a Maw started taking the cap off the jar again.
It's not everybody beats the oom farms. Bowie placed the
shotgun on the ground and picked up the twenty two rifle.
I always wanted one of these little guns when I
was a kid, he said. That time they got me
in Florida, chacka Maw said, and sent me back to
Oklahoma was just my fault. That landlady I was going
(12:30):
with and me just got a little reckless. I wish
I knew where that woman was. She wasn't no spring chicken.
But I'll take her to anything you could ever show me.
I'll come them to ever get you down there. I
had to run in with a jew down there in
a gambling place. I was drunk, and I don't mind
telling you this jew didn't want to play Stutte poker.
(12:50):
He had to play draw or nothing. I called him
a christ killer and a few other things, and he
said he wasn't going to take it. I told him
he'd take it or else. He started out of that place,
and I side it. I had better frisk him. I
caught him and throwed down on him. He didn't have
a gun on though. I was smart enough to get
out myself, because you know they're hard on you in
that state for showing a gun.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
But I got too smart and went back there.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
The next Sunday, and there were more laws on me
than I thought there was in Miami. And man, sure
ought to stay sober out here. Bowie said, what are
you trying to do?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Preach to me?
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Of course, not chickamau Chickima took another drink there. I
was down there in Florida with twelve thousand dollars and
a woman that was the stuff. That woman just wouldn't
leave that town with me. Where I wanted to go
with that steak was Mexico hole up down there, like
I did after beating them here in this state. If
she had just gone with me, I was that Mexico business.
(13:46):
Bowie said, not going a year down there. It's just
like anyplace else. So if you haven't got no money,
it's no good. I don't imagine i'd like it down there.
Some of them greasers might try to kick you around.
Like fellows do them here, and I wouldn't stand for it.
If you got the pasos and throw you can get
by down there, But you can't make no money down there.
(14:07):
And when my four hundred dollars win, I had to
get out. I don't savvy there lingo either, and getting
across that border would bother me. I never had to
show a passport all the time I was down there,
And massages.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
You can buy one.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Fifty pasos will get you anything you want in that
Chili country. Them laws down there are all host thieves.
You savvy that lingo of theirs. It's a girl right
on me off something and Mexiko, hey mucha Senorita is
calling kulas movie Bonita's chicken Maw said, you're another one?
(14:43):
What'd you say? I said, there was a lot of
pretty gals in that country with prettier behinds. You look
kind of like a spick anyway, that's why you got
by so good. And then rattling off that stuff that way,
chicken mall drank again. I stayed on an old hasse
in the down there that was run by an old
boy that used to be a thief himself, one of
(15:04):
them revolution thieves there was three more white guys on
the place, all of us cooling off for something up here.
I told you about old Wendy Hawkins, who were the
other two banker from New Mexico. And then the one
we called Tangleize. He was a deputy sheriff right out
of this line here close to El Paso.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
What did he do?
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Killed a couple of farm boys. He just wasn't smart
enough to make it. You remember when they had them
big placards plastered up all over the state offered five
thousand dollars reward for dead bank bandits.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Man.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
I was in Alki so long I never knew nothing
about out here. They were doing it all right, This Tangleize,
just planning a couple old boys in front of a
bank and let them have it. He just wasn't foxy enough.
They don't still have that five thousand dollars stuff in
this state, do they. Christ No, the bankers had to
stop it before they got everybody killed. Laws were planting
(15:57):
more people than there was. Bank robbers spilled liquor wet.
The lines in Chickamaw's face ran over his Adam's apple
and down his neck. He put the bottle down and
wiped his face on his shoulder. You're in a good
tough state. Boy. You didn't see that in the paper
the other day, by five men dropping dead from heat
prostration on that Bingham prison farm. Heat my hind foot,
(16:20):
I know what killed him. I'm backing out of this
just soon as I get a little salted away, Bowie said,
I've been intended to tell you.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Boys.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Jakima lifted his left arm demonstratively and held his right
hand up. It's pretty tough when a man will take
a hatchet and whack his arm off like this. God
damn as they do that. I saw four boys chopped
themselves in one week. One would whack the other, and
then this one will come down on the othern Bowie
felt like his eyes were wired together. Then boys wanted
(16:51):
to get off that farm pretty bad. Had to do that,
didn't they. They just didn't want to get out of work.
