The Adventures of Silk and Shakespeare

by Win Blevins

  “The woods is full of three-hundred-pound giants,” mocked Silk.

  “They think I’m dee-vine,” Hairy grinned.

  “They heard the rumor you’re mortal,” replied Silk.

  Hairy pulled at his chin. “Let’s ask for more money,” he suggested.

  “That darn Tulloch would like any excuse to back out,” said Silk, leading the way back in.

  “Go the long way around,” advised Tulloch. He kept fussing with his books. “Everybody’s heard by now. Most particular the Cheyennes.”

  Silk cocked an eye at Hairy. “Stealing a horse on the sly and less conspicuous might help.”

  “That,” Hairy said cheerfully, “ain’t this child’s style.”

  Tulloch grunted.

  Silk asked after his daughter Ginny—wanted to compliment her on the flute, he said. Tulloch looked mean at Silk and mumbled something about Ginny being out of the fort.

  It was an easy trip.

  The long way was over the divide onto the Musselshell River and down it. They could have travelled down the Yellowstone to its mouth, where Fort Union was—they could even have gone by canoe, or bullboat—but the Cheyennes were along the Yellowstone somewhere, or close by.

  Heading north on strong horses borrowed from Tulloch, they struck the Musselshell where it makes its big bend to the north and followed along it almost to Big Muddy, the Missouri.

  “This being Bug Boy land,” as Hairy put it, Blackfoot country, they were light and quick, ate only dried food, made only squaw fires. Yet everything was so pleasant, the days so balmy, the new grass coming on strong, that it seemed an idyll.

  They came into Fort Union the eighth day.

  “Hoss,” said Hairy, “this is some.”

  Where Fort Cass was a simple stockade, Fort Union was a sort of castle under the banner of John Jacob Astor, the clever New York financier, and Pierre Chouteau, the la-dee-da St. Louis aristocrat.

  “Mr. McKenzie is out riding,” said the clerk, who introduced himself as Mr. Hamilton, no first name. He made it sound, Silk thought, like any fool might fork a horse, but only a great man could go riding.

  “You may leave the letters.” Hamilton held out a bossy hand for them.

  “Yes, sir,” said Hairy, and gave them over.

  “He will send for you tonight before dinner,” the clerk informed them in cultivated British tones. “There will be food with the engagés.”

  Well, at your service, sir. Silk wished he could break wind, just to show something.

  Their room was tiny and had narrow beds. Imagine sleeping indoors, Silk thought, and all cramped like that.

  They accepted the offer of a tour of the facilities. “Baronial,” Hairy whispered to Silk, drawing the word out. The stockade extended two or three hundred feet in each direction, with walls twenty feet high and bastions in opposite corners. The house for the bourgeois and his wives—their escort made the plural distinct—was one-and-a-half stories high.

  “She’s even outfitted,” said their guide, a Negro who spoke French-accented English, “with a cellar where Mr. McKenzie keeps wines and brandies that come all the way from France.”

  Hairy looked at the fellow with disgust. He always turned a little grape-colored when he got irritated.

  “No, no, is true,” said the engage. “We are here civilized. Did you know the steamboat comes here first time last summer? Is true.”

  Silk and Hairy looked at each other. Next the employees of Fort Union would be enjoying shrimp from New Orleans, or chippies from St. Louis.

  “Brings many new things civilized. Wines and brandies, Mr. McKenzie’s cigars…”

  The black man gave them a glance of cunning. “Also what with to make a—how you call it—still, for the making of spirits. Is clever.”

  “Whooee!” said Hairy to Silk with a wink. Since booze was forbidden in Indian country, and the government occasionally tried to enforce the ban, McKenzie was taking the direct approach. In-dee-pendent.

  The guide gave them a boyish smile, one that would have charmed the sphinx. “Mr. McKenzie is very proud for civilization here,” he informed them.

  Hairy withdrew into thought.

