“Lincoln!”
“What Lincoln?” asks Buck sweet-like.
“Nebrasky,” grunts Pete and Buck nods like he’s satisfied.
Just then Chuck Warner, a freak from the Cross J, rides in. He’s got a
long, tired looking face and short legs. He comes over and leans against
the rack.
“Chuck,” says Dirty, “who started the Fourth of July?”
“Well, you might say it was George Washington and again you might say it
was the Delaware River,” replies Chuck, wise-like. “You see, Washington
wanted to get across the river, which was full of ice, so they put him
in a boat and rowed him across. _Sabe?_ In honor of said voyage, which
was on said day and date, they sets same aside as a holiday.”
“Ice!” squeaks Scenery. “On the Fourth of July, Chuck?”
“Beyond the shadder of a doubt,” replies old Judge Steele. “I’ve got a
picture of it in my office.”
“The Delaware River don’t freeze in Summer,” objects Buck. “She’s sort
of a south river, if I reminds myself correct.”
“In spots,” grins Chuck, wiggling his ears. “Washington crossed her
north end, Buck. She’s a long river.”
“Sure,” agrees Pete. “River was too long to go around. I knowed that
Lincoln didn’t have no more to do with it than--than Grant did.”
“Speaking of Fourth of July,” states Sam Holt, “I’d admire to say a few
words about Robert E. Lee.”
“I’m going home,” says Dirty Shirt. “I don’t care a whoop who did start
it. All I know is this: It might ’a’ been a wise man who started it, but
a lot of danged fools have monkeyed with it until she ain’t no good for
man nor beast.
“I may attend in a body, but I hereby states that I won’t be part nor
parcel of celebration and I won’t act as pall-bearer on July fifth, nor
the day after nor the next day. I won’t do anything that might carve
‘Died July Fourth’ on my tombstone. _Adios._”
Dirty Shirt rode out of town and I went up to our cabin. I say “our
cabin” meaning the place where me and Magpie hangs out. We’re pardners
in everything, except when I declare myself out, when Magpie declares
me in and I ain’t long winded enough to argue it.
Magpie is sheriff of Yaller Rock County, which is something to be proud
of--like being a target--and any time he feels that I ain’t going
fifty-fifty with his troubles he swears me in as a deputy. He comes home
later on and sets down to our table, where he does a little work with a
pencil.
After while he yawns and rolls a smoke.
“Ike, it is better so,” says he.
“It always is, Magpie,” I admits.
“Curlew won’t go to Paradise,” he states. “Paradise won’t go to Curlew.
Curlew won’t come to Piperock and Piperock won’t go to Curlew. Paradise
won’t come to Piperock and Piperock won’t go to Paradise. See how it
is?”
“Uh-huh,” I admits. “There ain’t nobody going no place. Good!”
“Wrong, Ike.”
Magpie hists his boots upon the table and twists his mustache.
“We’re going to have a community celebration. This is going to be a
hum-dinger and entirely out of the ordinary. Paradise, Piperock and
Curlew are going to have a three-corner celebration and we’ve picked
Dancing Prairie as the celebration center. How does she strike you,
Ike?”
“Ker-bump!” says I. “That sure is a fitting place, Magpie. Following an
Injun precedent, we can dance the scalps. There’s an old Injun graveyard
on the river bank which could be put in shape and would save the trouble
of hauling the casualties home. Yes’m, you picked a grand spot.”
“Aw, this ain’t going to be no hip-hooray celebration, Ike. We’re
getting civilized on celebrations, Ike. There ain’t no hot heads on
the committee, so she’ll all come off cool and collected-like.”
“Said committee is?”
“‘Chuck’ Warner, ‘Hassayampa’ Harris, ‘Doughgod’ Smith and Mike Pelly.”
“Yeah?” says I. “Some class! A liar, a thief, a fool and a bartender.
What are you going to be, Magpie?”
“Me? I’m going to be the boss of the whole works. I’m the _hombre_ what
sees that every thing is pulled off as per program. I may need an aid.”
