Two Renegades

by O. Henry

　　

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In the Gate City of the South the Confederate Veterans were reuniting;and I stood to see them march, beneath the tangled flags of the greatconflict, to the hall of their oratory and commemoration.While the irregular and halting line was passing I made onslaught uponit and dragged from the ranks my friend Barnard O'Keefe, who had noright to be there. For he was a Northerner born and bred; and whatshould he be doing halloing for the Stars and Bars among those grayand moribund veterans? And why should he be trudging, with hisshining, martial, humorous, broad face, among those warriors of aprevious and alien generation?I say I dragged him forth, and held him till the last hickory leg andwaving goatee had stumbled past. And then I hustled him out of thecrowd into a cool interior; for the Gate City was stirred that day,and the hand-organs wisely eliminated "Marching Through Georgia" fromtheir repertories."Now, what deviltry are you up to?" I asked of O'Keefe when there werea table and things in glasses between us.O'Keefe wiped his heated face and instigated a commotion among thefloating ice in his glass before he chose to answer."I am assisting at the wake," said he, "of the only nation on earththat ever did me a good turn. As one gentleman to another, I amratifying and celebrating the foreign policy of the late JeffersonDavis, as fine a statesman as ever settled the financial question of acountry. Equal ratio--that was his platform--a barrel of money for abarrel of flour--a pair of $20 bills for a pair of boots--a hatful ofcurrency for a new hat--say, ain't that simple compared with W. J. B'slittle old oxidized plank?""What talk is this?" I asked. "Your financial digression is merely asubterfuge. Why were you marching in the ranks of the ConfederateVeterans?""Because, my lad," answered O'Keefe, "the Confederate Government inits might and power interposed to protect and defend Barnard O'Keefeagainst immediate and dangerous assassination at the hands of a blood-thirsty foreign country after the Unites States of America hadoverruled his appeal for protection, and had instructed PrivateSecretary Cortelyou to reduce his estimate of the Republican majorityfor 1905 by one vote.""Come, Barney," said I, "the Confederate States of America has beenout of existence nearly forty years. You do not look older yourself.When was it that the deceased government exerted its foreign policy inyour behalf?""Four months ago," said O'Keefe, promptly. "The infamous foreign powerI alluded to is still staggering from the official blow dealt it byMr. Davis's contraband aggregation of states. That's why you see mecake-walking with the ex-rebs to the illegitimate tune about 'simmon-seeds and cotton. I vote for the Great Father in Washington, but I amnot going back on Mars' Jeff. You say the Confederacy has been deadforty years? Well, if it hadn't been for it, I'd have been breathingto-day with soul so dead I couldn't have whispered a single cuss-wordabout my native land. The O'Keefes are not overburdened withingratitude."I must have looked bewildered. "The war was over," I said vacantly,"in--"O'Keefe laughed loudly, scattering my thoughts."Ask old Doc Millikin if the war is over!" he shouted, hugelydiverted. "Oh, no! Doc hasn't surrendered yet. And the ConfederateStates! Well, I just told you they bucked officially and solidly andnationally against a foreign government four months ago and kept mefrom being shot. Old Jeff's country stepped in and brought me offunder its wing while Roosevelt was having a gunboat repainted andwaiting for the National Campaign Committee to look up whether I hadever scratched the ticket.""Isn't there a story in this, Barney?" I asked."No," said O'Keefe; "but I'll give you the facts. You know I went downto Panama when this irritation about a canal began. I thought I'd getin on the ground floor. I did, and had to sleep on it, and drink waterwith little zoos in it; so, of course, I got the Chagres fever. Thatwas in a little town called San Juan on the coast."After I got the fever hard enough to kill a Port-au-Prince nigger, Ihad a relapse in the shape of Doc Millikin."There was a doctor to attend a sick man! If Doc Millikin had yourcase, he made the terrors of death seem like an invitation to adonkey-party. He had the bedside