Hopalong Cosadice Rides Again

Robert Kail has written numerous short stories. The following Hopalong Cosadice short stories are a series of entertaining tales
of the Siclian Old West. Besides Hopalong Cosadice, you will
meet such characters as: Fulminatore Pastasciutta, a captain in the Garibaldi Rangers; Sweet Suzie Sapolio, the owner of the Last
Chance Pizzeria; Chief Mini Stroni, a member of the Costeloosan
tribe of the wild Mafiosi; Greasy Tanto, the half-breed from Taranto; Black Bartolomeo, a dastardly villain, and the double-jointed Arabian donkey, Chianti. These characters will take you on an unforgettable reading adventure…

HOPALONG COSADICE RIDES AGAIN
A tale of the Old Wild West of Sicily

by Robert Kail

In this first tale of those fabled heroes Hopalong and his sidekicker, Captain Fulminatore Pastasciutta of the Garibaldi Rangers, we also meet Sweet Suzie Sapolio, proprietress of the Last Chance Pizzeria, and her favorite guest, the burro Chianti.

excerpt from this short story

        A hot wind was blowing red dust across the rolling prairies in
the Old Southwest of Sicily as Hopalong Cosadice strode manfully
and purposefully out the swinging doors of the Last Chance Pizzeria, patted his stiletto belt down over his lean hips and focused his snapping black eyes myopically on a slow-moving object in the near middle distance. A faint sneer of disdain curled his handsome, garlic-scented lips as he recognized the rider approaching through
the swirling Sirocco. It was Captain Pastasciutta of the Garibaldi Rangers loping into town on his double-jointed Arabian donkey, Chianti.
        The red dust of the Sirocco swirled romantically around that uniformed figure with its black shirt and plumed hat, but Old
Hopalong knew the captain for a taciturn and unexcitable law-enforcement officer. There must have been a major uprising
in the Mafiosi villages to get the easy-going Pastasciutta to spur his steedy burro into a lope.
        “Hyar-there,Cap’n,” Hopalong said with his hands, using the strange gesture that passed for a greeting in the Wild Old Southwest
of Sicily. “What’s got yuh so all-riled fired up, huh?” he asked, questioningly.
         “What was that, young Cosadice?” said the trepid captain as
he hauled his beast to a Gibraltar-like standstill. After forty brave years of service among the swirling sands of the Old Southwest of Sicily, the captain didn’t hear too well.
         “Ah done sez,” quoth Hoppy through the imported paisley-print silk scarf that protected his delicate nostrils from the prairie dust.
“Ah done sez,” quothed he, coughing, “what’s got yuh so all-fired riled? Up?”
         The feckless captain squared his shoulders and expanded his diaphragm, then tried a few tones to get his stentorian voice in shape before quickly answering with his usual peerless enunciation. “The wild and untamed Mafiosi,” he declaimed. “The wild and wicked tribe of Mafiosi has kidnapped Prince Ronzoni Buoni from the Burro Express Stage Coach and is holding him for ransom; and indeed I do not know what properly should be done about it, and I must make my report in triplicate to Ranger Headquarters.”
         “The hell you done sez!” laconicked Hoppy.
