WITH THE JOKER WILD
by W. C. Tuttle Author of “Hair-Trigger Hollibaugh,” “Mary’s Little Lamb,” etc.
This ain’t no poker story. I ain’t going to try and cold-deck anybody into thinking it is, so I’ll orate right now that she ain’t. I aims to prove uh little moral, and yuh can’t prove no morals in uh poker story, ’cause there ain’t no morals in that game.
All I wants to do is to cinch the fact that honesty is the best policy, and that wisdom ain’t uh better hand than luck. I played in uh poker game once, where the deuces run wild. It wasn’t poker—it was suicide. Over on the coast they sometimes plays with the joker wild. They opens the game with uh silent prayer and deals five cards apiece. Before they discards they wires for the police, coroner, and notifies their families. Then they spends the interim—that word seems to fit exactly, ’cause it looks like interment—trying to find out where the joker fits into uh straight.
Honesty is the best policy. The feller who first uttered them words said more in five movements of his vocal cords than the person did in eight, when “A fool and his money are soon parted” was coined. Magpie Simpkins was uh wise man. I say, “was wise,” because after he got wise to himself he found that he was uh fool—but he’ll never admit it.
Magpie is six feet several inches of wisdom and deduction and so forth and so on. He’s tried every course from hair-oil to hypnotism to make himself admired of everybody, but he still wiggles along, sluicing gravel, herding uh burro and predicting that he’s got Solomon looking half-witted.
Me? I’m Ike Harper, Magpie’s pardner. I wished him on to me one time over in Helena, when he was suffering with uh rash, brought on by trying to convince uh wildcat that the human eye is stronger than four feet full uh claws. Me and that animated fish-pole has seen ups and downs ever since.
We’re living in plenty and more or less peace, when we holds uh meeting or two, together, and decides that there must be gold on Whispering Crick. Whispering Crick has much in common with all other cricks. It rises at its head and flows into uh river. It carries enough water for uh good sluice all the year around, which makes it uh pleasant place to prospect, even if there ain’t no gold.
Me and Magpie pilgrims to Whispering Crick, which is about eighty miles from Piperock, where we live, and in another county.
Magpie always expounded the theory that gold is where yuh find it, and that’s where we found it. Right where the pay streak couldn’t possibly be we found it, and then Magpie sets down and reads me uh lengthy sermon on hunches and wisdom.
Did yuh ever see more than enough gold? That’s how the streak looks to me and Magpie. We strips uh piece uh bedrock, and carries it down to the crick in sacks, and I pans out uh pirate’s hoard, while Magpie pilgrims to town to file the location of the “Golden Hunch.”
We locates the only place on the crick where uh piece uh gold would have uh chance to stop. We got forty acres, with about two hundred feet in the narrowest place, and from that on down, and above, the cañon is so narrow uh goat couldn’t find uh footing. There’s just one difficulty: the crick is lower than the rich ground, and too far away.
Me and Magpie parades around the place like uh pair uh bankers, and then decides that we got to build uh dam, and to build uh dam we got to import uh sawmill. Also we got to hire uh crew uh men, cause we’re too rich to labor.
As Magpie says—
“Why get strong in the muscle and weak in the head?”
We hires uh bunch uh poor men to swamp out uh road for about twenty miles, to the county road, and then Magpie goes out to dicker for uh small mill.
This is the first time that me and Magpie has owned anything better than fifty cents uh pan—every fifty or sixty pans—so we feels like uh bronc in his first bunch-grass.
One afternoon, after we gets our sawmill to running, and has uh force uh men on the dam, uh prospector name uh “Hailstorm” Wilson, drifts in. Hailstorm was born to sorrow. Life to him is just one “can’t” after another, and he ain’t happy unless he brings bad news. Me and Magpie makes him welcome as the flowers in May, and sets down to show him, in figures, just how rich we are.
“Going to build uh big dam, eh?” remarks Hailstorm, sad-like. “Where yuh going to get your timber?”
“Right here on the ground,” says Magpie, taking in uh sweep of the country with his two hands. “We got enough right here to build several dams.”
“Uh-huh,” agrees Hailstorm, nodding his head slowly. “There sure is, but——”
“But what?” I asks.
“Forest reserve. I reckon, according to what I can find out, you’re entitled to firewood and enough to build uh shack, but when it comes to putting in uh sawmill—well, it can’t be done—legally.”
“Can’t, eh?” yelps Magpie. “Who’s to stop me, eh?”
