Prairie Flowers | Page 5

the bar: "It ain't noways safe or advisable," he said slowly,
looking straight at the Texan, "fer no lone cow-hand to ride in here an'
make light of Timber City to our face."
A man with a green vest and white, sleek hands insinuated himself
between the two and smiled affably: "Come on, now, boys, they ain't
nawthin' in quarrelin'. The gent, here, was only kiddin' us a little an' we
ain't got no call to raise the hair on our back for that. What do you say
we start a little game of stud? Solo ain't no summer game, nohow--too
much thinkin'. How about it stranger, d'you play?"
"Only now an' then, by way of recreation. I don't want your money, I
got plenty of my own, an' I never let cards interfere with business.

Down in Texas we----"
"But, you ain't workin' today," interrupted the other.
"Well, not what you might call work, maybe. I aimed to get drunk, an' I
don't want to get switched off into a card game. Come on, now, an'
we'll have another drink, an' then Jo-Jo an' I'll renew our conversation.
An' while we're at it, Percy, if I was you I'd stand a little to one side so's
I wouldn't get my clothes mussed. Now, Jo-Jo, what was the gist of that
there remark of yours?"
"My name's Stork--Ike Stork, an'----"
"You're a bird all right."
"Yes, I'm a bird--an' Timber City's a bird, too. They can't no other town
in Montany touch us."
"Wolf River's got a bank----"
"Yes," interrupted the bartender, "an' we could of had a bank, too, but
we don't want none. If you want a town to go plumb to hell just you
start up a bank. Then everyone runs an' sticks their money in an' don't
spend none, an' business stops an' the town's gone plumb to hell!"
"I'd hev you to know," Stork cut in importantly, "that Timber City's a
cowtown, an' a sheep town, an' a minin' town, an' a timber town--both
of which Wolf River ain't neither, except cattle. We don't depend on no
one thing like them railroad towns, an' what's more, it tuck a act of
Congress fer to name Timber City----"
"Yes an' it takes an act of God to keep her goin', but He does it offhand
an' casual, same as He makes three-year-old steers out of
two-year-olds."
The bartender grinned affably, his thoughts on the roll of yellow bills
that reposed in the pocket of the Texan. "Don't regard Ike none serious,
pardner, he's settin' a little oneasy on account he got his claim all

surveyed off into buildin' lots, an' they ain't goin' like, what you might
say, hot cakes."
"Oh, I don't know," Stork interrupted, but the bartender ignored him.
"Now, about this here proclamation of yourn to git drunk," continued
the bartender. "Not that it ain't any man's privilege to git drunk
whenever he feels like, an' not that it's any of my business, 'cause it
ain't, an' not that I give a damn one way or the other, 'cause I don't, but
just by way of conversation, as you might say; what's the big idee? It
ain't neither the Thirteenth of June, nor the Fourth of July, nor
Thanksgivin' nor Christmas, nor New Year's, on which dates a man's
supposed to git drunk, the revels that comes in between bein' mostly
accidental, as you might say. But here comes you, without neither
rhyme nor reason, as the feller says in the Bible, just a-honin' to git
drunk out of a clear sky as the sayin' goes. Of course they's one other
occasion which it's every man's duty to git drunk, an' that's his birthday,
so if this is yourn, have another on the house, an' here's hopin' you live
till the last sheep dies."
They drank, and the Texan rolled another cigarette: "As long as we've
decided to git drunk together, it's no more'n right you-all should know
the reason. It ain't my birthday, it's my--my anniversary."
"Married?" asked the man with the china blue eyes.
"Nope."
"Well, no wonder you're celebratin'!"
"Shorty, there, he's married a-plenty," explained the man with the green
vest, during the general guffaw that greeted the sally.
Again Shorty asked a question, and the Texan noted a hopeful look in
the china blue eyes: "Be'n married an'--quit?"
"Nope."

The hopeful look faded, and removing his hat, the man scratched his
head: "Well, if you ain't married, an' ain't be'n married, what's this here
anniversary business? An' how in hell do you figger the date?"
The Texan laughed: "A-many a good man's gone bugs foolin' with
higher mathmatics, Shorty. Just you slip another jolt of this tornado
juice in under your belt, an' by the time you get a couple dozen more