Chapter 12

The Wildcat's siesta was interrupted by a rumbling voice which emanated from a chesty policeman who was engaged in dishing out a little earnest advice to the proprietor of the hotel. The officer raised his voice for the benefit of the brunet assemblage.

"Trouble is trouble. If yez have business on th' street, attind to ut, but save th' loafin' f'r another day. Wid all thim I.W.W. bugs, this nigrah parade tonight is apt to flash into a race riot. If it does, th' chief ain't goin' to stan' no foolin'. The guns'll begin barkin' worse than a Chinee New Year. Don't look for no trouble an' you won't find it. You boys ain't much in favour in this town right now, an' wan false move in tonight's parade might make a stampede out of it, wid all th' dark complexions in town three jumps ahead of some red-hot buckshot."

The Wildcat shrivelled up in his chair. The policeman's warning made him homesick. He resolved to stick close to the home plate. "Ah don't crave no paradin' roun' whah at white folks is. Dese uppity yaller niggahs sho' heads fo' trouble when dey starts speakin' white folks' talk. Wish't ol' Cap'n Jack was here. He'd sho' learn 'em, did dey start sumpin'. Like as not ol' Cap'n Jack tear down a lamp post an' beat de parade ovah de head wid it. Parades is all right fo' crematizin' ceremonies. All right fo' de Ahmy boys. All right fo' funerals an' lodges. Outside o' dat dey's dangerous. Me, Ah sees kin I sleep me some mo'."

His slumbers were again interrupted by the entrance of the porter whose acquaintance he had made en route from The Dalles to Portland.

"Boy, howdy."

The Wildcat sat up and blinked a pair of heavy lids over his bulging eyes. "Doggone if it ain't mah ol' fish podneh. Sho's glad to meet up wid you. How is you?"

"Tol'able, 'ceptin' I's rushed. Us got to work dis fish business fast. I don't git me no lay-over. Ol' Pullman boy's done switched me to de midnight run fo' San F'mcisco on de train what leaves at one o'clock in de mawnin'. Dat's why I ain't change' my unifawm. How is you? Did de man give you de money fo' de train robbeh letter?"

The Wildcat's face, which had lightened in greeting his partner in the smelt fish business, was suddenly overspread with a mask of melancholy. "Easy come, easy go. I's busted."

"How come you bust now, when dis mawnin' yo' back was broke wid a thousand-dollah letter?"

"Met up wid a Spindlin' boy what hit me wid some C.O.D. dice. Cleaned me."

"Sho' ha'd luck. You sho' got action. Neveh min', I'se got 'nuff to start de fish business wid. Dey's a parade tonight, and us cleans up big, sellin' fish to de parade niggers."

The pair launched into the working details of their fried fish business.

"Wilecat, I got me some rubbah boots. Us hires a wagon and rambles over to de C'lumbia River. We loads up on smelt fish an' rambles back. We fries de fish in de back end ob ol' wagon on a oil stove."

"Whah at's de oil stove? Whah at's de wagon?"

"Us rents de wagon from a livery stable boy I knows, fo' four bits. I knows where us kin git a oil stove f'm a boy on Front Street. Temporary, that is. Oil stoves comes high now."

"Le's go."

"Wait 'til I gits my rubbah boots."

The porter reappeared from his room wearing a pair of knee-length rubber boots.

"Sho' is de biggest boots I ever seed," the Wildcat commented.

The Wildcat held the door open until his companion had navigated the channel with the brace of ponderous violins which festooned his feet and trotted along towards the livery stable in cadence with the tromping extremities of Dwindle Daniels.

"Sho' is de biggest foot caves I ever seed. Was you in de army yo' could come from parade rest to 'tenshun without movin' dem boots."

At the livery stable Dwindle Daniels financed the rental of a light wagon and a heavy-set mule. The Wildcat gathered up the reins. "Set down fo' I starts," he advised. "Kain't tell about dese jug-heads."

The pair discovered presently that the mule's maker had omitted the high gear from the animal's mechanism, and the six-mile trip was accomplished at a four-mile gait. The mule was equally indifferent to leather and language. "'Spec' mebbe he's delicate. Some is. Comin' back I gits me a saplin' an' sees is he. No mule neveh konkered me yit."

They arrived presently at the bank of the fish-crowded Columbia River, where the business of loading their wagon with smelt occupied them for less than an hour.

"Neveh seed so many fish. Ol' river sho' is dusty wid fish. Did dese fish have laigs a boy couldn' git down de road past 'em."

