The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana) (30 page)

Matlock stripped, and we led the way up the knoll, the children running behind, screaming, “Fight! Fight.” dogs barking, the women taking a stand at a distance where they could not be accused of unseemly curiosity, but able to see a little, too, and over all that air of serious, hurried portentousness that such physical encounters always breed. It’s infectious; it stirs up the blood; one finds oneself on the point of bristling out of sympathy, and even looking around for somebody giving offense.

When the two faced off, bare to the waist, there was apparent a certain disparity in bulk. Matlock is a huge man, of a fish-belly
whiteness of skin, with the corded, sinewy muscles common to one who has done hard labor, with lifting; and Coulter, swarthy, deeply tanned, though as sleek as a panther looked helplessly slight by contrast.

“Pining to back out, Big Mouth?”

“I’d rather make it free,” said Coulter.

“Free it stands.”

The farmer’s answer was offhand enough, but his expression showed a momentary unease. You could scarcely blame him. Coulter’s face, in anger, is one of the least reassuring sights on earth. There was no bluster, no contortion of features, no tension, no nervousness; his eyes had the flat glitter of a rattlesnake’s, his nose was splayed out in dilation, and his mouth a line incised in granite. To put it mildly, he looked extremely dangerous, and I believe that Matlock, for the first time, suspected that he may have been hasty. Nevertheless, at Kissel’s cry of “Fight!” he came out, weaving back and forth, his hands working in the air, not unlike a swimmer’s pawing through water, and suddenly aimed a heavy, unsporting kick at the vulnerable area of Coulter’s crotch. Had it landed, it might well have crippled him for life.

What happened next remains blurred in my mind. Coulter’s actions were performed with such rapidity that they confused us all. I was strongly reminded of the classic notion of a wolf striking at the throat of the slow-moving moose. In conversations that evening, nobody remembered precisely the sequence of events, but all agreed that the meeting could not properly be described as a fight. It was murder and sudden death, or would have been had there not been general intervention.

Slipping aside, Coulter—I believe—caught Matlock’s foot and gave it a sharp, quick hoist that flipped him up off the ground then dropped him down with a jarring thwack on his back. Our farmer looked shaken, but he had little time to recover, for Coulter lit on him like a hawk swooping on a peewit. There was a silent flurry of thrashing arms and legs, and we heard a crack like that of a dry stick breaking. Matlock screamed, scrambled out of the melee, and rose swaying to his feet, his left arm hanging limply at his side. But Coulter, too, had sprung up and now he dropped his left shoulder and swung a short blow with his right fist—the hand moving only a
few inches—that caught Matlock flush in the face. We saw with horror that his nose was mashed almost perfectly flat; only the nostril apertures, streaming blood, remained to make it recognizable as a nose. Needless to say, he went down, slack in every joint, a dull, glazed look in his eyes. But before he hit the ground, Coulter was on his back with what I believe is called a scissors hold of the legs around his middle, the fingers of his right hand dug firmly in Matlock’s eyes. In a “free” fight on these plains, the conqueror has a moral right to blind the vanquished if he chooses.

However, there came an interruption in the form of the Matlock cousins. Others also were about to protest. But the larger of the cousins suddenly whipped out a knife, swung it up in a high arc, and had started it down toward Coulter’s back when Matt Kissel seized his wrist and twisted the blade free.

“You want something, too, Fatty?” cried the cousin, and aimed a blow at Kissel’s head. I have the impression it landed, but it appeared to make no difference. This quiet, oxlike man clenched his fist in the cousin’s stomach, gathering together the tight belt and loose flesh, and picked him up bodily. He held him thus, several feet in the air, with one hand.

“You’re all het up,” said Matt. “Get un-het.”

“No hard feelings,” gasped the cousin, and our fight was over. It had been of unique violence while it lasted, and I have no doubt it will become a plains legend. Of special curiosity to me was its aftermath. Coulter, brushing himself off and all but returned to normal, though still breathing hard, said, “Just for the record, I wasn’t aiming to douse his sight.”

Regarding him stolidly, Kissel replied, “I’m glad to hear it.”

