Local Color Part 10

Once bitten, twice shy; and Gash Tuttle's fifteen-dollar bite was still raw and bleeding. He started to pull away.

"I wouldn't choose to invest in anything more until I'd looked it over,"

he began. The large man grasped him by his two lapels and broke in on him, drowning out the protest before it was well started.

"Who said anything about anybody investin' anything?" he demanded. "Did I? No. Then listen to me a minute--just one minute. I'm in a hurry my own self and I gotta hand you this proposition out fast."

Sincerity was in his tone; was in his manner too. Even as he spoke his gaze roved past Gash Tuttle toward the tarpaulin draperies which contributed to their privacy, and he sweat freely; a suetlike dew spangled his brow. There was a noise outside. He listened intently, then fixed a mesmerising stare on Gash Tuttle and spoke with great rapidity and greater earnestness:

"You see, I got some other interests here. Besides this pit show, I'm a partner in a store pitch and a mitt-joint; and, what with everything, I'm overworked. That's the G.o.d's truth--I'm overworked! What I need is a manager here. And soon as I seen how you handled yourself I says to myself, 'That's the party I want to hire for manager.' What did you say your name was?"

"Tuttle--Gashney P. Tut----"

"That's enough--the Tuttle part will do for me. Now, Tuttle, set down that there keister of yours--that gripsack--and listen. I gotta go down the street for a half hour--maybe an hour--and I want you to take charge. You're manager while I'm gone--the joint is yours till I git back. And to-night, later on, we'll fix up a deal together. If you think you like the job we'll make a reg'lar arrangement; we'll make it permanent instid of temporary. See?"

"But--but----"

"But nothin'! I want to find out if my first judgment about you is correct. See? I want to make a test. See? That's it--a test. You ain't goin' to have much to do, first off. The n.i.g.g.e.r is all right s'long as he gits his dope." He motioned toward the canvas-lined retreat where Osay now dozed heavily among the coils of his somnolent pets. "And Crummy--that's my outside man--kin handle the front and make the spiel, and take in what money comes in. I'll mention to him as I'm leavin' that you're in charge. Probably I'll be back before time for the next blow-off. All you gotta do is just be manager--that's all; and if anybody comes round askin' for the manager, you're him. See?"

His impetuosity was hypnotising--it was converting; nay, compelling. It was enough to sweep any audience off its feet, let alone an audience of one. Besides, where lives the male adult between the ages of nine and ninety who in his own mind is not convinced that he has within him the making of a great and successful amus.e.m.e.nt purveyor? Still, Gash Tuttle hesitated. The prospect was alluring, but it was sudden--so sudden.

As though divining his mental processes, the man Fornaro added a clinching and a convincing argument.

"To prove I'm on the dead level with you, I'm goin' to pay you for your time--pay you now, in advance--to bind the bargain until we git the details all fixed up." He hauled out a fair-sized wad of currency and from the ma.s.s detached a frayed green bill. "I'm goin' to slip you a she-note on the spot."

"A which?"

"A she-note--two bones. See?"

He forced the money into the other's palm. As Gash Tuttle automatically pocketed the retainer he became aware that this brisk new a.s.sociate of his, without waiting for any further token of agreement on his part, already was preparing to surrender the enterprise into his keeping.

Fornaro backed away from him and dropped nimbly down off the back of the platform where there was a slit in the canvas wall; then turned and, standing on tiptoe to bring his mouth above the level of the planking, spoke the parting admonition in hasty tones:

"Remember now, you're the boss, the main guy, the whole cheese! If anybody asts you tell 'em you're the manager and stick to it."

The canvas flapped behind him and he was gone. And Gash Tuttle, filled with conflicting emotions in which reawakened pride predominated, stood alone in his new-found kingdom.

Not for long was he alone, however. To be exact, not for more than half a minute at the very most. He heard what he might have heard before had his ears been as keenly attuned as the vanished Fornaro's were. He heard, just outside, voices lifted conflictingly in demand, in expostulation, in profane protest and equally profane denunciation of something or other. A voice which seemed to be that of the swarthy man denominated as Crummy gave utterance to a howl, then instantly dimmed out, as though its owner was moving or being moved from the immediate vicinity with unseemly celerity and despatch. Feet drummed on the wooden steps beyond the draperies. Something heavy overturned or was overthrown with a crash.

And as Mr. Tuttle, startled by these unseemly demonstrations, started toward the front entrance of his domain the curtain was yanked violently aside and a living tidal wave flowed in on him, dashing high and wide.

On its crest, propelled by irresistible cosmic forces, rode, as it were, a slouch-hatted man with a nickel-plated badge on his bosom, and at this person's side was a lanky countryman of a most threatening demeanour; and behind them and beyond them came a surging sea of faces--some hostile, some curious, and all excited.

"Who's in charge here?" shouted the be-badged man.

"Me--I am," began Gash Tuttle. "I'm the manager. What's wanted?"

"You are! I 'rest you in the name of the law for runnin' a skin game!"

the constable whooped gleefully--"on a warrant swore out less 'en a hour ago."