That's what they tell you in the capital. And then
prison bosses say there ain't a man in this state
prison system that couldn't do the work they got. It's
the way they work you and what they'd do to you.
It don't sound good to me. Say it's cotton picking time.
(17:12):
All right, maybe the cotton's five miles from the bunk house. Well,
the building tenders route ye out at daybreak. Them are
the little snitches that are doing a couple of years
for busting a two bit grocery. And they give them
SAPs and dirks and let them run over you anyway.
They get you out, and then the next thing you are.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Going out in that field.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Don't think you walk that five miles. You run it
just as fast as that farm boss wants to lope
his horse. And you do that back and forth three
times a day, and if you fall out, it's spurs
then in the bat or a barrel that.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Night, and that share don't sound good to me.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
And I've had them drop by me, and they were
as dead as door nails. And one of them bosses
sitting up there on a horse with a double barreled
shotgun and he can't even read or write, saying, old thing, ain't.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
You going to get up?
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Man? Bowie said, yeah, they call you old thing, And
if they get it in for you, you're not going to last.
They'll say, reach down there, old thing, and pick up
that piece of grass. If you're not foxy and don't
see that shotgun laying there in the grass. You're proud
as mud because they want you to go back and
say you were trying to get to a gun. That
(18:20):
sure don't sound worth a damn to me. I've heard
that farm sound like a slaughter pin. Men squealing and
begging like hogs. You don't last on that farm for
you or any man at all, unless you beat it.
Then you either come off there whineing rat or still
a man. I couldn't stand them doing me that way,
Bowie said. The dragged contents of the fruit jar jostles
(18:44):
chick them all shook it around. He drank. No, I
couldn't take that kind of stuff at all, Bowie said, Boy,
I'm going up this road long ways. Chicken Maw said,
plenty of people are.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Going to know it.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
I ain't gonna kill nobody, They're just going to kick
uel themselves. Bowie watched chickamauw drained the jar. Now I
know why I ain't got no toes on that right foot,
he thought.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
End of chapter four
Speaker 1 (19:15):
H
Chapter four of Thieves Like Us by Edward Anderson. This
LibriVox recordings in the public domain read by Ben Tucker.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Chapter four.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
The two five gallon cans rattled emptily in the coope's rear,
and the red level of the gasoline gage was below
the half mark. But fort Worth and Dallas were behind
now given the run around without a rumble. One hundred
forty miles out this straight stretch and they would be
in mc master's. Bowie was driving on this side mc
masters at an old abandoned wild catwell that Tea Dub
(00:35):
had described. Bowie and Chickamauw were getting out, and Tee
Dub was going on in to contact his sister in law.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Just as soon as he got a house, he.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Would come back and get them. They talked about houses.
Now when they had about five places, Tee Dub said,
and all had good hotel lobby fronts, he would say
they had a real set up. He wanted a house
in Zelton, and another one in Gusherton, then one in
that resort town clear Waters, and one in Lothian and
twin Monty's. These towns were within a radius the two
(01:04):
hundred miles and not more than an hour's driving, a
park a house in each of them would give you
a hole that you could be cooling off in within.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
An hour after bank was sacked.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Always get places with double garages, Teetub said, And keep
the cars out of sight, and never let the neighbors
see more than one man at a time. And don't
let anybody ever do any questioning. If there was any questioning,
you do it yourself. Now. Up here in Zelton and
Gusherton they could be lease buyers or promoters as soon
as they got good fronts or cotton pickers. Do not
(01:35):
look it, chickamauv said, how much cotton can you pick
in a day? Country boy?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Oh? A pound five worked, real hard.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Bowie said, he looked at the fuel marked and was
gettin damned low. And another thing, teet Up said, Always
give the landlady the best of the deal, keep her satisfied.
