Those Times and These

“‘Then I persume you must be correct,’ I says.

“He waits a minute and then he says: ‘Jimmy,’ he says, ‘I don’t believe I’d ever make a success ez one of these here passenger-pigeons. Now, a passenger-pigeon ain’t got no regular native land of his own. He loves one country part of the time and another country part of the time, dividin’ his seasons betwixt ‘em. Now with me I’m afraid it’s different.’

“‘Billy,’ I says, ‘I’ve about re’ch the conclusion that I wasn’t cut out to be a passenger-pigeon, neither.’

“He waits a minute, me holdin’ back fur him to speak and wonderin’ whut his next subject is goin’ to be. Bill Priest always was a master one to ramble in his conversations. After a while he speaks, very pensive:

“‘Jimmy,’ he says, ‘ef a man was to git up on a hoss, say to-morrow momin’ and ride along right stiddy he’d jest about git home by hog-killin’ time, wouldn’t he?’

“‘Jest about,’ I says, ‘ef nothin’ serious happened to delay him on the way.’

“‘That’s right,’ he says, ‘the spare ribs and the chitterlin’s would jest about be ripe when he arrove back.’

“I didn’t make no answer to that – my mouth was waterin’ so I couldn’t speak. Besides there didn’t seem to be nothin’ to say.

“‘The fall revivals ought to be startin’ up about then, too,’ he says, ‘old folks gittin’ religion all over ag’in and the mourners’ bench overflowin’, and off in the back pews and in the dark comers young folks flirtin’ with one another and holdin’ hands under cover of the hymn-books. But all the girls we left behind us have probably got new beaux by now, don’t you reckin?’

“‘Yes, Billy,’ I says, ‘I reckin they have and I don’t know ez I could blame ‘em much neither, whut with us streakin’ ‘way off down here like a passel of idiots.’

“He gits up and throws away his stick.

“‘Well, Jimmy,’ he says, ‘I’m powerful glad to find out we agree on so many topics. Well, good night,’ he says.

“‘Good night,’ I says, and then I rolled over and went right off to sleep. But before I dropped off I ketched a peep of Billy Priest, squattin’ down alongside one of the other boys, and doubtless fixin’ to read that other feller’s thoughts like a book the same ez he’d jest been readin’ mine.

“Well, son, the next mornin’ at sun-up we were all up, too. We had our breakfast, sech ez it was, and broke camp and mounted and started off with Billy Priest ridin’ at the head of the column and me stickin’ clos’t beside him. I didn’t know fur sure whut was on the mind of anybody else in that there cavalcade of gentlemen rangers, but I was mighty certain about whut I aimed to do. I aimed to stick with Billy Priest; that’s whut. Strange to say, nobody ast any questions about whut we were goin’ to do with reguards to them Imperalists waitin’ there fur us in Monterey. You never saw such a silent lot of troopers in your life. There wasn’t no singin’ nor laughin’ and mighty little talkin’. But fur half an hour or so there was some good, stiddy lopin’.

“Presently one of the boys pulled out of line and spurred up alongside of our chief.

“‘S’cuse me, commander,’ he says, ‘but it begins to look to me like we were back trackin’ on our own trail.’

“Billy looks at him, grinnin’ a little through his whiskers. We all had whiskers on our faces, or the startin’s of ‘em.

“‘Bless my soul, I believe you’re right!’ says Billy. ‘Why, you’ve got the makin’s of a scout in you.’

“‘But look here,’ says the other feller, still sort of puzzled-like, ‘that means we’re headin’ due North, don’t it?’

“‘It means I’m headin’ North,’ says Billy, and at that he quit grinnin’. ‘But you, nor no one else in this troop don’t have to fol-ler along onlessen you’re minded so to do. Every man here is a free agent and his own boss. And ef anybody is dissatisfied with the route I’m takin’ and favours some other, I’d like fur him to come out now and say so. It won’t take me more’n thirty seconds to resign my leadership.’

“‘Oh, that’s all right,’ says the other feller, ‘I was merely astin’ the question, that’s all. I ain’t dissatisfied. I voted fur you ez commander fur the entire campaign – not fur jest part of it. I was fur you when we elected you, and I’m fur you yit.’