         “And indeed,” rejoined the captain, “I do not know how to fill out my report in triplicate. What shall I say?”
         Hoppy pushed back the Borsalino sombrero that shaded his hooked, manly Roman nose. “How-all much ransom are they done asking?” Hoppy questioned the distraught captain.
         “I don’t know,” answered the captain, tri-syllabically but uninformedly. “What are we going to do? This could well lead to
a major Mafiosi uprising and even raids on our spaghetti farms.
This must be nipped! To be precise, in the bud!”
         Brushing red dust from his tightly fitting suit and rubbing carefully at some spaghetti stains on his vest, Hoppy said, “We done got to have a plan!”
         Like the two almost legendary figures they had already become in the Old Southwest of Sicily, Hopalong and the captain strode into the Last Chance Pizzeria and ordered a bottle of grappa to help them
in their cogitations.
         “Chugga chugga,” quothed the increasingly feckful captain, chugga-lugging.
         ”Tch, tch,” replied Old Hoppy, grabbing for the bottle.
         “Hmmm,” susurred little Suzy Sapolio, proprietress of the Last Chance Pizzeria. “At it again!” she quothed.
         “Away with you, woman,” stentored the now feckfull Captain Pastasciutta. “We are making a plan.”
         “Why, Captain Pastasciutta,” smiled the sweet maiden, kicking the chair out from under the reckless ranger’s slim hips. “Why Captain Pastasciutta! Is that a nice way to talk to a modest damsel who looks after your sweet burro so lovingly, and combs out his tail and caresses his ears?”
         “Away with you,” answered the captain, getting to his feet carefully so that he would not spill a drop of the priceless grappa. “We are making a plan. The Mafiosi are uprising and this is no place for woman talk. Back to your pizza oven!”
         When little Suzy Sapolio had dimpled and departed, the two
bold men put their heads together, sipping on two straws.
         “Aha,” quothed Hopalong Cosadice when the bottle was nearly empty. “A Ho-Ha! I done got a plan!
         “And what, may I ask, is your plan, Hopalong Cosadice?” asked the captain inquisitively. “I trust it is something I can put in my report in triplicate to Ranger Headquarters?”
         “Why shore,” answered Hopalong dialectically. “Here’s my plan. We must find out how much they want for ransom!”
         “Capital!” responded the captain. “Why did I not think of that?
It will make a most excellent six-page estimate of the situation and report of future planning, with attached requisition slips.”
         Draining the dregs of the grappa, the two nearly legendary figures reeled out of the Last Chance and seized the reins of the burro Chianti, who was gazing soulfully down the bosom of Little Suzy Sapolio as she stroked his mane.
         “We’re off to the Mafiosi village, little Suzy,” they cried, struggling for front place on Chianti’s saddle. “We’re off to the Mafiosi village and you may never see us again.”
         ”Goodbye,” quoth little Suzie, waving tearfully at the cloud of red dust as the two heroic figures disappeared into the near middle distance.
         “Goodbye, Chianti,” she called.

