“Run out of snakes?” I asks and he nods.
“Where’s the rest of the layout?” asks Magpie.
Bosco stuffs the rest of the bread in his face and swallers hard.
“Well, the boss said he was going home; the niggers said they was
going back to making beds in Pullman cars, and I heard that the Pearl
of Egypt left here with a sheep-herder.”
“You the sole survivor?” I asks and he nods.
“Yep! Know where I can get a job?”
“Job!” snorts Magpie. “I bought you, feller. Cost me eighty dollars.”
“You got stung,” states Bosco. “I ain’t got a snake left.”
“You really a wild man?” I asks.
“Well,” says Bosco sad-like, “I ain’t been paid for two weeks, and
they left me stranded here without no clothes, so you can draw your
own conclusions.”
* * * * *
Never since the Lord dumped the leavings of the Bad Lands and wrote in
the big book, “They will call this Piperock,” has the old moon looked
down upon the like. Into the old cow-town, at five A.M., drags the
darndest conglomeration a human ever conceived. The Simpkins’
Stupendous Shows Combined drifted into Piperock. It was Magpie’s idea.
I wanted to take the things the other way, but Magpie wanted to give
the old-timers the treat of their lives and Magpie usually has his
way.
Magpie drove the team, which hauled dogs, monkeys, tent-poles and so
forth. Then came Bosco on Alcibiades, leading Allah, and behind them
cometh Ike Harper driving four calico ponies hitched to a tiger’s
cage, inside of which Cleopatra yowled and complained against alkali,
rheumatism and lack of sleep. We led our broncs and left ’em at our
own shack as we came past.
We pulled around behind the city, unhitched, unloaded and then laid
down on a part of the Pearl of Egypt’s tent and went to sleep. When we
wakes up we observes Scenery Sims looking over our outfit.
“What is this here mess and what you fellers aiming to do?” he asks.
“This?” asks Magpie surprized-like. “This is Simpkins’ Stupendous
Shows Combined.”
“Yes? What you aiming to do with it?”
“Show her off in Piperock tomorrow. She’s some attraction, Scenery.”
“Belong to you, Magpie?”
“Feathers and everything!”
“Then,” says Scenery, “you better hire somebody to haul it away and
bury it.”
“Think you’re funny, don’t you?” asks Magpie. “Get this inside your
barren skull, little one: This is a cross between a circus and a
carnival and tomorrow she helps to entertain the old-timers. _Sabe?_”
“Smells like a cross between a pole-cat and ancient eggs,” says
Scenery. “Remove it from our fair city to once!”
“Away from here? What do you mean, feller?”
“I’m running this celebration.” Scenery pats himself on the chest. “Me
and Judge Steele inaugurates same and we has the say-so. _Sabe?_ We
adjudicates against anything that ain’t our own doings. In the first
place, you ain’t got nothing that attracts us, and in the second
place, as the sheriff, I rules against what you have got. You can’t
show in the city of Piperock while——”
I saw Alcibiades working closer and closer to Scenery, but I didn’t
think it was any business of mine to warn the law. It was nice
team-work between Alcibiades and Cleopatra, if anybody asks you. The
elephant just wrapped its trunk around Scenery, slammed him up against
the cage and he don’t no more than hit the bars when a pair of paws
come out and shucks the lower half of Scenery plumb to his birthday
suit.
Then Alcibiades cracked the whip with the sheriff, and when he lit
twenty feet away he still retains his boots, shirt and an idea of the
general direction home.
“Good work!” applauds Bosco, sticking his head out from under the
canvas. “Things like that never happen in a carnival.”
“You hang around here very long, Bosco, and you’ll see a lot of things
what never happen any place else,” says Magpie.
We’ve just got one tent up when here comes Judge Steele. He hauls out
a sheet of paper, balances his glasses on his nose and reads:
“To whom it may concern or annoy:
“Be it knowed this day and date that the city of Piperock,
according to the laws of the State of Montana and the
rights of humanity, does here and hereby announce to all
and sundry, that on the fifth day of August, being
tomorrow, there will not be tolerated within our sacred
precincts anything of the circus nature. Be it further
knowed that the city of Piperock does not hanker for
anything of like nature and will not tolerate same. This
aforementioned city is aiming to play safe for once, and
no questions asked.
“Signed by Lindhardt Cadwallader Sims, sheriff, and wrote
out by Judge Steele, notary public. Amen.”
“Is there anything else that Scenery wants?” asks Magpie.
“He said something about a pair of pants, I believe.”
Just then cometh Tombstone, Ace-High, Slow-Elk and Hip-Shot. They
stops and considers Alcibiades and then wanders over to us.
“That ultimatum ain’t hardly square, judge,” complains Magpie. “Me and
Ike has expended a enormous amount of time and capital on this
stupendous aggregation of wonders and we’ve done it all that you might
have a enjoyable day. It has cost us a e-normous amount of wasted
energy, and in the event that we can’t exhibit here we are broke,
busted and worn to the bone.”
“Who says you-all can’t show off here?” asks Hip-Shot.
“It has been so adjudicated by the sheriff,” states the judge. “I
wrote her out and I know there ain’t no loop-holes in same. Scenery
has decreed that this circus ain’t going to show here, and I
represents his feelings.”
“No circus, eh?” says Hip-Shot. “I pines for a circus. How about you
fellers?”
