THE BACK PORCH
Racey's gaze casually and uninterestedly followed Swing's pointing
finger. Immediately his eye brightened and he sat up with a jerk.
"I'll shove the door a li'l farther open," said Swing, making as if to
rise.
"Sit still," hissed Racey, pulling down his friend with one hand and
endeavouring to smooth his own hair with the other. "Yo're all right,
and the door's all right. I'm going over there in a minute and if
yo're good I'll take you with me."
"Over there" was the back porch of the Blue Pigeon Store. Swing's
exclamations and laudable desire to see better were called forth by
the sudden appearance on the back porch of two girls. One was Miss
Blythe. The other was Miss Molly Dale.
There were two barrel chairs on the porch. Miss Blythe picked up a
piece of embroidery on a frame from the seat of one of the chairs and
sat down. Molly Dale seated herself in the other chair, crossed her
knees, and swung a slim, booted leg. From the breast pocket of her
boy's gray flannel shirt she produced a long, narrow strip of white to
which appeared to be fastened a small dark object. She held the strip
of white in her left hand. Her right hand held the dark object and
with it began to make a succession of quick, wavy, hooky dabs at one
end of the strip of white.
"First time I ever seen anybody trying to knit without needles," said
the perplexed Swing.
"That ain't knitting," said the superior Racey. "That's tatting."
"Tatting?"
"Tatting."
"What's it for?"
"Lingery." Racey pronounced the word to rhyme with "clingery."
"Lingery?"
"Lingery."
"What's lingery?"
"Lingery is clo'es."
"Clo'es, huh. Helluva funny name for clo'es. Why don't you say clo'es
then instead of this here now lingery?"
"Because lingery is a certain _kind_ of clo'es, you ignorant Jack.
Petticoats, and the like o' that. Don't you know nothin'?"
"I know yo're lying, that's what I know. Yo're bluffing, you hear me
whistlin'. You dunno no more about it than I do. You can't tell me
petticoats is made out of a strip of white stuff less'n a half-inch
wide. I've seen too many washin's hangin' on the lines, I have. Yeah.
And done too many. When I was a young one my ma would tie an apron
round my neck, slap me down beside a tubful of clo'es, and tell me to
fly to it. Petticoats! Petticoats, feller, is made of yards and yards
and yards like a balloon."
"Who said they wasn't, you witless Jake? They don't _make_ petticoats
of this tatting stuff. They use it for trimming like."
"Trimming on the petticoats?"
"_And_ the lingery."
"But you just now said petticoats and lingery was the same thing."
"Oh, my Gawd! They are! They are the same thing. Don't y' understand?
Petticoats is always lingery, but lingery ain't always petticoats.
See?"
"I don't. I don't see a-tall. I think yo're goin' crazy. That's what I
think. Nemmine. Nemmine. If you say _lingery_ at me again I won't let
you introduce me to yore girl."
"She ain't my girl," denied Racey, reddening.
"But you'd like her to be, huh? Shore. What does she think about it?
Which one of 'em is she?"
"I didn't say neither of 'em was. You always did take too much for
granted, Swing."
"I ain't taking too much for granted with you blushing thataway. Which
one? Tell a feller. C'mon, stingy."
"Shucks," said Racey, "I should think you could tell. The best-looking
one, of course."
"But they's two of 'em, feller, and they both look mighty fine to me.
Take that one with the white shirt and the slick brown hair. She's as
pretty as a li'l red wagon. A reg'lar doll baby, you bet you."
"Doll baby! Ain't you got any eyes? That brown-haired girl--and I want
to say right here I never did like brown hair--is Joy Blythe, Bill
Derr's girl. Of course, Bill's a good feller and all that, and if he
likes that style of beauty it ain't anything against him. But that
other girl now. Swing, you purblind bat, when it comes to looks, she
lays all over Joy Blythe like four aces over a bobtailed flush."
"She does, huh? You got it bad. Here's hoping it ain't catchin'. I've
liked girls now and then my own self, but I never like one so hard
I couldn't see nothing good in another one. Now, humanly speaking,
either of them two on the porch would suit me."