manners of a Piute medicine-man andthe soothing presence of a dray loaded with iron bridge-girders. Whenhe laid his hand on your fevered brow you felt like Cap John Smithjust before Pocahontas went his bail."Well, this old medical outrage floated down to my shack when I sentfor him. He was build like a shad, and his eyebrows was black, and hiswhite whiskers trickled down from his chin like milk coming out of asprinkling-pot. He had a nigger boy along carrying an old tomato-canfull of calomel, and a saw."Doc felt my pulse, and then he began to mess up some calomel with anagricultural implement that belonged to the trowel class."'I don't want any death-mask made yet, Doc,' I says, 'nor my liverput in a plaster-of-Paris cast. I'm sick; and it's medicine I need,not frescoing.'"'You're a blame Yankee, ain't you?' asked Doc, going on mixing up hisPortland cement."'I'm from the North,' says I, 'but I'm a plain man, and don't carefor mural decorations. When you get the Isthmus all asphalted overwith that boll-weevil prescription, would you mind giving me a dose ofpain-killer, or a little strychnine on toast to ease up this feelingof unhealthiness that I have got?""'They was all sassy, just like you,' says old Doc, 'but we loweredtheir temperature considerable. Yes, sir, I reckon we sent a good manyof ye over to old /mortuis nisi bonum/. Look at Antietam and Bull Runand Seven Pines and around Nashville! There never was a battle wherewe didn't lick ye unless you was ten to our one. I knew you were ablame Yankee the minute I laid eyes on you.'"'Don't reopen the chasm, Doc,' I begs him. 'Any Yankeeness I may haveis geographical; and, as far as I am concerned, a Southerner is asgood as a Filipino any day. I'm feeling to bad too argue. Let's havesecession without misrepresentation, if you say so; but what I need ismore laudanum and less Lundy's Lane. If you're mixing that compoundgefloxide of gefloxicum for me, please fill my ears with it before youget around to the battle of Gettysburg, for there is a subject full oftalk.'"By this time Doc Millikin had thrown up a line of fortifications onsquare pieces of paper; and he says to me: 'Yank, take one of thesepowders every two hours. They won't kill you. I'll be around againabout sundown to see if you're alive.'"Old Doc's powders knocked the chagres. I stayed in San Juan, and gotto knowing him better. He was from Mississippi, and the red-hottestSoutherner that ever smelled mint. He made Stonewall Jackson and R. E.Lee look like Abolitionists. He had a family somewhere down near YazooCity; but he stayed away from the States on account of anuncontrollable liking he had for the absence of a Yankee government.Him and me got as thick personally as the Emperor of Russia and thedove of peace, but sectionally we didn't amalgamate."'Twas a beautiful system of medical practice introduced by old Docinto that isthmus of land. He'd take that bracket-saw and the mildchloride and his hypodermic, and treat anything from yellow fever to apersonal friend."Besides his other liabilities Doc could play a flute for a minute ortwo. He was guilty of two tunes--'Dixie' and another one that wasmighty close to the 'Suwanee River'--you might say one of itstributaries. He used to come down and sit with me while I was gettingwell, and aggrieve his flute and say unreconstructed things about theNorth. You'd have thought that the smoke from the first gun at FortSumter was still floating around in the air."You know that was about the time they staged them propertyrevolutions down there, that wound up in the fifth act with thethrilling canal scene where Uncle Sam has nine curtain-calls holdingMiss Panama by the hand, while the bloodhounds keep Senator Morgantreed up in a cocoanut-palm."That's the way it wound up; but at first it seemed as if Colombia wasgoing to make Panama look like one of the $3.98 kind, with dents madein it in the factory, like they wear at North Beach fish fries. Formine, I played the straw-hat crowd to win; and they gave me acolonel's commission over a brigade of twenty-seven men in the leftwing and second joint of the insurgent army."The Colombian troops were awfully rude to us. One day when I had mybrigade in a sandy spot, with its shoes off doing a battalion drill bysquads, the Government army rushed from behind a bush at us, acting asnoisy and disagreeable as they could."My