Part 2

“Well,” says Hank sad-like, “the only way to prove it is to go ahead and play her out, boys.”

“I’ll tell yuh what we’ll do,” says Dog-Rib. “I’m a fair man and I’ll allus do the right thing. Us, as a committee, will judge. We’ll watch yuh do this here play-actin’, and if we decided it ain’t as good as Zeke and Olaf could have played her, you give us back our money.”

“My Gawd!” groans Hank. “In yore opinion! Well, I reckon it’ll be all right, Dog-Rib.”

“We’ll be on the front row,” warns Dog-Rib, “and yuh better give us plenty show for our money. We’ll be especially watchin’ Peewee and Hozie.”

And me without a voice in the matter. I’d quit right now, if I could talk enough to resign. The rest of the outfit gits around me, and they shore told me a lot I didn’t know about actin’.

“You two jiggers ain’t the leadin’ parts in this here drammer of the Sunny South,” says Hank, “but right now yo’re prominent as hell. On you depends about five hundred dollars; so act. San Pablo is watchin’ yuh.”

“I’ll do my bes’,” declares Peewee, “and if it comes to the worsht, I can lick about three of that committee. How about you, Hozie?”

I don’t say nothin’. Peewee takes hold of my face and squeezes it a little. It left my nose out of line and my lips open, as though I was goin’ to whistle.

“Hank, that paint hardened on Hozie,” says Peewee. “He can’t talk.”

“All right. Mebbe it’ll be better. There goes the openin’ music.”

It’s the three-piece orchestra--bull fiddle, accordion and drum, playin’ “My Old Kentucky Home,” with variations.

* * * * *

After that, the show started, and Hank led me and Peewee around to where we can see what’s goin’ on.

“This first act is the drawin’-room of the Witherspoon mansion,” whispers Hank. “Watch Susie and Miss Wimple; they do this well.”

I reckon I got some paint in my ears, ’cause I don’t hear so awful good, but I hears Susie sayin’, “--since my darlin’ pappy died----”

And then Dog-Rib stands up and says, “Wait a minute, will yuh. Lemme git this straight. Is Zibe Hightower dead?”

“That’s worth the price of admission,” says “Kansas” McGill, “if she gives the right answer.”

Old Judgment Jones steps out and says, “This here is all actin’, and Zibe ain’t dead. Now, we don’t want no more interruptin’ from nobody. Amen.”

“You shore act cheerful while givin’ bad news,” says Kansas, and the show starts in ag’in.

I can’t git head nor tail to any of it. Mrs. Thursday Noon comes on, and the audience gives a big whoop. She shore sparkles, but forget what she came out there for, and proceeds to knock over a table and hit her chin on the edge of the sofy, where Miss Wimple is settin’. Her necklace got up around her ears and the dress busted between the shoulders, but they got her propped up on the sofy. The thing seems kinda deadlocked out there, so Hank Potts goes on. They gave Hank three cheers, but he don’t mind. He’s got somethin’ to say, and he’s sayin’ it.

“When yore daddy died he called me to his bedside and he says to me, ‘Howard Chesterfield, everythin’ I own has been swept away, except my two daughters and my racehorse, and I--I----’”

Hank goes bug-eyed and forgets the rest.

“The horse was too fast and one daughter was too heavy, eh?” suggests somebody from Oasis.

“Go on, Howard; go on,” begs Miss Wimple, and Hank mumbles for a minute.

“You are goin’ to ride Thunderbolt in the big race?” asks Miss Wimple.

“That’s it,” grins Hank. “Thunderbolt will win, and you’ll all git back yore fortune.”

“But we haven’t money enough left to enter the horse.”

“I--I’ve saved my salary,” says Hank. “I’ll enter the horse.”

“But we can’t afford to hire a jockey.”

“I’ll ride him,” says Hank, hammerin’ himself on the chest. “I’ll wear the glue and bold of the Witherspoon stables. I--I mean the bold and glue.”

“Oh, you hero!” explodes Susie. “I knew you’d be loyal.”

Old Zibe has come around where we are, and now he hammers on a loose board with the butt of his whip. From the other side comes Peewee Parker, all dressed up in a funny lookin’ blue suit.

