Shepherds For Science
Me and Dirty Shirt Jones prods our three burros across the border ofYaller Rock County, points north through the country where God dumpedthe leavings after He made the Bad Lands, and has visions of the oldhome town.
Me and Dirty has abandoned the idea of finding gold where she ain’t,and right now we’re herding our sore-footed jassacks towards theflesh-pots of Piperock town.
We’re cutting around the side of a hill, when all to once we discernsthe figure of a man setting on a rock ahead of us.
He looks a heap like he was figuring out the why and whatfor of allthings. He humps there in the sun, a long, lean, pathetic-lookingfigure, despondency showing even in the curves of his cartridge-belt.I feels sorry for him long before our lead burro halts before him andlets us arrive.
The figure raises its head, peers at that gray burro, and when we stophe gets to his feet, turns to us and snaps:
“Hold up your hands! Both of you!”
Me and Dirty jerks our hands above our heads, and this fretful-lookinghombre with the good-by forever mustache and weary eyes squints at usand says—
“You both solemnly swear to uphold the law vested in you as deputysheriffs of Yaller Rock County, so help you Gawd?”
Me and Dirty nods and puts down our hands.
“Now,” says Magpie Simpkins, sheriff of Yaller Rock County, “I feel adanged sight better.”
We nods again, sets down beside him, and rolls smokes. After whileMagpie scratches his nose and pinches out the light of his cigaret.
“What you doing here—hunting snakes?” asks Dirty.
Magpie shakes his head and digs into the dirt with his heels.
“Of course it ain’t none of our business,” says I, “but I would liketo know why you inoculates us with sheriffitis without warning.”
“Sheep,” says he, soft-like. “Just sheep, Ike.”
“Which there never was nor never will be,” states Dirty. “You meanjust plain sheep, don’t you, Magpie?”
“That is as may be, Dirty.”
Magpie fingers his mustache, and nods.
“Well,” says I, “me and Dirty hankers for home, so I reckon we mightas well drift along, Magpie.”
“No,” says he, sad-like. “You ain’t going no place, Ike. You’rearrived. Do you reckon I deputized you for fun?”
“Sheep,” pronounces Dirty, “don’t mean nothing at all to me. I sure amcontemptuous of all things pertaining to wool.”
“Me, I votes against anything that blats,” says I.
“I don’t love ’em!” snaps Magpie. “Don’t see me packing no sheep-dipto alleviate their sufferings, do you?”
We don’t seem to, so we all sets there, humped over in the sun. Afterwhile Magpie clears his throat.
“‘Alphabetical’ Allen and ‘Scenery’ Sims own three thousand woollies,”says he. “Scenery was a silent pardner, being as he’s a cow-man, whichhates sheep. Alphy gets Scenery to unhook a thousand dollars to buysome fancy stock. Sabe? Well, Alphy bought ’em—red, white and blueones, in stacks, the same of which ain’t productive none to speakabout.
“Scenery chides Alphy to the extent that Alphy gets disgruntled andwishes to separate the herd, fifty-fifty, without considering thethousand he lost over the green cloth. Alphy contends that him andScenery has agreed to suffer gains and losses together, andfurthermore that he lost a lot of his own money at the same sitting,the same of whi