I had me a land laid it down in Florida,
Chickamau said, And I want you to know that there
was one woman that could drink me under the table.
There wasn't anything that woman wouldn't do. And just when
(02:06):
everything was going smooth with us, they got me Tee
dup started telling about a house he had in Colorado.
The damnedest smallest thing got him in a rank there,
this right arm almost shot off in a big law
with a double barreled shotgun, jamming it in his eyes,
and him standing there, not even be able to lift
his arms. The thing he had done, though, was going
off and staying a couple of weeks and not telling
(02:27):
the milkman. That bastard got scared over a couple of dollars,
and he went to the woman that owned the house.
She went over to the house and saw it all
locked up, and she just went in.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
She got an eyeful.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
He had that damn machine gun in that house and
a bunch of shells. She goes to the law and
they show her a bunch of pictures, and sure enough,
she picks him out. The laws sit around the house
and here he comes back. They would have killed him
if it hadn't been for a woman on the porch
of a house across the street. She got to shouting
and screaming and telling the laws to stop, or they
would have killed him. We had them black eyes where
(03:01):
that big yellow bastard poked him with that shotgun. For
a month and a half We.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Sure got to stop and gas up pretty soon.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Bowie said, I'd stayed to Colorado, though, teed up said,
you ain't never going to get me back in it.
They were going to try and put the chair on me.
Up there, I was praying for Oklahoma to come and
get me. They had me positively identified in that state. Anyway,
This Colorado cuter was after me right now, and I
just figured that I had been unlucky enough to draw him,
and I wasn't gonna be lucky enough to beat the chair.
(03:30):
There was a little old auditor that used to come
around to us boys and them death cells and talk
kind of wanted to write pieces for magazines or something.
I got to feeling him out, and finally I just
showed him a five hundred dollars bill. I'd carried that
in the sole of my shoe for six months. He
tumbles and brings me a twenty five automatic and some
tape too, just like I asked, I take that right
(03:51):
between my legs, and man, I was set. I had
made up my mind that if they went ahead and
started putting that chair on me, I was going to
kill everybody around me that was man enough to die.
They didn't even try you up there though. To day
Chicka Mau said, no, that's how come me to be
back in Alki, Oklahoma. Finally come and got me, little
old jailer up here in the Panhandle, took that gun
(04:12):
off me.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I've been trying to get rid of it for two weeks.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
The highway turned in a banking curve, and then down
the highway they could see the scattered lights of a small,
sleeping town. We got a gas up here, Bowie said.
Everything was closed in the town. Small globes burned in
the rears of the stores over the sacks of grain,
the cans of oil and tire tubes, and the filling
stations and the showcases and the hardware store. Looks like
(04:39):
we're going to have to wake somebody up. T Dub said,
we can just unlutsch one ourselves. Chicka Maw said, b
We drove under the shed of the filling station across
the street from the hardware store. It was dark under
the shed, but in the office a lot burned. He
got out and went up to the door. On the
desk lay a man suspenders down head on a rolled coat.
(05:01):
There was an empty scabbard on his left hip hell,
wake him up, Chicka mo said. Bowie rattled the door
and the man stirred, raised up and began to work
his mouth like his jaws were sore. That old boy
is a law right, Bowie thought. Old boy came out.
He had a pistol in the scabbard. Now what do
you boys want? He said, Hello guy, Selene partner, teet
(05:25):
Up said. Old boy scratched his head. The hair looked
like rope frazzle.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
How much failer up.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Teetub said. Old boy moved toward the coop, looked inside
of it. Teetdub stepped toward him, brought the barrel of
the revolver up into the old boy's back like he
was driving an upper cut unlatch that pump you nosey,
old belch before I beat your ears down, good and proper.
Old boy looked like he was trying to spit acid
off the end of his tongue. Chicka Mau snatched the
(05:53):
six shooter out of his scabbard, and do it right now,
teet Up said. For God's sakes, boys, old boy said,
take it easy now, I got a wife and four kids. Boys,
For God's sakes, now, I'm an old man, you gotta
nine latch that pump for God's sakes, boys, old boy
brought out the rattling ring of keys. The car was
(06:15):
serviced now, and Tee Dub told old boy to get
in the car.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
With m just as well and latch.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
That hardware store over there while we're here. And got him.
