The Black Cat (magazine)/Volume 1/Number 3/The Archangel

by James Q. Hyatt

The Archangel.

by James Q. Hyatt.

CRAWFORD and I had gone up into the foot-hills of the Sierras to shoot. It was autumn; yet the sun unscrewed us so immediately when we walked abroad that we were forced to seek the shelter of pines and dusty scrub oaks, as often as they fell across our path.

We were lying, one afternoon, under a row of young firs on the crest of a ridge, when the gaunt figure of an old man labored up the slope toward us.

"If all the world 'd lay about in the shade like you 'uns and me—not interferin' with Nature—she'd get her hand in again on her own hook," he said, throwing himself down beside us.

What he may have looked like when his features were normal we never knew. At this advanced period he wore so inflated a nose of such eccentric modeling that his eyes couldn't count for much, and his mouth was only suggested under a flippant gray beard.

"I'm the Archangel," he said sweetly, and smiled at us.

Crawford shrugged himself a trifle nearer his gun and smiled back again.

"There's no crack," he assured us immediately. "That's been my title for three years. I got it because I held my hand from gorin' a man under false provocation."

"Tell us about it," we said.

He found a stone to rest his back against, and threw open his shirt at the throat.

"These hot summer days sizzle just as they did then—crisp your throat like coals curl bacon. I'd mined all this country in the gold days, and held my own with the dizziest dog of 'em all in findin' the color and epicuring the liquids. I run a drinking fountain in opposition to the Dead Falls, up Mokelumne way, and counted on Joaquin and his band for makin ' a pot for me regular once a week—but t’aint.what I started out to say."

The old man fell into a reverie. He seemed to see only the ends of his toes.

"About the Archangel," Crawford prodded.

"Yes—the Archangel. That's a matter of three short years aback."

This gentle old man stood up, and hitched savagely at his trouser band before he sat down again.

"Adolphe—his name'd tell you, wouldn't it? Chin beard—juicy voice—and hands a-curvin' through the air. Well, Adolphe and me set up backin' and minin' together five years aback. I stayed on and on with him because his bread'd make you hungry in your sleep.

"'Twas flour for that very bread that I went a-ridin' into town for, one summer day. There was a real estate dude 'd come up. 'Socks' we called him. Actual—he went round in wormy lookin' things held up by garters! Well, Socks, he tucked a folded newspaper under my saddle-flap, just as I was tighiening up to go home.

"'Read that,' says he. 'It's time all you fellers settled down to raisin 'families, so's we could have a population, and school districts, and churches, and sich . Never no hope of doin' anything with a lot of bachelors.'

"Well, you know, it struck me like wisdom from the mouth of babes? I rode along a-tryin' of my best to read that paper. Not bein' over profuse in acquaintance with learnin', and the sun strikin' the white clay like a lookin'-glass, I tucked it away and whistled till the barkin' of the dog realized me I was home.

"Later, when the smoke went out of the chimney, curlin' through the trees, Adolphe and me sat out on the saw-bucks a-readin' of that paper,—the Matrimonial Messenger.

"By your names, sirs, there was three pages of ’um saying how enchantin' they was!

"Tall women and short women, and young women and old wonen, women with children and women without, women that could work, and sew, and cook, and women that could sing, and dance, and talk. Every blamed one of 'em willin' to send their photograph, swearin' their faces was their fortunes all their life!

"'Twasn't long before we'd settled between two of 'em, but Adolphe, he was for one, and me for the other.

"'What's it to you?' sez I. 'You aint marryin' of her, are you?'

"He couldn't but admit the fact.

"'Still—there's my livin' round her,' he says.

"'Twas a widder, I remember, Adolphe was set on. She'd raven locks, and what she'd most pride in was her cookin', and her sewin', and her lovin' heart. I argued long. I needed him favorable, if it was to be peaceful-like. I remember tellin' of him that we didn't need cookin' and sewin', being used all our lives to managin' these. What we wanted was somethin' amusin' and up in learnin', so's we could feel spiritual proud, you know. I asked him if we'd ever strike it rich, what'd we do with a wife that couldn't go dance and talk with the best of 'ein.