HOPALONG COSADICE AND THE PATENTED
SLOW-DEATH TORTURE TERROR

Another tale of the Old Wild West of Sicily
by Robert Kail

The Costeloosan tribe of the wild Mafiosi, led by Chief Mini

Stroni, captures our hero, but he is rescued by Greasy Tanto, the half-breed from Taranto, a member of the Garibaldi Rangers’ Sneaky Spying Corps. excerpt from this short story

        Dusk was settling over the red-rimmed hills of the Old
Southwest of Sicily. Tumbleweed blew lazy o’er the lea and
lowing were the happy herds of goats. On the long piazza of the
Last Chance Pizzeria, Garibaldi Rangers leaned their chairs against
the wall as they swapped tall tales of their fabled battles with the tribes of wild Mafiosi and rolled cigarettes from the pages of old
comic books. And there next the hitching post was little Suzy Sapolio, proprietress of the Last Chance Pizzeria. She was stroking the mane
of her favorite burro, Chianti, as he happily lapped up his evening bucket of vino and gazed contentedly down little Suzy’s bosom while she gently stroked his silky, foot-long ears.
        Chianti’s presence at the Last Chance Pizzeria was a sure sign that his master, the already almost fabled and inebriated, feckless
hero of the Garibaldi Rangers, Captain Fulminatore Pastasciutta,
was inside the Last Chance, most likely in the company of that other equally almost legendary hero of the Wild West of Sicily, Hopalong Cosadice. And indeed he was. For in the next paragraph, you, gentle reader, will hear and see them talking together.
        “Whah, shore, Cap’n,” Hopalong was saying.
“Hold your tongue, Hoppy,” the Captain stentored, feckful of grappa. “Hold your tongue, it’s my turn.”
         “Whah yew old sidewindin’ stiletto-stealin’ sack of Speccattini, you,” Hoppy rejoined pungently, “Yew couldn’t start a story out
right if you was blessed by the great white Papa in Rome. Story tellin’s a great tradition here in the Wild Old Southwest of Sicily,”
he dribbled, grabbing for the grappa. “An’ I-all aim tuh tell you-all about all the tahm ah was tooken prisoner by a war party of Costeloosans and they done staked me out for the vultures.”
        As Hoppy prepared to launch out into his tale, four goat
ranchers looked up from their card game, sighed to heaven, and
sidled out the side door.
        “Well,“ Hoppy continued, “them there was in them there days when they was a-building of the Great Cross-Sicily Railroad. Thet were the old Scylla and Charybydis Line. Them were the days when the wild Mafiosi was on the warpath and men was men an’ goats was scared to death.
        "Well, ah recomember how we alluz done got up at four in the mornin’ an’ et hard tack and soft macaroni before settin’ off forty
miles barefoot across the desert on burro back before we come on a herd of wild goats to shoot for supper.
        “An ah recomember one mornin’, it were in the middle of thet long cold winter of ‘86--or were it ‘87? An’ ah was all alone a-crossin’ the desert in the company of Greasy Tanto, the halfbreed from Taranto, when we was caught by a bushwhackin’ war party of Costeloosans, an’....”
        A creepy, spine-tingling giggle of Mafiosi laughter came from
the corner of the Last Chance Pizzeria, and Captain Pastasciutta, his grappa curdling in his stomach, automatically reached for his stiletto, because it was a mafioso cackle that came from the neighborhood of the jukebox, and they all turned to see who had cackled it.
        “Hee-hee-hee,” hee-hee-ed a hapless half-breed as he turned away from the jukebox into which he had been slipping slugs to hear his favorite song: “Arrivederci Tucson” as played by Spaghetti Sam and his Be-Bopping Banjo Boys.
        “Aha!” stentored the suddenly brave captain. “Ah Hoo-hah!
It’s Greasy Tanto himself. Now we can check up upon the uprightness of this uppity tale from Hopalong Cosadice. ‘Ugh to you, Greasy Tanto,’ the captain greeted, using his own merry version of the Mafioso tongue.
