“Scenery,” says I, “some day I’m going to assassinate you.”
“Just like you did——”
“Whoa!” snorts Bill. “Don’t say that, Scenery. I want to know where
Magpie Simpkins is.”
“Tellurium said—” begins Scenery, but Bill shuts him up.
“Never mind what anybody told you: I want a statement from Ike.”
“Tellurium said, did he?” says I. “I don’t know what he said, Bill, but
I do know that he knows where Magpie is, and I promised that same
Tellurium Woods that I wouldn’t tell. Sabe?”
“But the lady here said something about a bear,” whines Scenery. “She
said——”
“Too much talk,” snaps Bill. “Mighty talks about wild men until the
whole country is aroused, and then this here lady orates about bears
that bray, and Tellurium wails about pie thieves. Danged place is
getting too civilized. Reckon I’ll go up and talk with Tellurium. Come
on, Scenery.”
They pilgrims away, and I sets down on the porch.
“We’re going away, too,” states Mrs. Professor, “I—I won’t stay here
another night. We’ll go to Piperock and live at the hotel.”
“You got some riding animals, ma’am?” asks Mighty.
“Bureaus,” says the old lady. “We don’t know the way down there, but I’d
rather be lost than to stay here.”
“I’ll escort you down,” offers Mighty, grinning at me. “Where are your
riding-rigs?”
I don’t offer no information or help. What’s the use of arguing with a
female? When they turns and waves at me from down the trail, I just
throws away my cigaret and goes into the cabin. If they wants to
interpret that gesture as a wave it’s up to them.
I hears somebody yelp outside, when I’m almost asleep, so I goes outside
and shakes hands with “Old Testament” Tilton and his family. The old
pelican is on another one of his pilgrimages after souls, and takes his
wife and daughter along. They has a pack-outfit, and the old lady orates
that she’d admire a chance to look at our stove.
“I’ve shed tears over a camp-fire so long that I hankers for a stove,”
says she.
Mrs. Tilton looks like a relic of the Puritans and her daughter ain’t
more than a jump behind her.
“Come on, Drusilla,” says she, “we’ll make some biscuits, while father
quotes a few scriptures to Mr. Harper.”
“Ma’am,” says I, bowing low, “I’d rather see you making biscuits. I
figure that there ain’t nothing better for a man’s soul than to see a
pretty woman making biscuits.”
Maybe I stretched the beauty part a heap, but I’ve been corraled before
by Old Testament, and I’d a heap rather add an extra lie to my already
overload of sin than to stand for his line of talk. Old Testament pulls
off his boots and lays down on a bunk, while the old lady digs into the
flour. Miss Drusilla pokes her nose into a magazine, and I sets there
and smokes. I’d just about forgot Magpie, when all to once I hears a
noise at the door. There stands the professor.
Yes, thank you, he’s still got the blanket. He seems to have cut a hole
in it for each leg to stick through, and there he stands, holding on to
the corners of that blanket. He’s got a rope around his waist, but don’t
seem to have much confidence in it.
The old boy seems to have lost his specs and most of his ambition, but
he pilgrims right inside and throws one arm around Mrs. Tilton.
“My darling,” he gurgles, “I’m through. I find that the theory is all
right but the practise is impossible. Were you worried?”
Old Testament sets up on the bunk and looks goggle-eyed at the old coot,
but beyond the professor’s oration there ain’t a word spoken for several
seconds.
Sudden-like the old lady tears away, and the next second sees the
professor crowned with a pan of dough. Believe me, it was some
coronation. He backs away, clawing the flour out of his eyes, and sets
down on Drusilla’s lap.
He stares at the surroundings, foolish-like, and then he sort of sees
things in their right light. Just then comes a delicate sort of a cough
at the door, and we all turns.
I don’t know where the doctor made the raise, but he’d got a dirty
saddle blanket draped around him, and a look of disgust on his face. He
looks like nature had sure put him in bad humor.
“Lead us not into temptation,” I hears Old Testament say, and sees him
reaching for the doctor’s shotgun.
The professor slips off Drusilla’s lap and makes a quick limp for the
door.
“It’s all wrong, Doctor,” says he, through the dough. “It’s——”
I reckon the doctor thought the same about it, ’cause them two mismated
cave men starts going away as fast as possible.
Old Testament clumps past me, and before I can stop him he bangs away
with both barrels of that gun. I reckon the professor is so thin it
would take a choke-bored gun to hit him at ten feet, but the doctor
seems to go out of his way to hurdle a stump.
Old Testament picks himself up out of the dirt, and circles around and
sets down on the porch. I reckon that gun was loaded by an anarchist.
“Heaven is my home!” exclaims Mrs. Tilton, leaning against the doorway,
while Drusilla pants like a tired pup.
“Brother Harper, I’d admire to know what that was!” groans Old
Testament, holding his head in his hands.
“Sounded like half a stick of dynamite in each barrel,” says I, and just
then I turns and sees Mrs. Professor and Angeline, setting right there
on their burros, looking at us.
Mrs. Professor tumbles off her noble steed, waddles right over and grabs
Old Testament by the ear.
“You assassin!” she whoops. “What did you shoot at my Wallie for?”
“Your—madam, you’re hurting me!” squeaks the old man. “Let go my ear! I
don’t know who Wallie is but I do know that one of them cannibals kissed
my wife.”
“Kissed your wife?” wonders the old lady, and then she stares at Mrs.
Tilton. “Well!” she gasps. “Wallie must have lost his glasses!”
Them four females acts like they belonged to the same club, and when
nobody seems to want to make conversation, I speaks up and says—
“I thought you ladies were on your way to Piperock.”
“We were,” nods Mrs. Professor. “Our guide was behind us, and all at
once he disappeared, so we came back.”
Bill McFee and Scenery Sims rides into the yard and sort of relieves the
situation.
“Tellurium wasn’t home,” states Bill. “You get your hat, Ike, and come
along with us. There’s something queer about this layout, if you asks
me.”
“Amen,” says Old Testament, “wild and queer. Look! Who’s dead now?”
* * * * *
It was a queer outfit. Two calico broncs, without enough harness for
one, hitched to an antiquated hearse. One black wooden plume still sways
drunken-like from one corner; and the glass windows on the sides are so
dirty and patched that you can’t see inside. It’s the equipage of old
Runs-With-a-Wolf.
In order to make it a Winter vehicle, the old boy cut a hole under the
seat to run his lines through so he can lie on his stummick and drive
from inside. It looks like an orderly sort of a runaway—not having a
visible driver, and the crowd splits as it swings around in front of the
cabin and stops.