Me and Dirty peruses each notice careful-like and prods our jassacks
along and wonders what anybody could hope to see after half that many
nights in a barroom.
At the fringe of civilization we meets “Old Testament” Tilton riding a
mule. The old pelican greets us, calling us “brothers,” which we ain’t,
and then discourses thusly—
“Have you declared for or against the evil things of life, the same of
which is the leading question in Yaller Rock County?”
“If you mean Scenery Sims, I’m against,” states Dirty Shirt. “I sure am
anti-Sims, now, then and after while, Testament.”
“Him being incidental to the main issue, we will discuss him later,”
says the old sky-pilot. “Ye have heard of the wave of reformation that a
few of us martyrs have stirred up hereabouts?”
“Martyrs?” asks Dirty. “What’s a martyr?”
“Testament is, Dirty,” says I. “Maybe Scenery is another one. Is he,
Testament?”
“Yea, verily.”
“Come on, Ike.” Dirty slaps a burro with his hat and heads it on to the
trail.
“That’s a plenty. Any old time they changes s-h-e-p-h-e-r-d to spell
martyr, I’m too thirsty to argue about it. Come on.”
“’Tis of thirst I would discourse,” states Testament grieved-like.
“Touch it not, Mr. Jones. It steals men’s minds away and leads them to
ruin. Strong drink is a mocker, and hooch knocketh thunder out of your
stummick. Look upon it not when it is red, and—and you _hombres_ better
get used to drinking water, ’cause we’re sure going to hang padlocks on
all the grog-shops of this here county. _Sabe?_”
Me and Dirty looks at each other and then at Testament.
“Too much sun,” pronounces Dirty, sad-like. “Poor old preacher is done
headed for the loco lodge. That’s what a feller gets for riding herd on
the devil in a country like this, Ike. He was a good old buggy, but he’s
done broke down.”
“Huh!” snorts Testament. “Going dry, I tell you. Yaller Rock is going to
be through with the demon rum, and then she’ll start progressing like
she should. It will be a glorious victory for the—the——”
“Martyrs?” I asks.
“Brother, you begin to see the light,” says he.
Then me and Dirty herds our animals off down the trail, while he stands
there beside his fuzzy mule, his long black coat waving in the breeze as
he peers over his specs at our cavalcade. He looks a heap like a big
he-buzzard up there against the sky-line.
Then we hits the road and runs into “Mighty” Jones. Mighty is driving a
pinto bronc to a breaking cart, said cart being full to the top with
bundles and jugs. Mighty is the only goat-herder in the State, and each
and every one of them goats is a cross between a peeve and a
pile-driver. Mighty got his stock from some place in the Southwest where
said goats have to hold their own with cougars and grizzlies. Believe
me, they ain’t lost none of their belligerency.
Mighty’s pinto skids to a stop as we pilgrim up, and Mighty arises up in
his seat.
“It ain’t noways according to the Constitution of the United States,”
says he, pointing to the four winds like a medicine-man. “This here is a
free country, ain’t she? I asks you in kind tones if it’s anybody’s
business if I admires to drink something besides water? I asks you that,
gents. All my life I’ve had it when I wanted it, and right now I orates
wild and free that anybody who takes it away from me has got to hold a
gun against my belly. I’m free, white and twenty-one—me! I asks you—is
it right? I ain’t thinking for a second that this here county is going
to get padlocked, but just the same I’m carting home enough to kill all
the snakebites in the county. What do you fellers think? Ain’t it the
gol-dangdest thing you ever heard tell about? Ain’t it?”
“What are you talking about, Mighty?” asks Dirty, soothing-like.
Mighty sets down slow-like and looks at us with his mouth wide open.
“Talking about?” he whispers hoarse-like. “Go to ——!”
And then he slaps the pinto with his whip, and they went away on the
lope.
“Well,” says Dirty, punching a burro back to the straight and narrow
way. “It must be a regular question, Ike.”
