Redeye (5 page)

One of the Chinaman's eyes had come back open.

“One of his eyes is open,” says Zack.

Mr. Blankenship started fishing through the grip. “This is our calling,” he said, “to ease bereavement, to help transform the Wild West into the new tame west.”

“One of his eyes is open.”

“I know that. I've got the solution to that problem right here, somewhere.”

“I thought I was doing this,” said Mr. Copeland.

“Right here,” said Mr. Blankenship. “Eye caps. The cigarette paper is just for emergencies anyway.”

There was a knock on the door. Mr. Copeland cracked it just enough to see out. It was Sister.

“What you want?” said Mr. Copeland.

“It's getting hot out here. Grandma is getting hot. I can tell.”

“Put her in the cooler. And don't bother us no more. Tell your mama to put her down in the cooler and give her some jelly water.”

Mr. Copeland invented the cooler. Or at least I ain't ever seen another one like it. He's invented right many things. But I wouldn't say you could call him an inventor. The cooler is a dug-out room, a tiny room like a closet, dug out like a cellar. It's got ceiling beams underneath a cloth ceiling that keeps dirt out, and steps that go down in there, with runner-boards to roll Grandma down there when she gets hot. He's got layered burlap covered with a board roof and tarpaper. On top of that he puts a barrel of water and hangs down strips of burlap through the roof from the barrel and the little room cools while the water evaporates. He's got oats and grass seed all through the burlap sack and that keeps the water cold. It takes one barrel on regular days and two on hot days to run it in the summer and he can keep two or three muttons in there at a time.

“If the eye
cap
don't hold,” said Mr. Blankenship, “you can use this: Form-All. A little dab works like glue . . .”

“Can I come in?” says Sister.

“No,” says Mr. Copeland.

“. . . or you could use flour and water, but a big hunk of this stuff will firm up and take the place of something like teeth or a eyeball if either one gets lost for some reason or other. Or you could use a thread of surgeon's silk. Sew the damn thing closed.”

“Why can't I come in?” says Sister.

“No,” says Mr. Copeland. “Go tell Mama to put Grandma in the cooler.
Now
.”

“We might be able to use that cooler later on,” says Mr. Blankenship. He fixed the eyelid with the stuff he had. Then he steps over to the grip again and comes back with a big flat jar of something. “Now what this is is Higgins Glo-Tex, and the fact of the matter is this. What you—”

“I want to show Bumpy how to jump a tooth,” said Mr. Copeland, “and then let him go finish what he was doing.”

“Be my guest, pard.” Mr. Blankenship stepped back.

“Look here, Bumpy. You take a cut nail, like this one, and place the point against the ridge of the tooth, just under the edge of the gum. This one's loose. It ought to work.”

“Is this just for dead people?” I asked.

“No, no, no. It's for live people. I'm just demonstrating.”

“Why would you jump a tooth of a dead man?” Mr. Blankenship asked me.

“I don't know,” I said. “I just never heard of it before.”

“Maybe it's aching,” said Zack. “You don't know a dead man can't have a toothache—except I guess it'd be kind of hard to figure out which one was aching.”

Mr. Copeland picked up a hammer. “My uncle Ross used to do it.
It's a lost art. A man who knows how can jump a tooth without it hurting half as bad as pulling. Uncle Ross went to jump one of his own one time and missed and bloodied his nose with the hammer.”

Mr. Copeland hit the nail with the hammer, hard, and the tooth popped out. I picked it up off the floor.

Mr. Blankenship started back in on his work. “Now what this is is Glo-Tex,” he said. “What you're trying to do is—”

“I thought I was doing this,” said Mr. Copeland.

“Well, P.J., if you're bound and determined. But what difference does it make? We're in this together.”

“The difference it makes is you the one said I was going to do this embalming and now
you
doing it—have about done it all.
That's
the difference it makes.”

“Well, go ahead. Here, pard. I don't want to spoil a pretty day.”

The final train from Denver to Mumford Rock was far less fancy than the train from St. Louis to Denver. The St. Louis train had gilded, oiled walnut fixtures, beautiful brass lamps, red velvet seat coverings, green carpeting, and white lace doilies. Yet even so, several miles out from the Mumford Rock depot, the faithful porter of the undecorated train came through with a brush, offering to brush our clothes. I accepted. He was very thorough, though not forward or indiscreet—he handed me the brush so I
might finish up.

As I stepped down from the train, I noticed snow yet upon the summits of the most lofty mounts. Then I noticed several passengers pointing to and exclaiming about a single small electrical illuminary, strung up high between poles in front of the surprisingly quaint—and unfinished—train station. I had been told, we had all been told, by the knowledged Mr. Perkins, that electricity was now being used in Mumford Rock. Electricity, that grand Power Miracle that Mr. Perkins claims will unite with irrigation to make the West a paradise.

One of the Mormon missionaries offered to carry my bag to the station. They are so clean and well mannered, bringing, I hope, a religious stability to the entire unstable West.

