by W. C. Tuttle
Author of “Alias Whispering White,” “When Civic Pride Hits Piperock,” etc.
“I have been in lots of places,
Fair as lilies in the dell.
Some of ’em I kinda favor,
Others I don’t like so well.
There is one that’s ever calling,
Come on back and hang your hat,
Tough old, rough old town of Piperock,
You’re a danged good town, at that.”
“‘Magpie,’” says I, “if my corns wasn’t hurting —— out of me I’d have
tears in my eyes from such sentiment. I’m all choked up—with alkali.”
“You’ve got to admit that she rhymes,” says Magpie Simpkins, spitting
out a mouthful of dust and lifting his canteen to his lips. “I done
figured ’em all out of my own head, Ike.”
“You better leave off taking things out of your own head,” says I.
“First thing you know, old-timer, you’ll be taking out what prompts
you to chaw your grub, and I’ll have to feed you with a
stummick-pump.”
Then we pokes off the mountain and hits the trail toward Piperock. For
you who ain’t never heard of Piperock, I’ll say this much: Piperock
was the place the feller was thinking about when he wrote “Let
sleeping dogs lie.”
Piperock looks like a siesta settlement, but she sure is deceiving.
Few folks ever get killed in the town. The good old village usually
invigorates ’em to a mile-a-minute clip, and we makes it a point never
to shoot anybody in the back.
She ain’t the birthplace of nobody, and nothing much except
horse-thieves are buried there. When it comes to law and order, we’ve
got old Judge Steele. He’s got two law books and a copy of the
Congressional Record for 1885, which about covers all the crimes that
mankind is heir to, I reckon. Piperock ain’t on no map nor railroad
and she ain’t never been sung in song or story, but if you don’t think
she’s there, just get off the train at Paradise, ride north on Art
Miller’s stage to where he unhitches his team, and then start
something.
She’s there like sixty per cent dynamite and no questions answered. Me
and that long-mustached, brainless, asinine arguer of a—well, me and
Magpie have been away for two months doing assessment work on some
mining claims that nobody would jump if we moved ’em down to the
railroad and offered to develop ’em free of charge. We sort of hankers
for the bright lights of Piperock. Even kerosene dazzles after using
candles for two months.
Magpie stops, sudden-like, and appears to be looking down at a little
flat below us. I adds my gaze to his and gets astonished right away.
There is “Half-Mile” Smith and “Yuma” Yates: Half-Mile is one of our
own home folks, but Yuma is sort of _e pluribus unum_ with me and
Magpie.
Half-Mile has got his boots and vest off and is standing a little ways
from Yuma, who is arguing with a gun in his hand.
“I don’t _sabe_ this play,” says Magpie, wondering-like. “Appears to
be a one-sided proposition with Half-Mile on the weak end, Ike.”
Just then we sees Half-Mile make a break for liberty, and Yuma’s gun
whangs out loud and clear. If he hit Half-Mile he didn’t get him in a
vital place, ’cause he sure is hitting the high spots.
Magpie unhooks with his gun and I sees Yuma’s hat spin off his head.
By the time I gets into action Yuma is hived up behind a tree, and his
first shot cuts three shells out of my belt. Magpie was a danged fool
to miss his first shot, ’cause cover is mighty scarce on the side of
that hill.
“Danged assassin!” yelps Magpie and spins lead past that tree so fast
that Yuma don’t dare to look out. “Shoot a unarmed man, will you?” And
then his gun clicks on a empty shell.
“Give him ——, Ike!” yelps Magpie, but I wasn’t giving anything away
right then. I was trying to get my head down behind a rock which only
stuck three inches out of the ground.
Yuma must ’a’ got excited, ’cause his shots were all going high, and
as soon as he shoots six times I breathes a sigh of relief. Just then
a hunk of lead comes from another direction and knocks the plug of
tobacco out of my hip pocket.
Then I hears Yuma yell:
“Get above ’em, Half-Mile! They need to be teached a lesson.”
“Half-Mile, are you all right?” yelps Magpie.
“If you don’t think I am, hang on to yourself for a minute!” replies
Half-Mile from above us.
“King’s X!” I whoops. “Mistake here!”
“Two mistakes,” yells Yuma. “Who in thunder are you fellers?”
“Magpie and Ike.”
“Oh!” says Yuma. “Sorry I missed.”
Then the four of us stands up and looks at each other.
“Howdy, Magpie. Howdy, Ike,” says Half-Mile. “Nice day today.”
“Great,” agrees Magpie. “Howdy, Yuma. How’s your folks?”
“If I had any they’d be tolable,” says Yuma. “Thanks just the same.”