“And with that he wheeled and racked along back to his place. Purty soon Billy looked over his shoulder along the column and an idea struck him. Not fur behind him Tom Moss was joggin’ along with his old battered banjo swung acrost his back. Havin’ toted that there banjo of his’n all through the war he’d likewise brought it along with him into Mexico. He had a mighty pleasin’ voice, too, and the way he could sing and play that song about him bein’ a good old rebel and not carin’ a dam’ made you feel that he didn’t care a dam’, neither. Billy beckoned to him and Tom rid up alongside and Billy whispered something in his ear. Tom’s face all lit up then and he on-slung his banjo frum over his shoulder and throwed one laig over his saddle-bow and hit the strings a couple of licks and reared his head back and in another second he was singin’ at the top of his voice. But this time he wasn’t singin’ the song about bein’ a good old rebel. He was singin’ the one that begins:

The sun shines bright on my Old Kintucky Home;
‘Tis Summer, the darkies are gay,
The corn tops are ripe and the medders are in bloom,
And the birds make music all the day.’

“In another minute everybody else was singin’, too – singin’ and gallopin’. Son, you never in your whole life seen so many hairy, ragged, rusty fellers on hoss-back a-tear in’ along through the dust of a strange land, actin’ like they were all in a powerful hurry to git somewheres and skeered the gates would be shut before they arrived. Boy, listen: the homesickness jest popped out through my pores like perspiration.

“It taken us all of seven days to git frum the border acros’t that long stretch of waste to within a day’s ride of the city of Monterey. It only taken us four and a half to git back ag’in to the border, the natives standin’ by to watch us as we tore on past ‘em. The sun was still several hours high on the evenin’ of the fifth day when we come in sight of the Rio Grande River; and I don’t ever seem to recall a stretch of muddy yaller water that looked so grateful to my eyes ez that one looked.

“We come canterin’ down to the water’s edge, all of us bein’ plum’ jaded and mighty travel-worn. And there, right over yond’ on the fur bank we could see the peaky tops of some army tents standin’ in rows and we heared the notes of a bugle, soundin’ mighty sweet and clear in that still air. And it dawned on us that by a strange coincidence whut wouldn’t be liable to happen once’t in a dozen years had happened in our purticular case – that the United States Government, ez represented by a detachment of its military forces, had moved down to the line at a point almost opposite to the place where we aimed to cross back over.

“I ain’t sure yit whut it was – it mout a-been the first sight of the foeman he’d fit ag’inst so long that riled him or it mout a-been merely a sort of sneakin’ desire to make out like he purposed to hold off to the very last and then be won over by sweet blandishments – but jest ez we reached the river, a big feller hailin’ frum down in Bland County rid up in front of Billy Priest and he says he wants to ast him a question.

“‘Fire away,’ says Billy.

“‘Bill Priest,’ says the Bland County feller, ‘I take it to be your intention to go back into the once’t free but now conquered state of Texas?’

“‘Well, pardner,’ says Billy in that whiny way of his’n, ‘you certainly are a slow one when it comes to pickin’ up current gossip ez it flits to and fro about the neighbourhood. Why do you s’pose we’ve all been ridin’ hell-fur-leather in this direction endurin’ of the past few days onlessen it was with that identical notion in mind?’

“‘Never mind that now,’ says the other feller. ‘Circumstances alter cases. Don’t you see that there camp over yonder is a camp of Yankee soldiers?’

“‘Ef my suspicions are correct that’s jest whut it is,’ says Billy very politely. ‘Whut of it?’

“‘Well,’ says the other feller, ‘did it ever occur to you that ef we cross here them Yankees will call on us to lay down the arms which we’ve toted so long? Did it ever occur to you that mebbe they’d even expect us to take their dam’ oath of allegiance?’

“‘Yes,’ says Billy Priest, ‘sence you bring up the subject, it had occurred to me that they mout do jest that. And likewise it has also occurred to me that when them formalities are concluded they mout extend the hospitalities of the occasion by invitin’ us to set down with them to a meal of real human vittles. Why,’ he says, ‘I ain’t tasted a cup of genuwyne coffee in so long that – !’

“The other feller breaks in on him before Billy can git done with whut he’s sayin’.

“‘And you,’ he says, sort of sneerful and insinuatin’, ‘you, here only some three or four months back was a ring-leader and a head-devil in formin’ this here expedition. You was goin’ round makin’ your brags that you’d be the last one to surrender – you! And we’ve been callin’ you Fightin’ Billy! Fightin’ Billy? Hell’s fire!’

“Billy rammed his heels in his hoss’s flanks and shoved over, only reinin’ up when he was touchin’ laigs with the Bland County feller. A shiny little blue light come into his eyes and the veins in his neck all swelled out.

