Shaking the Nickel Bush (21 page)

I told him I wouldn't lend him a dime, and lectured him like a Dutch uncle. For the past month he had known we would reach Kansas City and go out of business at the end of June, so he'd had plenty of time to save himself a good fat roll. I'd planned to stay in town only one day, then take the train for Colorado, but Lonnie planned to stay a couple of days longer, then drive Shiftless home to Wyoming. He should have had sense enough to know he couldn't do it without money enough to live on and buy gasoline and oil.

When I found he was broke I told him he had no more business owning an automobile than a five-year-old, and that if he had a grain of sense in his head he'd sell Shiftless, buy a railroad ticket home, and get out of town as fast as he could. Lonnie didn't say a word while I was bawling him out—just stood and looked down at the carpet like a spanked puppy. He let me get all through, then peeked up at me under his eyebrows and said, “Look, buddy, I ain't makin' no excuses, but I ain't done nothin' wrong with none of them dames . . . just ridin' 'em around in Shiftless . . . and buyin' 'em suppers . . . and little trinkets . . . and ice-cream sodys . . . and stuff like that.”

“I didn't say you had,” I told him. “Whatever you did is your own business, not mine. But from now on you're going to have to paddle your own canoe, and you're not going to paddle Shiftless very far without gas and oil.”

Lonnie looked back at the carpet and thought about that for a couple of minutes, then he peeked up again and asked, “Look, buddy, didn't you say you had gave me the saddle and outfit? You know, that time when we was in . . .”

“Sure I did,” I told him. “It's yours and you do whatever you like with it, but with jobs as scarce as they have been since the war you'd have trouble finding one without an outfit. And even if you hock it you won't get more than twenty-five bucks this late in the season. The way you spend money that wouldn't last long enough to get you past the first skirt you saw after leaving the hockshop.”

Lonnie didn't try to defend himself, just stood looking down at the carpet, so to break it up I said, “Oh, don't let it get you down, Lonnie. Tomorrow's another day, and maybe we'll figure something out. Get your glad rags on and we'll go find some supper and see a movie.”

Lonnie always changed clothes faster than I because he let the ones he took off drop wherever he happened to be. While I was putting on my tie I could see his reflection in the mirror, standing sorrowfully by the door and waiting for me. “Oh, don't feel so sorry for yourself, Lonnie,” I called to him. “The world hasn't come to an end. We're going to go first class tonight—no greasy-spoon grub and dime movie. Go on down for a newspaper, and we'll hunt up the best restaurant and show in town.”

Even that didn't do anything for Lonnie's gloom, and he slouched out of the room like a little boy sent for an armful of firewood. I didn't want the newspaper; we could find the best restaurant and show by just wandering around the streets for half an hour. What I wanted was to get rid of Lonnie for a few minutes. I had nearly a hundred and twenty dollars in my pocket roll, and I knew better than to trust myself out with Lonnie while I was carrying that much. Somewhere along the line I'd turn chickenhearted, lend him half of it, and he'd blow it on a bunch of girls before daylight. If I took along only enough for supper and a show I couldn't fall for his pleading, he'd get a good night's sleep, and if he wouldn't part with Shiftless I'd give him money enough to buy gas and oil for driving her home.

As soon as I heard the elevator door slam, so I knew Lonnie wouldn't pop back in at any minute, I stripped everything but the singles from my pocket roll, turned down one cuff of my Levi's, and laid the tens and twenties in with the fifties. Then I folded the cuff again, rubbed it flat so it would look perfectly empty, and hung the Levi's in the closet. I'd just hung Lonnie's beside them when he came back with the paper, dropped it on the dresser, and slouched into an easy chair. I tried to cheer him up a bit and get him to help me pick out the best show and restaurant, but Lonnie was beyond cheering. All he'd say was that one joint was as good as another, and when we went out through the hotel lobby anyone might have thought I was his mother, making him go to school when he didn't want to.

When I'd looked over the paper I'd picked Wolferman's $2.50 dinner as the best meal in town, and Pantages as the best show—mostly vaudeville, with a cowboy-and-Indian picture we hadn't seen. Lonnie trailed a half step behind me all the way to the restaurant, but he perked up a little as soon as they brought the food. Before the meal was over he seemed to be his happy, carefree self again. Then he began telling me what a good buddy I'd been—and made the touch he'd been leading up to all the time. It was a cracking good one, because I knew Lonnie honestly meant what he'd been saying, and if I'd had my whole roll in my pocket I'd surely have divided it with him.