“Someone at the door, Jason,” says Miss Wimple. Peewee goggles around, and Zibe motions him over to us. When he’s out of sight of the audience, Zibe grabs me by the wrist, and the next thing I know I’m out there in the middle of the stage, with Zibe bangin’ onto me. He takes off his hat, bows to the ladies and then takes a look at Hank.

“So yo’re the jockey who is goin’ to ride Thunderbolt, eh?” says Zibe. “Well, go on back to the stable--I want to talk with highgrade folks.”

* * * * *

Hank hops his arms like he was sad all over, but goes out. Zeke grins at Susie and Miss Wimple.

“I’m Simon Legree,” says he, “and I want to sell yuh a nigger.”

Susie takes one look at me, jumps up and throws up both hands.

“Uncle Tom!” she yells. “Uncle Tom! What have they done to you?”

Jist then my mouth busts loose, and I says, “They got me drunk and painted me with black enamel, and I can lick any damn’ man ----”

Zibe kicked me on the bare ankle and hisses in my ears, “Shut up, you danged fool!”

“Haw, haw, haw, haw, haw!” roars Dog-Rib. “That’s actin’!”

“O-o-o-o-oh!” wails Susie. “They sold you, Uncle Tom.”

“Somebody got gypped,” says Nebrasky Smith.

“I got him in that boatload of niggers down at Nashville,” says Zibe. “I recognized him right away, and I knowed you’d like to buy him back.”

“Oh, I’d love to buy him back,” says Susie, “but we ain’t got no money, Mister Legree.”

“Lotta good work left in that nigger,” says Zibe. “How about tradin’ me yore racehorse for him?”

Zibe kicks me in the ankle and whispers, “Beg her not to. Go ahead and beg.”

“Ma’am,” says I, tryin’ to work my face into shape for talkin’, “don’t let this jigger make any trades with yuh. He’s a ----”

_Whap!_ Old Zibe steps back and wraps that bullwhip around my legs.

“Git back, nigger!” he roars. “Git back, or I’ll cut yore legs off!”

I ask yuh if that wasn’t a dirty trick. I didn’t like Zibe, anyway; so I took a wild swing at his jaw, knocked him silly with one punch, took him to my bosom and pitched him headfirst into the committee on the first row.

“The nigger wins by a knockout!” yells “Greasy” Easton, and somebody cut the curtain loose, with the _Curse of Drink_ outfit haulin’ me back by the slack of my overalls.

Well, I got told all about myself, while old Zibe manages to get around to the back, where he got his gun and wanted to assassinate me, but they took his gun away. The committee comes up and says that the show begins to look like it was worth the money, but they’ve got to see it all first.

While they’re tryin’ to fix the stage for the next act, Hank explains the show to me.

“In that first act, the father of them two girls has just died, leavin’ ’em nothin’ but that racehorse. I was their father’s jockey, and this horse is to win a big race. That’s the climax. Legree owns a horse in that race, but he knows it can’t beat our horse; so he schemes to git our horse. Legree is the villain, yuh see. Yo’re an old nigger, which was owned by the old man, who went broke and had to sell yuh, along with other slaves. Legree buys yuh. He knows Susie is crazy about yuh, and he figures to trade you to her for this racehorse. She won’t trade the first time; so he beats yuh up--”

“He tries to, yuh mean,” says I.

“That was all in the play, Hozie. You ruined it. There won’t nobody know what it’s all about now. We’ve got to go ahead with the second act. This act----”

* * * * *

Comes a lot of racket, and I thought the audience was goin’ to assault the stage, but it was merely female against female. Judgment Jones comes back and kinda tearfully explains that Susie Hightower Potts and Eveline Annabel Wimple has had a battle, and Susie swears that Eveline and Hank ain’t goin’ to do no love scenes, except over her dead body.

Hank said he’d talk with her, but he came back pretty soon, nursin’ a black eye. The audience is plumb impatient, and the committee comes back to see what’s keepin’ us.

“We’ll give yuh five minutes more,” says Dog-Rib, “and if yuh ain’t actin’, we declares this here show null and void. We come here to see actin’, and we’ll see it to our fullest capacity or take our money back.”

