Shaking the Nickel Bush (17 page)

As I talked I stood a corner of the chisel edge on the mark I'd scratched, and tapped it with the hammer. “You don't really hammer it at all,” I said. “You just sort of bounce the hammer on it—as if you were bouncing a marble. Then you follow on around, tapping it a little more. It's that bouncing tap that cracks it loose, not the cutting.”

“I get you, buddy! I get you,” he told me anxiously. “Leave me try it.”

I didn't let him try till I'd cracked out half a dozen chips. Every one of them came away clean, but I'd started a bit too far back to uncover the damaged parting place. And Lonnie was becoming more anxious with every chip that cracked away. I put the mold back into his lap, passed him the hammer and chisel, and told him, “Just take it slow and easy. It doesn't make a bit of difference whether or not we finish taking these molds off tonight. I've told them it might be two or three days before the finished pieces were ready. Suppose you crack a little chunk out, just above the last one I took.”

Lonnie clutched the hammer and chisel as though he were afraid someone would steal them. And instead of laying the chisel for a little chunk, he laid it for a big one. Then he tapped it—as if it had been a railroad spike.

I was lucky. The casting had been drying only a single day, and even in the Arizona sunshine it hadn't dried enough to become brittle. But it's lucky that old banker's head was only a plaster cast. A chunk of brittle mold flew past my face, I ducked, and when I looked back there was little more than the handle of the chisel sticking up through the top of the old gentleman's pate. Lonnie was sitting and staring down at it, the way a hypnotized cow will stare down at a coiled rattlesnake. “Jeepers, buddy!” he whispered, “I've ruint it.”

That's one time I believed him, but when I examined the casting there wasn't a single crack running out from the chisel. It had gone through as cleanly as it would have gone into a bucket of lard. And, best of all, it had gone lengthwise of the damaged parting place.

That was the last of Lonnie's active practice at his new profession—except for pouring the casting plaster and heaving a handful or two of mold plaster into the face of “them old buzzards.”

Those first castings came out better than I'd dared to hope they would. When I'd trimmed and sanded every rough spot—and closed Lonnie's brain incision—they looked reasonably near professional. The coating of shellac and alcohol took off the stark white look, and though they didn't look like marble to me, they did to Mabel and the banker.

Mabel must have nearly bankrupted her boss with long-distance phone calls, but she certainly saved Lonnie and me from bankruptcy—and if she wasn't the best salesman in the world she was close to it. Right from the beginning she was anxious to see how I did my work, so one afternoon Lonnie and I brought her out to our little canyon. She kept as quiet as a hidden fawn as she sat for a couple of hours, just watching me shape the clay with my fingers. And I had to be a bit of a hypocrite while she was there. The tintype I'd picked up that morning was a particularly poor one, but the banker's face had been a strong, well-chiseled one. I knew exactly how it must have looked in his early thirties, and all the work I did was from the picture I could bring up before my mind, but every few minutes I'd take the tintype up, act as though I were studying it, and make some little change in the clay.

After that first time Mabel came to our camp almost every day, but she never came alone. She always brought along some nice old gentleman with a tintype in his pocket; a few of them had come more than a hundred miles to have me make likenesses of their youth. Each one of them came back when I had the clay model ready, liked it, and came for the finished bust when I had it completed. It saved me days of traveling time, and by working early and late I could just about finish one bust a day.

My biggest trouble was with Lonnie. With nothing to do but scrub paint off Shiftless, he wanted to sit around and talk all the time, and his talking nearly drove me crazy. After I'd stood it a couple of days I gave him twenty dollars and said, “We can afford it now; why don't you drive Shiftless to Safford where you can get a garageman to help you put her into first-class shape?”

Lonnie grabbed the twenty and was away within three minutes. He always came back to camp every evening, and I know he spent all the money I gave him on Shiftless, for he had some new part on her every time he came back—but it cost me just about ten dollars a day to keep him out of my hair.

Lonnie and I lived in our little canyon for more than three weeks, and when we pulled out for the last time no one could have guessed we were the same two boys who had pulled in there—or that Shiftless was the same old flivver. Really, she wasn't, and she'd cost me about fifty dollars more than if I'd bought her brand new. Lonnie had put so many new parts on her that there was little of the original jalopy left—except for the chassis. He'd done a cracking good job of painting her, and he kept her polished till she shone like patent leather. But it had hurt his feelings when I wouldn't let him letter her front doors, THE COWBOY ARTISTS OF THE SOUTHWEST.

