“What ain’t?” he asks.
“Them D. T’s. I had an idea they was more serpentine, as yuh might say.”
“That D. T. stuff means Dramatic Teacher.”
“Pertainin’ to actin’?” asks Peewee.
“With flourishes,” admits Hank. “She learns yuh stage actin’.”
“I’ve allus hankered to be a contortionist,” says Peewee. “Yuh don’t
suppose she teaches yuh how to bend, do yuh?”
“Does that come under the headin’ of dramatic?”
“It shore would, if Peewee ever bent,” says I. “He lays on his back now
to pull on his boots. But what in hell is a dramatic teacher doin’ in
San Pablo?”
“It ain’t clear to me jist yet,” says Hank “Judgment Jones and her kinda
holds several pow-wows, and it’s somethin’ to do with the church.
Judgment has been tryin’ to raise money enough to buy himself some fresh
pants, or a pulpit or a bell, or somethin’ needful for Christianity. He
ain’t flourished yet, as yuh might say. He said he’d have some news for
me in a short time.”
“That woman is pretty,” says Peewee. “You better keep away from her,
Hank.”
“I’m a married man--and I’m satisfied.”
“Satisfied that yo’re married?”
“Thoroughly convinced,” said Hank sadly. “Oh, it’s all right with me,
but when I see a damned old hi-ree-glyphic like Zibe Hightower shinin’
around her, grinnin’ like a Hallowe’en cat, I git hot. I said to him,
‘You ought to have more sense, you danged old shadder of a vanished
age.’ And he says, ‘I’m single, ain’t I?’
“I told him he was worse than single--that he was minus one, and he got
hot. Said jist because I was happily married, I was tryin’ to keep him
from marriage bliss. Marriage bliss! And Mrs. Judgment Jones is kinda on
the warpath, too. She thinks Judgment is showin’ this here D. T. woman
too much attention. She told Mrs. Zeke Hardy that she knowed Judgment
was smitten, ’cause for the first time in years and years he washed the
back of his neck. She said the only reason Judgment faces the devil is
’cause he’s ashamed to turn around on account of his neck. Oh, I dunno.
The whole town is kinda stirred up.”
“Susie stirred up?” I asks.
“Most always is. She’s learnin’ to shoot a six-gun. Hurt her arm the
last time she throwed a flat-iron at me. Them things kinda keep a man
active, I s’pose. Some married men kinda git in a rut, but if I ever do
I’m a goner. Well, I took her for better or worse, and I shore got it.”
* * * * *
We left Hank to his reveries of a squirshed love, and has a few drinks
at the No-Limit, after which we’re unfortunate in runnin’ into Zibe
Hightower. He’s wearin’ a clean shirt and he shore smells of perfume.
“Heel-yuh-tripe?” asks Peewee. “Zibe, yuh shore smell tainted. Mebbe
it’s ’cause yo’re so old--kept too long, as yuh might say.”
“I smell to suit m’self!” snaps Zibe.
“Exclusive of everybody else. Why all the odor?”
“Ain’t this a free country?”
“With certain limits. You ain’t learnin’ dramatics, are yuh, Zibe?”
“Why not? All the world’s a stage.”
“And that makes us all stage drivers,” says I.
“Yo’re funny,” says Zibe. “Yuh ought to study comedy. Pers’nally, I’ve
got the physical assets to make a tragedian--voice, carriage--”
“Squeak and a buckboard,” interrupts Peewee. “Tragedian!”
“I have so. I could do Shakespeare.”
“Shore--in a horse-trade. As far as that’s concerned, I ain’t never seen
anybody yuh couldn’t do, Zibe. Yo’re in love.”
“No such a damn thing!”
“How old is she?”
“I ain’t askin’ no lady her age. Anyway, age don’t make no difference;
so--sa-a-a-ay, what lady are yuh talkin’ about?”
“The one Judgment Jones is nutty about.”
“That old Scriptural scorpion!”
“He’s here to save yore soul. Said so last Sunday.”
“Well, he don’t need to worry about my soul. I don’t.”
“Yuh would, if yuh had any. Right now all yuh need is one of them little
bird whistles to make yuh imitate a flower garden. Man, yuh shore smell
like a bed of Sweet Williams.”
“Some day, Peewee Parker, I’m goin’ to hang yore hide on a bobwire
fence.”
“Pick yore day, feller, and bring the lady along.”
Not bein’ interested in dramatic teachin’ nor the troubles of married
folks, me and Peewee goes back to the HP ranch. We’re dependable and as
honest as the average run of cowpunchers. Of course, we don’t cut down
no cherry trees, and then run our legs off to tell folks about it, but
we git along. As long as the law keeps away from us, we’ll keep away
from the law.
That night at supper time, Peewee gits to tellin’ me about one time he
acts in a play. I figure he’s lyin’, of course, but a good lie is
interestin’. Accordin’ to Peewee, he’s a pretty good actor. He shot six
men in this play--two at one shot. He’s one of them pyramid liars--keeps
pilin’ one on top of the other. I stopped him before he got too good. I
ain’t never done no actin’, but I never seen anythin’ a Sykes couldn’t
do; that is, anythin’ that’s honest.
“It took me a long time to git as good as I was,” says Peewee. “I’ll bet
I was good enough to git a job in New York actin’ on a stage.”
“You wasn’t a good actor--you was a good shot. All the good actors I
ever seen killed ’em with knives.”
“Well,” says Peewee, “I was a good actor. I wanted to kill ’em with
knives, but the boss said, ‘You go ahead and shoot ’em, Peewee--knives
is too messy.’”
“You never played in Shakespeare, didja?” I asks.
