Can Such Things Be?

command produced no effect on us, and the queer little man removed his eyes from mine long enough to spear Fuddy and Duddy alternately with a long pole, remarking, quietly but with feeling: “Dern your skin,” as if they enjoyed that integument in common.  Observing that my request for a ride took no attention, and finding myself falling slowly astern, I placed one foot upon the inner circumference of a hind wheel and was slowly elevated to the level of the hub, whence I boarded the concern, sans ceremonie, and scrambling forward seated myself beside the driver - who took no notice of me until he had administered another indiscriminate castigation to his cattle, accompanied with the advice to “buckle down, you derned Incapable!”  Then, the master of the outfit (or rather the former master, for I could not suppress a whimsical feeling that the entire establishment was my lawful prize) trained his big, black eyes upon me with an expression strangely, and somewhat unpleasantly, familiar, laid down his rod - which neither blossomed nor turned into a serpent, as I half expected - folded his arms, and gravely demanded, “W’at did you do to W’isky?”

My natural reply would have been that I drank it, but there was something about the query that suggested a hidden significance, and something about the man that did not invite a shallow jest.  And so, having no other answer ready, I merely held my tongue, but felt as if I were resting under an imputation of guilt, and that my silence was being construed into a confession.

Just then a cold shadow fell upon my cheek, and caused me to look up.  We were descending into my ravine!  I cannot describe the sensation that came upon me: I had not seen it since it unbosomed itself four years before, and now I felt like one to whom a friend has made some sorrowing confession of crime long past, and who has basely deserted him in consequence.  The old memories of Jo. Dunfer, his fragmentary revelation, and the unsatisfying explanatory note by the headstone, came back with singular distinctness.  I wondered what had become of Jo., and - I turned sharply round and asked my prisoner.  He was intently watching his cattle, and without withdrawing his eyes replied:

“Gee-up, old Terrapin!  He lies aside of Ah Wee up the gulch.  Like to see it?  They always come back to the spot - I’ve been expectin’ you.  H-woa!”

At the enunciation of the aspirate, Fuddy-Duddy, the incapable terrapin, came to a dead halt, and before the vowel had died away up the ravine had folded up all his eight legs and lain down in the dusty road, regardless of the effect upon his derned skin.  The queer little man slid off his seat to the ground and started up the dell without deigning to look back to see if I was following.  But I was.

It was about the same season of the year, and at near the same hour of the day, of my last visit.  The jays clamored loudly, and the trees whispered darkly, as before; and I somehow traced in the two sounds a fanciful analogy to the open boastfulness of Mr. Jo. Dunfer’s mouth and the mysterious reticence of his manner, and to the mingled hardihood and tenderness of his sole literary production - the epitaph.  All things in the valley seemed unchanged, excepting the cow-path, which was almost wholly overgrown with weeds.  When we came out into the “clearing,” however, there was change enough.  Among the stumps and trunks of the fallen saplings, those that had been hacked “China fashion” were no longer distinguishable from those that were cut “’Melican way.”  It was as if the Old-World barbarism and the New-World civilization had reconciled their differences by the arbitration of an impartial decay - as is the way of civilizations.  The knoll was there, but the Hunnish brambles had overrun and all but obliterated its effete grasses; and the patrician garden-violet had capitulated to his plebeian brother - perhaps had merely reverted to his original type.  Another grave - a long, robust mound - had been made beside the first, which seemed to shrink from the comparison; and in the shadow of a new headstone the old one lay prostrate, with its marvelous inscription illegible by accumulation of leaves and soil.  In point of literary merit the new was inferior to the old - was even repulsive in its terse and savage jocularity:

JO. DUNFER.  DONE FOR.

I turned from it with indifference, and brushing away the leaves from the tablet of the dead pagan restored to light the mocking words which, fresh from their long neglect, seemed to have a certain pathos.  My guide, too, appeared to take on an added seriousness as he read it, and I fancied that I could detect beneath his whimsical manner something of manliness, almost of dignity.  But while I looked at him his former aspect, so subtly inhuman, so tantalizingly familiar, crept back into his big eyes, repellant and attractive.  I resolved to make an end of the mystery if possible.

“My friend,” I said, pointing to the smaller grave, “did Jo. Dunfer murder that Chinaman?”