“You spoiled the best start I ever had,” complains Half-Mile.
“No, he didn’t,” argues Yuma. “You beat the gun, Half-Mile.”
“Not understanding the event and wishful to be wiser,” says Magpie, “I
asks would you elucidate the why and the wherefor of this peculiar
conduct, Yuma?”
“Feet racin’,” says Half-Mile. “I’m practising. Getting pretty fast.”
“Uh-huh,” says Magpie. “You having any success in racing with a
bullet?”
“Racing with ——!” He stares at Magpie. “Think I’m a danged fool?”
“All depends on your answer, Half-Mile.”
“Aw ——! When Yuma shoots the gun I runs as fast as I can, _sabe_?”
“How many times have you done it today?” I asks.
“Six, wasn’t it, Yuma?”
“Seven.”
“And you ain’t hit him yet? Let me try just once, Yuma.”
“Half-Mile,” says Yuma, “these shepherds don’t know nothing. Let’s go
home.”
* * * * *
We didn’t try to stop ’em. We punched our burros into line and at the
main road we meets “Scenery” Sims. Scenery beat Magpie for the
sheriff’s office, and this is the first time we’ve met him in his
official capacity. He’s my idea of nothing to see nor hear, being as
he never growed to man’s estate and his voice sounds like rubbing a
tin can over a rock.
“He, he, he! Was afraid maybe you hadn’t heard about it,” he squeaks.
“Fill our ears, Scenery,” says Magpie, rolling a smoke.
“Biggest thing you ever heard about, Magpie. Believe me, I’m the party
responsible for it all. Piperock needs you fellers.”
“That’s plenty for me,” says I. “I’m going back the other way. I’ve
been butchered to make a Piperock holiday, and any old time that
Piperock needs me, I’m absent.”
“Hear about it anyway, Ike,” urges Magpie. “Go ahead, Scenery.”
“Old Home Week,” grins Scenery. “What do you think?”
“Go ahead—we’ll bite,” says I.
“Whatever it is it won’t last no week” says Magpie, prophetic-like.
“The big celebration is all in one day. All the old-timers will be
there; _sabe_? This is going to be a _hyiu_ time, if you asks me, and
she’s going to be full of brotherly love and peace on earth, good will
to all menkind.”
“In Piperock?” I asks, and he nods.
“Brotherly love?” asks Magpie, and he nods again.
“Well,” says I, “if you was a big man, Scenery, or could pull a gun
real fast, I’d say you’re mistaken, but being whom you are I’ll say
you are either a danged fool or a liar.”
“Quit that now!” he squeaks. “Quit it! Dog-gone you, Ike, I’ve got a
lot of power I didn’t used to have.”
“All the old-timers?” inquires Magpie.
“You heard me say it, didn’t you?”
“Hoss-thieves, et cettery?”
“Immune for a week, Magpie. I has issued my proclamation.”
Magpie looks at me sort of sad-like.
“What do you think, Ike?”
“When does the battle begin?”
“The celebration will be on Tuesday.”
“This is Sunday,” says I, “which gives one whole day to dig ourselves
in and two whole nights to spend in prayer. Go ahead, Magpie, and may
the Lord have mercy on the children ’cause there won’t be no old folks
next year.”
Piperock ain’t changed none to speak about. As we pilgrims into the
main street we sees “Tellurium” Woods gallop out of Buck’s place, and
just as he skids into Pete Gonyer’s blacksmith shop we hears the bang
of a gun. Then out of the saloon comes “Tombstone” Todd. He peers all
around.
“Whyfor the salute, Tombstone?” asks Magpie.
“Salute ——! Think I’m shooting blanks? Tellurium argued that I ain’t
eligible to stay here for Old Home Week. Said the only time I ever was
here a delegation comes from Paradise, decorates me plentiful with tar
and feathers and rides me off on a rail. Dang Tellurium’s hide!”
“Don’t you remember the incident, Tombstone?” asks Magpie.
“Don’t I? Sufferin’ snakes, I didn’t moult for two months! Scenery
said I could stay here as long as I dwelt in harmony and brotherly
love, and, by cripes, I’m going to foller the recipe if I has to
decimate the whole danged village.”
Me and Magpie nods and pilgrims on to our shack.
“Brotherly love seems to have come upon them,” says Magpie. “This town
appears mild and full of loving thoughts. Next thing we know, Ike,
these snake-hunters will be carrying autygraph albums and wish us to
write—
If you love me as I love you
No knife can cut our love in two.
“And the bunk-house walls will be decorated with ‘Let Us Love Each
Other’ mottoes. I wouldn’t be surprized to see ‘Hassayampa’ Harris
kissing ‘Doughgod’ Smith.”
