“Each and every man’s life should be a open book for all to read. No man
should ever be placed in a position where he can’t explain the what and
whyfor of every little minute of his life. Skulduggery and deception
pilgrim hand in hand.”
“Well,” says I, “you brings in words that astounds me, and I can’t say
much in reply to things I don’t savvy, but down deep into me heart,
liver and lights, Magpie, I know you’re crazy, but——”
“There ain’t no ‘buts’, Ike. If every man lived free and open——”
_Zing!_
Magpie’s saddle-horn is just plain steel, never having been covered with
leather, and that bullet skipped off that bare knob and sings sweet-like
off into the brush. Then cometh the pop of the rifle. Me and Magpie sets
there and looks at that saddle-horn.
“Somebody shooting at coyotes,” opines Magpie. “Wild bullet.”
“I don’t think so,” says I. “I think that somebody——”
“Now, Ike, it ain’t reasonable to suppose that anybody——”
_Splut!_
A slug cuts right past my hip and tears a sizable hole in the cantle of
my saddle. I falls right off that bronc and sets down in the brush, and
Magpie follers me.
“There goes your old argument,” says I. “I was right.”
“Not necessarily, Ike. There might ’a’ been two coyotes.”
Can you beat that? Even when another bullet seeps into the mesquite he
ain’t convinced. Me and him are heeled with six-guns, but they ain’t
much use against rifles.
“You argues in favor of circumstantial evidence, Magpie, and when said
evidence presents itself you deny it.”
“Yeah? How about you, Ike? You don’t believe it, but you hops on to a
chance to use it at the slightest opportunity.”
“I ain’t hopping on to nothing! I don’t need to be shot at more than
twice before I gets a hunch that I’m excess meat in this vale of tears.”
“Pshaw! You’re finicky, Ike. Maybe them bullets wasn’t noways——”
“Just lay them guns on the earth and reach for a cloud,” says a soft
voice, and we stops our argument.
There’s four of ’em, and every way we looks we’re staring down the
muzzle of a rifle. One of them fellers is wearing a star, but she ain’t
the star of hope for us. He hands out a pair of handcuffs and they seems
to fit us fine. Then they makes us get on to our broncs and leads us
away.
“We’ll sneak into town from the far side,” says the sheriff. “We sure
got to go easy-like, boys, ’cause they’re watching for us.”
“We thought you was shooting at coyotes,” says Magpie.
“You’re a danged good guesser, feller,” says the sheriff, and that’s all
that was said.
It was enough. They takes us off our broncs out behind a barn and then
they eases us behind fences and sheds until they slams us into a ’dobe
jail.
“Nobody seen us,” grins the sheriff, “and it’s a danged good thing,
’cause if the bunch knowed we had ’em in here they’d paw this here jail
all to pieces.”
“Not wishing to be inquisitive,” says Magpie, “but I’d admire to know
why you puts us in here?”
“Reckon you need telling?” asks the sheriff mean-like.
“Feller kinda likes to know,” admits Magpie.
“Well, being as you two has likely committed so many crimes that you has
to find out which one you’re jailed for, I’ll tell you that you’re in
jail for robbing the Greasewood bank and shooting the cashier. _Sabe?_
Now you better lay low until we can take you to War Bonnet, ’cause this
here jail won’t stand no rough use. The sentiment runs to necktie
parties, ’cause that cashier was popular.”
“Ain’t you afraid they’ll get out, Zeb?” asks one of them. “Maybe some
of us better stay and look out for ’em.”
“Nope. We don’t want nobody to suspicion they’re here. _Sabe?_ We’ll all
ride away again and show up here after dark without no prisoners.
They’ll have the road to War Bonnet watched, but as soon as they hear we
didn’t have no luck, they’ll come in.” And then he turns to us. “You
fellers ain’t got a chance in the world if you do get out. You’d just
about—— Say, I got a scheme. Take off your clothes.”
“Our clothes?” asks Magpie foolish-like.
“Yeah. Hand ’em out to me. I reckon you won’t get loose none to speak
about.”
What could we do? We undresses and gives them our clothes, and when they
locks the outside door me and Magpie Simpkins are as bare as the day we
came into this life of few years and full of trouble. Me and Magpie sets
there and gawps at each other.
“Venice,” says Magpie. “How is all the little Milos?”
“Tolable, Godiva, tolable.”
* * * * *
We sets there and stares into space for a while.
“You ought to be satisfied with the evidence,” says I. “It ain’t noways
possible for every crime to have a witness, and——”
“Pshaw, they ain’t got nothing to hold us on, Ike.”
