Shaking the Nickel Bush (9 page)

“Uh-uh! Not a penny! That's a part of the deal,” Lonnie told me. “He ain't goin' to charge us a nickel for nothin'—just the dough we pay him for the flivver, and he'll furnish all the spare parts we need.”

I kept right on walking, and said, “No deal! I wouldn't trust that man any farther than I could reach him with a throw rope. He's lied to you forty times and in forty different ways during the last hour. I'd walk before I'd pay him eighty-five dollars for that old pile of junk.”

Lonnie caught hold of my arm and looked up at me like a puppy that's begging for a cookie. “Listen, buddy,” he said, “leave me buy it and I'll pay you back the extra ten-spot outa my first pay check when we get a job. I'll do better'n that. I'll go halvers on the flivver . . . and on the gas and oil . . . and on the grub bill. Look, buddy, I didn't never mean for you to buy me no outfit and give it to me. Tell you what: I'll just keep a fiver for myself each payday till you're all paid back—clean as a whistle.”

I didn't expect Lonnie to pay me back, but he seemed to have fallen in love with that old rattletrap Ford, and I didn't have the heart to tell him he couldn't have it. I just passed him my roll and said, “That's fair enough, and since you're making the deal it'll look better for you to do the paying, but have the bill of sale made out in my name. I'll make a new one, putting Shiftless into partnership, when you pay me back the first five dollars.”

Lonnie grabbed the bills and ran, and he was already peeling the eighty-five off our little roll by the time I got back to the garage. I don't know which looked the happiest, he or the garage owner.

It was noon by the time the bill of sale was made out, and the motor vehicle office was right near Larsen's restaurant, so I told Lonnie we'd better go and have the flivver registered, buy a license, and eat our lunch right away. “Uh-uh!” he told me, “I ain't hungry. I et a big breakfast, and it'll hold me over till suppertime. You go on down while I and Joe fix up them connecting-rod bearin's. We'll have to hump right along to get 'em finished 'fore closing time.”

When Joe, the garage owner, went to his truck for his lunch pail, Lonnie slipped me what was left of our roll, and whispered, “Say, buddy, while you're down that way why don't you mosey 'round to the hockshops and see what you can find for outfits? Look, you don't need to get me as good a one as you get for yourself. Just so's it's got good stirrups and a horn to snub a rope onto, that's all I'll need. And there's no sense you botherin' about chaps for me. My legs don't skin up easy, and there's no tellin' we'll be workin' brush country anyways. Understand, buddy, I ain't tryin' to rush you none. Just figured it would be a shame—us having to hold up and hunt outfits tomorrow, after we're all set and ready to roll. It don't make no never-minds if you ain't back before dark, 'cause you couldn't do no good here noways. It takes a real mechanic to work on automobiles. Kind of like a watch. A man's got to know what he's about before he goes to fussin' with 'em.”

I had better luck than I expected on the license. Because a quarter of December was past and the 1919 plates had gone on sale, the clerk told me I'd only need to buy one for the new year. Even at that, I began finding out there were more costs to automobiles than just the buying price and gasoline, but I didn't begrudge the expense. I was more proud to be the registered owner of an automobile than of the automobile itself. Before I went to hunt for outfits I took the ownership ticket to Mr. Larsen, so there would be no chance of my losing it.

Mr. Larsen didn't come right out and tell me we'd been stuck when I told him about the Ford and what we'd paid for it. But he asked me dozens of questions I didn't know anything about—were there any shorts in the magneto, were the cylinder walls scored, and was I sure the crankshaft hadn't been worn egg-shaped? When I said I'd never even heard of a magneto he hunched his shoulders and spread his hands, as much as to say, “Well, you've been caught for a sucker, but it's too late to do anything about it now.” Then he said that if we were going to leave early next morning I'd better let him order the groceries the doctor had told me to take with us. I told him I'd appreciate his ordering the stuff, but I forgot to ask how much it would cost.

To me an automobile was only a collection of dead iron parts, but a saddle was a living thing—almost a part of a cowhand himself. Each one is different in some way from any other, particularly after it has been used a year or two, and a man with a saddle that is wrong for him can be as out of luck as if he were trying to work cattle bareback. If it's right, his behind will cuddle into the hollow of the cantle securely and, no matter how hard a bull hits the end of a line or a pony pitches, he'll be topside when the fun is over. Then too, a saddle talks. On night herd it whispers at every step of the pony, just to let a cowhand know he's not alone.

