Welton Novels

 Always Pardners

      ISBN: 978-0-557-05993-5

 found at lulu.com and amazon.com

In the old west and even in today's time frame you will still find some people that are partners. Some of the partnerships last a short while with others from the time they are first made until the after life. The characters in this novel are factious names but the two men are buried side by side with the remarks still readable on the tombstone. The store about this long life friendship was a well known story by one of the men that knew the partners of this store. The story took place in the No Mans Land that is now the Oklahoma Panhandle. Later in the novel is a section of the area if you might be interested in reading it first.

At one time for a period of years the area belonged to no state, territory, or country. No Man’s Land was 37miles by 168 miles and a hard, unforgiving land, domain of the terrible Comanche time out of mind. In winter, murderous northern winds howled down out of Kansas and Colorado to freeze men and animals. For the rest of the year the winds were generally southerly, ranging all the way from gentle breezes to shrieking gales that drove great clouds of dust before them.

 Most of the other so called towns were little more than wide spots in the road. Gate City, for example, boasted two stores, a blacksmith shop and a post office. Neutral City was about the same size, except for a bumper crop of saloons, and so was Hardesty. Many ‘cities,’ such as Optima, Grand Valley and Paladora, consisted of a post office and not much else. Carrizo was three saloons and a lunch counter.

Anything that passed for a settlement generally had at least one saloon. If it didn’t, you could get a drink at the store. The only exception, according to an old-time cowboy, was a one-horse place commonly called Slapout, so named because the storekeeper there was forever saying, ‘I’m sorry, but we’re slap out of that.’ On these rude oases the cowboys descended on payday, itching for excitement and sport. That sport generally took the form of filling up on tarantula juice and shooting up the town, not necessarily in that order