“Nope. Me and you are foolish to stay here. Being a open book, so to
speak, you ought to read ’em a few paragraphs, Magpie.”
“Sh-h-h-h!”
We hugs the wall of the cell and listens to some folks talking.
“Well, they ain’t caught ’em yet, that’s a cinch. The sheriff will just
about ride seventeen broncs to death and catch nobody.”
“Uh-huh. Nobody seen ’em? Nobody got any idea where they went?”
“Nope. Old man Stivers walks into the bank and finds Abe Walters laying
on the floor. Whole danged town was asleep, I reckon. Believe me, the
law won’t deal with this case. Everybody liked Abe.”
Their voices fades away and me and Magpie sighs deep-like.
“I—I wish I had a cigaret,” says Magpie. “I’m going to kill that sheriff
for taking my tobacco and papers.”
We sets there out of range of that window and watches night come along.
As soon as it gets dark Magpie begins to vesticate around. The bottom of
the one little window is about six feet from the floor and is guarded
with four bars.
Magpie yanks the bunk under it and climbs up. Pretty soon he begins to
laugh.
“No wonder that sheriff handicaps us, Ike. These bars are only stuck
into the ’dobe mud.”
He yanks and grunts for a while and then hops down. “Liberty confronts
us, Ike. Let’s be going.”
“Not me, Magpie. I may look well in the nude in a jail, but I sure ain’t
going to mingle in no society like this. Do all the libertying you
desire, old-timer, but excuse me. Good luck to you.”
“You mean you’re going to stick here and get hung?”
“I mean that I stays here; the hanging is a future consideration.”
Magpie spits on his hands and seems to consider the height of the
window.
“Well, give me a boost then,” says I. “I ain’t as tall as you are.”
That blasted window was made for small men to escape out of—men who
ain’t bow-legged. I lost skin off both sides of me when I squeezed
through, and when I hit the earth I’m in a cactus patch. Magpie slides
through and lit setting down.
“——!” he snorts. “Why didn’t you tell me about them cactus?”
“I didn’t think there was any left, Magpie, except what’s in me.”
We sneaked around a corner of the street and almost runs into a big
building which is all lit up. We can hear somebody orating loud and
clear.
“Sunday night, Ike!” grunts Magpie, “What luck!”
“Go to church if you want to, Magpie. I won’t.”
He mumbles something about fools, as he climbs over a fence, and I
climbs over with him.
“What’s the main idea?” I asks as we lean up against a house.
“Ike, it’s reasonable to suppose that men live in houses, ain’t it?
Ain’t it reasonable to suppose that they might have more clothes than
they’ve got on? I’m going to get clothes.”
I’m no burglar. Neither is Magpie, for that matter, but nobody ever done
a better job. The window was nailed down, so we smashed it out. Ever get
into a strange house in the dark? Don’t do it! Take chances on the
penitentiary and pack a lantern.
We opened the first door we felt—and stepped off into the cellar.
“Looking for preserved pants?” I asks, feeling for busted bones.
“Ike, you’d seem comical if I hadn’t hit my head on the spud-bin.”
Then we crawled back up-stairs and explored a while.
“This is the dangest mixed-up house I ever seen!” grunts Magpie, pawing
around the knob of a door.
“Pete!” snaps a female voice. “Pete Bowers, you’re drunk again, ain’t
you? Too drunk to talk, eh? Sunday night, too, of all nights! I’ve got a
notion to take a club to you!”
“Yash’m,” mutters Magpie, backing into me.
“Don’t you ‘yash’m’ me! You undress and get into this bed or I’ll come
out there and take you apart!”
We stands still for a whole minute and then hears her yawn.
“Ho-hum-m-m-m!” Then the bed squeaks as she gets up. “Well, I reckon
I’ve got to undress you, you drunken pup!”
And she strikes a match!
Yes, we went some. Ever try running in a strange house in the dark? Any
old time I feel like running again, I’ll pick a sixty-acre field in the
middle of the day—and it won’t be even a cloudy day. I led the
procession. Lucky for us I found a door, but unlucky for us it was the
cellar door again.
When we got through pawing each other around the place, Magpie wrenched
a rocking-chair off my neck and used it to bust out the little window.
We don’t no more than get over the fence when we hears that gentle
housewife’s voice again.
“Go ahead! Don’t mind me, Pete. Go way off where you’ve got plenty of
room to stagger around. Ho-hum-m-m-m! That’s what alkyhol does to a
he-human, I reckon.” And we hears her shut the window.