“Then you’ll pick him from the rabble,” I states. “I will be far away
and going farther on that day, Magpie. Three days from now I’m going to
have a hundred miles between me and Dancing Prairie and the distance
will grow farther as the day goes on.”
“Hold up your right hand, Ike,” he snaps. “Swear to do your duty as
deputy sheriff, so help you Gawd? Huh! Now, dang your bow-legged soul,
you stay hitched to the law for four days! You run out on me and I’ll
get you thirty days for contempt of court.”
“Who do I have to have contempt for, Magpie?” I asks.
“Well, Judge Steele and--uh--me, I reckon.”
“Put me in,” says I. “Thirty days for one contempt, Magpie? Better
hurry up, ’cause my contempts are growing so fast that one lifetime
won’t begin to cover the case.”
Magpie ain’t a man of his word, so I has to suffer freedom. I permits
myself to be sworn in as a deputy to a sheriff but nothing nor nobody
can swear me in as a deputy to a Yaller Rock celebration. I sets down
in the office and lets nature take its course.
* * * * *
I sees Hassayampa and Magpie waving their arms in arguments, which
don’t never seem to be settled. Then I sees Mike and Magpie imitating
windmills, as they thresh out the details. Delegates from Paradise
and Curlew seem to mingle free-like with the gentle folk of Piperock,
but as yet there ain’t no great lot of gun-play. I feel that there is
plenty to come, so I don’t deplore the inaction.
Lumber and all such needful things are hauled from Piperock, but I sets
there in the office, with my feet on the table and sorrow in my heart,
’cause I know--man, I know there’s going to be sorrow somewhere.
Cometh to me “Sad” Samuels of Curlew, sets him down at my table and
looks sorrowful-like.
“Ike,” says he, “can you give me a description of Custer?”
“Horse-thief?” I asks.
“Fit Injuns,” says Sad. “Remember him, don’t you?”
“Not from your description, Sad. Think you seen him?”
Sad rolls a cigaret and looks sad-like at me. He’d look sad if somebody
left him a million. I seen him cry over a straight flush one night. He
wets that cigaret and then drops it on the floor. Too sad to smoke.
“Ike, do I look like Custer?”
“Want me to say yes, Sad?”
“I’ve got to be Custer.”
“Yes,” says I. “It’s all right with me, Sad. If you must you must, but
why has you got to be unnatural thataway?”
“Ike,” Sad chaws his chin-strap and becomes melancholy, “Ike, who
started the Fourth of July?”
I dropped my feet off the table and yanked out my gun. Sad lit on his
feet and backed toward the door with his hands up.
“Sad Samuels, did you come here to start something?” I asks.
“Honest to Gawd, Ike, I never did! Hassayampa orates that General Custer
did, _sabe?_”
“In such a case I’m ashamed of Hassayampa,” says I. “Just because the
Injuns didn’t like Custer it ain’t giving you and Hassayampa no right
to try and turn the whites against him too.”
“Don’t blame me, Ike,” wails Sad. “We can’t all be educated. According
to the opinions I’ve heard lately there’s a lot of difference in
histories. Ain’t you got no opinions on the matter?”
“There’s just one thing I do know, Sad,” says I, “and that is this:
The next _hombre_ what asks me that question is going to get knocked
so far into the Dark Ages that he’ll be able to get his information
first hand.”
Sad nodded his head and went out. Sad makes me weary with that we’re
all-got-to-go-sometime expression on his face.
Then cometh Mike Pelly. We exchanges the peace sign.
“Tomorrow is the Fourth,” states Mike. “Tomorrow morning.”
“According to Hood’s Sa’sparilly,” says I.
“Yeah,” admits Mike, drumming on the table with his fingers. “Seems
queer how much ignorance a feller can uncover in this here cow-country,
Ike. Any man with brains knows who started the Fourth.”
“With brains,” I admits.
“You know, don’t you, Ike?”
“I do, Mike, but I promised not to tell.”
