“Hen, who is going to be Miss Columbus?” I answers—
“The widder Saunders.”
“Hank told me that my niece, Maggie was going to be her.”
“Hank’s a liar,” says I, and Doughgod nods, and walks away.
I’m over at the rack, cinching up my saddle, when here comes Dug
Chaffin.
“Henry, I’m looking for information that I can’t seem to get from any
of your cohorts. Who is due to be Miss Columbus tomorrow?”
“The widder Saunders. That’s settled, Dug.”
“Do you know that old man Whittaker is a liar?” he asks, and I nods.
“Yes, he’s a liar,” declares Dug. “He said he’d stick for Clarice
’till hell froze over.”
“He got cold feet,” says I, and Dug goes back to his palace of sin, in
a unhappy mood.
I gets on my bronc and points toward the Cross J. I’m sick of being on
a committee, and having to hurt people’s feelings.
Paradise ain’t no safe place to cause discord in. There’s a sentiment
in that place that leans towards shooting first and asking questions
afterwards. There’s only one thing the whole place will agree on, and
that is this: yuh can’t have a royal flush if your opponent has four
kings.
“Stuttering” Stevens thought he’d establish a precedent by holding one
against kings and sevens in one hand and kings and eights in another.
The coroner said that either shot would have been fatal. Stuttering
must a been guilty, ’cause no man would steal kings to make up two
pair.
I hammers my bronc along down to where the Cross J road forks with the
one from Silver Bend, when I hears a peculiar noise. Sounds to me like
a threshing machine with St. Vitus dance. My bronc shows signs of
nervousness, so I gets off. Pretty soon it comes in sight, and I
recognizes it as being an autymobile, the same of which ain’t been in
this country since the one belonging to Scenery Sims runs over some
dynamite at Piperock and evaporates.
* * * * *
My bronc drags me off into the mesquite for a ways, until I can get my
rope around a bush and stop him, and then I pilgrims back to the road.
At first I don’t recognize the inhabitant of that carriage. I looks
him over, careful-like, and then he grins and betrays himself. It’s
old “Calamity” Carson. I ain’t seen him for five years, and I shakes
his hand industrious-like. After we gets through pumping elbows I
leans back and surveys his equipage.
“Some vehicle, eh, Henry?” he says, with a dusty grin. “Surprised to
see me?”
“Well, not exactly, Calamity. We been expecting yuh.”
“Expecting me?” he wonders aloud. “I suppose ‘Tellurium’ had to go and
tell everybody.”
“Uh-huh,” I agrees. “Tellurium Woods never could keep still.”
So far as I know Tellurium ain’t been in Paradise for six months, but
he’s as good as anybody to blame it on. Him and Calamity used to be
pardners.
“Well, well!” says Calamity, brushing the dust off his mustache, and
giving his cigaret a chance to burn hair freely. “Here I been figuring
on surprising the old-timers, and I been told upon by a friend. Henry
Peck, I done sold out my property over in the Little Rockies, and now
I’m rich.
“I got more money than a dog has fleas, but I ain’t enjoyed it none. I
opines to throw a surprise into Paradise, so I buys this gasoline
buckboard, has her shipped to Silver Bend, and here I am. She’s worse
than any outlaw bronc that ever flinched under a saddle, Henry, and
I’m older by years and years than I was a week ago when a man teached
me how to drive it. I don’t know what makes her run. All I got to do
is put gasoline in her, twist her tail a few times, pull the
designated levers, and point her away from the stumps. She sure makes
enough noise.”
“You figured the tune right, Calamity,” says I. “Paradise sure is
doing itself proud in your honor.”
“‘In my honor?’ What’s the idea, Henry?”
“Well, yuh see it ain’t often that a town can have a former inhabitant
come home rich and distinguished like you are. The public sure admires
a man with a chunk off the root of all evil, Calamity. We’ve decorated
in your honor, and tomorrow we parades before yuh to show our
admiration and respect. Sabe?”
