'Air you plumb crazy?' I demanded.
'Kidnappin'!' hollered Aunt Lavaca, waving a piece of paper. 'Abductin' yore pore old uncle! Aimin' to hold him for ransom! It's all writ down over yore name right here on this here paper! Sayin' yo're takin' Jacob away off into the mountains--warnin' me not to try to foller! Same as threatenin' me! I never heered of sech doin's! Soon as that good-for-nothin' Joe Hopkins brung me that there imperdent letter, I went right after the sheriff.... Joshua Braxton, what air you doin' in them ondecent togs? My land, I dunno what we're a-comin' to! Well, sheriff, what you standin' there for like a ninny? Why'n't you put some handcuffs and chains and shackles onto him? Air you scairt of the big lunkhead?'
'Aw, heck,' I said. 'This is all a mistake. I warn't threatenin' nobody in that there letter--'
'Then where's Jacob?' she demanded. 'Perjuice him imejitly, or--'
'He ducked into the cave,' said Glanton.
I stuck my head in and roared: 'Uncle Jacob! You come outa there and explain before I come in after you!'
He snuck out looking meek and down-trodden, and I says: 'You tell these idjits that I ain't no kidnapper.'
'That's right,' he said. 'I brung him along with me.'
'Hell!' said the sheriff disgustedly. 'Have we come all this way on a wild goose chase? I should of knew better'n to lissen to a woman--'
'You shet yore fool mouth!' squalled Aunt Lavaca. 'A fine sheriff you be. Anyway--what was Breckinridge doin' up here with you, Jacob?'
'He was helpin' me look for a mine, Lavacky,' he said.
'Helpin' you?' she screeched. 'Why, I sent him to fetch you back! Breckinridge Elkins, I'll tell yore pap about this, you big, lazy, good-for-nothin', low-down, ornery--'
'Aw, SHET UP!' I roared, exasperated beyond endurance. I seldom lets my voice go its full blast. Echoes rolled through the canyon like thunder, the trees shook and pine cones fell like hail, and rocks tumbled down the mountain sides. Aunt Lavaca staggered backwards with a outraged squall.
'Jacob!' she hollered. 'Air you goin' to 'low that ruffian to use that there tone of voice to me? I demands that you flail the livin' daylights outa the scoundrel right now!'
'Now, now, Lavacky,' he started soothing her, and she give him a clip under the ear that changed ends with him, and the sheriff and his posse and Van Brock took out up the ravine like the devil was after 'em.
Glanton bit hisself off a chaw of terbaccer and says to me, he says: 'Well, what was you fixin' to say about women's gentle sweetness?'
'Nothin',' I snarled. 'Come on, let's git goin'. I yearns to find a more quiet and secluded spot than this here'n. I'm stayin' with Joshua and you and the grizzly.'
Chapter XI - EDUCATE OR BUST
Me and Bill Glanton and Joshua Braxton stood on the canyon rim and listened to the orations of Aunt Lavaca Grimes fading in the distance as she herded Uncle Jacob for the home range.
'There,' says Joshua sourly, 'goes the most hen-pecked pore critter in the Humbolts. For sech I has only pity and contempt. He's that scairt of a woman he don't dast call his soul his own.'
'And what air we, I'd like to know?' says Glanton, slamming his hat down on the ground. 'What right has we to criticize Jacob, when it's on account of women that we're hidin' in these cussed mountains? Yo're here, Joshua, because yo're scairt of that old maid schoolteacher. Breck's here because a gal in War Paint give him the gate. And I'm here sourin' my life because a hash-slinger done me wrong!'
'I'm tellin' you gents,' says Bill, 'no woman is goin' to rooin my life! Lookin' at Jacob Grimes has teached me a lesson. I ain't goin' to eat my heart out up here in the mountains in the company of a soured old hermit and a love-lorn human grizzly. I'm goin' to War Paint, and bust the bank at the Yaller Dawg's Tail gamblin' hall, and then I'm goin' to head for San Francisco and a high-heeled old time! The bright lights calls me, gents, and I heeds the summons! You-all better take heart and return to yore respective corrals.'
