…”
“Pretty!” Baldy spat on the ground, then strode to the front of the wagon where he fetched a canteen from under the seat and uncorked it. He took hisself a long, deep swig.
“Pretty hasn’t got a thing to do with it! In fact …” He wiped a hand across his lips and passed the canteen to me. “I believe this may be one of the ugliest contraptions ever put on this earth by God or man!”
I’d hoisted the canteen up, expecting to have myself a good-sized swallow of clear pure spring water. Only it wasn’t water inside there, nor anything even close. When that raw bayhead hit my gullet I commenced to gag an’ whoop like a man fit to die. I finally managed to choke about half of it down, whilst the rest burned a path up an’ out my nose like a red-hot poker.
Baldy appeared not to notice. But when I bent over an’ put my hands on my knees to catch a breath, I could see through the tears that he was lookin’ mighty pleased as he turned around to start fiddling with one of them near-side trace chains.
“… It so happens that what you see here,” he went on without lookin’ up, “was never intended to be a thing of beauty. But one of complete and utmost utility.” When he’d finished with the traces he stooped to fetch my hat from where he’d dropped it earlier, walkin’ back and handin’ it over while still not exactly meetin’ my eyes.
He kept on past me till he was able to take somethin’ from a rack at the side of the wagon. And when he turned around, danged if didn’t have in his hand this fancy wooden cane what he used to point out the features of his outfit as he explained about ’em — lookin’ ever bit the medicine show hawker I’d already suspicioned he was.
“These oversized wheels are especially designed for travel through the swamps and sand trails of the Florida wilderness.” Baldy was talkin’ now in a manner what give me the idea he’d already made this speech a time or two before. “Their weight also helps to lower the center of gravity when crossing deep streams. The vehicle’s bottom is caulked and water-tight, so that it becomes a very serviceable raft when occasion demands.”
He tapped his cane against the body of the wagon. “The interior contains my living quarters, including a small but comfortable bed and wood-burning stove, as well as a laboratory for the manufacture of Professor Maximilian’s Wondrous Serpentine Elixir, one of my principal stocks-in-trade.”
The little gent’s voice was gainin’ strength as he warmed to his subject, and he seemed to grow a mite taller an’ straighter too. Me, I just pushed my hat back on my head and let him spout. I figured he was bound to run out of steam sooner or later — more likely sooner, once he found out I hadn’t even got what it’d take to buy a piece of penny candy off’n him, much less no “Wondrous Elixir.”
Anyhow, he was kind of entertainin’.
“But I discovered long ago,” Baldy went on — or Perfessor Maximilian as I reckoned he called hisself — “that a merchant who offers only a single product, no matter how beneficial it may be for the public at large, is like a fiddler who can play nothing but ’Turkey in the Straw.’ The demand for his services wears thin after a very short time.
“—So I have expanded my inventory with household appliances and other useful items that are difficult to obtain on the frontier, until what you see before you now is a veritable itinerant emporium!” He reached up to run the tip of his cane amongst the rows of hangin’ doo-dads, making ’em fairly sing.
“Cast iron skillets and cook-pots, tin-ware, lanterns, washboards, ladles, brooms …” When he come to one of them cabinets next the driver’s box he flung open the doors and kept on without hardly drawin’ a breath. “… bolts of fine calico, needles, pins, scissors, coffee, sugar, salt, assorted canned goods, —and one of the finest selections of patent nostrums and objets de toilet to be found this side of Savannah!”
I’d a mind to ask a question of my own about then. But when I opened my mouth to pose it the bald-headed Perfessor weren’t lookin’ in my direction. And he didn’t seem near ready to start windin’ down his spiel just yet.
“The Good Book advises that no man hide his light under a bushel. And I take that to mean that if you’ve got something folks ought to know about, you’d better get their attention. The sounds you heard as my outfit approached are no accident, for they proclaim my coming to every citizen in the vicinity. And when I have halted to begin setting up shop, I continue attracting patrons through the mechanical artistry of this self-contained Orchestrion.”
He took out a odd-lookin’ key from his pocket and put it in a hole in the side of the wagon, turnin’ it round a few times before steppin’ back to let me catch a glimpse of what was happenin’.
All them levers an’ hammers behind that glass window had started turnin’ and thunkin’, along with a little bellows I hadn’t seen before. And there come out of that contraption the dangdest tootin’ and squeekin’ and caterwaulin’ you ever heard in all your borned days. My ears hadn’t fetched up against nothin’ like that sinct them couple nights I spent a year or so back, up to this sportin’ house in Denver.
I done my best to act impressed and admirin’, bitin’ down hard on the inside of my cheek flesh to keep from gettin’ tickled and havin’ to go two, three more falls with this rasslin’ perfessor. But when the music finally run out I seen he was laughin’ and grinnin’ hisself to beat the band. So I figured it’d be okay to smile back just a little bit on my own.
“Pretty slick, huh?” Baldy put the key away and shoved his high hat over at a sassy angle before comin’ to stand spraddle-legged in front of me. “You goin’ to keep all that hooch in the canteen to yourself, or can a fellow get a little of his own back?”
4
I’D PLUMB FORGOT ABOUT THAT CANTEEN of firewater I was holdin’. But when I realized what Baldy meant, I took time out for another healthy snort before passin’ it back — wonderin’ as I did what happened to all that fancy perfessor talk I’d heard him spoutin’ only a minute earlier.
He took the canteen and downed a good-sized wallop his ownself, before slappin’ the cork back in place and turnin’ to close up the cabinets at the side of his wagon. Whilst he was doin’ that I recollected the thing I’d meant to ask him about when first he opened ’em up.
“I don’t suppose you got any kind of a tol’able shootin’ iron inside there? One you’d be willin’ to part with?”
Perfessor Baldy looked at me kind of thoughtful-like over his shoulder. “I might,” he answered after a second. “If the price was right.”
I smiled at him. “Why don’t you just go ahead an’ show me what you got? Then afterwards maybe we can talk price.”
He eased hisself a hair closer to the front of the wagon before turnin’ to meet my eyes.
“I didn’t just ride into this country on a load of turnips, friend. Either you’ve got what it takes to purchase a firearm from me or you don’t. And if it should happen that you’re as flat busted as you look to be, there’s no way in the world I’m going to put any kind of weapon in your hands right now, loaded or unloaded.”
His arm snaked up into the driver’s box and come out a instant later with a wicked-lookin’ little sawed-off shotgun about a foot and a half long. Them two 12-gauge barrels swung down to fix theirselves square on my belly.
“So if you’ve a mind to trade in guns,” Baldy went on mildly, “I’ll just be obliged to ask to see the color of your money first.”
I took a step backwards and kind of shrugged, hookin’ my thumbs into my galluses real slow and easy. “All right,” I said, testin’ out another grin what Baldy didn’t return. “I reckon you got me.”
Since there didn’t appear to be a whole lot of use in lyin’ from that point on, I decided