Books: Happy Hawkins

R >> Robert Alexander Wason >> Happy Hawkins

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Well, I ragged around in the mountains between Nevada and
California, lookin' for a flat-shaped rock with a mountain-peak on
each side of it, an' a cold wind sweepin' up the canon--I don't know
just how the cold wind got included, but the dyin' outlaw dwelt upon
that cold wind something particular. I stayed out puny late in the
season, an' if cold winds was identifyin', Brophy had his treasure
buried purty unpartially all over the West.

I reckon I'd have died if I had it fallen in with Slocum. Slocum was
a queer lookin' speciment when you first came upon him. His skin
didn't fit him very well, bein' a trifle too big, an' wrankled an'
baggy in consequence; his eyes was kind of a washy blue, an' they
stuck out from his face, givin' him the most sorrowful expression I
ever see. You just couldn't be suspicious of a man with such eyes as
that; he seemed to have throwed himself wide open an' invited the
whole world to come an' look inside. Why, a perfect stranger would
have trusted Slocum with his last plug of tobacoo, and like as not
he'd have gotten part of it back. Well, as I said, I was headin' for
warmer weather, but I got overtook an' had about given up all hope
when I noticed the smell of smoke in the air. I was walkin' on foot
an' pullin' a burro with a pack behind me, an' after a time I
located that smoke comin' right up through the snow.

I yelled and shouted around for a while without gettin' any
response. Night and the snow was both fallin' fast, an' that smoke
was exceeding temptin'. Finally I took a piece of burlap off the
pack, put it over the hole where the smoke was comin' up through,
an' piled snow on top of it. I was curious to see what would happen.
I waited--perhaps it was only five minutes, but it seemed that many
hours--an' then a low, calm voice, down somewhere beneath me, sez,
"Get off that chimney!"

"I will," sez I, "when you tell me how to get to the fire."

I waited again, an' then a man with a lantern emerged into the cut
about forty feet below me, an' told me how I could wind around and
come down to him. Well, me an' the burro finally worked it out, an'
there was a man with long whiskers standin' in his shirt-sleeves in
front of a hole in the snow.

"You like to 'a' smothered me," he grumbled. "Don't you know
better'n to stop up a chimney that's workin'?"

"I wanted the chimney to work double," sez I, "an' that was the only
way I could think up to attract your attention."

"Do you live around here?" sez he. "Not very much," sez I, "but I 'm
minded to try it a while, if there 's room in your burrow for two."

"Got any tobacco?" sez he.

"Plenty," sez I.

"You're welcome," sez he.

We took the burro over to a clump of pine woods an' turned him
loose, an' then I crawled in through the tunnel to Slocum's fire. It
was in a cave which had a natural chimney runnin' up the hill, an'
it looked considerable much like Paradise to me. We ate an' smoked
together for a week. an' then one day our fire went out an' a flood
of water poured down through the chimney. We worked like beavers for
a while, gettin' our stuff outdoors, an' it was as hot as summer
outside.

"That's the only drawback to this cave," said Slocum. "It will be
all to the good when the winter settles in earnest, but it will be
some bother while it's still snowin' an' thawin'."

I told him that I agreed with him to such an extent that if I could
locate the burro I'd rather risk gettin' back to humanity than to
dyin' there of rheumatiz. I was wringin' wet through.

"Nobody can't die of rheumatiz around me," sez Slocum, an' he went
to one of his packs an' got out a piece of root.

"Chew this," sez he, "an' it will drive the rheumatiz out of your
system."

Anybody would have trusted those eyes, so I chewed the root for
about a minute, an' then I chewed snow an' mud an' tobacco an' red
pepper for an hour, tryin' to get rid of the taste. Drive the
rheumatiz out of your system? Why, the blame stuff would drive out
your system too if you chewed it long enough. It was the
tarnationest stuff 'at ever a human man met up with.