Then Coulter made his remark that brought a general laugh: “Mr. Kissel, I hope we never have to tangle; I couldn’t figure out a worse afternoon’s work.”

“No occasion,” said Matt.

We walked on down the hill. The Matlocks took charge of their injured warrior; his nose and the splintered bone in his arm would have to be set. It seemed to me that all things considered, he had got off very lucky. The thought was faintly disturbing.

But as I said, Melissa, this trivial dispute, in clearing the air, simply emphasized the essential solidarity of the train. It is true that,
next day, the Matlock faction and a few others of like disposition split off from the parent group, determined to go it alone. But for the rest, our resolve continued unabated. Ahead lies gold, gold to wallow in, to fling out of the carriage as one proceeds (with credit restored) over the streets of Louisville. By Fort Laramie, only a comparatively brief distance up the trail, we shall have gone halfway! After that it is only a pleasant stroll across a few deserts, some salt flats, and then the Rocky Mountains. Could any prospect be more enticing?

With loving greetings to you
and my darlings, and in the
very best of spirits, I remain
,
S
ARDIUS
M
C
P
HEETERS
(M.D., etc.)

People kept talking about the fight and before long they threw the blame on Coulter. All except our bunch. Nobody came right out and accused him of anything, or made trouble, but when somebody said the Matlocks had been valuable additions to the train, that was all they needed. Before the ruckus, there wasn’t hardly a soul could stand those clodhoppers, or their womenfolks either, but now you would have thought they were a collection of missionaries. It was disgusting.

My father said it wasn’t worth worrying about; it was just part of the general cussedness of humans. He said they’d go baaa-ing off in another direction as soon as something occurred to them.

“I’ve seen this sort of perverseness in elections. A man will be in office, doing fine, honest, upright, hard-working, even noble, as far as you can find that quality in a politician, and the opposition will put up a known scoundrel that hasn’t a thing to recommend him except noise. But if he brays long enough and loud enough he’ll bray himself right in. People are prepared to believe anything about a person as long as it’s bad.”

Even Jennie acted sulky and said that Eloise Matlock had been going to be one of the bridesmaids at her wedding, but now she’d be a bridesmaid shy. I figured that, at the outside, she’d spoken to this Eloise two or three times, so mostly she made it up to spite Coulter.

What actually galled the train was the country we were crossing, but it seemed handier to take it out on the leader. Here between the two rivers the soil was so sandy and dry the air was full of flying
particles nearly all the time. It was enough to suffocate you. The wind was high, too. People wore kerchiefs wrapped around their nose so they could breathe without drowning in the dust. This went on for two days and then we had a rain that freshened things up some. The wind dropped, and it was lovely. There was even a faintly green, grassy look roundabout, and directly ahead was this Chimney Rock, standing straight up like some old temple. Everybody was so grateful for the change that several men came out flat-footed and promised to stop abusing Coulter for a while.

We’d be at the rock in plenty of time for a Sunday wedding. This appeared to cheer everybody up. Weddings do that, I’ve noticed. The ones already married are happy to see somebody else hooked, and the bachelors are naturally relieved that it isn’t them.

What with one thing and another, I felt good. Jennie had said she would appoint me a “flower boy,” because there were only three girls of the right age in the whole train, and although there wasn’t anything growing around here except milkweed and cactus, I hoped to have some fun, and maybe throw a monkey wrench in the machinery somewhere along the line. This smart-alecky female had it coming.

But that night when we camped, my father brought out a nasty-looking little green book he’d borrowed off a man whose wife had been a schoolteacher but reformed, and said he was going to teach me Latin.

“Now, my boy,” he said, getting me off to one side and putting on his spectacles, “you’ve been idle long enough. We have a duty to your mother, and we’ll start discharging it right here.”

“Yes, sir,” I answered, feeling about as low as I’d felt since the day they sprung Mental Arithmetic on me at the Secondary School.

“You’re familiar with the general meaning of Latin, its basic definition and purpose, that is?”

“I’ve heard it mentioned,” I said, “but not very favorably. Nobody’s said anything good about it in
my
presence.”

