Читать книгу Alec Lloyd, Cowpuncher - Gates Eleanor - Страница 4

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Ain’t it funny what little bits of things can sorta change a feller’s life all ’round ev’ry which direction–shuffle it up, you might say, and throw him out a brand new deal? Now, take my case: If a sassy greaser from the Lazy X ranch hadn’t ’a’ plugged Bud Hickok, Briggs City ’d never ’a’ got the parson; if the parson hadn’t ’a’ came, I’d never ’a’ gone to church; and mebbe if I hadn’t never ’a’ gone to church, it wouldn’t ’a’ made two cents diff’rence whether ole man Sewell was down on me ’r not–fer the reason that, likely, I’d never ’a’ met up with Her.

Now, I ain’t a-sayin’ I’m a’ almanac, ner one of them crazies that can study the trails in the middle of you’ hand and tell you that you’re a-goin’ to have ham and aigs fer breakfast. No, ma’am, I ain’t neither one. But, just the same, the very first time I clapped my lookers on the new parson, I knowed they was shore goin’ to be sev’ral things a-happenin’ ’fore long in that particular section of Oklahomaw.

As I said, Bud was responsible fer the parson comin’. Bud tied down his holster just oncet too many. The greaser called his bluff, and pumped lead into his system some. That called fer a funeral. Now, Mrs. Bud, she’s Kansas City when it comes to bein’ high-toned. And nothin’ would do but she must have a preacher. So the railroad agent got Williams, Arizonaw, on his click-machine, and we got the parson.

He was a new breed, that parson, a genuwine no-two-alike, come-one-in-a-box kind. He was big and young, with no hair on his face, and brownish eyes that ’peared to look plumb through y’ and out on the other side. Good-natured, y’ know, but actin’ as if he meant ev’ry word he said; foolin’ a little with y’, too, and friendly as the devil. And he didn’t wear parson duds–just a grey suit; not like us, y’ savvy–more like what the hotel clerk down to Albuquerque wears, ’r one of them city fellers that comes here to run a game.

Wal, the way he talked over pore Bud was a caution. Say! they was no “Yas, my brother,” ’r “No, my brother,” and no “Heaven’s will be done” outen him–nothin’ like it! And you’d never ’a’ smelt gun-play. Mrs. Bud ner the greaser that done the shootin’-up (he was at the buryin’) didn’t hear no word they could kick at, no, ma’am. The parson read somethin’ about the day you die bein’ a darned sight better ’n the day you was born. And his hull razoo was so plumb sensible that, ’fore he got done, the passel of us was all a-feelin’, somehow ’r other, that Bud Hickok had the drinks on us!

We planted Bud in city style. But the parson didn’t shassay back to Williams afterwards. We’d no more’n got our shaps on again, when Hairoil blowed in from the post-office up the street and let it out at the “Life Savin’ Station,” as Dutchy calls his thirst-parlour, that the parson was goin’ to squat in Briggs City fer a spell.

“Wal, of all the dog-goned propositions!” says Bill Rawson, mule-skinner over to the Little Rattlesnake Mine. “What’s he goin’ to do that fer, Hairoil?”

“Heerd we was goin’ to have a polo team,” answers Hairoil. “Reckon he’s kinda loco on polo. Anyhow, he’s took my shack.”

“Boys,” I tole the crowd that was wettin’ they whistles, “this preachin’ gent ain’t none of you’ ev’ry day, tenderfoot, hell-tooters. Polo, hey? He’s got savvy. Look a leedle oudt, as Dutchy, here, ’d put it. Strikes me this feller’ll hang on longer ’n any other parson that was ever in these parts ropin’ souls.”

Ole Dutch lay back his ears. “Better he do’n make no trubbles mit me,” he says.

Say! that was like tellin’ you’ fortune. The next day but one, right in front of the “Station,” trouble popped. This is how:

The parson ’d had all his truck sent over from Williams. In the pile they was one of them big, spotted dawgs–keerige dawgs, I think they call ’em. This particular dawg was so spotted you could ’a’ come blamed nigh playin’ checkers on him. Wal, Dutchy had a dawg, too. It wasn’t much of anythin’ fer fambly, I reckon,–just plain purp–but it shore had a fine set of nippers, and could jerk off the stearin’ gear of a cow quicker ’n greazed lightnin’. Wal, the parson come down to the post-office, drivin’ a two-wheel thing-um-a-jig, all yalla and black. ’Twixt the wheels was trottin’ his spotted dawg. A-course, the parson ’d no more’n stopped, when out comes that ornery purp of Dutchy’s. And such a set-to you never seen!

