The Old Colts

by Swarthout, Glendon

  “By poling hogs.”

  Bat smiled round the table as though that explained everything.

  Hype Igoe strummed a discordant chord on his ukulele. “Oh my God,” he groaned, “here we go again.”

  Bat took up the slack. “And the reason they can earn a lot of money poling hogs is because of the nature of the mud in Arkansas. It balls up easy, and hardens up like a brick.”

  “The mud! What in hell does mud have to do with—” Damon Runyon checked himself and glared through his glasses.

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Cobb reproved in his grits-and-hominy drawl. “It is no use asking questions or exercising ourselves. Let us allow Mr. Masterson to proceed in his own obfuscatory way—I am sure he will edify us to our satisfaction.”

  Bat nodded a bow. “That’s right. Hold your horses, gents, and I’ll uncomplicate things. Now here’s this kid, eighteen or so, tall, still on mother’s milk and still growing. He hires himself out to a neighbor and gets a big basket and fills it full of little shoats.”

  “Shoats?” This was Wilson Mizner, himself a raconteur but at the same time an urban type who would not have known one end of a pitchfork from the other.

  “Little pigs.” Bat was patient. “Then he puts the basket on his head and walks around under the acorn trees and the shoats reach up and, say, don’t they gobble those acorns. And of course, the taller he is the more acorns they can reach and the more acorns they eat the faster they fatten and the more neighbors hire ‘im and the more money he makes. And that’s called ‘poling hogs.”

  The seven looked at each other. Then they looked at Bat, whose face was poker. George M. sat down slowly. “But what keeps the shoats in the basket? Why don’t they jump out?”

  Bat rose, frowning at the ignorance the question implied. “Because after he puts ‘em in the basket, he pulls the tail of each and every one through a hole in the basket and puts a dob of mud around the end of it.”

  They gaped at him.

  “The mud,” said Runyon.

  “In northwest Arkansas,” said Cobb.

  “Balls up easy,” said Walker.

  “Hard as a brick,” said Mizner.

  “Goodnight, gents,” said Bat, and strolled away humming “Hello, Hawaii, How Are You?”

  He stopped to tell Harry, the headwaiter, to put breakfast for everybody on his bill, but Harry shook his head.

  “Sorry, Bat.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Jack says no more.”

  “You don’t mean it.”

  “You’re up to three hundred.”

  “Chickenfeed.”

  “That’s the limit. He says he’s a sap if he takes any more of your tickets.”

  He was marching home under the rattling trestles of the Sixth Avenue elevated and madder than a wet hen when the back of his neck told him to stop, to turn. He stopped, turned. He waited until a Pierce-Arrow passed. There he was, the tall grim outlander in the slouch hat again, lugging the valise and following him on the opposite side of the street and also stopping. They stared. This time Bat had a strange sensation. It was as though they were locked in a silent struggle for recognition. It was as though each knew the other, or had known the other, but could not make the remotest connection between the man he had known, whether friend or enemy, and the man he now perceived. And after a minute Bat gave up the effort, tipped his hat to the stranger who was not, somehow, a stranger, and went on his solitary way.

  His humble abode is a three-room apartment on the second floor of a brick-backed, brownstone-fronted row house numbered 300 on West 49th Street. Designed in the Italianate style of the 1850’s, these buildings, block upon block, were once fashionable one-family residences which typified midtown Manhattan from 14th Street north to Central Park; but now, gone to seed, they have been converted to rooming or apartment houses. They are a sore to the eye and a monotony to the mind. Signs sell music lessons from windows. A bottle of milk sours on a windowsill. Garbage cans lack lids. Cats vs. rats.

  Bat begins to mount the steps.

  Suddenly he is rushed from the rear. He tries to turn, is struck a blow to the side of the head which sends his derby sailing and sprawls him against the balustrade of the steps.

  He pushes off and flails away with both fists. There are two men: the muscular mugs who work for Grogan at the race room.

  He is no match. They are pros. Heaving lefts and rights the bastards batter him down on the steps again and go to work on his ribs.

  He is frightened, hurt, furious.

  Footfalls, someone galloping to his rescue, and the mugs are rolled onto him like barrels of beer.

