“Not here,” disagreed California Bill Fox. “Me for the caballos. I do know horses an’ mules, but I ain’t keen f’r tearin’ up the earth. I like to get behind a ramblin’ six o’ Western ponies and tear over the earth, but tearin’ her up goes ag’in’ the grain. Guess I’m what ye might call one o’ these here nature lovers. I find rocks an’ trees kinda friendly, ye understand. An’ I’d rather look at the sun settin’ over a mountain-top than a three-ring circus. I’m an old nut about flowers and things like that, an’ I ain’t perticular who knows it. I c’n kill a man, but not a deer. An’ that ain’t sayin’ I don’t like venison, either. D’ye think I’m quaint, pardner?”
Joshua laughed at the suddenness of the question, which in itself was indisputably quaint. “You may be that,” he said, “but if you are, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Uh-huh—I get ye. Thought maybe you’d turn out to be like that when I was watchin’ ye this mornin’. These here stiffs get my goat, an’ I can’t tolerate ’em. I was wonderin’ if they wasn’t somebody in all this mess o’ humanity that I could cotton to, and then you come and I know immediate that you was different. That there word ‘different’ is all-fired handy, ain’t it? I see it in every story I read, pretty near. The heroine says to the hero, ‘You’re different,’ an’ he lets out a sigh an’ shoots back, ‘You’re different, too’—an’ on the next page she’s callin’ him dear heart. Get two folks together that’s different, an’ the stuff’s all off—seems.”
Joshua laughed. “Do you read lots?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m a great reader. That’s what makes me different, I guess. I’m a character, pardner.” The keen eyes studied Joshua from under their black shelter. “On the desert and in the mountains I’m just Ole California Bill, but on the inside I’m a character. The inside is what we call the country on the other side o’ the range—where the big towns and cities are. Folks from over there would come to the desert and ride in my stage up into the mountains, an’ before we’d got to Shirt-tail Bend some skirt would whisper to another one that here was a character. Ain’t that nice? Now what would you say they mean—that I’m loco—off my nut?”
“Well, not exactly, perhaps,” ventured Joshua. “Wouldn’t you rather be called a character than to travel along through life unnoticed—just one of the herd? Seems to me that’s only a careless way of saying that you are original—have individuality.”
“D’ye think so?”
“Sure.”
“I see I’m gonta cotton to you a lot, pardner,” said California Bill. “Say, when we ramble out, you make it to ride with me on my freight wagon—if I get one. Will ye? I wonder if ye’ve got any particular hobby that maybe both of us could talk about.”
“Science? Astronomy?” suggested Joshua.