Part 4 (1/2)
”Take a drink?” said he. ”There's worse places than Tucson; there's places where you can't get a drink.”
I took a drink, in which my new acquaintance joined me.
”Is Mr. Maroney in?” I asked. Mr. Maroney was the proprietor of the hotel, and I had a message of introduction to him.
”Mr. Maroney ain't long gone to bed. The boys was having a little game of 'freeze out' last night. I guess he'll be around at midday.”
A bed-room, or rather a loose-box, was a.s.signed me in the quadrangle at the back of the saloon, and after breakfasting I strolled out to enlarge my acquaintance with the town.
Until twelve months previously, Tucson had been an unimportant adobe village; now it was growing rapidly. Edifices of brick were springing up in all directions. Practically it is the gateway between Mexico and the far Western States of America, and as such its future is a.s.sured.
Under the shop awnings in the main street loitered a crowd of handsome, bearded, bronzed miners from the neighbouring mining districts. To and fro flitted a few busy store-clothed store-keepers and clerks, and here and there a knot of men might be seen examining some specimen of quartz.
A couple of leather-overalled cowboys, ostentatiously ”heeled” or armed, rode down the street on their Mexican-saddled _bronchos_; a Chinaman stole swiftly and silently by; a half-breed led a lame horse along; a couple more ”greasers” seated one behind the other went past on another equine scarecrow; sundry dogs--one dragging a swollen run-over leg after him--loafed about; and a chain-and-ball gang of convicts slowly advanced, sweeping the dusty road.
The town was gay with the bunting displayed in the store signs, advertis.e.m.e.nts, and invitations to ”walk in.”
The ”Head Quarters” store is ”selling out at cost price,” boots, shoes, bacon, lard, flour, stores, hardware, etc., with all intermediate articles, forming the stock to be sacrificed. A Saddle and Harness manufactory, outwardly rich in signs and specimens of its work, is followed by a ”n.o.bby Clothing” store that even surpa.s.ses it in its ticketed display of ”pants” and ”vests.” Inside, a customer, with his feet on the counter, leans back in his chair and chats to the shopman, who is perched on his own cask. ”Ladies' Dress Goods,” ”Fancy Goods,”
”Gents' Furnis.h.i.+ng Goods,” ”Stores and Tinware,” ”The Alhambra Billiard Saloon,” ”The Tucson Restaurant,” ”Markets,” ”Estate Offices,” diagrams of gouty-looking boots, swollen loaves, gigantic pipes, guns, bottles, etc., etc., without end, in black upon a white linen ground, invite attention everywhere.
In a town of this kind, next to the drinking saloons, the barber's shop is the chief place of resort. The barber, in importance, ranks second only to the artistic mixer of cool drinks. He is hail-fellow-well-met with every one. Especially cheery and amusingly ceremonious is Figaro if he happen to be a coloured man. His memory is prodigious. Men enter that he has not seen for months, and with whom he is perhaps only slightly acquainted; yet he resumes the conversation precisely where it terminated when they parted. He reminds his visitor of what he has said, and of what his projects were when he last was shaved there, and he persistently inquires how far those a.s.sertions have been verified, and those intentions fulfilled. Having posted himself up to the latest date in all that concerns the victim of his curiosity, he proceeds, in return, to furnish him with biographical sketches of such later pa.s.sages in the lives of his friends as may have escaped his knowledge.
In the barber's shop that I entered the three chairs were all occupied.
A slender, graceful, ”interesting young man,” of an Italian type of face, dressed in a blue sh.e.l.l-jacket bound with yellow, a good deal of loud jewellery, and a ”dandy-rig” generally, operated on one customer; a ”wooden-mugged down-Easter,” with bushy eyebrows, and quick, twinkling eyes, who sang over and over again, absently, though still with heart-wrung pathos, ”Oh, my little darling, I love you! Oh, my little darling, yes, I do!” had the second in charge; the third was at the mercy of a black man, who was cross-questioning him very closely as to a recent trip to Tombstone.