He was leaning against a tree and looking across the open space into the top of another, or into the blue sky beyond.  He neither withdrew his eyes, nor altered his posture as he slowly replied:

“No, sir; he justifiably homicided him.”

“Then he really did kill him.”

“Kill ‘im?  I should say he did, rather.  Doesn’t everybody know that?  Didn’t he stan’ up before the coroner’s jury and confess it?  And didn’t they find a verdict of ‘Came to ‘is death by a wholesome Christian sentiment workin’ in the Caucasian breast’?  An’ didn’t the church at the Hill turn W’isky down for it?  And didn’t the sovereign people elect him Justice of the Peace to get even on the gospelers?  I don’t know where you were brought up.”

“But did Jo. do that because the Chinaman did not, or would n’ot, learn to cut down trees like a white man?”

“Sure! - it stan’s so on the record, which makes it true an’ legal.  My knowin’ better doesn’t make any difference with legal truth; it wasn’t my funeral and I wasn’t invited to deliver an oration.  But the fact is, W’isky was jealous o’ me” - and the little wretch actually swelled out like a turkeycock and made a pretense of adjusting an imaginary neck-tie, noting the effect in the palm of his hand, held up before him to represent a mirror.

“Jealous of you!” I repeated with ill-mannered astonishment.

“That’s what I said.  Why not? - don’t I look all right?”

He assumed a mocking attitude of studied grace, and twitched the wrinkles out of his threadbare waistcoat.  Then, suddenly dropping his voice to a low pitch of singular sweetness, he continued:

“W’isky thought a lot o’ that Chink; nobody but me knew how ‘e doted on ‘im.  Couldn’t bear ‘im out of ‘is sight, the derned protoplasm!  And w’en ‘e came down to this clear-in’ one day an’ found him an’ me neglectin’ our work - him asleep an’ me grapplin a tarantula out of ‘is sleeve - W’isky laid hold of my axe and let us have it, good an’ hard!  I dodged just then, for the spider bit me, but Ah Wee got it bad in the side an’ tumbled about like anything.  W’isky was just weigh-in’ me out one w’en ‘e saw the spider fastened on my finger; then ‘e knew he’d made a jack ass of ‘imself.  He threw away the axe and got down on ‘is knees alongside of Ah Wee, who gave a last little kick and opened ‘is eyes - he had eyes like mine - an’ puttin’ up ‘is hands drew down W’isky’s ugly head and held it there w’ile ‘e stayed.  That wasn’t long, for a tremblin’ ran through ‘im and ‘e gave a bit of a moan an’ beat the game.”

During the progress of the story the narrator had become transfigured.  The comic, or rather, the sardonic element was all out of him, and as he painted that strange scene it was with difficulty that I kept my composure.  And this consummate actor had somehow so managed me that the sympathy due to his dramatis persone was given to himself.  I stepped forward to grasp his hand, when suddenly a broad grin danced across his face and with a light, mocking laugh he continued:

“W’en W’isky got ‘is nut out o’ that ‘e was a sight to see!  All his fine clothes - he dressed mighty blindin’ those days - were spoiled everlastin’! ‘Is hair was towsled and his face - what I could see of it - was whiter than the ace of lilies. ‘E stared once at me, and looked away as if I didn’t count; an’ then there were shootin’ pains chasin’ one another from my bitten finger into my head, and it was Gopher to the dark.  That’s why I wasn’t at the inquest.”

“But why did you hold your tongue afterward?” I asked.

“It’s that kind of tongue,” he replied, and not another word would he say about it.

“After that W’isky took to drinkin’ harder an’ harder, and was rabider an’ rabider anti-coolie, but I don’t think ‘e was ever particularly glad that ‘e dispelled Ah Wee.  He didn’t put on so much dog about it w’en we were alone as w’en he had the ear of a derned Spectacular Extravaganza like you. ‘E put up that headstone and gouged the inscription accordin’ to his varyin’ moods.  It took ‘im three weeks, workin’ between drinks.  I gouged his in one day.”

“When did Jo. die?” I asked rather absently.  The answer took my breath:

“Pretty soon after I looked at him through that knot-hole, w’en you had put something in his w’isky, you derned Borgia!”

Recovering somewhat from my surprise at this astounding charge, I was half-minded to throttle the