One day, an Agent known as The Professor reported for work at Station One in El Paso at about 4 pm. Pneumonia Wilson was waiting for him and motioned him into one of the interview rooms. He had a problem and sought The Professor's advice.
When he got to El Paso Sector, Punchy began calling this Agent "the Professor" and he was right. He was destined to teach at the Academy at Port Isabel.
This apodo led the other PIs at El Paso to treat The Professor like a jailhouse lawyer, and they often came to him for advice when they were in trouble. I don't know exactly why they thought him a sage beyond what Punchy named him, but I assume they knew the advice was free and probably worth about what it cost.
Penumonia had a problem. He had been in a shoot-out with a Tonk; the Tonk was in the hospital and he was worried about what to write on his report. The Professor told him to tell the whole story, and he did.
He and Center-Fire Reaves had been assigned the day shift working the Sandhills. This was an area West of El Paso and was mostly just that: sand hills. In this area, just at the point where the Southern Pacific Railroad turned Southwest to make its journey to San Diego through the Gadsden Purchase, there was a railroad siding where the SP kept a few empty boxcars.
Anapra was a wide spot in the old road between El Paso and Las Cruces, NM. This siding is near that village and seems to have picked up its name by that proximity. It was then a village of a hundred or so souls, but there is a race track out there now and is probably a lot bigger than it was.
There, also, were five houses that the railroad built for the section gang for that section of the SP. The section foreman and four gandy dancers had lived there with their families, and it was their job, years before, to maintain the track. However, by that time, section gangs were a thing of the past and four of the houses were empty and abandoned.
The Professor can't remember now who inhabited the one house there but he had a rifle and the Tonk broke in and stole the rifle along with a box of ammunition. This area was west of Monument One and there was nothing but a three-strand barbwire fence along the border. Wets would walk across the border and come up and sleep in the empty boxcars or hide in the brush until the train came along and then jump in for a ride to Arizona or California.
In this case Pneumonia and Center-Fire were cutting sign along the railroad track when they saw a footprint coming from the border. They stopped; Pneumonia got out, and Center-Fire was to continue on and make a big circle.
The tracks led Pneumonia toward the one house the Tonk had broken into but the Tonk had gone out the back way and was behind another house. He saw Pneumonia and began firing at him with the stolen rifle.
Pneumonia made for the first obstacle between him and the Tonk, and that happened to be a skinny telegraph pole. Pneumonia was a big man and he tried to shrink to about half his size to fit behind the pole while the Tonk was banging away at him.
The Tonk ran on behind a boxcar and Pneumonia ran to the near side of the same car. From there Pneumonia dropped down on his knees and he could the legs of the Tonk on the other side, at least that part of his legs below the boxcar. Pneumonia took aim and shot him in the leg, just at the shin. The Tonk began hopping around and, when he stopped, Pneumonia shot him in the other leg.
While he was telling it, a light went off in The Professor's head. We all carried S&W .357 Magnum revolvers and The Professor was wondering why the Tonk still had legs when it dawned on him.
The Professor pointed his finger at Pneumonia and said, "you had wadcutters in your revolver, didn't you?"
He got a sheepish grin on his face and said yes. The Professor said, "You were going out there to shoot rabbits, wern't you?" He admitted the same. That explained it. Wadcutters were bullets for shooting paper targets on the pistol range and had about half the powder of regular ball ammo and about a third of the powder of a .357 charge.
Pneumonia continued his narrative. When the wet dropped to the ground, Pneumonia ran around the end of the boxcar and pumped a bullet into the guy's gut. Now some thirty bullets had been fired and Center-Fire had heard none of them. Nothing. He was still driving happily around out there looking for tracks, carefree as a lark.
Center-Fire had dreams of a big shoot-out where he would fast-draw and kill as many bad guys as Dirty Harry. He had many fantasies, all involving shoot-outs, and he often would share them with us. He carried a Colt .44 caliber revolver and loaded his own cartridges. He managed to increase the velocity of these hand-loads higher than the .357s by putting tin in the lead when he cast his bullets. He always loaded up with hollow points. He was in the middle of one of these fantasies when all this happened, we figure, and reality was never as interesting as his dreams.
Pneumonia disarmed the Tonk and began firing into the air. Finally, Center-Fire responded. When he got back Pneumonia had the Tonk and the Tonk was crying and carrying on something fearful. Center-Fire was shocked and disappointed. He had missed the big shoot-out!
They loaded the Tonk up and took him to Thomasen General, put a hold on him, and came to station one.
What should he do, Pneumonia asked. Go make an I-213 on him, The Professor said, while he writes out the narrative on this story. The Professor concocted a logical story by weaving a few wisps of the truth among a vast skein of bumbling ineptitude and made it sound as if the wadcutters had been ball ammo that just grazed his shins. Pneumonia's part in this incident became heroic. The Professor polished it until it fairly reeked of verisimilitude and turned it over to Pneumonia for his report. Pneumonia rounded up Center-Fire and rehearsed the whole scene for half an hour.
They all were kinda hoping that the Tonk wouldn't live over the shot in his gut and the story would just die. However, the doctors dived right in, operated right away, and saved the guy. They had a secure ward over there where they put him and he couldn't get away.
After the Tonk recovered at taxpayer expense the district office prosecuted him. He drew a sentence but The Professor can't remember how much. A formal deportation of the tonk followed. Nobody at sector across the street ever referred to this event. If the chief knew anything he must have decided to leave this one alone.
Pneumonia was neither rewarded nor punished. The Professor's part in it was never discovered. The deception was never uncovered. Center-Fire later began to tell his part in this incident. He told it just the way The Professor wrote it. The event faded away just as all the other questionable (and sometime hilarious) incidents at El Paso did. It was the best possible ending for bizarre tale that could have been disastrous.