troops enfiladed, left-faced, and left the spot. After enticingthe enemy for three miles or so we struck a brier-patch and had to sitdown. When we were ordered to throw up our toes and surrender weobeyed. Five of my best staff-officers fell, suffering extremely withstone-bruised heels."Then and there those Colombians took your friend Barney, sir,stripped him of the insignia of his rank, consisting of a pair ofbrass knuckles and a canteen of rum, and dragged him before a militarycourt. The presiding general went through the usual legal formalitiesthat sometimes cause a case to hang on the calendar of a SouthAmerican military court as long as ten minutes. He asked me my age,and then sentenced me to be shot."They woke up the court interpreter, an American named Jenks, who wasin the rum business and vice versa, and told him to translate theverdict."Jenks stretched himself and took a morphine tablet."'You've got to back up against th' 'dobe, old man,' says he to me.'Three weeks, I believe, you get. Haven't got a chew of fine-cut onyou, have you?'"'Translate that again, with foot-notes and a glossary,' says I. 'Idon't know whether I'm discharged, condemned, or handed over to theGerry Society.'"'Oh,' says Jenks, 'don't you understand? You're to be stood upagainst a 'dobe wall and shot in two or three weeks--three, I think,they said.'"'Would you mind asking 'em which?' says I. 'A week don't amount tomuch after you're dead, but it seems a real nice long spell while youare alive.'"'It's two weeks,' says the interpreter, after inquiring in Spanish ofthe court. 'Shall I ask 'em again?'"'Let be,' says I. 'Let's have a stationary verdict. If I keep onappealing this way they'll have me shot about ten days before I wascaptured. No, I haven't got any fine-cut.'"They sends me over to the /calaboza/ with a detachment of colouredpostal-telegraph boys carrying Enfield rifles, and I am locked up in akind of brick bakery. The temperature in there was just about the kindmentioned in the cooking recipes that call for a quick oven."Then I gives a silver dollar to one of the guards to send for theUnited States consul. He comes around in pajamas, with a pair ofglasses on his nose and a dozen or two inside of him."'I'm to be shot in two weeks,' says I. 'And although I've made amemorandum of it, I don't seem to get it off my mind. You want to callup Uncle Sam on the cable as quick as you can and get him all workedup about it. Have 'em send the /Kentucky/ and the /Kearsage/ and the/Oregon/ down right away. That'll be about enough battleships; but itwouldn't hurt to have a couple of cruisers and a torpedo-boatdestroyer, too. And--say, if Dewey isn't busy, better have him comealong on the fastest one of the fleet.'"'Now, see here, O'Keefe,' says the consul, getting the best of ahiccup, 'what do you want to bother the State Department about thismatter for?'"'Didn't you hear me?' says I; 'I'm to be shot in two weeks. Did youthink I said I was going to a lawn-party? And it wouldn't hurt ofRoosevelt could get the Japs to send down the /Yellowyamtiskookum/ orthe /Ogotosingsing/ or some other first-class cruisers to help. Itwould make me feel safer.'"'Now, what you want,' says the consul, 'is not to get excited. I'llsend you over some chewing tobacco and some banana fritters when I goback. The United States can't interfere in this. You know you werecaught insurging against the government, and you're subject to thelaws of this country. To tell the truth, I've had an intimation fromthe State Department--unofficially, of course--that whenever a soldierof fortune demands a fleet of gunboats in a case of revolutionary/katzenjammer/, I should cut the cable, give him all the tobacco hewants, and after he's shot take his clothes, if they fit me, for partpayment of my salary.'"'Consul,' says I to him, 'this is a serious question. You arerepresenting Uncle Sam. This ain't any little internationaltomfoolery, like a universal peace congress or the christening of the/Shamrock IV/. I'm an American citizen and I demand protection. Idemand the Mosquito fleet, and Schley, and the Atlantic squadron, andBob Evans, and General E. Byrd Grubb, and two or three protocols. Whatare you going to do about it?'"'Nothing doing,' says the consul."'Be off with you, then,' says I, out of patience with him, 'and sendme Doc Millikin. Ask Doc to come and see me.'"Doc