Chicka Maull said, te Dove drove the old boy sitting
beside him. Chicken Maull and Bowie stood on the running boards.
They stopped in front of the hardware store. Chickamull pried
at the door with the tire tool, and when the
lock burst, it sounded like all four tires on the
coop had blown out. Bowie pushed back the glass door
(06:41):
of the gun case and began piling the weapons in
his arms like sticks of wood. Chicka Maul was filling
the cotton sack with shells and cartridges. The town was
still undisturbed as they left it. Behind the high signboard
twenty miles from the town. Chicka Maull bound Old boy,
pulling his arms behind a post and twisting wire around
his thumbs. You can holler somebody down in the morning,
(07:04):
Bowie said, that's all right, boys, perfectly all right, you
boys are all right. The white center line of the
black asphalt was running under them again like a spout
of gray water.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I swear.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Chicken Maw said he was looking at the six shooter
he had taken off.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Old boy.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
It was an old Frontier model, a thirty eight on
a forty five frame. I wish you could see this.
What is it? Teet Up said, Hell, I'm driving. There
were six notches on the cedar butt of the revolver.
I didn't know we were doing business with a bad man.
Teet Up said, nigger killer. Chicken Mall said, that's how
we got these on here. The town was full of
(07:41):
niggers back there, alight, I have stuffed it down his throat.
Teet Up said, I got fed up on him right now,
started big eye in this car. He was trying to
pull a smarty all right. Bowie said that back there
might heat us up a little. Teet Up said his
car here now, But I believe these cotton sacks covered
pretty well. You never saw no license on this car.
(08:04):
You can tell the world. We gotta get some duplicate plates, though,
pretty soon you can buy them all you want for
a dollar piece.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
We ought to get a dozen sets.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
No, that old boy back there couldn't tell you whether
this was a truck or a packard, Bowie said, squawking
the way he was. Day began to break with a
haze like cigarette smoke in a clothes room, and the
barbed wire and cedar posts of the fences and the
low twisted mesquite trees began to take form. Bowie rubbed
the bristle on his chin. You know, I haven't washed
(08:34):
my teeth since we left Alki, he said. The wild
Cat Well spot was a good place to hold up
for a day or so, all right. It was three
miles from the Zelton Highway, a gully scarred mesquite clump distance.
The weak grown road beside it was as rough as
a cog wheel. It went on north teet Up said,
beyond those cedar timbered hills yonder and connected with the
(08:54):
lateral road that tied up with the Gusherton Highway. The
mesquites were thick and made a fence for the clearing
on which the old derrick rose. Its timbers were as
gray as an old bomp. Away from it a little
piece lay a huge wooden bull wheeled with rusty bolts,
not even possum hunters ever came to this spot. Tee
Dub had said he had holed up here three days,
once after he sacked a bank. This afternoon, the second
(09:17):
that Tee Dub had been away from them, Bowie sat
on a spread cotton picking sack, trying the action again
of his twelve gauge pump gun. He and Chickamau drawn
straws for this baby. He'd had a pistol grip and
a ventilated rib, but the rib was coming off and
about four inches of the barrel. Just as soon as
Bowie got hold of a hacksaw near the edge of
the sack, lay more of the guns they had gotten
(09:37):
in the hardware store, the polished stocks and barrels glittering
in the afternoon sun. There were two twelve gage shotguns,
a thirty thirty rifle, and at thirty odd to six
there was a twenty two pump rifle. Chickamaw patted the
scarred stock of the shotgun he had sought off at Dee's.
I'll still take old Betsy, he said, all you have
(09:58):
to do with hers pointer in a gymeral direction. He
was drinking. He had found a half gallon of whiskey
in the back of the coop that D. Mobley must
have left. This baby here has got a trigger pull
in action like a watch, Bowie said. He brought the
gun to his shoulder and drew a bead on a
pulley at the top of the derrick. Boy, oh boy,
he said, what I could do to a covey of quail.