I fell to the hands of the dude, and was sheeted and soaped by him with a theatrical flourish that led me to antic.i.p.ate the rest of the performance with interest. Three various strops were necessary to put an edge on the razor that was to execute me. The first, a rough one, sc.r.a.ped like a file; the second made the razor ring like a bell beneath the reckless strokes of its das.h.i.+ng manipulator; over the third it slid like soap. I was prepared for some fancy shaving, and was not disappointed. After a few false starts the young man, at one fell swoop, slid the razor through the stubble on my face from one end of the cheek to the other. For a little while he sliced about in a fas.h.i.+on that irresistibly reminded one of cutla.s.s drill, and then settled down to more delicate work. Certainly he had a sure and dainty touch, but to be shaved by him often would take years off a nervous man's life. Even when the rougher work was finished he was sufficiently alarming. Running his fingers over my chin he would discover a hair that had escaped him, and, as if he were flicking a fly off a wall with a whip-lash, sweep down upon it and smooth it off at one fell stroke. As for the coloured gentleman, he arrayed himself in magnificent clothing and went out; the ”down-Easter,” having finished his task, took up a guitar and croaked a few amorous ballads in a decayed voice.
Returning to the hotel, I found that Mr. Paul Maroney had arisen. I also found a card of invitation from (I think it was) the ”Union Club”
awaiting me. Being dubious with regard to the nature of a club in Tucson, I interrogated Maroney on the subject.
”Do you want to play monte?” he asked, weighing the card between his finger and thumb.
”No.”
”Well....”
That ”well” drawled out and sustained, with the look that accompanied it, told me quite as much about the Club as I desired to know. Paul and I christened our acquaintance with c.o.c.ktails.
Conversation at any time, on any topic, or with any person in Tucson (as elsewhere on the frontier), invariably led to this ceremony. c.o.c.ktail drinking has a charm of its own, which lifts it above drinking as otherwise practised. Your confirmed c.o.c.k-tail drinker is not to be confounded with the common sot. He is an artist. With what exquisite feeling will he graduate his cup, from the gentle ”smile” of early morning, to the potent ”smash” of night! The a.n.a.lytical skill of a chemist marks his unerring detection of the very faintest dissonance in the harmony of the ingredients that compose his beverage. He has an antidote to correct, a tonic to induce every mood and humour that man knows. Endless variety rewards a single-hearted devotion to c.o.c.ktails, whilst the refinement and ingenuity that may be exercised in the display of such an attachment, redeem it from intemperance. It becomes an art; I am not sure that it ought not to be termed a science. It is drinking etherealised, rescued from vulgar appet.i.te and brutality, purified of its low origin and enn.o.bled. A c.o.c.ktail hath the soul of wit, it is brief--it is a jest, a bon-mot, happy thought, a gibe, a word of sympathy, a tear, an inspiration, a short prayer. A list of your experienced c.o.c.ktail drinker's potations for the day const.i.tutes a complete picture of life, and the secret joys and sorrows that he hides from all the world may almost be said therein to stand betrayed to the eye of a brother scientist.
The four days' waiting pa.s.sed at length, and seated in the corpulent old coach, with its team of four wheelers and four leaders, we rumbled slowly out of Tucson.
The pa.s.sengers were a Mexican dame with a baby, a Mexican, an American miner, and myself. A sort of second whip sat beside the driver, armed with a short but heavy weapon, with which he made excursions from the box-seat to the ground, and whilst the coach was still in motion fought it out with any refractory member of the team, as he ran beside him.
Collecting a pocketful of the wickedest stones that he could find, he would then return, and pelt the _bronchos_ from his former elevation.
Another of his duties was to disentangle the team, when, as not unfrequently occurred, so many of the leaders faced the wheelers that further progress was impossible. It also fell to his lot to tie the coach together with thongs and string when its dissolution appeared imminent. In the performance of his various duties this individual displayed considerable agility, ability, and resource.
The Mexican woman was frightful, the infant very like her, only by no means so quiet. Mother and child left us at the end of the first stage.
The Mexican slept all day; towards evening he awoke and reduced himself to a state of complete intoxication with _mascal_. The miner never opened his lips until the following morning just before entering Magdalena, when we happened to see a jacka.s.s rabbit.
”Next jacka.s.s rabbit we see, I'll be durned if I don't shoot him,” he said.