I was thinking all these things as I left the restaurant and headed for the back streets where the pawnshops were—and the more I thought the faster I found myself walking. That's what saved me from getting cheated on our outfits. It made me remember how Lonnie had clutched my roll and run back to the garage to buy Shiftless. Common sense told me that we could have bought that old heap for half the price if he hadn't shown from the very start how much he wanted it. I made up my mind that I'd see every saddle in every pawnshop in Phoenix before I bought one. And the more I liked any one of them the less I'd show it.

The first shop I went into had at least thirty saddles displayed in a long row, and the pawnbroker led me straight to one at the center of the line. I was hooked as quickly as Lonnie had been hooked by Shiftless. There in front of me was exactly the saddle I wanted—the only saddle I wanted. It was an Oregon half-breed, with the back ring hung straight down beside the cantle, so the saddle could be used with or without a flank cinch. The whole outfit yelled “custom-made.” The cantle was low and sloping, the fork just wide enough for my thin shanks to cling to, and the short seat curved upward enough in meeting it to make a neat pocket. It would have cramped a heavy rider, but was exactly the right size for my skinny behind to fit into. Over the well-shaped, but not too high horn hung a split-ear bridle, with a light spade bit and braided rawhide reins.

I think I could have moved on from any other saddle in the place without a word from the little shopkeeper, but when I passed up the half-breed he grabbed me by the sleeve and pulled me back. He wanted me to feel the tooling, twisted a stirrup leather to show me how pliable it was, and started giving me a long story about having paid two hundred dollars for the saddle. When I pulled away he caught my sleeve again and told me that because it was the off season he'd sacrifice both saddle and bridle for seventy-five dollars.

“You're making your sacrifice at the wrong altar and in the wrong town,” I told him. “That's an old Oregon half-breed, probably older than I am, and it was custom-made for a midget. You couldn't find an Arizona cowhand who would give you five dollars for it, but I'll give you ten if you want to get rid of it.”

“Sixty!” he shouted, like an auctioneer who senses a rising bid. Then, “Fifty!” as he tried to pull me back. I only shook my head and walked out of the shop.

From there I went to every pawnshop in Phoenix, and did a little haggling in every one, just to get in some practice and to find out exactly how much they'd come down before letting me walk out. I found that thirty percent was just about the limit. If an outfit was priced at a hundred dollars, I could have bought it for about seventy, and if it was priced at fifty, I could have it for thirty-five.

I waited until about an hour before closing time, then headed back for the shop where I'd seen the Oregon half-breed. The little shopkeeper pounced on me like a hungry cat on a fat mouse. He grabbed my sleeve and dragged me straight down the row to the half-breed saddle, and that time he tried to start the haggling off at fifty dollars. There was only one thing I could do. I shook my head without more than glancing at the saddle, then pulled away and went to look at a real good double-rigged job farther up the row. He started off with sixty dollars on that one, but I turned my mouth down and said, “Thirty. With bridle, blanket, and chaps.”

For a minute or two I thought the little man was having a stroke of apoplexy. He shouted at me in such broken English I couldn't understand a word, and scurried around the shop like an insane pack rat. First he pawed over a stack of saddle blankets till he found one that was fairly good. He slapped it down on top of the half-breed saddle, glared up at me, and yelled, “Fifty!”

I only shook my head and kept on examining the double-rigger. It was a better saddle than I had thought at first—not more than a year old, and exactly the right kind of saddle for a fellow built like Lonnie. I made up my mind I'd buy it for him, even if I had to go as much as fifty or fifty-five dollars for it—that is, with the rest of the outfit. If I hadn't really liked that saddle, I might have had trouble keeping my eyes turned away from the half-breed, and could have ruined my deal. But instead of paying any attention to the shopkeeper, I went over and began sorting through the pile of saddle blankets.

At first I think he had the idea I didn't like the blanket he'd put on the half-breed and was hunting for a better one. He stood, rubbing his hands together and grinning, while I pawed nearly to the bottom of the stack and pulled out a real fine Navajo. Then he went wild again when I carried it to the double-rigger, tossed it on, and said, “Thirty-two fifty.”

He rushed toward me, snatched up the Navajo blanket, ran to exchange it for the poorer one he'd put on the half-breed, whirled around, and yelled, “Fifty!”

When I turned my mouth down he snatched a fairly good pair of cowhide chaps from a peg, tossed them on top of the Navajo, and again yelled, “Fifty!”

I didn't even bother to turn my mouth down that time, but hunted around until I'd found a better pair of chaps, laid them across the double-rigger, and said, “Thirty-five.”

I did the same when the little man added a slicker to the heap on the Oregon saddle. And as he added a throw rope and spurs, I did too, but I always hunted until I'd found something a little better than what he'd added. Each time he tossed something on the half-breed he yelled, “Fifty!” And each time I tossed something better on the double-rigger I went up fifty cents or a dollar on my offer.

