Shaking the Nickel Bush (15 page)

Lonnie thought that over for a couple of minutes while he stood looking at the floor as if he were looking down on a grave. Then he peeked up quickly, grinned, and whispered, “Charge it, buddy! Tell 'em to call your banker and check on your credit . . . you know, the old buzzard you made the face of.”

It took me ten or fifteen minutes to convince Lonnie that he couldn't have all the stuff he wanted for Shiftless, but I had to compromise. I let him keep half the emery cloth and one quart of paint, but we were nearly broke again when we rolled out of town.

Even in January the sun was too hot in southeastern Arizona, and the wind too dry, to do much work with wet plaster in the open during daylight. Then too, I wasn't sure enough of myself that I wanted to run the risk of people coming out from town to watch me work, so we didn't go back to our old camping place near the village. We hunted along the river near Pima till we found a gulch we could get Shiftless into and out of easily. It wasn't far off the road, but completely hidden. The walls were high enough so there would be shade in some part of the little canyon all day long, and a sunny ledge where I could lay castings out to dry. And down in there it was sheltered enough that the wind couldn't get at us to blow dust on my work.

It was nearly dusk when we pulled into the little canyon, but before I'd gathered enough wood for our campfire Lonnie was at work on Shiftless, scrubbing layers of old speckled paint off her engine hood with a piece of emery cloth. He kept right at it till I had supper ready, then he called, “Hey, buddy, come look what I've did! Boy, howdy! Shines like a cat's eyes in the dark!”

When I went over I could see where Lonnie had scrubbed a spot about a foot square until the bright metal was exposed. “That's fine!” I told him, and reached out a hand to feel how smooth it was.

He caught my hand and held it away. “Mustn't touch it, buddy,” he cautioned me. “After messin' with the grub you might get it greasy so's't the new paint wouldn't take good. Automobile paintin' is tricky business. A man's got to know his stuff and be right careful or it won't come out professional . . . like it was brand new out of the fact'ry. But you just wait, buddy. Time I get through with this old baby she'll look. . . . Say, buddy, you sure we picked a good place to camp? The river bein' right alongside and all, it might get damp o' nights, so's't she'd rust where I got her cleaned off.”

“Oh, I don't think you'll have any trouble,” I told him. “You could cover the cleaned part over with a saddle blanket or a tarp.”

He shook his head. “Not no saddle blanket,” he told me. “Too liable to be grease on it . . . from the pony's back, you know.”

“Use a tarp then,” I said, “but you'd better come along now and eat your supper. It's getting cold.”

Lonnie wouldn't come until he'd covered Shiftless's engine hood with the tarpaulin from his bedroll, and he tucked it in carefully at the sides, as if he'd been putting a baby to bed. All during supper he kept telling me the things he was going to do to make Shiftless brand new, but he said he didn't dare work on her any more that night for fear the damp air might rust her. He kept right on telling me about it while I washed the dishes and got things ready for making my first plaster mold. I was a little nervous about it, and Lonnie's continual talking made me sort of edgy. “Never mind about Shiftless for now,” I told him. “If we're going to have any money to fix her up with, you'd better keep enough greasewood on that fire to give me a little light here.”

I'd helped Ivon enough with casts, and made enough of them by myself, that I shouldn't have been nervous, but I couldn't help it. My hands shook as if I had palsy while I cut sections of isinglass for making a dam. For some reason my hands will shake to beat the band when I'm getting ready to do something I'm a little bit afraid of—and I was plenty scared about tackling that first casting—but they usually stop the minute I get started on it. They did that night. The pieces of isinglass had to be cut into the clay, so as to make a little fence running from the base of the neck up through the center of the chin, the mouth, nose, forehead, and on back through the parting of the hair. And if my hand shook a particle as I pressed them into place I'd turn a rough edge on the clay and spoil the casting. I held my breath as I cut each piece into the clay, and I think Lonnie held his, too. “Jeepers Creepers,” he whispered after I'd stood in two or three sections. “You ain't goin' to cut him in two now you got him made, are you, buddy?”

“No,” I told him, “this is just a dam to separate the two sides of the casting, so they won't stick together and I can pull them off.”

“Jeepers,” he whispered again and again as the wall grew up through the face and back over the head, but the sound of his voice there beside me helped to keep my fingers steady.

