CHAPTER VIII. The Treachery of Curly Ben
"ere! you black boy, Tom!" and the Old Cattleman's voice rose loudly as he commanded the approach of that buoyant servitor, who supervised his master's destinies, and performed in the triangular role of valet, guardian and friend. "Yere, you; go to the barkeep of this tavern an' tell him to frame me up a pitcher of that peach brandy an' honey the way I shows him how. An' when he's got her organized, bring it out to us with two glasses by the fire. You-all ain't filin' no objections to a drink, be you?" This last was to me. "As for me, personal," he continued, "you can put down a bet I'm as dry as a covered bridge." I readily assented to peach and honey. I would agree to raw whiskey if it were needed to appease him and permit me to remain in his graces.
"Thar's one thing, one redeemin' thing I might say, about the East," he went on, when the peach and honey appeared, "an' the same claims my respects entire; that's its nose-paint. Which we shorely suffers in the Southwest from beverages of the most ornery kind."
"There's a word I've wanted to ask you about more than once," I said. "What do you mean by 'ornery,' and where do you get it?"
"Where do I get it?" he responded, with a tinge of scorn. "Where do I rope onto any word? I jest nacherally reaches out an' acquires it a whole lot, like I do the rest of the language I employs. As for what it means, I would have allowed that any gent who escapes bein' as weak-minded as Thompson's colt—an' that cayouse is that imbecile he used tos wim a river to get a drink—would hesitate with shame to ask sech questions.
"'Ornery' is a word the meanin' whereof is goin' to depend a heap on what you brands with it." This was said like an oracle. "Also, the same means more or less accordin' to who all puts the word in play. I remembers a mighty decent sort of sport, old Cape Willingham it is; an' yet Dan Boggs is forever referrin' to old Cape as 'ornery.' An' I reckon Dan thinks he is. Which the trouble with Cape, from Dan's standpoint, is this: Cape is one of these yere precise parties, acc'rate as to all he does, an' plenty partic'lar about his looks. An Osage buck, paintin' for a dance, wouldn't worry more over his feachers, an' the way the ocher should be streaked on.
"Now this yere Cape is shy an eye, where an Apache pokes it out with a lance, back in Cochise's time; an', as he regyards his countenance as seemin' over rocky, bein' redooced to one eye as I relates, he sends East an' gets a glass eye. This ain't where Cape's technical'ties about his looks trails in, however; an', if he had paused thar in his rehabilitations, Boggs allers put it up he'd a- found no fault. But Cape notices that about tenth drink time his shore-enough eye begins for to show up bloodshot, an' is a bad mate for the glass eye, the same bein' onaffected by drink. So what does Cape do but have a bloodshot eye made, an' takes to packin' the same on his person constant. As Cape drinks his forty drops all commodious, he sort o' keeps tabs on himse'f in the lookin' glass back of the bar; an' when the good eye commences to turn red with them libations he's countin' into the corral, he ups an' shifts his bresh; digs out the white eye an' plants the drunken eye in the place.
"Shore! none of us cares except Dan Boggs; but Dan feels it to that extent, it's all Colonel Sterett an' Doc Peets an' Old Man Enright can do, added to Dan's bein' by nacher a born gent that a-way, to keep Dan from mentionin' it to old Cape.