Wolfville Days

by Lewis, Alfred Henry

  "Moon an' the boy goes in between the wagons, blazin' an' bangin' away at whatever moves or makes a noise; an' as they've been all through sech festivals before, they regyards their final chances to be as good as an even break, or better.

  "While them Apaches is dodgin' about among the rocks, an' howlin' contempt, an' passin' resolootions of revenge touchin' the two Moons, the Injun agent comes troopin' along. He seeks to round-up his savages an' herd 'em back to the agency. The Apaches, on their side, is demandin' the capture of the nephy Moon for sp'ilin' one of their young men.

  "The agent is a prairie dog jest out from the East, an' don't know half as much about what's goin' on inside of a Apache as a horned toad. He comes down to the aige of hostil'ties, as you-all might call it, an' makes Moon an' his Winchester workin' nephy a speech. He addresses 'em a whole lot on the enormity of downin' Apaches who goes prowlin' about an' scarin' up your mules at midnight, in what this yere witless agent calls a 'motif of childish cur'osity,' an' he winds up the powwow with demandin' the surrender of the 'hom'cide.'

  "'Surrender nothin'!' says Captain Moon. 'You tell your Injuns to line out for their camp; an' don't you yourse'f get too zealous neither an' come too clost, or as shore as I casts my first vote for Matty Van Buren, I'll plug you plumb center.'

  "But the nephy, he thinks different. In spite of Captain Moon's protests, he gives himse'f up to the agent on the promise of protection.

  "'You're gone, lad,' says Moon, when the nephy insists on yieldin'; 'you won't last as long as a pint of whiskey in a five-hand poker game.'

  "But this yere young Moon is obdurate an' goes over an' gives himse'f to the agent, who puts it up he'll send him to Prescott to be tried in co't for beefin' the mule-thief Apache that a-way.

  "Shore! it turns out jest as Captain Moon says. Before they'd gone a half mile, them wards of the gov'ment, as I once hears a big chief from Washin'ton call 'em, takes the nephy from this yere fallacious agent an' by fourth drink time that mornin', or when it's been sun- up three hours, that nephy is nothin' but a mem'ry.

  "How do they kill him? In a fashion which, from the coigne your Apache views things, does 'em proud. That nephy is immolated as follows: They ropes him out, wrist an' ankle, with four lariats; pegs him out like he's a hide they're goin' to dry. Thar's a big ant hill close at hand; it's with reference to this yere ant colony that the nephy is staked out. In three hours from the tune them ants gets the word from the Apaches, they've done eat the nephy up, an' the last vestitch of him plumb disappears with the last ant, as the latter resoomes his labors onder the earth.

  "Why, shore! these yere ants'll eat folks. They re-yards sech reepasts as festivals, an' seasons of reelaxation from the sterner dooties of a ant. I recalls once how we loses Locoed Charlie, which demented party I b'lieve I mentions to you prior. This yere Charlie takes a day off from where he's workin'—at least he calls it labor- -at the stage corrals, an' goes curvin' over to Red Dog. Charlie tanks up on the whiskey of that hamlet, compared to which the worst nose-paint ever sold in Wolfville is nectar. They palms off mebby it's a quart of this jooce on Charlie, an' then he p'ints out for Wolfville.

  "That's the last of the pore drunkard. His pony is nickcrin' about the corral gates, pleadin' with the mules inside to open 'em, in the mornin', but no sign or smoke of Locoed Charlie. An' he never does show up no more.

  "If it's Enright or Cherokee Hall, or any valyooed citizen, thar would have issooed forth a war party, an' Red Dog would have been sacked an' burned but what the missin' gent would have been turned out. But it's different about Locoed Charlie. He hadn't that hold on the pop'lar heart; didn't fill sech a place in the gen'ral eye; an' so, barrin' a word or two of wonder, over their drink at the Red Light, I don't reckon now the Wolfville folks disturbs themse'fs partic'lar about the camp bein' shy Charlie.

  "It's the second day when a teamster, trackin' over from Red Dog, developes what's left of Locoed Charlie. He falls off his hoss, with that load of Red Dog whiskey, an' every notion or idee or sensation absolootely effaced. An' where Charlie loses is, he falls by a ant hill. Yes; they shorely takes Charlie in. Thar's nothin' left of him when the teamster locates the remainder, but his clothes, his spurs an' his 'natomy. The r'ar gyard of them ants has long since retired with the final fragments of Locoed Charlie. "You-all might o' seen the story. Colonel Sterett writes it up in the Coyote, an' heads it, 'Hunger is a Terrible Thing.' This sot Charlie comin' to his death that a-way puts a awful scare over Huggins an' Old Monte. It reforms 'em for more'n two hours. Huggins, who is allers frontin' up as one who possesses public sperit, tries to look plumb dignified about it, an' remarks to Dave Tutt in the New York Store as how he thinks we oughter throw in around an' build a monument to Locoed Charlie. Dave allows that, while he's with Huggins in them projecks, he wants to add a monument to the ants. The founders of the scheme sort o' splittin' at the go-in that a-way, it don't get no further, an' the monument to Locoed Charlie, as a enterprise, bogs down. But to continyoo on the trail of Captain Moon.

