All right then, says Billy Priest, so fur so good. And now I think wed better be resumin our journey, takin our captives with us. Ive got a presentiment, he says, that theyd probably enjoy better health travellin along with us than they would stayin on with these here Liberals.
How about them four field-pieces? says one of the boys, speakin up. Theres plenty of hosses to haul em. Hadnt we better take them along with us, too? Theyll git awful lonesome bein left in such scurvy company poor little things!
No, says Billy, I reckin that wouldnt be right. The prisoners are ourn by right of capture, but the guns aint. These fellers bought em off Shelbys brigade and theyre entitled to keep em. But before we depart, he says, it mout not be a bad idea to tinker with em a little with a view to sort of puttin em out of commission fur the time bein. Our late hosts mout take a notion to turn em on us, ez we are goin away frum em and theres a bare chance, he says, that they might hit some of us by accident.
So we tinkered with the guns and then we moved out in hollow formation with the six prisoners marchin along in the middle and not a soul undertakin to halt us ez we went. On the whole them Liberals seemed right pleased to get shet of us. But when wed gone along fur a mile or so, one of the Mexicans flopped down on his knees and begin to jabber. And then the other five follered suit and jabbered with him. After while it dawned on us that they were beggin us to kill em quick and not torture em, they thinkin wed only saved em frum bein shot in order to do something much more painful to em at our leisure. So then four or five of the boys dropped down off their mounts and untied em and faced em about so the open country was in front of em and give em a friendly kick or two frum behind ez a notice to em to be on their way. They lit out into the scrub and were gone the same ez ef theyd been so many Molly Cottontails.
Fur upward of a week then, we moved along, headin mighty nigh due South. Considerin that the country was supposed to be in the midst of civil war we saw powerful few evidences of it ez we rode through. Life fur the humble Mexican appeared to be waggin along about ez usual, but was nothin to brag about, at that. We seen him ploughin amongst the prevalent desolation with a forked piece of wood, one fork bein hitched to a yoke of oxen and the other fork bein shod with a little strip of rusty iron. We seen him languidly gatherin his wheat, him goin ahead and pullin it up out of the ground, roots and all and pilin it in puny heaps, and then the women cornin along behind him and tyin it in little bunches with strings. Another place we seen him and his women folks threshin grain by beatin it with sticks and dependin on the wind to help em winnow the wheat from the chaff jest ez it is written twas done in the Bible days. We seen him in his hours of ease, fightin his chicken-cock against some other fellers game-bird, and gamblin and scratchin his flea-bites and the more we seen of him the less we seemed to keer fur him. He mout of been all right in his way, but he wasnt our kind of folks; I reckin that was it.
And he repaid the compliment by not appearin to keer very deeply fur us strangers neither, but the women seemed to take to us, mightily. Theyd come out to us frum their little dried mud cabins bringin us beans and them flat batter-cakes of theirn and even sometimes milk and butter. Also they gave us roughage fur our hosses and wouldnt take pay fur none of it, indicatin by signs that it was all a free gift. Whut between the grazin they got and the dried fodder the women gave us, our hosses took on flesh and werent sech ganted crowbaits ez they had been.
Seven days of traversin that miserble land and then, son, we ran smack into the Imperial scouts and found wed arrived within less en a days march of the city of Monterey. Purty soon out come a detachment of cavalry to meet us and inquire into our business and a most Godforsaken lookin bunch they were, but with em they had half a dozen Confederates Missoury boys, all of em exceptin one, him bein frum Louisiana; and these here Missoury fellers told us some news. It seemed that after Shelby and Price and Hindman got to Monterey their little army had split in two, most of its members headin off toward the City of Mexico with no purticular object in view so fur ez anybody knowed but jest filled with a restless cravin to stay in the saddle and keep movin, and the rest strikin Westward toward the Pacific Coast.