"And neither of 'em ain't gonna suit you, and you can gamble on that,
Swing Tunstall."
"Oh, ain't they? We'll see about that. You act like I never seen a
girl before. Lemme tell you I know how to act all right in company. I
ain't any hilltop Reuben."
"If you ain't, then pin up yore shirt where I tore the buttons off.
You look like the wrath o' Gawd."
"You ain't something to write home about yore own self. I can button
up my vest and look respectable, but they's hayseeds and shuttlin's
all over you, and besides I got a necktie, and _yore_ handkerchief is
so sloshed up you can't tie it round yore neck. Yo're a fine-lookin'
specimen to go a-visitin'. A fi-ine-lookin' specimen. And anyway yo're
drunk. You can't go."
"Hell I can't," snapped Racey, brushing industriously. "They never
seen me."
"But Luke Tweezy did," chuckled Swing.
"What's Luke got to do with it?" Racey inquired without looking up.
"If you'd slant yore eyes out through the door you'd see what Luke
Tweezy's gotta do with it."
Racey Dawson looked up and immediately sat down on the hay and spoke
in a low tone.
Swing nodded with delight. "You'll cuss worse'n that when I go over
and make Luke introduce me," he said. "He's been out there on the
porch with 'em the last five minutes, and you was so busy argufyin'
with me you never looked up to see him. And you talk of going over and
doing the polite. Yah, you make me laugh. This is shore one on you,
Racey. Don't you wish now you hadn't made out to be so drunk? Lookit,
Luke. He's a-offerin' 'em something in a paper poke. They're a-eatin'
it. He musta bought some candy. I'll bet they's all of a dime's worth
in that bag. The spendthrift. How he must like them girls. It's yore
girl he's shining up to special, Racey. Ain't he the lady-killer? Look
out, Racey. You won't have a chance alongside of Luke Tweezy."
"Swing," said Racey, in a voice ominously calm and level, "if you
don't shut yore trap I'll shore wrastle you down and tromp on yore
stummick."
So saying he reached for Swing Tunstall. But the latter, watchful
person that he was, eluded the clutching hands and hurried through the
doorway.
Racey, seething with rage, could only sit and hug his knees while
Swing went up on the porch and was introduced to the two girls. It was
some balm to his tortured soul to see how ill Luke Tweezy took Swing's
advent. Did Luke really like Molly Dale? The old goat! Why, the man
was old enough to be her father.
And did she like him? Lordy man alive, how could she? But Luke Tweezy
had money. Girls liked money, Racey knew that. He had known a girl to
marry a more undesirable human being than Luke Tweezy simply because
the man was rich. Personally, he, Racey Dawson, were he a girl, would
prefer the well-known honest heart to all the wealth in the territory.
But girls were queer, and sometimes did queer things. Molly, was
she queer? He didn't know. She looked sensible, yet why was she so
infernally polite to Luke Tweezy? She didn't have to smile at him when
he spoke to her. It wasn't necessary. Racey's spirit groaned within
him. Finally, the spectacle of the chattering group on the back porch
of the Blue Pigeon proved more than Racey could stand. He retreated
into a dark corner of the barn and lay down on the hay. But he did not
go to sleep. Far from it. Later he removed his boots, stuffed them
full of hay, and hunkered down behind a dismounted wagon-seat over
which a wagon-cover had been flung. With a short length of rope and
several handfuls of hay he propped the boots in such a position that
they stuck out beyond the wagon-box ten or twelve inches and gave
every evidence of human occupation.
Boosting up with a bushel basket the stiff canvas at the end opposite
the boots he made the wagon-cover stretch long enough and high enough
to conceal the important fact that there were no legs or body attached
to the boots.
Which being done Racey took up a strategic position behind an upended
crate near the doorway.
He proceeded to wait. He waited quite a while. The afternoon drained
away. The sun set. In the dusk of the evening Racey heard footsteps.