(10:21):
Jackama picked up the fruit jar and started unscrewing the cap.
He extended it towards Bowie. I pass this time. Jackimau
drank and then shuddered and clenched his teeth. Now, when
I get a pistol on me, I'll be willing to
call it a deal.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Bowie said.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
There's an army store in Gusherton teed upset, and I
might be able to pick me up one there. We
got us enough guns now to start us a little war,
all right, Chickamu said. Bowie squinted down the sides of
the gun. I'll take a thirty thirty myself, Chickamau said,
I can cut capers with them, little gentleman. I know
one thing, though. You can shoot him in through the
(10:57):
prat with one and it won't bring him down, That's all.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
It happened. I did it.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Me and a couple boys were running out of Wichita.
Car load of laws jumped us. That old wreck we
were in wouldn't do forty, So I just told these
boys to let me out of that bridge and I'd
stopped them gentlemen. I got out and here they come.
I cracked down and them laws started flushing out of
that car like it was going to explode. One of
them weighed around two hundred pounds easy, and I popped
him while he was running across a field. He just
(11:24):
kept going. He didn't drop until he got in a timber.
He finally dropped, though, huh. He told me about it himself.
Later he come up to ALKI he knew who did it,
laughed about it, thanked me for not killing him. I
could have killed him, all right, And I don't care
about being jumped myself, Bowis said. I just assuon they
stay away from me. Laws never got me in a
(11:47):
rank but twice in my life. First time was in
this state, and I was just a snotty nose punk.
I've been unlatching so many safes that I'll swear. I
began to think it was on the level. They got
me all right in this state at once, four years
done down here on one of these prison farm boy. Man,
I hear they're tough. He's prison farms. You heard right,
(12:08):
chick a Maw started taking the cap off the jar again.
It's not everybody beats the oom farms. Bowie placed the
shotgun on the ground and picked up the twenty two rifle.
I always wanted one of these little guns when I
was a kid, he said. That time they got me
in Florida, chacka Maw said, and sent me back to
Oklahoma was just my fault. That landlady I was going
(12:30):
with and me just got a little reckless. I wish
I knew where that woman was. She wasn't no spring chicken.
But I'll take her to anything you could ever show me.
I'll come them to ever get you down there. I
had to run in with a jew down there in
a gambling place. I was drunk, and I don't mind
telling you this jew didn't want to play Stutte poker.
(12:50):
He had to play draw or nothing. I called him
a christ killer and a few other things, and he
said he wasn't going to take it. I told him
he'd take it or else. He started out of that place,
and I side it. I had better frisk him. I
caught him and throwed down on him. He didn't have
a gun on though. I was smart enough to get
out myself, because you know they're hard on you in
that state for showing a gun.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
But I got too smart and went back there.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
The next Sunday, and there were more laws on me
than I thought there was in Miami. And man, sure
ought to stay sober out here. Bowie said, what are
you trying to do?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Preach to me?
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Of course, not chickamau Chickima took another drink there. I
was down there in Florida with twelve thousand dollars and
a woman that was the stuff. That woman just wouldn't
leave that town with me. Where I wanted to go
with that steak was Mexico hole up down there, like
I did after beating them here in this state. If
she had just gone with me, I was that Mexico business.
(13:46):
Bowie said, not going a year down there. It's just
like anyplace else. So if you haven't got no money,
it's no good. I don't imagine i'd like it down there.
Some of them greasers might try to kick you around.
Like fellows do them here, and I wouldn't stand for it.
If you got the pasos and throw you can get
by down there, But you can't make no money down there.
(14:07):
And when my four hundred dollars win, I had to
get out. I don't savvy there lingo either, and getting
across that border would bother me. I never had to
show a passport all the time I was down there,
And massages.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
You can buy one.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Fifty pasos will get you anything you want in that
Chili country. Them laws down there are all host thieves.
You savvy that lingo of theirs. It's a girl right
on me off something and Mexiko, hey mucha Senorita is
calling kulas movie Bonita's chicken Maw said, you're another one?
