I have never forgotten what Charlie said when we left this fellow. He
said justice was the hardest, cruel word that ever was written. He said
if all the people that were crying for real justice got it, they would
think they were terribly abused and would not want it and would find out
they wanted a little mercy instead.
While Charlie and I were partners, he got an attack of appendicitis and
someone told him to stand on his head and walk on his hands and knees
and it would cure him. He said he tried that cure until his head and
knees were so sore he couldn’t perform anymore.
So he finally made an appointment with the doctor for an operation.
The morning he went to the hospital his wife, Nancy, was with him. When
they dressed him for the operating table (he called it putting a set of
harness on him) Nancy was very much frightened and looked like she might
break down under the strain. So to quiet her, he began to tell her how
simple the operation was and that he didn’t mind it at all and started
to roll a cigarette, but his hands got to shaking so bad the tobacco all
fell out of the paper and, of course, Nancy noticed that and it really
made matters worse than if he had said nothing.
After he had gotten over the operation, he had some very severe pains.
One day when the doctor came to see him Charlie asked him if he had lost
any of his tools. When the doctor asked why he thought so, he said he
was sure he had some of them sewed up inside of him.
There was an old doctor in Great Falls told Charlie and me a rather
amusing experience he had about that time.
There was a fellow came through the country and camped in several places
around Great Falls and one day he murdered a whole family and throwed
them in the river. The officers finally arrested him and had him in jail
awaiting trial. During that time he killed himself and he was buried in
the paupers’ graveyard.
This doctor told us he had a great curiosity to know what a human brain
and head was like that would kill those people without any known motive.
For some reason, Doc could not get the body and as he didn’t like the
idea of prowling around the graveyard at night, he chose one cold, rainy
morning to go out and dig this fellow up. It took him quite awhile to
get him out of the ground, and as he had just a small buggy to carry him
in, he had to break the coffin open and put him in a gunny sack.
Doc said while he was working on the corpse the sun came out and the
weather cleared and he thought everybody in Great Falls went for a ride
or walk. There was people all around him and looking at him rather
queer, and he was afraid he would be arrested for a grave robber, but he
finally got to town without anybody seeing what he had.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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