Part 2

A six-gun busts right by my ear, and I sees that tall hat hop off Mike’s head and sail back into the tent.

“Punch a preacher, will you?” whoops Hassayampa. He’s got a reserved space in the back of the crowd, and there he stands, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“Hey!” Old Judge Steele worms his way to the front of the platform and scowls up at Paradise’s donation. “Where’d my hat come from?”

Mike scratches his head with the handle of the ax and stares down at the judge.

“Come from?” he asks. “You mean went to, don’t you?”

_Bung!_ goes Hassayampa’s gun again.

“I wishes to call your attention,” explains Hassayampa belligerent-like. “Do I have to kill somebody to get noticed?”

Hassayampa’s bullet must have cut the rope, ’cause the flaps dropped down and saved Mike.

“That wasn’t the judge,” states Dirty to Hassayampa.

“Nobody else wears election hats,” mumbles Hassayampa. “I know that hat.”

Then Magpie’s head protrudes from between the flaps, and he yelps at me:

“Ike, you take that codfish from Curlew and stake him to a tree. He’s a trouble-breeder!”

“Will he?” yells Hassayampa. “Nobody but me to protect the ministry from a bunch of heathen hop-heads, is there? Who’s going to take me?”

Hassayampa’s voice wails with rage, and you can’t blame me for not taking him, can you? I swore to do my duty, but a man has got a right to define duty as he sees fit. I figured I’d be worth a lot more to posterity if I ignored Hassayampa.

* * * * *

I didn’t care for the statue of Lincoln. Mike looked about as much like Lincoln as a fish-pole looks like a bucket of water, and deep down in my heart I wished that Hassayampa hadn’t held so high. Of course Hassayampa has to get cocky about it. He yells--

“You bow-legged, star-wearing, grinny faced son-of-a-duck, come and get me!”

“I don’t want you,” says I. “I ain’t collecting antique eggs today. I’m going to get me a drink.”

“I was just funning, Ike,” says he. “I’ll go peaceful, ’cause I’m dry, too.”

Then me and Hassayampa runs into an argument. We finds Ricky Henderson, “Three Star” Thorndyke, Art Miller and “Coyote” Calkins arguing with Doughgod Smith. Doughgod holds forth thusly:

“You’ve got to show a little becoming class, ain’t you? I’m bossing the music end of the program, and she can’t fall below the rest, can she?”

“She can’t,” agrees Ricky. “She sure can’t, Doughgod.” And the four of them walks away.

Doughgod looks at us and sort of grins.

“Them is the Paradise brass band,” explains Doughgod. “Been tooting for two weeks for this celebration. Everything is sort of out of the ordinary, so I wishes my end to show up well. A band is just a band unless they rides horses, which makes ’em a mounted band. _Sabe?_ Them _hombres_ is going to dispense music from their broncs.”

We looks back at the speaker’s tent, and here comes an apparition which we deciphers to be Mike Pelly. Mike sure looks like the breaking up of a hard Winter. He’s got the brim of that stovepipe hat around his neck and in his hand he carries one of them rails he was posing over. He’s still got on portions of that tight coat. He’s got a bump on his forehead, and in his face is memories of long ago. He weaves up in sort of waltz time and pauses to look back.

“Who done it, Mike?” I asks.

“Lincoln,” says he sweet-like and weaves on.

“Lincoln was a great man,” states Doughgod.

“Was?” grunts Hassayampa. “If he hung that bump on Mike I’d say he is, not was, Doughgod. Almost as great as Custer. My gosh, I done forgot all about my contentions, Ike. Let’s go back and see Custer.”

“All right,” says I. “Why stop at modern history, Hassayampa? Let’s go further back and see Caesar or the last of the Mohicans.”

We found a fairly peaceful bunch in front of the tent. Old Judge Steele wanders up to us. His face sure looks like something had tried to erase his nose, and in his hand is the remnants of that high hat. Just then I’m grabbed by the arm, and Magpie’s voice grunts in my ear--

“Feller wants to see you, Ike.”

I suffers him to lead me around back of the tent, where he lifts the canvas enough to let us both under. I was glad to get away from the judge right then, ’cause I don’t know what Mike might have told him.

In there I meets the worst freak I’ve seen this day and date. It happens to be Sad Samuels, but he sure is disguised. I reckon he’s dug up all the fringed buckskin in Yaller Rock County and hung it on his lanky carcass. He stands there, leaning against the platform, puffing away on an extinct cigaret.

