by Win Blevins
CHAPTER FOUR
one man in his time plays many parts
—As You Like It, II. vii
He did not dream, though, of chivalry. He dreamt of wandering on foot, hungry and in rags, through a dark forest, pushed onward ever onward by the sense of some will o’ the wisp of foreboding.
He woke with the foreboding. Silly, he told himself. Cautiously he opened his eyes to a gray, half-lit sky. Listened—something had woken him up.
Ummm, Hairy’s stoking up the fire. Wind’s up. Cold as heck.
He sure is building that fire big. Tal snuggled in his blankets, wary of sleep, reluctant to face the cold dawn.
Uh-oh. What’s…
Tal sat up, and it took him a moment to understand what he saw.
Hairy was in the bushes trying to get his pants pulled up.
The fire—much too big—was whipping in the wind.
Beyond it a grass fire was whipping in the wind.
Nearby the horses were about to go crazy trying to break their hobbles.
Holy heck.
Tal jumped up. His pants still down, Hairy grabbed some blankets and started beating at the grass fire.
Tal went for the horses, got the halters of all three, started pulling them away, down wind.
When he looked back, Hairy had the grass fire about out.
The main fire, still blowing, was spreading the other way, up the creek.
Tal let go the horses and sprinted toward the fire. He grabbed his water keg and started dousing the logs. Hairy was roaring up the creek with the pot, scooping water as he went, and tripping over his pants.
Tal grabbed Hairy’s water keg and emptied it on the logs. Funny smell.
“My whiske-e-ee,” Hairy bellowed.
Tal dropped the keg. Too late.
Still bellowing, Hairy waddled into the grass fire. Tal went after him with blankets—that grass fire was going wild. Lucky it was headed upstream.
Hairy turned to face Tal—his beard and hair were smoking and spurting flame at the ends.
Tal threw the blankets over Hairy’s head and dragged him back toward camp. To heck with the fire.
Hairy held the whisky keg overhead and poured the dregs on his head. His hair and beard steamed. He licked his lips. He held his pants. He gave way to tears. He cried a Falstaffian cry.
Tal looked toward the horses. They were bucking and jumping, moving away from the acrid smell, downstream. The pack horse had broken its hobbles.
Suddenly a yell. A shout of war. Or of fear. A cacophony of shouts.
Fear washed over Tal. The foreboding of his dream…
Upstream, where the grass fire was still racing away from camp, three Indians came tearing out of the bushes. A man and two boys.
They were shouting, like old women cursing pests. The man shook his fist and they started running—up the hill. And they kept going uphill, full speed ahead.
Lo, Tal thought, we have defeated our enemies.
He didn’t even reach for his rifle. He began to laugh.
Hairy, teary-faced, started laughing. They looked at each other.
“They were gonna get our horses,” yelled Tal, and laughed harder.
Hairy sobered. “Why do you think I burned them out?” He glared at Tal.
Tal stuck his tongue out at Hairy and made a raspberry.
Hairy looked scandalized. Then sheepish. Then amused. He guffawed. Tal guffawed. They clapped each other on the back, guffawing.
“They woulda got our horses,” yelled Hairy. He grabbed Tal by the shoulders and eyeballed him close. “You’re sump’n,” Hairy gasped between laughs. “My partner’s sump’n.”
Tal grabbed Hairy by his charred, ashen beard. “They woulda got our horses,” yelled Tal, crying as he laughed, and shaking Hairy’s lovable giant head. The whiskers were crumbling.
Then it came off—the whole belly-length beard, in Tal’s hands.
Tal gaped at Hairy’s chin.
Bare, except for glue.
Shakespeare!
“Bard of Avon!” cried Tal, busting with silliness.
“All the world’s a stage,” intoned Hairy, laughing and crying and slapping his legs and making sheepdog eyes.
Tal stuck the beard on his own boyish face. “One man in his time plays many parts!” he exclaimed.
Hairy lit up like a sun-struck gong. They cackled and clapped each other on the shoulders like giddy fools.
The bear meat would do for Tal’s booty—griz would be some for men new to the mountains—so they were off downhill to find the brigade. And Hairy—Shakespeare—regaled Tal with thespian tales as they rode.
