BooksBarbecue
Back Anything for Billy
Chapters (127)
  1. Cover Page
  2. ANYTHINGFOR BILLY
  3. Dedication
  4. PART I
  5. 1.
  6. 2.
  7. 3.
  8. 4.
  9. 5.
  10. 6.
  11. 7.
  12. 8.
  13. 9.
  14. 10.
  15. 11.
  16. 12.
  17. 13.
  18. 14.
  19. 15.
  20. 16.
  21. 17.
  22. 18.
  23. PART II
  24. 1.
  25. 2.
  26. 3.
  27. 4.
  28. 5.
  29. 6.
  30. 7.
  31. 8.
  32. 9.
  33. 10.
  34. 11.
  35. 12.
  36. 13.
  37. 14.
  38. 15.
  39. 16.
  40. 17.
  41. 18.
  42. 19.
  43. 20.
  44. 21.
  45. 22.
  46. 23.
  47. 24.
  48. 25.
  49. 26.
  50. 27.
  51. 28.
  52. 29.
  53. 30.
  54. 31.
  55. PART III
  56. 1.
  57. 2.
  58. 3.
  59. 4.
  60. 5.
  61. 6.
  62. 7.
  63. 8.
  64. 9.
  65. 10.
  66. 11.
  67. 12.
  68. 13.
  69. 14.
  70. 15.
  71. 16.
  72. 17.
  73. 18.
  74. 19.
  75. 20.
  76. 21.
  77. 22.
  78. 23.
  79. PART IV
  80. 1.
  81. 2.
  82. 3.
  83. 4.
  84. 5.
  85. 6.
  86. 7.
  87. 8.
  88. 9.
  89. 10.
  90. 11.
  91. 12.
  92. 13.
  93. 14.
  94. 15.
  95. 16.
  96. PART V
  97. 1.
  98. 2.
  99. 3.
  100. 4.
  101. 5.
  102. 6.
  103. 7.
  104. 8.
  105. 9.
  106. 10.
  107. 11.
  108. 12.
  109. 13.
  110. 14.
  111. 15.
  112. 16.
  113. 17.
  114. 18.
  115. PART VI
  116. 1.
  117. 2.
  118. 3.
  119. 4.
  120. 5.
  121. 6.
  122. 7.
  123. 8.
  124. 9.
  125. 10.
  126. 11.
  127. 12.

Those bumpy rides around the park also taught me that the only chance one had of escaping spinal injuries, kidney disease, and mental dissolution was to secure a rear seat, facing toward the horses. Stagecoaches tip to the rear; in Philadelphia this was caused by kids piling on at the back; in the West it was the result of a ton or so of mail stuffed in the baggage boot. If you sat in a rear seat you at least had the comfort of something firm to lean back against—i.e., the rear of the coach.

But if fate cast you into one of the dreadful front seats, facing away from the horses, due to the up-tip of the stage, you not only had nothing to lean back against but had to brace yourself desperately hour after hour to keep from pitching forward into the lap of whoever sat across from you.

In this case, the person sitting across from me was a sizable woman named Eliza Bargesley, traveling west with her savage quadruplets to rejoin her husband in El Paso.

Naturally I had reserved the rear seat—Galveston to El Paso looked to be an ordeal no matter how one traveled, and I wanted to give myself every chance.

But a fate almost as malicious as Billy Bone’s Death Dog caused Eliza Bargesley and her brats to book on the same coach. Naturally, being a Philadelphia gentleman, I could not let a lady, or even a woman, take the terrible front seat while I lounged in comfort against the back.

With a tip of my new wide-brimmed felt hat to Mrs. Bargesley I politely surrendered my seat.

The two men I then had to wedge myself between, a fat harness salesman named Pope and a weasel of a land speculator with elbows like razors named Brisket, looked at me as if I had lost my senses.

“See, that’s a gent, he gave us his nice seat,” Mrs. Bargesley said, seating herself directly opposite me. We were to remain thus, locked knee to knee, twenty-four hours a day for the next ten days. Long before I passed into a delirium of fatigue it seemed to me that Mrs. Bargesley and I had become a form of Siamese twins, humans joined at the knees. I realize that she had chosen me to lock knees with, rather than the vulgar Pope or the sly Brisket, but long before we reached San Antonio the honor I should have felt was overwhelmed by my urge never to see the woman or any of her get again.