"It's most too strong to take pure," sez Slocum, "but if you grind
it an' put a shall pinch in a quart of alcohol it makes a fine
remedy. Don't throw the rest o' that root away. There is enough
there to do you a lifetime."

"Yes," sez I, "there is, an' more."

A feiler once told me that man was a slave to his envirament--
envirament is anything around you, scenery, books, evil companions,
an' sech; well, a burro ain't no slave to his envirament 'cause he
generally eats it. My burro was fat, an' the clump of pine trees had
mostly disappeared. I loaded up my stuff, shook hands with Slocum,
and started down the mountain. Just as I got fully started Slocum
sez to me, "I 'm sure sorry to see you go. I don't generally get
much friendly with folks any more, but I took to you from the first,
an' any time I can do you a favor, all you got to do is to wink."

"What's your general plan of occupation, Slocum?" sez I.

"All that I ever expect to do for the remainder of my days," sez he,
"is to search for my Rheumatiz Remedy."

"Well," sez I, "any time you get to do me a favor in that line,
it'll be when I'm too weak to wink." So we parted the best o'
friends, an' I went on to a lumber camp where I put in the winter
bossin' a gang. I didn't know much about lumber, but the men there
was just the same as anywhere else, an' we got along fine.

I was bossin' a little ranch up in Idaho next June when I heard tell
of a big strike in the Esmeralda range--not such a great distance
from where I had spent the week with Slocum. The report had it that
a feller named Slocum had located the big ace of gold mines, an' I
was some et up with curiosity to see if it was the same Slocum; but
I was needed at the ranch that winter, an' as I took a likin' for
the young feller who was tryin' to make it go, I stuck to him, an'
it wasn't until the followin' July that I pulled out an' floated
down that way.

Well, it was the same old Slocum sure enough. He was the most
onlucky cuss 'at ever breathed, I reckon. Every time he had made up
his mind to do something, Fate had stepped up an' voted again it. He
had wasted the best part of his life locatin' gold mines 'at
wouldn't hang out, until at last even he got disgusted an' went to
huntin' for his Injun root to cure rheumatiz with. First thing he
knew, he had stumbled on a bonanza lode in the Esmeralda range. This
here lode was a peach. Ten-foot face on top, just soggy with gold
an' silver, an' copper an' tin enough to pay expenses. It just
looked as if they's said, "Now then, there's Slocum; he been
hammered so long he's got callous to it. Let's jus' see how he'd act
if we switched his luck on him." An' they sure done it.

Slocum, he scratched around until he see that it wasn't no joke, an'
then he set bait for a couple o' capitalists. He trapped two
beauties, an' they put up the assets an' went in, equal partners.
They sunk shafts an' built stamp mills an' smelters an' retorts; oh,
they sure made plans to get the metal wholesale. As soon as it began
to flow in they built stores an' shacks an' a big hotel--they wasn't
timorous about puttin' their coin into circulation, you bet your
life, an' it looked as if they was going to flood the market.

Well, Slocum, he owned a third of everything, mind, an' his
expression flopped square over like a dry moon, an' stayed points
up. He forgot all those years 'at he'd been havin' the muddy end of
it, an' after a time he got 'em to call the mine "Slocum's Luck."
The' wasn't no call to hurl such an insult as that into the mouth of
an honest, hard-workin' mine, an' naturally, as soon as it was done,
the mine laid down in its tracts an' refused to give up another
ounce.

They came to a break in the lode an' couldn't find the beginnin'
again. The same twist that had hove one edge out of the ground had
unjointed the other. But they had got out a tidy sum already, an'
they knew the' must be a loose end somewhere, so they was anxious to
keep their outfit in good order.

Slocum hadn't swelled clear out of shape with his new fortune, an'
when I made myself known to him he had give me a purty tol'able
decent sort of a job, where there was more bossin' an'
responsibility than brute labor; an' I felt kindly toward him.
Winter lasted full four months out there. It was a good ninety miles
to the railroad, an' so when the mornin's begun to get frosty every
one else scooted for humanity, an' I, bein' more or less weak-
minded, took the job o' watchman, at forty a month an' my needin's.
I always was a hog for litachure, so I got a bushel o' libraries an'
started in to play it alone.

