A Man in the Open Part 3

"Please, sir," says I, "it ain't so much the oysters worries me. It's this yer Cap'n McGaw I done embezzled. Cayn't call it kidnaped 'cause he's over sixty, but I stunned him illegal with a belaying-pin, and I hears him groaning--times when you stops to pant."

But Frankie Mac wouldn't believe one word until he went down in the fore peak to inquire, while I applied the hatch, and battened down.

So you see I'd got a tug, and the crew aboard, so the next thing was to take in the hawsers, shove off, and let her drift on the ebb.

It's a caution to see how many taps and things besets an engine-room, all of 'em heaps efficient. The first thing I handled proved up plenty steam, for my left arm was pink and blisters for a week. Next I found a tap called bilge-valve injection, which lets in the sea when you wants to sink the s.h.i.+p. I turned him full, and went to sit on the fore hatch while I sucked my arm, and had a chat with the crew.

They was talkative, and battering at the hatch with an ax, so I'd hardly a word in edgeways. Then they got scared we'd blow up before we drowned.

Allus in my mind I'd see them gulls squawkin' around the wreck, and mother fighting them. That heaped thing by the wheel was dad, for I seen the whites of his eyes as the s.h.i.+p lurched him. An' the gulls--

Cap'n McGaw was pleadin' with me, then Mr. McMillan. They swore they'd take me to the wreck for nothin', they'd give their Bible oath, they'd sign agreements. McGaw had a wife and family ash.o.r.e. McMillan was in love.

I turned off the bilge-valve injection, opened the fore hatch, and set them two to work. They was quite tame, and that night I slept--only to wake up screechin' at the things I seen in dreams.

Seven days we searched for the wreck before we gave up and quit, at least the captains did. Then night come down black overhead, with the swell all phosph.o.r.escent. I allus think of mother in a light sea under a black sky, like it was that night, when our tug run into the wreck by accident.

I jumped first on board. The poor hulk lay flush with the swell, lifting and falling just enough to roll the thin green water, all bright specks, across and across the deck. Mother was there, her bare arm reaching out, her left hand lifting her skirt, her face looking up, dreaming as she turned, and turned, and swayed, in a slow dance. It's what they calls a waltz, and seems, as I stood watching, I'd almost see the music swaying her as she wove circles, water of stars pouring over her bare feet.

Seems though the music stopped, and she came straight to me. Speaks like a lil' small girl. "Oh, mummy," she says, "look," and draws her hands apart so, just as if she was showing a long ribbon, "watered silk," she mutters, "only nine cents a yard. Oh, mayn't I, mayn't I, mummy?"

And there was dad, with all that water of stars was.h.i.+ng across and across him.

CHAPTER III

YOUTH

A dog sets down in his skin, tail handy for wagging--all his possessions right thar.

Same with me, setting on the beach, with a cap, jersey, overalls, sea boots, paper bag of peanuts, beached wreck of the old _p.a.w.nticket_ in front, and them two graves astern. Got more'n a dog has to think about, more to remember, nothin' to wag. Two days I been there, and the peanuts is getting few. Little gray mother, dad, the _Happy s.h.i.+p_, just dead, that's all, dead. The tide makes and ebbs, the wind comes and goes, there's days, nights and the little waves beating time--time--time, just as if they cared, which they don't.

I didn't hear the two horses come, but there's a young person behind me sort of attracting attention. When he moves there's a tinkle of iron, creaking leather, horsy smell, too, and presently he sets down along of me, cross-legged. I shoved him the peanuts, but he lit a cigarette, offering me one. Though he wasn't, he just felt same as a seafaring man, so I didn't mind him being there.

"The ocean," says he, "is it allus like that?"

"'Cept when there's weather."

"That's a s.h.i.+p?"

"Was."

"Dead?"

"Dead."

He wanted to look at my sheath knife, and when I handed it he seen the lettering "Green River" on the blade. He'd been along Green River and there's no knives like that.

Then I'd got to know about them iron things on his heels--spurs. We threw peanuts, my knife agin his spurs, and he won easy. Queer how all the time he's wanting to show himself off. He'd never seen salt water before. The s.h.i.+pping, making the port, or clearing, foreign or coastwise, the h.e.l.lafloat Yank, the Skowogian Coffin, the family packet, liner, tramp, fisher, lumberman, geordie and greaser was all the same to him. "Sounds like injun languages," says he, "can't you talk white?" So we went in swimming, and afterward there's a lunch he'd got with him--quart of pickled onions, and cigarettes. Seems it's the vacuum in under which makes hearts feel so heavy.

This stranger begins to throw me horse talk and cow stories. It seems cow-punchers is sort of sailors of the plains, only it's different.

Seafaring men gets wet and cold, and wrecked, but cow-boys has adventures instead, excitement, red streaks of life. Following the sea, I been missing life. Why, this guy ain't more'n two years older'n me--say, seventeen, but he's had five years ridin' for one man, four years for another, six years in Arizona, then three in Oregon, until he's added up about half a century. He's more worldly, too, than me--been in a train on the railroad. I'm surely humbled by four P. M., and if he keeps goin', by four bells I'll be young enough to set in mother's lap.