But it was all on one side, like a jug handle, and the keerige dawg got the heavy end. He yelped bloody murder and tried to skedaddle. The other just hung on, and bit sev’ral of them stylish spots clean offen him.

“Sir,” says the parson to Dutchy, when he seen the damage, “call off you’ beast.”

Dutchy, he just grinned. “Ock,” he says, “it mocks nix oudt if dey do sometinks. Here de street iss not brivate broperty.”

At that, the parson clumb down and drug his dawg loose. Then he looked up at the thirst-parlour. “What a name fer a saloon,” he says, “in a civilised country!”

A-course, us fellers enjoyed the fun, all right. And we fixed it up t’gether to kinda sic the Dutchman on. We seen that “Life Savin’ Station” stuck in the parson’s craw, and we made out to Dutch that like as not he ’d have to change his sign.

Dutch done a jig he was so mad. “Fer dat?” he ast, meanin’ the parson. “Nein! He iss not cross mit my sign. He vut like it, maype, if I gif him some viskey on tick. I bet you he trinks, I bet. Maype he trinks ret ink gocktails, like de Injuns; maype he trinks Florita Vater, oder golone. Ya! Ya! Vunce I seen a feller–I hat some snakes here in algohol–unt dat feller he trunk de algohol. Ya. Unt de minister iss just so bat as dat.”

Then, to show how he liked us, Dutchy set up the red-eye. And the next time the parson come along in his cart, they was a dawg fight in front of that saloon that was worth two-bits fer admission.

Don’t think the rest of us was agin the parson, though. We wasn’t. Fact it, we kinda liked him from the jump. We liked his riggin’, we liked the way he grabbed you’ paw, and he was no quitter when it come to a hoss. Say! but he could ride! One day when he racked into the post-office, his spur-chains a-rattlin’ like a puncher’s, and a quirt in his fist, one of the Bar Y boys rounded him up agin the meanest, low-down buckin’ proposition that ever wore the hide of a bronc. But the parson was game from his hay to his hoofs. He clumb into the saddle and stayed there, and went a-hikin’ off acrosst the prairie, independent as a pig on ice, just like he was a-straddlin’ some ole crow-bait!

So, when Sunday night come, and he preached in the school-house, he had quite a bunch of punchers corralled there to hear him. And I was one of ’em. (But, a-course, that first time, I didn’t have no idear it was a-goin’ to mean a turrible lot to me, that goin’ to church.) Wal, I’m blamed if the parson wasn’t wearin’ the same outfit as he did week days. We liked that. And he didn’t open up by tellin’ us that we was all branded and ear-marked a’ ready by the Ole Long-horn Gent. No, ma’am. He didn’t mention everlastin’ fire. And he didn’t ramp and pitch and claw his hair. Fact is, he didn’t hell-toot!

A-course, that spoiled the fun fer us. But he talked so straight, and kinda easy and honest, that he got us a-listenin’ to what he said.

Cain’t say we was stuck on his text, though. It run like this, that a smart man sees when a row’s a-comin’ and makes fer the tall cat-tails till the wind dies down. And he went on to say that a man oughta be humble, and that if a feller gives you a lick on the jaw, why, you oughta let him give you another to grow on. Think o’ that! It may be O. K. fer preachers, and fer women that ain’t strong enough t’ lam back. But fer me, nixey.

But that hand-out didn’t give the parson no black eye with us. We knowed it was his duty t’ talk that-a-way. And two ’r three of the boys got t’ proposin’ him fer the polo team real serious–pervided, a-course, that he’d stand fer a little cussin’ when the ’casion required. It was a cinch that he’d draw like wet rawhide.

Wal, the long and short of it is, he did. And Sunday nights, the Dutchman lost money. He begun t’ josh the boys about gittin’ churchy. It didn’t do no good,–the boys didn’t give a whoop fer his gass, and they liked the parson. All Dutchy could do was to sic his purp on to chawin’ spots offen that keerige dawg.