  They had a powder magazine big enough to blow up the entire nation of Assiniboins, the local Indians, the tribe that supplied women for Mr. McKenzie. Shops for the gunsmith, tinsmith, and blacksmith. Huge fur press. Best of all, a room for dickering and trading, outfitted with plenty of store-bought goods from St. Louis. Here Hairy perked up and dickered with Mr. Hamilton at length and, despite outrageous prices, did buy two items—a dress and a skirt.

  Mr. Hamilton’s face gave no hint that the choices were unusual.

  “A dress and a skirt?” snickered Silk outside.

  “Wait and see, lad, this child’s got an idee.”

  McKenzie was cordial, welcomed them heartily, inquired about the difficulty of their trip, and whether they’d sighted any Indians.

  “Mr. Hamilton has already recorded the hundred dollars to your credit,” he said lightly, “for any goods you like.” He added that in the future, if they wished to work for American Fur again, they would be compensated more generously.

  Silk wanted to ask for cash instead of credit, but Hairy silenced him with an imperious eyebrow.

  McKenzie seemed about to dismiss them, then apparently got a sudden idea. “Would you like jobs? American Fur is looking for experienced trappers like yourselves. I can offer one thousand dollars a year.”

  Mr. Hamilton came in with written receipts for the hundred, and McKenzie handed them to Hairy, who gave them to Silk nonchalantly.

  “Sir,” Hairy began in his most cultivated British tones, “we would like to serve you, for treasure or for honor, but we seldom trap.” Hamilton was staring at Hairy. “We merely seize the moment, as in bringing you these dispatches. Trappers errant, you might call us. But we could grace your evening, and that of your ladies, with another service.” McKenzie was intrigued, or amused. “What is that?”

  We would drown the stage with tears,

  And cleave the general ear with heroic speech,

  Make mad the guilty, and appall the free,

  Confound the ignorant, and amaze, indeed,

  The very faculties of eyes and ears.

  Hairy had never spoken more sonorously, more musically, or louder. Silk thought he had a certain dignity, even majesty.

  McKenzie traded glances of high hilarity with Hamilton. “An actor, a purveyor of the Bard in this wild and barren land!” exclaimed the head man. “We beg you, sirrah,” McKenzie continued, “to ‘amaze the faculties of our eyes and ears’ after dinner. And to share a cordial with us after your performance.”

  Hairy fussed and fidgeted and looked about to speak.

  “You may depend on our largesse,” added McKenzie, smiling unctuously.

  Having no idea what was up, Silk said to himself, we’re in trouble. I’m in trouble.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish

  —Henry IV, Part 2, III.ii

  By curtain time (not that there was a curtain), Silk had nailed down McKenzie’s “largesse” as fifty dollars, which was probably generous. And Silk was getting the entire fifty. It took at least that to get him to wear that cussed skirt.

  Hairy was so avid to perform—“to tread the boards once more, lad”—he was glad to do it for nothing. Or for glory, which was either more or less than nothing, depending on your point of view.

  The skirt, not being designed for Lady Macbeth but for a squaw, was a red calico affair, full and floor-length, tied around the waist. Hairy was tying Silk’s sash into an immense bow in back. Silk wore a white blouse above it, and insisted on remaining flat-chested.

  “Looks fine, lad, you being so willowy. The bow makes you downright pretty.”

  Silk wrinkled his nose at Hairy.

  “It is the actor’s pride, my boy” (he pronounced it “ahctoar” as usual) “to appear in many guises, to s
eem what he is not. Truly, his pride.”

  Silk didn’t say that what bothered him most was feeling so naked, right up to his drawers, which was the last pair he had, and was holey. In fact, if his thing was placed just right, it dangled out one hole. Which felt extra airy.

  Silk stood there in the dining room, which Hairy called the wings, looking through the crack in the door at the audience. He kept the skirt tight between his knees.

  Seated in front were McKenzie and Hamilton, fancily decked out. On a sofa next to McKenzie were three Indian women dressed in gowns such as Silk had seldom seen, even in St. Louis, made with fine materials in gay colors. Silk supposed these were the wives or mistresses people spoke of—for sure they were beauties. To the rear were sitting several other men Silk didn’t recognize. McKenzie and Hamilton had brandies and cigars and were talking quietly.