“‘My esteemed friend and feller-country-man,’ says Billy, speakin’ plenty slow and plenty polite, ‘ef any gentleman present is inclined to make a pussonal matter of it, I’ll undertake to endeavour to prove up my right to that there title right here and now. But ef not, I wish to state fur the benefit of all concerned that frum this minute I ain’t figgerin’ on wearin’ the nickname any longer. Frum where I set it looks to me like this is a mighty fitten and appropriate time to go out of the fightin’ business and resume the placid and pleasant ways of peace. Frum now on, to friends ez well ez to strangers, I’m goin’ to be jest plain William Pitman Priest, Esquire, attorney and counsellor-at-law. I ast you all to kindly bear it in mind. And furthermore speakin’ solely and exclusively fur the said William Pitman Priest, I will state it is my intention of gittin’ acrost this here river in time to eat my supper on the soil of my own country. Ef anybody here feels like goin’ along with me I’ll be glad of his company. Ef not, I’ll bid all you good comrades an affectionate farewell and jest jog along over all by my lonesome self.’

“But, of course, when he said that last he was jest funnin’ – talkin’ to hear hisself talk. He knowed good and well we would all go with him. And we did. And ez fur ez I know none of us ever had cause to regret takin’ the step.

“By hurryin’, we did git back home before hog-killin’ time. And then after a spell, when we’d had our disabilities removed, some of us like Billy Priest started runnin’ fur office and bein’ elected with reasonable regularity and some of us, like me, went into business. We lived through bayonet rule and reconstruction and carpet-baggery, and we lived to see all them evils die out and a better feelin’ and a better understandin’ come in. We’ve been livin’ ever since, sech of us ez are still survivin’. I’ve done consider’ble livin’ myself. I’ve lived to see North and South united. I’ve even lived to see my own daughter married to the son of a Northern soldier, with the full consent of the families on both sides. And so that’s how it happens I’ve got a grandson that’s part Yankee and part Confederate in his breedin’. I reckin there ain’t nobody that’s ez plum’ foolish ez I am about that there little, curly-headed sassy tike, without it’s his grandfather on the other side, old Major Ashcroft. We differ radically on politics, the Major bein’ a besotted and hopeless black Republikin; and try ez I will I ain’t never been able to cure him of a delusion of his’n that the Ninth Michigan could a-helt its own ag’inst King’s Hell Hounds ef ever they’d met up on the field of battle; but in other respects he’s a fairly intelligent man; and he certainly does coincide with me that betwixt us we’ve got the smartest four-year-old youngster fur a grandchild that ever was born. There’s hope fur a nation that kin produce sech children ez that one, ef I do say it myself.”

He stood up and shook himself.

“In fact, son,” concluded Sergeant Bagby, “you mout safely say that, takin’ one thing with another, this country is turnin’ out to be quite a success.”

CHAPTER II. AND THERE WAS LIGHT

SO many things that at first seem amazingly complex turn out amazingly simple. The purely elemental has a trick of ambushing itself behind a screen of mystery; but when by deduction and elimination – in short, by the simple processes of subtraction and division – we have stripped away the mask, the fact stands so plainly revealed we marvel that we did not behold it from the beginning. Elemental, you will remember, was a favourite word with Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and one much employed by him in the elucidation of problems in criminology for the better enlightenment of his sincere but somewhat obvious-minded friend, the worthy Doctor Watson.

On the other hand, traits and tricks that appear to betray the characters, the inclinations and, most of all, the vocations of their owners may prove misleading clues, and very often do. You see a black man with a rolling gait, who spraddles his legs when he stands and sways his body on his hips when he walks; and, following the formula of the deductionist cult of amateur detectives, you say to yourself that here, beyond peradventure, is a deep-water sailor, used to decks that heave and scuppers that flood. Inquiry but serves to prove to you how wrong you are. The person in question is a veteran dining-car waiter.

Then along comes another – one with a hearty red face, who rears well back and steps out with martial precision. Evidently a retired officer of the regular army, you say to yourself. Not at all; merely the former bass drummer of a military brass band. The bass drummer, as will readily be recalled, leans away from his instrument instead of toward it.

For a typical example of this sort of thing, let us take the man I have in mind for the central figure of this tale. He was a square-built man, round-faced, with a rather small, deep-set grey eye, and a pair of big hands, clumsy-looking but deft. He wore his hair short and his upper lip long. Appraising him upon the occasion of a chance meeting in the street, you would say offhand that this, very probably, was a man who had been reasonably successful in some trade calling for initiative and expertness rather than for technic. He wouldn’t be a theatrical manager – his attire was too formal; or a stockbroker – his attire was not formal enough.

I imagine you in the act of telling yourself that he might be a clever life-insurance solicitor, or a purchasing agent for a trunk line, or a canny judge of real-estate values – a man whose taste in dress would run rather to golf stockings than to spats, rather to soft hats than to hard ones, and whose pet hobby would likely be trout flies and not first editions. In a part of your hypothesis you would have been absolutely correct. This man could do things with a casting rod and with a mid-iron too.