“My gosh, Henry!” he snorts. “This is too much.”
“It’s considerable, Calamity, but look who you are.”
“That’s a fact, Henry—it sure is. Well, well!”
He sets there, with a far-away look in his eyes, and that cigaret
sizzling on his mustache, and sudden-like he reaches under the seat
and hauls out a jug.
“Henry Peck, I been saving this for my old friends—Tellurium,
Doughgod, ‘Half Mike’ Smith, et cettry, but you qualifies, Henry. Your
oration sure puts joy into my old heart. Go as deep as yuh like.”
I sets there in his gas go-devil, and we swears allegiance to each
other. We celebrates our new-found friendship, and regales each other
with anecdotes. I tells him all the neighborhood gossip, and we toast
each and every one. He tells me about his property in the Little
Rockies, and we drinks a toast to all the little rocks.
My bronc gets the rope loose, and passes us on his way home. We toasts
the Cross J and my pinto.
“Who did yuh say was going to lead the pe-rade in my honor?” asks
Calamity.
“I am. Being your best friend, Calamity, I’m eligible. I’ll ride that
pinto bronc at the head end of that great conglomeration. How’d yuh
like that, old-timer?”
“I got a better idea,” says he, solemn-like. “I’ll teach yuh how to
run this here contraption, and you lead her in this. How’d yuh like to
do that, Henry?”
“Sounds to me like the voice of angels. What yuh packing in them two
cans in the rear?”
“Gasoline. Twenty gallons I shipped with the car. All yuh got to do is
to twist that front crank until she starts humming. Sabe? Then yuh get
in and let this here brake loose. You get out and give her a twist,
Henry. That’s the first lesson.”
I falls out and ambles around to the front. I grasps the crank in both
hands, gives it a man-sized yank, slips with both feet, and that
juggernaut runs right across my floating ribs. She sure squashes me a
plenty, and I don’t more than start to get up when here she comes
right back to run over me again. Calamity stops her just in time.
“You forgot the e-mergency,” observes Calamity, scared-like, over the
back of the seat.
“Maybe,” says I. “I forgot my name and address, too, if that’s
anything to snort over. What are yuh supposed to do—put her against a
rock to start her?”
“It’s a simple thing, Hen.”
“Yes, so is a stick uh dynamite,” says I, rubbing the kinks out of my
hide. “Let’s not call school right now, Calamity. We’ll go up to the
Cross J, where prying eyes can see us not, and there yuh can show me
all things. Anyway yuh don’t want to show up in Paradise today.
Everybody is busy getting things ready, and if you was to go down
there now they’d drop everything. Sabe?”
“Popularity warmeth my cold heart,” says he. “Being of the committee,
Henry Peck, I bows to superior wisdom. We’ll proceed to the old Cross
J, and take a lesson.”
We stops at the Seeping Springs and has a nice drink—out of the jug.
We starts out merrily along the road, when all to once Calamity starts
to tell me a story. Calamity must have French blood in his carcass,
’cause he talks with his hands.
At least he might a picked out a flat place to do his gestures in, but
as it was we hops off the road, down a hill, and pokes the front end
of that machine into a mesquite bush. What part of it didn’t plow
through the bush jumped over.
I untangles myself from the brush and wanders over to the wagon. She
don’t seem hurt much, but her heart has quit beating.
“_Hyas cultus chuck, chick_,” states a voice, and I turns to
see old Running Wolf, a Piegan, squatting on his haunches, looking at
that machine.
He’s got a look on his face that Columbus might a had when he first
saw the shores of our fair country.
“What did he say?” asks a weak voice, and Calamity appears from the
other side of the car.
“He said, ‘It’s a mighty bad wagon,’” I interprets, and Calamity nods
his head:
“That Injun ain’t no danged idiot, Henry. Wonder if he’d like to take
a ride?”
“_Mesika klatawa kopa chick, chick?_” I asks, but the old
redskin puts his thumb up to his nose and wiggles his fingers at us.
