Shaking the Nickel Bush (16 page)

“That's right,” I told him. “That's what is going to make the finished product.”

Lonnie seemed to be thinking deeply as he spread his bedroll, hauled off his battered boots, wriggled out of his jeans, and crawled in between the blankets. I undressed a little more than he did, so it took me longer, but I was already in my bed when he said, “Look, buddy, I was just thinkin'. . . . If what I put in them molds comes out art, then ain't I an artist? . . . sort of . . . as a man might say?”

“Sure you're an artist!” I told him. “You're my partner, and we're the Cowboy Artists of the Southwest.”

“Jeepers!” Lonnie whispered, and within two minutes he was snoring.

Even though I'd told Lonnie we were partners, I hadn't meant that we were fifty-fifty partners, and I was sure that if whatever money I might make with my amateurish busts were put into a general pot it wouldn't last long. As soon as Lonnie was snoring good and loud I reached for my Levi's, rolled one cuff down, laid in two of the tens the last banker had paid me, and rolled the cuff up again.

No man ever took to a new profession more seriously—or with greater pride—than Lonnie. The next morning I didn't even have to call him to get him up. “Mornin', buddy!” he called to me as he headed for the river with his razor and a dishtowel. “What'll the Cowboy Artists o' the Southwest get started off on this mornin'?”

“Well, we'll have to call on that banker I saw yesterday,” I told him. “I want him to see the clay before I . . . we cast it. I'm not too sure he's going to like it. You get slicked up while I cook breakfast, then we'll go and find out.”

I had breakfast ready by the time Lonnie had shaved, and as he picked up his plate he told me, “If you don't mind, buddy, don't throw out no more bacon rind. It comes in handy for a man to keep his boots clean and neat. Wisht we had a good stiff little brush. Way the wind blows dust around these parts my hat's gettin' to look somethin' awful.”

Lonnie's hat had looked awful ever since I'd known him. Where he grabbed it by the crown there was a hole big enough for a quarter to slip through, and oil from his hair had stained it in a jagged band to more than an inch above the brim.

“We'll do better than a stiff brush,” I told him. “If we get as many jobs around here as Mabel thinks we're going to, we'll get brand new outfits—hats, boots, and all—before we cross the line into New Mexico.”

“Jeepers Creepers!” he shouted, and went at his breakfast as if he were starving, then stopped with a forkful in mid-air. “Look, buddy,” he said, “I wasn't thinkin' very good when I throwed my old cloze in the river yesterday mornin'. It wouldn't look right . . . us bein' all dolled up like that . . . and old Shiftless lookin' . . . I should ought to have saved them old duds till I got her stripped down clean and painted.”

“Don't worry about it,” I told him. “That's just a cheap shirt and pair of jeans you've got on. You wear those to work on Shiftless. While I'm talking to the old gentleman at the bank this morning you can pick yourself up a pair of Levi's and a two-dollar shirt. We can afford that much whether we get any more jobs around here or not.”

Lonnie gulped the rest of his breakfast and had Shiftless warmed up for the trip before I'd finished the dishes, and on the way to town she acted as if she'd turned over a new leaf herself. She didn't boil all the way.

14

Leave Me Try It!

I
WAS a little nervous when I carried the clay model into the bank, and I grew more nervous as the old banker looked it over. “Well,” he said at last, “it's me all right, but doggoned if I don't have kind of a naked look. Guess I'm used to seeing that old picture with the beard. Wasn't much of the time, back there fifty-sixty years ago, when I didn't wear one.”

I swallowed a couple of times and made my best pitch. “Did you leave your mustache on when you shaved your beard off?” I asked.

“Yep! Yep!” he said quickly. “Left it on ten, maybe twenty years.”

“Let's try putting a mustache on,” I said, “and see if it looks more natural to you.”

He looked at me as if I'd said I'd grow a mustache on the model, and asked, “Could you do it without spoiling what you've got now?”

That was enough to let me know I hadn't muffed the job entirely, and my fingers were steady when I reached behind the V of the uniform for a bit of clay. I rolled it into a pigtail between my palms, with one end tapering off a little, stuck the heavy end under one nostril of the model, then pressed it down till it extended below the edge of the lip. The old gentleman had his face right at my elbow, watching me like a coyote watches a prairie dog he's about to pounce on, so I said, “You could help me a lot if you would. Of course, I don't know how big your mustache was, or just how you wore it. If you take hold here with your fingers you could show me. Smooth it out and twist it just as you did with your own mustache, and if there's more clay than you want just pinch it off.”

The old fellow was a bit too gentle with his fingers when he started, but he picked up the feel quickly, curved the pigtail down past the corner of the lip, flattened it with his thumb, and turned up a little duck-tail at the end. It wasn't a very good mustache, but he was as tickled as if he'd created a masterpiece. “Now we got it,” he chuckled. “Lord sakes! All these years and I never knew I was a sculptor. Mind if I try the other side?”

I didn't. I scooped out a bit more clay, rolled another pigtail, and passed it to him. He had a little trouble in trying to make that side match the other, but I was able to straighten it out fairly well when I marked the hair on. While I was doing it I asked, “Did the girl who called you about this tell you it would take me two or three days to make the marblelike casting?”