comes and looks through the bars at me, surrounded by dirtysoldiers, with even my shoes and canteen confiscated, and he looksmightily pleased."'Hello, Yank,' says he, 'getting a little taste of Johnson's Island,now, ain't ye?'"'Doc,' says I, 'I've just had an interview with the U.S. consul. Igather from his remarks that I might just as well have been caughtselling suspenders in Kishineff under the name of Rosenstein as to bein my present condition. It seems that the only maritime aid I am toreceive from the United States is some navy-plug to chew. Doc,' saysI, 'can't you suspend hostility on the slavery question long enough todo something for me?'"'It ain't been my habit,' Doc Millikin answers, 'to do any painlessdentistry when I find a Yank cutting an eye-tooth. So the Stars andStripes ain't lending any marines to shell the huts of the Colombiancannibals, hey? Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light thestar-spangled banner has fluked in the fight? What's the matter withthe War Department, hey? It's a great thing to be a citizen of a gold-standard nation, ain't it?'"'Rub it in, Doc, all you want,' says I. 'I guess we're weak onforeign policy.'"'For a Yank,' says Doc, putting on his specs and talking more mild,'you ain't so bad. If you had come from below the line I reckon Iwould have liked you right smart. Now since your country has gone backon you, you have to come to the old doctor whose cotton you burned andwhose mules who stole and whose niggers you freed to help you. Ain'tthat so, Yank?'"'It is,' says I heartily, 'and let's have a diagnosis of the caseright away, for in two weeks' time all you can do is to hold anautopsy and I don't want to be amputated if I can help it.'"'Now,' says Doc, business-like, 'it's easy enough for you to get outof this scrape. Money'll do it. You've got to pay a long string of 'emfrom General Pomposo down to this anthropoid ape guarding your door.About $10,000 will do the trick. Have you got the money?'"'Me?' says I. 'I've got one Chili dollar, two /real/ pieces, and a/medio/.'"'Then if you've any last words, utter 'em,' says that old reb. 'Theroster of your financial budget sounds quite much to be like the noiseof a requiem.'"'Change the treatment,' says I. 'I admit that I'm short. Call aconsultation or use radium or smuggle me in some saws or something.'"'Yank,' says Doc Millikin, 'I've a good notion to help you. There'sonly one government in the world that can get you out of thisdifficulty; and that's the Confederate States of America, the grandestnation that ever existed.'"Just as you said to me I says to Doc; 'Why, the Confederacy ain't anation. It's been absolved forty years ago.'"'That's a campaign lie,' says Doc. 'She's running along as solid asthe Roman Empire. She's the only hope you've got. Now, you, being aYank, have got to go through with some preliminary obsequies beforeyou can get official aid. You've got to take the oath of allegiance tothe Confederate Government. Then I'll guarantee she does all she canfor you. What do you say, Yank?--it's your last chance.'"'If you're fooling with me, Doc,' I answers, 'you're no better thanthe United States. But as you say it's the last chance, hurry up andswear me. I always did like the corn whisky and 'possum anyhow. Ibelieve I'm half Southerner by nature. I'm willing to try the Klu-kluxin place of the khaki. Get brisk.'"Doc Millikin thinks awhile, and then he offers me this oath ofallegiance to take without any kind of a chaser:"'I, Barnard O'Keefe, Yank, being of sound body but a Republican mind,hereby swear to transfer my fealty, respect, and allegiance to theConfederate States of America, and the government thereof inconsideration of said government, through its official acts andpowers, obtaining my freedom and release from confinement and sentenceof death brought about by the exuberance of my Irish proclivities andmy general pizenness as a Yank.'"I repeated these words after Doc, but they seemed to me a kind ofhocus-pocus; and I don't believe any life-insurance company in theworld would have issued me a policy on the strength of 'em."Doc went away saying he would communicate with his governmentimmediately."Say--you can imagine how I felt--me to be shot in two weeks and myonly hope for help being in a government that's been dead so long thatit isn't even remembered except on Decoration Day and when Joe Wheelersigns the voucher for his pay-check. But it was all there was insight; and somehow I thought Doc Millikin had something up his oldalpaca sleeve that wasn't all foolishness."Around to the jail comes old Doc again in about a week. I was flea-bitten, a mite sarcastic, and fundamentally hungry."'Any Confederate ironclads in the offing?' I asks. 