Swing Tunstall. He'd know his step anywhere. The individual making the
footsteps came to the doorway of the barn, halted an instant, then
walked in. Almost at once he stumbled over the boots. Then Racey
sprang upon his back with a joyous shout and slammed him headforemost
over the wagon-seat into the pile of hay.
The man swore--and the voice was not that of Swing Tunstall. On the
heels of this unwelcome discovery Racey made another. The man had
dragged out a knife from under his armpit, and was squirmingly
endeavouring to make play with it. Racey's intended practical joke on
Swing Tunstall was in a fair way to become a tragedy on himself.
There was no time to make explanations, even had Racey been so
inclined. The man was strong and the knife was long--and presumably
sharp. Racey, pinioning his opponent's knife arm with one hand and his
teeth, flashed out his gun and smartly clipped the man over the head
with the barrel.
Instantly, so far as an active participation in the affair of the
moment, the man ceased to function. He lay limp as a sodden moccasin,
and breathed stertorously. Racey knelt at his side and laid his hand
on the top of the man's head. The palm came away warmly wet. Racey
replaced his gun in its holster and pulled the senseless one out on
the barn floor near the doorway where he could see him better.
The man was Luke Tweezy.
Racey sat down and began to pull on his boots. There was nothing to be
gained by remaining in the barn. Tweezy was not badly hurt. The blow
on the head had resulted, so far as Racey could discover (later he was
to learn that his diagnosis had been correct), in a mere scalp wound.
Racey, when his boots were on, picked up his hat. At least he thought
it was his hat. When he put it on, however, it proved a poor fit. He
had taken Tweezy's hat by mistake. He dropped it on the floor and
turned to pick up his own where it lay behind the wagon-seat.
But, as we wheeled, a flicker of white showed inside the crown of
Tweezy's hat where it lay on the floor. Racey swung back, stooped
down, and turned out the leather sweatband of Tweezy's hat, at the
edge of which had been revealed the bit of white.
The latter proved to be one corner of a folded letter. Without the
least compunction Racey tucked this letter into the breast pocket of
his flannel shirt. Then he set about searching Tweezy's clothing with
thoroughness. But other than the odds and odds usually to be found in
a man's pockets there was nothing to interest the searcher.
Racey carefully turned back the sweatband of the hat, placed the
headpiece on top of the wagon-seat, and departed. He went as far as
the Happy Heart corral. Behind the corral he sat down on his heels,
and took out the letter he had purloined from Luke Tweezy. He opened
the envelope and read the finger-marked enclosure by the light of
matches shielded behind his hat. The letter ran:
DEAR FRIEND LUKE:
I don't think much of your plan. Too dangerous. The Land Office is
getting stricter every day. This thing must be absolutely legal in
every way. You can't bull ahead and trust to luck there aren't any
holes. There mustn't be any holes, not a damn hole. Try my plan, the
one I discussed so thoroughly with you last week. It will take longer,
perhaps, but it is absolutely safe. You must learn to be more careful
with the law from now on, Luke. I know what I'm talking about.
I tell you plainly if you don't accept my scheme and work to it
religiously I'm out of the deal absolutely. I'm not going to risk my
liberty because of other people's foolhardiness.
Show this letter to Jack Harpe, and let me know your decision.
Another thing, impress upon Jack the necessity of you two keeping
publicly apart until after the deal is sprung. When you talk to him go
off somewheres where no one will see you. I heard he spoke to you on
the street. Lampher told me. This must not happen again while we are
partners. Don't tell Doc Coffin's outfit more than they need to know.
Yours truly,
JACOB POOLEY.
Racey blew out the fourth match and folded the letter with care and
replaced it in the envelope. He sat back on his heels and looked up
into the darkening sky. Jacob Pooley. Well, well, _well_. If Fat Jakey
Pooley, the register of the district, was mixed up in the business,
the opposition would have its work cut out in advance. Yes, indeedy.