We pilgrimed into the main street of Piperock. There don’t seem to be
much excitement, but you never can tell about Piperock. She’s like a
stick of dynamite—sort of brown and smooth looking, but, man, oh man,
when you give her a jar, you sure better keep your distance and hang on
to your hat.
* * * * *
Right in front of Buck Masterson’s place we meets Mrs. Wick Smith and a
long, lean, pious-looking jasper, who looks like the sins of the world
depressed him a heap.
Me and Dirty aims to bolster up some of our weak nerve-centers at
Buck’s, but they heads us off. Mrs. Smith don’t ordinarily speak to me
and Dirty, but now she acts like we’re her long-lost brothers and makes
us used to the Rev. Algernon Pettingill Parsley.
“The reverend is doing a good work among us,” states Mrs. Smith, whose
physique runs a dead heat with a bureau—minus the top.
“He looks like a good worker,” admits Dirty. Then, being a hale fellow
well met, “Have a little drink, Algernon?”
Algernon rears back on his heels, and I figures in my own mind that Algy
needs a martingale to keep his head down.
“Oh!” snorts the lady. “The reverend is a minister.”
“With the necessary failings of human beings,” admits Dirty
apologetic-like. “He can’t no more than refuse, can he?”
“Of course,” says Algernon, “you were joking, my good man.”
“At two-bits a drink, it is more finance than fooling,” grins Dirty.
“Drink is a mocker,” states Algy serious-like. “It wrecks——”
“So Testament said,” interrupts Dirty. “What’s the joke, folks?”
“Joke?” snorts Mrs. Smith. “It is no joke. The Rev. Parsley came here to
volunteer his services to stamp out the demon rum. With the help of the
local clergyman we hope to bring local option to this county. Strong
drink has been our worst enemy, and we are going to wipe it out.”
“I’ve done my dangdest,” says Dirty reflective-like. “I’ve sure wiped
out considerable. Has Wick quit drinking?”
“Wicksie never did drink much!” she snaps.
“Much is a peculiar word,” says I, “and she covers a lot of things. For
instance, a barrel of whisky per day ain’t much when you consider all
the distilleries work day and night.”
“This ain’t a question of individuals,” states Algernon, peeking over
his glasses at us. “We ain’t working on the basis that one man is a
heavier drinker than another. Your thirst and Mr. Jones’ thirst——”
“Is of several months’ standing,” states Dirty, and he walks right away
from them and goes into Buck’s place.
As we came through the door, we seen Buck rise up from behind the bar
and look us over. He shakes hands with us nervous-like.
“Did my eyes deceive me, Buck, or did you have a riot gun in your
hands?” asks Dirty, measuring his thirst.
“Eyesight O. K.,” admits Buck.
“Who for is the assassination article?” I asks.
“Scenery Sims.”
“Lindhardt Cadwallader?” asks Dirty.
“Same thing,” nods Buck. “Both barrels, legally and lawfully.”
We accepts of Buck’s compliments and rolls smokes.
“Whyfor does you admire to smear Lindhardt Cadwallader, and how so are
you doing it lawfully?” inquires Dirty. “Is he deserving of demise?”
“Sure thing,” says Buck earnest-like. “He’s a menace. That cross between
a crippled crawler and a coyote is running for sheriff on the Democratic
ticket! That nasty blot on the clean pages of our county records is
seeking office! That—” Buck rises half-way up the bar and hammers it
with his fist—“that bandy-legged, squeaky-voiced, skinny-brained
son-of-loco-eating ancestors is running as the Prohibition candidate!
Prohibition, ——! He pokes his nose inside my door and squeaks at me,
‘Your doom is sealed!’ And then he spits out in the middle of my floor
and slams the door. I busts right out there and cuts one of his
suspenders loose as he turns the corner.
“A six-gun ain’t no good for wing shooting; so I loads up my shotgun.
Believe me, I’ll seal his doom if he pokes his nose in here again. He
sends old Judge Steele down here to hold council with me, and the old
Blackstone blatter orates that I’ve got to conduct myself in a decorous
manner, ’cause there’s an injunction against me. I asks him what for.