  Then they are off him and cursing and mixing it with somebody else, and beaten but unbowed Bat regains the perpendicular and ups with his dukes, and just as he spots the tall man who’s been tailing him swinging away, one son-of-a-bitch does some fancy footwork and uppercuts Bat in a crude but effective manner, not unlike that of Battling Levinsky, the light-heavyweight titlist, and Mr. Masterson’s bulb goes out.

  He comes to. He lies supine on the steps. His jaw is still attached to his anatomy but his ribs ache like sin. He groans, elbows to a sit, and there beside him, hatless, gray mustache besmirched with blood, is the long drink of water who tried to help and for his pains had his own lights extinguished. He, too, has a gray roof. There is something faintly familiar about his features, which are intact—eyes deep-set, strong nose and iron jaw and big ears—but the face in sweet repose is scarcely grim. It is that of a gent getting on in years who, instead of fooling around at fisticuffs, ought to be in bed with a glass of warm milk.

  He comes to, and with a haul on the balustrade sits up to groan.

  “Thanks, pal,” Bat mumbles. “I could’ve handled ‘em myself, though.”

  “I noticed.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “You don’t know me?”

  With a grunt and another groan, Bat gets to his feet. “Not from Adam.”

  “You’ve changed yourself.”

  “Who says?”

  “I had to have a barkeep point you out tonight.” The tall guy gets to his feet, rubs his right shoulder. “It’s been a lot of years, Bat. A lot of water under the bridge.”

  Bat draws a sharp breath, which hurts his ribs. Suddenly he is rushed by recognition as he was just rushed from the rear by Grogan’s crushers.

  “My God, no,” he mutters.

  “Yes.”

  They stand on the flight of steps before 300 W. 49th Street in New York City at five o’clock of a dawning in the year 19 and 16. They stand as though each still disbelieves in the reality of the other. It has been twenty years. They were once friends to the bone. So they look at each other as though the world is flat and the moon is made of green cheese and Jesus H. Christ has just come back to earth.

  William Barclay Masterson.

  Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp.

  “You’re supposed to be in California.”

  “Trains run both ways.”

  “Why didn’t you let me know?”

  “I didn’t let anybody know.”

  “Wyatt.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’ve never been gladder to see a guy in my whole life.”

  “You sure fixed me up a welcome.”

  They have a closer look at each other.

  “You’ve put on some weight,” says Bat, which is untrue but the only thing he can think of to say.

  “You’ve lost some hair,” says Wyatt, which is true and only a Wyatt would say it.

  “Too many sharp turns under the sheets,” says Bat.

  They grin.

  “Well, this is where I live, upstairs,” says Bat. “And you, too, as long as you’re in town. Let’s go.”

  They retrieve hats and Wyatt’s valise. Then, entering the building, the great gunfighters climb the stairs leaning on each other and puffing like steam engines going up a long grade.

  The place of honor above the mantel of the tile fireplace was o
verwhelmed by the huge hind end of a bull buffalo with bold lettering on a brass plaque: “TO BAT MASTERSON, THE MAN WHO NEVER TURNED TAIL!”

  On one wall was a banner: “IF MEN WILL SPIT, WOMEN WILL VOTE!”

  On another wall was another banner: “DOWN WITH JOHN BARLEYCORN!”

  “Committee out in Kansas sent me the buffalo ass and I’m proud of it,” Bat panted. “The others are Emma’s. She’s suffragette and W.C.T.U. You remember Emma Walters in Denver, in the burlesque at the Palace, song-and-dance, pretty as a picture. We’ve been married twenty-five years, doesn’t seem possible. A sweet woman, Wyatt—worships the ground I walk on.”

  The rest of the living room was a coleslaw of chairs and tables and two horsehair sofas and lamps with frosted shades and tasseled satin pillows embroidered with such sentiments as “I Had A Swell Time At Coney Island!” and “God Bless Our Happy Home” and “Remember The Maine!” and pots of Boston ferns—all of these agglomerated on an Axminister carpet featuring faded pink and purple roses.

  “Home sweet home,” said Bat. “You still married to Josie?”

  “Yup.”

  “Out in California, where d’you hang your hat?” Bat hung his own over a lampshade.

  “We own a little place in Vidal. Summers we hitch up a wagon to some mules and camp out in the desert.”