'Not me,' I says. 'If I go back to Bear Creek without no gal, Glory McGraw will rawhide the life outa me.'
'As for me returnin' to Chawed Ear,' snarls old Joshua, 'whilst that old she-mudhen is anywhere in the vicinity, I haunts the wilds and solitudes, if it takes all the rest of my life. You 'tend to yore own business, Bill Glanton.'
'Oh, I forgot to tell you,' says Bill. 'So dern many things is been happenin' I ain't had time to tell you. But that old maid schoolteacher ain't to Chawed Ear no more. She pulled out for Arizona three weeks ago.'
'That's news!' says Joshua, straightening up and throwing away his busted club. 'Now I can return and take my place among men--Hold on!' says he, reching for his club again. 'Likely they'll be gittin' some other old harridan to take her place! That new-fangled schoolhouse they got at Chawed Ear is a curse and a blight. We'll never be rid of female school-shooters. I better stay up here, after all.'
'Don't worry,' says Bill. 'I seen a pitcher of the gal that's comin' to take Miss Stark's place, and I can assure you right now, that a gal as young and purty as her wouldn't never try to sot her brand on no old buzzard like you.'
I come alive suddenly.
'Young and purty, you says?' I says.
'As a pitcher,' he says. 'First time I ever knowed a schoolteacher could be less'n forty and have a face that didn't look like the beginnin's of a long drought. She's due into Chawed Ear tomorrer, on the stage from the East, and the whole town's goin' to turn out to welcome her. The mayor aims to make a speech, if he's sober enough, and they've got together a band to play.'
'Damn foolishness!' snorted Joshua. 'I don't take no stock in eddication.'
'I dunno,' I said. 'They's times when I wish I could read and write.'
'What would you read outside of the labels on whisky bottles?' snorted old Joshua.
'Everybody ought to know how,' I said defiantly. 'We ain't never had no school on Bear Creek.'
'Funny how a purty face changes a man's views,' says Bill. 'I remember onst Miss Stark ast you how you folks up on Bear Creek would like for her to come up there and teach yore chillern, and you taken one look at her face, and told her that it was agen the principles of Bear Creek to have their peaceful innercence invaded by the corruptin' influences of education, and the folks was all banded together to resist sech corruption.'
I ignored him and says: 'It's my duty to Bear Creek to pervide culture for the risin' generation. We ain't never had a school, but by golly, we're goin' to, if I have to lick every old moss-back in the Humbolts. I'll build the cabin for the schoolhouse myself.'
'And where'll you git a teacher?' ast old Joshua. 'This gal that's comin' to teach at Chawed Ear is the only one in the county. Chawed Ear ain't goin' to let you have her.'
'Chawed Ear is, too,' I says. 'If they won't give her up peaceful, I resorts to vi'lence. Bear Creek is goin' to have education and culture, if I have to wade ankle-deep in gore to pervide it. Come on, le's go! I'm r'arin' to start the ball for arts and letters. Air you all with me?'
'Till hell freezes!' acclaimed Bill. 'My shattered nerves needs a little excitement, and I can always count on you to pervide sech. How about it, Joshua?'
'Yo're both crazy,' growls old Joshua. 'But I've lived up here eatin' nuts and wearin' a painter-hide till I ain't shore of my own sanity. Anyway, I know the only way to disagree successfully with Elkins is to kill him, and I got strong doubts of bein' able to do that, even if I wanted to. Lead on! I'll do anything in reason to keep eddication out of Chawed Ear. 'Tain't only my own feelin's in regard to schoolteachers. It's the principle of the thing.'
'Git yore clothes then,' I said, 'and le's hustle.'
'This painter hide is all I got,' he said.
'You cain't go down into the settlements in that garb,' I says.
'I can and will,' says he. 'I look about as civilized as you do, with yore clothes all tore to rags account of that b'ar. I got a hoss down in that canyon. I'll git him.'
So Joshua got his hoss, and Glanton got his'n, and I got Cap'n Kidd, and then the trouble started. Cap'n Kidd evidently thought Joshua was some kind of a varmint, because every time Joshua come near him he taken in after him and run him up a tree. And every time Joshua tried to come down, Cap'n Kidd busted loose from me and run him back up again.