“‘To keep you from assaulting Scenery Sims with a six-gun,’ says he. I
says, ‘There ain’t nothing to prevent me from spoiling his future with a
shotgun, is there, Judge?’ He says, ‘No, there ain’t no mention of
shotguns.’ That’s how I’m within the law. Sabe?”
“Aw, you’d be safe, Buck,” says Dirty. “No jury would convict you. Tell
us about this demon rum argument.”
“Yah!” Buck climbs plumb up on top of the bar and hammers industrious.
“Demon, ——! Know what they’re trying to do? They’re going to try and
vote this here county into a local option stage of being. Know what that
means? It means that we’ll have to go over into the next county or drink
water when we’re dry! Water!”
“To drink?” asks Dirty awed-like. “Inside your throat, Buck?”
“Uh-huh. Have to take a bath every time you get dry.”
“My gosh, she’s going to the dogs!” wails Dirty Shirt. “Everybody will
have to ride to Powder River to get a drink or drink water. Let’s go up
and see what Magpie Simpkins knows about it. The sheriff ought to have
some authority.”
“He’s quit drinking,” says Buck sad-like. “He—he’s backslid.”
Magpie greets us sad-like. Honest-to-gosh, that lanky, lodge-pole person
is so melancholy that his long mustache hangs on his upper lip like
crape on the front door.
He gives us sort of an undertaker shake and then pulls down the curtain
on the one window. He pulls up a board from the floor and produces a big
demijohn. Me and Dirty looks at him wondering-like, and he shakes his
head.
“Never know who’s peeking in the window,” he whispers.
“You’re scared of what?” I asks.
“Public opinion, Ike. At this stage of the game I can’t take no chance
of them using my thirst as a campaign argument.”
“How does Lindhardt Cadwallader Sims stand?” I asks.
“Well,” says Magpie, “some think of running him for President and some
favor running him out of the State. They’ve branded us Republicans as
despoilers of homes and wreckers of men’s lives. To hear some of ’em
orate, you’d think it was a Republican that invented intoxication.”
“And,” says Dirty, “this country is so demoralized that a man like you
has got to drink in private in order to defeat a cross between a
bull-fiddle and a bed-bug. She’s ruined, Magpie.”
“Uh-huh,” admits Magpie. “The praying portion is supporting Scenery. You
never can tell what will happen at the election. Curlew is sort of
neutral so far, but Paradise is a hotbed of corruption for the
reformers. Them demon rum argufiers are sure going strong. Curlew has
got one candidate—Hassayampa Harris, who is running for the legislature
without no opponent, and they’re betting even money that he’s elected.
It ain’t a even money bet, because somebody will likely kill him before
election.”
“Why don’t your side make a campaign?” asks Dirty.
“They call us the Wets, and there ain’t no argument for hooch, is there?
Can you think of any, Dirty?”
“Not on one drink,” says Dirty; so Magpie pulled down the curtain.
Dirty leaves after a while, and I takes a walk down-town to see how
things are going. Some folks never have any luck. I’m going along as
free as air when I bumps right into Sally Mudgett and the Widder
Sanders. Them ladies shakes my hands, which is out of the ordinary.
Miss Mudgett looks a heap like them funny pictures of Miss Democracy,
and I am too good a Republican to be friendly with any such person. The
widder ain’t spoke to me none since I was on a coroner’s jury that
cleared “High-Card” Hawkins for the killing of “Slim” Sanders. We
brought in a verdict of suicide, which was proper. Slim called High-Card
a liar, and he reached for a gun, which was the same as if he had bit
down on a dynamite cap and dared it to bust. The widder wasn’t filled
with revenge over that part of it, but Slim had insurance in a lodge,
and there was a suicide clause in the policy.
“Oh, Uncle Ike, we’re so glad to see you,” warbles Miss Mudgett.