"Anyway, seein' it was my business, and I was set like a jumper on a claim , Adolphe, he give in. The woman what made my heart feel empty said she was eighteen. She was decorated with yellow hair and eyes like copper-ore. She could talk French, and understood German, and could play the pianner. She'd marry a man that wanted a companion and not a cook.

"Sez I to myself continual: 'That's you, Daniel.'

"Well, Adolphe and me, we talked this thing, wakin' and sleepin'. I'd more plans than a cow has capers.

"We got up a letter'd melt snow, and then we waited.

"First, nuthin' was said to the boys, but when they caught on to my hangin' round the post-office they began to josh. I always stepped up gallant to the post-mistress, sirs—I've turned the cheeks of most women pink in my day—and I said, said I:

"'Letter, please?' with a doffin' of my hat, and a risin' inflection very polite but understandin'. It got to be so that when there never was anythin' handed out the boys 'd take to coughin' down a laugh.

"After awhile it grew so's none of 'em turned up or paid any attention. Even Adolphe—he took to goin' to sleep when I talked her.

"Then a whole year ran out to summer again, and I couldn't unthrone her that reigned in my heart.

"One day I said to Adolphe, a-workin' away:

"'Blamed if I can forget her, the ornamint,' I said.

"Adolphe he went in for grub that day and came out late, a-holdin' of a envelope.

"'Here's your letter,' he called.

"Sure enough! I went out on the saw-buck and read it alone. Then he sat down by me and we read it over again.

"'Twas only that she'd arrive on the afternoon train on the fifth, and to have a Methodist minister.

"Well, sirs, it meant a good deal for me to supply the necessaries for a sparklin' jewel—let alone the settlin' down for her to sparkle on! but luck come my way. There'd been a milliner up from San Francisco and fitted her a elegant place. She'd failed, and quick's a winkin' I bought her lookin'-glass and red plush easy-chair. You'd ought to seen that cabin! There hung the thing opposite the stove, all shinin' an 'smilin' and gildin'. Right in front of it my red plush chair, so's you could set down and put your feet up on another an' see how you'd look in heaven.

"On the fourth, Adolphe revealed he'd business in a little town a mile up the railway. He suffered a crampy kind of desperation not to be on hand to support me, he said, but he'd come in with the girl. Then he baked up bread and a cake and rode away.

"Sun come up on the fifth like a bull's-eye lantern. I'd set up all the night before, not to disturb anythin', and there was the mornin' for me to shave and git into my riggin'. A calf-skin vest, with the hair on, aint a thing to slight, sirs, ceremonies or no ceremonies.

"When I rode my mule up to the depot the boys was out, to the puniest scrub of 'em all. They give me cheers that 'd blast rock.

"And there was an arch, sirs—all flowered! My legs wanted to sit down more than me!

"The train whistled in the distance. There was no slaknin' off round the corner, for the boys. braced me everywhere.

"Out she stepped, sirs, and whether she was the sorriest or the likeliest lookin' critter, I couldn't 'a' told for the flunk I was in!

"After the blackness I see her long yellow hair and red cheeks. All the conquerin' of my youth rose up within me, and I up and held her to me for a kiss.

"By the great snake mine, but women don't shave beards off and drink whisky!

"I dropped her like a nettle, but she went forward with the crowd, smilin' an' smirkin' through the cheerin' an' the uproar.

"'To the parson's,' the boys yelled.

"I was forced off my feet, but out came my gun.

"'Halt!' I cried, in a voice that brought 'em all on their haunches and still as colts raised on the spur.

"'I mean to shoot the wig off your head and the paint off your face, Adolphe Lefevre, and leave you for the slimiest viper that crawls without legs.'

"The sight of my gun lay between his eyes an’ the crowd was as still as the barrel.

"Of a sudden came a voice in my ear. To this day God only knows from where.

"'Be like unto the archangels.'

"My arm fell to my side. They lifted me onto their shoulders.

"'The Archangel,' they sent out a-echoin' in the hills.

"And it stuck, sirs, from that day to this, though I've lived alone, sirs, ever since."