“That’s a fact,” I agrees. “She sure is a sweet-cider atmosphere. Next
thing ye know they’ll be decorating horse-thieves’ graves. Do I seem
to hear joy bells ringing, Magpie?”
“That’s ‘Dirty Shirt’ Jones, I’ll bet a dobie dollar,” says Magpie.
“One, two, three! Nope, he ain’t drunk yet, Ike.”
Magpie was counting the clangs of a bell. Dirty Shirt uses that bell
as a barometer. It hangs on the corner of the Mint Hall, about sixty
yards from the door of Buck’s place, and the bell is a little bigger
than a cow-bell. Any time Dirty misses one out of three shots with his
Colt he’s drunk enough to quit. As long as he can ring her three times
in a row he keeps on until he can’t.
Me and Magpie don’t no more than get settled when here comes old Judge
Steele. The old pelican is full of enthusiasm mixed with a certain
percentage of alcohol and he welcomes us home again.
“You gents sure came back for the crowning e-vent of our lives,” says
he. “We welcome you home and likely we can use you.”
“Use Magpie,” says I. “I’m out of order.”
“Huh!” snorts the judge. “Ornery as ever, eh, Ike? You ain’t got as
much civic pride as a cat!”
“Maybe not,” says I, “and I’ve got eight less lives. I may die when my
time comes but I ain’t rushing the e-vent. Piperock is always starting
something that they can’t finish without bloodshed and horror.”
“We’re progressive,” explains the judge. “We sure are—to a startling
degree, and the eyes of the world will e-ventually turn to Piperock.”
“They will,” says I, “and this is what they’ll be saying: ‘The words
on that tombstone are appropriate: They Couldn’t Let Well Enough
Alone.’”
“This here celebration amounts to what?” asks Magpie.
“Mostly everything, Magpie. On Tuesday we has the celebration proper.
There will be feet races, tugs-of-war, shooting matches, et cettery.
Lot of the fellers are practising for the events and she bids fair to
be a humdinger.
“We aims to put Piperock on the map, Magpie. Always our inhabitants
has to go to Silver Bend to see the sights, such as a circus or a
opery. If we can advertise Piperock sufficient-like we can get said
attractions and keep our money and young men to home. You was pretty
good as a ordinary sheriff, Magpie, but you ain’t got the get-up that
our new sheriff has. Me and him got together on this and we deserves a
lot of credit.”
“You’re welcome, judge,” says I, “and all that goes with it.”
* * * * *
Just then here comes old “Jay-Bird” Whittaker, who owns the Cross J
cow outfit and two-thirds of the banks in Yaller Rock county. The
judge ain’t partial to Jay-Bird, so he lopes off down-town.
Jay-Bird gets off his bronc and sets down with us.
“Look upon me,” says he sad-like. “Take a good look. Good! Do I look
changed? Do I look haggard around the gills? Yeah? I deserve to—gol
dingle danged if I don’t! Me and ‘Chuck’ Warner went to Silver Bend to
see the sights. _Sabe?_ We seen ’em. That gol-danged, horse-faced,
prevaricating son-of-a-sea-cook and me got stewed! I don’t remember
all of what passed but I seem to hear talk about Buffalo Bill,
Antelope Doc, P. T. Barnum and Frontpaws.
“Well, I woke up with my feet sticking out over the top of a manger,
and in my checkbook is a stub which shows that I, J. B. Whittaker, who
ought to have at least enough sense to make me half-witted, had paid
five hundred dollars for the sole ownership of Oswald’s Dog and Pony
Show!”
“Bought it?” asks Magpie foolish-like.
“You hard of hearing, Magpie?” asks Jay-Bird.
“Is she a good show?”
“I never looked—gol dang it! Chuck said I ought to be thankful that I
didn’t buy the Mastadon Carnival Company too, which has been showing
there a couple of days. Maybe I’d a bought it if I’d a been seen by
the owners. Dog and pony show! ——’s bells!”
We all rolls smokes and just about that time here comes Hassayampa
Harris of Curlew, who owns the banks that Jay-Bird don’t. Him and
Jay-Bird is what you’d call business rivals. Hassayampa squints down
at Jay-Bird and shoves his hat off a heated forehead.
“Think you’re smart, eh?” he grunts sarcastic-like. “Buying things,
eh? Going to put yourself up as another Buffaler Bill, eh? Going to
start a Wild West Show, eh? Well, I spiked one of your wheels,
old-timer.”
“Yeah?” says Jay-Bird. “Who told you?”