        “Ugh!” greeted Hopalong Cosadice.
        “Ugh! Ugh!” sniffed little Suzy Sapolio as she surveyed the greasy olive-oiled hair braid and frayed buckskin zoot suit of the sneaky ranger spy who was reputed to be half Costeloosan and
half gypsy, son of a renegade Neapolitan stiletto grinder and a Costeloosan Squaw.
        “Ugh!” burped Chianti from outside. “Ugh!” agreed Greasy Tanto. “You-um fellas sure talk-um funny!”
        ”Now tell me, Greasy Tanto,” inquired Pastasciutta inquisitively, “is it truly veracious that this is a true story that Hopalong Cosadice is preparing to launch into the beginning of which?”
        “Ugh,” answered the half-breed, non-committally, shifting a curdled cud of garlic from one cheek to the other. “Me not know if
it very Choosh, but he happen to-um us-um.”
        “Why shore, Greasy,” Hoppy rejoined. “You remember how
we was crossing up above Devil’s Gulch with our packs when we come upon this war party of bushwhackers whacking lasagna bushes. My faithful old burro was trekkin’ away an’ I was pickin’ some winners out of the Corriere della Sera when ah looked up from my pommel to see a whole herd of them there painted savages a-whoopin’ and a-hollerin’ and a-takin’ out after us.
        “Pfft, Pfft,” pffted Hoppy juicily. ”Pfft, Pfft, them stilettos were pffting through the air on every side! And I done kicked my faithful
old burro into a mad canter and filed away the Corriere della Sera
in my saddlebags where I’d be able to find it.
        “Yup, them Mafiosi shore was mad. Hoppin’ mad ‘cuz we
done caught them whackin’ bushes. An’ they cotch us and tooken us
to one of them there Mafiosi villages, an’ they was a-whoopin an’ a-hollerin’. ‘Whoop, whoop; holler, holler,’ they hollered an’ whooped.
        “An’ we didn’t’ know what they was a-goin’ to do with us-all; nohow. ‘Course Greasy Tanto didn’t have to worry much. They’d
let off a halfbreed pretty easy. Them sneaky devils--you cain’t trust ‘em.”
        “Now wait just a minute, Hopalong Cosadice,” interjected Captain Pastasciutta interjectedly. “Do not insult our brethren from
the Garibaldi Rangers’ Sneaky Spying Corps, of which Greasy
Tanto is a sterling example. They have served well in our ever-continuing crusade to Keep the Frontier Clean! And I will certainly have nothing said against of them!”
        Greasy Tanto stopped wiping olive oil on his pigtail and grunted favorably. “Ugh,” he grunted favorably.
        “Wal, all the same I’m sorry if Tanto is a friend of yours, but
just don’t believe nothin’ he never said. Nohow!” negated the Hopalong.
        “Go on with your story, Hopalong Cosadice, “ simpered sweet Suzy Sapolio, re-arranging her bodice as she entered from the piazza. “Do not let these men interrupt what promises to be a thrilling saga
of the Old Wild West of Sicily.” Hoping that the stalwart, already almost legendary figures would not start throwing pizzas at each
other, little Suzy tried to mollify their arguments.
        “Wal,” Hopalong continued, “there we was tied to the stake
and them devils was gwine to burn us alive and melt us down for spaghetti sauce, and they was whoopin’ and hollerin’ an’ smokin’ marijeweeny and drinkin’ grappa! What a waste of good grappa! They even give us some. Said it would make us taste better when
we was melted down.”
        Outside on the piazza, whither had slunk sneakily Greasy Tanto, he hee-hee-ed reminiscently, remembering the occasion. ”Is we-um
get loaded!” he hee-heed to the Garibaldi veterans who were keeping away the burro flies with their strong tobacco. “Chief Mini Stroni he take us into camp; we smoke-um peace pipe; they celebrate opening
of railroad; they make-um common market exportum hand-weaven
