Read Online Shackles by Bill Pronzini - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Bill Pronzini
Tags: Fiction
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rent until February, but what then, when he does start pressing? Will Kerry pay the rent, on the slim hope that I’ll be found alive or return on my own? or will she—
No, dammit, it’s not going to work out that way. Stop trying to look ahead! Today is what matters. The here and now.
Of the 6,000 pulps in my collection, only about 50 or so are Westerns.
Dime Western, Star Western, .44 Western, Western Story.
All are issues from the thirties and forties, most with stories by writers who also wrote detective stories: Frederick Brown, Norbert Davis, William R. Cox. A few have stories by Jim Bohannon, a writer who used to contribute Western detective stories to
Adventure.
I met him at a pulp convention in San Francisco a few years ago—the same convention at which I met Kerry and her parents, Cybil and Ivan, both former pulp writers themselves. Cybil wrote hard-boiled private-eye stories under the male pseudonym Samuel Leatherman; Ivan wrote horror stories—still writes them at novel length. It’s an appropriate field for him because he’s something of a horror himself. He hates me because he thinks I’m not good enough for Kerry, and too old for her besides; I hate him because he’s a grade-A asshole and how did I get off on Ivan Wade? The subject here is Westerns, for Christ’s sake.
I used to like Western films and serials when I was a kid. Every Saturday my ma would give me a quarter and send me off to the neighborhood movie theater, alone or with friends. That way, I wouldn’t be home when my old man … the hell with my old man, I’m not going to write about
him.
I liked the crime films best, the serials about detectives like Dick Tracy, superheroes like the Spider and Captain Marvel, but I would sit just as engrossed through a Gene Autry or Roy Rogers or Three Mesquiteers film, or chapters of Western serials. I remember one serial, I think it was called
Adventures of Red Ryder.
It had an Indian boy in it—Little Beaver. I envied that kid as much as I envied the pulp private eyes when I got older. I wanted to
be
Little Beaver, run around having exciting adventures, wear a headband with a feather in it, Jesus that film made an impression on me. I must have been eight at the time, maybe nine. Little Beaver …
Now I seem to have drifted into childhood reminiscences. What the hell is the point in that? Or in wasting any more paper on the subject of Westerns? It may pass the time but it doesn’t seem to be doing me much good otherwise. Besides, my fingers are starting to cramp up.
Station KHOT has faded out again and I should try to tune it back in. Then something to eat, and a chapter or two of another paperback, and then maybe I’ll wash out my shirt and underwear. They’re starting to smell, and with the sun out it’s not as cold in here as it has been; I can wrap myself in one of the blankets while the clothing dries in front of the heater.
I wish I could shave, too. My beard is growing out and it itches. But there’s nothing I can use for a razor, except maybe a can lid and that would cut hell out of my skin. I’ll just have to endure the discomfort until my facial hair gets long enough and the itching stops.
Tuna, crackers, and some Oreo cookies for lunch—a regular feast. But I’ve been on short rations from the first, and I’ve got to stay on them just in case. I’ve even taken to reusing one tea bag three and four times, and making coffee with just half a teaspoonful of instant.
Clouds in the sky now. The sun is hidden and it won’t be long before it sets. There are long shadows, night shadows, on the drifted snow outside. I can see other shadows in the trees—crouching in the trees like animals, predators hiding there waiting for nightfall.
Cold in here again. And wouldn’t you know it, my shirt and underwear still aren’t dry.
----
The Sixth Day
----
No more sun. Heavy clouds instead, gunmetal gray and veined with a kind of gangrenous black. Ugly clouds. Fat, bloated clouds
No, dammit, it’s not going to work out that way. Stop trying to look ahead! Today is what matters. The here and now.
Of the 6,000 pulps in my collection, only about 50 or so are Westerns.
Dime Western, Star Western, .44 Western, Western Story.
All are issues from the thirties and forties, most with stories by writers who also wrote detective stories: Frederick Brown, Norbert Davis, William R. Cox. A few have stories by Jim Bohannon, a writer who used to contribute Western detective stories to
Adventure.
I met him at a pulp convention in San Francisco a few years ago—the same convention at which I met Kerry and her parents, Cybil and Ivan, both former pulp writers themselves. Cybil wrote hard-boiled private-eye stories under the male pseudonym Samuel Leatherman; Ivan wrote horror stories—still writes them at novel length. It’s an appropriate field for him because he’s something of a horror himself. He hates me because he thinks I’m not good enough for Kerry, and too old for her besides; I hate him because he’s a grade-A asshole and how did I get off on Ivan Wade? The subject here is Westerns, for Christ’s sake.
I used to like Western films and serials when I was a kid. Every Saturday my ma would give me a quarter and send me off to the neighborhood movie theater, alone or with friends. That way, I wouldn’t be home when my old man … the hell with my old man, I’m not going to write about
him.
I liked the crime films best, the serials about detectives like Dick Tracy, superheroes like the Spider and Captain Marvel, but I would sit just as engrossed through a Gene Autry or Roy Rogers or Three Mesquiteers film, or chapters of Western serials. I remember one serial, I think it was called
Adventures of Red Ryder.
It had an Indian boy in it—Little Beaver. I envied that kid as much as I envied the pulp private eyes when I got older. I wanted to
be
Little Beaver, run around having exciting adventures, wear a headband with a feather in it, Jesus that film made an impression on me. I must have been eight at the time, maybe nine. Little Beaver …
Now I seem to have drifted into childhood reminiscences. What the hell is the point in that? Or in wasting any more paper on the subject of Westerns? It may pass the time but it doesn’t seem to be doing me much good otherwise. Besides, my fingers are starting to cramp up.
Station KHOT has faded out again and I should try to tune it back in. Then something to eat, and a chapter or two of another paperback, and then maybe I’ll wash out my shirt and underwear. They’re starting to smell, and with the sun out it’s not as cold in here as it has been; I can wrap myself in one of the blankets while the clothing dries in front of the heater.
I wish I could shave, too. My beard is growing out and it itches. But there’s nothing I can use for a razor, except maybe a can lid and that would cut hell out of my skin. I’ll just have to endure the discomfort until my facial hair gets long enough and the itching stops.
Tuna, crackers, and some Oreo cookies for lunch—a regular feast. But I’ve been on short rations from the first, and I’ve got to stay on them just in case. I’ve even taken to reusing one tea bag three and four times, and making coffee with just half a teaspoonful of instant.
Clouds in the sky now. The sun is hidden and it won’t be long before it sets. There are long shadows, night shadows, on the drifted snow outside. I can see other shadows in the trees—crouching in the trees like animals, predators hiding there waiting for nightfall.
Cold in here again. And wouldn’t you know it, my shirt and underwear still aren’t dry.
----
The Sixth Day
----
No more sun. Heavy clouds instead, gunmetal gray and veined with a kind of gangrenous black. Ugly clouds. Fat, bloated clouds
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