but whilst I was out behind the corral cuttin’ me a hickory club to do the appealin’ with, he kicked the door loose and skun out. I know whar he’s headin’—to Joel Garfield’s stillhouse, which is a abomination in the sight of the Lord and oughta be burnt to the ground and the ashes skwenched with the blood of the wicked. But I cain’t stand here listenin’ to yore gab. I got hominy to make. What you mean wastin’ my time like this for? I got a good mind to tell yore pap on you. You light a shuck for Apache Mountain and bring Shadrach home.”
“But—” I said.
“Don’t you give me no argyments, you imperdent scoundrel!” she hollered. “I should think you’d be glad to help a pore, weak female critter ’stead of wastin’ yore time gamblin’ and fightin’, in such dens of iniquity as War Paint. I want you to fix some way so’s to disgust Shadrach with drink for the rest of his nateral life, and if you don’t you’ll hear from me, you good-for-nothin’—”
“All right!” I yelled. “All right! Anything for a little peace! I’ll git him and bring him home, and make a teetotaler outa him if I have to strangle the old son of a—”
“How dast you use sech langwidge in front of me?” she hollered. “Ain’t you got no respect for a lady? I’ll be #4%*¢@?-!’d if I know what the &%$@*¢ world’s comin’ to! Git outa here and don’t show yore homely mug around here again onless you git Shadrach off of rum for good!”
* * * *
Well, if Uncle Shadrach ever took a swig of rum in his life it was because they warn’t no good red corn whiskey within reach, but I didn’t try to argy with Aunt Tascosa. I lit out down the trail feeling like I’d been tied up to a Apache stake with the whole tribe sticking red-hot Spanish daggers into my hide. Aunt Tascosa affects a man that way. I heard Cap’n Kidd heave a sigh of relief plumb up from his belly, too, as we crossed a ridge and her distant voice was drowned out by the soothing noises of a couple of bobcats fighting with a timber wolf. I thought what ca’m and happy lives them simple critters lived, without no Aunt Tascosa.
I rode on, forgetting my own troubles in feeling sorry for pore Uncle Shadrach. They warn’t a mean bone in his carcass. He was just as good-natered and hearty a critter as you’d ever meet even in the Humbolts. But his main object in life seemed to be to stow away all the corn juice they is in the world.
As I rode along I racked my brain for a plan to break Uncle Shadrach of this here habit. I like a dram myself, but in moderation, never more’n a gallon or so at a time, unless it’s a special occasion. I don’t believe in a man making a hawg out of hisself, and anyway I was sick and tired running Uncle Shadrach down and fetching him home from his sprees.
I thought so much about it on my way to Apache Mountain that I got so sleepy I seen I was gitting into no state to ride Cap’n Kidd. He got to looking back at me now and then, and I knowed if he seen me dozing in the saddle he’d try his derndest to break my neck. I was passing Cousin Bill Gordon’s barn about that time, so I thought I’d go in and take me a nap up in the hayloft, and maybe I’d dream about a way to make a water-drinker out of Uncle Shadrach or something.
I tied Cap’n Kidd and started into the barn, and what should I see but Bill’s three youngest boys engaged in daubing paint on Uncle Jeppard Grimes’ favorite jackass, Joshua.
“What air you all a-doin’ to Joshua?” I demanded, and they jumped back and looked guilty. Joshua was a critter which Uncle Jeppard used for a pack-mule when he went prospecting. He got the urge maybe every three or four year, and between times Joshua just et and slept. He was the sleepin’est jackass I ever seen. He was snoozing now, whilst them young idjits was working on him.
I seen what they was at. Bill had loaned a feller some money which had a store down to War Paint, and the feller went broke, and give Bill a lot of stuff outa the store for pay. They was a lot of paint amongst it. Bill packed it home, though I dunno what he aimed to do with it, because all the houses in the Humbolts was log cabins which nobody ever painted, or if they did, they just white-washed ’em. But anyway, he had it all stored in his barn, and his boys was smearing it on Joshua.
He was the derndest sight you ever seen. They’d painted a big stripe down his spine, like a Spanish mustang, only this stripe was green instead of black, and more stripes curving over his ribs and down under his belly, red, white and blue, and they’d painted his ears green.
“What you all mean by sech doin’s?” I ast. “Uncle Jeppard’ll plumb skin you all alive. He sets a lot of store by that there jack.”
“Aw, it’s just funnin’,” they said. “He won’t know who done it.”
“You go scrub that paint off,” I ordered ’em. “Joshua’ll lick it off and git pizened.”
“It won’t hurt him,” they assured me. “He got in here yesterday and et three cans of paint and a bucket of whitewash. That’s what give us the idee. He kin eat anything. Eatin’est jack you ever seen.”
“Heh, heh, heh!” snickered one of ’em. “He looks like a drunkard’s dream!”
Instantly a idee hit me.
“Gimme that jackass!” I exclaimed. “He’s just what I need to kyore Uncle Shadrach Polk of drinkin’ licker. One glimpse of that there jack in his present state and Uncle Shadrach’ll think he’s got the delerious trimmin’s and git so scairt he’ll swear off whiskey for life.”
“If you aims to lead Joshua to Joel’s stillhouse,” they said, “you’ll be all day gittin’ there. You cain’t hustle Joshua.”
“I ain’t goin to lead him,” I said. “You all hitch a couple of mules to yore pa’s spring wagon. I’ll leave Cap’n Kidd here till I git back.”
“We’ll put him in the corral behind the barn,” they says. “Them posts are set four foot deep in concrete and the fence is braced with railroad iron, so maybe it’ll hold him till you git back, if you ain’t gone too long.”
* * * *
When they got the mules hitched, I tied Joshua’s laigs and laid him in the wagon bed, where he went to sleep, and I climbed onto the seat and lit out for Apache Mountain. I hadn’t went far when I run over a rock and woke Joshua up and he started braying and kept it up till I stopped and give him a ear of corn to chew on. As I started off again I seen Dick Grimes’ youngest gal peeping at me from the bresh, and when I called to her she run off. I hoped she hadn’t heard Joshua braying. I knowed she couldn’t see him, laying down in the wagon bed, but he had a very pecooliar bray and anybody in the Humbolts could recognize him by it. I hoped she didn’t know I had Joshua, because she was the derndest tattletale in the Bear Creek country, and Uncle Jeppard is such a cross-grained old cuss you can’t explain nothing to him. He was born with the notion that the whole world was plotting agen him.
It hadn’t been much more’n good daylight when I rode past Uncle Shadrach’s house, and I’d pushed Cap’n Kidd purty brisk from there; the mules made good time, so it warn’t noon yet when I come to Apache Mountain. As I approached the settlement, which was a number of cabins strung up and down a breshy run, I swung wide of the wagon-road and took to the trails, because I didn’t want nobody to see me with Joshua. It was kind of tough going, because the trails was mostly footpaths and not wide enough for the wagon, and I had to stop and pull up saplings every few yards. I was scairt the noise would wake up Joshua and he’d start braying again, but that jackass could sleep through a bombardment, long as he warn’t being jolted personal.
I was purty close to the settlement when I had to git out of the wagon and go ahead and break down some bresh so the wheels wouldn’t foul, and when I laid hold of it, a couple of figgers jumped up on the other side. One was Cousin Buckner Kirby’s gal Kit, and t’other’n was young Harry Braxton from the other side of the mountain, and no kin to none of us.
“Oh!” says Kit, kind of breathless.
“What you all doin’ out here?” I scowled, fixing Harry with a eye which made him shiver and fuss