  "Moon comes rumblin' into Wolfville, over-doo mebby it's two weeks, bringin' both teams. Thar-upon he relates them outrages. Thar's but one thought, that agent has lived too long.

  "'If he was the usual common form of felon,' says Enright, 'ondoubted—for it would be their dooty—the vig'lance committee local to them parts would string him up. But that ain't possible; this yere miscreant is a gov'ment official an' wears the gov'ment brand, an' even the Stranglers, of whatever commoonity, ain't strong enough, an' wouldn't be jestified in stackin' in ag'in the gov'ment. Captain Moon's only show is a feud. He oughter caper over an', as private as possible, arrogate to himse'f the skelp of this yere agent who abandons his relatif to them hostiles.'

  "Wolfville listens to Captain Moon's hist'ry of his wrongs; but aside from them eloocidations of Enright, no gent says much. Thar's some games where troo p'liteness consists in sayin' nothin' an' knowin' less. But the most careless hand in camp can see that Moon's aimin' at reprisals.

  "This Curly Ben is trackin' about Wolfville at the time. Curly ain't what you-all would call a elevated character. He's a rustler of cattle, an' a smuggler of Mexican goods, an' Curly an' the Yoonited States marshals has had more turn-ups than one. But Curly is dead game; an' so far, he manages to either out-luck or out-shoot them magistrates; an', as I says, when Moon comes wanderin' in that time mournin' for his nephy, Curly has been projectin' about camp for like it's a week.

  "Moon sort o' roominates on the play, up an' down, for a day or so, makin' out a plan. He don't want to go back himse'f; the agent knows him, an' them Injuns knows him, an' it's even money, if he comes pokin' into their bailiwick, they'll tumble to his errant. In sech events, they're shore doo to corral him an' give them ants another holiday. It's the ant part that gives pore Captain Moon a chill.

  "'I'll take a chance on a bowie knife,' says Moon to Dan Boggs,— Dan, bein' a sympathetic gent an' takin' nacherally to folks in trouble, has Moon's confidence from the jump; 'I'll take a chance on a bowie knife; an' as for a gun, I simply courts the resk. But then ants dazzles me—I lay down to ants, an' I looks on it as no disgrace to a gent to say so.' "'Ants shorely do sound poignant,' admits Dan, 'speshully them big black an' red ants that has stingers like hornets an' pinchers like bugs. Sech insecks, armed to the teeth as they be, an' laid out to fight both ways from the middle, is likewise too many for me. I would refoose battle with 'em myse'f.'

  "It ain't long before Captain Moon an' Curly Ben is seen confidin' an' conferrin' with one another, an' drinkin' by themse'fs, an' no one has to be told that Moon's makin' negotiations with Curly to ride over an' down the agent. The idee is pecooliarly grateful to Wolfville. It stands to win no matter how the kyards lay in the box. If Curly fetches the agent flutterin' from his limb, thar's one miscreant less in Arizona, if the agent gets the drop an' puts out Curly Ben, it comes forth jest the same. It's the camp's theery that, in all that entitles 'em to death, the case stands hoss an' hoss between the agent an' Curl
y Ben.

  "'An' if they both gets downed, it's a whip-saw, we win both ways;' says Cherokee Hall, an' the rest of us files away our nose-paint in silent assent tharwith. "It comes out later that Moon agrees to give Curly Ben fifteen hundred dollars an' a pony, if he'll go over an' kill off the agent. Curly Ben says the prop'sition is the pleasantest thing he hears since he leaves the Panhandle ten years before, an' so he accepts five hundred dollars an' the pony—the same bein' the nacher of payments in advance—an' goes clatterin' off up the canyon one evenin' on his mission of jestice. An' then we hears no more of Curly Ben for about a month. No one marvels none at this, however, as downin' any given gent is a prop'sition which in workin' out is likely to involve delays.

