Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (580 page)

Lafe Parmalee; Shwink, the German who could not ride but had a blind affection for cattle from the branding-yard to the butcher’s block; Michigan, so called because he said he came from California but spoke not the Cali- fornian tongue; Jim from San Diego, to distinguish him from other Jims, and The Corpse, were the outposts of the herd. The Corpse had won his name from a statement, made in the fulness of much McBrayer whisky, that he had once been a graduate of Corpus Christi. He spoke truth, but to the wrong audience. The inhabitants of the Elite Saloon, after several attempts to get the hang of the name, dubbed the speaker The Corpse, and as long as he cinched a broncho or jingled a spur within four hundred miles of Livingston — yea, far in the south, even to the unexplored borders of the sheep-eater Indians — he was known by that unlovely name. How he had passed from college to cattle no man knew, and, according to the etiquette of the West, no man asked. He was not by any means a tenderfoot — had no unmanly weakness for washing, did not in the least object to appearing at the wild and wonderful reunions held nightly in “Miss Minnie’s parlour,” whose flaring advertisement did not in the least disturb the proprieties of Wachoma Junction, and, in common with his associates, was, when drunk, ready to shoot at anything or anybody. He was not proud. He had condescended to take in hand and educate a young and promising Chicago drummer, who by evil fate had wandered into that wilderness, where all his cunning was of no account; and from that youth’s quivering hand — outstretched by command — had shot away the top of a wineglass. The Corpse was recognised in the freemasonry of the craft as “one of the C.M.R.’s boys, and tough at that.”

The C.M.R. controlled much cattle, and their slaughter-houses in Chicago bubbled the blood of beeves all day long. Their salt-beef fed the sailor on the sea, and their iced, best firsts, the housekeeper in the London suburbs. Not even the firm knew how many cowboys they employed, but all the firm knew that on the fourteenth day of July their stockyards at Wachoma Junction were to be filled with two thousand head of cattle, ready for immediate shipment to Chicago while prices yet ruled high, and before the grass had withered utterly. Lafe, Michigan, Jim, The Corpse and the others knew this too, and were heartily glad of it, because they would be paid up in Chicago for their half-year’s work, and would then do their best towards painting that town in purest vermilion. They would get drunk; they would gamble, and would otherwise enjoy themselves till they were broke; and then they would hire out again.

The sun dropped behind the rolling hills; and the cattle halted for the night, cheered and cooled by a little wandering breeze. The red steer’s mother had been caught in a hailstorm five years ago. Till she went the way of all cow-flesh she missed no opportunity of telling her son to beware of the hot day and the cold wind that does not know its own mind. “When it blows five ways at once,” said she, “and makes your horns feel creepy, get away, my son. Follow the time-honoured instinct of our tribe, and run. I ran” — she looked ruefully at the scars on her side — ”but that was in a barb- wire country, and it hurt me. None the less, run.” The red steer chewed his cud, and the little wind out of the darkness played round his horns — all five ways at once. The cowboys lifted up their voices in unmelodious song, that the cattle might know where they were, and began slowly walking round the recumbent herd. “Do anybody’s horns feel creepy?” queried the red steer of his neighbours. “My mother told me” — and he repeated the tale, to the edification of the yearlings and the three- year-olds breathing heavily at his side.

The song of the cowboys rose higher. The cattle bowed their heads. Their men were at hand. They were safe. Something had happened to the quiet stars. They were dying out one by one, and the wind was freshening. “Bless my hoofs!” muttered a yearling, “my horns are beginning to feel creepy.” Softly the red steer lifted himself from the ground. “Come away,” quoth he to the yearling. “Come away to the outskirts, and we’ll move. My mother said . . .” The innocent fool followed, and a white heifer saw them move. Being a woman she naturally bellowed “Timber wolves!” and ran forward blindly into a dun steer dreaming over clover. Followed the thunder of cattle rising to their feet, and the triple crack of a whip. The little wind had dropped for a moment, only to fall on the herd with a shriek and a few stinging drops of hail, that stung as keenly as the whips. The herd broke into a trot, a canter, and then a mad gallop. Black fear was behind them, black night in front. They headed into the night, bellowing with terror; and at their side rode the men with the whips. The ponies grunted as they felt the raking spurs. They knew that.an all-night gallop lay before them, and woe betide the luckless cayuse that stumbled in that ride. Then fell the hail — blinding and choking and flogging in one and the same stroke. The herd opened like a fan. The red steer headed a contingent he knew not whither. A man with a whip rode at his right flank. Behind him the lightning showed a field of glimmering horns, and of muzzles flecked with foam; a field of red terror-strained eyes and shaggy frontlets. The man looked back also, and his terror was greater than that of the beasts. The herd had surrounded him in the darkness. His salvation lay in the legs of Whisky Peat — and Whisky Peat knew it — knew it until an unseen gopher hole received his near forefoot as he strained every nerve — in the heart of the flying herd, with the red steer at his flanks. Then, being only?n overworked eayuse, Whisky Peat fell, and the red steer fancied that there was something soft on the ground.

******

It was Michigan, Jim and Lafe who at last brought the herd to a standstill as the dawn was breaking, “What’s come to The Corpse?” quoth Lafe. Jim loosened the girths of his quivering pony and made answer slowly: “On- less I’m a blamed fool, the gentleman is now livin’ up to his durned appellation ‘bout fifteen miles back — what there is of him and the cay- use.” “Let’s go and look,” said Lafe, shuddering slightly, for the morning air, you must understand, was raw. “Let’s go to — a much hotter place than Texas,” responded Jim. “Get the steers to the Junction first. Guess what’s left of The Corpse will keep.”