Chianti Bottle covers! Hee-Hee!” he heed. “We get-um heap loaded an’ Hoppy he not know what happen-um. He scared to death! Hee-hee.”
        “Stop that there hee-hawin’ out there on the piazza you-all,” yelled Hoppy angrily. “Ah cain’t finish mah story with all thet there noise.”
        “Pray do continue, Hopalong,” prayed brave Captain Pastasciutta, sitting on the edge of his chair. “You’ve got us sitting
on the edges of our chairs!”
        “Well, there we was,” Hoppy continued, “tied to the stake an’ them there drunken Mafiosi was whoopin’ around us and I done saw
a chance to grab Chief Mini Stroni’s stiletto.”
        Crash!   Captain Pastasciutta fell from the edge of the chair
upon which he was sitting. But brave Hopalong, once launched into
a saga, would let nothing interfere with his narrative.
        “So I done grabbed the stiletto and cut my bonds and cut free
that ole Greasy Tanto and started to run out of the village, an’ I run
an’ run an them Costeloosans was chasin’ an’ whoopin’ an’ pfftn’ an’ we run an’ run an’ we never could seem to get out of thet there village nohow, somehow.
        ”An’ we run and we run ‘till somebody threw a roller skate or sumpin’ in front of me an’ I done slipped an’ fell right on my patootie. Ouch you-all! An’ that there sneaky half-breed he done got away.”
        “Hee-hee-hee,” hee-heed tri-syllabically Greasy Tanto from the piazza. ”Hee! Is we-um bin loaded! We run around and around that village in circles heap loaded and nobody know who chasin’ who till Hoppy he patooties! Hee-hee”
        “Yowsuh,” Hoppy was continuing without pause. ”Then they done got me an’ this time they was going to subject me to a fate worse than death! The Costeloosan Patented Slow-Death Torture Terror!”
        “Great goodness me, Hopalong Cosadice,” quothed Fulminatore Pastasciutta. “Whatever is the Costeloosan Patented Slow-Death Torture Terror?”
        “Well, I’m-a gone tell you if’n you shet yore trap fer a minute,” Hoppy answered politely. Thanks to the beneficial effects of a
quart of grappa, Hopalong was getting his stories mixed up.
        “They done staked me out on the desert underneath of the terrible Sicilian sun,” he continued.
        “Yes?” gasped Pastasciutta breathlessly, snorting up the last dregs from a grappa bottle with straws guaranteed to make noise.
        “They done staked me out on the desert an’ pored spaghetti
sauce on my legs and then they done turned loose their herd of wild donkeys, so they could nibble away at a poor helpless staked-out Certified Hero.”
        Meanwhile, out on the piazza, the Ranger veterans listened
with almost mistrustful disbelief to the saga unfolding inside. ”Rasp, rasp. Bataway, bataway,” they scratched their heads with both hands and batted away at the burro-flies with their ten-gallon boots. And sneaky Greasy Tanto smiled at their discomfiture, for burro flies
never bothered the half-breed. The rancid olive oil that soaked his fetid pigtail would indeed daunt a regiment of burro flies.
        “Is it true, Greasy Tanto,” the veterans asked with one voice,
“is it true that Hoppy was staked out by the wild Marfiosi to be
eaten alive by spaghetti-sauce-maddened burros? You were there.
It it indeed? True?”
        ”Hee-hee,” the half breed rejoined wittily. ”It sure-um am-um. Me escape-um and stop at traffic light on rise outside Mafiosi village. See-um all happen.”
    “What did you do?” asked the veterans, sitting well back from the edges of their seats, for many years in the wild pizzerias of the Old West had taught them many lessons. “What did you do when you saw Hopalong staked out?” they asked.
        “Me-um have big hangover,” the hald-breed answered. “But
we know what to do, don’t we, boys? All together now.
        "The Garibaldi Rangers to the Rescue. Hooray,” they all shouted boyishly.
        “Yup. Me-um head for Ranger Headquarters!”

