The Flockmaster of Poison Creek Part 28

"It's that dad-burned Rabbit!" he said.

There was something between vexation and respect in Dad's voice. He turned to look back as he spoke. Rabbit had mounted the hilltop just across the dip, where she stood looking over at her s.h.i.+fty-footed lord, two sheep-dogs at her side.

"How did she locate you?" Mackenzie inquired, not in the least displeased over this outreaching of justice after the fickle old man.

"She's been trailin' me four years!" Dad whispered, his respect for Rabbit's powers on the scent unmistakable.

"That's a long time to hold a cold trail. Rabbit must be some on the track!"

"You can't beat them Indians follerin' a man if they set their heads to it. Well, it's all off with the widow-lady at Four Corners now--Rabbit's got me nailed. You see them sheep-dogs? Them dogs they'd jump me the minute Rabbit winked at 'em--they'd chaw me up like a couple of lions. She's raised 'em up to do it, dad-burn her! Had my old vest to learn 'em the scent."

"A man never ought to leave his old vest behind him when he runs away from his wife," said Mackenzie, soberly. "But it looks to me like a woman with the sticking qualities Rabbit's got isn't a bad one to stay married to. How in the world could a reservation squaw find her way around to follow you all this time?"

"She's educated, dang her; she went to the sisters' mission. She can read and write a sight better than me. She's too smart for a squaw, bust her greasy eyes! Yes, and I'll never dast to lay a hand on her with them dogs around. They'd chaw me up quicker'n a man could hang up his hat."

Rabbit composed herself after her patient but persistent way, sitting among the bushes with only her head showing, waiting for Dad's next move.

"You're married to her regularly, are you, Dad?"

"Priest marriage, dang it all!" said Dad, hopelessly.

"Then it _is_ all off with the one-eyed widow."

"Yes, and them four thousand sheep, and that range all under fence, dang my melts!"

"What are you going to do about Rabbit?"

"It ain't what am I goin' to do about her, John, but what she's goin'

to do about me. She'll never leave me out of her sight a minute as long as I live. I reckon I'll have to stay right here and run sheep for Tim, and that widow-lady wonderin' why I don't show up!"

"You might do worse, Dad."

"Yes, I reckon I might. Rabbit she's as good as any man on the range handlin' sheep, she can draw a man's pay wherever she goes. I guess I could put her to work, and that'd help some."

Dad brightened a bit at that prospect, and drew his breath with a new hope. Even with the widow gone from his calculations, the future didn't promise all loss.

"But I bet you I'll shoot them two dogs the first time I can draw a bead on 'em!" Dad declared.

"Maybe if you'll treat Rabbit the right way she'll sell them. Call her over, Dad; I'd like to get acquainted with her."

Dad beckoned with his hand, but Rabbit did not stir; waved his hat to emphasize his command; Rabbit remained quiet among the bushes, the top of her black head in plain view.

"She's afraid we've hatched up some kind of a trick between us to work off on her," said Dad.

"You can't blame her for being a little distrustful, Dad. But let her go; I'll meet her at your camp one of these days."

"Yes, you'll meet her over there, all right, for she's goin' to stick to me till I'm under ground. That's one time too many I married--just one time too many!"

"I suppose a man can overdo it; I've heard it said."

"If I hadn't 'a' left that blame vest!"

"Yes, that seems to be where you blundered. You'll know better next time, Dad."

"Yes, but there never will be no next time," Dad sighed.

"Have you seen Reid over your way this morning?"

"No, I ain't seen him. Is he still roamin' and restless?"

"He left yesterday; I thought he was going to the ranch."

"Didn't pa.s.s my way. That feller's off, I tell you, John; he's one of the kind that can't stand the lonesomeness. Leave him out here alone two months, and he'd put a bullet in his eye."

"It seems to me like it's a land of daftness," Mackenzie said.

"You'll find a good many cracked people all over the sheep country--I'm kind o' cracked myself. I must be, or I never would 'a' left that vest."