After crossing from Olde England, he said, he’d worked the little towns along the Ohio, from Fort Pitt to Louisville to Cairo, enchanting audiences with Shakespeare, the sweetest songs e’er composed for the English tongue. When his small troupe toured these rustic places, they didn’t do entire plays, naturally—those gre-e-a-at cathedrals built of words—but piquant scenes, interspersed with singing and juggling. Hairy’s most magnificent role was the great King Lear:
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!
Likely his most popular was Falstaff:
Why then the world’s mine oyster
or perhaps Caliban:
’Ban, ’Ban, Ca-Caliban,
Has a new master—Get a new man.
But then all changed. The manager fired the lads playing the female parts—that’s how the Bard wanted it, you know, teen-age boys as women—and got some actresses.
The troupe switched from the Ohio to the Mississippi, playing Hannibal and St. Louis and Cairo again and Natchez and New Orleans. Hairy could tell some tales about Natchez-under-the-Hill and the French Quarter that would…never you mind. All went well until they began playing the actual river boats. Then the actresses started to mingle with the spectators, and imbibe with them….Well, hoss, Hairy began to tipple more often himself—sometimes, verily, he had trouble remembering his lines. And then the women began to supplement their incomes by dallying with the gentlemen spectators, well, never you mind.
It gave the troupe a bad name, it did, and none of the better theatres would book them anymore. They had to forego the Bard, which the vulgar audience did not appreciate, and sing more songs, songs of the common sort.
And then, ah, hoss, the manager tried to demote Hairy to stage manager. Said Hairy was so drunk he sounded more Kentuck than Shakespearean. A bald-faced lie about the most splendiferous voice in the land, Hairy said resonantly. Fellow just wanted Lear and Falstaff for himself. Hairy couldn’t stand still for such impertinence, and broke the fellow’s pate.
“But hoss, this child got square, he did.” Hairy beamed. “He got square in beards, such as you see, make-up, costumes, and other tools of the actor’s subtile art and craft. I have a rich stores of such things,” Hairy said and chuckled thunderously, “if ever the Injuns should want to lift their spirits by the Bard.”
When Hairy wasn’t showing off his Shakespeare, he was complaining about Tal dumping his good whisky on the fire. That aguardiente cost him five plews the keg to Taos, he said, and they might not see Taos again for months and months.
“You wasn’t exactly sharing that awerdenty, now, was ye?” complained Tal mildly. From his dad he learned never to cuss—a matter of style, not morality—but he was willing to try an experimental tipple. Just like his dad.
“That was a fault,” admitted Hairy. “Truly, that was a fault.”
So down they went, amid story and song. Hairy’s riding horse was an odd-looking Indian pony, a gelding. Odd-looking on its own because it was a paint with a patchy, scrofulous coat and a red circle around one blind, gray-mottled eye. Odd-looking under Hairy because the poor creature was no more than thirteen hands high, and sway-backed, while Hairy probably weighed three hundred pounds. Little beast sure was game, though—never slowed or faltered, burdened as it was.
After a while they rode into a thunderstorm, but it gave Hairy no pause.
&nb
sp; “This is fine, ain’t it lad? “rumbled the giant. “Fine, fine, this child loves the tempest.” He raised his voice into the wind.
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!
Rage! Blow! You cataracks and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench’d our noggins, drown’d our cocks!
When Hairy spoke as Lear, it sounded like organ music. Tal thought maybe it was fine to be here, in foul weather, in the Black Hills of the Shining Mountains. Until he began to shiver and shake. And chatter. While Hairy carried on in grand style, oblivious.
That night they camped in the foothills and, despite incredible heat, went hard the next day. At evening they came onto camp. They put their horses with the others, and sauntered casually into Louie’s mess.
“Cap’n Fitzpatrick, he’s summat colicky, Jones,” Louie volunteered. Louie was old as the hills, a Frenchy who’d been H. B. C.—Hudson Bay Co., or Here Before Christ, as the men joked.
Louis was looking past Tal to Hairy. Tal had to admit Hairy looked a little strange, his hair singed and broken and his face fishbelly white where the false beard had covered it. He was making sheepdog eyes again, too.