For no man could walk more convincingly the tight rope of the law than
Fat Jakey. Racey Dawson did not know Fat Jakey, except by sight, but
he had heard most of the tales told of the gentleman. And they were
_tales_. Many of them were accepted by the countryside as gospel
truth. Perhaps half of them were true. A good-natured, cunning,
dishonest, and indefatigable featherer of a lucrative political
nest--that was Fat Jakey.
Racey Dawson sat and thought hard through two cigarettes. Then he
thumbed out the butt, got to his feet, and started to return to the
hotel. For it had suddenly come upon him that he was hungry.
But halfway round the corral an idea impinged upon his consciousness
with the force of a bullet. "Gawdamighty," he muttered, "I am a Jack!"
He turned and retraced his steps to the corner of the corral. Here he
stopped and removed his spurs. He stuffed a spur into each hip pocket,
and moved cautiously and on tiptoe toward Tom Kane's barn.
It was almost full night by now. But in the west still glowed the
faintly red streak of the dying embers of the day. Racey suddenly
bethought him that the red streak was at his back, therefore he
dropped on all fours and proceeded catwise.
He was too late. Before he reached the back of the barn he heard the
feet of two people crunching the hard ground in front of it. The sound
of the footsteps died out on the grass between the barn and the houses
fronting on Main Street.
Racey, hurrying after and still on all fours, suddenly saw the dark
shape of a tall man loom in front of him. He halted perforce. His
own special brand of bull luck was with him. The dark shape, walking
almost without a sound, shaved his body so closely as it passed that
he felt the stir of the air against his face.
When the men had gone on a few yards Racey looked over his shoulder.
Silhouetted against the streak of dying red was the upper half of Jack
Harpe's torso. There was no mistaking the set of that head and those
shoulders. Both it and them were unmistakable. Jack Harpe. Racey swore
behind his teeth. If only he could have reached the barn in time to
hear what the two men had said to each other.
After a decent interval Racey went on. The Happy Heart was the nearest
saloon. He felt reasonably certain that Luke Tweezy would go there to
have his cut head dressed. He had. Racey, his back against the bar,
looked on with interest at the bandaging of Luke Tweezy by the
proprietor.
"Yep," said Luke, sitting sidewise in the chair, "stubbed my toe
against a cordwood stick in front of Tom Kane's barn and hit my head
on a rock. Knocked me silly."
"Sh'd think it might," grunted the proprietor, attending to his job
with difficulty because Luke _would_ squirm. "Hold still, will you,
Luke?"
"Yo're taking twice as many stitches as necessary," grumbled Luke.
"I ain't," denied the proprietor. "And I got two more to take. HOLD
STILL!"
"Don't need to deafen me!" squalled Luke, indignantly.
"Shut up!" ordered the proprietor, who, for that he did not owe any
money to Luke, was not prepared to pay much attention to his fussing.
"If you think I'm enjoying this, you got another guess coming. And if
you don't like the way I'm doing it, you can do it yoreself."
Luke stood up at last, a white bandage encircling his head, said that
he was much obliged, and would like to borrow a lantern for a few
moments.
"Aw, you don't need any lantern," objected the proprietor. "I forgot
to fill mine to-day, anyway. Can't you find yore way to the hotel in
the dark? That crack on the topknot didn't blind you, did it?"
"I lost something," explained Luke Tweezy. "When I fell down most all
my money slipped out of my pocket."
"I'll get you a lantern then," grumbled the proprietor.
Ten minutes later Luke Tweezy, frantically quartering the floor of Tom
Kane's barn, heard a slight sound and looked up to see Racey Dawson
and Swing Tunstall standing in the doorway.
"I didn't know you fell down _inside_ the barn," Racey observed.
"There's lots you dunno," said Luke, ungraciously.
"So there is," assented Racey. "But don't rub it in, Luke. Rubbing it
in hurts my feelings. And my feelings are tender to-day--most awful
tender, Luke. Don't you go for to lacerate 'em. I ain't owing you a
dime, you know."
To this Luke Tweezy made no comment. But he resumed his squattering
about the floor and his poking and delving in the piles of hay. He
raised a dust that flew up in clouds. He coughed and snorted and
snuffed. Racey and Swing Tunstall laughed.