“Yep. Yep. Mabel told me,” he said. “Understand you're going to stay around for a couple of weeks. She tells me most of the bankers this side the state line want their likenesses made.”

I was careful not to let the banker see how excited his news had made me, and tried to act as casual as I could while I drew the carrying sack down over the model. “Yes,” I told him, “you people in this part of the country have treated us so fine, and we like this climate so well, that we've decided to stay over for a couple of weeks. I doubt we can make busts for most of the bankers between here and the state line, but we'll do as many as we can.” Of course, I was thinking, “can get,” but I said the last word only to myself. Then I thanked the old gentleman for the help he'd given me on the mustache, and left.

When I came out of the bank I noticed a little knot of people standing in front of the general store, and Shiftless parked at the side of the street just beyond them. Lonnie wasn't in her, so I expected he'd be in the store buying his new shirt and jeans. I stepped right along, with the intention of going in to find him and hurry him along. If we were going to get as much business as the old banker thought, we'd have to drive right to Safford for more supplies. I'd have to get some better materials for making armatures, tell the man at the building material yard to order in three or four more sacks of fired gypsum, and buy shellac and alcohol for hardening and finishing the plaster busts. And, somewhere, I'd have to get hold of a lot more modeling clay.

I was so busy thinking about the things I'd need that I didn't notice Lonnie until I turned out to pass the knot of people in front of the store. He was the center of attraction—leaning one shoulder against the building, his back half toward me, hat pushed onto the back of his head, a bundle under his arm, and his feet crossed in a nonchalant manner. As I stopped at the edge of his audience he was saying, “My partner, he does the temp'rary clay stuff and cleans out the insides of the molds. My part o' the artist business is makin' the castin's—the finished produck, you know. We don't make 'em for ordinary folks—only for bankers and suchlike.”

It seemed a shame to break in on Lonnie's enjoyment, but I was afraid that if I let him go on he might get us into a tangle, so I started around the outside of the crowd, stopped as though I had just noticed him, and called, “Oh, partner! We'll have to be moving along. We've got a lot to do today.”

When I spoke, the people looked around at me, and Lonnie was quick in doing the honors. “Folks,” he called out as if he were selling patent medicine, “this here's my partner—the man I was tellin' you 'bout—cowboy artist o' the Southwest!”

He sauntered over to Shiftless, climbed in behind the wheel, and reached for the goosing wire while the cowboy artist o' the Southwest twisted her tail.

Lonnie gunned Shiftless down the street as though he'd been Barney Oldfield out to set a new world's speed record. We were a mile out of town before he let her slow down to twenty-five, then without looking toward me, he said, “Look, buddy, I was only tellin' them folks how you make faces out of clay . . . and make molds on 'em . . . and how I pour in the stuff to make the castin's.”

“Fine,” I said, “but I wouldn't tell them too much. You know, a man that tells all his secrets doesn't stay in business long.”

“Oh, I wasn't givin' away no secrets, buddy,” he assured me, “only tellin' 'em how we done a few things. You know, the folks in these small towns don't see artists every day, and you can't blame 'em for bein' curious like. Where we bound for, back to camp?”

Our trip to Safford took all morning and part of the afternoon, but I found most of the things I needed, and the man at the building material yard said he'd order the gypsum for me right away. The one thing I couldn't find was the one I needed most—clay that was fit for modeling. The nearest I could come to it was a few shovelfuls of adobe mud that some Mexicans were using for making brick. I think Lonnie was still worried for fear I'd heard more than he wanted me to when he'd been talking to the crowd that morning. He didn't have much to say, either going or coming, and he didn't pester me to let him buy stuff for Shiftless.

After we got back to camp he kept busy till dark, scrubbing away at her speckled layers of paint. I kept busy enough myself. I made three new armatures, with good heavy bases, two-foot pieces of pipe for pedestals, and heavy wire rings at the top. Then I pressed a mass of adobe onto each one of them—about the shape of a man's head, but only two-thirds as large. By letting it harden and bake in the sun I was sure it would make cores that I could use over and over, and it would let me stretch my clay far enough that I could have three or four busts in the molds at the same time. I'd simply have to wet the core each time I reused it, and work a half inch or so of clay over the outside to make my models.

Our little canyon was ideal for my work. There was never a time of day when part of it wasn't in bright sunshine and part in shadow. I changed into my working clothes and was starting on the first armature when it come into my mind that there had never been a time since I'd come to Arizona when I could do as Dr. Gaghan had told me—get as much sunshine as possible on my body. It seemed to me that if we were going to be in that canyon for a couple of weeks it might be a good time to start. Before I went on with my work I pulled off my shirt and undershirt, then took out my jackknife and cut the legs of my jeans to about six inches long. I'd finished the second armature and was working on the third when Lonnie came and asked to borrow my knife. He didn't mention my having stripped down and cut the legs off my britches, and I didn't think to tell him why I'd done it.

I'd forgotten about Lonnie's having borrowed the knife and was working with my head down when he laid the jackknife by my hand and asked, “Ain't there some kind of funny caps artists wears too? I seen pi'tures of 'em.”