Dad took off his hat to smooth his sweeping curled locks, as white as shredded asbestos, and full of the same little gleams that mineral shows when a block of it from the mine is held in the sun. His beard was whitening over his face again, like a frost that defied the heat of day, easing its hollows and protuberances, easing some of the weakness that the barber's razor had laid so pitilessly bare. In a few days more he would appear himself again, and be ready for the sheep-shears in due time.

"I reckon I'll have to make the best of the place I'm in, but for a man of puncture, as the feller said, like I used to think I was, I sure did mis...o...b..bble it when I married that educated squaw. No woman I ever was married to in my life ever had sense enough to track a man like that woman's follered me. She sure is a wonder on the scent."

Patiently Rabbit was sitting among the bushes, waiting the turn of events, not to be fooled again, not to be abandoned, if vigilance could insure her against such distress. Mackenzie's admiration for the woman grew with Dad's discomfiture over his plight. There was an added flavor of satisfaction for him in the old man's blighted career. Wise Rabbit, to have a priest marriage, and wiser still to follow this old dodger of the sheeplands and bring him up with a short halter in the evening of his days.

"I'll go on back and look after them sheep," said Dad, with a certain sad inflection of resignation; "there's nothing else to _be_ done. I was aimin' to serve notice on Tim to find another man in my place, but I might as well keep on. Well, I can set in the shade, anyhow, and let Rabbit do the work--her and them blame dogs."

Dad sighed. It helped a great deal to know that Rabbit could do the work. He looked long toward the spot where his unshaken wife kept her watch on him, but seemed to be looking over her head, perhaps trying to measure all he had lost by this coming between him and the one-eyed widow-lady of Four Corners.

"I wonder if I could git you to write a letter over to that widow and tell her I'm dead?" he asked.

"I'll do it if you want me to. But you're not dead yet, Dad--you may outlive Rabbit and marry the widow at last."

"I never was no lucky man," said Dad, smoothing his gleaming hair. "A man that's married and nailed down to one place is the same as dead; he might as well be in his grave. If I'd 'a' got that widow-lady I'd 'a' had the means and the money to go ridin' around and seein' the sights from the end of one of them cars with a bra.s.s fence around it.

But I'm nailed down now, John; I'm cinched."

Dad was so melancholy over his situation that he went off without more words, a thing unheard of for him. He gave Rabbit a wide fairway as he pa.s.sed. When he was a respectable distance ahead the squaw rose from her bush and followed, such determination in her silent movements as to make Dad's hope for future freedom hollow indeed. The old man was cinched at last; Mackenzie was glad that it was so.

The sound of Carlson's sheep was still near that morning, and coming nearer, as whoever attended them ranged them slowly along. Mackenzie went a little way across the hill in that direction, but could not see the shepherd, although the sheep were spread on the slope just before him. It was a small flock, numbering not above seven hundred.

Mackenzie was puzzled why Swan wanted to employ his own or his wife's time in grazing so small a number, when four times as many could be handled as easily.

This question was to be answered for him very soon, and in a way which he never had imagined. Yet there was no foreboding of it in the calm noonday as he prepared his dinner in the shade of some welcome willows, the heat glimmering over the peaceful hills.

It was while Mackenzie sat dozing in the fringe of shade such as a hedge would cast at noonday that the snarl of fighting dogs brought him up to a realization of what was going forward among the sheep. His own flock had drifted like a slow cloud to the point of the long ridge, and there Swan Carlson's band had joined it. The two flocks were mingling now, and on the edge of the confused ma.s.s his own dogs and Carlson's were fighting.

Swan was not in sight; n.o.body seemed to be looking after the sheep; it appeared as if they had been left to drift as they might to this conjunction with Mackenzie's flock. Mackenzie believed Mrs. Carlson had abandoned her charge and fled Swan's cruelty, but he did not excuse himself for his own stupidity in allowing the flocks to come together as he ran to the place where his dogs and Carlson's fought.

The sheep were becoming more hopelessly mingled through this commotion on their flank. Mackenzie was beating the enraged dogs apart when Swan Carlson came running around the point of the hill.