“Chuck.” Hassayampa grinned from ear to ear. “I got him loaded and he
spilled it all to me. Don’t blame Chuck, Jay-Bird, ’cause he was too
full to think what he was doing. _Sabe?_ He told me all about what you
bought and why you came home after more money.”
“Oh!” grunts Jay-Bird. “He told you, did he? What did he say I came
here after more money for, Hassayampa Harris?”
“Haw! Haw! Haw! For why, eh? Haw! Haw! Haw! I beat you to it, J. B. I
bought the Mastadon Carnival outfit myself.”
Jay-Bird looks at Hassayampa for a moment, and then falls right off
the steps.
“Some shock, eh?” grins Hassayampa. “Maybe I should have told him more
easy-like.”
We turned Jay-Bird over on his back and he’s laughing so danged hard
that his jaws are almost locked. He ain’t able to talk for some time.
After a while he shuts off the tears and looks at Hassayampa.
“Chuck told you that? Haw! Haw! Haw!”
Hassayampa sets there, fooling with his six-shooter and staring at
Jay-Bird’s tears; then he swings his bronc around, abrupt-like.
“Where you—Haw! Haw! Haw!—going?” asks Jay-Bird.
“I’m going to kill Chuck Warner. He lied to me!”
“Kill him a few times for me, Hassayampa,” yells Jay-Bird. “He never
told me the truth in his life.”
_Clang!_ goes a bell. _Bang! Bang!_
“Dirty Shirt is drunk,” opines Magpie.
“As usual,” nods Jay-Bird. “Are you going to be active in the
celebration Tuesday, Magpie?”
“Ain’t decided yet. I’m going to let Ike help ’em out. Feel it’s my
patriotic duty to let ’em have a little assistance.”
“Magpie Simpkins,” says I, “me and you are pardners in material
things, but when it comes to my soul you don’t own a share of stock.
You ain’t going to loan me and I ain’t going to have no hand in
anything. _Sabe?_ I’m going down-town right now, and if you hear my
old .41 talking out loud you’ll know that brotherly love has snuck up
on me and I’m playing safe. Good-by!”
If we had a newspaper in Piperock, you’d likely see something like
this:
The follering guests registered at Holt’s hotel today:
“Piegan” Peters, “Tombstone” Todd, “Ace-High” Anderson, “Dynamite”
Davidson, “Calamity” Calkins, “Sad” Samuels, “Windy” Wilson, “Shiner”
Seeley, “Slow-Elk” Sloan, “Ornery” Olsen, “Hip-Shot” Harris and others
too ornery to mention.
Every danged one of them are practising horse-thieves. Brotherly love
don’t mean nothing to that bunch, unless the brother owns some
middling good stock.
Then I meets Dirty Shirt. He’s about six and seven-eighths drunk and
he greets me more with his eyes than his tongue. He squints one eye at
me and then holds out his six-shooter for me to shake hands with.
“Comp’ments of the sheason to the Harper twins,” says he serious-like.
“By cripes, Ike, your brother looks more like you than you do. Fact.”
“Which one, Dirty?” I asks and he rubs his eyes.
“Ex-coosh me! My mishtake, I’m sure. You folks goin’ to shelebrashun?
If so—why not? All three nods together. Good!”
“Anything going on up-town, Dirty?”
“Naw! Pete Gonyer and ‘Slim’ Hawkins are up in Holt’s hay-mow nursing
a pair of Winchesters, while they makes out schpecifications for
tug-of-war.
“‘Mush be amachoor,’ says Slim. ‘Stric’ly amachoor.’
“‘Amachoor what?’ asks Calamity. ‘Horsh-thieves,’ says Slim.
“Now everybody’s sore, Ike, ’cause they’re all professionals. Why,
there ain’t ’nough amachoor horsh-thieves around here to tug the hat
off your head.”
Just then Magpie shows up with two saddle-broncs and a hurry-up
expression on his face.
“Get on, Ike,” says he. “Hurry up!”
I gets on that horse and follers him. That’s the trouble with me; I’m
a born follerer and no questions asked. We thunders through Paradise
like Paul Revere advertising a flood, and I don’t overhaul Magpie
until his bronc begins to miss a step here and there.
“Magpie,” says I, “let’s stop and fight.”
He yanks up his tired bronc and stares at me.
“Stop and fight?”
“Uh-huh. I’m just as big a coward as you are, Magpie, but I won’t run
no further.”
“There ain’t nothing to fight, Ike.”
“You didn’t think I’d stop if I thought there was, did you? What in
the devil are we killing our broncs for, I’d lower myself to ask?”
Magpie rolls a smoke and loops one long leg around the horn of his
saddle. When Magpie appears to get confidential I feels that life is
but a fleeting flower.