Then they single-files out again. Judgment Jones flops his arms and his face registers ashes-to-ashes, even unto the last ash. Hank rubs his black eye and ponders deeplike. Pretty soon he says, “There’s jist one thing to do and that is to jump this show to where them snake-hunters will see plenty action. We’ll put on the last act and them three scenes--the kidnappin’, the death of Little Eva and the finish of the race.”

“But they won’t know what the show is all about, unless we act it all.”

“Let ’em guess at it--that’s what I’ve been doin’. C’mon.”

I’ve decided that I’ve had about enough and starts to walk across the stage to where I can get out, but all to once I starts walkin’ faster and faster, but don’t get nowhere. The floor is goin’ out behind me, and all to once I lands on my chin and rolled over against the wall.

I fans a few stars out of my eyes and looked at Peewee, who humps down beside me.

“I was wonderin’ if that thing worked,” says he, “and I see it does.”

“What works?”

“That treadmill jigger they made for the horse race. They explains it to me that we’re all in there, playin’ we’re watchin’ the race, and at the finish Hank rides Tequila onto that treadmill and the audience can see everythin’, except the horse’s feet. Then they drop the curtain.”

Oscar Tubbs, “Burlap” Benson and “Fetlock” Feeney, the blacksmith, show up, and I wonder what they’re the committee for. They talk with Hank, and then climb up on a two-by-six, which extends across above the stage. I don’t sabe their idea, unless they want to git above all trouble. Hank comes to me and takes me up front again.

They’ve got the same room fixed up a little different, and there is Limpy Lucas settin’ at a table, with a bottle of liquor.

“You go in there,” says Hank. “All you’ve got to do is fool around. In a little while Zibe will come in with me as his prisoner. You won’t have a thing to do, until Susie asks yuh to rope both Limpy and Zibe. There’s ropes back there on the floor. This will be easy for you. Now, go ahead and we’ll lift the curtain.”

Well, all fools ain’t dead yet; so I went ahead. The curtain went up and I said, “Limpy, I’m as dry as a lost match in Death Valley.”

“Nigger,” says he, “don’t speak to me. I am Lord Worthington, a scion of British aristocracy.”

“I dunno what a scion is, but the rest of it’s a lie. You was born down in Cochise County and yore father was a squawman. Gimme a drink.”

“That’s the stuff!” yells Dog-Rib.

“That’s real actin’.”

* * * * *

Jist then in comes Hank and old Zibe.

Hank’s hands are tied behind him, there’s a handkerchief around his eyes, and Zibe is proddin’ him with a gun. He makes Hank set down in a chair, and then he turns to Limpy.

“So yo’re here, eh? Playin’ the game my way, eh?”

Limpy begins to wipe his eyes and beller.

“I have been a proud man,” he states emphatic, “but likker brought me to this. I have bited the hand that fed me. I sold my soul for gin, Simon Legree. Yes, I will go in with you, even to the depths of hell.”

“Ah, ha-a-a-a-a!” sneers Zibe. “Well, we win, Lord Worthington. Without Howard Chesterfield that horse never can win--and there sets Howard Chesterfield. We hold him until after the race. He will be disgraced in the eyes of his sweetheart, who will marry me. Ah, ha-a-a-a-a!”

I swear I never did see Susie, until there she was on the stage, with a two-barrel shotgun in her hands, pointin’ it at Zibe.

“Hands up, you foul beast,” says she, and Zibe puts up his hands.

“You think his sweetheart will marry you, Simon Legree? Bah! If you was the last man in the world, I wouldn’t marry you. Uncle Tom, will you take ropes and bind these foul vultures?”

Well, I shore tied ’em up tight. Susie took the ropes off Hank and he stood up straight and looked down at her.

“Thank yuh, Little Eva,” says he. “I heard what yuh said to Legree, and I hate to disappoint yuh. I’m a fair man, and no falsehood ever passed my lips. I don’t love you--I love Gwendolyn.”

Susie takes a deep breath, points her nose toward the ceilin’ and says, “Oh, woe is me, I am undone!”

And then she let loose all holts and went down so hard that she busted two boards in that floor. Hank puts one hand over his eyes and kinda staggers around sayin’ “I’ve broken her heart, I’ve broken her heart!”

