_Bang! Boof!_
I sees Cut-Bank fall flat on the stage, where he sets and looks at his
punctured balloon. Pinky Parsons is standing up in his chair with a gun
in his hand and a pained expression on his homely face.
“My ——!” he gasps. “I ain’t no humane society, but I got too big a heart
to see anything suffer like that.”
“That was music, you hair-triggered snake-hunter!” squeaks Scenery.
Speedy and Pinky looks at each other and shakes their heads.
“Pinky,” says Speedy, “I done told you that things were changing. This
here country ain’t noways what she used to be.”
Buck gets up on the platform and makes the peace sign.
“Folks, you will have to ex-cuse these two ignorant cow-trailers. Their
ears ain’t noways trained to harmonious sounds.”
“I gives ’em my forgiveness,” says Half-Mile. “I sure does.”
“Ladies and gents, is there anybody in the hall what ain’t never heard
the Cross J quartet sing a song?”
Pinky and Speedy holds up their hands, and Buck covers ’em with a gun
while Scenery trots down and takes their guns away from ’em. Then Muley
Bowles, Chuck Warner, “Telescope” Tolliver and Henry Peck files up on
the stage.
“Just one minute,” pleads Pinky. “Are them four going to sing together?”
“All to once,” nods Buck.
“Then wait until me and Speedy get out. I never came here to have my
ears insulted. Give us our guns and let us depart in peace.”
“Set down!” yelps Buck. “It’s bad but it don’t last long. Maybe they’ll
just sing a chorus.”
“You can all go to ——!” states Chuck Warner. “I won’t sing a particle.
We didn’t come here to be insulted and abused.”
“Fifty-fifty,” hisses Half-Mile.
“You shut up!” yells Telescope. “Singing to you would be like casting
pearls before swine.”
“When it comes to your kind of singing, Telescope, I’m no hawg.”
“All set for the tableau!” warns Miss Finney, and everybody except us
four aborigines gets off the stage. We’re standing there looking at each
other as the curtain pulls back, and I happens to think of something.
“Ain’t we going to use them turkeys?” I whispers, but Magpie shakes his
head.
“Everybody forgot ’em. Talk in gutturals!”
“Gug-gug-glap?” says Wick.
“Flug woop moof,” says I.
“Haw! Haw! Haw!” roars Half-Mile. “Look at Ike Harper’s legs! Mamma
mine!”
“Look at Dirty Shirt’s!” whoops Abe Mudgett. “He needs pacing-hopples to
keep him from interfering!”
The audience is getting delirious, and I hears Magpie hissing.
“Ike! Look this way and get astonished! Can’t you hear the bell?”
One little bell don’t sound like much in that hall, but I shades my eyes
like I seen an Injun doing in a picture, and then I says:
“Grab a stump! Church is out!”
Then here comes the Pilgrims.
“Hey, Wick!” yells somebody in the audience. “Get around the other side!
You ain’t hid.”
Wick is humped over behind his stump, but he’s on the wrong side. Of
course he has to slip getting around on the other side, the bark falls
off his beer-keg and the darned thing rolls away, leaving poor Wick
humped up like Pontiac with the pip.
The Pilgrims wander to the front of the stage, paying no attention to us
Injuns, so we sets down on our stumps. It’s hard work humping over
thataway. Old Testament shoves his hand inside his coat and glares at
the audience.
* * * * *
“In the year of our Lord 1620,” says he in a graveyard voice, “a little
band of Pilgrims sailed for our shores. Braving—braving——”
He stops and begins to hunt through his pockets.
“The mud must be deep up there,” observes Half-Mile. “That’s the second
rig to get stuck tonight.”
“I had that speech in my pocket,” says Testament. “I sure——”
_Woosh!_ About ten pounds of cut paper lands right on top of his tall
hat.
“Get out from under that tree!” yelps Abe Mudgett. “It’s thawin’!”
“Hey, Pete!” croaks Magpie. “Scatter it a little, can’t you? What do you
think you are—an avalanche?”
“Who in —— is running this storm?” snaps Pete. “You _hombres_ are so far
back I can’t snow on you. Maybe I can climb out a—— Look out!”
The storm broke in all its fury. The bedtick landed on top of Wick
Smith, and Pete landed all spraddled out on the judge.
“Snowing shepherds!” whoops Doughgod Smith. “Get off that stage,
Clementine! Ain’t you got sense enough to come out of the storm?”
Old Testament ain’t moved. He’s standing there peering at a piece of
paper, and all to once he yelps—
“What number won Hiawatha, Buck?”
“Number eighty-one. Why?”
“Because I’ve got it!”
