The Preacher                                    by Wild Bill Blackolive                                    [An excerpt from Tales from the Texas Gang] I would rather live Indian than with preachers and sin. I ain't a guilty man. Kelly and me once came upon a bunch of wagons, regular pioneers, some pretty tough people and they was about to get set for the night. We was a bit idle and rode up for a chat, Kelly about eighteen years old, me looking near Christianised in a hat and buffalo coat. They was mighty glad to see us, give us coffee and whiskey. We sit with them and they had a preacher, first one we had ever seen. We ain't seen white people since we left Arkansaw, he said. He was a wide shouldered big young fellow, had a clean face, had a neat mustache, had a firm lip, and a pretty but dull woman kind of hid behind him, and next he said, you boys working men? No, I said, after the surprise went. What about yourself? Oh, yes, he bragged, happy with it. Sirs, my work is the Lord's work. Why don't he do it hisself, Kelly wondered. Thing of it, Kelly asked a mostly serious question. After all, if you're just riding around and looking at the earth and picking a few antelope, and someone asks you about work, this is a strange question too. Preacher feller thought we was being blasphemous and these hard cases with him was some so foolish as to bristle up but we held our smiles inside till our pure innocence let that man ride his storm out. Have you heard about Jesus Christ, he said. Ain't he the one they killed for disagreement, I asked him. He is the one that died for our sins, he said, and went on some about it. Is that right, we said. Sirs, he said, feeling better and poured a little more whiskey in the coffee pot. Brothers! Let me tell you about Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Well, go right ahead, we said even as our mother already had. He did not have much to say about Jesus but he was pretty big on hellfire and redemption and by tones of his voice first you were not sure he believed it all himself because it was mighty like play acting, you wondered maybe he was making some fun, but understand that we had just never seen a preacher and he worked himself to a lather, was fit to be tied. He did it about an hour and then he stopped, and smiled real calm at us, though like a joke cept the smile happened to be part of his serious sermon, and he wanted to know if now we believed. It was a even more confusing question, and before we could judge some kind of answer he said, would you like to be baptised. That one really startled me, I just could not get over this man, and was studying all these dead serious folk backing him up, but Kelly settled it, said, hell no. The preacher frowned, and all behind him frowned. Kelly rose, pushed back his coat showing gun and knife, and frowned back. My brother is a squawman and you are in Comanche territory and likely to get killed. They was all on their feet by time I was and I asked, what's wrong with you people? They was looking us over with some new respect, looked over at our horses, one said, why don't you men have saddles? We went and pulled our rifles from the blanket folds, mounted and they all jumped back. You're squawmen, ain't you, screams the preacher. Lost sheep of the fold! Amen, amen, went the crowd. I had to get into the spirit of it and give them a long Comanche turkey gobble, and then did one of my own, eee-eee-eee-haw-aw-aw! One started to shoot but Kelly still took care of me and in mean temper shot the man's elbow when he bent, and that one moaning on his knees the rest went for cover, women screaming, preacher giving his best sermon, and we ducked into the darkness. Well, I almost hate to tell this one, all them innocent white folk, ho ho. Cept they was born in sin. All babies are the same. Cept maybe it's better to be born dead than in sin, ho ho. Kelly and me meant no real harm, just kind of got worked up and spent half the night running up and down and curdling their blood. Around midnight they was so upset a bunch of men jumped on horses and come after us, and Kelly and me split up and met back around the wagons, having great sport. There was shooting, the ones in the wagons was wasting a few rounds at ghosts before we even got back at the wagons. All this activity happened to bring in a party of Antelope Eaters, Comanches, alright. They knew a bunch of men was out there on horses but they come to the wagons first to check with us. I did not know these ones but called out in my Comanche and we had a quick powwow, a fair little body of warriors, fifty maybe. Will you help us kill these invaders, the leader says to me. Well, I guess we will have to, I laughed. This is my brother, same mother, as you can tell, and we have been here all night wondering when the hell we would get some help. To Kelly, I says, Kelly, looks like we have to join in wiping out these invaders now. That's too bad, said Kelly, but after all, the argument is infallible. Now, we did wrangle it how we did not like to kill women and children, said we had a personal fight with that main body of men running after us and now coming in fast to get back and every other warrior come with us to intercept and the others encircled the wagons and went to rapping fire arrows. In the dark we semi-ambushed or out flanked without losing anybody and did it hand to hand and there were a couple bad wounds among the Comanches but the Comanches are great here with their shields and clubs and lances and we wiped that bunch out. Meantime the others had set the wagons on fire. Kelly and I wanted no profits, we told them, and I made the excuse of Wayhe waiting for me since morning with buffalo hump stew and I was craving sleep and it would take us the rest of this morning to get to her lodge, and we took off and the Antelope Eaters still laughing and talking to us. I hollered that I lived with the Buffalo Eaters meaning we had a long journey ahead but after that one we decided to head on back down and see the folks, as they had already taken to sending my brothers out after me every three months or so to bring me back in. The preacher incident was a new era in my life on the plains. Towns was growing and people closing in and so on and I had some kind of fight every time I come into a town, not that I came in much. I used to run with a shield and lance sometimes, and knife and six gun and a rifle strung in my blanket, pipe and flint and steel and a few bullets in my bag and the lance was for buffalo and the rifle for any hostile riders and the six gun hung on my shield in case they out maneuvered me. Let me say, it was a wonderful life. I can't express myself on that one. My name went something like Fighting With Hair In His Eyes, but I'll just settle for Wild Bill and they called me that too and what I'm saying is it is only after the Comanches went down that I dealt a little more with whites in the towns and along with my compadres come to be what you call a gun fighter and got fair with a six gun and slung one over each hip and got where if I was in town with only one hanging I felt off balance. By age of thirty I was in the new era, dodging the law makers. I say that Bill's writing is in the tradition of Melville...and Keroauc and Castenada and Abbey. It's a bit like Cormac McCarthy as well, only more realistic, authentic, candid. Uh, and it's based on real life, and a real life gang. It has some of the biblical style of both Melville and McCarthy. If you like those, you'll be thankful a writer like Wild Bill Blackolive wrote a book like "Tales of the Texas Gang." A rare addition to American literature. That nobody knows about. --Jeff Potter