The' wasn't a blessed thing to do, so I read 'em through by New
Years, an' got out of tobacco by the first of February. From that on
I begun to think in a circle, an' my, intellect creaked like a dry
axle before the bluebirds began to sing. Quiet? I could hear the
shadows crawlin' along the side of the house. The snow was seventy-
five feet deep in the canyons, so you might say I was duty bound to
stay there. As a general rule, I don't shirk breakin' a path, but
when the snow is more than fifty feet higher than my head, I'd
rather walk fourth or fifth.

When the outfit came back in the spring I was the entire reception
committee; but I bet the' never was one more able to do its part.

CHAPTER TEN

A WINTER AT SLOCUM'S LUCK

They only brought out about half a gang that summer, an' they kept
them probin' around all over the neighborhood; but though they found
enough stuff to about pay expenses, they couldn't get back on the
main track. Both the Eastern capitalists showed up along toward fall
to see what was doin', an' when it came time to knock off work, they
tried to get me to repeat my little performance as watchman.

I thanked 'em for their trustfulness, but i politely declined the
honor. I told 'em 'at I was purty tol'able quick-witted, an' it
didn't take me four months to study out what I was goin' to say
next. But I compromised by sayin' that if they would give me two
other fellers for company I'd stay; otherwise they'd have to rustle
up some poor devil 'at needed the money. They knew 'at I was
reliable, so they agreed; an' I selected out my two companions in
affliction. What I mostly wanted was a heap of variety, an' when the
number is limited to two, a feller has to be some choicy; but I
reckon I got the best the' was.

There'd been a little light-haired feller there all season, kind o'
gettin' familiar with labor, like. He was no account to work, he
couldn't even learn to tie a knot; but he talked kin' o' blotchy,
an' it was divertin' to listen to him. One day we was kiddin' him
about bein' so thumby, an' he sez, "That's right, boys, laugh while
you can; but I'll have you all between the covers of a book some
day, an' then it will be my grin. I ain't swore no everlastin'
felicity to the holy cause o' labor; I'm just gettin' local color
now."

Next day he fell into a barrel of red paint he was swobbin' on the
hotel to keep her from warpin', an' every blessed man in camp passed
out about six jokes apiece relatin' to local color. He never
saddened up none, though, just smiled sorrowful, as though he pitied
us, an' went on tanglin' up everything he touched.

An' then there was another curious speciment there; a tall thin
feller, with one o' them lean, chinny faces. He claimed 'at he had
been a show actor, but his lungs had given out--claimed he was a
tragudian, but Great Scott! he couldn't even turn a handspring.

He said he was recuperatin', an' he sure did hit his liquor purty
hard; but I never could make out what he expected to get out of a
minin' camp, 'cause he was full as useless as Local Color. About
half the fellers you meet strayin' around out here are a bit one-
sided, but we don't care so long as they're peaceable. When you'd
guy this one a little stout, he'd fold his arms, throw back his
head, an' say, "Laugh, varlets, laugh! Like the cracklin' o' thorns
under a pot, is the laughter of fools." This was the brand of
langwidge 'at flowed from this one, an' he wasn't no ways stingy
with it.

Well, they had kept these two at boys' jobs an' boys' wages, an'
when I offered 'em the position of deputy watchmen, they fair jumped
at it. Said Local Color, "It will be a golden opportunity to
perpetuate the seething thoughts which crowd upon my brain." Said
Hamlet, "I thank thee, sir, for this, thy proposition fair. In sooth
I'll try the cold-air cure, and in the majesty of prime-evil
silence, I shall make the snow-capped mountains echo to the
wonderful rhapsodies of Shakespeare." Well, the' was a super-
abundance of cold air an' prime-evil silence an' snow-capped
mountains, an' I didn't care a hang what he did to 'em, so long as
it kept me from gettin' everlastin' sick o' my own company.