“Ike, meet General Custer,” says Magpie.

“Howdy, Cus,” says I. “How’s all your little Big Horns?”

“Poorly, Ike. You ain’t sore at Curlew, are you?”

“Not at the town itself, Sad. The town ain’t to blame.”

“Let me explain it,” says Magpie. “Curlew has ideas of her own as to who is to blame for the Fourth, Ike. Being a free country and peace on earth to all men we lets each city worship as they see fit. _Sabe?_ Curlew opines that General Custer is the one.”

“All right with me,” says I. “Make it anybody you want, just so you keeps the name of Harper out of the list. I won’t have my good name sullied, Magpie.”

“We’ll respect your wishes, Ike,” says Magpie. “Now here’s what Sad wants of you; he’s shy one actor for his living picture, and you’re the only person he can depend upon. He honors you, Ike.”

“Yeah?” says I. “Honor of that kind is like beauty--it don’t get under my skin. I won’t have a danged thing to do with it. Not a danged solitary thing! Rest in peace is my motto, and I don’t care where the chips fall. I will not do it!”

Well, they got me into that disguise, and I’m betting that nobody ever looked like me.

“Not so danged bad at that,” states a voice, and I turns around.

It looks like a cross between an Injun painted for the war-trail and an accident in a paint factory. It’s wearing the headdress of the Sioux, the breast-plate of a Cheyenne and the pants of a Digger medicine-man, which consists of a pad at the knees and feathers at the ankle--nothing more. He’s got a wooden knife about three feet long. His face is painted like the rainbow, one end of his mustache being pink and the other green.

“My ----!” says I. “That last drink broke the camel’s back!”

It is “Mighty” Jones.

“Shake hands with your paw,” says he. “I’m Rain-in-the-Face.”

I looked at Magpie and the tears are flowing down his cheeks. Any man must be tender hearted to cry at a time like this.

“Who in the ---- am I?” I asks.

“My daughter,” says Rain-in-the-Face. “You’re Pokyhontas.”

All the history I ever knew stood on its head and skidded out of the picture. I looks at General Custer and then at my paw.

“With a mustache?” I asks foolish-like.

“Your face don’t show,” says Magpie choking-like. “You assumes a bowed attitude over Custer, who is about to get carved by Rain-in-the-Face. Curlew may be wrong in the main facts, but that part is historical.”

“It will be,” I agrees. “I feel that this celebration will be wrote up for posterity--if anybody is left to write it.”

Just then somebody shows their impatience by shooting twice through the ridge-pole, so we wobbles up and takes our position.

Sad is on his hands and knees with his chin on a block of wood, and they places me on my knees, with my nose muffled in the back of his neck, and my hands are raised as in prayer. Over us stands Rain-in-the-Face, with his soft-pine sword raised aloft. I’ve got my head toward the audience and I gets a glimpse of the sign as the curtain goes up. It reads:

CUSTER DONE IT AFTER POKYHONTAS SAVED HIM FROM HER PAW. FROM CURLEW

I hears a slight stir in the audience.

_Bang!_ goes a gun. I glances behind me. Mighty is standing there looking at his sword, which ain’t nothing but a splinter now.

“Don’t never try to split up no ladies around here, dog-gone your painted picture!” whoops Dirty Shirt’s voice. “Don’t you never do it!”

Dirty is right up against the platform and appears to be trying to get up with the living pictures.

“_Yo-o-o-o-ow!_” yelps a voice from the rear of the crowd. “Bust up my donation, will you!”

* * * * *

Hassayampa has got a horse, and just as I glance up he sails a loop of rope to try and circle Dirty Shirt. He didn’t. That was the second time he shoots high. I tries to move quick, but my costume was made more for show than for speed. That loop of rope settles right over the rear of me, tightens behind my knees and over the small of my back, and poor Pokyhontas got uplifted.

I reckon that Pokyhontas didn’t want to leave Custer there even if Rain-in-the-Face didn’t have no more sword than a toothpick, ’cause when that rope hit me I got a strangle hold on Custer and we both moved away from there.

Me, I’m jack-knifed so that my toes are tickling my mustache and Sad is yelping like a trapped coyote pup. We turned over just once, swung in under the railing, where we seem to sort of hang up, and then, as far as I can see, the railing, platform, tent and all went with us.

Man, I’d say that the strain was great. I seemed to feel every muscle in my body stretch a foot and as we sailed into the air somebody reached up and took one of my moccasins off.

I lost Custer at an altitude of about forty feet and when I landed I picked a tub of lemonade to stop in, and then it seems that I took the tub along with me on a voyage of discovery. I’d say that Hassayampa and his bronc went regardless and nobody knows whither we might have wandered if that rope hadn’t busted.

Anyway, I think it busted, ’cause all to once I gets relief from the cramps and the sandman visits Ike Harper.

Then along comes a million needles to penetrate my carcass and I feels my nervous system yank me to a sitting position.

I’ve got my back against a tent and right in front of me is Judge Steele and Old Testament. The sky pilot is kneeling in a prayerful attitude, while the old judge squats on his heels in an attitude of deep thought. The judge has got a piece of the busted platform in his hands and on his head, cocked over on one side, is a gallon tin bucket. A curl of lemon peel sticks out from under the edge and I opines that the judge must ’a’ mixed with the retail end of the lemonade business.

“We--we will open with a pup-prayer,” whispers Old Testament.

The old judge rocks on his heels and fondles that club.

“We will open with a spup-speech by me,” he whispers right back.

“Prayer!”

“Speech!”

“Dearly beloved, we----”

_Bam!_

The old judge surges forward and taps Testament on the head and our preacher shuddered deep-like and pokes his long nose into the dirt.

Judge Steele pokes his nose toward the sky, shoves one hand inside his torn vest and begins--

“Friends, Romans and feller----”

_Clank!_

I sees that lard bucket hop off the judge’s head and the rock nestled right up against my shin.

“He-heathen!” stutters a voice and I turns to behold what is left of Hassayampa. He’s got his head through one of the armholes of his vest, which makes him look like he had a stiff neck. The belt of his chaps has busted, and the two halves of his leather panties are wrinkled down around his feet. His hat is gone, and if his mind ain’t gone too his eyes sure lie to me. He’s got another rock in his hand.

“Pup-pick on a preacher, will you?” he yelps.

The old judge sets there on the ground, looking sort of dazed-like, and then he seems to fuss around inside of his bosom. He hauls out a long six-shooter, cocks it deliberate-like and takes aim at Hassayampa. Hassayampa don’t mind. He sways on his heels and grins at me.

“How’s every little th-thing, Ike?” he asks hoarse-like.

_Bung!_

The old judge ain’t got much grip in his hands, and I sees the gun hop plumb over his head when it exploded.

“_Woof!_” grasps Hassayampa, swaying backward, and he sets down so hard that he bounced. He sets there making funny faces at me and hanging on to his equator.

The judge twists his neck and peers at his gun. Then he gets up and weaves away past a tent, talking to himself like a shepherd. I looks over at the suffering Hassayampa and says:

“Every little thing is all right, Hassayampa. How’s it with you?”

He shakes his head and hugs himself some more.

“Think you’re going to die?” I asks.

He takes a deep breath.

“_Hoo-o-o-off!_ Hit me-uh-in the-uh-hoof! Belt-buckle. What do you know about that? _Hoo-o-o-off!_”

“Not much,” says I. “He can’t shoot no straighter than you can.”

“Lead us not into temptation,” states Old Testament, sitting up sort of jerky.

“Amen,” says I and then I got up, shook the hoops and staves from around my neck and limped away.

I’m a peaceful person and I don’t want to do anything to sully the atmosphere of this glorious celebration.

Then I runs in to Dirty Shirt--or rather I stumbles over his boots which are protruding out from under a tent. I hauls him out, and along with the haul comes Rain-in-the-Face. They’re locked in each other’s embrace, and from the looks of them I reckon it was a case of united we fell. I pries ’em apart and Dirty sets up. He looks at me and then at Rain-in-the-Face, who is sniffing at me with his swollen nose.

“Pokyhontas, you smell sour,” says Rain-in-the-Face and then he scowls at Dirty Shirt.

“You here yet?” he asks.

“In spirit,” agrees Dirty Shirt. “Physically I’m dead from my boots to my dandruff. How do you feel, you cross between a polecat and a totem-pole?”

“Feel of me!” snaps Mighty Jones. “Ain’t you had enough yet? Maybe you’d like to bust up another historical group.”

“Go home and put on some pants,” advises Dirty. “You look like ----! Come on, Ike. Let that delirium tremens Injun set there and make patent medicine if he wants to.”

* * * * *

Don’t ask me all that happened that day. I’m just telling you what happened in my immediate vicinity. Some day I hope to be an innocent by-stander and be able to tell you everything, but as it is you’ve got to guess that the others didn’t come out unscathed.

Me and Dirty found the remains of General Custer sitting near the location of the defunct speaker’s stand. He looks up at us as we go past, but there ain’t no recognition in his eyes.

“How goeth the battle, Cus?” I asks.

He stares straight ahead and raises his voice in tuneless song--

“I am nobodee-e-e-e-e’s darling, nobodee-e-e-e ca-hares for me-e-e-e.”

“Knocked sensible,” declares Dirty, and we weaved along.

“Ike, you’re an awful looking thing,” states Dirty, looking me over. “You better shuck that buckskin Mother Hubbard before somebody accuses me of being a squaw-man. I hate scandal.”

“By grab, I’ve been looking all over for you, Ike,” exclaims a voice, and Pete Gonyer takes me by the arm. “Magpie wants to see you right away.”

“What does he want?” I ask. “I’m all through being butchered to make a Dancing Prairie holiday, if anybody asks you. I’ll go home if he wants me to, but that’s all.”

We follered Pete down to the bank of the river where mostly everybody is collected. Across the river, which is about fifty yards wide at this point, is hung a wide piece of canvas. A scaffolding has been built out from around a tree, and the canvas stretched on that. We stops at the edge and hears old Judge Steele proclaim:

“This here is authentic, I tell you. Ain’t I got the picture of it in my office? I sure have. While I’ve got a lot of respect for Custer and Lincoln, it ain’t noways historically correct that they’re to blame. Therefore it remains for the city of Piperock to hand honor where honor is due. I asks everybody to watch the great spectacle--the spectacle from which Fourth of July owes its being.”

“Get on, Ike.”

I turns and here is Pete Gonyer on a bronc. He’s got one foot out of the stirrup, so I can get up, and like a darn fool I done it. I didn’t know where we were going, but I do know that we went there.

Pete must ’a’ picked a bronc what never carried double, ’cause it whirled around that multitude and we hit the water fifteen feet from the shore.

Man, I’d say that bronc could hop high and handsome, and them Pokyhontas clothes bellied out behind like a balloon.

Pete herded that animal straight for the bank and as soon as it got its feet on solid ground we changed ends so fast that I grabs Pete around the neck and my feet stood straight out. I made one complete turn, let loose, and when I hit the grass I glided about twenty feet on the seat of the pants I didn’t have on--being as that costume consisted of hip-length leggin’s which wouldn’t go over my pants and a sort of a dress.

I got up sore. There is Magpie, “Tellurium” Woods, “Buck” Masterson and Pete looking at me. Tellurium and Buck are in their shirt-sleeves, with their pants rolled up, but Magpie is dressed in that same costume he put on that night in our cabin. That fedora hat don’t fit sideways, so he ties it under his chin with a string. I looked down back of that canvas, and I seen a boat. Honest to grandma, that was the first boat I ever seen in Yaller Rock County. I caresses myself a few and then I squints at the bunch.

“Welcome, Ike,” says Magpie.

“You’re not!” says I.

“Aw, Ike, we needed another oarsman, and you’re from Piperock.”

“Originally from Missouri,” says I. “What are you sheep-herders trying to pull off over here anyway?”

“Washington is going to cross the Delaware,” states Magpie.

“All right,” says I. “Let him cross it. It ain’t my river.”

“I reckon we better start, boys,” says Magpie. “Come in, Ike.”

“Not me! Never and not any!”

“You helped Curlew, Ike,” he reminds me chiding-like.

“Yes, and take a look at me! I won’t help nobody no more. I won’t even help myself. You can all go plumb to thunder!”

I don’t know anything about boats. I might paddle my own canoe if I had one, but I don’t know how to row. Buck can’t row, and neither can Tellurium or Pete.

In the front end of the boat stands Magpie, with one foot histed up on the end, and his hand still searching inside his shirt. That fedora sets almost on his forehead. The multitude lets out a whoop as we emerges and hits the current, which is fairly fast.

“Swing her up-stream!” yelps Magpie.

I hears a couple of shots ahead of us, so I drops my oar and ducks. I reckon that Buck took the same precaution, ’cause the boat starts whirling, being as all the motive power is on one side.

I peeks over the edge and here comes old Judge Steele hopping across the rocks like a rabbit, and right behind him comes Hassayampa. The judge hits the edge of the bank, hops high into the air and comes right down among us.

I seen Hassayampa stub his toe at the brink and he lands in the water.

“Pull for the shore!” yelps Magpie and just then the crowd splits.

* * * * *

I looks up and for the first and last time in my life my eyes feast upon the Paradise Mounted Band.

They rides right up to our landing place and spreads out about five feet apart. The crowd has forgotten us. Here is something new. They crowds around and gawps up at the musicians. I seen “Coyote” Calkins slide out his slip-horn, place it to his lips, wiggle it a couple of times and then music cometh from the four of them at once. Just once.

_Ta-a-a-a, ra-a-a-a-a, dum!_

The feller who said that music hath charms to soothe the savage beast never tried to play a horn from the deck of a half-broke bronc. Our boat just drifted to the bank below them as the music broke forth, and we never had a chance to back up.

The crowd never had any chance to go back either. The bank was about three feet high at that spot, and St. Patrick never made a cleaner job of them Irish snakes than those four broncs of the merry-makers. I seen Rain-in-the-Face hop high to get away from Three Star’s roan, but the bronc beat him to it, and Rain-in-the-Face got kicked half-way across the Delaware.

It ain’t human nature to run up-hill to get out of trouble, so they all follers the lines of least resistance, which in this case led to water, and Washington wasn’t the only one to cross the river.

I seen Coyote’s bronc hurdle some of the crowd and go into the air right over our craft, and believe me I didn’t wait for the crash. Ike Harper ain’t no mermaid, but he sure did take to the water. I got my eyes and ears full of the unaccustomed fluid and then something seems to come down and crown me.

A weight seems to press down upon my mind and, like all drowning men, I grasps at a straw--and got a handful of hair. I hung on and I sure took a ride down the river. I remember I made a noise like a hardware store every time I hit a rock. After what seemed an hour I feels terry firma under my carcass. I looks up in time to see that I’ve got hold of--a bronc’s tail--and then comes one awful clank.

It is sundown when I awake. I’m sore in every joint and I feels that all of my bones have been busted and are sticking out of my skin. My collar-bone is sticking me in the chin and every time I move it grates on the gravel.

After a while I gets nerve enough to open my eyes. Sitting there on that gravel bar beside me is Judge Steele, Old Testament and Hassayampa. They hears me rattle to a sitting position and they stares at me sort of pessimistic-like.

I nods at them and nearly unjoints my remaining bones in trying to get loose from the hoarse-voiced horn which encircles my frame.

“We’ll open with a pup-prayer,” states Old Testament hoarse-like.

“Speech,” argues the judge, in a far-away voice.

“You let our preacher alone!” wails Hassayampa in a croaking whisper. “Doggone you, judge, I’ll run you ragged again. I’m getting peeved.”

I’m peeved, too. I got up on my feet and crowned Hassayampa with that horn. He sort of shudders deeper into the sand and murmurs--

“Hurrah for Custer!”

Then I tried to get back on the other side of the river. I’m bow-legged enough to let most of the river through, but I must ’a’ slipped on a rock, ’cause I soon found that I’m drifting. I never knew before that I could swim. Man, I tried to stop. I knowed that a few thousand miles away this river reaches the ocean, and I don’t like oceans.

Every time I got my feet on a rock the water comes along and turns me a flip-flop and I drifts regardless. The last time I went under I got mad and said to myself--

“Well, stay under then!”

Just about then I feels myself bump into something and I gets hauled high and dry. I spat out a gallon of alkali water and looks around.

I’m in the boat. There sets Magpie, Mike Pelly and Sad Samuels, and I ain’t got nothing on them for looks. The boat is half-full of water, and they’re setting in it like a bunch of hell-divers. They looks me over and then Magpie says:

“We might let him decide. He never had an opinion in his life, but this is a mooted question.”

“Kinda mooted,” nods Sad, woful-like, “kinda mooted.”

“Kinda ----!” whines Mike and I notices that he’s still wearing the brim of that high hat.

“Will you decide to the best of your ability, Ike?” asks Magpie, wringing water out of his mustache. “Without fear or favor will you speak from your heart?”

“I’ll speak but I won’t act,” says I. “Ask me what thou wilt.”

“The question is this, Ike: Paradise says Lincoln, Curlew says Custer and Piperock says Washington is the party responsible for this glorious day and date. Being a disinterested party we asks your opinion. Who do you think started it?”

I looks around at them bedraggled idiots and then at the water.

“I ain’t no history hound,” says I, “but if you leave it to me I’d cast my vote for Jonah. We’ve had a whale of a time to-day.”

“Which is common sense and beats history,” states Magpie and we all shook hands.

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the Mid-October, 1920 issue of Adventure magazine.]