Says his name's Bull Durham. Surely I seen that name on lil' sacks of tobacco. Bull owns up this baccy's named after his father. And surely his old man must be pretty well fixed. "That's so," says Bull, blus.h.i.+ng to show he's modest "Ye see, kid, the old man's a bishop. Yes, Bishop of Durham, of course. Lives over to London, England. Got a palace thar, and a pew in the House of Lords. I'll be a lord when he quits. I'm the Honorable Bull by rights, although I hate to have the boys in camp know that--make 'em feel real mean when all of 'em rides as well as me, or almost, and some can rope even better."

"And you is the young of a real lord!"

"Sure. I'll have to be a bishop, too, when I comes into the property.

I'm a sort of vice-bishop, sonny. D'ye see these yere gloves? They got a string to tie 'em at the back, 'cause I been inducted. I got an entail I'll show you in camp, and a pair of hereditaments."

"Vice-bishop," says I, "is that like bo's'n's mate? I never hear tell of a bishop's mate."

"He mates in two moves," says Bull, "baptism and conflamation."

"But," says I, so he just shuts me up, saying I may be ignorant, but that ain't no excuse for being untruthful.

Well, his talk made me small and mean as a starved cat, but that was nothing to the emotions at the other end of me when he got me on one of them horses. I wanted to walk. Walk! The most shameful things he knew was walking and telling lies. If I walked he'd have nothing more to do with me. I rode till we got to the ferry.

You know in books how there's a line of stars acrost the page to show the author's grief. I got 'em bad by the time we rode into Invicta City.

Draw the line right thar:

We're having supper at the Palladium, and I'm pretty nigh scared. The goblets is all full of pink and white serviettes, folded up into fancy designs, which come undone if you touched. There's a menu to say what's coming, in French so you don't know what you're eating, and durned if I can find out whether to tackle an a la mode with fingers or a spoon.

Bull says it's only French for puckeroo, a sort of four-legged burrowing bird which inhabits silver mines, but if I don't like that, the lady will fetch me a _foe par_. Well, I orders one, and by the lady's face I see I done wrong, even before she complains to the manager. I'm surely miserable to think I've insulted a lady.

The manager's suspicious of me, but Bull talks French so rapid that even froggy can't keep up, although he smiles and shrugs, and gives us sang-fraws to drink.

This sort of c.o.c.ktail I had, was the first liquor I'd tasted. It's powerful as a harbor tug, dropping me out of the conversation, while the restaurant turns slowly round with a list to starboard, and Bull deals for a basket in the front window full of decorated eggs. Says they're vintage eggs, all verd-antique and bookay. For years the millionaires of Invicta has shrunk from the expense. My job when we leaves is to carry the basket, 'cause Bull's toting a second-handed saddle.

Bull lets me have c.o.c.ktails to keep me from getting confused on the night of my day boo. I know I behaves with 'strordinary dignity, and wants more c.o.c.ktails.

I dunno why Bull has to introduce me to the gentleman who keeps the peanut store down street--seeing I'd dealt there before. Anyway, I'm introduced to Affable Jones, and I'm the Markis of Worms--the same being a nom de plume. We proceeds to the opery-house, climbs in through a little hind window, and finds a dressing-room. Affable Jones dresses up as a monk, Bull Durham claims he's rigged out already as a vice-bishop, and I'm to be a chicken, 'cause I'm dealing vintage eggs in the cotillon. All the same, I'm left there alone for hours, and it's only when they comes back with a c.o.c.ktail that I'll consent to dressing up as a chicken--which in pa.s.sing out through that lil' window is some crowded. We proceeds up street, me toting eggs, and practising chicken-talk, and it seems the general public is surprised.

So we comes to the Masonic Hall, which is all lights, and band, and fas.h.i.+onable persons rigged out in fancy dress, dancing the _horse doover_. I got the name from Bull, who says that the next turn is my day boo in the omlet cotillion. Seems it's all arranged, too. Affable Jones lines up the ladies on the left, the dudes on the right, all the length of the hall. Bull marches up the middle, spurs trailin' behind him, and there's me dressed as a chicken, with a basket of eggs, wondering whether this here cow-boy is the two persons I see, or only the one I can hear. Band's playing soft, Affable serves out tin spoons to the dudes, and I deals each a decorated egg, laying it careful in the bowl of the spoon, till there's only a few left over, and I'm safe along with Bull.

So far everybody seems pleased. Bull whispers in my ear, "Make for the back door, you son of a sea cook," which offends one, being true; waves an egg at the band for silence, and calls out, "Ladies and gents." From the back door I seen how all the dudes has to stand dead still for fear of dropping an egg.

"Ladies," says Bull, "has any of you seen a live mouse? On the way up among you, seems I've dropped my mouse, and it's climbing skirts for solitude."

Then there's shrieks, screams, ladies throwing themselves into the arms of them dudes, eggs dropping squash, eggs going bang, Bull throwing eggs at every man not otherwise engaged, and such a stink that all the lights goes out. I'm grabbed by the scruff of the chicken, run out through the back door, and slung on the back of a horse. Bull's yelling "Ride! Ride!

Git a move on!" He's flogging the horses with his quirt, he's yelling at me: "Ride, or we'll be lynched!"

My mouth's full of feathers, chicken's coming all to pieces--can't ride--daresn't fall off. So on the whole I dug the chicken's spurs into Mr. Horse, and rode like a hurricane in a panic. All of which reminds me that the hinder parts of an imitation bird is comforting whar she b.u.mps.

Still, draw them stars across.