But about two hundred of em had stayed behind and enlisted at Monterey, havin been given a bounty of six hundred dollars apiece and a promise of one hundred dollars a month in pay ef theyd fight fur Maximilian. The delegation that had rode out to meet us now were part and parcel of that two hundred. They seemed tickled to death to see us and they bragged about the money they were gittin, but ef you watched em kind of clost you could tell, mighty easy, they werent exactly overjoyed and carried away with enthusiasm over their present jobs. They told us in confidence that the French officers in their army were fine soldiers and done the best they could with the material they had, but that the rank and file were small potatoes and few in the hill. In fact, we gathered frum remarks let fall here and there that after servin ez a Confederate fur a period of years and fightin aginst husky fellers frum Indiana or Kansas or Michigan or somewheres up that way, bein a soldier of fortune with the Imperials and fightin aginst the Liberals was, comparatively speakin, a mighty tame pursuit that youd probably live longer so doin, but you wouldnt have anywheres near the excitement. On top of all that, though, they extended a cordial invitation to us to go on back to Monterey with em and enlist under the Maximilian government.
Some of our outfit seemed to sort of lean toward the proposition and some to sort of lean aginst it, without exactly statin their reasons why and wherefore. But amongst us all there wasnt a man but whut relied mighty implicit on Billy Priests judgment, and besides which, youve got to remember, son, that discipline had come to be a sort of an ingrained habit with us. Wed got used to lookin to our leaders to show us the way and give us our orders and then wed try to obey em, spite of hell and high water. Thats the way it had been with us for four long years and thats the way it still was with us. So under the circumstances, with sentiment divided ez it was, we-all waited to see how Billy Priest felt, because ez I jest told you, we imposed a heap of confidence in his views on purty near any subject you mout mention. The final say-so bein put up to him, he studied a little and then he said to the Missoury boys that hearin frum them about the Confederacy havin split up into pieces had injected a new and a different aspect into the case and in his belief it was a thing that needed thinkin over and mebbe sleepin on. Accordinly, ef it was all the same to them, hed like to wait till next mornin before comin to a definite decision and he believed that in this his associates would concur with him. That was agreeable to the fellers that had brung us the invitation, or ef it wasnt they let on like it was anyhow, and so we left the matter standin where it was without further argument on their part.
They told us good-by and expressed the hope that theyd see us next day in Monterey and then they rid on back to headquarters to report progress on the part of the committee on new members and to ask further time, I spose. Ez fur us, we went into camp right where we was.
They told us good-by and expressed the hope that theyd see us next day in Monterey and then they rid on back to headquarters to report progress on the part of the committee on new members and to ask further time, I spose. Ez fur us, we went into camp right where we was.
Most of us suspicioned that after wed fed the hosses and et our supper Billy would call a sort of caucus and git the sense of the meetin, but he didnt take no steps in that direction and of course nobody else felt qualified to do so. After a while the fires wed lit to cook our victuals on begin to die down low and the boys started to turn in. There wasnt much talkin or singin, or skylarkin round, but a whole heap of thinkin was goin on you could feel it in the air. I was layin there on the ground under my old ragged blankets with my saddle fur a pillow and the sky fur my bed canopy, but I didnt drop right off like I usually done. I was busy ponderin over in my mind quite a number of things. I remember how gashly and on-earthly them old cactus plants looked, loomin up all round me there in the darkness and how strange the stars looked, a-shinin overhead. They didnt seem like the same stars wed been used to sleepin under before we come on down here into Mexico. Even the new moon had a different look, ez though it was another moon frum the one that had furnished light fur us to go possum-huntin by when we were striplin boys growin up. This here one was a lonesome, strange, furreign-lookin moon, ef you git my meanin? Anyhow it seemed so to me.
Somebody spoke my name right alongside of me, and I tumt over and raised up my head and there was Billy Priest hunkered down. He had a little scrap of dried greasewood in his hand and he was scratchin with it in the dirt in a kind of an absent-minded way.
You aint asleep yet, Jimmy? he says to me.
No, I says, Ive been layinhere, study-in.
That so? he says. Whut about in particular?
Oh nothin in particular, I says, jest studyin.
He dont say anything more fur a minute; jest keepin on makin little marks in the dirt with the end of his stick. Then he says to me: Jimmy, he says, Ive been doin right smart thinkin myself.
Have you? I says.
Yes, he says, I have. Ive been thinkin that whilst peppers make quite spicy eatin and beans are claimed to be very nourishin articles of food, still when taken to excess theyre liable to pall on the palate, sooner or later.
They certainly are, I says.