“Gosh!” gasps Magpie, unhooking a tin can off his toes. “I hates to be
glad over a man’s misfortune, but I’m glad Pete drinks.”
“There’s circumstantial evidence for you, Magpie. Pete will likely come
home sober and get —— whaled out of him for getting drunk and busting up
the furniture.”
“As I said before, Ike, a man may not be guilty as charged, but he’s
guilty of something just as bad. Pete must be guilty of drinking or
she’d never mistake us for him. See how it works?”
“Maybe he don’t always bust up furniture, Magpie.”
“To that argument, Ike, I will say this: They’ve got so danged much
furniture that she won’t never miss a few chairs or a sofy or two.”
“Let’s go back to the nice little jail, Magpie,” I suggests. “I ain’t
worth a dang undressed. The shades of night may be drawn, but just the
same my conscience bothers me. You can boost me in——”
“Yeah, like ——! Want to get lynched?”
“Well, I’d at least be dying with my pants on. Somebody is going to kill
us pretty soon anyway.”
“Keep your nerve, Ike. Nerves will win.”
“Nerve ain’t no good when you ain’t got no pants. I’d fight a buzz-saw
when I’m dressed, Magpie, but this Adam and Eve business saps my nervous
system until she don’t register a spark. Where are we headed for now?”
“After something to give you courage, dang you! I’m tired of hearing you
kick. Dang the man who throws loose cans around! How in thunder do you
miss ’em, Ike?”
“Walking in your footsteps, Magpie. Your feet are so darn big that I has
a clear trail.”
* * * * *
I followed him over another fence and to the side of another house. This
time the window was loose, and we slides inside. For fear of another
cellar door we crawls this time. Magpie finds a bureau with matches on
it, so we pulls down the shade and lights a lamp. There didn’t seem to
be a soul in the house. Magpie rustled into a closet and comes out with
a suit of clothes. He didn’t tell me it was the only suit in the place;
he just holds her up and asks me if I’ll wear it.
“Not me,” says I, “I’d never make a good preacher, ’cause I’m so
bow-legged that the devil could get behind me without going around.”
That suit was made for a short _hombre_ who wears a forty-eight coat.
Magpie has plenty of room in a thirty-eight and has the longest legs in
Montana. He got into that layout and then stands out in the middle of
the room while I lays on the bed and sobs like a baby. Honest to
grandma, I never seen anything like him! He’s got one of them
flat-topped black hats, a collar that hooks in the back and that long
loose black coat and them pants that hit him between the knee and the
ankle. He made the shoes fit by cutting holes for his big toes.
He looks at me pious-like and says—“Brother, ain’t you going to cover up
your shame?”
I wipes the tears out of my eyes and hunts for something to wear. I sure
went through everything, but all I can find in man’s clothes is a pair
of them elastic-topped shoes with the rubber wore out. Magpie sets down
in a chair and watches me hunt.
“Dang your hide, help me, can’t you?” I yelps. “I’ve got to have
something to wear, ain’t I?”
“Yes,” says he, “I’d opine you have, and it looks like skirts.”
“Like ——! How would I look in skirts? Not for me!”
“Ike, that church will soon be out and then we’ll have to fight our way
loose. You—get—into—them—skirts! _Sabe!_”
“Well, dang you, Magpie, give me help!”
“I don’t know a thing about ’em, Ike.”
“You can button me up, can’t you?” I yelled. “Don’t act so uppish! Do I
put on the straight-jacket first or don’t I?”
“You’ll make a —— of a looking woman, Ike. Your whiskers are two inches
long.”
“They are,” says I, cinching myself into the thing, “but I’d rather be a
bearded lady than a nude corpse. I’ll find something to put over my face
until I get killed or find a razor.”
I gets into everything that seemed to have an entrance and buttons,
while Magpie sets there and cries on his own bosom. My dress was white,
with pink flowers on it, and the sleeves only comes to my elbows.
I found a pair of green stockings and managed to squeeze my feet into
that pair of elastic-topped shoes. Then I got a hat. Man, that was some
war bonnet. It’s got some red roses on it and right up the front rears
the wing of a dove. It sets fine on the back of my head. Then I found
some stuff to drape over my face.
Magpie digs into the bureau and finds two six-guns. He hangs one in the
tail of his coat while I shoves the other into the bosom of my dress.
“Now, suppose somebody sees us going away, Magpie,” says I. “Don’t you
reckon they’ll wonder where we’re going?”