THE PINBALL DUDE OF THE LAST CHANCE PIZZERIA
Another tale of the Old Wild West of Sicily

by Robert Kail

        The Last Chance Pizzeria installs a whole bank of pinball machines imported from New Jersey; and a dastardly villain, Black Bartolomeo, alights from the Burro Express stage coach intent upon fleecing all the scudi of those foolish gamblers from the Garibaldi Rangers. ‘Clicka clacka ding-dong, clack-a clacka click,’ clack the machines as the bets mount up. Will Black Bartolomeo bankrupt the entire Old Southwest? Will Sweet Suzy Sapolio run out of anchovies
for her pizzas? Will Hopalong Cosadice ever draw a sober breath?
A thrilling adventure for your must-read list!                                                                     excerpt from this short story         Sweet Suzy Sapolio, proprietress of the Last Chance Pizzeria, surveyed her establishment with pride. A long glistening line of spanking new pinball machines graced the long wall opposite her majestic pizza ovens, and Suzy was looking forward to their first
days’ revenue.
         Trusty hearties of the Garibaldi Rangers, led by Captain Fulminatore Pastasciutta in the van, came trooping in, spurs chinking and pennons snapping, and halted dumbfounded at the sight.
         “Whillikers!” founded one, dumbly.
         “Looka that spanking line!” picturesquely rejoined another.
         “Four’ll getcha five I can beat anyone in the house,” said an experienced pinball sharpie, and the stampede to the machines was on.                  “Crash, Boom, Smash!” they crash-boomed into each other in
        their stampede to the machines. When the dust had finally settled, all
        the machines were occupied and in action, and side bettors were
        using body-Roman to guide the balls.
                “Goodness gracious me,” quothed Captain Pastasciutta to little
        Suzy, looking on in astounded joy. “You have finally installed the
        pinball machines of which you have dreamt for so long, and from
        which you hope to increase the revenue and thereby the profit of the
        Last Chance Pizzeria.”
                 “Yeah,” answered little Suzy, succinctly.
                 “I for one am not at all unhappy to see it, little Suzy,” the
        Captain laconicked, “for pinball playing is a good healthy sport
        which will give to my Rangers invigorating exercise and
        self-improving mental stimulation in figuring out the odds of their
        side bets!”
                 “Yeah, sure,” said Suzy, peering out the door to wave to the
        captain’s trusty burro, Chianti.
                 “But where, pray tell me, did you get such lovely machines,
        little Suzy?” prayed Captain Pastasciutta.
                 “They’re imported from New Jersey, Cap’n,” the enterprising
        entrepreneuse answered. ”The best pinballs money can buy, and
        absolutely fix-proof, jiggle-proof, thief-proof and fireproof. Not
        even Chief Mini Stroni could put the fix on these machines!”
                Meanwhile, quite by coincidence, out in the street, it was just
        at that moment that a tall, cool, sharp-featured stranger descended
        from the Burro Express Stage Coach opposite the Last Chance
        Pizzeria. Coolly he adjusted his pork-pie hat, which was so different
        from the Borsalino sombreros worn in the Old Southwest of Sicily.
        Clearly, this was a stranger from far away.
                The brave old certified heroes of the Garibaldi Rangers would
        have shuddered had they known who was invading their peaceful
        village, for it was Black Bartolomeo, the Dude from New Jersey
        who was the terror of gambling halls all over the Southwest of Sicily,
        for such a skilled gambler was he that he had cleaned out many a
        pinball parlor in Old Sicily and many were the impoverished towns
        that could bear witness to his rapacious skill with the pixilated
        pinball.
                Now, as he cooly surveyed the frontier town, Black Bartolomeo
        drew from beneath his orange T-shirt a secret message from New
        Jersey. There, confederates of his had written out in invisible ink
        the destination of all new pinball deliveries. They had spied out the
        secret that a group of new pinball machines was to be delivered to
        the Last Chance Pizzeria. And as Black Bartolomeo strained his eyes
        to read the secret message, his finely attuned ears pricked up at the
        snickety snick of pinballs from behind the swinging doors of the Last
        Chance.
                “Ah, sounds like Model XL749506905B” he thought to himself
        sneakily. “This will be a cinch.”         Sweet Suzy was cooly tending her hot pizza ovens when Black Bartolomeo made his fateful entrance into the Last Chance, but a sudden foreboding pall of fear fell upon her. Looking about, she saw a well-dressed stranger observing the pinballing. Captain Pastasciutta, who had just won fourteen anchovy pizzas on his first try, was the first to speak to the stranger, who was apparently gaping, open-mouthed, in admiration of the captain’s skill.
         “Would you care to try a game, sir?” the captain asked.
         “Cheese!” replied Black Bartolomeo, pungently. “Dat game looks tough to me. Youse guys’ll have to explain how to play it.”
         “Certainly, sirrah,” exclaimed Fulminatore. Bringing out a six page color brochure, he told how each of the balls fulminated into the machine, bumped bumpers, and came to rest. “Quite simple, my fine foreign friend. Just slip your little scudo into the welcoming slot and you are ready to play.”
         The stranger pushed up his sleeves, opened his coat, and extracted a coin from the metal change-maker at his belt. Flipping it
in the air, he bounced it off the ceiling, let it ricochet against his heel, then knocked it with the back of his hand so that it fell into the scudi slot.
         Meanwhile, Captain Pastasciutta was wringing his hands avariciously as he dreamt of the killing he would make from this stranger.
         “Perhaps a little side bet?” he wangled. “Just to make it interesting?”
         ”Okay, Jack, you’re on,” retorted Black Bartolomeo with apparently naive innocence. “Four thousand scudi on the first free game, three to one odds on the winner of the first five games and four to one high score.”

