Эл Дженнингс - Through the Shadows with O'Henry

A few hours later, Frank and I and our good friend, the smuggler, were plowing ahead under full steam for South America. I don't know to this day how long the trip lasted. Three Star Hennessey was rousing good company. We were so full of him, we didn't bother to find our bearings until one day the captain discovered his boat was out of water. At about the same time I began to thirst for a new drink. My throat was all but gutted with the smuggler's fiery brandy.

When the captain ordered his men into the yawl to bring back water in kegs, I went with them. About 200 yards from shore the water got so shallow we had to wade in.

My full-dress suit had lost one of its tails by this time; the white shirt was embossed with little hunks of dirt and splashes of whiskey. Only the rim of my stovepipe hat was left, an uncombed red mat stuck out through the ventilator.

With the water squashing about in my patent leather shoes, I was a queer looking pigwidgeon to strike up an acquaintance with the greatest men in Trojillo.

I wanted a drink and I wanted it quick. My tongue was hot and my feet were cold. I didn't have time to waste trying to make the natives of Honduras understand my perplexity. I caught sight of the American flag. In that parched and unslaked moment it meant the joy of freedom—liberty of the throat and the tongue.

Under the ripple of that flag I felt certain that I would find some kindred soul. I did.

On the porch of the squat wooden bungalow that housed the American consulate, sat an ample, dignified figure in immaculate white ducks. He had a large, nobly-set head, with hair the color of new rope and a full, straight-glancing gray eye that noted without a sparkle of laughter every detail of my ludicrous makeup.

He was already serene and comfortably situated with liquor, but he had about him an attitude of calm distinction. A rather pompous dignitary, he seemed to me, sitting there as though he owned the place. This, I thought, is indeed a man worthy to be the American consul.

I felt like a newsboy accosting a millionaire.

"Say, mister," I asked, "could you lead me to a drink? Burnt out on Three Star Hennessey. Got a different brand?"

"We have a lotion here that is guaranteed to uplift the spirit," he answered in a hushed undertone that seemed to charge his words with vast importance.

"Are you the American consul?" I ventured also in a whisper.

"No, just anchored here/' he smuggled back the information. Then his cool glance rested on the ragged edge of my coat.

"What caused you to leave in such a hurry?" he asked.

"Perhaps the same reason that routed yourself," I retorted.

The merest flicker of a smile touched his lips. He got up, took my arm and together we helped each other down the street, that was narrow as a burrow path, to the nearest cantina.

This was my first jaunt with William Sydney Porter. Together, we struck out on a long road that lost itself, for many years, in a dark tunnel. When the path broadened out again, it was the world's highway. The man at my side was no longer Bill Porter, the fugitive, the ex-convict. He was O. Henry, the greatest of America's short-story writers.

But, to me, in every detour of the road, he remained the same calm, whimsical Bill—baffling, reserved, loveable—who had led me to the Mexican doggery for my first drink in the paradise of fugitives.

In the dingy adobe estanca I found the solution guaranteed to uplift the spirit. But it was not in the sweet, heavy concoction the dignitary from the consulate called for. It was in the droll, unsmiling waggery of the conversation that came forth in measured, hesitant, excessively pure English as we leaned on the rickety wooden table and drank without counting our glasses.

Despite the air of distinction that was with him as a sort of birthmark, I felt at once drawn to him. I began to unfold my plan of settling in the country.

"This is an admirable location for a man who doesn't want much to do," he said.

"What line are you interested in?" I asked.

"I haven't given the matter much thought," he said. "I entertain the newcomers."

"You must be a hell of a busy man," I suggested.

"You're the first since my arrival."

He leaned over. "You probably wonder who I am and why I'm here?"

In Honduras every American is a subject of suspicion.

"Oh, God, no," I put in quickly. "In my country nobody asks a man's name or his past. You're all right."

"Thanks, colonel." He drew in his upper lip in a manner that was characteristic. "You might call me Bill. I think I would like that."

Several hours we sat there, an ex-highwayman in a tattered dress suit and a fugitive in spotless white ducks, together planning a suitable investment for my stolen funds. Porter suggested a cocoanut plantation, a campaign for the presidency, an indigo concession.

There was something so fascinating in the odd surprise lurking in his remarks, I found myself waiting for his conclusions. I forgot that the Helena had but stopped for water and might even now be well cleared of the shores of Honduras.

The mate beckoned to me. I nearly knocked the table over in my haste.

"Just a moment." Porter's unruffled undertone held me as though he had put a restraining hand on my arm. "You are an American. Have you considered the celebration of the glorious Fourth?"

"Fourth, what?"

"The Fourth of July, colonel, which falls at one minute past 12 tonight. Let us have some festivity on the occasion."

Every one who knows O. Henry knows how three loyal prodigals celebrated the nation's birth. He has made it memorable in his story, "The Fourth in Salvador." What he couldn't remember he fabricated, but many of the details, with the exception of the ice plant and the $1,000 bonus from the government, happened just as he has narrated them.

Somehow we got Frank off the boat. Long after midnight Porter took us to the consulate, where he made his home. He had a little cot in one corner of the main room. He took the blankets from it and spread them on the floor. The three of us stretched out.

About 11 o'clock in the morning the celebration of the Fourth opened. Porter, Frank, two Irishmen who owned an indigo concession, the American consul, myself and a negro, brought along for the sake of democracy, made up the party. For a fitting observance of America's triumph Porter insisted that the English consul join us. We put the matter before his majesty's subject. He agreed that it would be a "devil of a fine joke."

There were but four life-size houses in Trojillo. Under the shade of the governor's mansion we stood and sang "The Star Spangled Banner." Out of deference to our guest Porter suggested that we render one verse of "God Save the King." The Britisher objected. "Don't make damn' nonsense of this occasion," he demurred.

We started out to shoot up the town in true Texas style, prepared to wind up the fireworks with a barbecued goat in the lemon grove near the beach. We never got to the barbecue. A revolution intervened.

We had shot up two estancas. Glass was shattered everywhere. The Carib barkeepers had fled. We were helping ourselves and scrupulously laying the money for every drink on the counter. Suddenly a shot was fired from the outside. Porter had just finished smashing up a mirror with a bottle. He turned with a quiet that was as ludicrous as it was inimitable.

"Gentlemen," he said, "the natives are trying to steal our copyrighted Fourth."

We made a clattering dash for the street, shooting wildly into the air. A little man in a flaming red coat came galloping by. About 30 barefoot horsemen, all in red coats and very little else, tore up a mighty cloud of dust in his wake. They fired off their old-fashioned muzzle loaders as if they really meant murder.

As the leader whirled past on his diminutive gray pony Porter caught him by the waist and dragged him off. I sprang into the saddle, shooting and yelling like a maniac.