HOW TRUE LOVE RAN IN DODGE
In the old golden days, gunshot wounds were never over-soberly regarded
by Dodge. Mr. Kelly, being creased by Rattlesnake Sanders and
discovering that the bullet had done no more than just bore its sullen
way through the muscular portion of his shoulder, came to look upon the
incident as trivial, and nothing beyond a technical violation of his
rights. He gave his word to that effect; and when Rattlesnake—in
seclusion on Bear Creek—was made aware of that word, he returned to the
ranges along the White Woman, and re-began a cowboy existence where his
flight had broken it off. Mr. Kelly’s forbearance was approved by the
public, the more readily since Dodge in the catholicity of its justice
believed in punishing folk, not for what they did but for what they
were, and Rattlesnake was an estimable youth.
This tolerant breadth was wholly of the olden day, and has not come down
to modern men. Dodge now lies writhing beneath the wheel of Eastern
convention. Starched shirts have crept in, derby hats have done their
worst, and that frank fraternalism, so brightly a virtue of the
heretofore, has disappeared. To-day the sound of a six-shooter in the
timid streets of Dodge would produce a shock, and whatever gentleman was
behind that alarming artillery meet the fate which would encounter him
under similar explosive conditions in Philadelphia.
California is the proprietor of a past, and in moments of sentiment
croons of:
The days of old,
The days of gold,
The days of Forty-nine.
Dodge also owns a day-that-was. Its memory appeals often and fondly to
an hour when no one asked a stranger’s name, but politely reduced
curiosity to a cautious “What may I call you?” The stranger might have
been “Bill Jones” in the faraway, forgotten East. He could now become
“Jack Robinson”; and if his case presented any personal argument
favourable to such change, the liberality of Dodge not alone permitted
but invited that amendment. The stranger’s life for Dodge commenced with
his advent in its friendly midst and went no further back. His past,
with all that to him appertained, had fallen from him as fall the
fetters from the bond slave when once he sets foot upon the sacred soil
of England. Dodge refused to be involved in any question of what that
stranger had done, or who he was. It received him, trusted him, watched
him, and when popular judgment concerning him had ripened, it either
applauded or lynched him as circumstances seemed most to invite.
It is good to shut one’s eyes and ruminate upon a past. The old days are
ever golden, and for those of Dodge this should be their portrait. What
might the heart of the stranger desire that they do not offer him? If he
be a-weary, there is the Wright House whereat he may repose himself.
Does he crave relaxation, there is Mr. Peacock’s Dance Hall, called
sometimes the Bird Cage, where to the lively observations of the fiddle
he shall loosen the boards of the floor until refreshed. At all hours of
the night the master of ceremonies is to be heard above the subdued
muttering of exuberant feet:
“Ally man left—all sasshay! Balance to yer podners—all hands ’round!
Grand right an’ left—dozy do! Chaat ’n’ swing—right arm to yer podner!
All prom’nade to the bar!”
If mere trade be the stranger’s purpose, where is that emporium superior
to Mr. Wright’s? Should the appetite of speculation seize him, is there
not the Alamo, the Alhambra and the Long Branch? From those latter
clapboard palaces of chance, where Fortune holds unflagging court, comes
the inviting soft flutter of chips, punctuated by such terse
announcements from roulette wheel and faro table as “All’s set an’ th’
ball’s rollin’!” or “Ace lose, trey win!” Now and again a hush descends
while through the blue tobacco smoke two sisters of charity—looking with
their white faces and black hoods like pale pictures set in jet—make the
silent round of the games, seeking aid for their hospital in Santa Fé.
Each courtier of Fortune cashes a handful of chips, and passes the
proceeds to them over his shoulder; knowing that should sickness lay
skeleton hand upon him he will be welcome at their merciful gates.
If the stranger be not only strange but tender—having just made his
appearance, possibly, on some belated “buckboard” from the South, where
he has been touring the Panhandle or ransacking the ranges with thoughts
of buying a ranch—the all-night whirl of Dodge excites his wonder. In
such round-eyed case, he sets forth at four o’clock in the morning his
amazement to Mr. Short.
“Aren’t you open rather late?” mildly observes the tender stranger.
“It is rather late,” responds Mr. Short, with an eye of tolerant
cynicism, “it is rather late for night before last, but it’s jest th’
shank of th’ evenin’ for to-night.”
The tender stranger makes no response, for his faculties have become
engaged upon an ebullient cowboy who, with unsteady step, swings in
through the Long Branch’s open door, spurs a-jingle, wide hat set at an
arrogant slant.
“I’m Palo Duro Pete,” the invader remarks. “Which blood’s my colour,
gents, an’ I kin whip my weight in wolves!”
The strain on the tender stranger’s nerves is redeemed by Mr. Short, who
languidly fells Palo Duro Pete with his six-shooter. The strain gains
additional relief when Palo Duro picks himself up with a gratified air,
and says:
“Gents, this is shorely the sociablest crowd I’ve crossed up with as
yet. Let’s libate!”
In a daze of admiration the tender stranger “libates” with Palo Duro,
while Mr. Short makes a careless third. Mr. Short suggests cigars at the
expense of the Long Branch, and Palo Duro, after lighting one, goes
jingling out into the night to continue his happy exploits at the Alamo
or the Alhambra.
Those old days are golden days! True, a centipede now and then makes a
promenade of one’s slumbering countenance; or a stinging lizard employs
his sting upon one with all of the burning first effects that attend
being shot with a Colt’s-45; or some sleepy rattlesnake insinuates
himself into one’s unbidden blankets, having a plan to bunk in with one
and a settled resolve to give battle if refused an honest half of the
bed. But these adventures overtake one only in hottest summer weather,
and this seasonal fact so narrows interest that Dodge seldom wears them
on its mind.
In those old golden days Dodge is a democracy. Caste does not occur; no
hill, no hollow of human inequality ruffles the bland surface of the
body politic. There is but one aristocracy and that is the aristocracy
of courage, but one title of nobility and that the name of “a square
man.”
