Friar Tuck

by Robert Alexander Wason

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE HEART OF HAPPY HAWKINS

  Late the next summer, I got a fine long letter from Horace--and blameif he didn't succeed in surprisin' me again. He wrote this letter fromAfrica, which is about the foreignest parts this world is able toexhibit, I reckon. He told about the East not findin' favor withPromotheus, though he had done all he could for him, startin' out withhigh society and endin' up by takin' him down one night to a sailor'ssaloon and lettin' him mix into a general fight; but that Promotheusjust simply couldn't stand the tameness, and so they had gone toAfrica to hunt big game, and give the folks out our way a chance toforget there ever had been such a cuss as Badger-face.

  He sent along some photographs, too, and they was as novel as a bluemoon--Horace, Promotheus, and a lot o' naked niggers totin' packs ontheir heads. Horace was the funniest lookin' mortal a body ever saw;but Promotheus had him beat a mile. They both wore bowls on theirheads an' colored glasses; but Promotheus with side-burns was sureenough to frighten a snake into convulsions! His gnawin' teeth stuckout through a self-satisfied grin; and I was willin' to bet that assoon as the heathen saw him, they'd give up bowin' down to wood an'stone.

  The next time I saw Friar Tuck, he told me about receivin' a letterfrom Horace who had gone to Berlin on his way to Africa, but hadn'tbeen able to learn anything satisfactory. The singer had been the bigcard at their concerts, an' there had been some talk about her gettin'drugged by an Austrian who belonged to the em-bassy; but she haddisappeared complete, an' nobody could be found who seemed to knowanything about it. The Friar kept himself goin' like a steam-enginethese days; but while he became a little more tender if possible, helacked something of his old-time spirits. Before this, he used to comesweepin' along like a big cool breeze, an' a feller's spirits just gotup an' whirled along with him, like dry leaves dancin' in the wind.

  He said 'at since Promotheus had slipped out o' the country, theCross-branders hadn't bothered Olaf any; but I called his attention tothe fact that this was a wet spring, an' told him 'at when we had along dry spell, Ty Jones would just swallow Olaf like quicksand.

  Things drifted along purty steady in our parts for several years. Oncein a while, the Friar would tell me something about Olaf or somethingabout Ty Jones; but for the most part, I was too much took up withother things to care much for even the Friar's doin's.

  I was takin' my own Moses-trip durin' these years; and I say now, as Iallus have said, that it wasn't a square shake to show Moses thepromised land, an' then not let him into it for even one meal o' milkan' honey. I've handled a small bunch o' men an' trailed cattle with'em for only three months at a stretch; but I don't mind tellin' youthat the' was times when I had to sit up till after midnight, sewin'up the rips in my patience--an' we didn't have any women an' childrenalong either. Moses had forty years of it in the desert; with a wholeblame tribe of Israelites; and yet, instead o' praisin' him forhangin' on to his sanity with all the odds again' him, he was handed atantalizer, simply because he said he couldn't see why somethin'didn't happen in a natural, orderly way, once in a while, withouteverlastingly ringin' in some new kind of a miracle on him.

  If I had to pilot a mob like that through a desert for forty years,follerin' a cloud by day an' a pillar o' fire by night, havin' dressedquail an' breakfast-food tossed to me out o' the sky, gettin' mydrinkin' water by knockin' it out of a rock, an' tryin' to satisfy thetourists that it wasn't altogether my fault that we traveled soeverlastin' slow--I'd 'a' been mad enough to bite all the enamel offmy teeth, and yet as far as I could see, Moses didn't do a singlething but show out a little peevish once in a while.

  Still, we didn't choose our natures nor the kind o' life to range 'emover nor the sorts o' temptations we'd prefer to wrastle with; an'even our own experiences are more 'n we can understand--to say nothin'o' settin' back an' decidin' upon the deeds of others. My own testwasn't the one I'd 'a' chosen; and yet, for all I know, it may 'a'been the very best one, for me.

  Little Barbie had finally grown up through childhood to the gates o'womanhood--and as generally happens, she had found a man waitin' forher there. Through all the years of her growin', she had been sendin'out tendrils which reached over an' wound about my heart, and grewinto it an' through it, and became part of it. If it hadn't 'a' beenfor Friar Tuck, I might 'a' married her, myself; for I could have doneit, if all the men I'd had to fight had been other men--but the man Icouldn't overcome, was myself.

  Through all the years I had known Friar Tuck an' rode with him an'worked with him an' slept out under the stars with him, he had beenquietly trainin' me for the time when it would be my call to take myown love by the throat, for the sake of the woman I loved. It don'tweaken a man to do this; but it tears him--My God, how it does tearhim!

  I, my own self, brought back the man she loved to her, and gave herinto his arms; and I've never regretted it for one single minute; butI doubt if I've ever forgot it for much longer 'n this either.

  I did what it seemed to me I had to do--an' the Friar thinks I didright, which counts a whole lot more with me 'n what others think. Iwent through my desert, I climbed my hill, for just one moment I sawinto my promised land--and then I was jerked back, and not even givenpromotion into the next world, which Moses drew as his consolationprize. And yet, takin' it all around, I can see where life has beenmighty kind and generous to me after all, and I'm not kickin' for aminute.

  The great break in my life came in the fall, and it left ol' CastSteel a more changed man 'n it did me. I wanted to swing out wide--toride and ride and ride until I forgot who I was and what had happened;but the ol' man worked on my pity, an' I agreed to stay on with him aspell. Durin' the three years precedin', I had got into the handlin'of the ranch, more 'n he had, himself; so I spent the winter makin' myplans, an' goin' over 'em with him. He came out toward spring and wasmore like himself; but when the first flowers blossomed on thebenches, they seemed to be drawin' their life blood out o' my veryheart. All day long I had a burnin' in my eyes, everywhere I went Imissed somethin', until the empty hole in my breast seemed likely todrive me frantic; an' one day I pertended to be mad about some littlething, an' threw up my job for good and all.

  The ol' man was as decent as they ever get. He knew how I had beenhit, an' he didn't try any foolishness. He gave me what money Iwanted, told me to go and have it out with myself, an' come back tohim as soon as I could. I rode away without havin' any aim or end inview, just rode an' rode an' rode with memories crowdin' about me sothick, I couldn't see the trail I was goin'.

  Then one night I drew up along side o' Friar Tuck's fire, saw thesteady light of his courage blazin' out through his own sadness, thesame as it had done all those years; an' I flopped myself off my hoss,threw myself flat on the grass, an' only God and the Friar know howmany hours I lay there with his hand restin' light on my shoulder, thelittle fire hummin' curious, soothin' words o' comfort, and up above,the same ol' stars shinin' down clear and unchangin' to point out,that no matter how the storms rage about the surface o' the earth,it's allus calm and right, if a feller only gets high enough.