英语民间故事:《Sliver Pete》

　　I've never told this story before, but just the same I'm telling you now.

　　I was a boy of 8 in 1885 and I lived in a small town out west with my baby sister and my folks who ran the local delivery stable. It might not have been such a bad place except for one man.

　　His name was Sliver Pete and we thought him the meanest, ugliest, most cussed hombre that ever packed a gun and it was well known he carried a Colt 45. He didn't much like to work, was a cowpoke a few months out of the year and the rest of the time he played and cheated at cards and killed anybody who called him on it. Then for recreation or just pure spite he killed every sheriff that ever tried to arrest him. There wasn't a soul that didn't fear Sliver Pete, even my Father.

　　The townspeople ended up offering a reward of $20,000 to anyone who could either run Sliver Pete out of town or put him in his grave. Mind you, that was a fortune in those days but when Sliver Pete heard there was a price on his head he just laughed and shot up the saloon and then the bakery. He said he was worth much more money than that. And when stranger after stranger came to collect the reward they came to stay because Sliver Pete put them in the town cemetery.

　　One very windy day the stagecoach arrived in town with an unusual passenger. I was there to witness it because it was my duty to water the stagecoach horses. The stagecoach door swung open and a single man, tall and gaunt and dressed in a brown/black coat and hat, with a white collar, stepped out. I had seen pictures of Abraham Lincoln and that is who this man reminded me of, although I knew Abraham Lincoln would not have been wearing a preacher's clothes. He waved the coachman away as he reached for his own trunk off the roof of the coach. The trunk was wrapped in a blue cloth that flapped in the wind although partially tied with a rope. Just as he got it to the ground a gust tore at the material and I clearly saw the writing on its side. He grabbed the cloth and stuffed it back into place, glancing straight at me. Then he smiled a slow smile, winked, and put his index finger to his mouth as if to say we shared a secret. That's the only incident I saw myself and all the rest I heard secondhand through either my folks or my friends.