Alfred Lewis - Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories

"'That match-makin' catamount?

"'We hives him. Me an' my new daddy-in-law tracks him to his reetreat, an' when we're through he's plumb used up. I confers the pelt on my Sarah Ann; an' she spreads it on the floor over by her side of the bed, so as to put her little number sevens on it when she boils out of a winter's mornin' to light the fire, an' rustle me my matoot'nal buckwheat cakes an' sa'sage.'"

"This yere speecific heroine is a heap onconventional, so much so as to be plumb puzzlin' to the common mind. Jest the same, she finishes winner, an' makes herse'f a gen'ral source of pride. She don't notify us, none whatever, that she intends a Wolfville deboo; jest nacherally descends upon us, that a-way, as onannounced as a mink on a settin' hen. All the same, we knows she's comin' while yet she's five mile out on the trail. Not that we savvys who she is or what she aims at; we merely gets moved up next to the fact that she's a lady, an' likewise no slouch for looks.

"We reads these yere trooths in the dust old Monte kicks up, as he comes swingin' in with the stage. Which it's the weakness of this inebriate, as I tells you former, that once let him get a lady aboard, it looks like it's a signal for him to go pourin' the leather into his team like he ain't got a minute to live. It's a p'lite attention he assoomes, in his besotted way, is doo the sex.

"It's the more strange, too, since it's the only attention Monte ever pays 'em. He never looks at 'em, never speaks to 'em; simply plants himse'f on the box, as up an' down as a cow's tail, an' t'ars into them harassed hosses. If the lady he's complimentin' that a-way was to get jolted overboard–which the same wouldn't be no mir'cal, considerin' how that dipsomaniac drives–it's even money he leaves her hunched up like a jack-rabbit alongside the trail, an' never thinks of stoppin' or turnin' back. He's merely a drunkard with that one fool idee of showin' off, an' nothin' the stage people's ever able to say can teach him different. From first to last you-all could measure Monte's notion of the pulcritoode of a petticoat passenger by the extent to which he lams loose with his whip. Given what he deems is a she-sunburst, he shorely does maltreat the company's live stock shameful.

"'If,' observes Peets, as a bunch of us stands gossipin' round in front of the Red Light that time, watchin' the dust cloud draw nearer an' nearer–'if it's poss'ble to imagine the old sot as havin' a Cleopatra to freight over from Tucson, it's a cow pony to a Mexican sheep he'd kill one of the wheelers.'

"Thar ain't none of us knows who this yere Cleopatra the Doc refers to is, onless it's Colonel Sterett, who edits the Daily Coyote . Still, the compar'son is plenty convincin'. Accordin' to the Doc himself, this Cleopatra's a meteoric female party, as lively as she is lovely, who sets a passel of ancient sports to walkin' in a cirkle back some'ers in the mists of time. Also, it's bloo chips to white, an' bet 'em higher than a cat's back, the Doc knows. The Doc is ondoubted the best eddicated gent that ever makes a moccasin track between Yuma an' the Raton Pass, an' when he onbuckles techin' any historic feachures, you can call for a gooseha'r pillow, an' go to sleep on it he ain't barkin' at no knot.

"Thar's a feeble form of young tenderfoot pesterin' about the suburbs of the crowd. He's one of them hooman deficits, so plumb ornery as to be useless East, which their fam'lies, in gettin' rid of 'em, saws happ'ly off onto a onprotected West. This partic'lar racial disaster's been on our hands now mebbe it's six months, an' we-all is hopin' that in some p'intless sort o' way he'll brace up and do overt acts which entitles us to stampede him out of camp. But so far he don't.

"This yere exile comes wanderin' into the talk by askin'–his voice as thin as a curlew's:

"'Who is this old Monte you're alloodin' at?'

"'Whoever he is?' says Boggs. 'Which if you-all'd struck camp by way of Tucson, instead of skulkin' upon us in the low-down fashion you does along of the Lordsburg-Red Dog buckboard, you wouldn't have to ask none. He's the offishul drunkard of Arizona, Monte is. Which the same should be notice, too, that it's futile for you to go ropin' at that p'sition. I says this, since from the quantity of Old Jordan you've been mowin' away, I more'n half infers that you nourishes designs upon the place.'

