Читать книгу Black John of Halfaday Creek - James B. Hendryx - Страница 8

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One morning a few days after the hanging of Peanuts Landowski, Black John Smith turned from the bar, where two empty glasses and a bottle gave mute evidence that the day’s activity had begun, to face the three men who stood grinning in the open doorway.

“Well, I’ll be damned if it ain’t the sourdoughs!” he exclaimed. “By God, I know’d it was only a question of time till you old reprobates would be seekin’ the sanctity of Halfaday! But I figgered you’d kind of trickle in, one at a time, fer individual infringements of the law. What sort of mass crime did you commit—tip over somebody’s backhouse? Come on in! Cush is buyin’ a drink. We jest be’n havin’ our mornin’s mornin’.”

Old Bettles, dean of the sourdoughs, glanced at the clock and shook his head disapprovingly as the three advanced to the bar. “Here it is nine o’clock, lackin’ of fifteen minutes, an’ you jest havin’ yer mornin’s mornin’. Cripes, we’ve be’n five hours on the trail!”

Black John grinned as old Cush set out the glasses. “Oh shore. There’s be’n times when I’ve had to git an early start an’ pick ’em up and lay ’em down pretty fast, too. Like them first few days immijitly subsequent to that army pay-roll job. But now that my conscience is clear, I kin kind of take things easy. How much of a start do you figger you’ve got on Corporal Downey?”

“Downey sent his regards to you fellas when we told him we might swing around here,” said Swiftwater Bill. “Me an’ Moosehide an’ Bettles got wind of a proposition on a crick up this way, an’ bein’ as we’d heard so damn much about Cushing’s Fort, we figgered we’d swing around an’ make a social call.”

“That’s fine!” exclaimed Black John heartily. “Yer shore welcome, an’ we’ll do our damnedest to show you a good time. You see, we don’t git many strickly social calls. What I claim, all Halfaday needs to make it a fine place to live is good society an’ mebbe a little more water in the crick.”

“Yeah,” grinned old Bettles, filling his glass from the bottle. “But when you come to think of it, that’s all hell needs to make it a fine place to live—good society an’ more water.”

“We’ve always got plenty of water in the spring when the boys is sluicin’ out their winter dumps,” defended old Cush lugubriously. “Take it along like now, we don’t need no more water ’n what we got. Trouble with John, he ain’t never quite satisfied. I’ll bet he’d change the Ten Commandments if he could.”

“Yer damn right I would,” agreed Black John. “There’s some of ’em that’s irreverent an’ immaterial, an’ not a one of ’em mentions claim-jumpin’ as a major offense. As fer as Halfaday is concerned, they could be revised to good advantage.”

“June is a damn pore month, anyway,” opined old Bettles as he contemplated the little beads that rimmed his glass of whisky.

“In what way?” asked Moosehide Charley. “Cripes, the weather’s be’n fine ever sence we started out on this trip.”

“Yeah,” agreed Bettles. “An’ that’s, one of its main troubles. Everyone’s busy, either workin’ his claim er prospectin’ fer new ones. Take most any other month an’ it’s got somethin’ to recommend it. Most of ’em’s got stormy weather that fetches the boys in fer a jamboree er else a hollerday of some sort—an’ some months has got both. But look at that calendar there on the wall—not a damn red-letter day in the hull month!”

“Seems like Worshin’ton’s birthday used to come sometime along in June,” said Moosehide.

“I disremember it that way,” said Swiftwater Bill. “Seems to me like it come in the winter.”

“I don’t rec’lect,” Settles cut in, “but it wouldn’t cut no figger, nohow. The Yukon’s in Canady, an’ Canady’s British—an’ their calendars shore as hell wouldn’t brag up Worshin’ton’s birthday none, no matter what month it come in. Cripes, George Worshin’ton would be lucky if they didn’t leave off his birthday altogether. Them Mexicans is the ones to have hollerdays. I put in a couple of years prospectin’ down in Mexico, an’ every month has got from two to a dozen hollerdays in it, on account of saints dyin’ off. It’s a good way to have it. It gives a man a chanct to git caught up with his stud an’ his drinkin’.”

“What’s a saint?” asked Moosehide.