But pretty soon he got plumb tired of just dawg-fightin’. He prepared to turn hisself loose. And he advertised a free supper fer the very next Sunday night. When Sunday night come, they say he had a reg’lar Harvey layout. You buy a drink, and you git a stuffed pickle, ’r a patty de grass, ’r a wedge of pie druv into you’ face.

No go. The boys was on to Dutchy. They knowed he was the stingiest gezaba in these parts, and wouldn’t give away a nickel if he didn’t reckon on gittin’ six-bits back. So, more fer devilment ’n anythin’ else, the most of ’em fooled him some–just loped to the school-house.

The parson was plumb tickled.

But it didn’t last. The next Sunday, the “Life Savin’ Station” had Pete Gans up from Apache to deal a little faro. And as it rained hard enough t’ keep the women folks away, why, the parson preached to ole man Baker (he’s deef), the globe and the chart and the map of South Amuricaw. And almost ev’ry day of the next week, seems like, that purp of Dutchy’s everlastin’ly chawed the parson’s. The spotted dawg couldn’t go past the thirst-parlour, ’r anywheres else. The parson took to fastenin’ him up. Then Dutchy’d mosey over towards Hairoil’s shack. Out’d come Mister Spots. And one, two, three, the saloon dawg ’d sail into him.

Then a piece of news got ’round that must ’a’ made the parson madder ’n a wet hen. Dutchy cleaned the barrels outen his hind room and put up a notice that the next Sunday night he’d give a dance. To finish things, the dawgs had a worse fight’n ever Friday mornin’, and the parson’s lost two spots and a’ ear.

I seen a change in the parson that evenin’. When he come down to the post-office, them brown eyes of his’n was plumb black, and his face was redder’n Sam Barnes’s. “Things is goin’ to happen,” I says to myself, “ ’r I ain’t no judge of beef.”

Sunday night, you know, a-course, where the boys went. But I drawed lots with myself and moseyed over to the school-house to keep a bench warm. And here is when that new deal was laid out on the table fer you’ little friend Cupid!

I slid in and sit down clost to the door. Church wasn’t begun yet, and the dozen ’r so of women was a-waitin’ quieter’n mice, some of ’em readin’ a little, some of ’em leanin’ they haids on the desks, and some of ’em kinda peekin’ through they fingers t’ git the lay of the land. Wal, I stretched my neck,–and made out t’ count more’n fifty spit-balls on a life-size chalk drawin’ of the school-ma’am.

Next thing, the parson was in and a-pumpin’ away–all fours–at the organ, and the bunch of us was on our feet a-singin’––

“Yield not to tempta-a-ation, ’Cause yieldin’ is sin. Each vic’try––”

We’d got about that far when I shut off, all of a suddent, and cocked my haid t’ listen. Whose voice was that?–as clear, by thunder! as the bugle up at the Reservation. Wal, sir, I just stood there, mouth wide open.

“Some other to win. Strive manfully onwards––”

Then, I begun t’ look ’round. Couldn’t be the Kelly kid’s maw (I’d heerd her call the hawgs), ner the teacher, ner that tall lady next her, ner––

Spotted the right one! Up clost to the organ was a gal I’d never saw afore. So many was in the way that I wasn’t able t’ git more’n a squint at her back hair. But, say! it was mighty pretty hair–brown, and all sorta curly over the ears.

When the song was over, ole lady Baker sit down just in front of me; and as she’s some chunky, she cut off nearly the hull of my view. “But, Cupid,” I says to myself, “I’ll bet that wavy hair goes with a sweet face.”

Minute after, the parson begun t’ speak. Wal, soon as ever he got his first words out, I seen that the air was kinda blue and liftin’, like it is ’fore a thunder-shower. And his text? It was, “Lo, I am full of fury, I am weary with holdin’ it in.”

Say! that’s the kind of preachin’ a puncher likes!

After he was done, and we was all ready t’ go, I tried to get a better look at that gal. But the women folks was movin’ my direction, shakin’ hands and gabblin’ fast to make up fer lost time. Half a dozen of ’em got ’round me. And when I got shet of the bunch, she was just a-passin’ out at the far door. My! such a slim, little figger and such a pert, little haid!

