Tales of Calabazas

(Editor's Note: The following is the second of a series of stories of Calabazas, the Old West, re-written by Elizabeth Toohey State Historian, from the Reminiscences of Cabell Brown. The third will appear in the November issue.) CALABAZAS of the old west! The west that ever drew those who knew it back to its heat and dust.

Cum Sing's Palace Hotel flourished. Railroad men, gamblers, saloon keepers, engineers and the hurdy girls all ate there, and one day there was seated at its oil cloth covered table two old prospectors, tired, but with the lure of gold still strong within them. Old Jim looked at his pard.

"I never expected ter see you again, and here you are back. I thought yu'd always live with yer darter, Amy, whin yer went to Seattle. What's the matter? Weren't they good ter yer?"

"Yes," said his pard, "they wuz good ter me, but I got awful sick o' eatin' salmon."

Silence for a while.

"Wal," said Jim, "I don't know. Canned salmon ain't so bad."

"Canned!" snorted his pard. "Hell, it was fresh."

To the town also came the desperados, usually young, and usually known as "The Kid." Calabazas awoke one day to find a Kid in their midst, but Calabazas thought it much better to find a Kid than a strange sheriff or detective.

The Kid Came, Took the Town and Headed for the Line

The territory was over-run with Kids in the early days Billy the Kid, the Apache Kid, and Kids of every description.

The Kid who came to Calabazas was perhaps twenty-one years of age. Tall, slender, dissipated looking, with curly hair reaching to his shoulders, dressed in fringed buckskin, loaded down with two guns, a heavy cartridge belt, a wicked looking knife and a broad brimmed sombrero.

Full of mescal and threats, he shot his way up and down the street, in a loud voice declaiming that he was the king of the burg, and that if anyone didn't like it let him say so like a man, and he, the Kid, would shoot him so full of holes that the buzzards wouldn't bother to pick his bones. The citizens paled under their tan, and it was whispered that here was the Kid of Kids; the dreaded Oklahoma Kid, who shot both guns from the hip and never missed his man. The town of Calabazas became much more polite than ever before in its history.

Saloon men smiled while he rode his horse into their saloons and shot out the lights. Black Jack dealers, shaking in every nerve, saw that he never lost, and up and down Whiskey Row the Kid was master of all he surveyed.

Strangers alighting from the stage danced for his amusement, bullets whistling around their feet. The Kid was boss. He took what he wanted and he paid for nothing.

All the male citizens carried a gun. They'd always carried one. It was part of their dress.

Crandall, the company land agent, owned an old rusty Colt. He wore it from habit and to impress prospective settlers that he knew his west. Crandall who, drunk or sober, was the soul of amiability, was seated in Cum Sing's restaurant, a well dressed and prosperous man opposite him. The man was going to buy a lot. It was Crandall's first prospective sale in months and he was knee-deep in sales talk. The man looked like ready money. Suddenly the flaps of the tent parted. The Kid had come in for his noon-day meal. Seating himself, he banged lustily on a table with his gun.

"Where in hell is that damn Chink?"

Cum Sing appeared, a scared and bowing Celestial, his queue bristling with fright.

"How do you" Go' mohning! What you likee?"

The Kid bawled, "Bring me some of (Continued on Page 24)