And Dodge can exercise forbearance. Your cowboy, uplifted of Old Jordan,
may ride his pony through the streets and spur it to the pace of
meteors. But he must not ride it upon the sidewalks, for that would mean
insult to the dignity and defiance of the power of Dodge. He may freely
empty his midnight pistol, so that he empty it at the moon. But he must
not enfilade the causeways or turn its muzzle upon any house of
entertainment, however much the latter has offended. In brief, he may
wax either vigorous or vociferous to what pitch best suits his fancy,
saving this that his vigours and vociferations must not be transacted at
the public’s expense. Dodge, too, takes cognisance of an impulse and
construes a motive. When Palo Duro Pete, from his seat in the Dodge
Opera House, arises in a torrent of tears, pulls his six-shooter and
slams away at Miss Witherspoon, while that cantatrice is singing “Home,
Sweet Home,” Dodge wholly understands the sobbing, shooting Palo Duro.
Had he ridden away on another’s pony, or sought to shift the title to a
mule by heating a running iron and changing its brand, Dodge would not
have attributed the act to any excess of emotion. It would have
recognised a crime, and dealt coldly with Palo Duro as with a criminal
taken in the felon fact. On the Opera House occasion, however, it is
plain that Palo Duro has opened upon Miss Witherspoon in on ecstasy of
admiration. The shot is in its way a compliment, and meant for the
exaltation of that celebrated soprano. The weeping Palo Duro is moved,
not of murderous impulse, but a spirit of adoration that can only
explain itself with a gun. Dodge knows this. Dodge feels it, admits it;
and since Palo Duro works no harm with his testimonial, Dodge believes
it has fully corrected him when it drags him from the theatre, and
“buffaloes” him into a more week-a-day and less gala frame of mind.
While Dodge is capable of toleration, it can also draw the line. When
Mr. Webster accepts a customer’s wooden leg as security for drinks, and
sets the pledge behind the Alamo bar, it does much to endanger his
standing. Mr. Webster averts a scandal only by returning the wooden leg;
and at that Cimarron Bill has already given his opinion.
“Any gent,” observes Cimarron Bill, “who’ll let a party hock personal
fragments of himse’f that a-way for licker, is onfit to drink with a
nigger or eat with a dog,” and Dodge in the silence with which it
receives this announcement, is held by many as echoing the sentiment
expressed.
Those old days be golden days, and the good citizenry of Dodge are at
their generous best. And this is the rule of conduct: Should you go
broke, everybody comes to your rescue; should you marry, everybody
rejoices at the wedding; should a child be born unto you to call you
“father,” everybody drinks with you; should you fall ill, everybody sits
up with you; should you die, everybody comes to the funeral—that is,
everybody who is out of jail.
Rattlesnake Sanders, forgiven by Mr. Kelly and restored to his rightful
art of cows as theretofore practiced by him along the White Woman, had
frequent flour, bacon, and saleratus reason to visit Dodge. Being in
Dodge, he dined, supped and breakfasted at the Wright House, and it was
at that place of regale he met Miss Barndollar. The young lady was a
waitress, and her intimates called her “Calamity Carry” for the crockery
that she broke. Her comings in and going out were marked of many a
crash, as a consignment of dishes went grandly to the floor. But help
was sparse and hard to get, and the Wright House management overlooked
these mishaps, hoping that Miss Barndollar, when she had enlarged her
experience, would be capable of better things.
On the day that Rattlesnake Sanders first beheld Miss Barndollar, he
came into the dining-room of the Wright House seeking recuperation from
the fatigues of a 60-mile ride. When he had drawn his chair to the
table, and disposed of his feet so that the spurs which graced his heels
did not mutually interfere, Miss Barndollar came and stood at his
shoulder.
“Roast beef, b’iled buffalo tongue, plover potpie, fried antelope steak,
an’ baked salt hoss an’ beans,” observed Miss Barndollar in a dreamy
sing-song. The Wright House did not print its menu, and the bill of fare
was rehearsed by the waitresses to the wayfarer within its walls.
At the sound of Miss Barndollar’s voice, Rattlesnake Sanders looked up.
He made no other response, but seemed to drift away in visions born of a
contemplation of the graces of Miss Barndollar.
This last was the more odd since Miss Barndollar, in looks, was astray
from any picture of loveliness. Perhaps Cimarron Bill when later he
discussed with Mr. Short the loves of Miss Barndollar and Rattlesnake
Sanders, fairly set forth the state of affairs.
“Which of course,” remarked Cimarron Bill, gallantly cautious, “thar was
never the lady born I’d call ugly; but speakin’ of this Calamity Carry,
I’m driven to remark that she has a disadvantageous face.”
With Rattlesnake Sanders it was the old, old story of love at first
sight. His ideals were not those of the critical Cimarron Bill, and he
beheld with different eyes. In those high cheekbones, irregular nose,
wide mouth, and freckled face he discovered charms. Miss Barndollar to
the besotted Rattlesnake was a lamp of beauty. The smitten one forgot
his hunger, forgot the list of edibles that Miss Barndollar had told
off, and sat tongue-tied.
Life is replete of such dulcet mysteries—the mystery of Miss
Barndollar’s ugliness and Rattlesnake Sander’s instant love. It was such
to inspire the late farmer philosopher and almanac maker when he
musingly related the paradox:
“They do say Love is blind, but I’m dinged if some fellers can’t see
more in their gals than I can.”
Miss Barndollar, waiting to be instructed as to the appetite of
Rattlesnake Sanders, grew impatient with his rapt staring. She repeated
her announcement:
“Roast beef, b’iled buffalo tongue, plover potpie, fried antelope steak,
an’ baked salt hoss an’ beans!”
Sixty seconds later, the fatuous Rattlesnake still silently staring,
Miss Barndollar broke a bread-plate on his head and went her way.
It was like clenching the driven nail—that bread-plate episode. The jolt
to his faculties crystallised the love in Rattlesnake which before had
been in solution, and he became Miss Barndollar’s slave.
And yet it is no more than justice to the lady to explain that her
bread-plate descent upon the spellbound Rattlesnake was the fruit of a
misunderstanding. Being unaware of what soft sentiments she had
inspired, Miss Barndollar conceived his glances to have been bestowed
upon her in mockery. This was shown when she passed the cashier as she
swept from the room.
“What was the trouble, Calamity?” asked the cashier, who had witnessed
Miss Barndollar’s reproof, without knowing its cause. “What did that
jayhawker do?”
“Which he stared at me,” replied the outraged Miss Barndollar. “I’ll
teach sech horned toads that if my face is freckled, I’m a lady all the
same.”