I made fer the parson. “Excuse me,” I says to him, “but wasn’t you talkin’ to a young lady just now? and if it ain’t too gally, can I in-quire who she is?”

“Why, yas,” answers the parson, smilin’ and puttin’ one hand on my shoulder. (You know that cuss never oncet ast me if I was a Christian? Aw! I tell y’, he was a gent.) “That young lady is Billy Trowbridge’s sister-in-law.”

“Sister-in-law!” I repeats. (She was married, then. Gee! I hated t’ hear that! ’Cause, just havin’ helped Billy t’ git his wife, y’ savvy, why––) “But, parson, I didn’t know the Doc had a brother.” (I felt kinda down on Billy all to oncet.)

“He ain’t,” says the parson. “(Good-night, Mrs. Baker.) This young lady is Mrs. Trowbridge’s sister.”

“Mrs. Trowbridge’s sister?”

“Yas,–ole man Sewell’s youngest gal. She’s been up to St. Louis goin’ t’ school.” He turned out the bracket lamp.

Ole man Sewell’s youngest gal! Shore enough, they was another gal in that fambly. But she was just a kid when she was in Briggs the last time,–not more’n fourteen ’r fifteen, anyhow,–and I’d clean fergot about her.

“Her name’s Macie,” goes on the parson.

“Macie–Macie Sewell–Macie.” I said it over to myself two ’r three times. I’d never liked the name Sewell afore. But now, somehow, along with Her name, it sounded awful fine. “Macie–Macie Sewell.”

“Cupid, I wisht you’d walk home with me,” says the parson. “I want t’ ast you about somethin’.”

“Tickled t’ death.”

Whilst he locked up, I waited outside. “M’ son,” I says to myself, “nothin’ could be foolisher than fer you to git you’ eye fixed on a belongin’ of ole man Sewell’s. Just paste that in you’ sunbonnet.”

Wal, I rid Shank’s mare over t’ Hairoil’s. Whilst we was goin’, the parson opened up on the subject of Dutchy and that nasty, mean purp of hisn. And I ketched on, pretty soon, to just what he was a-drivin’ at. I fell right in with him. I’d never liked Dutchy such a turrible lot anyhow,–and I did want t’ be a friend to the parson. So fer a hour after we hit the shack, you might ’a’ heerd me a-talkin’ (if you’d been outside) and him a-laughin’ ev’ry minute ’r so like he’d split his sides.

Monday was quiet. I spent the day at Silverstein’s Gen’ral Merchandise Store, which is next the post-office. (Y’ see, She might come in fer the Bar Y mail.) The parson got off a long letter to a feller at Williams. And Dutchy was awful busy–fixin’ up a fine shootin’-gallery at the back of his “Life Savin’ Station.”

Tuesday, somethin’ happened at the parson’s. Right off after the five-eight train come in from the south, Hairoil druv down to the deepot and got a big, square box and rushed home with it. When he come into the thirst-parlour about sun-set, the boys ast him what the parson was gittin’. He just wunk.

“I bet I knows,” says Dutchy. “De preacher mans buys some viskey, alretty.”

Hairoil snickered. “Wal,” he says, “what I carried over was nailed up good and tight, all right, all right.”

Wal, say! that made the boys suspicious, and made ’em wonder if they wasn’t a darned good reason fer the parson not wearin’ duds like other religious gents, and fer his knowin’ how to ride so good. And they was sore–bein’ that they’d stood up so strong fer him, y’ savvy.

“A cow-punch,” says Monkey Mike, “ ’ll swaller almost any ole thing, long ’s it’s right out on the table. But he shore cain’t go a hippy-crit.”

“You blamed idjits!” chips in Buckshot Millikin, him that owns such a turrible big bunch of white-faces, and was run outen Arizonaw fer rustlin’ sheep, “what can y’ expect of a preacher, that comes from Williams?”

Dutchy seen how they all felt, and he was plumb happy. “Vot I tole y’?” he ast. But pretty soon he begun to laugh on the other side of his face. “If dat preacher goes to run a bar agin me,” he says, “py golly, I makes no more moneys!”

Fer a minute, he looked plumb scairt.