“Yo’re right!” yells somebody in the audience. “I heard it break, Hank.”

Hank flops his arms and turns to me.

“Uncle Tom, I believe I have killed her. I’ll have to carry her home.”

Hank tried three different holts and they all slipped.

“Damn it, Susie, help yourself a little, can’tcha?” he whispers.

“I’m supposed to be swooned,” she whispers. “Pick me up, you idiot.”

“Git her by the legs, Hozie,” whispers Hank.

“You touch my legs, and I’ll kick yuh loose from the surroundin’ country,” hisses Susie.

Hank straightens up and turns toward the audience.

“Ah, I cannot touch her,” says he. “She looks so peaceful in death.”

Susie took a kick at me and I got away fast. She turned over and got to her feet, as Hank lifts up both hands and says real loud, “I’ll leave her here for the angels, while I go to ride for love.”

* * * * *

But he didn’t. Susie socked him one on the back of the neck with a right swing and he went off the stage into the three-piece orchestra, with both legs in the air, while the committee stood up and whistled through their fingers, and somebody had sense enough to yank down the curtain.

The committee brought Hank back with them. He was smiling sweetly, but as an actor he’s a total loss.

“This here show,” says Dog-Rib, “is kinda jumpy, it seems to me. We’ve been tryin’ all along to find out what it’s all about. That there last act was plenty actful, as yuh might say, but we dunno what it was about.”

I didn’t wait to listen to the argument. Peewee got that bottle they used in the last act, and we emptied it together. We’re leanin’ up against a black curtain at the back of the stage, and all to once somethin’ hit Peewee and knocked him plumb up past the treadmill, where he landed on his hands and knees.

“Yuh better git away from there, Hozie,” says Limpy. “That racehorse is behind the curtain.”

We stretched Peewee out on the floor in a corner, and the rest of us are asked to come out on the stage. They’re all inquirin’ for Miss Wimple.

“She’s gone down to the hotel to git the money,” says Judgment. “She said, bein’ as the play turned out like it did, she wanted the money out of her hands; so I told her to bring it up here for a settlement. Her and Susie had a fight over them love scenes, and she was through up here.”

“We don’t need her,” says Susie. “If she was actin’ for saw mills, she wouldn’t git a sliver in her finger. Is everythin’ all set?”

Susie laid down on the floor and Zibe fastened a belt around her. She’s all dressed in white, with a couple things that might be mistaken for wings. We all squats down around her. They’ve got a heavy wire ownin’ up from that belt. Somebody pulled the curtain, and the three-piece orchestry begins playin’ “Nearer My God to Thee,” kinda soft.

“Uncle Tom,” says Susie, her voice kinda cracked, “I’m goin’ to leave yuh. I’m goin’ to my place beyond the skies.”

Mrs. Noon begins to blubber.

“Don’t cry,” says Susie. “It’s better this way. Tell Howard that I forgive him for everythin’. Ah. I hear the angels callin’. Can’t you hear ’em, Uncle Tom?”

“She’s dyin’,” wails Mrs. Noon.

“Git yore feet braced, Burlap,” says Oscar Tubbs, up there, on that two-by-six.

“Angel voices,” says Susie. “They’re callin’ me home.”

“Pull, you damn’ fools!” yelps Oscar.

And Little Eva starts on her long trip, as yuh might say. Up and up she goes, head and feet down, them spangled wings straight up. I’ve allus had my own idea of an angel, and Susie didn’t fit that idea.

Then the angel stopped and kinda hung there, swingin’ around.

“Keep her goin’!” hisses old Zibe from the side of the stage.

“The angels are takin’ her away,” wails Mrs. Noon.

_Cra-a-a-ack!_

* * * * *

That two-by-six snapped by too much weight, and down comes the handmade heaven. Susie lit on her head, and here comes Oscar Tubbs, Burlap Benson and Fetlock Feeney, follered by that busted two-by-six. Oscar lit on his feet, busted plumb through where Susie had already cracked the boards, and stopped with only his head in sight.

It shook the whole stage and also the whole danged house. One of Burlap’s boots hit me in the head, but as my lights went dim, I heard somebody yellin’, “Three angels gone to hell a’ready, and the fourth one dropped for reasons knowed to all of us!”