When and where and how the headlong Rattlesnake found time and place to
woo Miss Barndollar went unexplained to Dodge. Its earliest news was
when the whisper leaped from lip to lip that Miss Barndollar and
Rattlesnake were to wed.
“Is that so, Rattlesnake?” asked Mr. Short, referring to the event as
promised by gossip. “Is it straight? You’ll excuse me, Rattlesnake, if I
adds that I hopes an’ trusts it is. Dodge wouldn’t stand no triflin’
with the ontried heart of Calamity, an’ if you-all is simply flirtin’
with the affections of that pore girl I wouldn’t fill your moccasins for
a small clay farm.”
“Flirtin’,” retorted the scandalised Rattlesnake. “Luke, you insults me!
Calamity an’ me is goin’ to hook up followin’ the spring round-up.”
After making this declaration, Rattlesnake, in a kind of ecstatic
hysteria at the glowing future before him, withdrew to a corner of the
Long Branch and lapsed into a dance which had its rise with the
Cheyennes, and was known among its copper coloured authors as the Love
Dance of the Catamounts.
While Rattlesnake Sanders was thus relieving his soul, Cimarron Bill,
who was present, regarded his mad doings with a dubious brow.
“That Rattlesnake person’s locoed!” said Cimarron, turning sadly to Mr.
Short. “I can’t read signal smokes an’ don’t know the meanin’ of signs
if that maverick don’t wind up in a crazy house, cuttin’ paper dolls.”
“He ain’t locoed,” explained Mr. Short, with a confidence born of
experiences that went beyond those of Cimarron Bill. “That Rattlesnake
boy’s in love. They allers ghost-dance an’ go pirootin’ ’round eediotic
that a-way.”
Cimarron Bill was not convinced, and took later opportunity to say as
much to Mr. Masterson. He urged that the nuptials threatened by Miss
Barndollar and Rattlesnake Sanders be suppressed. Cimarron insisted that
as Sheriff of Ford it was Mr. Masterson’s business to interfere.
“Which the way I regyards these proceedin’s,” explained Cimarron,
“they’re a menace to the peace of Dodge. Them two people’ll fight
worse’n McBride an’ Bridget did. You ought to stop ’em, Bat.”
“How’d you stop ’em?” returned Mr. Masterson. “You can stop folks
shooting one another, but you can no more stop ’em marryin’ one another
than you can stop a cyclone.”
“Just the same,” said Cimarron, stubbornly, “it’s your dooty to try.”
This conversation took place in the door of Mr. Kelly’s Alhambra. While
Mr. Masterson and the gloomy Cimarron were talking, Miss Barndollar and
Rattlesnake Sanders came down the street. As the pair arrived opposite
Mr. Masterson and Cimarron, the infatuated Rattlesnake jocosely placed
his arm about Miss Barndollar’s waist. Whereupon that virgin coyly
bestowed upon Rattlesnake a resounding blow.
“I’ll teach ye!” cried Miss Barndollar, meanwhile giving Rattlesnake an
arch look, “I’ll teach ye whose waist you’re tamperin’ with! I’ll
nacherally swat ye ev’ry time y’ do it.”
“Ain’t she got sperit!” exclaimed Rattlesnake, winking a blissful eye at
Mr. Masterson. “Thar’s nothin’ Texas about her! She’s due to grade as
cornfed, my Calamity is, or I’m a shorthorn!”
The happy pair continued onward to Mr. Wright’s store and set about
pricing pots and kettles and what other bric-à-brac may become the basis
of a primitive housekeeping.
“Thar!” said Cimarron Bill, decisively. “You can now tell how that
eediot Rattlesnake ain’t cap’ble of se’f-protection. It’s not only ag’in
your oaths of office, but it’s inhooman not to interfere. Before them
two has been married a week, that Calamity girl’ll t’ar into pore
Rattlesnake with her ten nails an’ make saddlestrings of him.”
“That’s your view, Cimarron,” retorted Mr. Masterson. “Now to my mind
Rattlesnake and Calamity’ll get along as peaceful as two pups in a
basket. Besides, speaking of public interest, do you know how many
inhabitants Dodge has lost during the official year?”
“No,” said Cimarron Bill, “I don’t. But whatever has that got to do with
Calamity ropin’ up this yere innocent Rattlesnake?”
“There were seven to get bumped off,” continued Mr. Masterson,
disregarding the question, “exclusive of McBride’s Bridget. Seven; and I
don’t count Mexicans and non-resident cowboys who came in with the herds
and expired in the natural course of festivals which they, themselves,
inaugurated. Seven! That’s knocking a hole in Dodge’s census.”
“But why,” protested the honest Cimarron, “should you-all punish
Rattlesnake for that? He don’t down any of them seven. He’s pulled his
gun jest once this year, an’ then he only busts the crust on Kell, an’
no harm done.”
“No harm!” interjected Mr. Masterson, severely.
“Whatever was the harm?” retorted the obstinate Cimarron. “Kell’s inside
thar runnin’ his joint, ain’t he? Besides the fault was Kell’s.
Rattlesnake rings in a cold hand on Kell, as a gent every now an’ then
will, an’ Kell taunts him about it. If Kell’s goin’ to comment on a cold
hand he’d ought to do it with his six-shooter. To go tantalisin’
Rattlesnake about it with his mouth that a-way, makes what I calls a
case of crim’nal carelessness, an’ leaves Kell responsible. But whether
it does or not, why rooin Rattlesnake’s life with this Calamity lady
because of them other seven? Thar’s neither jestice nor reason in it.”
“Cimarron,” replied Mr. Masterson, disgustedly, “you’re forever roping
at the wrong steer. There’s no ruin in the business. This is the idea:
We lose seven. Now when Rattlesnake and Calamity are married, they may
do something to repair our loss. If they were to jump in and have seven
children, that would make it an even break, wouldn’t it?”
“Still,” contended Cimarron Bill, “I don’t see why the losses of Dodge
should be saddled onto Rattlesnake. It ain’t right to heap burdens on
him that, properly regyarded, belongs to the commoonity.”
“Well,” observed Mr. Masterson, turning on his heel for a stroll down
the street, “I won’t dispute all day with you. Rattlesnake’s of full
age, free, and half white, and if he wants to wed Calamity it’s his
American privilege.”
“Which you could say the same,” returned Cimarron Bill, “if Rattlesnake
was aimin’ at sooicide.”