“Nope, only in Dry Lake. This was a home talent show. But I’m good. The
stage shore got robbed when I turned my talents to punchin’ cows.”
“Yeah, and for turnin’ yore talents yuh ought to be arrested for cruelty
to dumb animals,” says I.
* * * * *
The next day Hank Potts showed up, unfolded from his bronc, and sat down
with us on the porch of the adobe ranchhouse. Hank looks kinda shopworn,
as yuh might say.
“I came out to rest m’ nerves,” says he. “I’m a actor.”
“What kind of a actor?” queried Peewee.
“Good. I’m the leadin’ man--hee-roo--gits the fair damsel in the end.”
“Who is the fair damsel--Miss Eveline Annabel Wimple, D. T?” I asks.
“Don’t be comical, Horde,” says Hank kinda sad-like.
“Speak--yo’re among friends,” says Peewee.
“It’s thisaway,” sighs Hank. “We held a meetin’ last night. Miss Wimple
aims to put on a show for the benefit of the church.”
“And the meetin’ busted up in a fight,” says Peewee, bein’ somewhat of a
prophet.
“A discussion,” says Hank. “Miss Wimple has a play of her own, which she
desires us to play. Bein’ as she is to furnish the play, train the
actors, et cettery, and all that, she’s to receive seventy-five percent
of the profits, the other twenty-five percent goin’ to Judgment Jones
and his church.
“That started a argument among us. Miss Wimple argues that her play is a
dinger, and the only available play in this county, when my wife----”
“She would,” agrees Peewee.
“I never knowed Susie wrote a play,” confesses Hank. “I never knowed a
thing about it, until she steps out and says we can have her play free.”
“It would be worth at least that,” says Peewee.
“She calls it--” Hank stops to sigh deeplike--“_The Curse of Drink_. And
me runnin’ a first-class rum shop.”
“Mebbe,” says Peewee, “she meant sody water or some soft drink.”
Hank shakes his head. “I read it, Peewee.”
“What’s it all about, anyway?”
“Gawd forgive me for sayin’ anythin’ against my wife, but I don’t know
what it’s all about. Miss Wimple read it. Judgin’ from the expression of
her face, as she read it, it’s a comedy. Even if Susie don’t think so.
I’m goin’ to be Howard Chesterfield, a jockey. I’m the jigger,” says
Hank sad-like, jambin’ his derby down over one eye, “what wins the race,
saves the mortgage and wins the girl.”
“That’d be worth goin’ a long ways to see,” says I.
“That’s what Miss Wimple said. But we’re short of actors. Susie suggests
that we git you two fellers to play with us. But I said neither of yuh
knowed the first thing about actin’, and Miss Wimple said that mebbe I
was right, ’cause, as she read the play, it needed somebody with more
brains than an ordinary cowpuncher has to play them parts.”
“Lemme tell you somethin’!” says Peewee. “I’ve done more actin’ than you
ever seen. I was a actor before you ever knowed there was anythin’ but a
four-wheel stage on earth; and I never seen any part I can’t play.”
“I ditto all that and sign my name,” says I. “When it comes to play
actin’, a Sykes jist falls naturally into the part.”
“This is a hard play to act,” says Hank.
“That’s my meat,” declares Peewee. “I’ve shore bit off some hard ones.”
“Didja ever see a horse on the stage?” asks Hank.
“Well,” says Peewee, “I kinda have, but I never favored ’em.”
“This’n has got to have a racehorse for me to ride. Susie said we ort to
have a lot of horses to make up the race, but--I dunno.”
“Yuh might use Tequila,” says I, and Hank kinda shudders. Tequila was a
racehorse. I say “was,” meanin’ the present time. Hank bought him off a
horse-trader for a hundred dollars. Fastest horse on earth for a hundred
yards, and then crossed his front feet. Always crossed his front feet.
Worked himself into a lather, looked like a racehorse, ran like a scared
coyote for a hundred yards and then--well, Hank kept him.
“Might use him,” admitted Hank. “Got a lotta sense.”
* * * * *
Hank wouldn’t commit himself further, and went back to San Pablo. We
don’t hear nothin’ more about it for a couple days, when cometh
“Dog-Rib” Davidson, of Oasis. Dog-Rib almost runs Zibe Hightower a
dead-heat, when it comes to bein’ mean, and if all the hate in his
carcass was laid end to end, yuh could use it for a trail marker from
New York to Honolulu.
“I’ve been laughin’ m’self hoarse for two days,” says Dog-Rib. “Them
there San Pabloers are goin’ to put on a play-actin’ show, with Hank
Boll-Weevil Potts as the big he buzzard of the flock. Calls it _The
Curse of Drink_. Haw, haw, haw! Can yuh imagine it? I can’t. I’ve seen
shows in my life, I have.”
“You look like yuh had seen plenty, but never had none,” says Peewee.
“You shore look to me like a man who never had a show from the start.”
“I’ve allus got along,” says Dog-Rib.
“I reckon all of Oasis will be at the show,” says I.
“Oh, shore. Accordin’ to their epitaphs, every ticket will have a number
on it, and the lucky ticket will win Hank Potts’s racehorse. The tickets
are one dollar per each, and no questions asked. Alkali and Oasis has
shore invested heavy in them tickets. But it’ll be a awful show.”
“It’s about time they asked us in to learn our parts,” says Peewee,
after Dog-Rib goes away. “We’ve got to have a little time.”
But by that time the next day there hadn’t nobody showed up to tell us;
so we saddled up and went to San Pablo. The bartender at Hank’s place
tells us that the actors and actresses are all over at the San Pablo
Hall, where the _Curse of Drink_ is to make its showin’, and then he
gave us a couple of handbills which read: