Part 10

On the way back to the boats I reflected on the degrading entertainment of the afternoon. Outside of what Pop Wilkins called “the horning in of that turkey pirate,” the day was considered a success. The well aimed bullets had thrilled the spectators with savage joy, for somewhere in the heart of nearly every average human abides the primitive lust for blood. The marksmanship might just as well have been exhibited on inanimate and unsuffering targets. The helpless turkeys in the boxes gratified the baser instincts to the extent of their limitations, and when they were all dead the crowd went home as happy as if it had been to a bull fight, a prize ring, or to any other brutal spectacle disguised by pretended admiration of scientific ability. On the way back down the river, our boats kept close together and there was much discussion over the day’s events.

Pop Wilkins delivered a long tirade against Varney, and wound up by modestly admitting that probably he would have beheaded all of the birds with his squirrel rifle if he had had the opportunity, so after all it was merely a question as to who shot first.

“That feller c’d prob’ly thread needles with that damn rifle,” observed Bill. “I’ve read o’ fellers that had telescope eyes an’ a sixth sense that somehow couldn’t miss nuth’n they ever shot at. They c’d plunk holes wherever they wanted to, like they was use’n a gimlet. I wonder what ’e wasted them four extry catritches fer? Prob’ly so’s to make a nice sociable feel’n all ’round an’ make ’em think it wasn’t quite so raw. He prob’ly goes to shoots all over the country an’ sells the plunder in the market.”

The chill winds of a desolate winter had swept through the naked woods along the river, and a balmy May had come, with its tender unfolding leaves of hope and perfumed blossoms, when Josh Varney again appeared on the scene.

“Well! Well! How’s everybody?” he shouted genially as he drove up in front of Posey’s store one forenoon with a roan horse and a smart new buggy.

“We’re slowly git’n well. Say, Perfessor, you ain’t got no gun with you, have you?” queried Bill, as the pair shook hands. “’Cause if you have they’s a lot of us that’s goin’ to hide some poultry.”

“Now, look ’ere Bill, you don’t want to be sore ’bout that little shoot’n last fall. I gave all them turkeys to some poor people, an’ they done a lot o’ good. I just happened to hit ’em, an’ I couldn’t repeat that performance in a hundred years.”

“You bet you couldn’t ’round ’ere if we seen you first,” replied Bill. “I’d hate to furnish turkeys fer you to shoot at fer a hundred years, an I’d hate to be the poor people wait’n fer you to feed the birds to ’em. Say, what you got up yer sleeve this trip? Sump’n still funnier, I s’pose.”

Posey was busy with a customer, and Varney remained with us on the platform. He produced some murky and doubtful cigars that Bill declared looked like genuine “El Hempos” and we smoked and talked for some time. Pop Wilkins joined us, and Sophy Perkins arrived at the store to purchase some calico. She bestowed a reserved nod and a feline glance on Varney, and greeted the rest of the party with scant politeness. She stood just inside, near the entrance, and utilized the time Posey was spending with his other customer in listening to our conversation. She soon became so absorbed in it that she forgot all about her calico and remained riveted to her point of vantage. Posey respected her preoccupation and busied himself with other things after his first visitor had left through the side door.

The chairs outside were tipped against the long window sill, and the party was making itself comfortable in the spring sunshine. Varney was relating a wondrous tale, and was fully aware of the acute eavesdropping within. Many of the romantic touches in his discourse were apparently for Sophy’s benefit.

“I got a long letter from a friend of mine,” said Josh, as he felt through his inside pockets, “an’ I wish I had it with me, but I guess I’ve left it somewhere. He’s making a trip ’round the world an’ ’e writes me that in India he ran across a marvellous breed of turkeys. You know turkeys originated in India, an’ they come from there first about five hundred years ago. These strange birds he writes about live away up in the Himalaya mountains and are pure white. They’re much larger than ordinary turkeys, an’ their color adapts ’em to the snowy peaks, an’ protects ’em from the natives when they pursue ’em out o’ the valleys, where they go to eat frogs along the water courses. They live almost entirely on frogs when they c’n git ’em. When they’re disturbed they wing back to the frozen heights, an’ sometimes don’t come down for a year. When they’re hunted up there they fly from crag to crag an’ they’re almost invisible, an’ its a funny thing, but their meat’s all white, too. They ain’t no dark meat on ’em like there is on common turkeys.

“They lay enormous eggs an’ the eggs generally have two yolks. Sometimes twins hatch out of ’em. The double yolks give an extra amount of vitality to the young turks, which is necessary up among the cold rocks where they’re hatched.

“The eggs have a delicious spicy flavor that comes from the spearmint and other pungent plants that the frogs nibble along the streams. The eggs are highly prized by epicures, an’ there’s a Frenchman livin’ in Bombay that pays two rupees apiece for all ’e c’n git of ’em. He makes what ’e calls ‘_omelets de frog secondaire_,’ or something like that, with ’em, an’ ’e says there’s nothing like ’em. With him its hen eggs no more.

“There’s a sacred caste in India called the Brahmins, and they believe that these white turkeys are what they call reincarnations of a supernatural race of beings that ruled the earth before man existed.

“Somebody ought to import some o’ them turkeys an’ breed ’em in this country. Along a river like this they’d find plenty to eat an’ they wouldn’t be no expense at all. My friend writes that ’e hopes to bring two or three back with him when ’e comes home, an’ I’m anxious to see ’em. Oh, yes, come to think of it, I put a photograph in my pocket book that was in the letter.”

Varney thereupon produced a kodak print of a stately white bird. Some figures in oriental costume, somewhat out of focus and indistinct, were grouped back of it in the picture. Varney explained that these were Brahmins and native hunters.

Sophy peeked over the pile of straw hats in the window and had a good look at the photograph as Varney deftly held it so that it could be seen from that direction without appearing to do so.

We were greatly entertained by the story.

“Say, Perfessor,” asked Bill, “what do them fowls an’ their young ones feed on when they don’t git offen the snow an’ go down fer frogs? Do they have to have the frogs fer their complexions?”

“That’s the strange part of it,” replied Varney. “You see they sort o’ lead double lives. Nature is wonderful in all her works. In the Himalayas there’s a small red mosquito that has never been found except away above the timber line. They have ’em out west in this country, too. They sometimes cover the snow so thick that it looks like blood, an’ the little turks patter ’round on the drifts an’ eat ’em with voracity, an’ the big ones do, too.”

“‘Voracity,’ what’s that—sump’n their mixed with?” asked Bill.

“No, it means their awful appetite.”

“I’d s’pose them skeets ’ud make the turkey meat taste kin’ o’ nippy an’ prickly, sort o’ red-pepper like,” observed Bill, winking solemnly in our direction. “It oughta be hot stuff.”

“The insects make the finest kind o’ food for ’em,” continued Varney, ignoring Bill’s gentle raillery, and the incredulous smiles of the rest of us. “When the mosquito crop’s extra good they get so fat they can’t fly or run very far, and are easily caught. When they’re lean they c’n run like a race horse. The bird that’s in the picture weighed nearly seventy pounds when ’e was captured. He couldn’t fly, an’ ’e was chased into a cleft in a big rock and a net was slipped over ’im. The man that caught ’im was named Bungush Swamee, an ’e was a famous hunter. You see everybody has funny names in India.”

“What was that Bungush feller doin’ up there with a net?” asked Pop Wilkins. “Did ’e s’pect to find fish?”

“No, he took it up there for that very purpose. He wanted to catch ’is birds alive, without injury, so ’e c’d sell ’em to the museums an’ menageries. One year he caught seven an’ shipped ’em to the Zoo in Bombay, an’ that’s how that Frenchman I just spoke of happened to try the eggs. They laid ’em in the Zoo and the keeper o’ the Zoo was a friend o’ his.

“You askin’ about expecting to find fish up there reminds me that my friend said in ’is letter that another way they had o’ catching the birds was to lay out set lines over the snow with big fish hooks on ’em. They fastened ’em to the jagged rocks an’ left ’em out three or four days. They baited the hooks with frogs they’d brought up from down below. The frogs, of course, froze, but the turkeys would swallow ’em, an’ when the frogs thawed out inside their crops they’d be stuck with the hooks. My friend wrote that one man got three on one line once an’ had a terrible time pullin’ ’em in over the rough ice and snow. They have some awful snow storms up in them mountains. Sometimes it snows for years without let’n up, an’ the snow gits to be half a mile deep, so you see there’s lots of uncertainties.”

At this point Bill removed his tattered hat and bowed reverently to Varney.

Pop Wilkins remarked that he had often caught turkeys on fish lines, but his custom had been to troll for them through the open fields with spoon hooks, or use a pole and line with a casting bait when the birds were in the trees. Although he had never tried set lines on snow, he had no doubt it would work.

The subject was changed, and Sophy, after making her purchase, departed without looking in our direction.

“That feller’s the oiliest liar I ever heard,” declared Bill, after Varney had transacted his business and gone, “an’ e’ tells int’restin’ lies, too. It beats me how ’e does ’em. It’s a sort o’ natural gift, like singin’ an’ drawin’ pitchers, an’ I love to hear ’im throw it. Most liars ’ud stop when they seen it wasn’t soakin’ in an’ people was git’n weak, but the Perfessor keeps right on ’till the goose flesh comes. Say, Pop, you an’ me’ll have to ferment sump’n to drown ’im with when ’e blows ’round ’ere ag’in. Let’s tell ’im one that’ll put ’im out o’ business for six months.”

“All right, Bill, you be thinkin’ of it. You’re sump’n of a past master yourself. I’m goin’ home to rest. I got enough for one day.”

Varney chuckled quietly to himself as he crossed the bridge, for with his story he had woven a web of many meshes, and to it he hoped time would bring valuable spoil. He knew that he could rely on Sophy’s cupidity and insatiable curiosity to “start something,” and when he came again it was his intention to amplify and strengthen the ground work he had laid.

A week later the firm by whom Josh was employed received a mysterious letter asking all about him. It came from the county seat, and was afterwards ascertained to have been written by one of Sophy’s acquaintances, undoubtedly at her instigation. This was a characteristic and favorite form of strategy with Sophy, and was quite recognizable to Josh when the letter was shown to him. The reply that he suggested was sent by his obliging employers. It contained the assurance that Mr. Varney was a gentleman of high repute. He had sold their goods for several years, and they considered his honesty and ability above question.

In due course of time Sophy began to agitate the idea of getting “some of those wonderful white foreign turkeys” that she had “accidentally heard about” into the neighborhood. She thought that the club ought to take the matter up.

Bill assured her that “the Perfessor was handin’ out bunk the day that things was bein’ accident’ly overheard inside, an’ anything from ’im ’ud be ’bout like what ’e put over at the Thanksgivin’ shoot.”

This spirit of opposition only stimulated Sophy, and the subtle Josh had calculated on it to a nicety. He knew that the seed was now in fertile soil and he calmly awaited the harvest.

In a month he came again, and incidentally mentioned that his friend who wrote him about the Himalayan white turkeys had arrived in New York. He had started home with three birds, but two of them had been sickened by the roll of the ship on the way over, and had died just before getting into port. The one that survived the voyage was the remarkable gobbler that was in the picture he had shown on his last trip to the store.

“This bird’ll cause a lot of excitement in this country,” he declared. “They call ’im Hyder Ali, an’ ’e’s named after a famous Mohametan general that fought in Asia a good many years ago. This man Hyder Ali pretty nearly cleaned the English out of India once an’ they had a hot time getting ’im canned. There’s been ships an’ perfumery an’ race horses an’ brands o’ cigars an’ lots of other things named after ’im. He was one of the most famous men that ever lived in that part of the world.”

By degrees the imaginative and romantic Josh succeeded in creating an atmosphere of avid interest in everything relating to Hyder Ali, the marvellous fowl from beyond the briny seas, and he intended to intensify this atmosphere to the point of precipitation at the proper time.

A couple of weeks later Varney told Posey that he had bought the Himalayan gobbler from his friend, but did not know what to do with him for a week or ten days, as the man that was going to take care of it for him was away. It was arranged that the gobbler was to be brought to the store and temporarily installed in the chicken yard near the barn.

On the following Saturday afternoon, when Josh well knew that there would be a full attendance at Posey’s, that gay and debonair gentleman came in a light spring wagon. He was accompanied by a young man with a thick “O’Merican” accent, who drove the rig, and whom he introduced as Mr. Flaherty. Interest immediately centered on the big box, perforated with many auger holes, that stood in the wagon back of the seat.

The vehicle was followed by the agitated and curious crowd, as it was driven back to the chicken yard. The box was tenderly removed and placed inside the wire netting enclosure by Varney and Flaherty.

The appearance of Hyder Ali had been skilfully timed. The composite effect of Varney’s discourses on the subject of this wondrous bird had been to produce psychologic conditions that he considered quite perfect for his dark purposes. He knew that the halo of prestige and romance, that had been patiently made to glow around Hyder Ali, would become still brighter when that peerless bird burst dramatically upon the rustic stage.

Out of the opened door of the box there came, with delicate mincing steps and regal mien, what, to that crowd, was almost a celestial vision. He was an enormous bird. With the exception of his eyes, he was pure white, even to his carunculated neck wattle and comb. The eyes were of a deep pink, and gleamed like iridescent opals in their snowy setting. The slender comb dangled and hung jauntily on one side, like the tassle on a Turkish fez, and it imparted a rakish oriental air. The head was crowned with a dainty little wisp of airy feathers that would have fluttered the heart of the most obdurate of hen turkeys. The shifting light revealed pearly half-tones in the snowy raiment. He was immaculate and would hardly have seemed out of place on a pedestal. Many strange and queer things have stood on pedestals in this world, both in fact and fancy, and Hyder Ali would have ranked very far from the lower end of the scale.

He paused on being released from what to him must have been a humiliating confinement, looked disdainfully at his surroundings, and nonchalantly acquired a fat green tomato worm that decorated a nearby leaf.

He walked slowly, and with lordly dignity, about the enclosure, apparently conscious of the wonder and admiration he was attracting. He seemed like some rare exotic—entirely foreign to the strange environment into which an indiscriminate fate had thrust him.

“Let joy be unconfined! We’ve got Hyder Ali!” shouted Bill, half sarcastically, as he joined the awe stricken crowd. He had arrived too late to witness the unloading, but he was impressed with the fact that Varney had, at least in some measure, “made good.” However, the demon of distrust still lingered in his heart. He had never seen or heard of anything that looked like Hyder Ali before, but was disposed to restrain his enthusiasm and await further developments.

Sophy Perkins came late in the afternoon and was in a highly flustered state. She spent a long time at the chicken yard with her wistful eyes riveted on the distinguished guest. To own that bird would crown her futile and disappointed life with bliss. She longed for its possession as one who beseeches fate for the unattainable.

Seemingly in response to her fervent gaze, Hyder Ali spread his tail feathers into vast fan-like forms over his downy back. His pink eyes glistened with alluring and changing beams from amid the fluffy white array of distended plumage, as he turned slowly round and round, posed, and strutted, quite human like, before Sophy’s bewildered vision.

His prolonged gobbles, as he majestically patrolled the chicken pen, had for her an ineffable musical charm.

She had once read a syndicated story in a newspaper magazine supplement, in which reincarnation and transmigration of souls figured in a supernatural and flesh creepy plot. After she had heard Josh Varney’s allusion to reincarnation in his first talk with us at the store, she had hunted it up and reread it carefully. In the woful and sobby tale a beautiful princess and her affinity discovered that they had once loved as shell-fish, and through countless ages had periodically met in other strange forms, which did not happen to be identical until the time of the story, when they met in a phosphorescent light in the dusty tomb of a Manchu ancestor.

During her second day’s visit to Hyder Ali a mysterious and indefinable thrill had crept into Sophy’s sterile heart. She pondered much over the resistless fascination that the bird exercised over her, and suddenly became obsessed with the idea that this was possibly the reincarnation of a soul mate that she might have had in some far off previous existence, somewhere in the star swept æons that were gone, that had drifted through the ages in various forms, until predestination had again brought them face to face. She had a hazy idea of the theory of reincarnation, but she had an instinctive feeling that, if there was anything of that sort, this was probably it, and a long lost affinity was before her.