  “Give me the bright lights.”

  “Thank God I’m a country boy.” Wyatt was shucking his jacket and necktie. “I’ve been in New York two days. Three people tried to pick my pocket, a guy was going to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge, and tonight I get beaten up. What this town needs is a good Marshal.”

  “I’d have you wash up,” said Bat, “but you have to go through the bedroom to get to the bathroom and the missus is asleep.”

  “No need,” said Wyatt. “I pissed on a Buick.”

  They undressed, backs to each other, shoving shoes under tables and spreading garments over the bric-a-brac like bushes.

  “Even so, it’s all here in New York,” said Bat, taking up the thread of conversation as he took off a sock. “Wine, women, and song, and bigger and better than Dodge. And no damn cowboys to contend with. Oh, there’s what they call ‘gangsters’ now, but they keep out of sight. You can walk down any street, day or night—”

  “Like tonight?”

  “Never happened before.”

  “Who were they?”

  “Oh, a couple of mugs.”

  “You know ‘em?”

  “They work for a bookie.”

  “You owe money?”

  “Wait’ll I show you the sights!”

  “You owe money?”

  “You ever ridden on a subway?”

  “Bat, you owe money?”

  “Me? Not me. I’m no Vanderbilt, but they treat me handsome at the paper and I play a little poker and hit it big on a horse now and then—you recall, I was always lucky.”

  They turned. They stared.

  “What the hell are those?” asked Bat. “They still wear longjohns out West?”

  “What the hell are those?” asked Wyatt.

  “BVD’s—the latest thing.”

  “What the hell’s going on out here?”

  This was Mrs. Masterson, emerging from her boudoir in bathrobe and bare feet and blear eyes and rag curlers. She was no longer pretty as a picture.

  “Ah, good morning, my love,” said Bat. “Like you to meet an old friend of mine from the old days—he’ll be our guest for a while. Emma, this is—er, uh—Mr. Dave Mather.”

  “Another Dodger,” said Emma.

  “We used to call him ‘Mysterious Dave,”’ said Bat in his BVD’s.

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, ma’am,” said Wyatt in his longjohns.

  “What am I running—a flophouse?” asked Emma of no one in particular.

  “The mystery was, how he made a living, heh-heh,” said Bat.

  “I’ll bet,” said she.

  “You have a nice place here, Mrs. Masterson,” said Wyatt.

  “You have blood on your mustache, Mr. Mather,” said Emma.

  “My dear, we had the misfortune to collide with a lamppost,” said Bat.

  “Drunk,” said his spouse.

  “My ribs are stove in—have you got some balm you can apply?”

  She went into the bedroom while Bat brought bed-clothing from a closet. When she came back he lowered his BVD’s from the top and she smeared his ribcage with goosegrease from a jar with one hand and held her nose with fingers of the other.

  “Owww, be careful,” he accused.

  “Do you know what time it is?” she accused.

  “Time for the arms of Morpheus,” he smiled.

  “But not for mine,” said she. “I’m not bedding down with that stink. You sleep under the stars out here.”

  She went into the bedroom again and returned with a clothespin and a slopjar. She held up the clothespin. “Put this on your nose.” She held up the slopjar. “Put this over your head. I won’t have either of you traipsing back and forth with a bladderful of booze.” She handed them to her husband and moved toward the bedroom.

  “When you get up—noon, I expect—I’ll be gone.”

  “Where to?”

  “Coney Island.”

  “Goodnight, Mrs. Masterson,” said Wyatt.

  “Coney Island?” asked Bat.

  “I appreciate the hospitality,” said Wyatt.

  “That’s right, Coney Island.”

  “What for?”

  “To have a swell time.”

  They made beds of the horsehair sofas, only to discover that Wyatt’s was too short because he was too long, so that his legs from the knees hung over the end. To remedy, they pushed a table to that end as an extender, and he could lay his lower legs on it.

  “I introduced you as Dave Mather. Okeh?”

  “Fine.”

  “You better be old Mysterious Dave from now on. The papers get wind of who you really are and you’ll be a sensation. Crowds after you like a movie star.” Bat turned out the lights and bumbled around in the dark and furniture until he found his sofa and sat down on the edge. “By the way, how long might you be here?”