When I looked up Lonnie stood there, stripped to the waist, and with the legs of the britches I'd given him for Christmas cut even shorter than mine. I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing, but I couldn't let myself, because he was as serious as if it were a matter of the greatest importance. “Oh, those are berets,” I said. “Only the professional artists wear them.”

He looked down at me in a rather puzzled way for a moment or two, and said, “Well, buddy, we're professionals, ain't we? We're doin' it for money.”

I had to stop and do a little thinking before I could answer him. He was certainly right about a man's being a professional if he earned his living through some form of art. But my work was terribly amateurish as compared to Ivon's or the busts I'd seen in museums. Then too, if Lonnie was going to talk his head off every time he could scare up an audience, I knew I'd have to be awfully careful what I told him.

“You see, it's like this, Lonnie,” I said. “There are two kinds of art: fine art and commercial art. The kind they have in museums is fine art—carved in marble or cast in bronze. Our kind is commercial art. . . . you know, we make ours out of plaster. It's only the artists who do fine art who wear berets.”

“Oh, I see,” Lonnie said. “Never did know before there was so many different kinds of art. Suppose it's like horses and cattle—different folks likes different kinds.” Then he went back to scrubbing paint off Shiftless.

When I'd finished with the armatures I cleaned the isinglass sections, put the dividing dam carefully onto the clay model of the second banker, and mixed a pan of plaster for the mold. I'd tossed a couple of dollops onto the eyes and ears when Lonnie called, “Hey, buddy, ain't you goin' to leave me sling some of that stuff at the old buzzard?” He slung so hard that he splattered plaster back against his own chest, but he was having too much fun to pay any attention to it. With each fistful he'd hoot and laugh, but as soon as all the clay was covered he lost interest and went back to his first love.

After supper I brought Mabel's little horse head from the ledge where it had been drying all day in the sun, took mallet and chisels from the car, and sat down by the fire to chip the mold off. I was a bit nervous, for I'd never before tried using Castile soap to keep the casting from sticking to the inside of the mold. If it hadn't sealed all the pores in the mold tightly, I couldn't break it away clean. The casting would, of course, be ruined, and I'd have to do the whole job over from scratch.

I cut the burlap bands that bound the two sides of the mold together, ripped them off, and decided I'd better start at the crest of the neck, where there would be the least chance for any binding. I stood my chisel edge close to the crack left by the isinglass dam, tapped it gently with the mallet, moved it along a bit, and tapped a little more. It didn't take much tapping till a little half circle of the brittle mold cracked free. When it lifted out freely and I could see the smooth, clean plaster of the casting, my nerves went jangly—the way they will after a near-accident. I let my arms hang loose till my hands stopped trembling, then went on with the chipping. Piece after piece, the mold cracked free, uncovering more and more of the casting.

Lonnie sat across the fire, watching me until I had half of the neck exposed, then he got up and wandered away toward Shiftless. I was too busy to pay any attention to him until I heard a clanking as he sat down at the fire again. When I looked over, he had the mold, with the casting of the banker's bust inside it, perched on his lap, face up. In one hand he held the old carpenter's hammer he used for fixing Shiftless, and in his other hand a half-inch chisel. “I can do this stuff all right, buddy,” he told me. “It's kind of like shellin' nuts, ain't it?” I managed to stop him just as he swung the hammer up to wallop the chisel.

I must have shouted at him, for his voice had an injured tone when he said, “Jeepers Creepers, buddy, I wouldn't do it no hurt! I was only goin' to shell off some of this moldin'.”

I tried to explain to Lonnie that breaking away the mold was a real ticklish job, and that I'd ruined three or four castings before I'd learned how to do it without marking or cutting them with the edge of the chisel.

“Jeepers, buddy,” he told me sadly, “you won't leave me do nothin' exceptin' to pour in the stuff for the castin's. How'm I goin' to be an artist if you won't leave me do some of it?”

It seemed to me that maybe I was being a little rough on him, and it wouldn't make too much difference if he did scar the back of the head a bit. I'd have to trim the parting place in the hair of that one anyway, to make up for the ridge he'd scraped out with the mixing spoon. It wouldn't take much extra work to fill in a couple of chisel marks, and the patches wouldn't show in the hair anyway.

“All right,” I told him, “I'll let you try your hand on the back of his head—after I've made a starting place for you—but you'll have to learn to do a perfect job before I let you touch a face.”

“Look, buddy,” he said earnestly, “I've used a hammer and chisel ever since I was a little kid. We was homesteaders, and my old man used to leave me help him make chairs and tables and stuff.”

Lonnie's feelings were hurt enough as it was, so I laid the horse head down, got up and went around to sit beside him. I took the big mold onto my lap, turned it face down, stripped away the burlap bindings, and picked a spot that I thought would be right above the damaged parting place. After Lonnie had passed me his hammer and chisel I marked out a half circle at one side of the isinglass crack—no bigger than a half a silver dollar. “That's as big a chunk as you want to take at one time,” I told him, “and you don't try to chop it out with the chisel. You just crack it loose and pick it out.”