Overland Red Part 20

"How's that?"

"They know I been standin' out on the edge ever since I had a little fuss with some folks over at Yuma, quite a spell ago."

"Won't you tell me about it?"

"Sure! They was three parties interested--me and another gent and a hoss. I guess the hoss is still alive."

Winthrop laughed. "That's a pretty brief epic," he said.

"Uhuh. It was. But I reckon we got to hit the breeze out of here right soon. Here, le' me take that fry-pan a minute. It's this way. Me and you's located this claim. Now we go and file. But first we got to get some dough. I got a scheme. I'm thinkin' of gettin' a dude outfit--long-tailed coat and checker pants and a elevated lid with a shine to it. Then you and me to the State House and file on this here claim. You stay right in them kickie clothes and that puncher hat. We file, see? The gents supportin' the bars and store corners will be so interested in seein' me do you for your pile that they'll forget to remember who I am, like I would be in me natural jeans. They'll size me for a phoney promoter excavatin' your pocketbook. It's a chance--but we got to take it."

"That's all very weird and wonderful," said Winthrop, "and not so very flattering to me, but I am game. I'll furnish the expense money."

After the evening meal they drew nearer the fire and smoked in the chill silence. The flames threw strange dancing shadows on the opposite cliff.

Winthrop, mindful of Overland's advice, slipped on his coat as the night deepened. "About your adopting a disguise," he began; "I should think you would look well enough clean-shaven and dressed in some stylish, rough tweed. You have fine shoulders and--"

"Hold on, Billy! I'm a livin' statoo, I know. But listen! I got to go the limit to look the part. You can't iron the hoof-marks of h.e.l.l and Texas out of my mug in a hundred years. The old desert and the border towns and the bottle burned 'em in to stay. Them kind of looks don't go with business clothes. I got to look fly--jest like I didn't know no better."

"Perhaps you are right. You seem to make a go of everything you tackle."

"Yep! Some things I made go so fast I ain't caught up with 'em yet. You know I used to wonder if a fella's face would ever come smooth again in heaven. That was a spell ago. I ain't been worryin' about it none lately."

"How old are you?"

"Me? I'm huggin' thirty-five clost. But not so clost I can't hear thirty-six lopin' up right smart."

"Only thirty-five!" exclaimed Winthrop. Then quickly, "Oh, I beg your pardon."

"That's nothin'", said Overland genially. "It ain't the 'thirty-five'

that makes me feel sore--it's the 'only.' You said it all then. But believe me, pardner, the thirty-five have been all red chips."

"Well, you have _lived_," sighed Winthrop.

"And come clost to forgettin' to, once or twice. Anyhow,--speakin' of heaven,--I'd jest as soon take my chances with this here mug of mine, what shows I earned all I got, as with one of them there dead-fish faces I seen on some guys that never done nothin' better or worse than get up for breakfast."

Winthrop smiled. "Yes. And you believe in a heaven, then?"

"From mornin' till night. And then more than ever. Not your kind of a heaven, or mebby any other guy's. But as sure as you're goin' to crease them new boots by settin' too clost to the fire, there's somethin' up there windin' up the works regular and seein' that she ticks right, and once in a while chuckin' out old wheels and puttin' in new ones. Jest take a look at them stars! Do you reckon they're runnin' right on time and not jumpin' the track and dodgin' each other that slick--jest because they was throwed out of a star-factory promiscus like a shovel of gravel? No, sir! Each one is doin' its stunt because the other one is--same as folks. Sure, there's somethin' runnin the big works; but whether me or you is goin' to get a look-in,--goin' to be let in on it,--why, that's different."

Winthrop drew back from the fire and crossed his legs. He leaned forward, gazing at the flames. From the viewless distance came the howl of coyotes.

"They're tryin' to figure it out--same as us," said Overland, poking a half-burned root into the fire. "And they're gettin' about as far along at it, too. Like most folks does in a crowd--jest howlin' all together.

Mebby it sounds good to 'em. I don' know."

"I'm somewhat of a scoffer, I think," said Winthrop presently.

