“Well, I feel that I’ve struck what I’ve been looking for.”
“That’s what ‘Mighty’ Jones said when he fell off into Hellgate Cañon
and dislodged a hunk of galena ore, fifty feet from the bottom,” says
Dirty.
“A feller never knows his luck till the wheel stops.”
“You two are going with me,” says he.
“Us two ain’t goin’ to do no such a thing,” says I. “You don’t know
Piperock like we do.”
“That’s why you’re going with me.”
“You’re a danged poor fortune-teller,” observes Dirty. “Me and Ike would
last about as long as a snowball in Yuma and you’d be alone. They’d put
us in a nice little jail and then you’d get lost, strayed or stolen.
“No, sir. You write to all your folks, predictin’ your demise, leave
your watch and chain with the bartender, and then walk into town,
unarmed and with your hands in the air.”
“By golly, that’s the town I’ve been looking for,” says he. “Thanks.”
“Mister, she’s a great place for freaks,” says Dirty. “You won’t be in
that place long until you’ll join P. T. Barnum.”
“Barnum?” says he. “Barnum is dead.”
“Sure—I know it.”
“Yes,” says he, after a while. “You’re going with me. I’ll disguise you
so nobody will know you, you understand? I must have you with me.”
“Mister,” says I, “are you just a —— tenderfoot who wants to be a bad
man, or what’s all your talk about banks and bullion?”
“I am a realist, as I said before. The West has never been depicted as I
feel it really is and I am going to show them something new. I have a
story, ‘The Twilight Trail,’ which has been partly done, but I want
realism. I want the spirit of the old West in it. I want a stage
hold-up, a bank robbery, with real people in it, in a Western town—real
West. Now, do you understand?”
“Just like I do Chinese,” says I. “You said a lot, but she don’t somehow
fit into my mind. You don’t want much, I _sabe_ that part of it, don’t
you, Dirty?”
“Yeah, he’s plumb modest and meek, Ike. Are you a writer?”
“Moving-pictures, gents. I am Llewellyn Waldemar.”
“Sounds like a breed of bird-dogs,” says Dirty, “but his ears are too
small.”
“You don’t need to insult me,” he snaps.
“Now, wait,” begs Dirty. “Did you ever see a Llewellyn dog?”
“No, I never did.”
“Well, then don’t get insulted. They’re a —— nice-lookin’ animile. You
say you’re a movin’-pitcher?”
“No, I take ’em.”
“Hm-m-m-m,” says Dirty. “I never seen any, but I’ve heard tell about
’em. Does them pitchers make yuh think they’re movin’?”
* * * * *
The feller looks at Dirty, like he was a new species of animal, and then
wipes his eyes. He wipes his eyes several times and acts like he had a
fish-bone in his throat, but he gets all right after while and says:
“Come on. I’m going to find a disguise for you to wear.”
“You’re a wonder if you can conceal me,” says Dirty, who is cock-eyed in
one optic. “All them snake-hunters has to do is take one look at me and
I’m due to chase buffalo in the happy hunting-ground.”
“Smoked glasses will fix you,” says he.
“Smoked glasses won’t help my bowlegs,” says I. “Magpie says he can roll
me like a hoop.”
“I never thought I’d live to see the day when I’d have to look at
Piperock through smoked glasses,” wails Dirty.
Well, he fixed us up; that’s a cinch. When he got through with us we
looked like a couple of shepherds gone to seed. Down at one of them
two-handed stores he purchased us both a outfit. He got us each a pair
of smoked specs and some whiskers which makes us resemble a pair of
owls.
“Your home town won’t recognize you now,” says he.
“No,” says Dirty, “but that won’t profit us much. Piperock may not
penetrate our disguise, but that won’t stop ’em from pot-shooting a pair
of freaks.”
“There’s one cinch,” says I. “They won’t never kill us in our own
names.”
He takes us up to a hotel where all his stuff is and we sets down on the
bed while he packs up.
“What kind of a sheriff have they got in Piperock?” he asks.
“He’s a wonder,” says Dirty, “and very fast with a gun.”
Then me and Dirty thinks about Scenery Sims. He’s about five feet two
inches tall and his face is so danged thin that his mustache looks like
a buffalo-robe hanging on a hatchet. I could rummage around in a sack
and get a gun faster than Scenery could pull one out of his holster.
