The strangest things float through the mind unbidden. As we were driving back from a day at Acadia National Park, the phrase “he shot him into doll rags, naturally” drifted in and then out again. Mmmm, I thought, I know I read that somewhere sometime… but how could I find it again? 20 years ago it would have been impossible, but with Google a search for “doll rags naturally” got one single hit, a certified BINGO: IF Science Fiction March 1961, in a story by Julian F. Grow, “The Fastest Gun Dead” … I was a high school senior then, and must have happened on that issue of the mag (though I don’t remember doing so), or maybe I read it a couple of years later in 7th Annual Edition: The Year’s Best S-F (1963).

I don’t advise a Google search for “doll rags shot” (too many distressing results, pro- and anti-gun). Take it from me that the phrase means lots of little bits…