For a minute or two I was stumped as to what I might tell him. I couldn't say I was broke; he knew better than that. And I certainly wasn't going to tell him about the seven hundred I had stashed away in the cuffs of my Levi's. Besides that, I didn't want to lie to him. In all the months we'd been buddies I'd never told him the whole truth, but I'd never told him an out-and-out lie either, and I wasn't going to do it when we were about to separate, maybe forever. What I did was what I'd always done; I told him just enough of the truth to mislead him.

“Why didn't you tell me you were broke before I wrote home?” I asked him. “You know I've been buying a money order and sending it to my mother at the end of every month. I could have cut down a little on that one I sent yesterday.”

“Jeepers, buddy,” Lonnie said sadly, “I never thought o' that. You always had dough when we needed it, and I guess I reckoned you always would have.”

He sat for a minute or two, staring down at the tablecloth, then looked up, smiled happily, and said, “Jeepers! I'm glad I didn't think of it. Buddy, I wouldn't take no money off'n your ma, you know that.”

“I know you wouldn't, Lonnie,” I told him, “but you can't go on being a little boy all the rest of your life. You've blown in enough money during the past six months to have set yourself up with a little cattle outfit of your own. You could still do it. The shape Shiftless is in, she'd bring enough here in Kansas City to pay your railroad fare home and leave you a couple of hundred dollars in your pocket. The only sensible thing you can do is to sell her tomorrow morning and catch the next train for Wyoming. Two hundred bucks would buy you a dozen heifer calves, and if you took good care of them you'd have a nice little herd started in three or four years. Then you could get married and have a home of your own, instead of bumming around the country broke and barefooted.”

Lonnie sat with his head down till I'd finished, then he looked up pleadingly and said, “But, Jeepers, buddy, we ain't no more'n got to town, and I couldn't leave old Shiftless go noways.”

“Use your head, Lonnie,” I told him. “The longer you try to hold onto her the worse off you're going to be. Remember, your girl trouble didn't start till you had Shiftless to ride them around in. Even if you could leave the dames alone you'd be licked. You can't drive Shiftless unless you've got enough money coming in to keep her in shape and buy gas and oil. And what good is she to you if you can't drive her?”

Without looking up, he said, “Well, buddy, I could hock my saddle and outfit, couldn't I?”

“Sure, you could,” I said, “and how long do you think it would be before you were flat broke again? Not long enough to get you from here to Wyoming. And what do you think would happen if Shiftless broke down or you had a blowout on the way. You'd have to sell her for whatever anybody'd offer you, and it wouldn't be much. You think about it overnight, Lonnie, and you'll see that I'm right. But don't fret about it now; we've been in a lot tighter spots than this and come out alive. Let's go see that show; it ought to be a good one.”

I hoped I'd convinced Lonnie to sell Shiftless, but I doubted it, so I decided what I'd do if he was still holding out to keep her when morning came. It wasn't much over five hundred miles to Littleton, but that would put Lonnie more than halfway home, and with Shiftless running the way she was we could make it in two days. If we started early next morning we'd get there the night before the Fourth, most of my friends would be in town, along with Ted Hawkins from the Wickenburg movie lot, and we'd have a grand celebration. It seemed to me that would be exactly the right time to drop the word, sort of offhand, that I was looking for a nice little ranch I could buy at a right price, and that I'd like to pick up some young heifer stock from an outfit that was running purebred Hereford bulls on its range. When we reached Littleton I'd give Lonnie fifty dollars to get home on, but I wouldn't do it till I had him at the edge of town and headed toward Wyoming.

We hadn't been out of the restaurant two minutes before I knew I'd wasted my time in trying to talk sense to Lonnie. I'd almost forgotten he was with me, and was still thinking about the old friends I'd soon be seeing at Littleton, when he suddenly chirped, “Chick-chick-chick-chick-chick,” as though he were a farmer boy calling the hens at feeding time.

I snapped out of my woolgathering at Lonnie's first chirp, and noticed a couple of fancy looking girls about our age, walking down the sidewalk a hundred feet or so ahead of us. Just as I looked up they glanced back, giggled, and walked on, but not very fast. That's all it took to make Lonnie forget his troubles. “Jeepers Creepers, buddy!” he crowed. “Wisht I'd hung onto some of that dough we made off'n our business! Them little chickadees is slowin' down and waitin' for us.”

“You forget about ‘them little chickadees,'” I told him. “That kind wouldn't waste five seconds on you if they knew you were broke. Your days of being a Romeo are over for a while.”