“Louie, this here’s my friend, uh, Shakespeare,” said Tal.
“What’s that smell? “said Louie, eyeing Hairy.
Hairy flushed all the colors of the sunset.
“Our bear meat turned ripe, Louie.” The hundred-degree day had overcome their improvised refrigeration. “We made meat, but…”
Louie grinned a grin that seemed almost lecherous. “What you do, sleep with it? Put your bedrolls down wind of me,” he said, “and save your explanations for Cap’n Fitzpatrick.”
CHAPTER FIVE
here’s a young and sweating devil
—Othello, III.iv
Irish Tom Fitzpatrick had his dander up. That kid hadn’t reported in and was sitting at Louie’s mess like nothing had happened and was with that…damned stray dog
Things were going badly for Tom Fitzpatrick. His fledgling fur company was saddled with back-breaking debt. He hadn’t gotten to St. Louis in time to get his friends to freight supplies to rendezvous—they were committed to Santa Fe. The detour through Santa Fe had wasted over a month, and now he’d missed rendezvous completely. Worst of all, on the way to Santa Fe, Jedediah Smith, Fitz’s long-time friend, was murdered by Comanches.
Never a hail-fellow-well-met, Fitz was aggravated this evening by a sour stomach from weeks of jerky and beans and by this kid who went larking off on his own. When Fitz bestirred himself and walked toward Louie’s mess to give a few growls of reprimand, he was bilious.
“Well, Jones, fancy seeing you here,” Fitzpatrick called sarcastically across the fire.
“Went hunting, Cap’n,” Tal said cheerfully.
The devil take his cheeriness. “Now did you, lad? Is that why the spit is so heavy with roasts?” Naturally, there wasn’t any spit. After the usual beans, the boys were having a sociable pipe.
“They killed a griz, Cap’n,” mumbled someone. The newcomer, the stray called Shakespeare, was smiling like a dog wanting to be patted. Something had recently torn his ear off, he was pretty scratched, and his hair looked burnt. Some griz-slayer.
“Did they, now?” Cap’n cast a caustic eye on Shakespeare. “So where’s the meat?”
“Sp’iled on the way in, Cap’n.” Shakespeare’s voice was lachrymose.
Godawmighty. Holy Mother. “Jones, I’ll see at you my fire at dark. Your friend, too.”
Fitzpatrick walked away, nodding Louis along with him.
“You went off without leave,” Fitz snapped across the fire at Tal. “Why?”
“Get fresh meat for the men, sir.” Kid couldn’t look Fitz in the face. Fitz kept the two standing. Louis was squatted next to Fitz.
“Against orders. And no meat.”
“Yessir.” Eyes still cast down.
“I used up time, men, and horses trying to find you.”
“Yessir.”
“Aught to say for yourself?”
“Nossir.”
“Jones, maybe I shouldn’t have brought a youngster like you. You can’t take discipline.”
Tal’s eyes were anchored to his feet. He shifted his weight back and forth.
“You endangered the searchers.”
Tal didn’t respond.
“Jones, I’m talking to you. Do you understand what you did?”
“Endangered the searchers, sir.”
Fitzpatrick eyed him hard. Kid did look like he understood. “Instead I’m fining you the week’s pay.” Which was lenient.
“Yessir.”
“And, kid, galavanting around Injun country lonesome is the best way to get yourself dead.”
“Yessir.”
“Galavanting with a flaming silk hanky flying from your wiping stick, especially,” added Fitz. He gave Louie an exasperated look. The Frenchie smothered a grin.
Tal had nothing to say.
“Tal done good,” Shakespeare protested. “He…”
Fitz waved him quiet. The captain gazed into the fire a moment—he wasn’t the sort to twist his hands, or pull at his ears—then looked thoughtfully at Tal. He motioned the two of them to sit on a log.
Fitzpatrick looked at Tal Jones, just a boy, really, an orphan boy. Fitz made himself talk at the stray-dog giant.
“What’s your proper name, Shakespeare?”
“Ronald Smythe, rhymes with scythe,” murmured the giant like a big wind.
Fitz looked at Louie, and the old Frenchie shrugged.
“Wanting to come along?” Fitz asked.