I never see any company yet 'at wasn't a shade better'n just my own.
I knew I could stand these two innocents for four months, an' if
they got violent I could rope an' tie 'em. When everybody begun to
get ready to pull out, I took the twenty-mule team down to town to
get our needin's. I took the children along with me, an' I sez to
'em, "Now, boys, no drinkin' goes up above through the winter. We
simply have to go out an' get disgusted with it before we start
back."

Well, we sure had a work-out. On the sixth day Hamlet, he throws his
arm around my neck an' busts out cryin' an' sez, "Happy, it is the
inflexible destiny o' the human race to weary of all things mortal,
an' I'm dog-tired o' bein' drunk--an' 'sides, I'm busted."

It turned out that he didn't have any advantage over me an' Locals
in this respect, so we went to the company store an' got three
bushels o' nickle libraries, enough grub to do six men six months,
enough tobacco to do twelve men a car, an' a little yeller pup 'at
we give six bits for. I didn't 'low to run any risks this deal.

When we got back 'most everybody had pulled out, an' the roads was
beginnin' to choke up. Slocum an' the two capitalists was there
waitin' for us, but when all their stuff was loaded on the wagon
the' wasn't room for the men; so Miller, the youngest capitalist,
who was a bit of a highroller, an' had been shakin' up the coast off
an' on, he took off four trunks, an' sez to me, "Happy, if you run
out of clothes, here's four trunks-full." Then they hopped on the
wagon an' left us alone in our glory.

I reckon, take it all in all, that was about the most florid winter
I ever put in, an' it purt' nigh spoilt me for hard work. I did the
cookin', the innocents did the chores, an' we got along as bully as
a fat bear for a while, livin' in the hotel. The' was a hundred
rooms, but we didn't use 'em all. Locals, he wrote most of the time,
when he wasn't lookin' at the ceiling an' tryin' to think. Hammy, he
walked barefoot in the snow, on' hollered at the snow-capped
mountains. I read nickle libraries, an' we didn't care a dang for
the Czar of Russia, until along toward Christmas a spark lit in my
pile of litachure, an' doggone near burned the hotel down. Then we
began to feel snowed-in. Locals had writ himself dry, Hammy was
tired of listenin' to himself, besides havin' chilblains up to his
knees, an' I was half crazy, 'count of havin' nothing to read. We
didn't have a nickle between us, so we couldn't gamble, an' I
resigned my mind that when spring climbed up the trail the 'd be two
corpses an' one maniac in that cussed hotel.

One day Hammy came stalkin' in to where me an' Locals was playin'
guess. Guess ain't never apt to be a popular pastime 'cause it has
to be played without any kind o' cheatin' whatever. The one who is
it, guesses what the other one is thinkin' of, an' if he guesses
before he falls asleep, he wins. Well, Hammy, he breaks in on our
game just the same as if we hadn't been doin' anything at all, an' I
knew by his action that the' was somethin' afoot. Whenever Hammy was
ready to speak something, he always walked like a hoss 'at was
string-haltered in all four legs. Well, he paraded up to us that
day, hip action, knee action, and instep action all workin', stopped
in front of us, folded his arms, an' sez, "Good sirs, I have
conceived a fitting fete." "The only fate I expect is to go mad an'
cut my own throat," sez Locals; but Hammy frowned an' went on in a
scoldy, indignant voice. "When Wisdom speaks, Folly replies with
jest; yet, having little choice of company, I needs must make the
best of what I have."

