Skeeter staged his commercial transaction with some forethought. He
chose nine negroes whom he knew to be possessed of ten dollars each, and
asked them to meet him out at the old fair-grounds. He got Little Bit,
who was the colored jockey of Tickfall, to give the horse a try-out.
In appearance, the horse was all the white man said he was, and more. He
had a peculiar slinking gait, like a limp, sometimes in one foot, then
in another. Often he seemed to be limping in all four feet at the same
time.
The negroes howled in derision when Skeeter proposed to be one of ten to
buy the animal. They examined his feet and made many comments, and
finally proposed to bet Skeeter ten dollars that he could not tell what
leg the horse would limp on the next time he started off.
But when Little Bit climbed on that horse the negroes stopped laughing.
He could run like a jack-rabbit, and really had the jack-rabbit’s
peculiar springy, limpy gait.
“Dis hoss is a powerful funny pufformer,” Conko Mukes howled; “but I
puts my ten on him. He’s a runner!”
“Who’s gwine take keer of dis hoss whut belongs to us ten niggers?” Pap
Curtain inquired.
“I’ll keep him an’ feed him,” Skeeter answered. “I kin turn him in a big
pasture dat belongs to Marse John Flournoy, an’ Marse John won’t ever
know he’s in de field. I’ll feed him Marse John’s oats and corn, an’ dat
white man won’t ever miss it.”
Two hours later Skeeter returned to the Hen-Scratch and handed Mr. Nuhat
the sum of ninety dollars.
“I turned de hoss in de pasture back of de sheriff’s house,” he
volunteered. “Part of de trade wus dat I wus to take keer of de hoss. I
reckin de tenth part dat I bought is de part whut eats.”
“Would you be held responsible if anything happened to the animal?”
Nuhat asked.
“Not onless he choked to death,” Skeeter laughed. “I jes’ takes keer of
de eatin’ end.”
“I’m sorry I could not go on to Shongaloon,” the white man said quietly.
“There’s a lot of good money to be picked up betting on that horse at
the races.”
“We’ll slick him up an’ git him feelin’ good an’ bet on him some
ourselfs,” Skeeter said.
“Don’t make him look too fit,” Nuhat warned him. “That horse’s looks get
the odds against him. Nobody bets against something that looks like a
winner.”
A few minutes later the white man bought a package of cigarettes from
Skeeter Butts, thanked him for the sale of the horse, and walked out.
Until midnight Skeeter was alone in the Hen-Scratch. No one came in to
patronize his soft-drink emporium. The man was in the depths of despair.
His place had always been the popular hang-out for all the plain loafers
and fancy sons of rest. Now there were none so lazy as to enter a place
which had nothing of its former attractiveness but a name.
“De niggers avoids dis place like it wus a pesthouse,” Skeeter lamented
to himself. “Ef I had about two hundred dollars I could start me a
movin’-picture show fer colored only in dis little house, an’ sell soft
drinks on de side. Dat would fotch de crowd back, an’ de men would bring
de lady folks, an’ I could git rid of a lot of ice-cream combs an’
things like dat.”
He smoked many cigarettes, lighting a fresh one on the stub of each old
one, trying to think out a way to get some money for his new enterprise.
“Mebbe I could work some kind of flim-flam wid dat hoss,” he sighed.
“But I cain’t make money very fast ef I got to ’vide up my profits by
ten.”
It had never occurred to Skeeter to question the white man’s ownership
of that horse, nor his right to dispose of it. The animal looked like
just such an old skate as a broken-down race-horse man would own at the
end of his track career. When a horseman retires from the turf, he
generally has something like that to get rid of.
Skeeter did not get to his home on Sheriff John Flournoy’s premises
until midnight. He did not go to see his new horse until the next
morning at feeding-time.
When he went to the pasture, he found that a gap was broken in the fence
and the horse was gone.
“We better hunt dat hoss befo’ he gits too fur away,” Skeeter said to
himself. “I reckin he’s gone back home; but I don’t know whar his home
is at, an’ I ain’t know which way to look fer him.”
Two hours later all ten owners of the animal were searching for him.
Such a task was hopeless at the start, for the animal could go into the
swamp in any direction around Tickfall and disappear forever. A strange
animal, like a strange man, seldom came out of that jungle if he entered
it alone.
The ten men made a circle of the town, walking on the edge of the swamp,
looking for tracks. They were experienced in reading signs, but they
could not find a place where an animal had entered the jungle.
Concluding that the horse had kept in some beaten path, they separated,
each following a winding trail in the great hot-house of the morass,
slimy with rusty-colored oily water, and all acrawl with repulsive form
of insect and animal life.
At noon they all met at the broken place in the fence where the horse
had escaped. The ground was soft, and yet they could find no hoof-tracks
leading from the field to the highroad.
They did not know that Dick Nuhat had tied some cotton bagging under
each hoof of his limpy horse before he led him through the gap.
About ten o’clock that night, Conko Mukes, entered the Hen-Scratch
saloon.
“Skeeter, I come to git my money back,” he said. “I done decided not to
buy no race-hoss.”
“You cain’t git yo’ money back,” Skeeter said. “De white man took all
our dollars wid him, an’ now our hoss done eloped away.”
“I don’t know no white man,” Conko Mukes said belligerently. “I never
seen no white man. I ain’t saw nobody but you, didn’t make no trade wid
nobody but you, an’ I got a mighty shawt look at dat hoss whut I paid my
good ten dollars fer. Now I’s lookin’ to you!”
“I got a mighty little look, too,” Skeeter said placatingly. “I ain’t
got a real good recollection of whut dat hoss looked like. I ain’t real
shore I’d know him in de road ef he didn’t limp none.”
“I ain’t buyin’ no absent hoss,” Conko said. “I want my money back!”
“But de white man is got our money,” Skeeter explained again. “You won’t
git yo’ money onless you finds de white man; an’ he’ll be harder to find
dan de hoss. You had a look at de hoss, but you never saw de white man
whut sold it.”
“I ain’t seem’ nobody but you,” Conko Mukes remarked in a hard tone. “I
gived you my money an’ you tuck it, an’ you is de mighty nigh white man
whut is got to give it back!”
“I ain’t got no money!” Skeeter Butts wailed.
“Git it!” Conko Mukes barked.
With this command he drew a large pistol from a holster under his left
arm and laid it on the table with the business end pointing toward
Skeeter Butts.
Skeeter turned almost white. Conko had the reputation of having killed
several men, and Skeeter had no desire to be commemorated by the next
notch carved on the butt of his gun.
He rose hastily to his feet and started toward the little safe in the
corner of the barroom. Conko followed him, his big gun punching at a
spot between Skeeter’s shoulder blades, which turned cold as ice from
the contact of the steel. Conko was not sure whether Skeeter was going
after money or a gun.
The trembling barkeeper stooped and opened the little door of his safe.
He took out the only ten dollars he had in the world and thrust it into
Conko’s hands.
“Good-by, Skeeter,” Conko grinned. “Dat wus a very narrer escapement fer
you. I done kilt plenty niggers fer less money!”