Talk to the Six-Gun!

(This one happened six years ago on this date...)


“Any last words, pardner, ‘fore we whup this horse you stole out from under ya and send ya down to the fiery pits o’ hell?”

“Last words? Why, no,” I said. “Not really. I admit it, I stole this handsome palomino, and I know that’s a hanging offense here in the fine territory of New Mexico.”

“Okay,” said the big man, and he raised his riding crop.

“However,” I said.

“Yes?” said the man, keeping the crop raised.

“However, you might be interested in knowing why I stole this fine animal.”

“Not in the least,” said the man, and he raised the crop higher.

“What if I told you that I was trying to make my getaway from robbing the Yuma train out in Arizona.”

“Ain’t no business of ourn what you done in Arizona.”

“Very true. However, what if I told you that after my horse broke his leg up in the San Andreas mountains here in New Mexico that I buried the loot under a rock up there, up in the mountains, in a very secluded spot. What if I told you that after stealing this palomino I was on my way back to that hidden loot when you good fellows captured me. What if I told you I was willing to share this loot with you fine gentlemen of this posse. Provided of course you don’t hang me.”

The big man lowered his riding crop.

“How much loot we talkin’ about here?” he asked.

“Forty-two thousand,” I said. “Forty-two thousand two hundred and fifty-three to be exact. US dollars. In gold coin.”

“Forty-two thousand?” said the man.

“Forty-two thousand,” I repeated. “In gold.”


What a bunch of greedy saps. I left them behind that very same night, and this time I took an even better horse, a pretty roan mare I named Polly.

Talk to the Six-Gun! by Horace P. Sternwall; an E-Z Original, paperback, 1955; serialized in abridged form in Savage Adventures for Men, Oct. to Dec. 1957, as I’ll Let My Six-Gun Do the Talking! by “Howard P. Stone”.

(Scroll down the right-hand column of this page to find a listing of links to the opening passages of some other fine but sadly out-of-print novels by Horace P. Sternwall.)

"The God's Honest Truth"

This one dropped six years ago today...

“Sure, Lieutenant, I’m a drunk, and a two-bit grifter, I’m a defrocked priest and a disgraced cop, I’m a deserter and a coward and a traitor, I’m a hop-head and a three-card monte artist and a race-horse juicer – but I’m tellin’ ya and it’s the God’s honest truth – I didn’t bump Kincaid and I don’t know who did!”

“You forgot one little thing,” said Stein, and he blew cigar smoke into my face.

“Oh,” I said, blinking. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said.

He tapped his cigar ash onto my lap. I had just had this suit dry-cleaned at the Chinaman’s not a month before, too.

“One little thing,” he said again.

I would’ve brushed the ash off my lap except my hands were handcuffed behind my back.

“One tiny little thing,” he said.

“Just one little thing, Lieutenant?”

He blew on the lit end of the cigar and it glowed ruby red.

“Yeah,” he said. “One thing.”

Some guys’ll keep it up all night unless you feed them their cues. I didn’t feel like having that stogie stubbed out on my arm so I gave him his goddam cue.

“What’s that thing, Lieutenant? I mean if you don’t mind my asking.”

“You forgot to mention you’re a goddam liar, Molloy, a compulsive liar, a habitual liar. A liar.”

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah. I forgot. You’re right. I’m a liar. And that’s the God’s honest truth, too, Lieutenant.”

The God’s Honest Truth, by Horace P. Sternwall ; an Atlas paperback original, 1949; republished as A Most Mendacious Fellow, by “Hank P. Sterne”, a Panther paperback “original” (UK), 1952.

(Scroll down the right-hand column of this page to find a listing of links to the opening passages of some other fine but sadly out-of-print novels by Horace P. Sternwall.)

New stuff coming down the line!

Just a little update: 

New adventures of the Memoirs of Arnold Schnabel will be forthcoming sometime in the coming weeks, and once they resume I hope we will be back onto our old chapter-a-week schedule. We here at the Arnold Schnabel Society have been very busy for the past month with the rolling out of Railroad Train to Heaven: Volume One of the Memoirs of Arnold Schnabel, now available both as a large format paperback and as a Kindle e-book (which you can order here), and now we are deep in the preparatory work to continuing the serialization on the latest volume. In the meantime, we present again the very first Arnold Schnabel poem ever published on this site:

"In Fisher Park"

In Fisher Park I heard a lark;
‘Twas the first or perhaps the second day of Spring.
I ceased my rambles and sat upon a mossy rock --
The better for to hear him (or her) sing.

The song he sang (or was it she?)
Drilled deeply into my unworthy soul:
“Cheep cheep!” sang he or she to me, most wretched me,
And, yes, I wept, and soon lost all control.

In Fisher Park I met a young lad
In Wintertime, with cheeks of rosy apple glow;
He showed me what I knew not I had:
An innocence buried ‘neath frozen snow.

In Fisher Park I met a young girl
In Summertime, and like a flower was she;
She put my crazéd brains into quite a whirl
But in the end showed peace to me.

In Fisher Park I met an ancient priest,
Mumbling his daily office (yes, ‘twas Fall);
He told me that of men I was the very least,
But that to Jesus this meant nothing at all.

In Fisher Park I heard a lark,
I met a lad, a girl, a wise old priest;
What did I learn in my ramblings through the glades of Fisher Park?
Only this: that God loves every man and beast.

(For links to many other Arnold Schnabel poems, and to his vast memoir* scroll down the right hand column of this page.)

*"Simultaneously one of the great works of Catholic and fallen Catholic literature. Holy and unholy, sacred and sacrilegious,  and a ripping good read." – Bill Buckley

The book is here!

Railroad Train to Heaven, Volume One of the Memoirs of Arnold Schnabel is now available as a handsome big glossy paperback or as a Kindle e-book! Click on the cover image below and be the first kid on your block to read it!