        “Ping Pinga Click-a Dong!” pinga click-donged the pinball machine as Black Bart began a series of games destined to make history in the Wild Old Southwest.
         At first Captain Pastasciutta won a few games, and the odds
went up as his score mounted. Soon the whole Ranger troop was standing around making bets with Black Bartolomeo, who recorded them on a portable electric tote board he took out of an inside pocket of his voluminous Iverness cape.
         “Pinga pinga clicka Dong!”
         “Hooray,” shouted the Rangers.
         “Pinga pinga Dong Click!”
         ”Boo,” booed the crowd as Black Bart won a game.
         On into the night ping-a clicked the machines as bets mounted into astronomical figures.
        One million, two million scudi, three million scudi changed hands--almost ten dollars American. The whole liquid wealth of the frontier village was at stake on the click of a pinball as the entire Ranger troop stood around cheering on their hero. Even little Suzy Sapolio left the kettle of meatballs she was stirring to join the
raucous group.
         “Pasty,“ she called worriedly to the Ranger captain, “don’t
you think your bets are getting a little wild? Why don’t you call it a night?”
         “What!” exclaimed the captain, “and let this dude out of here scot free? We’re going to clean out all of his scudi. Worry yourself none, little Suzy,” he quothed, “there’ll be pizza for everybody when we have done with him.”

                Little Suzy shrugged, tossing two stalwart hangers-on against the wall with such force that
their Ranger spurs rattled.
         “Okay, Bud, it’s your funeral,” she said. ”Rots of Ruck.”
         “Clicka clacka Ding-Dong, clicka clicka clack,” clicked and clacked the machine as the tote board winked ominously and wagers mounted ‘till they reeled the mind. Night turned into day as the game went on, and a frontier sunrise lit up the deserted streets of the town The machine got so hot from continuous play that sparks began to fly from the balls.
         Soon the whole of the ready cash of the village was settled on one final bet, one final game. The Rangers had even bet their boots. “You bet your boots!” said one. Even the brave burro, Chianti, was part of a wager on the last and final game.
         Silence settled inside the Last Chance Pizzeria as the tote board flickered and almost cried “Tilt!”. Even little Suzy quit stirring her meatballs and again gathered with the worried group as she realized the enormity of what was riding on that final game.
         “But Captain Pasty,” she simpered, “you can’t bet your trusty burro, Chianti! What if you lost him?”                  “Little Suzy,” the captain rejoined, “how did I get into this? If I lose, they’ll court-martial me for gambling away government property. My career will be ruined!”
         “And your burro, Chianti, will be sold at auction like a slave!” simpered sweet Suzy.
         “We cannot let it happen,” the captain stentored. “We’ve got to have a plan.”
         As the last bets were toted in and Black Bartolomeo booked passage out of town on the next stagecoach, little Suzy Sapolio went back to the kitchen, stirring her cauldron of meatballs into an Old
Wild West Sicilian witches brew.
          “Toil, olive-oil, tears and trouble. Boil, meatballs, brew and bubble,” she plagiarized, shaking her wooden spoon like a spear.         “All right you bums, clear out of here,” shouted little Suzy as
she stormed out of the kitchen. ”You can finish your little game when we re-open at eleven. In the meantime I gotta clean this joint up.”
         Swinging wildly with a broom at the brave old certified heroes of the Garibaldi Rangers, she had soon cleaned out the place and snapped a lock on the door.
         Strolling over to Captain Pastasciutta’s burro, Chianti, Suzy confided, “Don’t worry, Chianti, I won’t let them sell you off to pay their pinball debts. I’ve got a plan!” she confided, stroking his long silken ears.
         Chianti gazed down into little Suzy’s generous cleavage and burped gratefully.         The whole village was assembled at the Last Chance when the doors opened for the final and crucial pinball ‘game of the century’, for all and sundry knew what was riding on the outcome.
        The whole of the ready cash of that frontier town would depend on those clicking chromed balls. The boots and saddles and whole burro corral of the Garibaldi Rangers depended on the outcome. If Captain Pastasciutta lost the game, shame and penury would descend on the Old Wild West like a gray pall. Fateful was the day.         Will Chianti be sold to pay off the gambling debts? Will Captain Pastasciutta be court-martialed for gambling away government property? Will sneaky Black Bartolomeo escape with all the liquid wealth of the town, namely almost seventeen dollars in cash and thirty-three burros? Will little Suzy ever unlock the door?         Find out by ordering this short story, as well as the other Hopalong Cosadice stories, online from FIRST PRINT

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