“Government, Magpie. Suppose uh supervisor comes up here and says—‘Magpie Simpkins and Ike Harper, you’re under arrest for cutting more timber than the law allows.’ What yuh going to do then, eh? What good is uh lot uh gold going to do yuh while yuh languish in durance vile?”
“Well,” grins Magpie, “when uh feller’s got uh lot uh yaller gold he looks good to most everybody, Hailstorm. When I shows that supervisor what uh good feller I can be—well——”
Hailstorm nods and spits at uh lizard:
“Uh-huh. Maybe yuh could if yuh made the price right, Magpie. Yuh can’t pike in uh case like that.”
“Not me,” boasts Magpie, wise-like. “I got too many brains to be uh piker in uh case like that. When it comes to handling delicate situations I’m there like uh coyote at uh carcass—me.”
Hailstorm and his burro pilgrims off into the hills, and we keeps right on sawing timber. I don’t feel safe, and I tells Magpie.
“Gosh a’mighty, Ike!” he snaps. “Quit worrying. We ain’t prospectors no more—we’re financiers. Sabe? As soon as this dam is finished we’ll take out uh million. You quit worrying, and let me handle the brainy end uh this deal. Maybe they won’t never show up, but if they does—you watch Magpie Simpkins.”
“Yes’m,” says I. “I’ll watch yuh all right, old-timer. But what good is gold to me if Uncle Sam is sending meals to me by uh warden? I don’t know what the penalty is, but it’ll be uh plenty.”
Magpie don’t absorb the gloom uh tall, but just sets there and smokes cigarets by the yard and grins under his mustache.
“Ike,” says he, “when we milks this here Whispering Crick dry I’m going to take uh trip to Boston and buy uh set uh books I seen advertised in uh paper. What are yuh going to do with your money?”
“Me?” I asks. “Well, I reckon I’ll take uh trip over to Maine, and buy uh canoe I seen advertised once.”
“Canoe?” he asks. “What in —— will you do with uh canoe, Ike?”
“I’ll bring it up here, Magpie. I’ll stick her in the water, just above that white whirl down there, and when you starts reading out loud to me from one uh them books, I’ll cut the rope and jump in. Maybe I’ll eat uh few dynamite-caps so as to make it uh cinch.”
* * * * *
For the next few weeks we’re some busy. We got uh force uh men on the dam, one on the sluice and another in the mill. As soon as the dam is finished we starts to cleaning uh little bed-rock. We’ve taken out enough to make the golden calf they tells about in the Bible look like an 1876 penny, when this here Hailstorm Wilson pilgrims in once more, and looks us up in our treasury.
“I’m uh friend in need,” he states, nodding sad-like, when we welcomes him in.
“How much do yuh need, Hailstorm?” asks Magpie.
Hailstorm peers off down the road, wipes away uh stray tear, and whispers—
“Supervisor!”
Magpie hitches up his belt and pats himself on the chest.
“Fear not,” says he. “Leave him to me, and all will be well.”
“Two of ’em,” states Hailstorm. “District and State.”
“Two is company,” grins Magpie. “Two is easier to hornswoggle than one.”
“Seen ’em down to Devil’s Turn,” orates Hailstorm. “Uh course it ain’t no funerial uh mine, but I goes plumb out uh my way to inform yuh, Magpie. Things like that grieves me uh heap.”
Magpie separates our treasury from several goodly lumps uh gold as uh present to Hailstorm, and said Hailstorm goes on his way rejoicing. I chides Magpie for his generosity, and then has to listen for an hour to uh sermon on thankfulness.
“What do yuh reckon I ought to do—foller him up and kiss him?” I asks, when Magpie ceases. “You don’t need to chide me, Magpie. Being uh bringer uh bad news is reward enough for Hailstorm. We’re in uh lovely fix, if yuh asks Ike Harper. You’re going to bust your pick when you tries to bribe officials, Magpie.”
“Am, am I?” he snaps. “You watch me, Ike. Every man has his price.”
“Well,” says I, “if you’re buying things today, Mister Simpkins, yuh might make me an offer for half uh the Golden Hunch before them supervisors shows up. I’m having uh sale today—me.”
“Ike,” Magpie puts uh quart uh tears in his voice, and lays his hand on my shoulder. “Ike, have no fear. Remember you got uh resourceful pardner in me. You keep in the background, and don’t have nothing to say. Be sort of uh silent pardner. Sabe? Just leave it all to little Magpie, and I’ll make yuh proud to know me.”