It is to be supposed that Miss Barndollar and Rattlesnake Sanders would
have drifted quietly and uneventfully to the altar had it not been for
the intervention of an accident. Rattlesnake was aiding Mr. Trask in
cutting out a particular mule from the bunch in his corrals. His pony,
slipping with its unshod hoofs, fell and in falling broke Rattlesnake’s
left leg—both bones—below the knee.
There was no resident surgeon in Dodge. There had been; but an Eastern
past having found him out, he vanished between sun and sun. In the
emergency presented by Rattlesnake’s fractured leg a surgeon was
summoned from Cimarron.
The Cimarron practitioner was a young, sappy, callow, pinefeather form
of scientist, excessively in the springtime of his career, and no one to
excite confidence. Rattlesnake Sanders debated him with distrustful eye,
but, since nothing better presented, was fain to surrender to him his
broken leg. The sappy one set the leg and withdrew, programming a call
for the next day.
Everything, according to Cimarron Bill who came upon the scene an hour
after the sappy one departed, was wrong about that leg-setting. The
bandage was an error, the splints were a crime. Their plain effect was
to torture the stricken Rattlesnake. The views of Rattlesnake fell in
with those of Cimarron Bill. Between groans and maledictions, heaped
upon the sappy one, he wholly agreed with him.
The pair were alone at the moment, and acting in concert they removed
the offending bandages and splints. Giving the patient a bottle of
arnica wherewith to temporarily console his aches, Cimarron, with a fine
conceit of his powers that commonly would have challenged admiration,
walked over to the carpenter shop in Mr. Trask’s corral, and fashioned
new splints after original designs of his own. Then, with the help of
Rattlesnake, he re-set the leg and restored the bandages as seemed to
him best and mete. Following these deeds the worthy Cimarron and his
patient took a drink, looked upon their work, and pronounced it good.
Those feats in medicine and surgery were performed in an upper chamber
of the Wright House which on the spur of the moment had been set aside
as a hospital in the interests of Rattlesnake Sanders. The first to
learn of them, beyond the two therein engaged, was Miss Barndollar. She
had been with her beloved Rattlesnake while the lawful sappy one was
busy about his repairs. Coming again into the room following the
exploits of Cimarron Bill, her glance of love was sharp to mark the
change.
“Whatever’s up?” asked the wondering Miss Barndollar.
“Nothin’s up,” replied Rattlesnake. “Only me an’ Cimarron, not approvin’
of them malpractices of that jacklaig doctor, has had a new deal. An’
that reminds me,” he continued, turning to Cimarron, who was surveying
the bandaged result with a satisfied air; “give me my pistol. I’ll keep
it in bed with me a whole lot, an’ when that igneramus comes chargin’ in
to-morry mornin’ I’ll stand him off.”
“But you mustn’t shoot,” warned Cimarron, as he brought the weapon.
“When he shows up, tell him to pull his freight. An’ if he hesitates,
sort o’ take to menacin’ at him with the gun. But don’t shoot none;
Bat’s gettin’ that partic’ler he wouldn’t stand it.”
The composed manners of both Rattlesnake and Cimarron worked upon the
credulity of Miss Barndollar. In the face of so much confidence it was
difficult to doubt. Still, she cross-questioned Cimarron when she found
him alone on the Wright House porch.
“Be you shore,” she asked, “that Rattlesnake’s laig’ll come right? Which
if it’s out o’ plumb when he’s cured, I’ll shorely make you hard to
find!”
“Rattlesnake’s laig,” returned Cimarron, reassuringly, “will eemerge
from them splints as straight as Luke Short’s deal box, an’ said
implement of faro-bank has allers been reckoned the straightest thing in
town. You need give yoursel’f no oneasiness, Calamity.”
“Which I’ll take your word,” responded Miss Barndollar. “But if that
laig ain’t all that heart could wish, I’ll keep you plenty oneasy for
the balance of your days!”
Mr. Masterson, when given word of the matter, was somewhat troubled by
Cimarron’s unlooked for début in the field of surgery. Like Miss
Barndollar, Mr. Masterson asked questions.
“Did you ever set anybody’s leg before?” he inquired.
“Did I ever set any sport’s laigs before!” retorted Cimarron Bill, with
a yawn of careless indifference. “I’ve set twenty cows’ laigs, an’
what’s the difference? Thar’s nothin’ to the play. It’s as easy as
fittin’ together the two ends of a broken stick, with your eyes shet. Of
course them doctor sharps raise the long yell about it bein’ difficult,
aimin’ tharby to bluff you out o’ your bankroll.”
Upon his arrival next day, the sappy one was much confounded to find his
patient propped up in bed, smoking a bad cigar. His confusion was
increased when the patient drew a Colt’s-45 from beneath the blankets,
surveying him the while with a loathely scowl. The sappy one thought
that Rattlesnake Sanders had added insanity to a broken leg. This theory
was strengthened when the forbidding Rattlesnake waved him from the room
with his weapon. The sappy one went; he said that he loved his art, but
not well enough to attempt its practice within point-blank range of a
hostile six-shooter. When the sappy one found himself again in the
street, Jack, who, although the _Weekly Planet_ had been dead for
months, was still beset of all the instincts of a newsmaker, laid bare
to him the interference of Cimarron Bill in the affairs of that
fractured leg. The sappy one waxed exceedingly bitter, and spoke freely
of Cimarron Bill.
“He called you an empiric,” said Jack, relating the strictures of the
sappy one to Cimarron an hour later.
“A what?”
“An empiric.”
“Spell it,” and Cimarron drew a deep, resentful breath.
“E-m-p-i-r-i-c.”
“Whatever does it mean?”
“It means a four-flush,” said Jack, who was liberal in definitions.
“I won’t shoot him,” observed Cimarron, after a profound pause; “no I
won’t spring no gun on him, for that might prove disturbin’ to the
public peace. Which I’ll merely burn him at the stake.”
The sappy one was miles away from Dodge when these flame and fagot
threats were formulated; and as he took pains to remain away thereafter,
he gave Cimarron Bill scant chance to execute them. At long range,
however, he continued to make his malignant influence felt. He sent for
Miss Barndollar and told her that Rattlesnake’s one remaining hope was
to have that mismanaged leg re-broken and re-set. Failing these
measures, the sappy one gave it as his professional opinion that the leg
would look like an interrogation point. As an upcome, Miss Barndollar
came back weeping to Dodge.