All the way over to the theater Lonnie seemed as happy as if he hadn't a care in the world, but when we got to our seats he didn't pay any attention to the show. For as much as ten or fifteen minutes he sat looking down at his fidgeting fingers. Lonnie wasn't a fidgeter, so I knew he was doing some deep thinking, and I was pretty sure I knew what it was about. I wasn't a bit surprised when he leaned toward me and whispered, “I got to go to the can, buddy.” And I wasn't any more surprised when he whispered, “So long,” before he sidled out to the aisle.

I'd have bet half of all I had that his saddle and outfit would be in a pawnshop within twenty minutes, and that before an hour was up he'd have those two girls or some others out for a ride in Shiftless. Really, I was more pleased than not. He might as well enjoy his last fling. I'd redeem his outfit the next morning, then when I started him for home from Littleton I'd take the cost of the pawn ticket out of the fifty I'd planned to give him.

19

So Long, Buddy

T
HE show was a good one, and I stayed through to see the cowboy-and-Indian picture twice, even though I wasn't in the horse falls. It was about midnight when I got back to our room, and I chuckled out loud when I noticed that Lonnie's saddle, outfit, and bedroll were missing. It hadn't occurred to me that he might hock his bedroll, because it wouldn't bring much more than two dollars, old as it was. I'd started to take off my tie before I noticed a sheet of hotel writing paper lying on the desk. I knew I hadn't left it there, and Lonnie had never written a letter in all the time I'd known him, so I was a bit curious—but not for long. In printed letters, big enough that I could read them at six feet, Lonnie had written,

I couldn't help laughing aloud when I read it. No wonder Lonnie had been fidgeting in the theater; he'd been sitting on the horns of a dilemma and trying to decide which way to jump. For weeks he'd been looking forward to a big time in Kansas City, and those two chickadees he'd chirped to had almost set him afire. But I'd probably frightened him a little more than I'd realized at supper, and he was afraid I'd put the pressure on even harder when morning came. In his childish way he'd figured that his only hope of saving Shiftless was to pawn his outfit and head straight for Wyoming on the money he got for it.

But Lonnie had made lots of good resolutions before, just as he did in Santa Fe, and they'd lasted only long enough for him to see a skirt flapping in the breeze. He'd have done well if he'd gone a block after pawning his outfit without chirping, “Chick-chick-chick,” at some chickadee. Before daylight he'd be tip-toeing into our room—dead broke and full of excuses.

I was still chuckling as I undressed, hung my suit coat over the back of a chair, and started to lay my britches out smoothly on the dresser. It was only then that I missed the bust I'd made of Lonnie as a sample to show prospective customers. Next to Shiftless, it was his most prized possession. He usually took it with him when he went to ride the girls around, and he always claimed to have made it himself because he'd poured the plaster for the casting. For a month he'd been talking about taking it home to show his folks, and he'd had it standing on the dresser when we went out to supper. I was glad he had taken it along, for I was sure he could never resist the temptation of finding some girl to show it to and brag of its being a self-portrait. When I went to bed I left the light on in the bathroom and the door open a couple of inches, so he wouldn't stumble over a chair or something and wake me when he came in.

I hadn't slept in a bed since leaving Santa Fe, and I must have gone to sleep the moment my head touched the pillow. It was broad daylight when I woke, and a stream of sunshine was pouring in through the window. For a minute or two I just lay there, yawning, stretching, and enjoying the softness of the mattress. Then I realized that Lonnie hadn't come back. Everything was just as I'd left it when I went to bed, and the light was still on in the bathroom.

I didn't believe for a moment that Lonnie had left town, but I wished I hadn't been quite so rough on him at suppertime. I might have frightened him enough that he didn't dare come back after a night on the town, for fear I'd force him into selling Shiftless. I was just a little bit ashamed of myself—and disappointed. Of course, we'd planned to split up in Kansas City anyway, but I did want to say good-bye to him, and wish him luck, and get his folks' address so I could write to him. Then, too, I didn't want to go away and leave him stranded—and he certainly would be after an evening of playing big-shot for the girls. The only thing he'd have left to pawn would be his suit, and that wouldn't bring more than two or three dollars—only enough to buy his breakfast and one tank of gas for Shiftless.