And it did. And that was how the fat man in Chicago got his beef. It belonged to the red steer.

THE HISTORY OF A FALL

MERE English will not do justice to the event. Let us attempt it according to the custom of the French. Thus and so following:

Listen to a history of the most painful — and of the most true. You others, the Governors, the Lieutenant-Governors, and the Commissionaires of the Oriental Indias.

It is you, foolishly outside of the truth in prey to illusions so blind that I of them remain so stupefied — it is to you that I address myself!

Know you Sir Cyril Wollobie, K.C.S.I., C.M.G., and all the other little things?

He was of the Sacred Order of Yourself — a man responsible enormously — charged of the conservation of millions . . .

Of people. That is understood. The Indian Government conserves not its rupees.

He was the well-loved of kings. I have seen the Viceroy — which is the Lorr-Maire — embrace him of both arms.

That was in Simla. All things are possible in Simla.

Even embraces.

His wife! Mon Dieu, his wife!

The aheuried imagination prostrates itself at the remembrance of the splendours Orientals of the Lady Cyril — the very respectable the Lady Wollobie.

That was in Simla. All things are possible in Simla. Even wives. In those days I was — what you call — a Schnobb. I am now a much larger Schnobb. Voila the only difference. Thus it is true that travel expands the mind.

But let us return to our Wollobies.

I admired that man there with the both hands. I crawled before the Lady Wollobie — platonically. The man the most brave would be only platonic towards that lady. And I

was also afraid. Subsequently I went to a dance. The wine equalled not the splendour of the Wollobies. Nor the food. But there was upon the floor an open space — large and park-like. It protected the dignity Wollobi- callisme. It was guarded by Aides-de-Camp. With blue silk in their coat-tails — turned up. With pink eyes and white moustaches to ravish. Also turned up.

To me addressed himself an Aide-de-Camp.

That was in Simla. To-day I do not speak to Aides-de-Camp.

I confine myself exclusively to the cab- drivaire. He does not know so much bad language, but he can drive better.

I approached, under the protection of the Aide-de-Camp, the luminosity of Sir Wollobie.

The world entire regarded.

The band stopped. The lights burned blue. A domestic dropped a plate.

It was an inspiring moment.

From the summit of Jakko forty-five mon- kies looked down upon the crisis.

Sir Wollobie spoke.

To me in that expanse of floor cultured and park-like. He said: “I have long desired to make your acquaintance.”

The blood bouilloned in my head. I became pink. I was aneantied under the weight of an embarras insubrimable.

At that moment Sir Wollobie became oblivious of my personality. That was his custom.

Wiping my face upon my coat-tails I refugied myself among the foules.

I had been spoken to by Sir Wollobie. That was in Simla. That also is history.

******

Pass now several years. To the day before yesterday!

This also is history — farcical, immense, tragi-comic, but true.

Know you the Totnam Cortrode?

Here lives Maple, who sells washing appliances and tables of exotic legs.

Here voyages also a Omnibuse Proletariat.

That is to say for One penny.

Two pence is the refined volupte of the Aristocrat.

I am of the people.

Entre nous the connection is not desired by us. The people address to me epithets, entirely unprintable. I reply that they should wash. The situation is strained. Hence the Strike Docks and the Demonstrations Laborious.

Upon the funeste tumbril of the Proletariat I take my seat.

I demand air outside upon the roof.

I will have all my penny.

The tumbril advances.

A man aged loses his equilibrium and deposits himself into my lap.

Following the custom of the Brutal Londoner I demand the Devil where he shoves himself.

He apologises supplicatorically.

I grunt.

Encore the tumbril shakes herself.

I appropriate the desired seat of the old man.

The conductaire cries to loud voice: “Fare, Guvnor.”

He produces one penny.

A reminiscence phantasmal provokes itself.

I beat him on the back.

It is Sir Wollobie; the ex-Everything!

Also the ex-Everything else!

Figure you the situation!

He clasps my hand.

As a child clasps the hand of its nurse. He demands of me particular rensignments of my health. It is to him a matter important.

Other time he regulated the health of forty- five millions.

I riposte. I enquire of his liver — his pancreas, his abdomen.

The sacred internals of Sir Wollobie! He has them all. And they all make him ill.

He is very lonely. He speaks of his wife. There is no Lady Wollobie, but a woman in a flat in Bays water who cries in her sleep for more curricles.

He does not say this, but I understand. He derides the Council of the Indian Office. He imprecates the Government. He curses the journals.

He has a clob. He curses that clob.

Females with teeth monstrous explain to him the theory of Government.

Men of long hair, the psychologues of the paint-pots, correct him tenderly, but from above.

He has known of the actualities of life — Death, Power, Responsibility, Honour — the Good accomplished, the effacement of Wrong for forty years.

There remains to him a seat in a penny ‘bus.

If I do not take him from that.

I rap my heels on the knife-board. I sing “tra la la.” I am also well disposed to larmes.

He courbes himself underneath an ulstaire and he damns the fog to eternity.

He wills not that I leave him. He desires that I come to dinner.

I am grave. I think upon Lady Wollobie — shorn of chaprassies — at the Clob. Not in Bavswater.

I accept. He will bore me affreusely, but ... I have taken his seat.

He descends from the tumbril of his humiliation, and the street hawker rolls a barrow up his waistcoat.

Then intervenes the fog — dense, impenetrable, hopeless, without end.

It is because of the fog that there is a drop upon the end of my nose so chiselled.