The “loose wires in her upper story” that Rat Hyatt had mentioned at the turkey shoot began to rattle hopelessly on the subject of the white gobbler.

Into her mind there came a desperate resolve to acquire that bird, by fair means or foul. All of her persistence, and every form of artifice and cunning of which she was capable would thenceforth be devoted to that end.

After Hyder Ali had sojourned a week in Posey’s pen, attended with adoration, and fed with selected worms, corn meal mush, and other dainties by the faithful Sophy, Mr. Flaherty came with his little spring wagon and took him away. He said that the man who was to keep him for Mr. Varney had returned home, but he did not say where he lived.

Thus was Hyder Ali dangled temptingly before the Turkey Club, and tantalizingly whisked from sight. Varney was eagerly questioned when he came again, but his manner was very reserved. He seemed willing to talk volubly on any subject but the gobbler, the only thing anybody wanted to hear about. He finally said that he had paid three hundred dollars for the bird and intended to exhibit him at the county fairs in various parts of the state during the fall, charging a small admission fee to make it profitable.

Sophy was anxious to know if he would sell the bird, and, after talking it all over with her, the reluctant Josh consented to a “grand raffle” for the turkey, provided three hundred chances could be sold at one dollar each. He felt that exhibiting the bird around the country might be a good deal of a job, although he regarded it as a fine thing from a financial point of view. If he was to part with Hyder Ali he would rather that he would remain with his friends along the river, as he was very fond of all of them, and they might talk over the county fair idea later.

It was agreed that when all of the chances were sold the drawing should be held under the auspices of the Turkey Club in the yard back of Posey’s store, where Hyder Ali was to be brought.

Numbered tickets, corresponding to the names in Sophy’s sales book were to be deposited in a hat. Josh Varney, as the owner of the turkey, was to hold the hat. Sophy was to be blindfolded, and to draw forth the tickets one by one, until the contents of the hat were exhausted. They were to be handed to somebody else who would call off the numbers and cancel them in the book. The last ticket in the hat was to win Hyder Ali.

The chances were all sold within a week, some purchasers taking as many as a dozen. Just before the supply was gone Josh and his friend Flaherty each took ten and the book was declared closed.

Sophy was only able to buy seven, but she hoped that they would be sufficient for her purpose.

Every able bodied person, and some who were not, who lived within ten miles and could by any means get to the store, was there on the day of the drawing.

Hyder Ali arrived in his perforated box and was reinstalled in the chicken yard, where he walked about in lonely majesty, while his destiny was in the balance—the cynosure of many anxious and covetous eyes.

A platform had been improvised with four big drygoods boxes in the yard, high enough for everybody to see what was going on. Mr. Varney stood on it and announced the conditions. He acknowledged the receipt of the proceeds of the raffle, and stated that the bird now belonged to the winner.

The three hundred numbered tickets were then produced by Sophy. She handed them to Varney to deposit in the ancient plug hat that Pop Wilkins had obligingly loaned for the occasion, in accordance with time honored custom. Pop, with the sun reflecting from his bald head, stood on the platform, adjusted his brass rimmed spectacles, and made ready to call off the cancellations.

Varney ran through the tickets several times and counted them to see if they were all there. His numbers were from 281 to 290. He mixed the tickets over thoroughly inside the hat with his hand, and the blindfolded Sophy began drawing. She had carefully bent all of her own tickets in such a way as to enable her to identify them by touch, and had no doubt that she would own Hyder Ali within the next twenty minutes. There was excited buying and selling, at big premiums, of numbers remaining in the hat as the contest narrowed down, and there were frequent delays in the drawing to accommodate the speculators. Six of Sophy’s tickets had come out. None of them were bent and cold chills raced up and down her spine. Her agile and nervous fingers had carefully avoided a well bent ticket near one side of the grimy interior of the hat. When she drew out a flat ticket next to it, she learned to her horror that it was her last number. With a faint heart she reached for the other, hoping that there had been some error in her count, but the last ticket was number 294, and it belonged to Mr. Flaherty.