For maybe ten minutes I lay there in bed, wishing I'd told Lonnie my plan for having him drive me to Littleton, and trying to figure out what he'd probably have done, and how I'd better go about finding him. Just as soon as he'd picked up a girl to take riding he'd have taken Shiftless out of the garage where we'd parked her. But if I'd frightened him enough that he didn't dare come back to the hotel he wouldn't risk putting her back in that garage. He'd park her some place where he could sleep in her till noon, then he'd hock his suit, blow in whatever he got for it, and go hunting a job.

When I'd figured things out that far the rest seemed easy; I'd find him at the stockyards. That's where he'd always hung out before we teamed up and bought Shiftless, that's where he'd have to go to hunt a job, and that's where he'd be sleeping in her. There was no need of rushing right down there; he'd sleep until I woke him, and if we didn't get started for Littleton before noon it would be all right. We could easily make up the lost time by driving late into the evening.

I lay in bed a few minutes longer, spent half an hour soaking in a warm bath, scrubbed myself with a rough towel until I was tingling all over, and went to the closet for my blue shirt and Levi's. There would be no sense in wearing my good suit down to the stockyards. I was thinking about Littleton and the roundup, and didn't notice that the Levi's weren't mine until I'd stepped into them and hauled them up. They were at least four inches too big around the waist, and the bottoms of the cuffs reached only to the calves of my legs.

For a second or two my mouth went dry as ashes, then I couldn't help laughing. Poor old Lonnie! He must have been afraid I'd smell a mouse when he failed to come back from the men's room, and that I might catch up with him before he got his stuff out of the hotel. He'd probably never turned the light on when he came into the room, but left the door open while he snatched the first shirt and pair of Levi's he got his hands on, then grabbed up his outfit, bedroll, and bust, and got out of there as fast as he could. There was little doubt that he'd been playing big-shot for some girls all evening, and had finally had to tell them he was broke, while all the time my britches—with seven hundred dollars in the cuffs—were lying on Shiftless's back seat.

Small as the doubt was, it was still enough to make me uneasy. I wasn't a bit worried for fear Lonnie had taken my Levi's intentionally, but I was worried for fear someone else might have done it. While he took girls to a show, or into some shop to buy them presents or ice cream, he'd have left Shiftless in the street. And if he were asleep in her down at the stockyards I could be in real trouble. There were always a lot of down-and-out bums hanging around the yards, and any one of them would swipe a shirt and pair of jeans if he could get away with them. And Lonnie wouldn't wake up if they swiped the hat off his head.

My hands weren't too steady when I took all the money I had left—$2.85—from the pocket of my suit britches, hauled the belt out of the loops, reefed Lonnie's Levi's around my waist, and turned down one fold of the cuffs.

On my way out of the hotel I stopped at the desk and left word that Lonnie should wait for me if he came in while I was away. Then, after I'd caught a streetcar for the stockyards, I knew that stopping had been a waste of time. Even if Lonnie should discover that he'd taken the wrong pair of Levi's he wouldn't bring them back and exchange—not after my having scared him about Shiftless. He'd never guess there was anything in the cuffs, so he'd simply throw them away, or trade them off to some bum who had a pair that were too big for him.

All the way to the stockyards I told myself what a fool I'd been for putting the pressure on Lonnie. And I told it to myself at least fifty times more as I spent the day searching every alley around the cattle pens, and enquiring at every office and weighing shack. But nobody had seen either Lonnie or a 1914 Ford of Shiftless's description.

By late afternoon it occurred to me that Lonnie might have got in over his head the night before. If he'd picked up a couple of girls like those chickadees he'd spied when we came out of the restaurant, they could have led him into enough trouble that he might have been arrested. He wouldn't have any better sense than to let them take him to some gyp joint and run up a bill he wouldn't be able to pay. The more I thought of it the more it seemed to me that it might be all for the best. If he were in jail I could find him easily enough, and the cost of bailing him out and getting him squared away would be small as compared to the amount in the cuffs of my Levi's. Then he couldn't raise any objection to leaving town and driving me to Littleton. By driving straight through we could still make it in plenty of time for the roundup.

I'd already spent fifty cents in calling the hotel to find out if Lonnie had shown up, and by dusk I had only a quarter left. I'd spent all the rest of my $2.85 calling every police station in both Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas, but there was no record of either Lonnie or Shiftless anywhere. I'd called the last station before I'd admit to myself that I might have misjudged Lonnie right from the time he left me in the theater; that he might actually have headed for home as soon as he pawned his outfit. If he had he'd certainly left me stranded worse than I'd thought he would be. I already owed an eight-dollar hotel bill, and if I pawned everything I had it wouldn't leave me enough to buy a railroad ticket to Littleton.

