“I am nobodee-e-e-e-e’s darling, nobodee-e-e-e ca-hares for me-e-e-e.”
“Knocked sensible,” declares Dirty, and we weaved along.
“Ike, you’re an awful looking thing,” states Dirty, looking me over.
“You better shuck that buckskin Mother Hubbard before somebody accuses
me of being a squaw-man. I hate scandal.”
“By grab, I’ve been looking all over for you, Ike,” exclaims a voice,
and Pete Gonyer takes me by the arm. “Magpie wants to see you right
away.”
“What does he want?” I ask. “I’m all through being butchered to make a
Dancing Prairie holiday, if anybody asks you. I’ll go home if he wants
me to, but that’s all.”
We follered Pete down to the bank of the river where mostly everybody
is collected. Across the river, which is about fifty yards wide at this
point, is hung a wide piece of canvas. A scaffolding has been built out
from around a tree, and the canvas stretched on that. We stops at the
edge and hears old Judge Steele proclaim:
“This here is authentic, I tell you. Ain’t I got the picture of it in
my office? I sure have. While I’ve got a lot of respect for Custer and
Lincoln, it ain’t noways historically correct that they’re to blame.
Therefore it remains for the city of Piperock to hand honor where honor
is due. I asks everybody to watch the great spectacle--the spectacle
from which Fourth of July owes its being.”
“Get on, Ike.”
I turns and here is Pete Gonyer on a bronc. He’s got one foot out of the
stirrup, so I can get up, and like a darn fool I done it. I didn’t know
where we were going, but I do know that we went there.
Pete must ’a’ picked a bronc what never carried double, ’cause it
whirled around that multitude and we hit the water fifteen feet from
the shore.
Man, I’d say that bronc could hop high and handsome, and them Pokyhontas
clothes bellied out behind like a balloon.
Pete herded that animal straight for the bank and as soon as it got
its feet on solid ground we changed ends so fast that I grabs Pete
around the neck and my feet stood straight out. I made one complete
turn, let loose, and when I hit the grass I glided about twenty feet
on the seat of the pants I didn’t have on--being as that costume
consisted of hip-length leggin’s which wouldn’t go over my pants and
a sort of a dress.
I got up sore. There is Magpie, “Tellurium” Woods, “Buck” Masterson
and Pete looking at me. Tellurium and Buck are in their shirt-sleeves,
with their pants rolled up, but Magpie is dressed in that same costume
he put on that night in our cabin. That fedora hat don’t fit sideways,
so he ties it under his chin with a string. I looked down back of that
canvas, and I seen a boat. Honest to grandma, that was the first boat
I ever seen in Yaller Rock County. I caresses myself a few and then I
squints at the bunch.
“Welcome, Ike,” says Magpie.
“You’re not!” says I.
“Aw, Ike, we needed another oarsman, and you’re from Piperock.”
“Originally from Missouri,” says I. “What are you sheep-herders trying
to pull off over here anyway?”
“Washington is going to cross the Delaware,” states Magpie.
“All right,” says I. “Let him cross it. It ain’t my river.”
“I reckon we better start, boys,” says Magpie. “Come in, Ike.”
“Not me! Never and not any!”
“You helped Curlew, Ike,” he reminds me chiding-like.
“Yes, and take a look at me! I won’t help nobody no more. I won’t even
help myself. You can all go plumb to thunder!”
I don’t know anything about boats. I might paddle my own canoe if I
had one, but I don’t know how to row. Buck can’t row, and neither can
Tellurium or Pete.
In the front end of the boat stands Magpie, with one foot histed up on
the end, and his hand still searching inside his shirt. That fedora sets
almost on his forehead. The multitude lets out a whoop as we emerges and
hits the current, which is fairly fast.
“Swing her up-stream!” yelps Magpie.
I hears a couple of shots ahead of us, so I drops my oar and ducks.
I reckon that Buck took the same precaution, ’cause the boat starts
whirling, being as all the motive power is on one side.
I peeks over the edge and here comes old Judge Steele hopping across
the rocks like a rabbit, and right behind him comes Hassayampa. The
judge hits the edge of the bank, hops high into the air and comes
right down among us.