We'd been living “high on the hog,” according to Lonnie. Steak, baked potatoes and dessert for him every day, and for me chicken, eggs, plenty of milk, and canned salmon. At the end of our first week we'd gone to Safford and bought whole new outfits of clothing. Levi's, shirts, underwear, boots, and hats. Lonnie wouldn't pick out either boots or hat till I bought mine, then took exactly the same thing—only that his hat was two sizes larger, and his boots two sizes smaller. He even insisted on buying Levi's that were six or eight inches too long, then folding the cuffs up the way I did mine. His were only so we artists might look as much alike as possible, but I had good reason to keep mine folded up. There were three fifty-dollar bills and two twenties in one of them.

I'd still been a little pasty-looking when we settled down in the canyon, but when we pulled out I was as brown as tanned calfskin—except for a white band around the middle. I'd been to see the doctor every week, and had mailed the report cards to Dr. Gaghan. Each of them had been almost exactly like the sample one I was still keeping, just in case I might have to take another one sometime. If I wasn't a lot stronger than I'd been when I left home, I certainly felt as though I was, but I couldn't seem to gain an ounce, no matter how high we lived on the hog.

Every bust I'd made had been from a picture—usually an old faded tintype—but I hadn't let myself become confused by trying to copy them. For me it was better to study the old gentlemen's faces while I visited with them for half an hour or so. In that length of time I knew all I needed to know about the shape of a nose, the size of an ear, type of eye, breadth of forehead, and general shape of the face and head. But I knew a lot more than that; I knew exactly what sort of man he was in his old age, so it wasn't hard to guess what he must have been like as a young man—for a man's character doesn't change after he's thirty. It only becomes more firmly set, and is more deeply marked in his features.

In shaping the clay for the first two or three busts I'd had to close my eyes and bring back to mind some young face of the same type—one I'd known well—but from there on I didn't have to close them at all. As soon as my fingers began shaping the clay I could see the man I'd been talking to that morning, but I'd see him as he used to be before the lines of his face had deepened and set. And with each one I made, it was easier to see, and easier for my fingers to make the clay say what I wanted it to. The busts weren't fine art, and I didn't try to claim it for them, but they made a good many old gentlemen happy, and they made Lonnie and me a right good living. When we crossed the line into New Mexico I had a dozen letters tucked away in my toolbox, letters that I knew would get me a customer in almost any town with a single banker.

15

City Slickers

W
HEN we left Arizona I had three jobs lined up ahead of me. I'd promised one kindly old banker that I'd make a bust of his son-in-law who, he told me, was a very prominent El Paso attorney. And I'd promised two others to stop on our way and make busts of friends of theirs; one at Lordsburg, and one at Deming. We stopped three days in both towns, because it took that long for the plaster to dry, but we weren't fortunate enough to find a little canyon where we could hide away for our work, so I thought it would be best to take hotel rooms.

It wasn't.

The trouble was that Lonnie didn't have anything to do. With Shiftless all fixed up he couldn't spend more than an hour a day on her—polishing the body, the brass on the radiator, and even the engine. He never read, not even the headlines in the newspaper, so it was hard for him to amuse himself when I was too busy to talk. He got along pretty well our first forenoon in Lordsburg, because he was able to round up a couple of little audiences on the sidewalk and tell about his being an artist and making the finished product—the actual marble busts we made for bankers only.

But Lonnie didn't have too much imagination; he was never able to expand his original story, and it wore out quickly in a town the size of Lordsburg. When he could no longer scare up an audience he slouched around our room, wanting me to talk to him, and nearly driving me out of my mind. It wasn't hard to do, for the light in the room was poor; it wouldn't reflect off the moist clay as it should, and I was having trouble in bringing out the expression I wanted.

The money I had stashed away in the cuff of my new Levi's was my own personal savings account, but I had about forty dollars more, along with some change, in one of the pockets. I'd worn the Levi's when I went to see the banker that morning, but when I got back to the room I'd stripped down and put on the cut-off pair before starting on the clay model. When Lonnie had pestered me for nearly an hour I lost my patience a bit, went to the closet where my Levi's were hanging, rammed a hand in the pocket, and said, “Here's some change, Lonnie. Why don't you go see a movie?”

I'd intended to give him a handful of change, but there were only a few small coins in the pocket, so I peeled what I thought would be a dollar bill off the roll. Lonnie was standing right behind me when I jerked it out, turned, and passed it toward him. I wouldn't have noticed that the bill was a five instead of a one if Lonnie hadn't brightened up when he took it. He hurried out of the room like a little kid who's been given a nickel and is bound for the store to buy candy.

With Lonnie out from under my feet the poor light didn't bother me as much as it had—but not for long. He couldn't have been gone more than fifteen minutes before he was back, looking more sad and lonesome than before. “The movie don't open till six o'clock,” he told me.