“But the laig’s O. K.,” remonstrated Rattlesnake Sanders, when Miss
Barndollar unfurled to him the sappy one’s predictions. “It’s comin’
round as solid as a sod house.”
“But you’ll do it to please me, Rattlesnake,” coaxed Miss Barndollar.
“I’m a proud girl, an’ I don’t want to wed no gent with a laig like a
corkscrew.”
Rattlesnake was shaken by the tender persistency of Miss Barndollar.
However, he said that he must see Cimarron Bill.
“What do you think yourse’f, Cimarron?” asked Rattlesnake earnestly,
when the worthy Cimarron had been rounded up by Jack for the conference.
“That limb,” observed Cimarron, judgmatically, and cocking a wise eye
like a crow looking into a jug, “that limb, as framed up, is a credit to
us both. It’s simply aces before the draw! Don’t tech it.”
“But Calamity allows she’ll throw me down about that weddin’.”
Miss Barndollar was not in the room, and Cimarron took on a look of grim
cunning.
“Ev’ry cloud has a silver linin’,” remarked Cimarron, enigmatically.
“Rattlesnake, this yere will turn out the luckiest laig you ever had.”
Following these foggy announcements, Cimarron said that it would be a
point of honour with him to prevent any intromission with the leg of
Rattlesnake Sanders.
“This offensive sawbones,” he explained, “publically allooded to me as a
empirick. In so doin’ he compels me to go through the way I’m headed. I
shall consider any attempt to break that laig again as an attack upon my
character, an’ conduct myse’f accordin’ with a gun.”
“That sounds on the level,” observed Rattlesnake to Miss Barndollar, who
had come into the room in time to hear the ultimatum of Cimarron. “For
us to go tamperin’ with this yere member that a-way, would be equiv’lent
to castin’ aspersions on Cimarron.”
“You never loved me!” murmured Miss Barndollar, beginning to cry.
“Calamity!” exclaimed Rattlesnake, reproachfully. “You’re my soul!”
“An’ yet,” she sobbed, rocking herself in her chair, “you refooses my
least request! Is it love to ast me to go through life as the wife of a
party with a game laig?”
“But Calamity!”
“I knows gents who’d break their hearts for me, let alone their laigs!”
Rattlesnake looked appealingly at Cimarron, who was bearing himself with
studied dignity.
“Which you’ll nacherally thank me a heap for this some day!” said
Cimarron, replying to the look.
“Calamity,” cooed Rattlesnake, “let me have a word alone with Cimarron.”
“You-all can have what words you please,” snorted Miss Barndollar,
beginning to dry her indignant eyes, “you can have what words you please
with this person. But I wants to saw it off on you right yere,
Rattlesnake Sanders, that no lady would be jestified in entrustin’ her
footure to a gent who’d go argufyin’ an’ h’ar-splittin’ about a triflin’
matter like this. You’ll either get that laig fixed, or our engagement’s
at an end. Yes, sir,” concluded Miss Barndollar in a sudden gust of
temper, “it’s no longer a laig. Which it’s now ceased to be a laig and
become a principle,” and Miss Barndollar flounced from the room.
“The first day I can ride,” groaned Rattlesnake, “I’ll shore descend
upon that sawbones all spraddled out, an’ obtain a spec’men of his
h’ar!”
Calming himself, Rattlesnake discoursed sagely and at length with
Cimarron, saying that he was in favour of yielding to the demands of
Miss Barndollar. The leg could easily be rebroken. Both he and Cimarron
would of course understand that it did not require such treatment. They
would agree that it was simply a concession to Miss Barndollar, and not
to be held as reflecting on Cimarron.
“Because, d’ye see,” said Rattlesnake, “take it every way from the jack,
I wouldn’t miss marryin’ Calamity if it meant breakin’ a dozen laigs. I
think we’d better let her have her way, Cimarron. You don’t know girls
like I do; but the fact is, you allers want to humour ’em in little
things so’s to have your own way in big ones. You call her in, Cimarron,
an’ tell her she’s plumb right about this fool laig.”
In the teeth of this specious argument, Cimarron still persisted with
his objections. He said that the attitude of Miss Barndollar was born of
vanity. He pointed out that the much debated leg was as straight as a
gun barrel. He re-told the insult put upon himself in the epithet of
empiric. Constantly, he hinted that untold good lay behind his present
obstinacy, and that Rattlesnake would admit his gratitude therefore in
days to come. He closed by suggesting that they send for Mr. Masterson.
With a talent for compromise, and prone to middle paths, Mr. Masterson
believed that, inasmuch as a fortnight had already elapsed, Miss
Barndollar ought not to object to the leg continuing as it then was.
Rattlesnake Sanders would give his promise to have the leg instantly
refractured in event of any final queerness.
Upon this proposal being carried to Miss Barndollar by Jack, who was
delegated to the trust by Rattlesnake and Mr. Masterson, she called that
youth a “cub prairie dog” and demanded his authority for meddling with
two throbbing hearts. Jack, deeply chagrined, pled the commission of
Rattlesnake and Mr. Masterson. Miss Barndollar wept, and Jack, being
mercurial and a child of active sympathies, wept with her. In the end
Miss Barndollar dried her eyes, kissed Jack and bid him return to the
callous Rattlesnake and say that she had cast him out of her heart
forever.
“Tell him,” said Miss Barndollar, “that he has shown himse’f keerless of
my feelin’s an’ I’m mighty lucky to be saved in time.”
Cimarron Bill wore a brow of cloudy victory when Jack made his report,
while Rattlesnake Sanders swore in a discouraged way. As for Mr.
Masterson, he counseled Rattlesnake to be of cheer, and gave it as his
belief that Miss Barndollar would come back to his arms in time. Mr.
Masterson was on the brink of basing this conclusion on the fact that
Miss Barndollar would not be able to find another who would have her,
but caught himself on the verge. He said instead that she was only
testing Rattlesnake’s love.
“Just let everything go as it lays,” concluded Mr. Masterson,
consolingly, “and when you are out and around again, it’s two for one
that you and Calamity’ll be like turtledoves.”
Rattlesnake said he hoped so, while Cimarron shook his head.