With the work of the moment completed, Dwindle Daniels obeyed some instinct of neatness. He threaded his way out along an overhanging piece of driftwood to the clear water of the river, wherein he proposed to wash his hands.

The Wildcat watched him for a while and then broke into criticism. "How come yo' so neat? Yo' acts like a barber shop boy, all de time cleanin' up. Next thing you'll be cravin' bear grease fo' yo' hair an' a sprinkle o' bay rum."

"I craves to smell human," the porter returned. "All right fo' fish to smell like fish, but I prefers to let 'em win any smell race dey starts."

In replying to the Wildcat, Dwindle Daniels on his slippery perch half turned his head, and this carelessness precipitated a disaster which engulfed him. One of the ponderous boots slipped from the branch of driftwood and dragged the wearer's leg into the river. Thereafter for ten seconds the porter staged a windmill scene compared to which a cyclone in Holland looked like a quiet night on the Dead Sea. Finally the drag of old man Gravity won all bets. The Wildcat's bulging eyes witnessed a high dive entirely surrounded by frightened fish and the soft mud which lay two feet below the water surface. From the crater of the mud volcano the writhing form of the neat Dwindle Daniels finally emerged. His form-fitting environment of mud churned and splashed in a blast of agitated language. Somewhere in the vortex of the intimate ooze he had lost all traces of his religious training. He combed great handfuls of mud from his plastered features and snorted deep draughts of fresh air.

He excavated his eyes and then, disdaining the unstable footing offered by the driftwood, he ploughed his way ashore, up to his arm pits in water and mud.

On the bank the Wildcat had launched into his third conniption fit. He calmed down sufficiently to choke some language out of his vocal organs.

"Yo' sho' looks neat now. Ain't seed such a ruckus since de flood hit Memphis. I knowed dem was hoodoo boots. Bam! Down yo' goes like a ol' hell diver. Mawnin'! Up yo' comes like a ol' mud turtle. Git in de wagon, Mud Turtle. On de way home you dries out. Leave dat mud git dry befo' you tries to brush it off."

Dwindle Daniels spent an hour on the way home in hatching himself out of a shell of mud.

"Neveh min', ol' Mud Turtle," the Wildcat comforted. "Us cleans up big money when us sells dese fish tonight."

At eight o'clock, under a sputtering arc light on Front Street, the Wildcat and Dwindle Daniels were established in the business of selling fried fish and waiting for the rush of trade that would come when the parade passed them.

"Stan' close to de oil stove, ol' Mud Turtle. I cracks de shell off o' you befo' de train leaves. Dis sho' is de slow dryenest mud I ever seed. Leave them pants on you. Does you take 'em off you neveh gits 'em back. Stan' still."

The Wildcat broke a few pounds of mud from the porter's uniform.

"Stan' close to de blaze. When de mud dries you peels easy as a shell-bark hick'ry nut."

The success of the peeling process was all gummed up at nine o'clock by the Portland humidity, which won its usual bet. From the heavy skies a light rain began to fall.

At half past nine, with the booming drums of the parade sounding up the street, the shivering form of Dwindle Daniels was again sogged down to its original saturation point.

"Wilecat, I don' see how kin I make mah run to San F'mcisco."

"Yo' makes yo' run all right. Yo' dead-heads me, an' I does yo' work whilst yo' hangs out de front vegetable ob de car. Ol' wind dry yo' out sudden. Git ready fo' de gran' rush. Here's de head ob de parade."

The Wildcat threw back his head and bawled into the evening air: "Fried fish! Smelt fish! Here you is, two bits a pan!"

He lowered his head to gratify his curiosity concerning the technique of beating a bass drum. "Sho' craves 'at boy's job. Some day when I gits rich I buys me a bass drum. 'At drum bammer sho' swings a mean club."

"Fried fish! Smelt fishes! Two bits a pan!"

Following the band and leading the parade, heavily laden with a false dignity which had completely eradicated his spinal curvature, there appeared the rag-head Hindoo who had escaped with the Wildcat from the carload of undesirable aliens on the night of the train robbers' fiesta below The Dalles.

A little before the head of the parade reached the arc light under which the Wildcat and Dwindle Daniels had inaugurated their fish business, the Hindoo turned and raised his arms.

The parade stopped.

The rag-head signalled for his companions to come close about him.

In precise English he broke into a violent harangue wherein the least radical of the evil doctrines which he preached would have been sufficient to transform the United States into a second Russia.

Midway of his speech one of the accompanying platoon of police officers stepped up to him.

"Can that stuff, you Anarchist! Come wid me!"