Waldemar got us a pair of valises to pack our own clothes in and then we
drinks to our disguises and pilgrims to the depot.
“I know,” says Dirty, as we climb on the train, “I know —— well that
we’re pilin’ up for grief for our side. We ain’t got no sense, Ike.”
“They’ll never know you,” says Waldemar.
“After we’re dead they will,” wails Dirty, “and I ain’t never deceived
anybody yet. I can just hear ‘Old Testament’ Tilton sayin’, ‘Man is of
few days and full of trouble, O, my brethren, and these two grabbed off
more than they could chew,’ and then the Cross J quartet will sing,
‘Jee-e-e-roo-o-o-sa-lem, Jee-e-e-roo-o-o-sa-lem, lee-e-ft up your voice
an’ see-e-ng.’”
“The Holy City,” says Waldemar. “A beautiful thing.”
“She’s only skin-deep with that bunch,” sighs Dirty. “I hope they just
bury me and dispense with the sermon and songs.”
“We won’t hear none of it,” says I. “We’ll be layin’ there with our
smoked glasses on and a cactus flower on our breast.”
“I think I’m goin’ to like Piperock,” says Waldemar.
“Your taste is all in your mouth, then,” says Dirty. “What are we
supposed to be, in case anybody asks us?”
“You two?”
He thinks for quite a while, and then says:
“Tell you what—you two are scientists, looking for the remains of a—a
dinosaur. Mister Jones will be Professor Doolittle and Mister Harper
will be Professor Smythe. How’s that for names?”
“Lookin’ for a dinny-sor,” nods Dirty. “Might as well die for that as
anything else, I reckon. Do we have to describe said—uh—thing? Is it a
predatory animile, bird of prey or a crippled crawler?”
“The dinosaur,” says he, “died a million years ago.”
“Some fortune-teller likely told him what Piperock was goin’ to be
like,” says Dirty.
* * * * *
We got off the train at Paradise, just in time to catch Art Miller’s
stage to Piperock, and on that stage is “Magpie” Simpkins and Judge
Steele. Magpie looks us over, careful-like and then shakes his head.
“There ain’t none,” says he.
“None what?” asks Dirty.
“E-clipse of the sun.”
“Professor Smythe and Professor Doolittle have ruined their eyes working
on scientific data,” explains Waldemar.
“Why confine your post mortem to eyes?” asks Magpie. “’Pears to me that
they’ve ruined the rest of ’em, too. I suppose that one—” pointing at
me—“got warped in the legs from studyin’ the shape of the earth. Can’t
they talk United States?”
“They were born in this country,” says Waldemar.
“What part?” asks the judge.
“All of us, you —— fool!” I snaps.
“Think we were assembled?”
“Goin’ to Piperock?” asks Magpie.
“Yes,” says Waldemar. “Yes, we are bound for there.”
“On a mission?” asks the judge.
“Mostly for a rest,” says Waldemar.
“You likely will be,” admits Magpie, “and there’s plenty of room in the
jail.”
We goes to Sam Holt’s hotel. Old Sam sizes us up kinda close-like, and
then Waldemar says—
“Have you three rooms?”
“I have,” says old Sam, “and two of ’em I’ll keep.”
“What do you mean?” asks Waldemar.
“Them two,” pointing at me and Dirty, “can’t get no room from me. The
last shepherd what stayed in my hotel left a lot of his mee-nag-i-ree
behind.”
“Your danged old hotel didn’t need ’em,” says Dirty. “You ain’t changed
blankets since the battle of Little Big Horn.”
“What do you know about me?” he asks. “Who in —— are you?”
“I’m Professor Doolittle,” says Dirty, “and I’m lookin’ for a
dinny-sor.”
“You don’t look like you’d do much and I ain’t got none today,” says
Sam, meanlike. “You —— shepherds are always loco about something.”
“Can we sleep in the barn?” I asks.
“No, yuh can’t! My horses are all pets.”
“Isn’t there any other hotel?” asks Waldemar.
“I can give yuh a place to sleep,” squeaks a voice behind us, and we
turns to see Scenery Sims.
“Ah,” says Waldemar, “another landlord looking for business.”
“I ain’t no landlord—I’m the sheriff,” squeaks Scenery. “I’ve got a
empty jail if yuh wants a place to sleep.”