“More than likely. We may have to shoot our way loose, Ike. Reckon we’ll
take them two empty valises over there, so she’ll look like we was going
some place. They’re empty but locked, so we’ll just take ’em along to
make the play good.”
Now I don’t want you folks to think that me and Magpie didn’t have no
morals. There is some things you have to do, but that ain’t no reason
why you can’t square it later on.
We shut the window and went to the front door.
“We’ll walk right out like we owned the shanty,” says Magpie, but just
as he reached for the knob somebody knocked. I reached for my bosom, but
Magpie just turned the knob and opened the door.
“Ah, Reverend—” says a soft voice and I sees two men on the steps, and
they’ve got their hats in their hands.
“Reverend, we-all is from War Bonnet. _Sabe?_ War Bonnet has delegated
us to come up here and offer to double any ante that Greasewood has made
you-all. We comes to hire you out at your own salary. Is you receptive?”
“There’s more sinners in War Bonnet than ever dared to hive up here,”
squeaks the other feller. “You’d have a hyiu place to show off. War
Bonnet is going to have a preacher or bust a cinch.”
“We brings a wagon,” states the first feller, “and we can take you-all
right with us and haul down your effects later on.”
“The raven fed Elijah,” gasps Magpie. “Lead us to that wagon.”
“Name’s Pearce,” says the soft speaker; “called ‘Peaceful’ ’cause I
ain’t. This feller is knowed as ‘Happy,’ ’cause he never was. Last
name’s Harmon. Come on, folks.”
We rode out of town in the wagon, Magpie and Peaceful in the front seat
and me and Happy in the back. It was some road, believe me. Peaceful
missed most of the rocks with the front wheels, but the rear wheels
didn’t seem to interest him none to speak about. Sudden-like we lifts
high on one side, the same of which seems to unbalance me, and then we
slams the other side into a rock, and the preacher’s wife grabbed for
the seat and got her hands full of grass.
I sets there in the dark, with my feet tangled in my skirt, and tries to
get that bonnet off my nose.
“Lawdee!” I hears Peaceful grunt. “Reverend, you-all’s wife is
overboard!”
“She sure is!” I yelps through my hat. “You —— fool, you couldn’t herd a
cow down a lane!”
All is still for a moment and then Peaceful says:
“I’m plumb glad, Reverend, that you-all’s wife ain’t one of them there
‘holier than thou’ sort of females. She sure speaks up.”
“Emily,” says Magpie choking-like, “get back on the wagon.”
“All right, Mose,” says I, and just as I climbs in several fellers rides
up and seems to surround us.
“Who are you?” asks a voice.
“Hello, ‘Baldy’,” says Happy. “Who wants to know?”
“Hello, Happy. Who’s with you?”
“My Uncle Mose, Aunt Emily and Peaceful Pearce.”
“Howdy, Peaceful,” says another. “This is Pete Myers.”
“I recognizes you, Pete. Who you-all expecting?”
“Nobody much. Evenin’, folks,” and they rides away.
We jolts along for a spell and then Happy says:
“Ma’am, every time I hear of anybody by the name of Mose I think of
bulrushes. Does you connect your husband with that Bible story?”
“Partly,” says I, “the first part. He’s never rushed.”
“You-all got a cold, ma’am?” asks Peaceful. “Voice sounds thick. Ever
put anything around your neck?”
“Just took something off,” says I. “Didn’t do me any good.”
“Rocking-chair ain’t much benefit,” says Magpie.
“Never heard of using one,” says Peaceful. “How does you go about it?”
“Hang it on your neck in the dark.”
“One of them there charm cures, eh?” asks Happy. “Might benefit.”
“Never has,” says Magpie, “but there’s a first time for everything.”
Then we drove into War Bonnet.
* * * * *
War Bonnet is just about the same size as Paradise. If you don’t know
what size Paradise is, you ain’t got nothing on anybody else, ’cause
there ain’t never been a census taken. Once in a while they totals up
the casualties for the year and holds sort of a memorial, but the exact
amount of survivors fluctuates.
War Bonnet strikes me as being a danged bad place to have your gun
stick. I envies a picture I seen once. It was called “The Cow Girl.” I
never seen a cow girl in my whole life, but this picture shows her with
a belt around her waist and a big Colt hanging in the holster.
My gun is down inside my bosom so far that I can’t seem to get it loose,
and that danged hammer is digging into me until I feels that I’m going
to be a heap tattooed around the waistline.
Peaceful herds them broncs up to the door of a house. I reckon that news
travels fast, ’cause Peaceful says to a woman who comes to the door—
“Ma, we got ’em.”