“I ain’t asking, Ike. Any man has a right to his opinions. Magpie’s
bull-headed and so is Hassayampa. I ain’t saying that they ain’t got a
right to their opinions, Ike. So long as Magpie orates that Piperock
is going to do the originator proud, and Curlew aims to do the same,
ain’t it O. K. and proper that Paradise should hold up their ideals
and aims?”
“What do you wish me to do, Mike?”
“Me and Judge Steele ain’t friends by about six years, Ike. There ain’t
another one in the county and I’m asking you as a friend if you will try
and borrow the judge’s stovepipe hat for me? See your way clear?”
I looks at Mike’s head, which takes a number eight, and then I thinks
of about six and seven-eighths for the judge. Everybody is entitled to
their own fancies, so Mike sits there while I gets the hat for him.
“Ask you if you was going to wear it, Ike?” he asks, tickled over it.
“Nope! Never asked a question,” I replies, which was true, ’cause the
judge wasn’t in his office.
Magpie comes home happy that night. He poured beans in his coffee and
put sugar in his soup. I don’t mind, because I’m feeling loco myself.
“Ike,” says he, puffing on his spoon, “what did Washington do after he
crossed the Delaware?”
“Search me! What did he cross it for, Magpie?”
“That’s the ---- of it. Reckon I better go up to the judge’s office and
take another look at the picture. He must ’a’ had a reason.”
“Yes,” says I. “Maybe there was some danged fools from Piperock on his
side of the river and he wanted to get away while the getting was good.”
Magpie comes back after I’m in bed. I reckon he thought I was asleep.
He gets out in the middle of the floor, puts one foot on a soap-box,
shoves his hand inside his vest like something itched him and throws
back his head. He keeps rearing back and feeling inside his vest until
I gets nervous.
“Mister Simpkins,” says I, “if you’d hang your shirt on an ant-hill
they’d all leave. What’s the idea of the foot-rest?”
He glares at me and I ducks under the blankets. After while I peers
out again and right then I elects him to the highest office in the
loco lodge. He’s got my old blue overcoat on with both sides pinned
back from the bottom, like two big lapels, and he’s got my old fedora
hat on cross-ways. I peeks out after a while and sees him shining his
boots with stove-polish. I hears him grunt--
“I’ll make ’em up and take notice.”
“All but you,” says I. “You won’t notice much, old trailer, ’cause
you’ll be dead. Somebody will kill you too dead to skin and I’ll have
to sew up the holes in that coat before cold weather sets in.”
Then I went to sleep with a six-gun in my hand.
Dirty Shirt shows up at our cabin the next morning just after Magpie
left and sets down on the bunk.
“Happy Fourth of July, Ike,” says he by way of greeting. “We’re going
down to the celebration?”
“Maybe you, Dirty--not us.”
“Aw, be patriotic, Ike.”
“I love my country, Dirty, but she ain’t going to mean nothing to me
after I’m a memory.”
“The glorious Fourth was invented for patriotic folks, Ike,” says he.
“Foreigners and shepherds are the only ones exempt. I feel it my duty
to hold argument with you.”
“I defy anybody to make me go!” I yelps. “I mean it, too.”
Well, when we came in sight of the scene of conflict Dirty gave me back
my gun and asked my pardon. I told him to save his breath for running
and then we went down to Buck’s tent, where we bought a demijohn and
spent the morning welcoming folks to our celebration.
We welcomed a lot of folks that morning. When we ran out of folks we’d
welcome each other.
* * * * *
Later on we had trouble making the turns around the tents, being as we
tangles plentiful in the guy-ropes. We emerges out of one tangle and
are just about to celebrate our narrow escape, when I sort of reaches
out and picks a man out of the air. That man sure is moving plenty and
him and me went into the dirt. I set up and put on my hat, and along
came a hunk of lead and took it right off my head.