“That’s the luckiest laig you ever broke, Rattlesnake,” was the
mysterious remark of Cimarron as the conference adjourned.
Rattlesnake Sanders, being recovered, invited the judgment of Mr.
Masterson concerning his legs.
“What I wants,” explained Rattlesnake, “is an opinion at once
onprejewdyced an’ offishul, an’ nacherally I asts Bat.”
Mr. Masterson, after a most critical survey of Rattlesnake from, as he
himself expressed it, “foretop of fetlock,” gave his honour for it that
nothing showed amiss.
“Your leg,” said Mr. Masterson, “is as straight as it ever was.”
“Straighter,” chimed in the confident Cimarron, who stood at his elbow.
“Rattlesnake’s laigs, on account of bein’ frequent storm-soaked about
the herds an’ then dried preematoorly by camp fires, was a heap warped.
Now they’re as par’llel as two fiddle strings. I ain’t the gent to say
it, seein’ I set that fracture myse’f, but it’s my view Rattlesnake’s
laigs quits winner on the deal.”
These assurances gave mighty satisfaction to Rattlesnake Sanders. So
much set up by them was he, that he sought a meeting with Miss
Barndollar, meditating in her shell-like ear a loving word. The lady was
in the Wright House kitchen, and observing her lover’s approach made
haste to slam and bolt the door in his adoring face. Sinking under this
rebuff, Rattlesnake withdrew to the Alhambra, and became grievously
drunk.
The next day, Rattlesnake Sanders again attempted converse with his
obdurate sweetheart as she was coming from Mr. Wright’s store. She
repelled him with double scorn.
“Not bein’ desirous,” observed Miss Barndollar on this withering
occasion, “of the attentions of no sech tarripin as you, I forbids you
speakin’ to me now or yereafter.”
It is to be supposed that a deal of Miss Barndollar’s hardness was the
growth of pique. Now that the unreasonable character of her surgical
demands had been demonstrated, her resentment was multiplied. Also,
because of this second effort at an interview, she complained to Mr.
Masterson.
“Be you Sheriff of Ford I’d like for to ast?” she demanded.
“Why?” asked Mr. Masterson, humble but defensive. Mr. Masterson owned a
hare’s heart where a woman was concerned, and his instinct was for the
fugitive and the non-committal. Wherefore he put the query, being
heedful to throw into his tone a propitiating quaver of apology: “Why?
What’s fetched loose?”
“Nothin’,” returned Miss Barndollar, in her most icy manner, “only I
dee-mands protection from that profligate.” Here she pointed a chilling
finger at the forlorn Rattlesnake who, with head bowed and in an
attitude of deepest dejection, stood leaning in the Long Branch door.
“Who, Rattlesnake?” returned Mr. Masterson, with a gentle purpose of
reconciliation. “Why, he dotes on you! He loves you like a prairie
fire.”
“Which the love,” said Miss Barndollar, with a sudden vehemence that
sent shafts of terror to the soul of Mr. Masterson, “of sech miscreants
is the worst outrage they can commit. I’m a weak female, an’ I dee-mands
protection. Likewise, you’d better give it to me, Bat Masterson, or I’ll
lay up trouble for your gray ha’rs.”
“Taking her up one side and down the other, Rattlesnake,” observed Mr.
Masterson, in the confab which in deference to the threats of Miss
Barndollar he deemed it wise to hold with that young man, “my notion is
that you’d better hit the trail for the White Woman, an’ give Calamity a
chance to cool. She’s a whole lot heated just now, but most likely in a
month, or may be in two, it’ll be safe to say ‘Howdy!’ to her, and bid
her the time of day.”
“Then you’d give her up?” asked the mournful Rattlesnake.
“Only for a spell,” replied Mr. Masterson, cheerfully. “But you see
yourself there’s nothing to be gained by hankering ’round her at this
time. The way she feels you couldn’t get near enough to her to hand her
a ripe peach. Later, it’ll be different, and I shall hope to shake a
moccasin at your wedding.”
Rattlesnake mused a moment, and then broke forth with unexpected spirit.
“Which I’ll take your steer, Bat. Also, it’s the last I’ll have to do
with that Calamity. I shore should not regret surrenderin’ a lady so
narrow as to hold that the only evidence a gent can give of his
affection is to go about cripplin’ himse’f promiscus.”
“Now don’t come to any rash decisions,” urged the prudent Mr. Masterson.
“Dodge wants those nuptials to come off, and if you’ll give Calamity
time to round on herself, they will. She’s only a bit peevish with you
for getting well, but that’ll fade away. You go back to your cattle,
Rattlesnake, and leave me to ride herd on Calamity. The moment she
begins to melt I’ll send you word.”
It has been the puzzle of every age that woman, with her infinite
superiority over man in all that is morally, mentally and physically
beautiful, should be seldom or never satisfied. Within three days after
Rattlesnake Sanders rode away, Miss Barndollar met Mr. Masterson in the
thoroughfares of Dodge and, with tears guttering her freckled cheeks,
openly charged upon him the crime of their cruel separation.
“Rattlesnake’s the only gent I ever loved!” she sobbed, “an’ yere you
onfeelin’ly cuts in an’ stampedes him out o’ my very arms.”
Mr. Masterson was somewhat discouraged, and extricated himself from the
interview with what polite speed he might. None the less, about the
roots of his soul he felt a self-gratulatory flutter. His remedy had
worked; his advice was justified. He had recommended for the haughty
coldness of Miss Barndollar a course of what Christian Scientists would
describe as “absent treatment” and here was the lady yielding to it like
a willow to the wind. Mr. Masterson had cause for exultation, and unbent
moderately to that sentiment. Withal he was practical, and lost no time
in moving to reunite the lovers. In this, however, Mr. Masterson was
guilty of an error. He dispatched Cimarron to bring in Rattlesnake, when
he should have sent the sympathetic Jack.
“Go over,” said Mr. Masterson to Cimarron, “and break the news to
Rattlesnake. Tell him he wins, and that there’s nothing now to do but
consider Calamity’s feelings.”
Cimarron Bill sullenly threw a saddle on a pony, and pointed away into
the desolate north. His heart was not for this journey; it was to him as
though he were summoning Rattlesnake not for his marriage but for his
execution.
“Bat’s takin’ a heap on himse’f!” he muttered. “As for me; I washes my
hands of the whole play.”