(14:43):
What'd you say? I said, there was a lot of
pretty gals in that country with prettier behinds. You look
kind of like a spick anyway, that's why you got
by so good. And then rattling off that stuff that way,
chicken mall drank again. I stayed on an old hasse
in the down there that was run by an old
boy that used to be a thief himself, one of
(15:04):
them revolution thieves there was three more white guys on
the place, all of us cooling off for something up here.
I told you about old Wendy Hawkins, who were the
other two banker from New Mexico. And then the one
we called Tangleize. He was a deputy sheriff right out
of this line here close to El Paso.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
What did he do?
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Killed a couple of farm boys. He just wasn't smart
enough to make it. You remember when they had them
big placards plastered up all over the state offered five
thousand dollars reward for dead bank bandits.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Man.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
I was in Alki so long I never knew nothing
about out here. They were doing it all right, This Tangleize,
just planning a couple old boys in front of a
bank and let them have it. He just wasn't foxy enough.
They don't still have that five thousand dollars stuff in
this state, do they. Christ No, the bankers had to
stop it before they got everybody killed. Laws were planting
(15:57):
more people than there was. Bank robbers spilled liquor wet.
The lines in Chickamaw's face ran over his Adam's apple
and down his neck. He put the bottle down and
wiped his face on his shoulder. You're in a good
tough state. Boy. You didn't see that in the paper
the other day, by five men dropping dead from heat
prostration on that Bingham prison farm. Heat my hind foot,
(16:20):
I know what killed him. I'm backing out of this
just soon as I get a little salted away, Bowie said,
I've been intended to tell you.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Boys.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Jakima lifted his left arm demonstratively and held his right
hand up. It's pretty tough when a man will take
a hatchet and whack his arm off like this. God
damn as they do that. I saw four boys chopped
themselves in one week. One would whack the other, and
then this one will come down on the othern Bowie
felt like his eyes were wired together. Then boys wanted
(16:51):
to get off that farm pretty bad. Had to do that,
didn't they. They just didn't want to get out of work.
That's what they tell you in the capital. And then
prison bosses say there ain't a man in this state
prison system that couldn't do the work they got. It's
the way they work you and what they'd do to you.
It don't sound good to me. Say it's cotton picking time.
(17:12):
All right, maybe the cotton's five miles from the bunk house. Well,
the building tenders route ye out at daybreak. Them are
the little snitches that are doing a couple of years
for busting a two bit grocery. And they give them
SAPs and dirks and let them run over you anyway.
They get you out, and then the next thing you are.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Going out in that field.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Don't think you walk that five miles. You run it
just as fast as that farm boss wants to lope
his horse. And you do that back and forth three
times a day, and if you fall out, it's spurs
then in the bat or a barrel that.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Night, and that share don't sound good to me.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
And I've had them drop by me, and they were
as dead as door nails. And one of them bosses
sitting up there on a horse with a double barreled
shotgun and he can't even read or write, saying, old thing, ain't.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
You going to get up?
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Man? Bowie said, yeah, they call you old thing, And
if they get it in for you, you're not going to last.
They'll say, reach down there, old thing, and pick up
that piece of grass. If you're not foxy and don't
see that shotgun laying there in the grass. You're proud
as mud because they want you to go back and
say you were trying to get to a gun. That
(18:20):
sure don't sound worth a damn to me. I've heard
that farm sound like a slaughter pin. Men squealing and
begging like hogs. You don't last on that farm for
you or any man at all, unless you beat it.
Then you either come off there whineing rat or still
a man. I couldn't stand them doing me that way,
Bowie said. The dragged contents of the fruit jar jostles
(18:44):
chick them all shook it around. He drank. No, I
couldn't take that kind of stuff at all, Bowie said, Boy,
I'm going up this road long ways. Chicken Maw said,
plenty of people are.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Going to know it.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
I ain't gonna kill nobody, They're just going to kick
uel themselves. Bowie watched chickamauw drained the jar. Now I
know why I ain't got no toes on that right foot,
he thought.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
End of chapter four
Speaker 1 (19:15):
H
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