'Do you notice anysounds resembling the approach of Jeb Stewart's cavalry overland orStonewall Jackson sneaking up in the rear? If you do, I wish you'd sayso.'"'It's too soon yet for help to come,' says Doc."'The sooner the better,' says I. 'I don't care if it gets in fullyfifteen minutes before I am shot; and if you happen to lay eyes onBeauregard or Albert Sidney Johnston or any of the relief corps, wig-wag 'em to hike along.'"'There's been no answer received yet,' says Doc."'Don't forget,' says I, 'that there's only four days more. I don'tknow how you propose to work this thing, Doc,' I says to him; 'but itseems to me I'd sleep better if you had got a government that wasalive and on the map--like Afghanistan or Great Britain, or old manKruger's kingdom, to take this matter up. I don't mean any disrespectto your Confederate States, but I can't help feeling that my chancesof being pulled out of this scrape was decidedly weakened when GeneralLee surrendered.'"'It's your only chance,' said Doc; 'don't quarrel with it. What didyour own country do for you?'"It was only two days before the morning I was to be shot, when DocMillikin came around again."'All right, Yank,' says he. 'Help's come. The Confederate States ofAmerica is going to apply for your release. The representatives of thegovernment arrived on a fruit-steamer last night.'"'Bully!' says I--'bully for you, Doc! I suppose it's marines with aGatling. I'm going to love your country all I can for this.'"'Negotiations,' says old Doc, 'will be opened between the twogovernments at once. You will know later to-day if they aresuccessful.'"About four in the afternoon a soldier in red trousers brings a paperround to the jail, and they unlocks the door and I walks out. Theguard at the door bows and I bows, and I steps into the grass andwades around to Doc Millikin's shack."Doc was sitting in his hammock playing 'Dixie,' soft and low and outof tune, on his flute. I interrupted him at 'Look away! look away!'and shook his hand for five minutes."'I never thought,' says Doc, taking a chew fretfully, 'that I'd evertry to save any blame Yank's life. But, Mr. O'Keefe, I don't see butwhat you are entitled to be considered part human, anyhow. I neverthought Yanks had any of the rudiments of decorum and laudabilityabout them. I reckon I might have been too aggregative in mytabulation. But it ain't me you want to thank--it's the ConfederateStates of America.'"'And I'm much obliged to 'em,' says I. 'It's a poor man that wouldn'tbe patriotic with a country that's saved his life. I'll drink to theStars and Bars whenever there's a flagstaff and a glass convenient.But where,' says I, 'are the rescuing troops? If there was a gun firedor a shell burst, I didn't hear it.'"Doc Millikin raises up and points out the window with his flute atthe banana-steamer loading with fruit."'Yank,' says he, 'there's a steamer that's going to sail in themorning. If I was you, I'd sail on it. The Confederate Government'sdone all it can for you. There wasn't a gun fired. The negotiationswere carried on secretly between the two nations by the purser of thatsteamer. I got him to do it because I didn't want to appear in it.Twelve thousand dollars was paid to the officials in bribes to let yougo.'"'Man!' says I, sitting down hard--'twelve thousand--how will I ever--who could have--where did the money come from?'"'Yazoo City,' says Doc Millikin: 'I've got a little saved up there.Two barrels full. It looks good to these Colombians. 'Twas Confederatemoney, every dollar of it. Now do you see why you'd better leavebefore they try to pass some of it on an expert?'"'I do,' says I."'Now let's hear you give the password,' says Doc Millikin."'Hurrah for Jeff Davis!' says I."'Correct,' says Doc. 'And let me tell you something: The next tune Ilearn on my flute is going to be "Yankee Doodle." I reckon there'ssome Yanks that are not so pizen. Or, if you was me, would you try"The Red, White, and Blue"?'"

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