Mr. Masterson said afterward that Cimarron Bill, in that matter of the
love-coil between Miss Barndollar and Rattlesnake, betrayed a side of
his character hitherto unknown. Mr. Masterson should have reflected.
Never before had he been called upon to consider Cimarron while under
what peculiar pressures were here exerted. Deep within the inner
recesses of Cimarron’s nature, abode objections to matrimony as rooted
as the hills.
“An’ in partic’lar,” Cimarron had observed, when once he mooted the
subject with Mr. Short as part of a review they were then and there
making of the conjugal experiences of Mr. McBride and Bridget, “an’ in
partic’lar I contends that if the world must have sech things as
matrimony, then no gent should be pinned down to jest one wife. An’ for
this reason,” he continued, waving an impressive paw: “It ain’t good
sense. Is it good farobank sense to put your whole bundle on one kyard?
No. Then it ain’t good weddin’ sense for to resk your whole heart on one
lady. She may fall to lose, an’ then where be you at? It’s my idee that
if a party must go ag’inst this weddin’ game, he’ll be safer if he
spreads his bets.”
Holding fast to these beliefs, Cimarron Bill rode forth full of an
unconscious willingness to play the marplot. He would deliver the
message of Mr. Masterson; but he would deliver it in such fashion that,
when the worst occurred, as it hereafter—according to his thinking—must
most certainly occur, he, Cimarron, could felicitate himself with the
reflection that he had in no sort contributed towards bringing that
worst about. He would bear the message of Mr. Masterson; he would also
proffer warnings all his own. Should the locoed Rattlesnake then persist
in riding open-eyed to Dodge and to destruction—why, his blood be on his
head!
It was in this frame that Cimarron Bill sat down to flap-jacks with
Rattlesnake Sanders that night at the latter’s camp on the White Woman.
And this was the conversation that passed between the pair:
“I’ve been sent over to rope you up, Rattlesnake,” quoth Cimarron.
“Calamity says you’re to wash off your warpaint an’ report at the
agency.”
“Does she still adhere to them demands about bustin’ my laig?” asked
Rattlesnake. “Not that it much matters,” he added hastily, for the
doughty resolve to see no more of Miss Barndollar, expressed to Mr.
Masterson, had long since oozed away, “not that it matters. The
round-ups are eight weeks away, an’ I’d easy be able to ride by then.”
After this exchange the two munched wordless flapjacks, diversified by
mouthfuls of salt pork. Rattlesnake Sanders broke the silence.
“Then I takes it we starts back by sun-up.”
“Rattlesnake,” observed Cimarron Bill, with a pompous solemnity that was
not wanting in effect upon his auditor, “you’ve come to a bad, boggy,
quicksand crossin’. My advice is not to jump your pony off the bank, but
ride in slow.”
“As how?” asked Rattlesnake Sanders, somewhat mystified.
“You think I’m honest, don’t you?” demanded Cimarron.
“Shore, I think you’re honest,” returned Rattlesnake Sanders. Then,
cautiously: “But still I allers sort o’ allowed you had you’re honesty
onder control.”
“Well, this is the straight goods at any rate,” said Cimarron. “Thar’s
two kinds of folks you must never surrender to: ladies an’ Injuns.
Surrender to either is the shore preloode to torture. For you, now, to
go surgin’ rapturously into Dodge, like a drunkard to a barbecue, would
be the crownin’ disaster of your c’reer.”
“Whatever then should be my little game?”
“It’s this a-way: I said you can’t afford to surrender to Injuns an’
ladies. But you can make treaties with ’em. That gives you a chance to
preeserve yourse’f for yourse’f. What you ought to do is plant yourse’f
as solid as a gob of mud, an’ send back word that you’re thinkin’ it
over.”
“But s’pose Calamity goes in the air, an’ says it’s all off?”
“That’s a resk no brave man should refoose to take. You want to remember
that she slammed a door in your face; that she set Bat to run you out o’
camp.” These reminders clearly stiffened Rattlesnake Sanders. “For you
to surrender, onconditional, would incite her to new crooelties that
would lay over them former inhoomanities like a king-full lays over a
pa’r of treys. Once,” went on Cimarron, who began to be intoxicated with
his own eloquence, “once a party back in St. Looey shows me a picture of
a man chained to a rock, an’ a turkey buzzard t’arin’ into him, beak an’
claw. He said it was a sport named Prometheus bein’ fed upon by
vultures. In my pore opinion that party was barkin’ at a knot. The
picture wasn’t meant for Prometheus an’ the vultures. The painter who
daubs it had nothin’ on his mind but jest to show, pictor’ally, exactly
what marriage is like. It was nothin’ more nor less than that gifted
genius’ notion of a married man done in colours.”
This outburst so moulded the hopes and fears, especially the fears, of
Rattlesnake that he gave himself completely to the guidance of Cimarron
Bill.
“I’m to stand a pat hand,” said Rattlesnake tentatively, “an’ you’ll go
cavortin’ back an’ tell Calamity I’ll let her know.”
“An’ yet,” interposed Cimarron Bill, “I think on that p’int I’d better
be the bearer of a note in writin’. Ladies is plenty imaginative, an’ if
I takes to packin’ in sech messages, verbal, Calamity may allow I’m
lyin’ an’ lay for me.”
There was no material for letter-making about the camp. The ingenious
Cimarron suggested an “Injun letter.” Acting on his own happy proposal
he tore a small board from the top of a box that had held a dozen cans
of corn, and set to work with charcoal. Cimarron Bill drew in one corner
what might have passed for the sketch of a woman, while the center was
adorned with an excited antelope in full flight, escaping over a ridge.
“I’ll mark the antelope, ‘Bar D’,” said Cimarron, “so’s she’ll know it’s
you, Bar D bein’ your brand.”
“But whatever is Calamity to onderstand by them totems?”
“Nothin’ only that you’re goin’ to be a heap hard to ketch,” replied
Cimarron. “It’ll teach her your valyoo.”
The antelope looked vastly like a disfigured goat, and the resemblance
disturbed Rattlesnake.
“That’ll be all right,” returned Cimarron, confidently; “I’ll explain
that it’s an antelope. All pictures has to be explained.”