Well, those two had what they called a war of wits until finally
Locals hit Hammy with a chair, which was the way most o' their
discussions ended; but it turned out that what Hammy was tryin' to
say was that we should open the trunks, dress ourselves in the
clothes, an' give a show. He said he knew parts to fit any make-ups
we'd find; an' after Locals found out what it was 'at Hammy had
schemed out, he joined in enthusiastic, an' said that if the' had
never been a part writ to fit 'em yet, he could do it on the spot,
an' he wasn't swamped with business right then anyway. "Yes," I sez,
" it's a great idee, an' we'll sure draw a mammoth crowd. We'll
charge 'em a library apiece an' get enough litachure to last us a
hundred years." "At best, sarcasm is out of season; at worst, the
season 's out of it," sez Hammy to me: "and furthermore, good
friend, in life, as on the stage, your part must be a role of
actions, not of words." I used to say over the things 'at this pair
made up, until I had 'em by heart, an' since then I've had a lot o'
fun springin' 'em on strangers. They used to speak to me as though I
was a horse, and of me as though I was part of the furniture. Hammy
sez to me one day, "Me good man, you do very well with your hands,
but kindly Nature designed your head merely for a hatrack."

They could say these little things right off the roll, an' it allus
made me feel like a fish out o' water, somehow, but I stored 'em up
in my memory, an' I've got my worth out of 'em all right.

We did open the trunks a week or so after this--and clothes! Well,
say, Miller sure was the dresser. The' was fifteen hats in a little
trunk built a-purpose for 'em, an' the' was all kinds of vests an'
pants an' neckties 'at a feller could imagine. But best of all was a
book 'at we found at the bottom of one o' the trunks. It was a hard-
shelled book, an' I never took much stock in that kind. When it's my
turn to read a book, a little old paper-back fits me out all right.
I've been fooled on them hard-shells too often; but this here one
was a hummer.

I ain't no tenderfoot when it comes to a book, but this one was sure
the corkin'est I ever met up with. I had allus thought 'at
"Seventeen Buckets o' Blood; or the Mormon Widder's Revenge" was
about the extreme limit in books, but this here one lays over even
that. It was called "Monte Cristo," an' had the darndest set o' Dago
names in it ever a mortal human bein' laid eyes on. I tried to mine
it out by myself at first, but pshaw, every cuss in the book had a
name like an Injun town, an' the' was about as many characters in
the book as the' is on the earth; so I delegated Hammy to read her
out loud. This suited Hammy to the limit, an' he didn't only read
her--he acted her. He'd roar an' screech an' whisper an' glare into
your eyes so blame natural that a feller never used the back of his
chair from start to finish, an' twice I was on the point of shootin'
him, thinkin' it was real.

If you ain't never read the book it'll pay you to fling up your job
an' wrastle through it. It starts out with a nice, decent young
feller sailin' home to marry his steady, but all his friends turn in
an' stack the cards on him, an' get him chucked into the rottenest
dungeon in France. He knowed how they soak it to a feller citizen in
that country, an' at first he was all for killin' himself; but after
he'd studied it over ten or twelve years, he suddenly heard a queer
scratchin' noise.

In that same prison was another prisoner, an Abbey. An Abbey is a
kind of foreman priest. Well, this Abbey wasn't one to throw out a
prayer an' then set down to wait for results, not him. He was one o'
these nervous, fretty fellers what like to do their own drivin', an'
he makes him a set o' minin' tools out of a tin saucepan an' a bed-
castor, an' runs a level from his own cell into Eddie's--an' that
was the queer, scratchin' sound that made Eddie decide not to kill
himself.

By George, if I could find a prison what had an Abbey shut up in it,
the' wouldn't be any way in the world to keep me out. This Abbey, he
cottoned to Eddie right from the start, an' durin' the next few
years they mine around in the prison till she's as holey as a
Switzer cheeze; an' durin' their leisure he edicates Eddie till he
knows more'n a college professor.

Then the Abbey begins to have fits, an' when all the medicine 'at he
could make out of old soot an' sulphur matches an' such stuff is
gone, he gives up an' tells Eddie where he has a little holler
island, chuck full o' diamonds an' money an' such like plunder. Then
he dies, an' Eddie gets in the sack. They chain a round shot to
Eddie's feet an' hurl him off a cliff into the angry sea, an' when
it comes to that part you can't hardly breathe; but Eddie kicks off
the chain, rips open the sack, an' when he strikes the water he's a
free man.