"The feeble young shorthorn smiles a puny smile, and don't lunge forth into no more queries.

"Texas, who's been listenin' to what Boggs says, squar's 'round an' half-way erects his crest for an argyooment. Texas has had marital troubles, an' him ponderin' the same constant renders him some morbid an' morose.

"'From your tone of voice, Dan,' remarks Texas, 'I takes it you holds Monte's appetite for nose paint to be a deefect. That's whar I differs. That old marauder is a drunkard through sheer excess of guile. He finds in alcohol his ark of refooge. I only wish I'd took to whiskey in my 'teens.'

"Boggs is amazed.

"'Texas,' he says, plenty sorrowful, 'it wouldn't astonish me none if you finds your finish in a wickeyup deevoted to loonatics, playin' with a string of spools.'

"'That's your onthinkin' way. Do you reckon now, if I'd been a slave to drink when that Laredo wife of mine first sees me, she'd have w'irled me to the altar an' made me the blighted longhorn you sees now? She wouldn't have let me get near enough to her to give her a bunch of grapes. It's my sobri'ty that's my ondoin', that an' bein' plumb moral. Which I onerringly traces them divorce troubles, an' her sellin' up my stock at public vandoo for cost an' al'mony like she does, to me weakly holdin' aloof from whisky when I'm young.'

"'Which I shore,'–an' Boggs shows he's mighty peevish an' put out–'never meets up with a more exasp'ratin' conversationist! It's because you're sech an' egreegious egotist! You-all can't talk ten minutes, Texas, but what you're allers bringin' in them domestic affairs of yours. If you desires to discuss whiskey abstract, an' from what the Doc thar calls a academic standp'int, I'm your gent. But I declines to be drug into personal'ties, in considerin' which I might be carried by the heat of deebate to whar I gets myse'f shot up.'

"'I sees your attitood, Dan; I sees your attitood, an' respects it. Jest the same, thar's an anti-nuptial side to the liquor question, an' bein' a drunkard that a-way is not without its compensations.'

"'But he's bound to be so blurred,' reemonstrates Boggs, who by nacher is dispootatious, an' once started prone to swing an' rattle with a topic like a pup to a pig's y'ear: 'That drunkard is so plumb blurred.'

"'Blurred but free, Dan,' retorts Texas, mighty firm. 'Don't overlook no sech bet as that drunkard bein' free. Also, it's better to be free than sober.'

"'Goin' back to Monte,' says Boggs, returning to the orig'nal text; 'half the time, over to the O.K. Restauraw when Missis Rucker slams him down his chuck, he ain't none shore he's eatin' flapjacks or rattlesnakes. The other day, when Rucker drops a plate, he jumps three feet in the air, throws up his hands an' yells, "Take the express box, gents, but spar' my life!" It's whiskey does it. The old cimmaron thinks it's road agents stickin' him up.'

"Dispoote is only ended by the stage thunderin' in–leathers creakin', chains jinglin', bosses a lather of sweat an' alkali dust, Monte cocked up on the box as austere as a treeful of owls. He's for openin' the door, but Peets is thar before him. Let it get dealt down to showin' attentions to a lady, an' the briskest sport'll have to move some sudden, or the Doc'll beat him to it. Which he certainly is the p'litest drug sharp of which hist'ry makes mention!

"The Doc offers his hand to he'p her out, but she hits the ground onaided as light as any leaf. Nacherally we looks her over. Take her from foretop to fetlocks, she's as lovely as a diamond flush. She's got corn-colored ha'r, an' eyes as soft as the sky in Joone. Peets calls 'em azure–bein' romantic. As for the rest of us, we don't call 'em nothin'. Thar's a sprightly look about 'em, which would shore jestify any semi-proodent gent in jumpin' sideways. Likewise, she's packin' a Colt's .45, an' clutchin' a winchester in her little claw, the same contreebutin' a whole lot toward makin' her impressive as a pageant.