“Oh, he’s some fella that’s dead. It tells about ’em in the Good Book, er somewheres like that. Someone which he was stoned to death er biled in oil.”

“Stoned to death er biled in oil! How come?”

“Oh, it was jest one of them quaint old customs they had them days,” Bettles explained. “If someone didn’t believe like the rest of ’em, they’d either bile him up in a big kittle of oil, er tie him up to a hitchin’ post an’ throw rocks at him till he was dead, er mebbe they’d feed him to a lion. Then he become a saint. It’s a kind of title, like.”

“Huh,” grunted Swiftwater Bill. “It looks like the title was damn hard come by.”

“Yeah,” admitted Bettles. “But look what it done fer the rest of humanity. Folks don’t have to work that day.”

“They could keep on workin’ fer all of me. There ain’t never goin’ to be no Saint Swiftwater. Was all these here saints Mexicans?”

“Hell, no! Some of ’em was Dagos, an’ some French, an’ some English, an’ there might of be’n a couple of Dutchmens even, fer all I know. There was anyway one Irishman—Saint Patrick, his name was. His day comes along in the winter sometime. But the Mexicans seems to be about the only folks that’s got sense enough to take advantage of ’em. Drink up—I’m buyin’ one.”

“Seems to me,” said old Cush as he set out a fresh bottle, “that I rec’lect there was a Saint Valentine, an’ when his day come we use’ to send ornery pitchers to the schoolmarm an’ what girls we didn’t like. Them pitchers cost a cent apiece, an’ it would make the girls mad as hell when they got one.”

“Shore—I rec’lect that!” exclaimed Swiftwater. “An’ there was some of them pitchers fer what girls you liked—all made up fency with hearts an’ pigeons an’ paper lace. Them kind cost a nickel, an’ some of ’em even a dime where I come from.”

“Yeah,” said old Settles. “Seems if I kin rec’lect some sech doin’s, too. But this here Saint Valentine would be far too piddlin’ a saint to git drunk over at this late day. An’ besides his day comes in the winter, too.”

“Cripes!” exclaimed Moosehide. “It looks like they all come in the winter!”

Black John grinned. “Why shore—that’s reasonable! You kin see how it was, bein’ cooped up in the house in the winter, what with the long evenin’s an’ all—them folks would git riled up about politics an’ religion an’ sechlike. Take it in the summer when the fishin’ was good an’ there was horse races an’ ball games to go to, no one would give a damn what these here saints believed. But in winter—that’s different. They prob’ly didn’t have no decent saloon to go to, so they sort of killed time with a saint bilin’. It helped to pass away them long winter evenin’s.”

“How about this here Saint Vitus’s Dance?” queried Moosehide. “When does that come off at?”

“Hell, that’s a disease, an’ not no fiesta!” exclaimed Bettles.

“It’s too damn bad we ain’t got no local saints,” said Swiftwater. “I’m beginnin’ to feel in the mood to celebrate somethin’ er other. Even a small saint would answer the purpose, as far’s I’m concerned.” He appealed to Black John. “Accordin’ to the talk, you’ve dealt out a hell of a lot of jestice here on Halfaday. Didn’t none of these here events come off in June, so we could celebrate it?”

“W-e-e-l-l, yes. I rec’lect it was along in June, a year ago, that we hung One-Eyed John Smith, wasn’t it, Cush?”

“It was in the summer sometime. I disremember the exact date. I know the ground dug easy. Yeah—we could call it June. But, cripes, John—One Eyed wasn’t no saint, any way you look at him.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Of course we didn’t stone him to death nor bile him in oil nor neither we didn’t feed him to no lion. But in case of an emergency, like the present, he might be made to do. When a crisis arises, a man’s got to meet it. I hereby proclaim this tenth day of June to be Saint Smith’s day, an’ order an appropriate celebration to commemorate it.”

“Saint Smith, somehow, ain’t got the right kind of sound,” objected Bettles. “Seems like a saint ort to have a fancier name than Smith.”

“Well, Saint One Eye ain’t so damn fancy, neither,” opined Swiftwater.

“We can’t call him Saint John,” said Cush, “ ’cause there’s another Saint John. It would lead to confusion. I got a Bible. My last wife was religious. I read in it, now an’ then, when business is slack. It tells about him in there.”

