The Magic Wagon Read online

  I remembered the sign I'd read on the side of the wagon. "Wrestling ape." I said. "That thing wrestles?"

  "Now you got it," Albert said.

  I found a place for my crutches and the food bag, then I leaned back with my hands in my lap.

  "You look a might bushed, little peckerwood. You wants to lay your head against my shoulder to rest, you go right ahead. "

  "No thanks," I said. But we hadn't gone too far down the road when I just couldn't keep my eyes open no more and I realized just how tired I really was. I lolled my head on Albert's big shoulder. I could smell the clean wool of his coat. And wasn't no time at, all until I was asleep.

  CHAPTER 3

  I was thinking on this, feeling sorry for myself, when Albert brought me out of it.

  "Best get your butt down from here and get to doing."

  I'd been so lost in my thoughts, I hadn't noticed we'd stopped. We were under a big oak that grew out to the edge of the street, and around the oak were curled vines big as well ropes. Out to the right of the tree was a big clearing. It looked to have been made by fire. It was just the place for us to have our show.

  Behind the clearing, and to the left of the oak, there was nothing but woods. And I do mean woods. It was thick with all manner of brush and brambles. It was just another thing that got me to thinking on the town and how odd it looked. Even the woods around it seemed different from any I'd seen before, and I found myself not wanting to stare out there for long for fear of seeing something I didn't want to see.

  I got down and went around to Rot Toe's cage, limping as I went. That foot that had been broken got stiff when I rode too long or, on the other hand, walked on it too much.

  I pulled back the tarp and let some fresh air in on the ape, and he grunted at me. There in the sharp, morning light, as the twilight died and the day came in, he suddenly, and for the first time, looked more than tired and old to me, he looked pathetic.

  I said some words to him, got his leash off the top of the cage and used my key to let him out. He took my hand and walked with me around to the other side, and I put his leash on him without any trouble. While I did, he stood staring out at those woods, making soft sounds. He didn't care for them any better than I did.

  Albert had come around and I said how I didn't like the woods and neither did Rot Toe.

  "There ain't a thing to like about them," he said, and he didn't look out there when he said it. "You stay out of 'em, Little Buster, you hear?"

  "Yes sir," I said.

  Albert smiled at me. "You know what Billy Bob says?"

  "Yeah." And we said it together, "You don't yes-sir a nigger."

  "All right, boy," Albert said. "Get up there on the wagon and get them posters, start putting them up. And you're going to need to talk to the sheriff."

  "Me? That's Billy Bob's job."

  "He ain't rightly in the condition to do it. And you might as well get used to it, 'cause he's going to make it your job anyhow."

  "How do you know he is?"

  "I know Billy Bob, and the less work he has to do the happier man he is. He always finds me a new job or two at the end of the month, don't he?"

  And he did. Albert and I did all the work. What Billy Bob did was shoot his pistols, talk about Hickok, read dime novels, and chase gals. That seemed like a pretty good career to me.

  But there wasn't any use arguing. Billy Bob would just leave me somewhere high and dry. And the truth of the matter was I didn't want to leave Albert and Rot Toe. Them and that wagon, scary as it could be sometimes, were all the home I knew.

  I got the posters, a hammer and some tacks, and started up the street.

  When we came to a town, we always went about getting the sheriff's permission for our show, if we could. If we couldn't we pulled the Magic Wagon outside the town sign where his star didn't count and went ahead with it.

  Course, some sheriffs didn't care for that, and they'd come out and run us off, a sign or no sign. I hated it when we had to spend a few days in jail. It just made Billy Bob all that harder to get along with. He'd blame me for too much starch in his long johns, go around frowning and kicking things, yelling at Albert and hitting Rot Toe with sticks until he got all the meanness out of him, or enough of it anyway. He was too full of it to ever get empty.