Then I ducks and somebody steps on my head, the same of which drives
my nose deep into Dancing Prairie. When I gets unearthed I finds Old
Testament Tilton setting there with a pair of black eyes and a foolish
expression on his face. Dirty is walking circles on his hands and
knees, like a pup preparing for bed.
Old Testament feels of his eyes, squints at me and says:
“I said to him--‘Judge, we’ll open with a prayer,’ and he said-- ‘We
will not. We’ll open with a speech from me. I’ve got a whangdoodler of a
speech all framed up.’ I says to him-- ‘Judge, I takes exceptions----’”
Old Testament hauled out a paper and held it in front of me.
“Got a prayer all wrote out, Ike.”
I picked up my hat and looked her over. I shoved my finger through the
bullet-hole in the crown and looks at Old Testament.
“Wonder where the other two went?” says he. “He shot three times.”
“Who?” asked Dirty.
“Ain’t I just got through telling you that I wanted to open with a
prayer and the judge wanted to open with a speech?” says he
indignant-like.
“Neither one of you held openers, Testament,” says I. “Next time anybody
starts shooting at you, old-timer, you run away. _Sabe?_ The judge ought
to be ashamed for shooting at a preacher, Dirty.”
“Yeah,” agrees Dirty. “Very poor shooting. Missed three times. Awful!”
We left the old pelican setting there on the ground and pretty soon
we bumps into Hassayampa. Hassayampa has got a gun in his hand and a
tearful countenance. When he sees us he wipes the tears away with the
muzzle of his gun and weaves up to us.
“Goin’ to killum,” says he, quavering-like. “Sure’s ----!”
“Who’s going to bite the dust?” asks Dirty.
“Knocked ’im down faster’n he can get up, and then shoot three times at
’im,” states Hassayampa, wise as a owl. “Ol’ Testyment’s frien’ of mine.
No brains but sholid meat. Soon live as die. Tha’s me.”
Hassayampa rocks on his heels.
“Goin’ to make speech, eh? Prayer’s best. Got a idea, folks. Le’s let
Old Testyment make prayer for the judge. Thassa good idea. Kill two
birds with one rock.”
Hassayampa smiles through his tears and goes hunting for the judge.
“Well,” says Dirty, “let’s check off anybody but the judge, ’cause right
now Hassayampa couldn’t hit the supreme bench of Montana with a shotgun
full of bird-shot.”
Just then Magpie comes parading along and I accosts him.
“Just about to open up the show, gents,” says he. “Go on up to the
speaker’s stand and get a good place. Things are working out better
than I thought they would. Never seen the like.”
“Same here,” says I. “Casualties are too few--so far.”
We finds the crowd milling around the front of a big tent. There ain’t
no sign of the speaker’s stand, so we asks Doughgod Smith about it.
“This is it here,” states Doughgod, pointing at the big tent. “The
platform is built inside the tent or the tent is built over the top
of the platform. Danged if I know which is correct!”
“Private speaking, eh?” grunts Dirty. “Good idea!”
Just then Magpie mounts a box in front of the tent and raises his hand
in the peace sign.
“Friends and folks from Paradise and Curlew,” says he, “we meet today to
celebrate in a civilized way the----”
“I takes that first statement to heart, Magpie,” interrupts Hassayampa.
“I don’t mind being unlisted as a friend but I do object to being put
behind Paradise.”
“Paradise is my happy home right now,” squeaks Scenery Sims. “You
snake-hunters from the great unwashed had better not let your hearts
enter too much in the festivities. _Sabe?_”
“You trouble-hunters go crawl in a hole!” yells Magpie.
“Free country, ain’t she?” asks “Telescope” Tolliver of the Cross J.
“Ain’t a man got a right to talk?”
“If that’s the way you feels about it, cut your wolf loose!” yelps
Magpie. “I got up here to open this show, which is supposed to be a
heap carefree and joyous, but any time you fellers opine to take it
serious I reckon there’s enough mourners to go around.”
“Aw, let Magpie open her up,” urges somebody back in the crowd. “If we
don’t like it, there’s plenty of daylight left to enable us to shoot
straight.”