Lonnie watched like a squirrel as I mixed a pail of soft plaster, scooped up a little on my cupped fingers, took aim, and flipped it over one clay eye. “Jeeper Creepers!” he shouted as the plaster plopped into the eye depression and spattered out onto the cheek. “I seen guys I'd like to do that to myself. Can I sling some of it on, buddy? Just a little teeny bit?”

“Sure,” I told him, “but sling it here on the cheek. There's a knack to throwing it into the eyes and ears and mouth, or you don't fill all the wrinkles and corners.”

Lonnie picked up nearly a cupful of plaster and heaved it against the cheek as if it had been an overripe tomato. Then he giggled as if someone had been tickling his feet. “Leave me sling a little more, buddy,” he pleaded. “Just one more shot at the old buzzard 'fore you get him all covered up.”

That gypsum worked nearly as well as plaster of Paris, and in the cool damp air of evening there by the river it didn't set up so quickly but what I could make a good strong mold, with strips of burlap in between the layers to strengthen it. But I was as careful with it as I knew how to be. I didn't try to hurry, and when a batch of plaster began to stiffen, even a little, I threw it out and made a fresh batch. Neither of us had a watch, but from the position of the stars I knew it was long past midnight before I had both the banker and Mabel's little horse head safely in their molds and stood on the ledge to dry.

13

Cowboy Artists of the Southwest

N
EXT morning the molds had hardened enough to take direct sunlight, but there was nothing more I could do with them until they'd dried nearly as hard as stone. I let Lonnie sleep until I'd shaved and cooked breakfast. And I fried him four eggs, half a pound of bacon, and a whole plateful of hashed brown potatoes. I was fairly sure we were going to make a go of our business, and there seemed no reason for being stingy about the grub.

When I had everything ready I woke Lonnie. He rolled over, rubbed his eyes, and said, “Aw, buddy, why didn't you rouse me when you rolled out? I could of had Shiftless half . . .” And he was sound asleep again. I was feeling pretty happy that morning and thought I'd have a little fun with him, so I shook him again. He only mumbled and hunched the blanket higher around his shoulders. “You don't need to get up yet,” I told him. “I just didn't want you to wake up later on and miss me. I've got to go see a banker about a bust, but I won't have any trouble with Shiftless. I think I know how to drive her.”

Lonnie jumped to his feet, grabbed me by one arm, and told me, “Uh-uh, buddy! You'd kill yourself! You can't never tell when old Shiftless might take a notion to go off the road . . . the steerin' wheel bein' loose the way it is and all. I'll drive you right on over there soon's I get my britches on.”

“Oh, there's no need of that,” I told him. “Somebody ought to stay in camp to keep an eye on those castings, and I wouldn't have a bit of trouble with . . .”

There was no use in going any further with the joke. Lonnie had hauled on his boots and greasy old jeans, and was hurrying off toward the river. I watched him scoop up three or four handfuls of cold water, splash them on his face, and come hurrying back to the fire. He started shoveling bacon, eggs, and potatoes into his mouth as if he were feeding a thrashing machine, drops of water still dripping off the four-day stubble on his chin.

“When did you shave last?” I asked him.

He swiped a hand across this chin and said, “Jeepers Creepers, they sure grow fast in this hot country, don't they?”

“Sure do,” I said, “but when did you shave last? You know, if we're going to be the cowboy artists of the Southwest we're going to have to keep spruced up a little.”

Lonnie stopped with a forkful of potatoes halfway to his mouth, seemed to be puzzling something out for a half minute, and said, “Creepers!” under his breath. Then he looked up at me and said earnestly, “Honest-a-God, buddy, you won't never have to be shamed of me. I'll keep slicked right up to the handle, but you know yourself, buddy, with Shiftless bein' broke down and all these last couple o' days . . .”

“That's all right,” I told him. “I know how busy you've been, and I wouldn't be ashamed of you anyway. You're my buddy, you know. Better get that grub into you; we'll have to be rolling pretty soon.”

I don't think Lonnie was listening to me. He sat looking down at his plate for maybe a minute. “Jeepers!” he whispered at last. “Cowboy artists!” Then he looked up quickly, grinned, and said, “Say, buddy, that sounds all right, don't it? Cowboy artists, that's us! Reckon I'd have time to shave and change my duds 'fore we go to town?”