And with these astounding words he fixed his fingers, grapple-hook fashion, in the collar of the new manager's coat; so that as Gash Tuttle, obeying a primal impulse, tried to back away from him, the back breadth of the coat bunched forward over his head, giving him the appearance of a fawn-coloured turtle trying to retreat within its own sh.e.l.l. His arms, hampered by sleeves pulled far down over the hands, winnowed the air like saurian flippers, wagging in vain resistance.

Holding him fast, ignoring his m.u.f.fled and inarticulate protests, the constable addressed the menacing countryman:

"Is this here the one got your money?"

"No, 'tain't. 'Twas a big ugly feller, with mushtashes; but I reckin this here one must've helped. Lemme search him."

"Hands off the prisoner!" ordered the constable, endeavouring to interpose his bulk between maddened accuser and wriggling captive.

He spoke too late and moved too slowly. The countryman's gouging hands dived into Mr. Tuttle's various pockets and were speedily out again in the open; and one of them held money in it--paper and silver.

"Here 'tis!" barked the countryman, exultant now. "This here two-dollar bill is mine--I know it by this here red-ink mark." He shuffled out the three remaining bills and stared at them a moment in stupefaction, and his yelp of joy turned to a bellow of agonised berserk rage. "I had two hundred and twenty-eight dollars in cash, and here ain't but seventeen dollars and sixty cents! You derned sharper! Where's the rest of my mortgage money that yore gang beat me out of?"

He swung a fearsome flail of an arm and full in Gash Tuttle's chest he landed a blow so well aimed, so vigorous, that by its force the recipient was driven backward out of his coat, leaving the emptied garment in the constable's clutches; was driven still further back until he tottered on the rear edge of the platform and tumbled off into s.p.a.ce, his body tearing away a width of canvas wall and taking it along with him as he disappeared.

Perhaps it was because he fell so hard that he bounced up so instantaneously. He fought himself free of the smothering folds of dusty tarpaulin and turned to flee headlong into the darkness. He took three flying steps and tripped over the guy rope of the next tent. As he fell with stunning violence into the protecting shadows he heard pursuit roll over the platform past Osay, thud on the earth, clatter on by him and die away in the distance to the accompaniment of cheers, whoops and the bloodthirsty threats of the despoiled countryman.

If one has never stolen a ride on a freight train the task presents difficulties and dangers. Still, it may be done, provided one is sufficiently hard pressed to dare its risks and risk its discomforts.

There is one especially disagreeable feature incident to the experience--sooner or later discovery is practically inevitable.

Discovery in this instance came just before the dawn, as the freight lumbered through the swampy bottoms of Obion Creek. A sleepy and therefore irritable brakeman found, huddled up on the floor of an empty furniture car, a dark heap, which, on being stirred with a heavy boot-toe, moved and moaned and gave forth various other faint signs of life. So, as the locomotive slowed down for the approach to the trestle, he hoisted the unresisting object and with callous unconcern shoved it out of the open car door on to the sloping bank of the built-up right of way--all this occurring at a point just beyond where a white marker post gleamed spectrally in the strengthening light of the young summer day, bearing on its planed face the symbol, S-3--meaning by that, three miles to Sw.a.n.go Junction.

At sunup, forty minutes later, a forlorn and shrunken figure, shirt-sleeved, hatless and carrying no baggage whatsoever, quit the crossties and, turning to the left from the railroad track some rods above the station, entered, with weary gait, a byway leading over the hill to the town beyond. There was a drooping in the shoulders and a dragging of the mud-incrusted legs, and the head, like Old Black Joe's, was bending low.

The lone pedestrian entered the confines of Sw.a.n.go proper, seeking, even at that early hour, such backways as seemed most likely to be empty of human life. But as he lifted his leaden feet past the Philpotts place, which was the most outlying of local domiciles, luck would have it that Mr. Abram Philpotts should be up and stirring; in fact, Mr. Philpotts, being engaged in the milk and b.u.t.ter business, was out in his barn hitching a horse to a wagon. Chancing to pa.s.s a window of the barn he glanced out and saw a lolled head bobbing by above the top of his back fence.

"Hey there!" he called out. "Hey, Gash, what air you doin' up so early in the mornin'?"

With a wan suggestion of the old familiar sprightliness the answer came back, comically evasive:

"That's fur me to know and fur you to find out!"

Overcome, Mr. Philpotts fell up against his stable wall, feebly slapping himself on the legs with both hands.

"Same old Gashney!" he gurgled. "They can't n.o.body ever git ahead of you, kin they boy?"

The words and the intent of the tribute reached beyond the palings.

Their effect was magical; for the ruler was in his realm again, back among his loyal, worshipful subjects. The bare head straightened; the wearied legs unkinked; the crushed and bruised spirit revived. And Gashney Tuttle, king of jesters, re-crowned, proceeded jauntily on his homeward way, with the wholesome plaudits of Mr. Philpotts ringing in his gratified ears and the young sun shining, golden, in his face.

CHAPTER IV

BLACKER THAN SIN

It was the year after the yellow fever that Major Foxmaster moved out from Virginia; that would make it the year 1876. And the next year the woman came. For Major Foxmaster her coming was inopportune. It is possible that she so timed it with that very thing in mind. To order her own plans with a view to the upsetting and the disordering of his plans may have been within the scope of her general scheme. Through intent, perhaps, she waited until he had established himself here in his new environment, five hundred miles from tidewater, before she followed him.