I should have had better sense, but I wanted to be rid of him while I was working on that clay, so I said, “You're a pretty good looking guy, and you've got a pretty fancy automobile. I'd think you could find yourself a girl you could take for a ride. Take her for a good long one. Buy her some supper and take her to the movies when you bring her back.”

Lonnie's face lit up like a mountaintop that's just been touched by the morning sun. “Honest-a-God, buddy, would it be all right?” he asked excitedly.

“Sure! Sure, it would, Lonnie,” I told him. “You've got a five there. That ought to do the trick.”

Lonnie was out of that room in less than two seconds, and I thought I'd seen the last of him until time for the movie to let out, but I hadn't. In about twenty minutes he was back, smelling like a dance hall girl who has passed her prime. He must have been to the dime store for perfume, and stopped at the bathroom down the hall to plaster it all over himself. His face was scrubbed till it shone like copper, his new hat was cocked on one side of his head, and his new boots were sparkling. He strutted back and forth across the room a couple of times, stopped squarely in my light, and asked, “Say, buddy, shouldn't a man ought to buy a lady a box o' candy when he takes her to the theater?”

It sounded to me as if he were leading up to make a touch beyond the five I'd already given him—by mistake—so I said, “Not if he's going to take her to dinner first. Either way is fine, but I wouldn't do both.”

Lonnie was never under my feet again when I had to work in a hotel room—but it cost an even five dollars a day for gas, oil, dinners, and movies. The only reason it didn't cost more was that I made five his limit. With three days in a town to make a twenty-five-dollar bust, we could just about break even. It took most of the other ten for room rent and meals—the ones we had when Lonnie wasn't entertaining a lady.

Between Las Cruces and El Paso there were nearly a dozen towns along the Rio Grande where I believed I might find jobs, but we didn't stop at any of them. In the first place, I was almost out of materials, and El Paso was the only place within hundreds of miles where I could find the right kind of plaster of Paris, real modeling clay, and the kind of clay and plaster tools I needed for doing a good job. Then too, I knew there would be a letter from home waiting for me there. But the thing I was most anxious about was making the bust for the very prominent attorney. From what his father-in-law had told me I knew there would be no chance of my getting a picture, then hiding away to make the clay model in some little canyon. I'd have to make it with the attorney sitting for me, and I'd never tried one from a live model without Ivon right there to tell me where I was making a mistake.

I worried about it all the way from Deming to El Paso, and the more I worried about it the more nervous I became. I didn't know whether the old banker had written his son-in-law that I was just a cowboy artist, and I didn't know how to act as any other kind. Before we reached the city I'd made my mind up to two things. I was going to buy myself a suit of clothes before I went to see the attorney, and I was going to rent as good a room as I could get in the best hotel I could find. I'd pay whatever I had to for a corner room with big windows—on the northwest corner if I could get it—so I'd have just the right light, and a dignified place to take the gentleman for his sittings.

As we were pulling into El Paso I changed my mind again, and decided it would be better to rent a suite—a corner one that had a door from the hall to both the bedroom and the parlor. Then if Lonnie couldn't find anything to do he could stay in the bedroom while my client was sitting for me in the parlor. And I'd buy my suit first, and a suitcase, so I wouldn't look too much like a hick when I went into the hotel to rent the suite.

The more I thought about it the more it seemed the right thing to do, but there wasn't any sense in diving right in and renting the suite the first day. It would be better to take just an ordinary room in a reasonably cheap hotel for one day. That would give me time to buy the supplies and tools I needed, and to have the suit of clothes altered if it didn't fit me exactly right.

On second thought I made up my mind that it would be only sensible to keep the room in the cheaper hotel for all three days we'd be in town. We couldn't leave our saddles, bedrolls, and all the rest of our stuff in Shiftless safely, even if we put her in a garage. And it seemed to me that we'd look terribly silly if we went lugging that sort of stuff into a suite in a top-notch hotel.

To save one night's hotel bill we camped eight or ten miles outside El Paso, and drove into the city early in the morning. We found a fairly good room in a respectable hotel for two dollars a day. And after we'd moved into it I told Lonnie to go see the town while I went to find the tools and supplies I needed. I didn't tell him anything about my going to buy a new suit; not that I wanted to keep it from him, but just because I didn't think about telling him. When everything had been carried up to the room I peeled him a five from the dwindling roll in my pocket and said, “Have a good time. I'll see you back here at noon.”

I'd expected that I'd have to hunt all over town to find the tools and supplies I needed, but I didn't. I found them all in a combination store that sold books and stationery and artists' supplies. It didn't take me more than half an hour to pick out the tools I wanted, and the storekeeper sent a couple of boys to lug the plaster of Paris and clay back to the hotel for me. I went along to let them into our room, then started down the street to find myself a suit of clothes. That was easier than I expected, too. At the first clothing store I went into I found a slim-jim suit that fitted me pretty well, except that the arms and legs were too short, and it was only $22.50. Then I got a tailor, a few doors farther on, to lengthen the arms and legs for a dollar. He said he'd have the suit ready for me by eleven o'clock.