There was no need of our starting right away, so I told Lonnie to go ahead and get cleaned up if he wanted to. He wasn't gone more than fifteen minutes, and when he came back his face was as smooth and shiny as an apple, his hair was combed, and he was wearing the new shirt and jeans I'd given him for Christmas. All the way to town he kept babbling about our being artists, and how neat he was going to keep himself.

The banker I went to see that morning was about the same age as the first one, but he was built like an Angus bull: short, broad-shouldered, and heavy in the barrel. His face was deeply weather-beaten, and there wasn't even a fringe of hair on his head. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to sell the idea of letting me make his bust from a picture, but he was all ready with one. I hadn't talked to him two minutes before he reached in his pocket and dug out a faded old daguerreotype.

“Civil War picture. I was lieutenant of volunteers,” he said as he held it up to the light and squinted at it. “Had this likeness made when I was on furlough in Richmond. Faded a mite, but Mabel tells me you can do wonders with 'em, faded or no.”

As he spoke he handed me the daguerreotype, and I nearly fell off the chair. It was taken in uniform, his hat was pulled down on his forehead, and his whole face was covered with a scraggly beard. I could no more have made those whiskers look real than Lonnie could.

In the next thirty seconds I did some of the fastest thinking I'd ever done in my life. The only thing I could get hold of was that the old gentleman had been a lieutenant in the Civil War and was proud of it. “Hmmmmm,” I hummed, acting as if I were studying the picture. “A bust of you should have a little different treatment than for most men. It would be a shame not to get in those shoulders.” Then I happened to remember that I didn't have enough clay to make them, or know where to get hold of any more, so I added, “Not the whole shoulders, you understand—just enough to show their depth . . . and the collar . . . and a couple of buttons of the uniform . . . making the base sort of in a V shape, you know.”

“How much extra would that be?” he asked quickly.

“Oh, not much; five dollars would do it,” I told him.

“Fair enough!” he said. “That's the way I'll take it. Don't forget the crossed swords there on the collar.”

I wasn't a bit worried about the crossed swords, but those whiskers were giving me fits, and I was afraid he might be as proud of them as of the swords. “Hmmmmmm,” I hummed again, to give myself a little more time to think of some way out. “Hmmmmmmmm, you know I could trim this beard for you in making the bust . . . a Vandyke, or something like that?”

“Never wore a Vandyke,” he told me. “Always let 'em grow natural.”

I had to find some other tack, and fast, so I asked—sort of offhand—“Always wore a beard, I suppose?”

He sniggered till his shoulders shook, then haw-hawed. When he could catch his breath again he said, “Not always. There used to be times when the graybacks would get so thick I'd have to shave 'em off. Some of those army camps used to be mighty thick with vermin.”

I tried to laugh as loud as he had, but it wasn't from happiness. “Of course,” I said, “I can make it any way you'd like, but I was just thinking. Hmmmmmm, if I remember right, I haven't made a bust with a beard in several years. They seem to have gone a bit out of style, and most men tell me to leave them off.”

“Well, now,” he said, “that hadn't come to mind, but now you mention it I don't know but it might be a good idea.”

He sat thinking and I sat fidgeting for a minute; then he asked, “How you going to know what my face looked like under the whiskers? Can't shave 'em off from a picture, and I don't believe I've got one without 'em . . . not of those years.”

My fidgets faded away in two seconds; I chuckled a gurgle or two, and said, “Oh, that doesn't make a particle of difference. You know, we artists go a great deal on the structure of a man's bone, the expression around his eyes, the width of his forehead, and the character they show so plainly. No matter how old a man may be when I talk to him, I can get a pretty close likeness of him at any age. Of course, not photographically perfect, but close enough that no one could tell the difference by remembering back.”

“Well, now,” he said, “I can understand that. Take me, I can look at a week-old calf and tell you what kind of a bull he's going to make . . . almost to a T.”

As he spoke, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a roll the size of his fist, and peeled me off three tens. “Thirty, that right?” he asked as he held them out to me.

I told him it was—and got out of there as fast as I could. At the door I remembered, looked back, and said, “Of course, you wouldn't want me to make it with your hat on. You'll have to tell me what your hair was like and how you wore it.”