I knew it must be way past his regular closing time when the shopkeeper gave up trying to sell me the Oregon saddle—and I knew that I'd just about run out my string. His shoulders drooped, he came up where I was beside the double-rigger, examined everything I'd put on it, and said, “Sixty-five. Final!”

I was sure it was awfully close to it, and that I'd have to make my move right then, or he'd throw up his hands and walk away. “Well,” I said, “I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you eighty-five dollars for both outfits together, but I won't buy one without the other.”

Half an hour later we made our deal—at $87.25. It was more money than I'd intended to spend, but I wasn't a bit sorry. We'd have outfits that were a lot better than the average, and a good rancher will usually hire a cowhand quicker if he has a good outfit than if he has a poor one. With jobs as scarce as they were, it seemed to me that the few extra dollars were well invested.

7

Shiftless

I
FOUND
a bum who was glad to make a quarter by helping me carry our new outfits to the hotel, but when we got there Lonnie hadn't come in, and it was nearly seven o'clock. I laid each outfit separately on the bed, with the saddles on the folded blankets, but I put the Navajo under Lonnie's saddle instead of mine. Then I left the lamp lit when I went to the restaurant to see if he'd been there to eat. He hadn't, so I went on out to the garage. A couple of lanterns were sitting on the floor by Shiftless's front wheels, and both Joe and Lonnie were underneath. There were greasy nuts, bolts, and odd parts lying all around them, and they were so busy arguing that they didn't hear me come in. I stooped down just as Joe shouted, “There ain't no need of haulin' the engine, I tell you! Them main bearings ain't so bad but I can fix 'em right up where they're at. Shim 'em up a mite and pour in some hot Babbitt, they'll be as good as new.”

I didn't want Lonnie to find me there and think I was snooping so I asked, “What is it, all shot to the dickens, Lonnie?”

He rolled his face toward me, and his eyes looked as though he were peeking through holes in a black rag. “No, buddy,” he said. “Honest, it ain't bad. It's only the bearin's. A bolt come loose in the oil pan, and some fool run it after the oil had all leaked out.”

Joe seemed to think Lonnie needed a little help. He reached up above his face, grabbed hold of something, and jiggled it. It sounded like a handful of stones being shaken in a bucket. “Ain't scarcely no play in 'em at all,” he shouted. “Like I was tellin' Lonnie, all them main bearin's need is a shot o' hot lead. Come morning, so's't I can see to get at 'em, I'll . . .”

I didn't have the slightest idea what Joe had hold of, but I did remember a few of the questions Mr. Larsen had asked me, so I broke in, “What's that you've got hold of, the crank-shaft?”

“Yep. Yep,” he called back. “Ain't scarcely no play at all in it.”

“Is it worn egg-shaped?” I asked.

“Not enough to 'mount to nothin'!” he shouted. “You won't notice it none after I get some hot Babbitt poured 'round them . . .”

I didn't want to go any further till I'd talked to Mr. Larsen some more, so I broke in, “Come on Lonnie. It's about time for the restaurant to close. If we're going to get any supper you'd better start cleaning up.”

All the way downtown Lonnie kept telling me there was nothing wrong with the flivver that he couldn't fix the next day, and the more he talked the more I realized how badly we'd been stuck.

The restaurant was already closed when we got there, but Mr. Larsen unlocked the door and let us in. Then, while Mrs. Larsen was in the kitchen cooking our supper, he and Lonnie talked about Shiftless. As far as I was concerned they might as well have been talking Choctaw. It was all about camshafts, and piston rings, and carburetors, and differentials, and a lot of other things I'd never heard of. After a while I got tired of it and went out to talk to Mrs. Larsen till supper was ready.

Lonnie didn't say three words while we were eating, and when we'd finished Mr. Larsen beckoned for me to come to the kitchen. He whispered to me that Lonnie knew we'd been stuck, but wouldn't listen to reason when he'd suggested that we take our loss and sell the car back to the garageman.

“I'm not surprised at that,” I told him. “For some crazy reason he seems to have fallen in love with that old rattletrap.”

Mr. Larsen hunched his shoulders and spread his hands. Then he smiled and said, “Maybe you're not too bad off. He knows more about engines than I'd expected, and if he loves that old flivver he'll nurse it. I've advised him to tear the motor right down to the block and replace every worn part. It's risky business to drive into the back country with a bum engine.”

“Did he say he'd do it?” I asked.

Mr. Larsen spread his hands and said, “Just froze up and wouldn't talk.”