  "One day, with unruffled brow an' an air all careless an' free, Curly Ben rides into Wolfville an' begins orderin' whiskey at the Red Light before he's hardly cl'ar of the saddle. Thar ain't nobody in camp, from Doc Peets to Missis Rucker, but what's eager to know the finish of Curly's expedition, but of course everybody hobbles his feelin's in them behalfs. It's Captain Moon's fooneral, an' he oughter have a first, oninterrupted say. Moon comes up to Curly Ben where Curly is cuttin' the alkali dust outen his throat at the Red Light bar.

  "'Did you get him?' Moon asks after a few p'lite preeliminaries.

  'Did you bring back his ha'r an' y'ears like we agrees?'

  "'Have you-all got the other thousand ready,' says Curly Ben. 'in the event I do?'

  "'Right yere in my war-bags,' says Moon, 'awaitin' to make good for your tine an' talent an' trouble in revengin' my pore nephy's deemise by way of them insecks.' An' Moon slaps his pocket as locatin' the dinero.

  "'Well, I don't get him,' says Curly Ben ca'mly, settin' his glass on the bar.

  "Thar's a pause of mebby two minutes, doorin' which Moon looks cloudy, as though he don't like the way the kyards is comin'; Curly Ben, on his part, is smilin' like what Huggins calls 'one of his songstresses' over in the Bird Cage Op'ry House. After a bit, Moon resoomes them investigations.

  "'Don't I give you four stacks of reds an' a pony,' he says, 'to reepair to that murderer an' floor-manage his obsequies? An' don't I promise you eight stacks more when you reports with that outcast's y'ears an' ha'r, as showin' good faith?'

  "'C'rrect; every word,' says Curly Ben, lightin' a seegyar an then leanin' his elbows on the bar, a heap onmoved.

  "'Which I would admire to know, then,' says Moon, an' his eyes is gettin' little an' hard, 'why you-all don't made good them compacts.'

  "'Well, I'll onfold the reasons an' make it as plain an' cl'ar an' convincin' as a spade flush,' says Curly Ben. 'When I gets to this yere victim of ours, I finds him to be a mighty profoose an' lavish form of sport. The moment I'm finished explainin' to him my mission, an' jest as I onlimbers my six-shooter to get him where he lives, he offers me five thousand dollars to come back yere an' kill you. Nacherally, after that, me an' this yere subject of our plot takes a few drinks, talks it over, an' yere I be.'

  "'But what be you aimin' to do?' asks Moon.

  "'What be you aimin' to do?' responds Curly Ben. As I states, he's shore the most ornery coyote!

  "'I don't onderstand,' says Moon.

  "'Why it's as obv'ous,' retorts Curly Ben, 'as the Fence Rail brand, an' that takes up the whole side of a cow. The question now is, do you raise this yere gent? He raises you as I explains; now do you quit, or tilt him, say, a thousand better?'

  "'An' suppose I don't?' says Moon, sort o' figgerin' for a moment or so. 'What do you reckon now would be your next move?'

  "'Thar would be but one thing to do,' says Curly Ben mighty placid; 'I'd shorely take him. I would proceed with your destruction at once, an' return to this agent gent an' accept that five thousand dollar honorarium he offers.'

  "Curly Ben is 'bad' plumb through, an' the sights, as they says in the picturesque language of the Southwest, has been filed from his guns for many years. Which this last is runnin' in Moon's head while he talks with his disgustin' emmissary. Moon ain't out to take chances on gettin' the worst of it. An' tharfore, Moon at once waxes cunnin' a whole lot.

  "'I'm a pore man,' he says, `but if it takes them teams of mine, to the last tire an' the last hoof, I've got to have this agent's ha'r an' y'ears. You camp around the Red Light awhile, Curly, till I go over to the New York Store an' see about more money. I'll be back while you're layin' out another drink.'

  "Now it's not to the credit of Curly, as a crim'nal who puts thought into his labors, that he lets Captain Moon turn his flank the easy way he does. It displays Curly as lackin' a heap in mil'tary genius. I don't presoome to explain it; an' it's all so dead onnacheral at this juncture that the only s'lootion I'm cap'ble of givin' it is that it's preedestinated that a-way. Curly not only lets Moon walk off, which after he hangs up that bluff about takin' them terms of the agent's is mighty irreg'lar, but he's that obtoose he sits down to play kyards, while he's waitin', with his back to the door. Why! it's like sooicide!

  "Moon goes out to his wagons an' gets, an' buckles on, his guns. Quick, crafty, brisk as a cat an' with no more noise, Moon comes walkin' into the Red Light door. He sees Curly where he sits at seven-up, with his back turned towards him.

  "'One for jack!' says Curly, turnin' that fav'rite kyard. Moon sort o' drifts to his r'ar.