“Aren’t we though,” agrees the widder.
“You’re welcome,” says I.
“We need stalwart men,” states Miss Mudgett. “We need men of brain and
brawn who are willing to die for a principle. We need men with high
ideals and the courage of their convictions.”
“Yes’m,” says I. “It’s time you both got married. I wish you luck.”
“Oh, Mr. Harper,” coos the widder, getting so red around the ears that I
can feel the heat. Dog-gone it, she ain’t so bad to look at, and I
wonders what she could ever see about a careless feller like Slim was.
“You don’t understand us,” says Miss Mudgett. “Of course, we know that
your pardner is candidate for sheriff on the rum ticket, but what is
mere male friendship when the womanhood of the county appeals to you
with open arms? We are going to have ‘Ten Nights in a Barroom,’ and we
need you.”
“Better get a doctor or a coroner,” I advises. “Why the extended spree?”
“This is a play, Uncle Ike,” states Miss Mudgett serious-like.
“Honkatonk?”
“A play,” says the widder. “A play that points a moral. We are going to
work up great enthusiasm. You’ll help; I know you will.” And she takes
me by the arm like I belonged to her.
* * * * *
Dog-gone it, I didn’t have no excuse right then, and, by the time I
figured out some good alibi, they’ve got me into the Mint Hall.
Lindhardt Cadwallader Sims is there, and he waltzes right up to me.
“Welcome, Ike,” says he. “Welcome to the fold.”
“Get out, you shepherd!” I hisses in his face. “Don’t talk fold to me!”
There’s quite an aggregation up there. A lot of the weaker sex are
setting around. Old man Thatcher and his two boys are there, and so is
“Fog-Horn” Foster, who runs the biggest saloon in Powder River. Old man
Thatcher leads me over into a corner, where he shakes my hand a lot.
Scenery starts over toward me, but I slips my gun loose, and he leaves
the hall.
“Ike,” says Thatcher, “it pleases me a heap to see you here. Dog-gone
me, I’m glad to get to play my orchestra before a show that ain’t going
to bust up in a killing. This one is going to be as safe as a church.”
“I’m dry,” says I. “Listening makes me dry.”
He peers around to see that nobody is looking, and then he leads me
outside the door and produces a pint bottle.
“Cough medicine, Ike,” says he.
“You’ll cough yourself to death after election if you don’t change your
policy,” says I, handing him back the bottle.
“Meaning which?” he asks.
“Local option will close all the saloons, and we can’t buy a drink.”
“Is—is that what she means, Ike?”
“You dang fool, didn’t you know it?” I asks, and he shakes his head.
“Nope. By mighty, I thought it meant that it was optional with you
whether you drank it or not. Why, Ike, Fog-Horn Foster is boosting the
campaign, and he’s a big saloon man.”
“In Dawson County,” I admits. “In riding distance from here, Thatcher.”
“My ——! He’s grinding his ax!”
Just then some of them females drags us back into the hall, but I’ve
spoiled one convert.
“Mr. Harper came along just in time,” says Mrs. Tilton. “Always the Lord
will provide. He has had some experience in plays, and we sure need his
assistance.”
Looking back over my experiences don’t bring me any jolts of joy.
“Ma’am,” says I, “man is full enough of natural trouble without hunting
for more. I’m for peace. If Yaller Rock wishes to be temperate, _tempus
fugit_. There ain’t been a drouth in the Harper tribe since I can
remember, and I’m——”
We hears a loud report out on the street, and a moment later Lindhardt
Cadwallader Sims skids in through the open door and slams into the wall.
He’s got a most painful expression on his face.
“Buck Masterson!” he yelps. “He—he shot me!”
“My heavenly home!” exclaims Mrs. Tilton, and the weaker sex seems to
look upon Sims as a casualty.
“You spit on his floor again?” I asks, but he don’t reply.
“Set down, Mr. Sims, and tell me where you’re hurt,” urges Mrs. Tilton,
starting for him.