Lets see, he says. This is the last week in July, aint it? Back in Gods country, the first of the home-grown watermelons oughter be comin in about now, oughten they? And in about another week from now theyll be pickin those great big stripedy rattlesnake melons that grow in the river bottoms down below town, wont they?
Yes, I says, they will, ef the season aint been rainy and set em back.
Let us hope it aint, he says, and I could hear his stick scratchin in the grit of that desert land, makin a scrabblin itchy kind of sound.
Jimmy Bagby, he says, any mans liable to make a mistake sometimes, but that dont necessarily stamp him ez a fool onlessen he sticks to it too long after hes found out it is a mistake.
Billy, I says, I cant take issue with you there.
Fr instance now, he says, you take a remark which I let fall some weeks back touch-in on flags. Well Ive been thinkin that remark over, Jimmy, and Ive about come to the conclusion that ef a man has to give up the flag he fout under and cant have it no longer, he mout in time come to be equally comfortable in the shadder of the flag he was born under. He might even come to love em both, mighty sincerely lovin one fur whut it meant to him oncet and fur all the traditions and all the memories it stands fur, and lovin the other fur whut it may mean to him now and whut its liable to mean to his children and their children.
But Billy, I says, when all is said and done, we fit in defence of a constitutional principle.
You bet we did, he says; but its mostly all been said and its practically all been done. I figger it out this way, Jimmy. Reguardless of the merits of a given case, ef a man fights fur whut he thinks is right, so fur ez he pussonally is concerned, he fights fur whut is right. I aint expectin it to happen yit awhile, but Im willin to bet you something that in the days ahead both sides will come to feel jest that way about it too.
Do you think so, Billy? I says.
Jimmy, he say, I dont only think so I jest natchelly knows so. I feel it in my bones.
Then I persume you must be correct, I says.
He waits a minute and then he says: Jimmy, he says, I dont believe Id ever make a success ez one of these here passenger-pigeons. Now, a passenger-pigeon aint got no regular native land of his own. He loves one country part of the time and another country part of the time, dividin his seasons betwixt em. Now with me Im afraid its different.
Billy, I says, Ive about rech the conclusion that I wasnt cut out to be a passenger-pigeon, neither.
He waits a minute, me holdin back fur him to speak and wonderin whut his next subject is goin to be. Bill Priest always was a master one to ramble in his conversations. After a while he speaks, very pensive:
Jimmy, he says, ef a man was to git up on a hoss, say to-morrow momin and ride along right stiddy hed jest about git home by hog-killin time, wouldnt he?
Jest about, I says, ef nothin serious happened to delay him on the way.
Thats right, he says, the spare ribs and the chitterlins would jest about be ripe when he arrove back.
I didnt make no answer to that my mouth was waterin so I couldnt speak. Besides there didnt seem to be nothin to say.
The fall revivals ought to be startin up about then, too, he says, old folks gittin religion all over agin and the mourners bench overflowin, and off in the back pews and in the dark comers young folks flirtin with one another and holdin hands under cover of the hymn-books. But all the girls we left behind us have probably got new beaux by now, dont you reckin?
Yes, Billy, I says, I reckin they have and I dont know ez I could blame em much neither, whut with us streakin way off down here like a passel of idiots.
He gits up and throws away his stick.
Well, Jimmy, he says, Im powerful glad to find out we agree on so many topics. Well, good night, he says.
Good night, I says, and then I rolled over and went right off to sleep. But before I dropped off I ketched a peep of Billy Priest, squattin down alongside one of the other boys, and doubtless fixin to read that other fellers thoughts like a book the same ez hed jest been readin mine.
Well, son, the next mornin at sun-up we were all up, too. We had our breakfast, sech ez it was, and broke camp and mounted and started off with Billy Priest ridin at the head of the column and me stickin clost beside him. I didnt know fur sure whut was on the mind of anybody else in that there cavalcade of gentlemen rangers, but I was mighty certain about whut I aimed to do. I aimed to stick with Billy Priest; thats whut. Strange to say, nobody ast any questions about whut we were goin to do with reguards to them Imperalists waitin there fur us in Monterey. You never saw such a silent lot of troopers in your life. There wasnt no singin nor laughin and mighty little talkin. But fur half an hour or so there was some good, stiddy lopin.