  "'Bang!' says Moon's pistol, an' Curly falls for'ards onto the table, an' then onto the floor, the bullet plumb through his head, as I informs you.

  "Curly Ben never has the shadow of a tip, he's out of the Red Light an' into the regions beyond, like snappin' your thumb an' finger. It's as sharp as the buck of a pony, he's Moon's meat in a minute.

  "No, thar's nothin' for Wolfville to do. Moon's jestified. Which his play is the one trail out, for up to that p'int where Moon onhooks his guns, Curly ain't done nothin' to put him in reach of the Stranglers. Committees of vig'lance, that a-way, like shore-enough co'ts, can't prevent crime, they only punish it, an' up to where Moon gets decisive action, thar's no openin' by which the Stranglers could cut in on the deal. Yes, Enright convenes his committee an' goes through the motions of tryin' Moon. They does this to preserve appearances, but of course they throws Moon loose. An' as thar's reasons, as any gent can see, why no one cares to have the story as it is, be made a subject of invidious gossip in Red Dog, an' other outfits envious of Wolfville, at Enright's suggestion, the Stranglers bases the acquittal of Moon on the fact that Curly Ben deloodes Moon's sister, back in the States, an' then deserts her. Moon cuts the trail of the base sedoocer in Wolfville, an' gathers him in accordin', an' as a brother preyed on by his sister's wrongs is shorely expected to do."

  "But Curly Ben never did mislead Moon's sister, did he?" I asked, for the confident fashion where-with my old friend reeled off the finding of Wolfville's vigilance committee, and the reasons, almost imposed on me.

  "Which you can bet the limit," he observed fiercely, as he prepared to go into the hotel, "which you can go the limit open, son, Curly ain't none too good."

  CHAPTER IX

  Colonel Sterett's Reminiscences

  "An' who is Colonel William Greene Sterett, you asks?" repeated the Old Cattleman, with some indignant elevation of voice. "He's the founder of the Coyote, Wolfville's first newspaper; is as cultivated a gent that a-way as acquires his nose-paint at the Red Light's bar; an' comes of as good a Kaintucky fam'ly as ever distils its own whiskey or loses its money on a hoss. Son, I tells you this prior." This last reproachfully.

  "No, Colonel Sterett ain't old none—not what you-all would call aged. When he comes weavin' into Wolfville that time, I reckons now Colonel Sterett is mighty likely about twenty-odd years younger than me, an' at that time I shows about fifty rings on my horns. As for eddication, he's shore a even break with Doc Peets, an' as I remarks frequent, I never calls the hand of that gent in Arizona who for a lib'ral enlightenment is bullsnakes to rattlesnakes with Peets.

  "Speakin' about who Colonel Sterett is, he onfolds his pedigree in full one evenin' when we're all sort o
' self-herded in the New York Store. Which his story is a proud one, an' I'm a jedge because comin as I do from Tennessee myse'f, nacherally I saveys all about Kaintucky. Thar's three grades of folks in Kaintucky, the same bein' contingent entire on whereabouts them folks is camped. Thar's the Bloo Grass deestrict, the Pennyr'yal deestrict, an' the Purchase. The Bloo Grass folks is the 'ristocrats, while them low-flung trash from the Purchase is a heap plebeian. The Pennyr'yal outfit is kind o' hesitatin' 'round between a balk an' a break-down in between the other two, an' is part 'ristocratic that a-way an' part mud. As for Colonel Sterett, he's pure strain Bloo Grass, an' he shows it. I'll say this for the Colonel, an' it shorely knits me to him from the first, he could take a bigger drink of whiskey without sugar or water than ever I sees a gent take in my life.

  "That time I alloods to, when Colonel Sterett vouchsafes them recollections, we-all is in the r'ar wareroom of the New York Store where the whiskey bar'ls be, samplin' some Valley Tan that's jest been freighted in. As she's new goods, that Valley Tan, an' as our troo views touchin' its merits is important to the camp, we're testin' the beverage plenty free an' copious. No expert gent can give opinions worth a white chip concernin' nosepaint short o' six drinks, an' we wasn't out to make no errors in our findin's about that Valley Tan. So, as I relates, we're all mebby some five drinks to the good, an' at last the talk, which has strayed over into the high grass an' is gettin' a whole lot too learned an' profound for most of the herd to cut in on, settles down between Doc Peets an Colonel Sterett as bein' the only two sports able to protect their play tharin.

  "An' you can go as far as you like on it,' says the Colonel to Peets, 'I'm plumb wise an' full concernin' the transmigration of souls. I gives it my hearty beliefs. I can count a gent up the moment I looks at him; also I knows exactly what he is before he's a hooman bein'.'