There is silence for a moment. The judge gets to his feet and tries to
pump wind back into his lungs. Dirty picks up a piece of paper which
fell out of the judge’s pocket and looks at it.
“Buck,” says Dirty, “what number won E-vangeline?”
“Sixteen.”
“Congratulations, judge,” says Dirty, handing him the card. “You won
E-vangeline. Here’s number sixteen.”
“What you talking about?” howls Tombstone. “I won that bird! I’m the
holder of number sixteen!”
“I’ve got eighty-one!” explodes Hassayampa. “That’s my bird!”
“Oh-h-h-h-h!” wails Miss Finney, wringing her hands. “The tableau is
ruined!”
Nobody seemed to care much.
“I thank you one and all,” states the judge foolish-like. “I do thank
you for the noble honors, and I accept the nomination.”
“Honors!” howls Tombstone. “That’s my bird, I tell you!”
“Peace, brothers,” says Testament. “Peace be unto you. I hates to raise
my voice in anger, but I feel that I own that certain bird.”
“What’s the matter with you folks?” demands Hassayampa. “I’ve got the
winning number right here.”
He tears his way out of the aisle and climbs up on the stage, and right
behind him is Tombstone.
“Give me them tickets—all four of you!” snaps Buck.
Buck takes all four tickets and shuffles ’em up, and then holds them out
in his hands.
“Tombstone, pick out your sixteen.”
Tombstone takes two of the tickets and turns ’em around and around.
Hassayampa grabs the other two, and acts foolish.
“There ain’t no question but what there’s a sixteen and a ninety-one,
and a eighteen and an eighty-one, but which is which?” asks Buck.
“Mine was sixteen as plain as the nose on your face!” yowls Tombstone.
“Just that darned plain, I tell you.”
“I’m going to have mine,” says Hassayampa. “I win with eighty-one.”
“One of them birds belongs to me,” states Old Testament. “I take what’s
mine.”
“Where is them disputed birds?” asks Buck.
“Back on the stage,” says Magpie, “but nobody gets one until this tangle
is straightened out.”
“I won’t relinquish,” declares the judge. “I’ll law over it first.”
“Me too!” yelps Tombstone. “I’ll go plumb to the Supreme Court.”
“You shut up!” squeaks Scenery. “Everybody shut up!”
“This is a good show,” declares Pinky. “Ain’t she good, Speedy?”
“Shore is. Can’t tell the hero from the villain.”
“I’ve got a idea,” states Telescope. “All this wrangling won’t get us no
place. Suppose we turns the birds loose up there and let them four
belligerents settle ownership. The one what catches a bird owns it.”
“It is below the dignity of the church to chase turkeys in public,”
declares Testament.
“Same with the court,” nods the judge.
“Well, get off the stage then!” snaps Hassayampa. “Me and Tombstone
ain’t finicky; are we, Tombstone?”
“We just about ain’t. I won that bird fair and square——”
“The church will fight for its rights,” says Testament soft-like.
“Justice will prevail,” says the judge, cinching up his belt.
Magpie and Buck hauls the crate to the center of the stage. The slats
are nailed so close together that you can’t see inside, but the ends of
the slats extends beyond the sides of the box.
“Turn her upside down,” advises Dirty Shirt. “Loosen the slats thataway,
and when you’re ready—turn her over and the birds are loose. That gives
everybody a fair shake.”
’Most everybody in the hall crowds up to the front. This is going to be
a lot better entertainment than Piperock ever gave. Magpie pokes me in
the ribs.
“Going without a hitch, Ike,” he grins. “Ain’t you sorry?”
“Six to one that Testament don’t get a feather,” yells somebody.
“Even money that the judge gets crippled! One to two that Hassayampa
gets ’em both!”
“Wait, fellers!” yells Magpie. “Give them gamblers a chance.”
They lays the crate on its top and loosens the slats all the way around.
Then they makes them four ticket-holders line up on one side of the
stage. Magpie stands at the far side with a gun in his hand.
“Now,” says he, “when I shoot—get going. If a bird flies into the
audience it must be brought back. Are you ready?”
“Let her go!” yelps Hassayampa.
Dirty Shirt yanks that crate back just as Magpie shoots. I seen them
turkey-chasers dash forward—comes a yelp of agony, a long-drawn-out
yowl, and then Ike Harper headed for that tree.
Man, I sure climbed. I went onward and upward until I runs out of tree,
and it seems like everybody on that stage had the same idea.
I hears a snarl and a crash and part of Bill Thatcher’s bull fiddle hit
me in the face. Then comes a burst of pistol-shots, a louder burst of
profanity, and then I tries to keep Dirty Shirt from climbing past me.