  “Depends.”

  Bat affixed the clothespin to his nose, took it off, and sniffed.

  “Damn goosegrease.” He affixed it a second time. “I know one thing. You’ll be with me, and after tonight, being with me won’t be healthy. We better be heeled.”

  “Heeled? We wouldn’t know the business end from the butt any more.”

  “We can still pull a trigger.”

  “Just about.”

  “Anyway, we better get permits tomorrow.”

  “Permits?”

  “Have to have one here.”

  “Where’ll we get the guns?”

  “I’ve got a drawerful at the office—sell one to a sucker now and then. You might as well know—times have changed. This town’s as tough as Dodge ever was. Maybe tougher.”

  Wyatt was silent.

  “Well, goodnight, Wyatt.”

  “Goodnight, Bat.”

  Bat pushed some pillows around and lay down and tangled himself in a sheet. Wyatt was already stretched out, and appeared as well situated as a body could be with his pedal extremities eighteen inches higher than his head.

  “I still can’t believe it,” Bat said, after a time. “Nobody else would either.”

  “What?”

  “Wyatt Earp in New York City. The two of us together again.”

  Bat was right as rain. It was an incredible reunion. Friends for forty-four years, until tonight neither had seen nor heard from the other in this new century. They had met as young men, almost as boys, hunting buffalo on the Salt Fork of the Arkansas in the winter of 1872—73; and if, in the granite Wyatt, Bat found the first hero of his life, Wyatt probably found in Bat a kid brother more lickety-split than any of his own. Wyatt was dignified. Bat aspired to be. Wyatt cut the tongues out of hard cases with his fists, a skill Bat envied. Wyatt was gr
eased lightning with a handgun. Bat resolved to jerk and fire till his finger fell off. Behind a big Sharp’s rifle, Wyatt could figure carry and windage close enough to bring a buffalo down five times out of six at half a mile away. Bat would equal or bust. Wyatt was smart. “I think his outstanding quality was the nicety with which he gauged the effort and time for every move,” Bat would one day write of him. “That, plus his absolute confidence in himself, gave him the edge over the run of men.” As far as the callow Bat was concerned, the sooner he could raise his own crop of self-confidence the better.

  Wyatt was honest, too, all wool and a yard wide, and there were damned slim pickings of such men on the plains. Most admirable of all, his hero had an iron rail for a spine. Years later, in the February 1907 issue of Human Life, Bat described Wyatt Earp as “absolutely destitute of physical fear.” Bat the boy hoped he had been born brave—but supposing he hadn’t, and guts were a commodity you could go out and get, he knew where to go. In the Wild West you wanted a fearless friend, one you could rely on in a tight spot, and now he had one. And so, he swore, would Wyatt.

  The next twenty-five years tested the two to the utmost. Come day, come night, come snow, come dust, in silent street and ear-split saloon they backed each other’s play. Up and down a frontier where whiskey was dear and life was cheap, each was ever-ready to sacrifice his own precious hide to save the other’s. Even when events separated them, a wire from Wyatt put Bat, wherever he was, on the next train, and the reverse. They were marshals together in Dodge, with all the shit and shooting that implied, and deputy sheriffs of Ford County. They hit leather out of Tombstone after Luther King, who bushwhacked poor Bud Philpot off the seat during a stage robbery, and brought the murdering mother back. When competitors tried to steamroll Luke Short out of Dodge because he’d hired a lady piano player for the Long Branch, Bat and Wyatt and Charlie Bassett and Neal Brown and several others like-minded and armed came in from various points of the compass, appointed themselves a “Peace Commission,” settled matters PDQ, had their picture taken for posterity, and paid for a piano tuner. In the late ‘80s the pair worked in cahoots at times as secret agents for Wells, Fargo, ranging even into Mexico when required. Later they found congenial employment and lodging in Denver. Bat presided over a faro layout at the Arcade, and Wyatt dealt from the top of the deck at the Central, but they commanded the same respect and lived in the same boardinghouse. It was there, in Denver, that their trail finally forked. Bat married and started a boxing club—no connection —and eventually lit out for New York City. Wyatt headed north, to the Dakotas after gold, and later to the Yukon. History did not record their farewell.