“Like a calf for its maw,” agrees Slow-Elk. “I ain’t never seen no
circurious, Hip-Shot, but since you spoke I’ve begun to hanker awful
for one. Let’s have one.”
“It must be so,” nods Hip-Shot. “We’ll have her.”
“You might talk to the sheriff,” says the judge.
“Talk ——!” grunts Hip-Shot. “Come on, Slow-Elk.”
They pilgrimed away and the rest of us sets down and rolls smokes.
“I just wants to know,” says Ace-High nervous-like, “I just wants to
know if there is anybody here except me and Tombstone and the judge
and Magpie and Ike? Five is maybe all that is here, but I feels that
I’d like to be sure.”
“Much obliged, Ace-High,” says Tombstone. “You’ve got more nerve than
I have. Is it or ain’t it?”
“Gents,” says Magpie, “meet Bosco, the wild man. Eats snakes.”
“I could love you, feller,” says Ace-High, “love you for being flesh
and blood. Danged if I didn’t think my sins had began to react upon
me.”
“Feeling so good I ain’t got the heart to chide you,” says Tombstone,
“but if I was you—well, this is a he-man’s town, Bosco, and all that,
but we’ve still got some of the finer feelings left, so I’d advise you
to get some pants.”
When Slow-Elk and Hip-Shot shows up again, Hip-Shot bows low to us.
“Proceed with your circus,” says he. “All is well and good.”
“You saw Scenery?” asks Magpie joyful-like. “What’d he say?”
“Not much,” grins Slow-Elk. “He said to hang on to them keys, ’cause
there ain’t no more like ’em, but he spoke too late.”
“I throwed ’em down that hole where Wick Smith bored for water,” said
Hip-Shot.
“Keys to what?” I asks.
“Cell door and the jail,” grins Slow-Elk. “Scenery is bottled up.”
The old judge gets up and shakes out his coat-tails.
“Do you mean to say that our estimable sheriff is locked in his own
jail?”
“I pass on the ’steamable part, judge,” grins Slow-Elk, “but you sure
guessed the last of it to a gnat’s eyelash. Let’s all have a drink on
the sheriff’s impossibilities.”
* * * * *
Then we enters Buck’s place. The rest of the surrounding country is in
there and they’re enjoying the fulness of the world. Wick Smith is
standing on the bar orating, and we listens to his wau-wau. Wick has
been dallying with the weaving water, and his voice is full of silv’ry
bells:
“—And friends of old, I says to thee all, there may be cities of gold
and silver and palaces of paradise personified, but when a feller
hankers for a pat on the back and the grasp of a honest hand and——”
Wick happens to glance down at Bosco and seems to run short on vocal
power. He stares at Bosco for a moment, lets his glance wander to the
ceiling, shuts his eyes tight and proceeds—
“As I said before, when a feller hankers for a hat on the back and the
hasp of a—a——”
Then he glances down again.
“Judge,” says he, sliding off the bar, “you talk a while. I—I reckon
my innards are ailing, I reckon.”
He weaves out of the door with his eyes shut.
Bosco looks around at that assemblage and then walks out the back
door. Wild men has feelings the same as regular folks, I reckon, but
to everybody outside of about six of us Bosco is the limit in hooch
hallucinations.
“I’d—I’d set ’em up,” says Buck weak-like.
Six of us faced the barrier but the rest shook their heads. Dirty
Shirt took his under advisement. He walked to the door, rung the bell
three times, and joined us.
“It may get me e-ventually,” he announces, “but I’m still firm in my
left hand, folks.”
All to once Wick stumbles back inside and flops in a chair.
“Send for Doc Milliken!” he yells.
“Ailin’, Wicksie?” asks the judge.
“Terrible!” Wick looks around, wild-like. “Ain’t nobody going to send
for a doctor?”
“Will a little liquor take out the hurt?” asks Slow-Elk.
“Liquor ——! I need a antydote! First I see a cannyball and then I see
a danged woolly dog!”
Wick’s voice hits a high note, and he stares at us wild-like.
“He seen a dog!” gasps Dirty Shirt. “Wick Smith has seen a dog! My
gosh, this is terrible!”
“Woolly dog,” says Wick, like he was talking to himself. “It had a
stick in its hands and was walking like a man. When it seen me it
hopped up in the air and turned over and lit on its hind feet and——”
“Snakes!” gasps Yuma. “Smitty has got crippled crawlers!”
“You’re a liar!” howls Wick. “Don’t I know a dog from a snake?”
“Grab him before he gets violent!” yells Big-Foot and makes a dive for
Wick. Wick might have been sick in the head, but it hadn’t affected
his legs. He beat Big-Foot to the door and neither of ’em hit the
sidewalk on their way out.
“Haw! Haw! Haw!” whoops Judge Steele. “Them darned fools don’t know——”
Big-Foot comes backing into the door, catches his spurs on the
threshold and falls flat on his back, where he lays with his eyes
shut.
“Take it away!” he yelps. “Dang it all, take it away!”
“You—you got ’em too, Big-Foot?” asks Buck.
“Hawg tie me!” yells Big Foot. “I seen more than Wick did!”
“Somebody has been monkeying with the circus, Ike,” whispers Magpie.
We ducked out the back door. Bosco is setting there on the canvas. He
says a couple of the dogs got loose, but nothing else is gone.