“Lots of it,” he called back. “Brown, and parted on the left. A little on the curly side.”

As soon as we got back to camp I went right to work on the second clay model. That time there was no excuse for looking at the picture, except to see the shape of the uniform neck and where to put the crossed swords. I'd known a young wrestler who had the same shaped head, bull neck, and type of features as the banker. In shaping up the clay I used my memory of him as my model, but made it a little more gentlemanly looking than the wrestler had been. Then I put on a couple of handfuls of hair, bushed it a bit above the ears, and worked a marcel into it. I hadn't thought to ask the banker if he wanted a mustache, but the upper lip came out fine, so I left the mustache off.

After I'd washed the supper dishes that evening I heaped plenty of greasewood on the fire. As soon as it was burning brightly I brought the hardened molds for the first banker's bust and Mabel's little horse head, then sat down to work on them. While I'd been shaping the clay model that afternoon Lonnie had drowsed in Shiftless's shadow, and hadn't seemed very interested. But when I began working on the molds he became as eager as if I were opening Christmas packages. He watched without saying a word while I sat cross-legged by the fire with the mold for the banker's bust in my lap—trimming away the excess plaster that had hardened along the sides of the isinglass dam, and drawing out the sections with a pair of pliers. Then he moved closer as I carefully pried one of the mold halves away from the other, jiggled it a bit, and pulled it away from the clay core. It didn't come away clean, and I didn't expect it to. Most of the clay eye, part of the hair, and, of course, the ear, pulled away with the mold.

“Jeepers!” Lonnie whispered in an awed voice, “you've ruint him, buddy.”

I wasn't at all worried about the clay that had pulled away, but I was worried as to whether or not the builders' gypsum I'd used for plaster had made a good true casting. I turned the half so light from the fire would strike against the inside surface. It was smooth wherever it had pulled away clean, and the ridges that marked the forehead and flared out from the corner of the eye showed that the plaster had settled tightly into every cleft and wrinkle.

“No, I didn't ruin him,” I told Lonnie. “I've got him caught so tight he can never get away.” I held the casting half around so he could see inside, and said, “That's him, right in there. All I've got to do is to clean out every particle of clay and give him a bath with real soapy water, so the casting won't stick to the mold. Then, after I've bound the two empty sides back together, I'll pour in soft plaster and roll it around till it makes a firm shell on the inside. When it hardens, it will come out looking exactly the way the clay did when we flung the plaster on it last night.”

“Jeepers!” Lonnie said. “If the inside one hardens, how you goin' to get it out?”

“That's easy,” I told him. “I won't need the mold any more, so I'll crack it off with a chisel and throw it away.”

I was so busy in getting the second half of the mold off the model that I didn't notice Lonnie until I heard a scraping sound behind me. When I looked around he was sitting cross-legged on the other side of the fire. He had the first mold-half in his lap, and was digging into it with the mixing spoon as if he were scooping beans out of a pot.

I don't remember, but I must have yelled at him. He looked across the fire at me with a half-sore, half-hurt expression on his face, and told me, “Don't get your insides all riled up, buddy! I'm only diggin' out some of the mud for you. Didn't you say we was the cowboy artists?”

It took a lot of explaining before I could make Lonnie understand that cleaning and soaping the inside of the molds was one of the trickiest parts of the business, and that the slightest scratch made on the surface would show up on the finished casting. The only way I could pacify him was by promising that he could pour the plaster when I made the castings—and that I'd let him throw plaster at the clay models of the “old buzzards.”

Fortunately, Lonnie had made his first gouge into the top of the mold, and had scraped away only half the parting place in the hair. It could easily be carved back in when I trimmed up the finished casting. After I'd stopped him he lost interest in the cleaning, and sat by the fire more asleep than awake, but he wouldn't go to bed.

It was past midnight before I had both molds cleaned, soaped, and bound tightly back together. Then I let Lonnie pour in the creamy casting plaster, a little at a time, while I rolled and turned the molds until I was sure I had a good even casting, not less than half an inch thick. After the poured castings had been set on the ledge to harden Lonnie asked me, “Say, buddy, ain't the stuff I poured in there all that's goin' to get saved?”