Teams and wagons were everywhere. One wagon had furniture tied into and
onto
it, so that it looked like a giant ant loaded with dark, heavy giant bugs. It moved along slowly, away from me, accompanied by a young—I assume—married couple. When it turned into a side street I saw, bless my soul, that it was pulled by an ox and a donkey. No such team had I ever seen back home. And about that time, I heard a pig squealing, and sure enough, a pig comes scuttling
backward
across the street, somehow pulling a
dog
—right on out of sight, still squealing.

Beside the train station were three large sheds built of logs down bottom, and up top canvas. Temporary, I suppose, but . . . maybe not.

Raw lumber was heaped all about, sometimes stacked, sometimes
flung into unregulated piles.

I was looking anxiously for my uncle P.J. It had been decided—through my correspondence with Aunt Ann—that I would open my parasol upon alighting from the train and Uncle P.J. would merely look for that sign.

I needed the shade from the parasol because the sun was so hot, yet the air seemed unusually light, due no doubt to the fact that we were at an elevation exceeding five thousand feet, according to Mr. Perkins.

Uncle P.J. approached me. You could see by his eyes that he was a Copeland, and I'd also seen pictures of him. A young cowboy was with him.

“Star?” he asked.

“Yes. Uncle P.J.?”

He gave a little bow and said, “This here is Bumpy. And you need to stand right here a minute, honey, until we're done finish what we're doing. We was supposed to do this yesterday.”

I almost said, ‘And today, Uncle P.J., you are supposed to use correct English.'

The young cowboy nodded. Younger than I would have expected for a cowboy.

“I got to go pull up a wagon to right over there,” Uncle P.J. said. “I'll be right back.”

“I've just got this one grip,” I said. But he didn't hear me.

“No, see,” said the young cowboy, “they're fixing to explode a Chinaman.”

“For
me
?” I asked. What in the world?

“No, ma'am. For business. Just stand here a minute. They have to do it today. For the timing of it all—with the train and everything. Don't tell nobody.”

Don't tell nobody? I thought. Whom would I tell?
We exploded a Chinaman in the West today.
How odd. And what could this possibly be about? Mr. Perkins had said no more than ten minutes earlier that the once wild West was now tame.

I stood on the platform under the hot sun, my one large satchel at my feet, several gentlemen offering to carry it for me. I rejected said offers and watched my uncle drive a team of horses pulling a wagon from some distance away to a spot near the ramshackle train station, which had begun in its bedraggled way to serve our large group of weary travelers.

Uncle P.J. alighted from the wagon and came toward me. “This is bad timing,” he said. “We're conducting a experiment of sorts.” He seemed nervous.

I was speechless. This was not the reception I had expected.

“I done told her,” said Bumpy.

“Just be quiet a minute,” said Uncle P.J. “There goes Zack and Cobb.”

A rather unsteady man approached the wagon, and standing as if he were about to fall, struck a match on his boot heel, cupped his hands, and lit a smoke. He extended the smoke into the wagon, out of sight. Another man, an old man with a bushy beard and smoked spectacles, holding something like a dog leash, stood back watching.

“He's lighting the fuse,” said Uncle P.J.

At this point I realized that “Chinaman”
had
to be a word representing something other than a man from China.

The man with the cigarette, still cupped in his hand, walked toward us with one shoulder lowered. His mouth was moving as he approached. He was counting backwards. “. . . nine . . . eight . . .”

“Zack,” said Uncle P.J., “this here's my niece, Star Copeland.”

He tipped his hat. “. . . six . . . five . . .”

A little muffled bump sound came from the wagon. The men looked at one another.

“Three, two, one. Damn.”

“Watch your language, Zack,” said Uncle P.J.

“Beg your pardon,” Zack said to me.

Uncle P.J. said, “The timing was wrong.”

“That ain't the problem,” said Zack. “The problem is the
charge
. We're gone have to increase the charge. Where's Blankenship?”

“He's in the Yellow Bird with the newspaper man. They didn't even hear it, I guess.”

“
No
body heard it. Hell, the damn
China
man didn't even hear it.”

“It ain't funny,” said Uncle P.J.

What Mr. Perkins and the Mormons had warned about on the trip out—pertaining to the use of foul language in the West—seemed to be true.

Then the man with the dog leash, or whatever it was, stepped
nearer. He removed his smoked glasses and I saw his swollen red eyes, which were tearing up and running. He had a black shirt buttoned up tight to his neck and he was wiping at his eyes with a handkerchief that looked none too clean. He stood back just enough not to be introduced and said, “Zack, I got to go find my dog.” Somehow, I sensed not to ask who he was.

———

Later, on the buggy ride with Bumpy out to Uncle P.J.'s shop—a saddle, furniture, and buggy shop—I learned that the aforesaid attempted explosion, in fact,
was
of a
dead man
, being committed within the limits of the law, however, in order to enhance the prospects of a new business called “mortuary science” that Uncle P.J. has embarked upon. Bumpy, a friendly young man, says they're starting small but hope to be directing entire funerals with hearses, coaches, and maybe their own
choir
in the future. They will be doing up dead people—embalming them—the way it was done in the war, so that they will last for shipment and so forth.

So, all in all, what a memorable arrival in the yet wild West!

  THE RANCH