“That’s so,” agreed Black John gravely. “An’ come to think about it, it ain’t the last name they hitch the title to, nohow. No matter if it don’t sound quite up to snuff, Saint One Eye it’s got to be. I hereby amend the proclaimation, an’ change the tenth day of June to Saint One Eye’s Day.”

“Hooray!” cried Swiftwater Bill. “I’ll buy the first drink in honor of Saint One Eye!”

“Saint One Eye,” grunted old Cush disparagingly as he filled his glass. “If you ask me, One-Eyed John would make a hell of a saint!”

“If One Eyed could only know about the honor we conferred on him,” grinned Black John, “he’d turn over in his grave. But it’s jest as well he don’t er he’d try to cash in on it somehow. A post-mortum honor is the only kind One-Eyed John could of got away with.”

“What did you hang him fer?” Bettles inquired. “If a man’s celebratin’ a saint, he’d kind of like to know what he was guilty of.”

“Damn if I rec’lect,” replied Black John. “It was ondoubtless some malfeasance er other. Do you remember, Cush?”

“No. But here comes One-Armed John. He might know.”

One-Armed John was duly presented to the sourdoughs from Dawson but he couldn’t remember the offense for which One-Eyed John had been hanged. He seemed surprised that the deceased had been elevated to sainthood.

“Beats hell how a man’s luck kin change,” he opined. “Why, One-Eyed John was the orneriest damn man on Halfaday!”

“Oh shore,” admitted Black John. “But when we need a saint right quick we’ve got to use the one that’s handy. These boys has be’n out in the hills fer the last three weeks; they want to celebrate, an’ One-Eyed John was the only saint we could think of, which we hung in June. Of course if a man was to pick his saint, he wouldn’t hardly select One-Eyed John. But this here constitutes an emergency. Drink up, boys—I’m buyin’ one.”

“We’d ort to have a big feed along with our celebration,” suggested Swiftwater Bill. “We killed a young moose a couple of miles back. If anyone’ll go with me, we could fetch in a lot of good fresh meat.”

“I’ll go!” offered Black John. “We’ll fetch a couple of packsacksful an’ Cush’s klooch kin bile us up a big stew. Come on, Swiftwater, so we kin git back quick. Hooray fer Saint One Eye! He’s done more good in the last fifteen minutes than he ever done in his whole life! It jest goes to show that all any man needs is a little encouragement.”

A half-hour later a man entered the door and advanced to the bar. “Come on up the crick!” he exclaimed. “There’s a sick man up there in his cabin. It’s Grover Harrison. I’m afraid he’s goin’ to die. It’s them damn musheroons he et.”

“Musheroons!” exclaimed Cush, untying the white apron from about his middle. “It’s more ’n likely they was toadstools! What in hell did he eat ’em for?”

“He claimed they was good to eat. He stopped in to my claim an’ offered me some, but I didn’t like the looks of ’em. That was last evenin’. This mornin’ I went over to his shack on the next claim to mine, ’cause I didn’t see him around his shaft, an’ found him layin’ in bed so damn sick I’m afraid he’ll die.”

“I’ll go up there an’ see what I kin do,” said Cush, “but I shore as hell don’t know no anicdote fer musheroon p’izen.”

“God, we’ve got to do somethin’!” exclaimed the man. “Grover was the best friend I’ve got. Why, we was jest like brothers! We even wrote out our wills, so in case one of us was to die, the other one would git his claim an’ all his stuff.”

“I’ll go ’long with you,” offered old Bettles. “We kin take a couple of quarts along. What I claim, whisky’s the best medicine a man kin git, no matter what ails him. If we kin git two, three quarts down him, chances is it’ll kill that there p’izen.”

“It might help,” admitted Cush doubtfully. “But when a man’s time comes, he’s goin’ to die, no matter how much licker he drinks.” Slipping some bottles into a packsack, he tossed the apron to One-Armed John. “You tend bar till we git back,” he ordered. “We might be quite a while if that man ain’t dead. When John an’ Swiftwater gits back, tell ’em where we’re at. John might know some anicdote we could feed him along with the licker. He’s pretty handy that way.”