  But most sheriffs were cooperative, and if they hesitated, Billy Bob could turn on the butter when he wanted to, and talk most of them into it. A sheriff is just like any other fella, in spite of what you might think. He likes a bit of a change now and then, and our show was better than spending his afternoons and early evenings with his heels on his desk, or going over to the saloon to pistol-whip a bunch of drunks into a stupor. Our shows had the added advantage of entertainment before the pistol-whipping, as most of the drunks would show up to see our acts and get looped as usual, only on our Cure-All if they didn't remember a pocket flask of their own. This being the case, the sheriff could watch our little act, then beat the drunks over the head with his gun barrel instead of having to make a special trip on over to the saloon.

  So it was with only a few misgivings that I made my way over to the sheriff's office.

  When I found it, the door was locked and there was- a messy written sign tacked to it:

  I AINT HERE NOW AND AINT GONNA BE TILL SATERDEE. HOLD ALL KILLINS AND SICH TILL I GIT BAK OR LOK YER OWNSEF UP. RILEE OVER TO THE SALOON HAS THE KEE.

  I could just imagine that lawman spit-wetting his pencil and snickering over that sign as he wrote it. As Albert told me time and again, "You can say what you wants about them sheriffs, but them that I've known of has mostly got a sense of humor."

  It also brought to mind a story Albert told me once about this sheriff down San Antone-way that could tell a joke better than you ever heard. Way Albert told it, he could get a fella laughing all the way out of the jail, up the gallows steps, and still cackling till the rope cut him off. Which is understandable at that point.

  But Albert said this sheriff was good. He was not only a joker, he was a prankster. When things got slow around the jail and he had a prisoner, one of his favorite things was to unlock the cage while the fella was asleep, sneak in and put matches between his toes, light them, and sneak out.

  You can imagine the chuckles this sheriff got when the matches reached the meat and that fella came leaping off his bunk and went rain dancing around his cell.

  But in spite of this sense of humor, or maybe you could say because of it, this sheriffs story ended kind of tragic. As Albert pointed out, there's always someone out there lacking a sense of humor, and as fate would have it, the sheriff I'm telling you about got just such a stick in the mud in his jail.

  This stick in the mud was known as a sour customer anyway, and what he was in jail for didn't liven his personality any. He'd gone on a rampage killing his wife, mother-in-law, and as good an old blue mule as ever pulled a plow. Can't recall what the wife's and mother-in-law's names were, but the mule was called Old Jesse.

  What got this farmer riled in the first place, as is often the case with a man, was his mother-in-law. She lived with them, and didn't have any table manners to speak of. She was kind of elderly, and bad about breaking wind at the supper table. Maybe she could help it, maybe she couldn't. But it seemed to this farmer that she didn't give it a passing thought, and did it mostly to irritate him, never so much as offering up an excuse me, or asking how the most recent one compared to the last. It wasn't nothing to her, and he felt certain she was laughing behind her hand at him 'cause she knew it got on his nerves and spoiled his appetite.

  Well, one evening, things simmered to a head. They were sitting at the table, spooning some ham and gravy and sweet taters, or whatever, and what does this old lady do but cut loose with a honker that would have shamed a pack mule. This farmer claimed it was so powerful the kitchen curtains billowed, but I think either the farmer or Albert exaggerated a little there. Anyway, she went on to choose this time to finally comment on it, and it wasn't a thing that charmed him
in the least.

  "Catch that one and paint it green," she said, and giggled.

  The man went beside himself, snatched up the kindling axe and dove for her. As fate would have it, his wife got in the way and tried to stop things. All she got for her trouble was a new part in her hair, about six inches deep. Then the mother-in-law bit the hatchet. And if that wasn't enough, the farmer turned drunk-Injun mad, went out to the lot, and axed the mule.

  This mule killing was quite a blow to the community. Old Jesse had been borrowed by every farmer in the county, and it was said that he was such a good plower lines weren't needed. Didn't even have to say gee or haw. You just took hold of the plow handles and Old Jesse did the rest without so much as lathering up.

  Yep, that mule's fame was spread far and wide. Later on they had a funeral for him, and Albert said he heard a right smart number of folks showed up to attend the laying away services and do some gospel singing.