I woke up with Zibe and Zeke Hardy moppin’ me head with cold water, and I can hear Dog-Rib arguin’ at the top of his voice, “I don’t care a dang if Hank is still knocked out--we’ll have that there hoss race, or our money back. You’ve done advertised a race, and we crave a race.”

“But there ain’t no jockey to ride that race,” pleads Judgment. “You can see for yourself that Hank Potts ain’t fit to ride nothin’.”

“Suit yourself. I’ve done sent a couple men down to the hotel to set on that safe, where yuh keep the money. Oasis and Alkali towns crave that horse race; so it’s shore up to you.”

They go stompin’ out, while the crowd out in front makes all kinds of noise. I sabes them people, and if we don’t give ’em what they want, they’ll take the hall apart.

“Are you loyal to San Pablo, Hozie?” asks Zeke.

“Look at me and answer yore own question.”

“You’re a good rider. Hozie: ride for the honor of San Pablo. Never let Oasis say that we didn’t make good. Yo’re the man of the hour--the best rider in the San Pablo range. Think of poor old Judgment Jones and the starvin’ cannibals he aims to help with that money. Will yuh, Hozie?”

I said I wouldn’t--and swooned. When I woke up. I’ve got on Hank’s jockey clothes, and they’re helpin’ me on Tequila, that big, cold-jawed, leg-crossin’ sorrel. The horse is blindfolded, and it takes three men to hold his head down. The boards are crackin’ under his feet, and the blamed brute is scared stiff.

To the right of me is a thing like a big window, and in that window is Susie, Zeke, Zibe, Mrs. Noon, Oscar Tubbs, Burlap Benson and Fetlock Feeney, and they’re all yelpin’ their heads off, as though they’re lookin’ at a race, yellin’, “C’mon, Thunderbolt! Come on, Thunderbolt!”

“Let go!” yelps somebody, and they turned Tequila loose.

“Spur him straight ahead, Hozie!” snorts somebody else.

Spur nothin’. The next thing I knowed I was back on his rump, and he was climbin’ through that window affair, and the next thing I knowed I was out on his head, with both legs wrapped around his neck, and we’re on the edge of the stage, facin’ the stampede. The air is full of sombreros, all sailin’ at us, men are yelpin’, “Whoa! Whoa!”

* * * * *

I got one flash of the committee goin’ out the door on the heels of that stampedin’ mob, when somebody threw a chair, which landed on my head like a crown. It shore made me see a lot of stars, but I kept my presence of mind, as Tequila whirled around and went buck-jumpin’ straight to the back of the stage, knockin’ down everythin’ in sight, with me still out over his ears--and then we hit that treadmill.

Did we go? Man, that Tequila horse never ran so fast in his life. Why, he never had time to cross his legs. We wasn’t goin’ no place, but we was sure goin’ fast. Out from a pile of busted lumber I sees Peewee raise up, his eyes wide at what he sees.

“Can’tcha stop this?” I yells at him. He picks up a busted two-by-four, staggers over and shoves it down in the treadmill. They told me afterward that it throwed Peewee plumb against the back of the buildin’, but it shore stopped the machine.

I’m only about ten feet from the rear of the stage, which is covered with a black cloth, and this rear of the stage is the front of the room.

_Wham-blam!_ We went off that treadmill like a skyrocket. I hears the crash of glass, the rippin’ of a cloth, and there I am out over the main street of San Pablo, two stories high, with nothin’ but air above, below and on all sides.

I spread my arms like the wings of a turkey buzzard, turned over once and landed settin’ down on a buckboard seat, which smashed like a egg under the impact. It also knocked me a little colder than I was, but I knowed the team busted loose and was runnin’ away. But I didn’t care. What was one little runaway beside what I’d been through? The rush of night air was coolin’ to my fevered brow.

And all of a sudden we went high-wide and handsome. _Rippety-bing-bang-boom!_ There’s a bell ringin’, somethin’ roarin’, and then I landed on the seat of my pants on the depot platform and almost skidded into the train, which was ready to move. The team and buckboard was just leavin’ the other end of the platform.