"Most lungers is," was Overland's cheerful comment. "They're sore on their luck. They ain't really sore at the big works. They only think so.

I've knowed lots of 'em that way."

"To-night,--here in this canon,--with the stars and the desert so near, you almost persuade me that there is something."

"Hold on, Billy! You're grazin' on the wrong side of the range if you think I'm preachin'. My G.o.d! I hate preachin' worse than I could hate h.e.l.l if I thought they was one. My little old ideas is mine. I roped 'em and branded 'em and I'm breakin' 'em in to ride to suit me. I ain't askin' n.o.body to risk gettin' throwed ridin' any of my stock. Sabe?"

"But a chap may peek through the fence and watch, mayn't he?"

"Sure! Mebby you're breakin' some stock of your own like that. If you are, any little old rig I got is yours."

"Thank you. And I'm not joking. Perhaps I'll get the right grip on things later. I've been used to town and the pace. I've always had money, but I never felt really clean, inside and out, until now. I never before burned my bridges and went it under my own flag."

Overland nodded sagely. "Uhuh. It's the air. Your feelin' clean and religious-like is nacheral up here. Don't worry if it feels queer to you at first--you'll get used to it. Why, I quit cussin', myself, when everything seems so dum' quiet. Sounds like the whole works had stopped to listen to a fella. Swearin' ain't so hefty then. Sort of outdoor stage fright, I reckon. Say, do you believe preachin' ever did much good?"

"Sometimes I've thought it did."

"I seen a case once," began Overland reminiscently. "It was Toledo Blake. He was a kind of b.u.m middleweight sc.r.a.pper when he was workin' at it. When he wasn't trainin' he was a kind of locoed heavyweight--stewed most of the time. It was one winter night in Toledo. Me and him went into one of them 'Come-In-Stranger' rescue joints. 'Course, they was singin' hymns and prayin' in there, but it was warmer than outside, so we stayed.

"After a while up jumps the foreman of that gospel outfit. His foretop was long, and he wore it over one ear like a hoss's when the wind is blowin'.

"He commenced wrong, I guess. He points down the room to where me and Toledo was settin', and he hollers, 'Go to the ant, you slugger!

Consider her game and get hep to it,' or somethin' similar.

"That word 'slugger' kind of jarred Toledo. He jumps up kind of mad.

'Mebby I am a slugger, and mebby I ain't, but you needn't to get personal about it. Anyhow, I ain't got no aunt.'

"'The text,' says the hoss-faced guy on the platform, 'the text, my brother, is semaphorical.'

"Toledo couldn't understand that, so I whispers, 'Set down, you mutt!

Semaph.o.r.e is a sign ain't it? Well, he's givin' you the sign talk. Set down and listen.'

"Toledo, he hadn't had a drink for a week, and he was naturally feelin'

kind of ugly. 'All right,' he growls at the preacher guy. 'All right. I pa.s.s.'

"'Ah, my brother!' says the hoss-faced guy. 'I see the spirits is at work.' That kind of got Toledo's goat.

"'Your dope is _b.u.m_,' says Toledo. 'I ain't had a drink for a week.

First you tell a fella to go see his aunt, when she's been planted for ten years. Then--'

"'Listen, brother!' says the preacher guy. 'I referred to ants--little, industrious critters that are examples of thrift to the idle, the indignant, the--'

"'Hold on!' says Toledo. 'Do you mean red ants or black ants?' And I seen that a spark had touched Toledo's brainbox and that he was wrastlin' with somethin' that felt like thinkin'.

"'Either, my brother,' says the hoss-faced guy, smilin' clear up to his back teeth.

"'Well, you're drawin' your dope from the wrong can,' says Toledo, shufflin' for the door. 'Because,' says he, turnin' in the doorway, 'because, how in h.e.l.l is a fella goin' to find any ants with two feet of snow on the ground?'

"And then Toledo and me went out. It was a mighty cold night."

Overland Red rolled a cigarette, pausing in his narrative to see whether Winthrop, who sat with bowed head, was asleep or not.