EMPTY BOTTLES

A rather large, awkward man shambled into the One Way Thru Saloon, sidled over to the bar and addressed Cock Eye Baer, the mixer. His voice was so low that Cock Eye leaned to hear and then asked for repetition of the nearly voiceless words.

“I want a bottle!” the man blurted out.

“Oh, yeh!” The bartender grinned fatly. “The question now is, gent, how big a bottle?”

“A quart!”

“A man’s size—and now what liquor’ll you have in it?”

The familiar patrons were listening. The visitor was plainly modest, at least before beginning his drinks; but in buying by the bottleful he would obtain more liquor for much less money. And there was a certain aspect which indicated that the visitor was not quite familiar with the lingo or the customs of this business place. He had asked for a bottle—not for a quart of liquor. He was a long time coming to the point, too.

“Why, if you please, I don’t want no liquor; I want an empty bottle!”

“An empty bottle?”

“Yes, sir!” the awkward fellow said, deprecatorily, “I want it clean—you know—no whisky or anything—”

“As though whisky ever soiled the insides of a bottle!” some one exclaimed sorrowfully.

“Go in back!” The bartender lifted his flat nose. “Lotsa bottles out there!”

The man went through into the yard. He returned, smelling alternately of two flat quart bottles, one white, the other brown. They smelled of whisky and he rinsed them many times, finally taking the white one with him down the street.

The saloon crowd watched him take his departure.

“What d’ye make of him?” one asked snortily.

“What he needs is a nipple to go on that bottle!” Cock Eye grinned.

The laughter of the listeners was loud, prolonged, and terminated by a serious round of drinks. Cock Eye was always good that way. He talked brightly and smartly. After several had bought, the bartender served a drink on the house. And then a man came in the front door. The boys gathered around him, made sure he had a drink and then all of them told him what Cock Eye had said when a fellow took an empty bottle out the front door, instead of a full one. It was awfully funny, but Cock Eye had to elucidate his wit himself, because none of the explainers had exactly the lingo and tang with which to tell the story.

The following afternoon along Butte Street Cock Eye, who was off for the day, saw the awkward fellow coming down the side of the square, shambling. The bartender grinned reminiscently so that the stranger angled over and addressed him.

“I don’t know’f I thanked ye for that bottle,” the man said. “I had to have it for a baby a lady had down’t the camp. You see, you fill it full of pretty middlin’ warm water an’ when the kid has the stomach ache you put the bottle on the stomach, which warms it. Course you wrap it in rags.”

“Quite an idea!” Cock Eye approved. “Tha’s all right! But why’d you want it clean for that?”

“I didn’t know they was going to put warm water in it. I thought it was for feedin’ or something.”

“’Tain’t your lady had the baby?”

“No, sir, ’taint. There’s a sickly feller there, the husband, I expect. An old woman come over to my wagon about a bottle. So I come up an’ got it. I’m just lookin’ around myself.”

Cock Eye went on his way. He rolled in his mind this new opportunity. By the time night had come and he was in his white apron behind the bar, he was ready for the boys to come in, which they did in due course.

“Say,” he said, “’member that feller come in last night to get a bottle—empty? Well, I met’m up the street today. He did want it for a baby. There’s a lady had a kid down’t the strollers’ camp and an old woman sent him for it, so’s they could put warm water into it, to warm the baby’s stomach when it ached.”

“Say, ain’t that funny? You did hit it, didn’t you, Cock Eye? You jes’ knowed it was for a baby— Huh! Water, too. Say, tha’s funny, ain’t it? Cock Eye spots a feller wants an empty bottle f’r a baby. What’d he want a clean bottle f’r, anyhow?”

“He didn’t know’t was for a warmer. He thought it was to feed the kid out of. Old woman sent him for it. He come here.”

“Tha’s funny—come here f’r an empty bottle!” one of the boys laughed. “Le’s have a drink!”

Around the Square in Boxelder the boys told about Cock Eye, the empty bottle and the stroller down at the campground, where there was a lady had a baby. The stranger again came uptown and shambled to the Emporium, went to the post office and headed down the creek to the camp, his arms carrying packages. He was pointed out, and people laughed. He was the fellow who asked Cock Eye for an empty bottle. That was funny. He wanted it to put on a baby’s stomach, too.

“Who are you?” The city marshal, Pete Culder, softened his insult to the stranger by adding, “If it’s any of my business?”

“Why, my name’s Frank Hesbern,” the man answered readily enough. “I’m kind of looking around for a new country to settle in.”

“Understand you got a baby with the stomach ache?”

“Me? Oh, my, no! ’Tain’t my baby. I never did get to marry. It’s a lady’s. She’s camped on the flat. The man he’s sickly. The old lady asked me to get an empty flat bottle to put on the kid’s stomach, tha’s all.”