* * * * *
“Ike, me and you has scrabbled mighty hard for existence, ain’t we?
We’ve punched cows for forty a month, prospected everywhere and found
nothing much, and we run the sheriff’s office with a gun in one hand
and our life in the other, ain’t we? What have we got? I asks you as
man to man, what have we got?”
“We’ve got between five and six hundred dollars in the Silver Bend
bank,” I replies.
“We did have, Ike. We did have a measly amount like that. How far will
a amount like that go, I asks you? As old age sneaks upon us, Ike, and
our hands lose their cunning we need to be upholstered in worldly
goods or go to the bone-yard.”
“Has somebody robbed that danged bank?” I gasps.
“I hope not, Ike. I wrote a check for five hundred and gave it to
Jay-Bird, so I ain’t worrying.”
“The —— you did! What for, Magpie?”
“For the complete and entire ownership of Oswald’s Dog and Pony Show,
which will be knowed in the future as Simpkins’ Stupendous Shows
Combined.”
“Combined with what?” I whispers.
“I don’t know yet.”
I don’t say nothing more. I look at him—that’s all. I hope to die if I
didn’t want to kill my pardner. I swallers hard and scratches the butt
of my six-gun.
“I knowed you’d choke up with e-motion, Ike,” says he, reaching over
to pat me on the back. “It’s a thing that only comes once in a man’s
life, and I knowed it would make you happy. Opportunity knocked and I
sure let her in. Come on, Ike, and we’ll make P. T. Barnum’s outfit
look like a medicine show. Why, dog-gone it, Ike, we can run that
outfit one season and clean up enough to let us loaf the rest of our
lives.”
“Barnum was right,” I whispers. “He sure was.”
“You danged know he was,” nods Magpie. “He knew.”
“One every minute, Magpie, and no stop-watches on earth.”
I don’t know nothing about circuses. My folks got all their money
honestly, and I don’t know a blood-sweating Behemoth from a ant-eater,
but it don’t need zoological wisdom to see that me and Magpie owns a
lot of undesirables.
First on the list cometh Cleopatra. Magpie has a book which I read
once, and it says that Cleopatra showed up on the Egyptian range about
one hundred and seventeen years before Christ, but after I looks her
over I comes to the conclusion she ain’t that young.
Cleopatra is a man-eating tiger, but from the looks of her ribs I’d
say that she ain’t mixed with men folks for a long, long time. Her
teeth look like she’d been trying to get sustenance from stones. She
might pinch but I’ll be danged if she could bite.
Then comes Allah. He looks like a antique rug that the moths had been
living in. They say a camel can go eight days without drinking, but
I’m betting Allah can go longer than that without eating. He’s what
I’d call a shipwreck of the desert.
Then comes Alcibiades. This critter might ’a’ been a elephant years
ago, but right now he ain’t much but a mass of rubber wrinkles and a
pair of mean little eyes. Alcibiades sure needed washing and ironing.
The pony end of the outfit consists of four little pinto ponies, and
the dogs tally about six mongrels, one mixed breed and one just dog.
There’s two monkeys which scratch like lumberjacks. There’s a dirty
tent, two painted wagons, a bass drum, a bale of hay and a set of
harness.
With these few words I have proclaimed what we own for five hundred
dollars. Oh, I forgot to mention a water-bucket minus the bail. I’m
looking over our loss when Magpie comes back, grinning like a fool.
“Eighty dollars, Ike!” he whoops. “We own the whole layout now. The
Simpkins’ Stupendous Shows United.”
“Eighty dollars for what, Magpie?” I asks.
“Mastadon Carnival Company, Ike. Hassayampa knowed there was no use
bucking me. We own everything now.”
“Except brains,” says I. “What does the Mastadon consist of?”
“Why—” Magpie scratches his head—“I’ll be danged if I know. Must be
worth eighty dollars. It ain’t reasonable to suppose——”
“Figuring comparative prices, Magpie, you must have got an extra
water-bucket for the eighty. What is a carnival, Magpie?”
We ain’t far from Judge Mulligan’s office, so we went over and
borrowed his dictionary. It said that a carnival was a time of riotous
excess.
“My gosh! We’ve bought a riot, Ike!” exclaims Magpie.
“Not me,” says I. “Don’t blame me. I’ve had a riot wished upon me.”
We didn’t get paralysis of the eyelids looking at our purchase. If the
dog and pony show was small, the carnival was the sharp end of nothing
whittled to a point. There’s three small tents badly in need of canvas
to hide the bare poles. One of ’em has a sign proclaiming it to be—