I think Lonnie was afraid of what Mr. Larsen might have told me. All the way to our room he walked along with his head down, and I couldn't get two words out of him. I unlocked the door, then held it back for him to go in. He took two steps, then stopped as if someone had been in there pointing a gun at him. For fully a minute he stood looking at the outfits as if he couldn't believe what he saw. He didn't move until I said, “The one on the far side is yours. This one of mine wouldn't be big enough for you to get your fat butt into.”

Lonnie made it to the bed in a single leap, dropped to his knees, and rubbed his hands over the smooth leather, across the Navajo blanket, and along one leg of the chaps. When he looked up at me his eyes were swimming. Then he looked back at the saddle and said, “Honest-a-God, buddy! Honest-a-God! You'll never be sorry you done it. I'll never leave you down. I'll give you every dime out o' my pay checks till . . .”

I never would have guessed that Lonnie could bawl about anything, but he seemed on the verge of it, so I said, “You wait here a few minutes. I'm going over to the livery stable and get some saddle soap. I don't have an idea these old hulls have been soaped up since they lit in that hockshop.”

It was midnight before I could get Lonnie to stop working on his saddle, and he wouldn't have stopped then if I hadn't reminded him that he had a big job ahead of him next day.

By the time I'd known Lonnie two days I'd come to the conclusion that the hardest job he ever did was to wake up in the morning. Most cowhands are wide awake the moment they open their eyes, and unless they've been on night herd they usually open them at the first crack of dawn. But not Lonnie. He could have slept with a stampeding herd all around him. And no matter if he turned in at sundown he'd sleep through till noon unless someone shook the tar out of him. Even after I'd get him on his feet he'd still be more than half asleep, and it would often take him as much as an hour to get out of low gear.

When, the morning after we got our outfits, he shook me long before daylight, I thought the hotel must be afire. I flung the covers back and started to jump out of bed, but Lonnie whispered, “Take it easy, buddy. There ain't no sense of you rollin' out for another couple of hours. It ain't much after five, but if I'm goin' to get Shiftless fixed up and ready by nightfall I'd best to be gettin' at her.”

That was the first time Lonnie ever called the old flivver Shiftless, and for a couple of seconds I didn't know what he was talking about. Then, when the cobwebs cleared away, I said, “You're out of your head, Lonnie. Joe won't have his garage open at this time in the morning. And besides, there's no sense in going out there till you've had your breakfast. The restaurant doesn't open till six.”

“I don't want no breakfast,” he told me. “I'll go on out to the garage so's to be there when Joe opens up. And look, buddy, when you go over to breakfast don't let that Swede talk no foolish notions into your head. He don't know nothin' 'bout automobiles—leastways, not about flivvers that's been wore a bit and has to be fixed up some.”

“Oh, I thought he did,” I said. “He told me we weren't too bad off with Shiftless, and that you knew a lot more about autos than he'd expected.”

For a minute Lonnie stood there beside the bed with his mouth hanging open, then his face lighted up gradually—just as a mountaintop does when the morning sun first touches it. “Jeepers!” he said. “Maybe that old Swede knows more than I reckoned on. You know, come to think of it, I believe I could go for a bite o' breakfast. We could finish soapin' up our outfits while we're waiting for the joint to open.”

Lonnie and I were waiting when Mr. and Mrs. Larsen came to open the restaurant, and we were there till nearly time for Joe to open his garage at eight o'clock. Of course, we weren't the only customers, but Mr. Larsen told us to come back to the kitchen, and he talked to Lonnie as he fried eggs and sausages. And every now and then, when his face was turned my way, he'd let one eyelid drop. There wasn't a cotter pin, nut, bolt, or gear in a Ford that he didn't know about, and he must have mentioned every one of them and told Lonnie to check it. But the thing he kept harping on was that we shouldn't try to hurry too much, and that every moving part that was worn should be replaced. When we left Lonnie wasn't calling him the Swede any more, but Helgar.

“Know what we're goin' to do the first thing, buddy?” Lonnie asked as we left the restaurant. “We're goin' to pull that daggone engine, that's what we're goin' to do! Like Helgar says, how's a man to know them crankshaft bearin's ain't egg-shaped less'n he gets 'em out where he can put a pair o' calipers on 'em?”

Joe was mad as the dickens when Lonnie told him we were going to pull the engine out of Shiftless. He shouted and yelled, and told us we were a pair of fools. “I ain't goin' to waste my time on no such nonsense!” he hollered at me. “All that little car needs is a shot o' hot lead here and there—just enough to tighten up them loose bearin's—and it would run like a rabbit. Sure I said I'd lend a hand and furnish the spare parts, and I would for any reasonable sort of a job. But if you go to haulin' that engine all to pieces I'll have to charge you for 'em.”