  One of the squaws was holding a pair of opera glasses in her lap, for what reason Silk couldn’t imagine, since it was only a drawing room. She kept studying the walls and such and giggling to her friends like a kid. Silk wrapped the skirt tighter around his legs.

  Hairy was standing still, head in hands, like he was meditating or going over his lines once more. Silk felt sure of forgetting his own lines, however much Hairy had drilled him all afternoon. Darn that Tragedies of William Shakespeare. Even fifty dollars wasn’t enough. But Silk wasn’t going to back out now. His partner was primed.

  Silk’s stomach sailed a little. Whoa! Whenever he touched his curly brown wig or rubbed his reddened lips together, he felt queasy. Better to back out than throw up. But Hairy said this was just stage fright, and turned to excitement with the first step onto the stage.

  In his own get-up—Van Dyke beard, tights, doublet, overarched eyebrows, black-lined eyes, and white wig—Hairy looked the fool as well, a crazed, dangerous fool.

  Hairy drew a ten-gallon breath, nodded for Silk to open the door, and strode mightily onto the stage.

  He eyeballed the audience haughtily. Someone started to applaud, but Hairy’s bald glance put a stop to that.

  Honour pricks me on.

  He said it confidentially, in a large whisper. He paused after that first word, like it was a coin he was inspecting.

  Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? how then?

  He moved his huge bulk a couple of steps, limping heavily.

  Can honour set-to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill at surgery, then? No.

  Hairy turned to the audience, a great cat about to pounce.

  What is honour? A word.

  Silk thought Hairy was wonderful. It gave him the shivers.

  What is that word, honour? Air.

  Hairy held out an empty hand and contemplated its emptiness.

  Now he suddenly bounded nimbly over the lines, water running downhill:

  A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. It is insensible then? Yea, to the dead.

  Hairy paused greedily, like the lion over the downed calf.

  But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore…

  Hairy reduced his voice to a happy squeak.

  I’ll none of it: honour is a mere scutcheon: and so ends my catechism.

  He finished with a bow and a low-swept hand.

  The applause was more than a dozen people could possibly make.

  Silk was thrilled. He was hopping from foot to foot. He couldn’t wait for his entrance. He wished he had a mirror to check his lip rouge—where, oh where was that silly stage fright now? Hairy stepped forward to address the audience. He was brimming over with himself now.

  “Mr. McKenzie,” he began, “ladies and gentlemen. Having submitted for your pleasure a few dance steps of that glorious rascal Falstaff, we give you a pas de deux by those master villains, Macbeth and his lady. A pas de deux de la mort.”

  He reached out the door, took a tam o’ shanter from Silk, and pulled it down onto his Falstaffian head.

  Is this a dagger which I see before me,

  The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.

  His voice was grander now, more terrible, a little tremulous.

  I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

  Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

  To feeling as to sight? or art thou but

  A dagger of the mind, a false creation

  Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

  Hairy’s hand groped for the knife that appeared only to Macbeth’s fevered mind, grasping at thin air in search of substance.

  At this moment a knife rose from the audience in a high and graceful arc. It turned once at the top of its flight, lazily, fell point downward, and stuck in the wood floor, quivering.

  O! he’s as tedious

  As a tired horse, a railing wife.

  It was Mr. Hamilton’s plummy voice from the audience. “Try the real thing.”

  Hamilton sat back down, cackling at his own cleverness.

  Oh, Lord, a heckler! Silk’s stomach started floating again.

  Hairy picked up the floor-stuck dagger and approached Hamilton menacingly.

  “A devil haunts thee in the likeness of a fat old man,” he said with an eerie smile.

  Falstaff sweats to death,

  answered Hamilton contemptuously,

  And lards the green earth as he rolls along.

  Hairy answered in thunder.

  Away, you scullion! you rampallion! you

  fustilarian! I’ll tickle your catastrophe!