He swims along for a couple of days until he overtakes a smuggler,
an' he climbs on board an' shows 'ern how to run their business
accordin' to Hoyle. He only stays with 'em long enough to learn all
their secrets, an' then he gives 'em the slip an' goes to his little
holler island. He pulls off the top, an' it's all so, what the Abbey
told him. Then he lifts up his hand an' he sez, sez he, "I'll be
avenged!" And he sure done it.

He didn't believe in none o' your cheap little killin's. He gives
'em all the range they wanted while he was fixin' up the cards; but
when he was ready to call their hands, the' was somethin' doin'
every minute, an' don't you never forget it. Oh, he was a deep one.
It is creepy to think of any one like him bein' turned loose on the
earth, 'cause a feller might do somethin' 'at didn`t suit him, an'
the' wasn't no place you could hide in afterward. He kept watchin'
all the while, an' nobody couldn't commit a crime nowheres on earth
but what he knew of it, an' he'd go an' call the feller over to one
side an' say, "Young man, you are doomed to die; but if you'll
promise to do anything I want you to, I'll give the Pope, or the
Emp'rer of Chinee, or whoever the main stem happened to be, a
scuttle o' diamonds an' get you free--what's the word?"

Well, in a few years the' wasn't half a dozen criminals in the whole
world who wasn't bound to carry out his orders, an' you can see what
an outfit he had to back him up. Some of 'em he'd make his body-
servants; but that wasn't no snap, you can bet, 'cause he was
notionable to a degree. He'd make plans for a little party, an' he'd
send one man to Siberia for a fish, an' another to Asia for a fowl,
an' another to Chinee for a bird's nest--to make soup of--an' so on.
He never give his guests nothin' to eat 'at growed in the same
country the feast was to be give in. Then he'd say to his steward,
who had the hardest job of all," hill "--Bill wasn't his name, but
it'll do--"Bill, where did I see that six-foot vase, made out of a
single ruby?"

An' Bill would turn pale an' say, "It was in the secret vault of the
Em'prer of Chince, your Excellency." Then Monte Cristo, he'd say,
"Ah, yes, so it was. `Tell, go an' get it an' have it here by the
twenty-fifth day of next month."

Well, Bill, he'd just about flicker out, an' begin to tell how it
couldn't be did; but Xlonte, he'd only look at him cold, an' say,
"Never mind the details, Bill--get the vase. If you think you need
the British Navy, why, buy it, but don't bother me. It seems to me,
Bill, 'at you ought to begin gittin' on to my curves purty soon.
Good-bye."

This was the way he carried on. He'd go to a prison an' he'd say,
"Young man, you was buried to death when you was a baby, but I
figgered I could use you later on, so I had you transplanted. You
come out o' this prison, get an edication, an' on the ninth o' next
June you show up at number forty-nine, Rue de Champaign, Paris, at
two fifteen P. M.--sharp. Here's a million francs to pay expenses.
Don't be a tight-wad--the's plenty more." A franc is worth five
dollars, but he didn't give a durn for 'em. That was HIS style.

He'd come to town an' buy a tenement house 'at wouldn't rent,
because it was haunted; an' he'd tear it all down except the rooms
'at had been most popular to commit murder in. Then next day he'd
run up a swell mansion around these rooms--big an' gorgeous, like
the Capitol at Cheyenne, with full-grown trees from all over the
world, standin' in the front yard. Then he 'd give a party to all
the substantial citizens who had once used those rooms to commit
murders in, an' he'd bring 'em face to face with the ones they
thought they had murdered--an' it was comical to see 'em fallin'
around in faints; but Monte, he'd pretend 'at he hadn't noticed
anything unusual, an' he'd get 'em a glass of wine an' make 'em face
the torture, till it gives a feller a cold sweat, just to read about
it.

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