Scenery slides toward the door, scared-like.
“Like ——, I will!” he squeaks and ducks outside.
“Maybe it affected his mind!” gasps Miss Mudgett.
“Chances are,” nods Fog-Horn, grinning at me. “Just to show how much I
think of Scenery’s brains, I’ll say—chances are. Ha, ha, ha!”
When them females ain’t looking, I ducks out of there and heads for
Buck’s place. He’s setting there on the bar, looking satisfied.
“He came again,” says he joyful-like. “He pokes his nose in the door and
says, ‘Mr. Rum Seller, it ain’t going to be a year until I’ll be setting
in my sheriff’s office across the street and watch sheep take shelter in
this shack.’”
“I says, ‘Lindhardt Cadwallader, you used the word set when you should
have said stood.’ And then I heezed a handful of number seven shot into
his panties at sixty yards. If they elect that thing sheriff, I won’t
stay here even if the county stays wet.”
Then cometh Judge Steele and Magpie Simpkins. They looks a heap sad.
“Sheriff, I reckon you’ve got to do it,” says the judge.
“I reckon so, Judge. Buck, I’ve done got to arrest you.”
“In favor of Scenery Sims,” explains the judge.
“He called me a rum dealer,” says Buck sad-like, “and then he said that
inside of a year he’d set in his sheriff’s office and watch sheep hive
up in here. All I done was to perforate his panties with shot.”
“You hadn’t ought to have used a shotgun, Buck,” chides the judge.
“Shotguns only irritates folks and makes ’em vindictive.”
“Ain’t you got no rifle, Buck?” asks Magpie.
“Yeah. Dropped it the other day and knocked the front sight over so she
throws to the right.”
“Feller hadn’t ought to let his utensils get out o’ whack,” states the
judge. “Wouldn’t ’a’ had all this commotion if you’d used the proper
weapon.”
“Can I take my shotgun along, Judge?” asks Buck.
“Uh-huh,” nods Magpie. “Give me that rifle, and I’ll set that sight.”
“Trade as soon as it’s fixed, Sheriff,” says the judge. “Scenery might
come monkeying around the jail, and I believe in giving a prisoner all
the protection possible.”
* * * * *
Then Buck asked me if I’d run his grog-shop while he’s in durance vile.
I don’t _sabe_ that side of the bar much, but I leans on the bar and
acts as much like a bartender as I can.
Then I gets the shock of my young life. The back door opens slow-like
and then closes softly behind the figure of Rev. Algernon Pettingill
Parsley. He peers all around and then comes sneaking up to the bar.
“Brother,” says he, “it pains my soul to come in thusly, but the pain in
my stummick is worse than the twinges of my soul. I crave something in
the nature of sody to ease the cramps of my interior. I must have relief
from generated gases.”
“You’ve got a bellyache?” I asks as he groans against the bar.
“Yea, verily. I am in torment.”
I pokes around under the bar. Buck’s patrons ain’t addicted to gas on
their stummicks, and he ain’t prepared for no such an emergency. But I
finds about a dozen bottles, the epitaphs of which orate them to be
ginger ale. I’ve had cramps, and I know what I used. But I ain’t never
been called to minister to a minister; so I disguises the dose.
He takes a sip, another sip and then points the bottom of the glass
toward the ceiling.
“If that don’t unhook ’em, I’ll slip you another,” says I. “These are
free gratis in acknowledgment of the great and noble work you are
doing.”
“I still feel depressed a little,” says he; so I hands him another.
Pretty soon he sighs deep-like and says: “Brother, that ginger ale was a
boon and a blessing to me. I was suffering, and ye took me in. Let’s
have one on me.”
We each had one, and I sets ’em up again.
“Brother,” says he, shaking hands with me, “I am glad I am here to
snatch brands from the burning. Tonight I am going to make a great
speech. I am going to flay the demon rum as he has never been flayed
before.”
“Happy returns of the day,” says I. “How’s the cramps?”
He feels of his stummick, and then we has some more.