  Well, Mule Slayer, as he came to be known, was brought to jail, and while they were waiting on trial, things got slow around the cell, and this sheriff with the sense of humor decided to liven things up with his famous hot-foot routine. So, one afternoon, Mule Slayer was all stretched out on his bunk, catching a few winks, digesting his jail dinner, when the sheriff snuck into his cell, put matches between the fella's toes, lit them, and snuck out.

  When the matches burned down to Mule Slayer's foot, he let out a roar, hit the floor two-stepping and barn dancing around the cell.

  The sheriff thought this was real funny, and he had to lean up against the bars so he wouldn't fall down laughing. He started clapping his hands and singing one of those do-si-do-grab-your-partner songs, and that's just what Mule Slayer did. He promenaded on around there and shot a hand through the bars and got the sheriff by the goozel, reached the gun out of the old boy's holster, and took the keys off of him.

  Damned if Mule Slayer wasn't suddenly in a joking mood himself. He put the sheriff on the bunk, strapped him down with pieces of the sheriff's gun belt and suspenders, and set the bed on fire, and as it was stuffed with feather ticking, it lit up right good.

  Albert said folks claimed later they could see smoke, hear that sheriff screaming and Mule Slayer laughing for a half mile or better, but I sort of doubt that myself.

  When the townsfolks got there, they beat out the sheriff with a couple of brooms and throwed water on him, but it was too late. There wasn't enough left of him or the feathers to sweep up in a dust pan. Most of the old boy was soot on the walls. Even his badge had hotted up considerable. It had melted into a tiny ball, fallen between the bed springs, and rolled off into the corner.

  They hauled Mule Slayer off to a place that wasn't burned up and smelled like a community barbecue, and made him a makeshift jail till things could get repaired at the real place, or until a trial came around.

  Now Mule Slayer had caught a sense of humor, and he had caught it good. He laughed through the night, and the shed they had him in practically rocked with it.

  This went on for several days, and it got so tiresome to the townsfolks, who could hardly sleep at night for the noise, that the gallows got built in no time, even though they had to rip the front porch off the general store to have enough lumber to get it done in a hurry.

  A judge was appointed quickly, and the fella was tried, legal-like, though he laughed through the proceedings, which were cut down to five minutes, and he was sentenced to hang. Before they went out to do that, a prayer was said for Old Jesse.

  Mule Slayer was still laughing when they put the rope around his neck, and would have kept on laughing if someone in the crowd hadn't yelled something about the sorry thing he'd done to that good mule.

  This hit a note with Mule Slayer and he stopped laughing. He looked heavenward and said a few repentive words concerning the sad and unnecessary death of Old Jesse, and how he should have just stuck to his big-mouthed wife and stomach-ailed mother-in-law. Which was the general sentiment of the crowd.

  In the process of saying these words about Jesse, he led on up to the jail and what happened there, and darned if he didn't get tickled all over again. This time he was giving all the details on the sheriff burning, which he hadn't before. He told how it was a lucky thing the suspenders and gun belt didn't burn up quick-like, freeing the sheriff, and he gave a real good description with mouth noises that perfectly imitated the sound of fire catching to feathers, bed springs squeaking, and the sheriff yelling. He then went on to the description of the sheriff wiggling around and sputtering like fat pork in a frying pan, and if Albert is to be believed, Mule Slayer was just getting to the good, nasty part when the eager beaver at the switch jerked the lever and dropped that kidder, mid-story, through the hole.

  There was darn near a riot.

  Albert said that it was fair to say some good came out of the entire mess, and you might say the sheriff's fun-loving spirit had been passed onto Mule Slayer. One can only hope that same spirit, like a dose of pox, latched onto the fellow at the gallows switch, so next time there's a story going he ain't interested in, but others are, he'll have the good manners to hold out till the tale is told before giving his charge a hemp necktie.

  With the sheriff gone, the permission problem was out of the way too, so I nailed one of my posters over his sign and went on down the street asking folks if I could do the same in their stores. I even went down to the church and tacked one on the door there, just in case the preacher wanted to come.