“I see—” Culder nodded—“that’s funny!”

“What?” Hesbern’s gray eyes squinted. “The baby was crying, sir. They wanted to put warm water on its stomach, ’count of the ache.”

The city marshal laughed and strolled on while Hesbern watched him wonderingly. Thereafter in the days that followed, sometimes one, sometimes five or six inquirers would speak to the stroller, asking him about the empty bottle. After listening to the explanation they would say:

“That’s funny!”

Then they would go on their way, leaving the awkward stranger puzzled more and more.

One day Cock Eye, waddling on his short legs and with his rotund stomach protruding, was again strolling around the square in the afternoon. It chanced that he met Hesbern, who greeted him.

“Say, mister,” the stroller asked, “What’s there funny about me getting an empty bottle?”

Cock Eye bristled angrily.

“Who you talkin’ to?” he demanded.

Hesbern’s gray eyes looked wonderingly into the man’s face, steady, narrowing and losing their sparkle in an odd, moon colored opacity.

“Ten-twelve fellers told me you said it was funny,” Hesbern answered quietly. “I want to know why?”

Cock Eye’s face swelled a blotchy white, red and purple.

“What’s it to ye?” Cock Eye cried, his voice rising from a growl into a shrill hawklike shriek, which attracted attention far and wide.

“I got that empty bottle for a baby with the stomach ache,” Hesbern declared. “An old woman ast me to, so’s they could put it on the kid, account of the lady what had it being in bed, an’ her man sickly. I don’t see nothin’ funny in a baby having the stomach ache.”

“I don’t care a damn if you do or not!” Cock Eye snarled.

“Uh-huh!” Hesbern grunted, going on his way with two store bundles under his arm.

“Hey, you!” Cock Eye called after him. “I wanta know what’s aching you ’bout me? Anyhow, you mind yer own business ’bout me!”

Hesbern turned to gaze at the short, thick, angry man.

“Course,” Hesbern answered presently, “I mind my own business. I always do, mister. I’ve been hearin’ some talk, tha’s all.”

“I don’t care what ye hear!” Cock Eye growled into a shriek.

“Tha’s what I thought!” Hesbern said shortly, and the bartender’s lower jaw dropped.

That night instead of just a few of the boys coming into the One Way Thru Saloon, the place was crowded. About every one had come out. Cock Eye Baer, with flat face and glowering eyes, served the drinks, very tart in his few words.

“Hear that stroller insulted you, Cock Eye?” a newcomer inquired. “What’d he say?”

“Why, he ast me what’s funny about that empty bottle! I told ’im to mind his own business, bellyaching around. I stood right up to him an’ tol’ ’im I didn’t care what he thought! An’, by Gawd, he said he didn’t care what I thought! I’m gettin’ sick of him standing up to me thataway. I don’t have ta take anything from him, I don’t!”

“Tha’s right, Cock Eye!” the listeners exclaimed. “Don’tcha let ’im bluff you a dad blamed inch, no sir!”

“Don’t worry ’bout me!” Cock Eye snorted. “He won’t be the first man I’ve handled.”

“Tha’s so, Cock Eye!” approved City Marshal Culder who had dropped in for a warm. “That feller’s got a bad eye. I could see’t when I talked to ’im.

“I’ll look, Marshall. Trust me!” Cock Eye allowed himself to grin a bit. “All I want’s you to testify to that to the inquest.”

“You bet, old boy!” Culder shook his head. “I got an eye on ’im myself! You c’n see he’s thinking something, the way he steps off.”

Saturday night in Boxelder was an occasion boisterous and full of life. Music from crowded dance halls, whoops from exuberant men, the rustling of an active throng filled the community around Court House Square with jubilee. Just after ten o’clock when an unusual throng had come in, due to cattle droving exigencies, with nesters, homesteaders and bad land scatterers all at hand, an agile little fellow with a face pointed like a rat’s, dashed into the One Way Thru Saloon and, stooping low, hissed to Cock Eye Baer for attention.

“I say, Cock Eye!” he whispered. “Com’ere!”

“What’s it?” Cock Eye leaned to listen.

“I jes’ seen that Stroller Hesbern goin’ inta the Claybank Delight Saloon. My lan’! He looked hateful!”

“Liquorin’ up?”

“Yeh; he bought a big bottle, two quart. I seen it!”

“Much obliged, Skinny,” Cock Eye said. “I’ll remember that. I don’t ferget favors.”

Cock Eye ran his hand under the bar, where he had a long barreled .45 revolver, and made sure that there were loads in it. A minute later another man came in, leaning over and whispering to the bartender:

“Look out, Cock Eye! That stroller bought two quarts to the Claybank—”

“Aw right, Sam! I’m ready!”