“If you persist in being facetious,” said my father, looking over his spectacles, “I’ll be obliged to give you a birching.”

“I’m only telling you what I heard.”

“Very well, then. Now, first of all, what exactly
is
Latin, in your mind, as we sit chatting?”

“I may be a mile off, but I think it has something to do with the Greeks.”

“You’re off, all right, but not too far off at that. This is a very good start. It was the Romans. I’m proud of you, son. Taking another step, I assume you realize that Latin is a dead language?”

“Why, no,” I said, being considerably set back. “I hadn’t heard that. How did it happen to die?”

“We’re getting a little off the track. Latin, the classic tongue of the early Romans, is now a dead language. We can begin with that premise, and go right on from there.”

“I certainly don’t want to cause trouble,” I said, “but I’d feel a good deal more comfortable to know why it died. Who killed it?”

“Nobody killed it. Several races intermingled along about that time, and the language simply got swallowed up. That’s all.”

“You mean the Romans quit speaking entirely?”

“The Romans, as such, were no longer Romans, and so used the tongues of the people with whom they intermingled. See here, my boy, do you want to get on with this or don’t you?”

“Well, I guess I don’t,” I said, brushing myself off and starting up. “I’m sorry the way it turned out, but I hadn’t any idea Latin was dead. Maybe we can do something else later on.”

“I’ll tell you what we
will
do,” said my father warmly. “Unless you’ve got back down here in about three seconds and tackled this thing in good spirit, you won’t be sitting down for a week.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “I didn’t understand. I thought you were giving me a choice. I’m perfectly willing to push ahead with this Latin, dead or alive, but I can’t see what use it is.”

My father shook his head. “Of what use is
Latin?
Is that what you mean?”

“I’m not apt to be transacting any business with dead Romans, so why bother?”

“Latin,” said my father slowly, “is the basis for our own richly
eloquent language of English. Many, many words have been carried forward in almost their exact, identical form. To a dedicated student of philology, the two are almost interchangeable.”

“Oh, well, then, in that case, hand me the book. I hadn’t realized we might switch back. I see what you mean. I’d be in a pretty pickle if everybody shifted to Latin and left me stumbling around with English. I couldn’t understand a word.”

I made a motion toward the book, but he held it back. “My boy, I’m going to give you one more warning and then I’ll have to cut a sapling. Any further attempts at levity will erupt with very serious results.”

“I’m sorry to be so ignorant,” I said. “You go right on with the lesson.”

“That’s better. Now, Jaimie, my lad, the first thing we should realize, before proceeding to grammar, is that a knowledge of Latin opens up for us a wealth of grand and lofty literature. Does the name Caesar convey anything to you?”

“There, at least, I’m on solid ground,” I said with pleasure. “As it happens, I know him well. He’s the old darky helper that sweeps out at Briscoe’s Feed Store. He sharpened a pocketknife for me only about a week before we left. He must be near onto a hundred and fifty years old; I’m not surprised all his friends are dead.”

My father took off his spectacles and wiped them. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “Maybe the simplest thing would be just to move on to grammar.” He opened the book and pressed down the fold so he could read. “Here we are, son. From here on we won’t have any trouble.”

“I’m anxious to get it now that I understand what it’s about.”

“Of course you are. Now the first thing to consider is the order in sentences: subjects, objects, verbs and the like. You follow me, do you not?”

“I can understand it’s important to keep order in a sentence, just as anywheres else.”

“That was a joke, wasn’t it, son?”

“I guess so, father.”

“You weren’t planning to make any more jokes, were you, Jaimie?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, then. In Latin we find that the verb comes last. If they should say, ‘The Indian fired the rifle,’ how, in your view, would they say it, with reference to order?”

“Simple enough,” I replied, feeling a little easier. “That’s one of those trick questions. We had them in school. They wouldn’t say it at all, you see. There weren’t any rifles around then, and the Indians hadn’t been discovered yet.”

He took off his hat and swabbed out the band. This was curious, because the sun had practically gone down and it wasn’t hot any more, leastways not hot enough to sweat. Then he said an interesting thing, but it didn’t seem to have anything to do with Latin.