It took Lonnie and me all day to get the engine out and taken to pieces, and I didn't need to be a mechanic to know why Joe didn't want us to do it. The cylinder walls were worn a quarter inch bigger around than the pistons, and were scored so badly they looked as if a wildcat had scratched them. Every bearing was melted out, the valve stems were burned half in two, the combustion chambers were plugged with rock-hard carbon, and there wasn't a shaft anywhere that wasn't worn lopsided. But by quitting time we had nuts, bolts, and entrails scattered all over the floor, and a list six inches long of parts we'd need for making the repairs.

The next forenoon we found a 1914 Ford in a junk yard, and it was exactly what we needed. When it was almost new it had been hit by a train and smashed to smithereens, but the only trouble with the engine was that the cylinder block had been cracked and the magneto ruined. After a little haggling we bought whatever parts we wanted to take out of it for ten dollars. By borrowing a lantern from Mr. Larsen and tools from Joe, we'd stripped out everything worth taking by midnight—and I'd learned quite a bit about the inside of a Ford engine. Before we started, Mr. Larsen had told us not to take bushings, bearings, valves, rings, and gaskets, because we'd always have trouble if we tried to reuse them, and it was cheaper to buy new. But they weren't very cheap at that.

In the four days it took us to put that engine back together the money leaked out of my pocket as if it had been water. The first list of parts we bought at the auto supply store cost more than twenty-three dollars, and I had to pay Joe about half that much, in quarters and half dollars, for little things we'd forgotten to put on the list. Even at thirty-five cents apiece, our meals had amounted to nearly fifteen dollars, the groceries I'd promised the doctor we'd take along had cost $14.10, and the hotel had gone up half a dollar a day on my rent when Lonnie moved in.

Mr. Larsen knew I was worried, but he kept telling me we'd only make trouble for ourselves by cutting corners or hurrying, so we scraped every bearing to a tight fit, ground the valves till they shone like glass, and made sure that everything fitted snugly before we put it back together. With each new piece we put into place the crankshaft turned harder until, finally, it wouldn't turn at all, but Lonnie said not to worry about it, that it would work all right when the engine was filled with oil.

It was almost closing time on Friday night when we got the engine back into Shiftless, a gallon of oil in the crankcase, and the tank filled with gasoline. Lonnie was too excited to keep quiet. While I was paying Joe for the gas and oil he climbed in behind the steering wheel and shouted, “Twist her tail, buddy! Wind her up tight! And don't get scairt when she starts up with a roar; I'll cool her right down with the throttle.”

I engaged the crank handle and jerked up on it with all my might, but the engine wouldn't turn an inch. “You know what, buddy?” Lonnie called, “we might of got a couple of them bearin's a smidgen too tight. Well, that don't make no neverminds. They'll loosen right up, time the engine's been turned over a few times. Oh, Joe! How 'bout givin' us a little pull with your truck?”

“Well,” Joe said with a broad grin, “I reckon that could be took care of after we get settled up. The way I figure it, you boys owe me fifty dollars for the work I done that first day, along with the use of my garage and tools. You can have the car when I get the fifty.”

I had to hold Lonnie to keep him from going after Joe with his fists, but I knew that fighting would only get him arrested, so I told him, “There's only one way to do business with a crook, Lonnie, and that's through a lawyer. Let's go see Mr. Larsen.”

Joe laughed as though he'd never heard anything so funny. “That's the ticket!” he told me. “Go crack your whip and listen to the noise it makes!”

Our whip didn't make much noise. Mr. Larsen phoned a lawyer, but when he was through talking he told us, “There isn't much he can do beyond trying to get the bill cut down, and he can't do that till morning. If he took the case to court it would cost you a lot of time and money, and you'd probably lose anyway.”

I didn't sleep worth a dime that night. As near as I could figure, Shiftless had already cost me over a hundred and fifty dollars—counting in meals and room rent while we were fixing her up—and another fifty would leave me in a bad way. I'd had to take one fifty-dollar bill out of the cuff of my britches when I bought our outfits, another before we were through buying parts, and there was only $13.90 of it left. After Lonnie went to sleep I took out the third fifty and put it in my pocket, but I made up my mind that I'd sell our outfits, or Shiftless, or anything else we had before I'd spend the last one. After writing Mother the big yarns I had about my fine job and sending her fifty dollars every month, I couldn't write and tell her a bunch of different lies. I'd just keep right on with the story I'd begun, and I'd send her fifty dollars a month just as long as I could get hold of it without stealing—but if we didn't get out of Phoenix pretty quick, it looked as though that time wasn't far ahead.