Me and Dirty are sort of thinking it over when Magpie Simpkins shows up.
He asks what the trouble is, and Sam Holt tells him.
“Scientists is always welcome to my shack,” says Magpie. “I’ve got
room.”
“We don’t wish to deprive yuh,” says Dirty.
“There ain’t no depravity about it,” says Magpie. “I hankers to talk
with learned men, being as this is such a ignorant neighborhood, and
you’re just as welcome as the flowers in January. What seek ye here?”
“I’m lookin’ for a dinny-sor,” says Dirty.
“Never heard of him,” says Magpie. “There used to be a Dinny McCall
workin’ for the Five Dot outfit, down near Sulphur Flat.”
“This has been dead a million years,” explains Dirty.
“Oh,” says Magpie, fussing with his mustache. “Oh, yeah. That was before
I came here. What killed him?”
“Wear and tear, I reckon,” says Dirty.
He takes me and Dirty down to his cabin, and makes us to home.
“I had a pardner once,” says Magpie, “but the —— fool went loco, and
some law-abidin’ citizens chased him across the border.”
“Did he done wrong?” asks Dirty.
“If he ever done right he came back and corrected himself. Him and
another cross between a bed-bug and a bee-sting went away together, and
Piperock profiteth thereby. Make yourselves to home. You gents comes
here at a opportune time, you know it? Tomorrow is the tenth anniversary
of Piperock and we’re goin’ to celebrate.”
“Celebrate?” whispers Dirty, hoarse-like. “Celebrate what? Is the town
married?”
“Anniversary,” explains Magpie, “means a year. Piperock is ten years old
and she’s goin’ to celebrate her growth and civilization. This is her
birthday.
“They will come from near and far, gents, and great will be the day and
date. There will be bronco-bustin’, et cettery, and bull-doggin’ of
steers. There will be ropin’ contests, et cettery and some shootin’.
She’ll be worth your patience.”
Magpie goes out and me and Dirty sets there and looks at each other.
“My ——!” gasps Dirty. “I feel that everything is not well with my soul.
Somebody is goin’ to see Dirty Shirt Jones behind these whiskers and
specs and I’ll be forced to stand on nothin’ and look up a rope.”
“Be of good cheer,” says I, “for I will be with thee. They’ll have
something except Piperock’s birthday to celebrate next year.”
“Do scientists drink hard liquor, Ike?”
“They has a throat and a tongue,” says I. And then we pilgrims uptown,
and goes into Buck Masterson’s saloon, where we gets fortified against
our fears of the near future. Waldemar is there, and Waldemar has
surrounded himself with enough hooch to make him expand considerable.
When we gets there he’s talkin’ politics with “Half Mile” Smith, and
“Swan River,” and neither of them snake-hunters knows anything about
politics, except who is sheriff.
He introduces us to them two misfits, and they gets agreeable.
“Mister Smythe,” says Swan River, looking me over, “your legs are twins
to the legs of a —— fool I know, but from the waist up you look like a
bum thrower. I’m pleased to meetcha.”
“He sure is built so he don’t have to go around nothin’,” agrees Half
Mile.
“He’s a very brilliant man,” says Waldemar. “They both have degrees.”
“They look about zero to me,” says Buck Masterson.
“They know things which are concealed from ordinary men,” says Waldemar.
“Uh-huh,” says Half Mile. “I shouldn’t be surprized. Any horse-thief is
in the same fix—if he’s got any sense.”
A little later on we corrals Waldemar and asks him what he thinks of the
town.
“You sure led me to the right place,” says he. “I have dreamed of this
kind of a place.”
“You ought to stick to dreams,” advises Dirty. “We’re wishin’ you’d
hurry up and finish your business here, ’cause me and Ike hankers for
the open places. _Sabe?_ This city air stifles our lungs and makes our
necks ache.”
“I’m framing it all up in my mind,” says he, “and in the morning we’ll
set up the camera in the hotel window which will give me a full shot at
the street, with the bank in the foreground, and then—can you two get
horses?”
“I dunno,” says Dirty. “We have got ’em—at times.”