Then two men came in from the alley, hurrying.

“Say, that feller Hesbern bought two quarts down to the Claybank, er somers. We seen ’im emptyin’ it out back jes’ now!”

“Pretendin’ to liquor up, eh?” Cock Eye grimaced. “An’ keepin’ steady, eh—huh!”

“That’s so,” an awed whisper ran around, some one saying, “Better get set, Cock Eye!”

The bartender swallowed obviously, his beady little eyes rolling in their fat sockets. He took a couple of slugs himself. He needed a bracer. He was a humorist, not a fighting man. At the same time he wasn’t deficient when it came to a showdown. He’d bashed in a man’s skull, served as a bouncer innumerable times, and had come clear on the charge of shooting Dingo Washington in self-defense. He wouldn’t back down in face of necessity. He hung up his apron, and the proprietor of the One Way Thru quietly took the bartender’s place, spelling him.

Grimly, looking neither to right nor left, Cock Eye Baer sallied forth into the darkness of the alleys. No one followed him. Men sauntered casually out into the gloom and stood, listening. Then they heard two shots, almost together, but none could tell by the echoes from blank walls and bad land bluffs just whence came the sounds.

In a few minutes the One Way Thru Saloon was crowded to overflowing, every one waiting expectantly. Cock Eye Baer did not return in ten minutes, nor in half an hour. In an hour or two men went scouting cautiously around in the alleys. But it was dawn before any one learned anything of importance. Then on the shortcut path down to the strollers’ camp ground City Marshal Pete Culder found Cock Eye lying dead with a bullet buried in his thick chest, driven in the direction of his heart. In Cock Eye’s hand, held in rigor mortis was his heavy revolver, with one bullet gone from its cylinder.

“Doggone! I knowed that Hesbern’s bad!” Culder gasped. “I’ll go down to find ’im, ’f I can!”

He hurried to the strollers’ campground, where the strangers usually stopped. He saw Hesbern’s wagon and his two heavy draft horses staked in the grass on the creek bottom; but Hesbern’s saddlehorse, a beauty, was nowhere in sight.

The city marshal went over to the outfit where the strangers had been delayed by a baby and by the sickness of a man.

“Where’s Hesbern?” the city marshal demanded of the weak but convalescent man.

“Why, Marshal—” the man shook his head—“I don’t know. Las’ night my wife’s mother broke a bottle we had to put on the baby’s stomach to keep it warm, an’ Mr. Hesbern went uptown to git another. My wife figured a two quart’n ’d be better, and so he brought one back, a big ’n. He seemed kinda excited, nervous, swearin’ to himself. Same time he didn’t say anythin’, exceptin’ he kissed the baby. My lan’! He sure favored we’ns! I don’t know what we’d done, me sickly, my wife took bad an’ that new baby, ’thout him. Him never married, too—an’ he saddled his horse to ride away down the branch. He ast if we’d get along right, ’fore he went. Course, I c’n git around, now. He left this order to look after his outfit, account of him gettin’ important news.”

City Marshal Culder returned to Boxelder Court House Square. He told the sheriff, coroner and prosecutor what he knew. They had a jury sit over Cock Eye Baer’s remains, and they rather side-stepped the question of who, why and whence the killing. That night in the One Way Thru Saloon the boys gathered sorrowfully along the bar, staring at Cock Eye’s apron, spotted, large and limp, hanging right where Cock Eye himself had hung it, just the other night.

“Poor Cock Eye!” City Marshal Culder shook his head. “We’re goin’ to miss that boy, yes, indeedy!”

“That’s so— Don’t seem possible, does it!”

Another shook his head.

“My lan’, he was funny, too, the way he talked!” another sighed. “I tell you, he was awfully bright, that old boy!”

“Yeh! ’Member that one he got off the night Frank Hesbern come in? Hesbern, he wanted an empty bottle, an’ Cock Eye he said afterwards what Hesbern needed was a nipple on to it; yes, sir, that’s what he said! My golly, but the way he said it was comical. No sir! Long’s I live I’ll never forget it!”

“Well, boys! Le’s drink to Cock Eye Baer,” the proprietor said. “It’s on the house. Bright of tongue; everybody’s friend; always all there; big hearted and square dealing. He could crack a joke an’ handle a situation. A man’s man, old Cock Eye! He lived on the level an’ he died in his boots. Here’s how, old boy! May you rest easy where you lie tonight! It’s a deep sleep ye’re in. Here’s hoping you’ll awaken with a smile on yer lips an’ a joke on yer tongue!”

“Doggone!” somebody choked. “I can’t believe Cock Eye’s daid! It don’t seem possible!”