But the boys was plumb disgusted. “The parson’s been playin’ us fer suckers,” they says to each other; “he’s been a-soft-soapin’ us, a-flimflammin’ us. He thinks we’s as blind as day-ole kittens.” And the way that Tom-fool of a Hairoil hung ’round, lookin’ wise, got under they collar. After they’d booted him outen the shebang, they all sit down on the edge of the stoop, just sayin’ nothin’–but sawin’ wood.

I sit down, too.

We wasn’t there more’n ten minutes when one of the fellers jumped up. “There comes the parson now,” he says.

Shore enough. There come the parson in his fancy two-wheel Studebaker, lookin’ as perky as thunder. “Gall?” says Buckshot. “Wal, I should smile!” Under his cart, runnin’ ’twixt them yalla wheels, was his spotted dawg.

I hollered in to Dutchy. “Where’s you’ purp, Dutch?” I ast. “The parson’s haided this way.”

Dutchy was as tickled as a kid with a lookin’-glass and a hammer. He dropped his bar-towel and hawled out his purp.

“Vatch me!” he says.

The parson was a good bit closter by now, settin’ up straight as a telegraph pole, and a-hummin’ to hisself. He was wearin’ one of them caps with a cow-catcher ’hind and ’fore, knee britches, boots and a sweater.

“A svetter, mind y’!” says Dutchy.

“Be a Mother Hubbard next,” says Bill Rawson.

Somehow, though, as the parson come ’longside the post-office, most anybody wouldn’t ’a’ liked the way thinks looked. You could sorta smell somethin’ explodey. He was too all-fired songful to be natu’al. And his dawg! That speckled critter was as diff’rent from usual as the parson. His good ear was curled up way in, and he was kinda layin’ clost to the ground as he trotted along–layin’ so clost he was plumb bow-legged.

Wal, the parson pulled up. And he’d no more’n got offen his seat when, first rattle outen the box, them dawgs mixed.

Gee whillikens! such a mix! They wasn’t much of the reg’lar ki-yin’. Dutchy’s purp yelped some; but the parson’s? Not fer him! He just got a good holt–a shore enough diamond hitch–on that thirst-parlour dawg, and chawed. Say! And whilst he chawed, the dust riz up like they was one of them big sand-twisters goin’ through Briggs City. All of a suddent, how that spotted dawg could fight!

Dutchy didn’t know what ’d struck him. He runs out. “Come, hellup,” he yells to the parson.

The parson shook his head. “This street is not my private property,” he says.

Then Dutchy jumped in and begun t’ kick the parson’s dawg in the snoot. The parson walks up and stops Dutchy.

That made the Dutchman turrible mad. He didn’t have no gun on him, so out he jerks his pig-sticker.

What happened next made our eyes plumb stick out. That parson side-stepped, put out a hand and a foot, and with that highfalutin’ Jewie Jitsie you read about, tumbled corn-beef-and-cabbage on to his back. Then he straddled him and slapped his face.

“Lieber!” screeched Dutchy.

“Goin’ t’ have any more Sunday night dances?” ast the parson. (Bing, bang.)

“Nein! Nein!”

“Any more” (bing, bang) “free Sunday suppers?”

“Nein! Nein! Hellup!”

“Goin’ to change this” (biff, biff) “saloon’s name!”

“Ya! Ya! Gott!”

The parson got up. “Amen!” he says.

Then he runs into Silverstein’s, grabs a pail of water, comes out again, and throws it on to the dawgs.

The Dutchman’s purp was done fer a’ready. And the other one was tired enough to quit. So when the water splashed, Dutchy got his dawg by the tail and drug him into the thirst-parlour.

But that critter of the parson’s. Soon as the water touched him, them spots of hisn begun to run. Y’ see, he wasn’t the stylish keerige dawg at all! He was a jimber-jawed bull!

Wal, the next Sunday night, the school-house was chuck full. She wasn’t there–no, Monkey Mike tole me she was visitin’ down to Goldstone; but, a-course, all the rest of the women folks was. And about forty-’leven cow-punchers was on hand, and Buckshot, and Rawson and Dutchy,–yas, ma’am, Dutchy, we rounded him up. Do y’ think after such a come-off we was goin’ to let that limburger run any compytition place agin our parson?