“Nah-h-h-h-h!” he gargles, and points at his moccasins.
We manages to get that wagon back on the road. We drinks a toast to
our good luck and to honest and cautious Injuns, and plods on up to
the Cross J. I reckon our toasts covers too much territory, ’cause
when Calamity opines to have me read his book of rules, all I can do
is sing.
* * * * *
It’s almost dark when I wakes up. Beside me on the bunk is Calamity,
snoring like a shepherd, so I sticks my boot into his ribs.
“Thanks,” says he, after a look around. “Thanks, Henry. I was having a
autymobilemare.”
Just then in comes old man Whittaker. He looks around, sort of
mad-like, and glares at me and Calamity.
“They don’t seem to be here—gol dingle dangle it!” he yelps.
Me and Calamity looks around and shakes our heads.
“No,” says I. “They must a left.”
“They never went alone!” he howls. “That fancy, lodge war-bonnet and
them striped pants never went away alone. I reckon I got to kill
somebody!”
He slams the door, as he goes out, and Calamity looks at me.
“What’s the matter with him?” he asks. “He never recognized me, and
I’ve knowed Whittaker for years and years.”
“Crazy,” says I. “He went crazy over fancy clothes. He don’t know
anybody any more, Calamity.”
“Pshaw! I knowed he wasn’t——”
We hears a voice at the door, and I yells, “Come in!” and in ambles
Pole Cat Perkins. He’s got a bundle under his arm, and he sets down on
the bunk and grins at me and Calamity.
“Huh-Hen, I’m after your permission,” says he.
“You’ve got it, Pole Cat. What yuh going to do with it?”
He unrolls that bundle and produces a yaller stove-pipe hat, dented
and moth-eaten, and an old rusty sword. He balances that old hat on
his ball-shaped head, and runs the sword along the palm of his left
hand.
“Do I qualify, Mister Peck?” he asks.
“For certain places, Pole Cat. What’s the idea?”
“Chuck gives me these habiliments and tells me that I’ll have to get
your permission to lead the pe-rade tomorrow. I admires the chance so
much that I ain’t lost no time in coming. Do I get it?”
“Pole Cat,” says I, solemn-like, “you probably will. Let your judgment
be your guiding star.”
“Thanks, Henry. I bids yuh good afternoon.”
“Better make it farewell,” says I.
“Loco crop must be flourishing up here,” observes Calamity. “Some
smells worse than others, Henry.”
“This one is named after his associates,” says I, and just then
somebody rides up to the door and I hears Harelip Hansen’s voice. “Get
behind the bunk!” I hisses at Calamity. “If Harelip sees you up here
he never will leave.”
“Howdy, Henry,” says Harelip. “I’m glad to see yuh.”
“I’m pleased to know that the sight of me makes folks glad,” says I.
“What yuh got on your mind and under your arm?”
He unrolls enough for me to see that he’s got Whittaker’s lodge
clothes.
“Chuck told me I could wear these at the front end of that pe-rade
tomorrow, but I’d have to see you first.”
“What do yuh reckon to have me do—dress yuh?” I asks, and he grins all
over his homely face.
“It’ll be all right, will it?” he asks, and I nods and replies:
“You know best, Harelip. There’s a divinity that shapes our ends.”
“Uh-huh. I gives you thanks, Henry.”
“I’ll take ’em, Harelip,” says I. “I may never have any use for them,
but it will be something to remember yuh by, old trailer.”
I watches him climb on his flea-bitten cayuse, and jog off down the
road. Calamity is looking over my shoulder, and as Harelip drifts out
of sight he yelps:
“Where’s my autymobile, Henry? We left her right out there didn’t we?”
We goes out and looks around. There’s the tracks we made when we came
in, and there’s the tracks where it went out, and back down the road.
Calamity scratches his head, and hitches up his pants.
“Henry,” says he, “I’m sorry. What yuh going to lead that pe-rade in
now?”