  On the word catastrophe Hairy placed the tip of the knife delicately between Mr. Hamilton’s legs, firm against the crotch, and let go the handle. Hamilton grabbed it before the blade could go anywhere.

  This amused McKenzie, who murmured, “Well done, well given back.”

  Silk breathed again. Hairy sneered and returned to the stage. He mused, stroking his Van Dyke.

  I go and it is done; the bell invites me.

  Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell

  That summons thee to heaven or to hell.

  And he rushed off the stage opposite Silk and immediately back on. He was holding high his own dagger, bloodied with vermilion.

  Silk could see he was big with it now, he was going to be immense. His very strides were immense.

  I have done the deed! Didst thou not hear a noise?

  He paused. He waited. He looked around in agitation.

  I have done the deed! Didst thou not hear a noise?

  Hairy glared at Tal’s entry door furiously.

  “Wherefore, oh, wherefore art thou, Lady Macbeth?” crooned Hamilton.

  Silk was late for his entrance!

  “I have done the deed,”

  cried Hairy for the third time.

  Silk rushed toward Hairy, blotting the audience out of his mind.

  The ladies tittered. McKenzie cackled.

  The little dog laughed to see such sport,

  said Hamilton.

  Didst thou not hear a noise?

  Hairy said once more.

  Silk picked up his cue at last.

  I heard the owl scream and the cricket cry

  he said in a boy’s voice, quaveringly.

  Her voice was ever soft,

  Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman,

  quoth Hamilton.

  “Cordelia,” murmured McKenzie.

  With an irritable glance at the audience, Hairy swept onward.

  Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more!

  Macbeth doth murder sleep!’

  What do you mean?

  piped Silk.

  Still it cried ‘Sleep no more!’ to all the house!

  Hairy crooned. He began this next in a roar and finished in a whine.

  Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor

  Shall sleep no more: Macbeth shall sleep no more!

  Silk couldn’t remember his line.r />
  “Wish I could sleep,” stage-whispered Hamilton.

  What do you mean?

  Silk repeated, desperate. He knelt down, maybe to apologize for forgetting the line—the kneeling was unrehearsed. His heart was fluttering wildly.

  Hairy knelt before him, very close, the bloody dagger in one hand.

  I’ll go no more.

  I am afraid to think what I have done;

  Look on’t again I dare not.

  Hairy brought the dagger up and gazed on it, quavering.

  He cued Silk from the upstage side of his mouth, “Take the dagger.”

  Silk’s stomach did two somersaults, but he pressed on. He seized the blade, sprang to his feet, holding it boldly aloft, and cried,

  Infirm of purpose!

  Too late. He felt the tug around his waist and the cool on his legs and heard the chortling laughter and looked down to see himself bare to his drawers. His skirt was on the floor, pinned by Hairy’s big knee.

  His nethermost garment was his blue silk sash, which hung like a tail behind. Through the fatal hole in his drawers dangled his thing, a wilted flower.

  The laughter was mounting.

  Silk reached between his legs, grabbed the ends of his bow, and diapered himself.

  The laughter was uproarious.

  Hairy picked up the skirt, hoisted Silk in one arm, and ran off the stage brandishing the knife and crying,

  For Harry, England, and St. George!

  Tumultuous laughter and applause.

  Hairy gripped Silk fiercely.

  “Let me down, you idiot!” Silk howled.

  Tidal waves of applause. Cheers.

  Hairy draped the skirt over Silk’s nether regions, whirled, and strode back onto the stage.

  Silk thought he would pass out.

  “All planned, lad, remember,” Hairy muttered low. “Meant that way.”

  Cheers and whistles.

  Hairy bowed low, his face grave, holding Silk like an armload of roses.

  “Smile at the folks,” Hairy murmured to Silk, face down. “Smile at the folks.”

  Silk turned his face into Hairy’s Falstaffian belly.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  thou art death’s fool

  —Measure for Measure, II.iv

  “Uhn-uhn-uhn.”

  It was his own voice.