  We liked to save a little space at the first of our show for a preacher, just in case he had a hankering to talk on the sins of the world and such, and how we were all going to hell in a handbasket.

  Time he was finished the crowd's eyes would be glazed over good, like a horse that's fixing to die on you, and they'd be darn near ready for most anything but another dose of Get Jesus Saltz.

  Another thing, those preachers were good for three, maybe four bottles of Cure-All. Reckon they liked to have that much on hand in case of snake, bite, as they had to travel pretty far out in the country sometimes to find the sinners that are minding their own damned business and not putting anything in the offering plate. And all those dinners and suppers preachers ate, as they have a way of showing up at meal time, were bound to upset their stomachs now and then. And a good slug of Cure-All after a meal of fried chicken, flour gravy, mashed potatoes, buttered biscuits, and two slices of fresh apple pie with cream on top was just the thing to set a belly straight.

  Finally I came to the saloon and hesitated outside the bat wings, sort of getting the lay of the land. Sometimes a bartender will consider me too young to be in a place and will throw me out. But most of them could care less if I was twelve years old, armed and dangerous, long as I was white and had the price of a beer. I was trying to decide which kind of place this was.

  Like most saloons it smelled like beer, sweat, and cigar smoke. I thought it over, decided the odds were on my side, put a hand on the bat wings, and went inside.

  For early morning, there was a right smart crowd in there. I figured with the sheriff gone the owner had most likely kept the place open all night, grubbing for the extra drunk dollars.

  There was a farmer and a bony saloon gal at one table, and they were entwined tight as a couple pieces of cheap rope. They had their eyes closed to show how in dreamy wonder they were of each other's company, and since it was as hot as a bitch dog in heat in there, they had a sheen of oily sweat on their faces thick as a swath of hog lard. I reckoned that farmer's wife thought he was in town buying seed, not sowing it.

  At another table a fellow lay face down, and the only thing holding him up was his face and the edge of his butt in the chair. His arms hung by his sides like limp horse tails, and the one nostril that wasn't mashed into the table was making a noise like a busted bagpipe.

  At a table behind him were two other fellas. One of them was about my age, and duded up. He had on a tall sky blue hat and his brown hair grew long out from beneath it. A red neckerchief was tied loo
sely around his neck, and he wore a fringed cotton shirt all the colors of the rainbow. The boots that stuck out of his cuffed jeans were so bright and new-looking I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd mooed at me.

  He was holding a dime novel close to a low-lit lamp at his table, moving his lips over the words. I could have saved his lips a lot of work. I could make out the title of what he was reading, Young Wild West and the Salted Mines, or The Double Game for a Million, and I had read it. It was about five years old and it wasn't worth the match it would have taken to burn the sucker up.

  Wasn't no use saying anything, though. Just my opinion. And it might have resulted in me being beat up by a little fella in a dude outfit. He had that same look Billy Bob gets when he's reading those things. It's somewhere between the one a man gets when he's having his first peek at a naked woman, or is getting pulled into a religious soul-saying fever. Either one makes for a dangerous time if interrupted or disagreed upon.

  Sitting next to Blue Hat was a fiftyish man, thick around the middle, with bull-wide shoulders, a black derby hat gone green, and a face that looked like lumpy gravy poured over peanuts. I figured he'd once had the pox. On his upper lip were a few stray hairs that he probably called a mustache, but they reminded me of the prickles around a porcupine's butt. The way his eyes were squinted, you got the impression he was bored and wanted to shoot someone, just anybody, no matter how small the 'cause.

  And he had the equipment to do the shooting. In a half holster hooked at his middle, dangling like a metal Johnson in leather underwear, was a single action Colt's .41 short barrel. It was engraved with all manner of gee-gaws, and the grip was faded, yellow ivory.

  You didn't see folks toting guns like that out in the open much anymore, but this fella looked as comfortable that way as a pig in slop.

  I didn't look at him long, least he catch me staring and decide to end his boredom by seeing how close he could space six rounds in one of my eyeballs.