On the way back from the stockyards I thought of something I should have thought about the first thing that morning. There was a pretty sure way of finding out whether or not Lonnie had really left Kansas City. If he had been alone when he went to the garage for Shiftless he'd probably driven straight out of town; if there had been a girl with him he'd still be hiding out somewhere in the city and I could find him.

I went right to the garage from the streetcar, and got there just as the night man came on duty. When I asked him if he remembered Lonnie's coming in, and whether or not he was alone, he said, “Yep! He was alone—lugging a bedroll and a statue rolled up in a pair of blue jeans. Only the hair was sticking out of the end. That's how come I remember him so well. Seemed to be in an awful hurry. Asked me the best road to St. Joe, and how to get onto it.”

“What did he do with the statue?” I asked.

“Laid it on the back seat, right careful,” he told me, “and wedged it into a corner with his bed roll, so's it wouldn't jiggle off and get busted. What had he, stole it some place?”

“No,” I said, “it was his. Did you notice what time it was when he came in?”

“About an hour later'n this,” he told me. “Not long after I come on duty. Why? Wasn't the flivver his? He had the claim check for it.”

“Yes, it's his,” I said. “He's a friend of mine and I just wondered if he'd left town yet.” Then I got out of there before he could ask me any more questions.

It appeared certain that I'd frightened Lonnie out of Kansas City, but knowing where he was bound for made me positive that I could overtake him. I'd never before known him to leave a city with as much as a dime in his pocket, and I didn't believe he could do it twice in a row. Without me to watch after him in St. Joe, he'd be bound to get mixed up with some chickadee and go broke. Sooner or later he'd probably mooch enough gas to go on, but it might take him two or three days, and if I got up there soon enough I'd find him around the stockyards.

From the garage I hurried right back to the hotel, picked up my saddle and outfit, and wasted an hour lugging them to half the pawnshops on Twelfth Street. Every pawnbroker knew the saddle for an off-sized Oregon half-breed the moment he saw it, and the best I could get for the whole outfit was ten dollars.

Much as I'd wanted to go back to Littleton looking prosperous, there was only one thing I could do. I had to go back to the hotel, pay my bill, and take everything else I owned to the pawnshop. I didn't have any better luck with the rest of my stuff than I did with the saddle. The suitcase had been scuffed up a little from jouncing around in Shiftless, my suit was too small for anyone but a skinny boy to wear, my bedroll looked a bit tacky, and the pawnbroker didn't even know what my sculpturing tools were. All I could do was to keep the best and smallest tools, and take five dollars for the rest of the stuff.

I couldn't afford to waste time in trying to hop freights, so I went to the depot, struck up an acquaintance with some of the boomers hanging around, and asked when there would be a mail train going to St. Joseph. They said the Denver mail train pulled out at eleven o'clock and St. Joe was its first stop, but there was no use in trying to hop the blind baggage on any mail train leaving Kansas City. They all left from the main depot, and the railroad police watched the front end like bloodhounds.

One of the boys said he'd help me by making a run for the front mail car just before the train pulled out. Then, while the cops were chasing him away, I could duck underneath and climb up onto the rods. To me that sounded ten times more dangerous than riding horse falls, so I decided to buy a ticket and ride an earlier train, but all it left me was a pocketful of small change.

I wanted to reach St. Joe early enough to check the stockyards, then if I didn't find Lonnie there, make a round of every garage, movie theater, and ice-cream parlor that evening, but the only train I could get out of Kansas City was a local that stopped at every flag station along the way. The Denver mail train went zooming past us at the last flag stop, and was standing in the St. Joseph depot when we pulled in. It blocked my way to the stockyards, so I hurried up the track to go around it. I'd nearly reached the engine when a railroad cop with a revolver slung at his hip stopped me. He made me stand where I was, and watched me like a weasel until the train was pulling out so fast that I couldn't have flipped it if I'd wanted to.

When I got over to the stockyards it was easy to see that cowhand jobs were as scarce in the North as they had been in the South. There were three or four down-and-outers sleeping around every little feed pile. None of them had saddles, and less than half of them had bedrolls. I waked a boy at each feed pile, asked him how long he'd been around the yards, and if he'd seen a Ford like Shiftless or a boy who might have been Lonnie. No one had, and I knew it must be nearly two o'clock before I'd searched out every feed pile in the yards, so I lay down by one of them for a few hours sleep.