When Cimarron Bill laid before Miss Barndollar the message embodied in
that “Injun letter,” she was so swept away by woe that even the hardened
messenger was shocked. More and worse: Miss Barndollar, with a lack of
logic for which her sex has celebration, laid these new troubles, as she
had the old, at the door of Mr. Masterson.
“You druv him from me!” cried Miss Barndollar, as she reproached Mr.
Masterson with her loss. “In your heartlessness you druv him from me!
An’ now, although Sheriff of this yere county, you fails to restore him
to my heart.” Throughout that day and the next Miss Barndollar made it a
practice to burst into tears at sight of Mr. Masterson. “Which I wants
my Rattlesnake,” she wailed.
Mr. Masterson was turning desperate. This mood found display in an
exclamation that was wrung from him while refreshing his weary soul in
the Long Branch.
“There’s no use talking, Luke,” observed Mr. Masterson, turning in his
despair to Mr. Short, “Dodge can’t stand this! Calamity must and shall
be married! If Rattlesnake won’t have her, some other man must.”
In making this last remark Mr. Masterson let his glance fall by chance
on Cimarron Bill. That determined person was startled to the core.
“You needn’t look at me!” he roared. “Which I gives notice I’ll never be
married alive!”
“No one’s thinking of you, Cimarron.” retorted Mr. Masterson, and the
suspicious one breathed more evenly.
Mr. Masterson and Mr. Short consulted in low tones across the counter.
At last Mr. Short straightened up as one who is clear, and said:
“Calamity in effect offers herse’f to this Rattlesnake person, an’ he
equiv’cates. Thar’s two things in this republic which no white man has a
license to decline; one’s the presidency, an’ t’other’s a lady. This
Rattlesnake has no rights left.”
“But,” said Mr. Masterson, hesitating over the point, “I don’t quite see
my way clear—as Sheriff.”
“Speakin’ technicle, you’re c’rrect,” observed Mr. Short. “An’ it’s thar
where you makes the shift. Nail him for shootin’ up Kell that time.
You-all knows me, Bat,” continued Mr. Short. “I’m a mighty conserv’tive
man, speshully about other folks’ love affairs. An’ yet I gives it as my
jedgment that steps should be took.”
Mr. Masterson, bidding Cimarron Bill follow with a buckboard, started
for the White Woman.
It was in the afternoon of the next day, and Rattlesnake Sanders was
seated by his fire, wrapped in gloomy thought.
“Hands up!” was his earliest notice of the threatening nearness of Mr.
Masterson who, dismounting two hundred yards away and beyond a swell,
had crept cat-foot upon the camp. “Hands up! You’re wanted for creasing
Kelly!”
Quick as thought, Rattlesnake was on his feet. In a moment his hand as
though by instinct slipped to the butt of his Colt’s. Sharp as was his
work, Mr. Masterson’s was even brisker. With the first shadow of
resistance, he sent a bullet into Rattlesnake’s leg—the other leg. The
shock sent the unlucky Rattlesnake spinning like a top. He fell at full
length, and before he might pull himself together Mr. Masterson had him
disarmed.
“What for a racket is this?” demanded Rattlesnake fiercely, when he had
collected his wits and his breath. “What’s the meanin’ of this yere
bluff?”
“Speaking unofficially,” returned Mr. Masterson, “it means that you’re
about to become a married man. If you think Dodge will sit idly by while
you break the heart of that child Calamity, you’re off.”
“Calamity!” exclaimed Rattlesnake, in a maze of astonishment. “Which I
was jest tryin’ to figger out a way to squar’ myse’f with that angel
when you plugged me! If you’d said ‘Calamity!’ instead of ‘Kelly’ it
wouldn’t have called for a gun play. I’d have followed you back to town
on all fours, like a collie dog.”
“Why didn’t you report, then, when I sent for you? What did you mean by
sending in that infernal hieroglyphic?”
“Me an’ Cimarron was simply holdin’ out for guarantees,” groaned
Rattlesnake.
“You and Cimarron!” cried Mr. Masterson indignantly.
From over a knoll a clatter was heard, and Cimarron Bill came rattling
into camp with the buckboard. This may or may not have had to do with
Mr. Masterson’s failure to finish his last remark. Possibly that adage,
which tells of how soon things mend when least is said, occurred to him
as a reason for holding his peace.
The perforated Rattlesnake was comfortably mowed away in a Wright House
bed, his beloved Calamity bending over him. When the first joy of their
meeting had been given time to wear itself away, the lady was called
into the hall by Mr. Masterson. Mr. Short was with him.
“I don’t want to be understood, Calamity,” said Mr. Masterson, “as
trying to crowd your hand, but the preacher will be here at 7 P. M., at
which hour you and Rattlesnake are to become man and wife. That bullet
is, I confess, an unusual feature in a honeymoon; but for all that the
wedding must take place, per schedule, as I’ve got to get this thing off
my mind.”
“As for that bullet in Rattlesnake,” added Mr. Short, “it’s a distinct
advantage. It’ll make him softer an’ more sentimental. Which a gent gets
sentimental in direct proportion as you shoot him up. I’ve known two
bullets, properly planted, to set a party to writin’ poetry.”
“Do I onderstand, Bat,” asked Mr. Kelly, as following the wedding they
were wending to the Alhambra with a plan to drink good fortune to the
happy pair; “do I onderstand that you used my name in gunnin’ for this
bridegroom?”
“That Calamity girl had me locoed,” explained Mr. Masterson
apologetically. “I’d been harassed to a degree, Kell, that left me
knockin’ ’round in the situation like a blind dog in a meat shop, hardly
knowing right from wrong. All I wanted was to marry him to Calamity, and
I seized on your name to land the trick.”
“Still,” objected Mr. Kelly, mildly, “you ought not to have founded the
play on his wingin’ me. While I won’t say that his shootin’ me was in
the best of taste that time, after all it wasn’t more’n a breach of
manners, an’ not in any of its aspects, as I onderstand, a voylation of
the law. It wasn’t fair to me to make him marry that Calamity lady for
that.”
“Besides,” urged Cimarron Bill, who had come up, “them nuptials is
onconstitootional, bein’ in deefiance of the clause which declar’s that
no onusual or crooel punishments shall be meted out. Which I knows it’s
thar, because Bob Wright showed it to me at the time I urged stoppin’
old Bobby Gill’s licker for a week to punish him for pesterin’ ’round
among us mourners the day of Bridget’s fooneral.”