“Maybe a little risky for you two,” says he. “I’ll have two of ’em at
the hitch-rack across the street. I won’t have you ride into town,
because some one might spot you. I can fake the entrance. You fellows
will dress in your range clothes, you understand? At the right time you
will come around the corner of the saloon, swing on to your horses, dash
across the street, where one of you will go inside, rob the bank and
come out, get your horses and dash out of town. I hope the sheriff will
get quick action with the posse.”
“My ——!” gasps Dirty. “You’re all through with us, are yuh? You can’t
use us any further, mister? What has we done to you that you should wish
our demise?”
“You ain’t taking many chances,” says he. “You’ll take ’em so by
surprize that they’ll forget everything.”
“Except to shoot,” says I. “Piperock never forgets their guns. No, sir,
you’ve got to figure out something easier than that.”
“It’s a chance of a life-time,” says he, sad-like, and then he gets this
idea—
“I’ll give you a hundred dollars apiece.”
“When?” asks Dirty.
“After the robbery.”
“Be a sport and make it a million apiece,” says Dirty. “We’ll never live
to collect and a man don’t mind dying for a big stake.”
“You can keep what you get from the bank.”
“We ain’t goin’ to take no money,” says I. “We’re just goin’ in and come
right out again. _Sabe?_ Folks will think it’s a robbery.”
“I want this done right,” says he. “I want the real thing. Take it and
then bring it back.”
“Well,” says Dirty, “if you feel thataway—how about yuh, Ike?”
“It makes me no never mind, Dirty. When they finds my remains with my
dear hands folded around stolen money it won’t hurt my reputation none.
I’m willing to do danged near anything, so as we get away where I can
take off this beard. My own whiskers are growing circles inside ’em.”
“Is the hundred satisfactory?” asks Waldemar.
“In advance,” nods Dirty. “I’m goin’ to enjoy myself before the old
feller with the hay-hook comes along and cuts me off at the pockets.”
* * * * *
Waldemar starts to argue, but we both stands pat and he gives us the
money. A hundred dollars is a lot of money to a man who expects to die
the next day. There ain’t no rainy days in his future. He don’t care a
whoop what comes to pass. Some folks might prepare themselves by
praying, but me and Dirty never have asked for anything we ain’t got the
nerve to go and get for ourselves. We just throws dull care out of the
window and gets cheerful.
Into our rosy existence cometh “Big Foot” Benson and “Hoodoo” Harris.
Them two pelicans proclaims it open season on anything that comes in
bottles.
“You’re a danged queer-looking pair,” says Big Foot, “but it takes all
kinds of folks to herd sheep. Klahowya.”
“Your whiskers ain’t orthodox,” says Hoodoo, peering at Dirty, “or has
you reverted to the reptiles and sheds your skin in the hot days?”
“We’re scientists,” says Dirty, “and we’re lookin’ for a dinny-sor.”
“Oh, yeah,” says Hoodoo. “Well, you come to the right place, gents. The
Lord knows you can find anything here, except a square deal. Why does
you cover your eyes with gloomy glasses thataway? Does you hanker for
the dark side of life?”
“Yuh never could find a dinny-sor with the naked eye,” says I, and they
accepts the verdict.
That was one wild night for science. I reckon every puncher within fifty
miles showed up for the celebration, being as there’s prizes offered,
and me and Dirty, after absorbing considerable cheer, has a hard time
sticking to plain science.
Dirty had a fight with Mighty Jones, when the two of ’em gets to
discussing whether man came from monkey or not. Mighty debates that they
are, and offers Dirty as a living proof. Two sheep-herders from over on
Medicine Creek, cries on my neck and calls me “brother,” and I licked
’em both.
Yes, it sure was a regular evening and my throat was raw from trying to
change my natural voice and talk like a scientist ought to talk. Dirty
Shirt’s whiskers tried to crawl under his chin several times, but the
crowd was too joyful to pay any attention to whiskers.
Somehow I can’t just remember what happened after midnight, except that
Waldemar corrals me and tells me to pull off the stunt at ten o’clock.
He explains the details, but I only hears half of it, ’cause Hoodoo is
trying to tell me something about a mosquito that bit him when he was at
the North Pole.
Dirty and Big Foot are trying to sing something about a wild Irish rose
and Buck Masterson is standing on the bar, trying to nominate a Populist
for president. We all voted for Buck’s candidate, I remember that much,
and then me and Dirty starts home, amid much applause.