"Makes you think of a hay-tedder, don't he?" grinned Racey. "How much
did you lose, Luke--two bits?"
At this Luke looked up sharply. "Seems to me you got over yore drunk
pretty quick," said he.
"Oh, my liquor never stays by me a great while," Racey told him
easily. "That's the beauty of being young. When you get old and
toothless an' deecrepit like some people, not to mention no names of
course, why then she's a cat with another tail entirely."
"What'ell's goin' on in here?" It was Red Kane speaking. Red was Tom
Kane's brother.
Racey and Swing moved apart to let him through. Red Kane entered,
stared at the spectacle of Luke Tweezy and his bobbing lantern, stared
and stared again.
"What you doing, Luke?" he demanded.
"Luke's lost a nickel, Red." Racey answered for the lawyer. "And a
nickel, you know yoreself, is worth all of five cents."
"I lost some money," grumbled Luke.
"But you _said_ you lost it when you tripped and fell," said Racey.
"And you fell outside."
"I lost it here," Luke said, shortly.
"I don't giveadamn where you lost it or what you lost," declared Red
Kane. "You can't go flirtin' round with any lantern in Tom's barn.
First thing you know you'll set it afire. C'mon, Luke, pull yore
freight."
"But lookit here," protested Luke, "I lost something valuable, Red. I
gotta find it."
"It wasn't money then?" put in Racey.
"Of course it was money," averred Luke.
"You said 'it' this time, Luke."
"It don't matter what I said. I lost some money, and I want to find
it."
"You can want all you like," said Red Kane, "but not in this barn.
C'mon back to-morrow morning, and you can hunt the barn to pieces, but
you can't do any more skirmishing round in here to-night. I'll lock
the barn door so's nobody else will go fussbudgettin' round in here.
C'mon, Luke, get a move on you."
So Luke was driven out much against his will, and Racey and Swing
roamed around to the dance hall. Here at a table in the ell where the
bar stretched its length they could sit and talk--unheard under cover
of the music.
"But how come you had yore boots off?" Swing desired to know when a
table, a bottle and two glasses were between them. "Don't try to tell
me you stuck 'em behind that wagon-seat on purpose to trip him. You
never knowed he was comin'."
"Well, no, I didn't exactly," admitted Racey, with a sly smile. "Those
boots were laid out all special for you."
"For me?"
"For you."
"But why for me?" Perplexedly.
"Because, Swing, old settler, I didn't like you this afternoon. The
more I saw you over there on that porch the less I liked you. So I
took off my boots and hid 'em careful like behind the wagon-seat so
they'd stick out some, and you'd see 'em and think I was there asleep,
and naturally you'd go for to wake me up and wouldn't think of looking
behind the crate where I was laying for you all ready to hop on yore
neck the second you stooped over the wagon-seat and give you the Dutch
rub for glommin' all the fun this afternoon."
"And what didja think I'd be doin' alla time?" grinned Swing Tunstall.
"You wouldn't 'a' tried to knife me, anyway."
"G'on. He didn't."
"Oh, didn't he? You better believe he did. If I hadn't got a holt of
his wrist and whanged him over the head with my Colt for all I was
worth he'd 'a' had me laid out cold. Yep, li'l Mr. Luke Tweezy
himself. The rat that don't care nothing about fighting with anything
but a law book."
"A rat will fight when it's cornered," said Swing.
Racey nodded. "I've seen 'em. It's something to know Luke carries a
knife and where."
"Where?"
"Under his left arm. Fill up, and shove the bottle over."
Swing filled abstractedly and slopped the table. He pushed the bottle
toward Racey. The latter caught it just in time to prevent a smash on
the floor.
"Say, look what yo're doing!" cried Racey. "Y' almost wasted a whole
bottle of redeye. I ain't got money to throw away if you have."
"I was just wonderin' what Fat Jakey's plan is," said Swing,
scratching his head.
"No use wonderin'," Racey told him. "It's their move."