“Hold on!” I yelps. “I can’t go no further, you fool! I’m at the top!”
“Oh, ——, give me room!” he roars. “The top don’t mean nothing to me!”
“Timber-r-r-r-r!” yells somebody, and I has the feeling that our
theatrical pine-tree has decided to lay down.
My face brushes the side of the curtain as we came down. I tried to get
loose and jump, but Dirty has his arms locked around my legs; so I had
to stay. I thought of lots of things as that tree goes horizontal, but I
sure gets absent-minded when she goes perpendicular.
Maybe I didn’t get knocked cold—I don’t know. I know that when I came to
I was under that tree, and Dirty still hung on to my legs.
I manages to yank loose and stagger out. Then I fell over something and
hit my head on a chair.
I sets there and stares into Judge Steele’s face. He’s propped up
against a seat, and around his neck is the earthly envelope of what had
been a perfectly bad wildcat.
The judge smiles soft-like and nods his head. He’s back in Missouri
right now, where he came from. Likely he thinks he’s a-fishing for
cat-fish. Man, he sure must ’a’ got shocked proper.
* * * * *
That hall looks just like I knowed she would. There ain’t no use
talking—Piperock can’t entertain without a casualty list. Up on the
stage is that turkey crate, and jack-knifed inside of it with the top of
his head out one end and his feet out the other is Old Testament.
“You better go home, old-timer,” says I. “There will be work for you to
do as soon as they get the pieces picked up and matched together.”
“I can’t,” says he in sort of a croak. “I can’t do it, Ike.”
“Are you hurt, Testament?” I asks.
“Yea, verily I am. I don’t dare get up.”
“’Fraid you’re hurt bad?”
“No, you darn fool!” he wails. “I’m settin’ on that other wildcat!”
“Ain’t it dead?”
“I take no chances, brother.”
“Wait,” says I, poking around on the floor. “I’ll get a gun and shoot
through the crate under you, Testament.”
“By the Bull of Bashan, you will not!” he gasps. “You don’t know how
deep I am in this accursed crate. Hold thy gun ready and I will jump.”
I couldn’t find any gun, but Testament didn’t know that. He yanks
himself loose and sprawls out on the stage.
“I—I guess it’s dead,” he whispers, and up from the inside of that crate
comes the head of Scenery Sims.
He’s been bent all out of shape, and his arms and legs act like they
were asleep.
“Huh-huh-huh—” he gasps, shaking his head. “Huh-huh-huh——”
“Where is that wildcat?” asks Testament foolish-like.
“I—huh—huh—I ain’t—huh—got it,” gasps Scenery.
I picks up a pile of clothes and slides off the stage. Dirty Shirt is
setting there counting his toes; so I yanks him to his feet and leads
him outside, where I helps him put on some pants. He ain’t quite got
things figured out yet, ’cause he peers at me and says—
“Who won, Ike?”
“I don’t know for sure, Dirty, but I think the Populists have a slight
majority.”
We finds Miss Finney setting on the stairs with her hat jammed down over
her eyes, and still talking—
“... and then Dr. Tilton will tell them why we celebrate Thanksgiving.”
“Yes’m,” says I. “They’ll want to know, I reckon.”
There’s a big crowd milling around in the street; so I yanks Dirty
around the corner and we pilgrims off down the road on foot. We’re about
a mile from town when we hears somebody coming.
“Look!” grunts Dirty, peering ahead. “Did you ever see bigger sage-hens
in your life, Ike?”
Then we hears Mighty’s voice:
“Stay in the road, dag-gone you! Lasht time I’ll ever punch turkeys.
Whooee!”
Them two birds has been herded until they ain’t got any ambition to go
farther. Me and Dirty each picked one up and sets down behind a
mesquite-bush. Here comes Mighty, weaving up the road in the dark,
talking to himself.
“Goin’ to be late. Yes shir. Man of my word. Wonder who shtole my
bob-cats? Wonder who? Me-nag-i-ree all gone. Dag-gone th’ luck!”
Mighty weaved on past us, and his voice faded out in the distance. We
sets there for a while, and then I says:
“Our conscience is clear, Dirty, ’cause nobody seems to own these fowl.
Who was the poet who wrote Evangeline and Hiawather?”
“Wrote ’em?” queries Dirty. “Huh! I don’t know and I don’t care who
wrote ’em, Ike, but I do know who’s going to eat ’em.”
“Yes,” says I. “We’ve got two things to be thankful for, Dirty.”
“Three, Ike.”
“What’s the third reason, Dirty?”
“That two-bit piece might have come tails, Ike.”
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in Adventure Magazine,
July 3, 1920. It is believed to be in the public domain in the
United States; copyright status may differ in other countries.]