The officer reached for the Hindoo, and this gesture of the law's hand was a signal which launched a riot into being.

"Boy, dis looks like a bad ruckus!" The Wildcat spoke quickly to Dwindle Daniels. "Wish't ol' Cap'n Jack was here. Chances is, us niggahs gits lynched."

On the tense instant of conflict a solution to the threatening disaster was born to the Wildcat. With all the energy of his lungs, he bawled his peace message into the turmoil of the night.

"Free fish! Hot fish free! Come an' git it!"

Fifty feet from him the rag-head Hindoo broke loose from the police officer. The Wildcat witnessed the escape. The Hindoo raced towards him, and it was then that mutual recognition was accomplished. The Wildcat leaped into the fugitive's pathway and extended his foot.

The Hindoo Anarchist pulled a galloping somersault. He revolved twice in the air, and then his face ploughed heavily into the pavement.

"Hot dam! Neveh seed a boy so agile!"

The police officer exercised the good judgment common to the majesty of the law in moments of great mental stress.

He made a swing at the Wildcat with his stick.

"Plunk!"

The locust club impacted heavily on the Wildcat's skull.

The Wildcat blinked his eyes. "How come? Cap'n, suh, I thought yo' craved to ketch dat rag-head boy!"

He pointed at the inert Hindoo lying on the pavement.

"Didn't aim to hit you."

"Cap'n, yes, suh." The Wildcat hoped that the next time the policeman would aim straight at him. He turned to the crowd and renewed his pacifying propaganda.

"Free fish! Come an' git it. Here you is, boys!"

The Wildcat's invitation and the smell of the frying smelt won the field against the doctrines of the defeated agitator. A minute later the fish wagon was ringed about with a hundred brunet fish eaters. The riot had evaporated. Here was the end of the trail.

Serious thinking gave place to heavy eating. Crazy ideas no longer tormented heads whose owners' object in life was to eat more fried smelt than the men next to them.

The sergeant commanding the platoon of police sized up the situation. "Looks to me like the end of a perfect day."

A brother officer addressed the sergeant. "Better take this rag-head in with us. How about it?"

"Sure. Book him as a vag until we see who he is. Tell Jimmy to hold him on an A and B charge if any of them jail-breaking law sharks try to spring him."

The Wildcat broke in with a little testimony.

"Cap'n, suh, I knows dat boy. He bust loose from a travellin' jail on de train comin' from Chicago. The guv'ment men ketched him some place."

The sergeant of police looked quickly at the officer whose fingers were closed about the chain attached to the handcuffs of the Hindoo's wrists.

"Hear what this boy says? Maybe this rag-head is that agitatin' alien that got loose from the carload that landed here three days ago."

"How about holdin' this fellow for a witness?" The officer nodded his head towards the Wildcat. The Sergeant debated for a moment, during which the Wildcat's freedom wavered in an unstable balance.

Finally the Sergeant spoke, and with his words the Wildcat's liberty was assured. "We don't need him. We've got enough to hold this rag-head with--and the bull pen is crowded anyhow."

The Wildcat got the drift of the crisis which had passed. "Cap'n, suh, I sho' is obliged to you. Me an' ol' Mud Turtle here aims to take our midnight run to San F'mcisco."

The Mud Turtle, who was busy dealing out free fried smelt, paused long enough to crack a few segments of dried mud from his uniform. He hit himself on the chest, and another nickel-plated button in an area of blue cloth was revealed in the light of the street lamp.

"Us sho' do," he confirmed. "Me an' dis Wilecat boy's Pullman men."

A few minutes later the Wildcat augmented the disappearing supply of free fish with a little sound advice to his patrons.

"Neveh seed such fool niggers. Was ol' Cap'n Jack here he sho' would ca'm you down wid a club. You gits yo' haids full ob crazy notions, an' after de ruckus dey hauls you out feet fust. Think like white folks does if you craves to, but unless you aims to festoon yo' health an' strength wid a funeral box an' lead a graveyard procession, stop wid de thinkin'. Think like white folks does, but don't act dat way. Next time, befo' you 'filiates wid any wild men, say howdy to a mess o' vittles. De river's full o' free fish, an' de jail's full o' crazy folks like dat rag-head Hindoo boy. Next time anybody tells you you's de same as white folks, bust him in de nose an' walk away fast. 'At's all."

The Wildcat ended his preaching and turned to his associate.

"Come on heah, ol' Mud Turtle. Le's take dis mule an' wagon back to dat liv'ry stable boy befo' us gits 'rested fo' lendin' him permanent."