The Case of the Petrified Man Read Online Free PDF

THOSE PISTOL SHOTS? asked Martha. Although still doubled over in pain she was looking up at me wide-eyed.
    “Yes,” I said. “Where are you hit?”
    “I ain’t hit,” she whimpered. “Just hungry. My stomach was asleep but that apple roused it up. Oh!” she gasped again as her stomach cramped.
    “Praise be,” I said, “but the person who fired might be the man who is after you. Get back behind the counter while I check.”
    I ran to the door & grabbed my hat & as I opened the front door, Martha called out something about a Forest and a Bear, or maybe a Bar.
    “Stay!” I commanded. “I will be right back.”
    She nodded and sank down out of sight behind the counter.
    I went out, closed the door & quickly locked it behind me.
    B Street resembled a
Tableau Vivant
with all the carts & wagons & pack animals at a standstill and people staring with open mouths & upraised arms. A cloud of gunsmoke still hung over the scene. As I jumped down off the boardwalk, everybody started to move towards a figure lying in the street.
    It was a red-haired, red-bearded man in dark trowsers and a brown & burgundy patterned vest & a rusty black coat. Nearby, his plug hat lay half squashed by a wagon wheel. The man lay on his back, but as I watched, he propped himself up on his elbows & looked down at his patterned vest.
    “He shot me,” said the man. “He shot me thrice.”
    “I had no choice.” This from a man with 2 smoking revolvers & an English accent.
    He was tall & slim & blond with a billy goat beard!
    Was he Short Sally’s killer? Had he followed Martha here? If so, then why had he shot the red-bearded man?
    His next words answered my question. “I was not looking for trouble. You threw down on me.” The Englishman holstered his guns, a pair of Navy revolvers with ivory grips.
    The lying-down red-haired man had three smoking holes in his patterned vest and I saw that some blood was starting to ooze out. He looked at his chest and then back up at the Englishman.
    “You shot me thrice,” he repeated. He had an Irish accentlike Mr. O’Malley who had been on Ma & Pa Emmet’s Wagon Train. “Did I hit
you
at all? Did I at least crease you?”
    “Afraid not,” said the Englishman. He removed a pipe from his pocket and tapped it on the bottom of his boot.
    “At least tell me I’m shot by the famous Farmer Peel,” said the Irishman. “You
are
Farmer Peel? I saw the bullet scar under your eye.”
    Sure enough, I saw that the Englishman bore the scar of an old bullet hole under his right cheekbone.
    “Don’t call me ‘Farmer,’” he said. “My name is Farner with an
n.
Langford Farner Peel.” He was filling his pipe & I saw from the label on the pouch that he smoked Red Lion tobacco. He lit a match and got it going.
    “Stand back!” said a voice. “Make way for the doctor.”
    A man pushed through and knelt down beside the injured man.
    It was Doc Pinkerton—no relation—who had mended my arm a few days before.
    “Oh joy!” drawled a familiar voice behind me. “A Scoop at last. A duel in the street at high noon.” The familiar voice was accompanied by an even more familiar smell of dead critter. Yes, it was Mr. Sam Clemens again.
    “It ain’t high noon, Sam,” said another familiar voice. “It is only eight thirty a.m. and this story is mine.”
    I turned to see Mr. Dan De Quille had joined us. I recognized him by his long face, dark goatee and sticky-out ears. He smelled of printer’s ink.
    “What do you mean, it’s yours?” said Sam in a low tone. “I was here first.”
    “That may be,” said Dan, “but I got seniority. All shootings are reported by me. Hands off.”
    Like Sam Clemens, Dan De Quille was a reporter for the Territorial Enterprise, but he had been there longer. I judged he was also about five years older than Clemens.
    “That ain’t fair!” said Sam Clemens. “I need to fill another two columns today.”
    “It may seem unfair,” replied Dan De Quille, “but there it is.