Alec Lloyd, Cowpuncher. Gates Eleanor
a suddent, up them words’ll pop, and the way he said ’em, and all. And even if it’s right warm weather, why, I shiver, yas, ma’am. The fetter that sticks in his lip allus gits into trouble–nothin’ was ever said truer’n that!
“And,” the ole man goes on again, a little bit hoarse by now, “I can feel you’ trouble a-comin’. So far, you been lucky. But it cain’t last–it cain’t last. You know what it says in the Bible? (Mebbe it ain’t in the Bible, but that don’t matter.) It says, ‘Give a fool a rope and he’ll hang hisself.’ And one of these times you’ll play Cupid just oncet too many. What’s more, the smarty that can allus bring other folks t’gether cain’t never manage t’ hitch hisself.”
I’d been keepin’ still ’cause I didn’t want they should be no hard feelin’s ’twixt us. But that last remark of hisn kinda got my dander up.
“Aw, I don’t know,” I answers; “when it comes my own time, I don’t figger t’ have much trouble.”
Wal, sir, the old man flew right up. His face got the colour of sand-paper, and he brung his two hands t’gether clinched, so’s I thought he’d plumb crack the bones. “Haw!” (That laugh again–bitter’n gall.) “Mister Cupid Lloyd, you just wait.” And out he goes.
“Cupid,” says Billy, “I’m turrible sorry. Seems, somehow, that you’ve got Sewell down on y’ account of me––”
“That’s all right, Doc,” I answers; “I don’t keer. It mocks nix oudt, as Dutchy ’d say.” And I shook hands with him and Rose, and kissed the baby.
It mocks nix oudt–that’s what I said. Wal, how was I t’ know then, that I’d made a’ enemy of the one man that, later on, I’d be willin’ t’ give my life t’ please, almost?–how was I t’ know?
CHAPTER TWO
A THIRST-PARLOUR MIX-UP GIVES ME A NEW DEAL
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.”