“Going to hop on to poor old alcohol, eh?” I asks.
“Ab’stively. Goin’ to make a schpeech that will go down in hist’ry as
the greatest schpeech ever made in hist’ry. What’s the use of alcohol
when ginger ale is so—— Le’s have ’nother cramp, eh?”
“Where you going?” I asks when he pulls his hat down over one eye and
starts for the front door. “Remember, you’re a backdoor patron.”
“Tha’s right. Ex-coos me. I’m goin’ t’ shing a shong.”
And I seen him kick that back door open and go out.
Ginger ale is a whole lot like a six-gun. It ain’t the thing itself so
much as what you put in it. I don’t want anybody to chide me for what I
done. I never asked him in, did I? I didn’t offer to cure him. He took
what I gave him.
Then Lindhardt Cadwallader Sims sticks his nose inside the front door
and squints at me.
“Don’t do it or say it, Scenery,” says I. “I ain’t under no bonds to let
you live.”
“Did they arrest Buck?”
“Uh-huh. Come in and set down.”
“I’ll come in,” says he. “That’s all. Did they appoint you receiver?”
“I’ll get my share,” says I, and then I innoculates Scenery with my new
drink.
Scenery gets enthusiastic over it. Then Fog-Horn comes in and joins our
temperance circle. Then old man Thatcher with his two sons and “Froggy”
Deschamps, who plays the jew’s-harp in Thatcher’s orchestra.
They all gives that soft drink a trial and orders more. I pokes down
into Buck’s cellar and finds another case of the same thing. Later on
somebody knocked on the door.
Can you imagine anybody knocking on a saloon door? Nobody but Algernon
would have done it. He shuts one eye and peers at us.
“Brother,” says he, “would it be possible for me to purchase a container
of that ginger ale? I feel a recurrence of the cramps.”
“Welcome to our glorious land, Reverend,” yelps Fog-Horn. “Come right
inside.”
“Yes,” says Scenery. “Come in and set. This is a meeting of the
faithful, and this place is no longer a den of vice. You can set here
without casting a stain.”
“That’s good,” says Algernon, and I adds another glass to my tray.
“Day after tomorrow we casts our votes,” states Scenery. “Day after
tomorrow. In the course of human e-vents it has become necessary to
e-vict the juice that joggles; having said so, I’ll——”
“Going to be some play,” interrupts Fog-Horn. “‘Ten Nights in a Barroom’
all in one short evening. First we has a speech by the Reverend Algernon
Pettingill Parsley, interrupted by Old Testament Tilton——”
“Introduced,” corrects Scenery.
“That’s at first,” admits Fog-Horn. “Then we have a speech by our next
sheriff and maybe a discourse by Hassayampa Harris, who will be
Honorable Hassayampa Harris if the people ain’t lied to him. Some
program, eh?”
“If we can carry Paradise, we’ve got a cinch,” states Scenery.
“If that’s the place you’re scared of, that’s the place to fight ’em,”
says I. “Make a campaign in the enemy country.”
“Paradish might be a schtumbling sus-stone,” gulps Algernon wise-like.
“Let’s go to Paradise and campaign a little,” says I.
“With music,” gurgles old man Thatcher. “Let’s go and have mass meeting.
Go there and split the enemy’s bulwarks. What shay?”
“A little child shall lead them,” says Algernon.
“Plenty for some,” says I, “but I reckon you’re going to need two
grownups and a cane, old-timer.”
Sure, I went along. We found a hayrack half full of straw; somebody got
a team, and we went campaigning.
The Thatcher family took along their musical utensils, Scenery took
along a speech that somebody wrote for him, and I took along the ginger
ale and a couple of guns.
We gave three cheers as we went past the jail, and a little later I
picked three shot out of my shoulder. I reckon that Magpie hadn’t got
that rifle fixed yet. I don’t know what time we got to Paradise. I
remember that we stopped the team once to let Scenery make a speech. He
got up on the seat to read it.