While I was waiting for my suit to be altered I went to the post office and found a letter from Mother waiting for me at the general delivery window. The first part of the letter just said that everybody at home was well and that Dr. Gaghan was very much pleased with my report cards and the regularity with which they were coming through. Then there were two or three pages telling me how delighted and proud she was that I'd been able to find myself such a fine job with a big cattle company, one that fully appreciated my worth and was sending me all around the country to look after their herds. Over and over again she cautioned me to be careful about riding rough horses in my condition, or spending too many hours in the saddle without rest. And she was worried for fear I was sending home so much of my pay checks that I was keeping myself strapped. She said there was no need at all for it, that they were getting along nicely, and that she wanted me to keep a few dollars by me for a possible rainy day.

The farther I read, the more ashamed of myself I was for all the lies I'd written her, but I couldn't write her the truth. Of course, she'd known that I'd whittled horses ever since I was big enough to carry a jackknife, and she knew that I'd roomed with an artist while I was at the munitions plant, but a preacher couldn't have made her believe I'd been earning as much as twenty-five dollars a day as a portrait sculptor. If I ever wrote her anything of the kind she'd be positive it was a lie, she'd be worried sick for fear that in desperation over my health I'd turned to banditry, and she'd never believe another word I wrote as long as I lived. There was only one thing I could do, and that was some more lying.

I bought a stamped envelope and a pad of paper, then stood at one of the high desks in the post office and wrote her a bunch more fairy tales. I told her our boss was very much pleased with the job we'd done, had raised both my partner's pay and mine, and was sending us north along the Rio Grande River, probably as far as Santa Fe. I wrote that we expected it to be late spring before we got there, because we'd have to move the cattle slowly, and much as I liked my bosses I planned to quit my job at Santa Fe. That would leave me within less than three hundred miles from Littleton, and I'd promised to be there in time for the Fourth of July roundup. I added a few lines about going to see all our old friends as soon as I reached Colorado, then bought a fifty-dollar money order, folded it inside the letter, and mailed it.

On the way back to pick up my suit from the tailor, I bought myself a white shirt and sort of conservative necktie, then I thought about buying a pair of dress shoes, but there didn't seem to be much sense in it. My boots were almost new, and the pants legs would come down far enough to cover the tops. It seemed better to spend what spare time I had getting a haircut and shampoo. I hadn't had one since we left Phoenix, and was getting a little ragged around the edges.

Of course, I knew my hair had bleached out a bit from working bareheaded in the sun, but when the dust was scrubbed out of it, it looked nearly as white as snow, probably because my face and neck had tanned so dark. Then too, it had dried out so badly that it stuck up like the fur on a scared cat's back. I had to have the barber put some oil on it, and I guess he took me for a back-country boy; he charged me a quarter for no more than a teaspoonful of oil tonic. Maybe I got my money's worth out of him anyway. While he was cutting my hair I asked him where I could buy a fairly good suitcase without spending too much for it. “Juarez,” he told me. “Leather goods are cheap on the Mexican side of the line. Watch out for the pickpockets over there. They're thicker'n fleas.”

It was about half past eleven before I got back to the hotel, but Lonnie wasn't around, so I went down the hall and took a bath, then put on my new clothes to surprise him. He might have been surprised when he came in, but he wasn't happy. “Jeepers Creepers, buddy,” he said. “I'll look like a bum . . . us travelin' 'round with you all slicked up the likes o' that—and me in overhauls.”

“I won't be wearing these clothes when we're traveling around,” I told him. “The only reason I bought them is that I'm going to make a bust of a fine gentleman, and we're going to take a suite in the best hotel so I'll have a dignified place for the sittings.”

Lonnie looked sorrowfully at his reflection in the mirror, and asked, “We're goin' to take it, or you're goin' to take it?”

Lonnie wasn't
trying
to look sorrowful—he never could look any way other than he felt—but anyone would have thought he'd lost his last friend on earth. “
We're
going to take it, Lonnie,” I said. “You're my buddy, aren't you? If you want a city-slicker suit there's no reason you can't have it. Wait till I hang up these working duds and we'll go see what we can find.”

As I said it I picked up my Levi's—with two fifties and one twenty still folded inside the cuff. I fiddled around in the closet till I'd fished the money out, then we went to buy a suit for Lonnie. It wasn't an easy job. He wouldn't even try a jacket on till he'd found a suit almost exactly like mine—light gray, with a dark pencil stripe—and that was in a fancy store where they charged $27.50.