Desert Dust Part 23

Captain Adams loped away, as if to town. Others went in. While I was idle at last and rather enjoying the hot sun as I sat resting upon a convenient wagon-tongue Daniel hulked to me, still snapping his ox goad.

"Haowdy?" he addressed again; and surveyed, eying every detail of my clothing.

"Howdy?" said I.

"Yu know me?"

"Your name is Daniel, isn't it?"

"No, 'tain't. It's Bonnie Bravo on the trail."

"All right, sir," said I. "Whichever you prefer."

"I 'laow we pull out this arternoon," he volunteered farther.

"I'm agreeable," I responded. "The sooner the better, where I'm concerned."

"I 'laow yu (and he p.r.o.nounced it, nasally, yee-ou) been seein' the elephant in Benton an' it skinned yu."

"I saw all of Benton I wish to see," I granted. "You've been there?"

"I won four bits, an' then yu bet I quit," he greedily proclaimed. "I was too smart for 'em. I 'laow yu're a greenie, ain't yu?"

"In some ways I am, in some ways I'm not."

"I 'laow yu aim to go through with this train to Salt Lake, do yu?"

"That's the engagement I've made with Mr. Jenks."

"Don't feel too smart, yoreself, in them new clothes?"

"No. They're all I have. They won't be new long."

"Yu bet they won't. Ain't afeared of peterin' aout on the way, be yu? I 'laow yu're sickly."

"I'll take my chances," I smiled, although he was irritating in the extreme.

"It's four hunderd mile, an' twenty mile at a stretch withaout water. Most the water's pizen, too, from hyar to the mountings."

"I'll have to drink what the rest drink, I suppose."

"I 'laow the Injuns are like to get us. They're powerful bad in that thar desert. Ain't afeared o' Injuns, be yu?"

"I'll have to take my chances on that, too, won't I?"

"They sculped a whole pa.s.sel o' surveyors, month ago," he persisted.

"Yu'll sing a different tyune arter yu've been corralled with nothin' to drink." He viciously snapped his whip, the while inspecting me as if seeking for other joints in my armor. "Yu aim to stay long in Zion?"

"I haven't planned anything about that."

"Reckon yu're wise, Mister. We don't think much o' Gentiles, yonder. We don't want 'em, nohaow. They'd all better git aout. The Saints settled that country an' it's ourn."

"If you're a sample, you're welcome to live there," I retorted. "I think I'd prefer some place else."

"Haow?" he bleated. "Thar ain't no place as good. All the rest the world has sold itself to the devil."

"How much of the world have you seen?" I asked.

"I've seen a heap. I've been as fur east as Cheyenne--I've teamed acrost twice, so I know. An' I know what the elders say; they come from the East an' some of 'em have been as fur as England. Yu can't fool me none with yore Gentile lies."

As I did not attempt, we remained in silence for a moment while he waited, provocative.

"Say, Mister," he blurted suddenly. "Kin yu shoot?"

"I presume I could if I had to. Why?"

"Becuz I'm the dangest best shot with a Colt's in this hyar train, an'

I'll shoot ye for--I'll shoot ye for (he lowered his voice and glanced about furtively)--I'll shoot ye for two bits when my paw ain't 'raound."

"I've no cartridges to waste at present," I informed. "And I don't claim to be a crack shot."

"d.a.m.n ye, I bet yu think yu are," he accused. "Yu set thar like it. All right, Mister; any time yu want to try a little poppin' yu let me know."

And with this, which struck me as a veiled threat, he lurched on, snapping that infernal whip.

He left me with the uneasy impression that he and I were due to measure strength in one way or another.

Wagon Boss Adams returned at noon. The word was given out that the train should start during the afternoon, for a short march in order to break in the new animals before tackling the real westward trail.

After a deal of bustle, of las.h.i.+ng loads and tautening covers and geeing, hawing and whoaing, about three o'clock we formed line in obedience to the commands "Stretch out, stretch out!"; and with every cask and barrel dripping, whips cracking, voices urging, children racing, the Captain Adams wagon in the lead (two pink sunbonnets upon the seat), the valorous Daniel's next, and Mormons and Gentiles ranging on down, we toiled creaking and swaying up the Benton road, amidst the eddies of hot, scalding dust.

It was a mixed train, of Gentile mules and the more numerous Mormon oxen; therefore not strictly a "bull" train, but by pace designated as such. And in the vernacular I was a "mule-whacker" or even "mule-skinner" rather than a "bull-whacker," if there is any appreciable difference in role.

There is none, I think, to the animals.

Trudging manfully at the left fore wheel behind Mr. Jenks' four span of mules, trailing my eighteen-foot tapering lash and occasionally well-nigh cutting off my own ear when I tried to throw it, I played the teamster--although sooth to say there was little of play in the job, on that road, at that time of the day.

The sun was more vexatious, being an hour lower, when we bravely entered Benton's boiling main street. We made brief halt for the finis.h.i.+ng up of business; and cleaving a lane through the pedestrians and vehicles and animals there congregated, the challenges of the street gamblers having a.s.sailed us in vain, we proceeded--our Mormons gazing straight ahead, scornful of the devil's enticements, our few Gentiles responding in kind to the quips and waves and salutations.

Thus we eventually left Benton; in about an hour's march or some three miles out we formed corral for camp on the farther side of the road from the railroad tracks which we had been skirting.

Travel, except upon the tracks (for they were rarely vacant) ceased at sundown; and we all, having eaten our suppers, were sitting by our fires, smoking and talking, with the sky crimson in the west and the desert getting mysterious with purple shadows, when as another construction train of box cars and platform cars clanked by I chanced to note a figure spring out asprawl, alight with a whiffle of sand, and staggering up hasten for us.

First it accosted the hulk Daniel, who was temporarily out on herd, keeping the animals from the tracks. I saw him lean from his saddle; then he rode spurring in, bawling like a calf:

"Paw! Paw! Hey, yu-all! Thar's a woman yonder in britches an' she 'laows to come on. She's lookin' for Mister Jenks."

Save for his excited stuttering silence reigned, a minute. Then in a storm of rude raillery--"That's a hoss on you, George!" "Didn't know you owned one o' them critters, George," "Does she wear the britches, George?" and so forth--my friend Jenks arose, peering, his whiskered mouth so agape that he almost dropped his pipe. And we all peered, with the women of the caravan smitten mute but intensely curious, while the solitary figure, braving our stares, came on to the fires.

"Gawd almighty!" Mr. Jenks delivered.