And it ain’t more than a minute until the front yard is full of female
folks.
“Get out, Emily, and remember you’re the spouse of a sky-pilot,”
whispers Magpie.
Happy helped me out—or rather yanked me out. I asks him if he’s married,
and he whispers—
“Not now. Why?”
I didn’t get a chance to tell him, ’cause just then Magpie hops off the
front wheel without thinking of that heavy six-gun in the tail of his
coat. It caught inside the wagon-box as he dropped, and then she flips
high and handsome and comes down on his head. Magpie sinks to his knees
and Peaceful and Happy bows their heads and takes off their hats. They
never seen him get hit.
Pretty soon Magpie staggers to his feet and says some words under his
breath that you’ll likely find in the Bible, but not all in one
sentence, and the herd surrounds us.
One old girl got her arms around my neck and I has a —— of a time to
keep her from rooting into my whiskers.
“Glory be!” she gurgles. “Oh, we need a minister so bad.”
“That’s the kind you’ve got,” says I, and then I gets near enough to
Magpie to kick him on the ankle.
“Razor!” I hisses in his ear. “I ain’t no bearded lady!”
“Brethren,” says Magpie, “canst any one loan me the lend of a razor? We
comes away sudden-like, and my wife is so danged particular that she
won’t let me be seen in public without a shave.”
Razors? Say, a barber would starve to death in a community like that.
“You-all hives up in my house tonight,” says Peaceful, herding us
inside, and War Bonnet’s best citizens follers us in. Them women seems
to consider me a heap and it makes me nervous.
“I’d admire to go somewhere and fix up a little,” says I. “I fell out of
that danged dead-ax wagon, and I has a feeling that I sat on a cactus.”
“Haw! Haw—” begins somebody, but shuts right up.
“Right this way,” says Peaceful, and he lets me and Magpie into a
bedroom. Magpie has a lump the size of an egg on top of his head where
that gun hit him. Both of my green stockings has come down and are under
my shoes, and that fall seems to have unbuttoned my dress until that
straight-jacket sticks out through the back. Magpie looks me over and
seems to choke with emotion.
“Ike, you’re the wildest-looking wife I ever had.”
Just then somebody knocks on the door.
“Parson, what denomination does you represent?”
Magpie looks at me foolish-like and then back at the door.
“Round church—circular sect.”
“Oh,” says the feller. “I hoped you was a Baptist.”
“New on me, Magpie,” says I. “Round church?”
“Uh-huh. Paw said it was the best kind, ’cause the devil can’t corner
you, Ike.”
As far back as I can remember, Ike Harper’s face has been partly
obscured with hair, but for once he gets a clean view of it.
My golden hair ain’t hanging down my back, but I’ve got enough to bluff
with. Magpie shaved my arms to the elbow and smoothed his own face a
little. He also cinched up my dress and I managed to pin them green
stockings so they won’t trip me.
“Now,” says I, “as soon as they gets into bed we’ll make our sneak.”
“Uh-huh. Just as soon as we can, Ike. Hang on to your nerve and don’t
cuss. We’ve got to locate some broncs. Remember you’re a lady, Ike. More
than that, old-timer, you’re the wife of a preacher. Let’s face the
music.”
* * * * *
That parlor is sure filled with folks. Peaceful seems to be sort of a
leader. He comes up to Magpie and says:
“Reverend, I’m dawg-gone sorry, but I ain’t never heard your name. I
wants to introduce you-all to the folks.”
“My name?” Magpie looks around foolish-like. “Thought you knowed it. I’m
the Reverend Moses—er—Meek. This female person is Emily. Being married
to me makes her Meek, too.”
We shakes hands all around and then a tall, lanky female says to me:
“Seems like your face is familiar, dearie. What was your maiden name?”
“Lily Langtry,” says I, thinking real quick and saying the first name
what comes to me.
“Lily? I thought your husband called you Emily?”
“Lily was my maiden name,” says I. “I’ve been married more than once.”
“More than once?”
“Yeah. First time it was a Piegan squaw. Her name was Dawn——”
“I beg your pardon!” she gasps. “How could you——”
“Sh-h-h-h-h!” I hisses. “I was a Mormon.”
“Oh!” says she and nods her head.
Maybe she understood, but I didn’t. I makes up my mind to keep still
after this.
Then Mrs. Peaceful skids up to me.
“My dear Mrs. Meek, is there anything I can do for you? Anything you
would like to have?”
“Have you got the makings of a cigaret? Mine was in my pants—”