Hairy looked at Tal, almost winked, and said, “Certainly.”
Fitz considered. “I don’t know you, Smythe, and neither does Louie.” Tal felt like the cap’n was going to add, “And I don’t like you,” but he didn’t.
“When we meet up with my partners, maybe someone will vouch for you. Meanwhile you can ride along. But you won’t be on payroll.” The captain let it sit a moment. “That’s all.”
Tal and Hairy started away.
“Oh, and Smythe,” Fitzpatrick added. Hairy stopped and turned back. “You’d best earn your grub in work. Which in your case will be plenty.”
“Yessir.”
CHAPTER SIX
Madness is the glory of this life
—Timon of Athens, I.ii
The next morning, amid heehawing mules and cursing teamsters, Fitzpatrick’s brigade started up the North Platte toward the Sweetwater River and the Shining Mountains, bolstered by the addition of Tal and Shakespeare, who were flying the blazon of the House of Jones.
It meant a couple of weeks of daylight-to-dusk swaying on top of Rosie, which Tal didn’t like. “Lad,” Hairy said cheerily, “this child’s gonna chat up the ladies.”
That’s what he did—walked that scrofulous pony alongside the travois that two squaws were escorting and played the gay rogue. He looked good in the role, laughing merrily, making eyes, and generally carrying on.
Both squaws seemed too well used to attract that sort of attention, Tal thought—well used by Louie, probably, who was keeping a proprietary eye on them. Hairy looked a little different himself, dwarfing his pint-sized, half-blind horse, his ear scratched down to a stub, his hair burned and scraggly, like a Lear who’d got too close to the lightning. But you’d never know he wasn’t a dashing Launcelot, the way he was carrying on.
After a while Hairy rode back and talked with Louie for a while, and Louie seemed to converse amiably enough. When Hairy came back, he had a mischievous smile, the sort that was beginning to seem worrisome. “Lad, tonight this child will initiate you into one of the mysteries of the muse.”
He spoke of the mysteries of the muse three or four times. When Tal asked what the devil he meant, Hairy fingered some of his raggedy hair and said, “We’ll repair my manhood.”
“Grease her good, lad, that’s the trick.”
Hairy was stretched out full length, his head propped on his saddle, and
Tal was greasing the top of his balding head. Hairy watched in two small hand-held mirrors. Satisfied, he handed Tal the straight razor.
The men ten yards away at their coffee were affecting not to notice, but they were smirking.
Tal was dubious. The broken and burned hair did look pretty wretched. But shave the whole head? It came off easily enough, though not what Tal would have called close.
“Not there, lad, not that spot. Save that. I’ll show ye.” The spot was behind and above one ear, the thickest hair Hairy had left.
Before long Tal was finished. Not a bad job, altogether. Except for that one patch, which looked like an armpit. Tal tugged at it.
“No, lad,” resonated Hairy. He sat up off the saddle and felt of the patch and looked at it with his two mirrors. “Take a while to grow out, but when it does, this child will braid it and have a scalplock.
“Know why a scalplock is your manhood, lad?”
Tal knew he didn’t need to answer.
“On account of it gives the coon that scalps ye something to grip on to.” Hairy was smiling his ogre smile. “He slips his finger under the braid and just p-p-pops her off.” He was practically licking his lips.
Hairy started rummaging in a parfleche carrying case. “Now a jefe grande like this child don’t like to go around without plenty of hair to get hold of. Don’t want anyone to think he’s skittish about losing his scalp. Enough scalplock to braid by winter. Meantime…”
He held it up proudly. At first Tal thought it was a prime fur, so thick and fine and chestnut brown it was. Then he saw the luxuriant curls. A wig, almost shoulder length. Hairy pulled it onto his head and tugged till it looked just right in the mirror. Hairy intoned,
I am of Percy’s mind, the Hotspur of the West, he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife, ‘Fie upon this quiet life!’
Hairy modelled it for Tal, turning his big head this way and that. Tal thought it handsome, adding a touch of gallant to Hairy’s natural fierce.
“And will ye dance with us, Ronald?” one of the boys called in an Irish lilt. They were ten steps away, lounging around a low cook fire.