Curly Part 5

The patrone and his lady were making a feast for their son; the cowboys were busy as a swarm of bees decorating the great hall; the padre fluttered about like a black moth, getting in everybody's way; so Curly and I rode out on the Lordsburgh trail to meet up with the Honourable Jim.

"I hate him!" Curly snarled.

"Why for, boy?"

"Dunno. I hate him!"

I told Curly about my first meeting with that same little boy Jim, aged six, and him turning his hot gun loose against hostile Indians, shooting gay and promiscuous, scared of nothing.

"I hate him," snarled Curly between his teeth. "Last night the lady was reading to me yonder, on the roof-top."

"Well?"

"There was a big chief on the range, an old long-horn called Abraham, and his lil' ole squaw Sarah. They'd a boy in their lodge like me, another woman's kid, not a son, but good enough for them while they was plumb lonely. That Ishmael colt was sure wild--came of bad stock, like me. 'His hand,' says the book, 'will be up agin every man, and every man's hand agin him.' I reckon that colt came of robber stock, same as me, but I allow they liked him some until their own son came. Then their own son came--a sh.o.r.ely heap big warrior called Isaac--and the old folks, they didn't want no more outlaw colts running loose around on their pasture. They sh.o.r.ely turned that Ishmael out to die in the desert. Look up thar, Chalkeye, in the north, and you'll see this Isaac a-coming on the dead run for home."

"Curly," says I, "this young chief won't have no use for old Chalkeye; he'll want to be boss on his own home range, and it's time he started in responsible to run Holy Cross. At the month's end I quit from this outfit, and I'm taking up a ranche five miles on the far side of Grave City. Thanks to the patrone, I've saved ponies and cattle enough to stock my little ranche yonder. Will you come at forty dollars a month, and punch cows for Chalkeye?"

"No, I won't, never. I come from the Wolf Pack, and I'm going back to the Wolf Pack to be a wolf. That's where I belong--thar in the desert!"

He swept out his hand to the north, and there, over a rise of the ground, I saw young Jim du Chesnay coming, on the dead run for home.

CHAPTER VI

MY RANGE WHELPS WHIMPERING

Now that I have won through the dull beginning of this story, I've just got to stop and pat myself before going on any further. There were steep bits on the trail where I panted for words, rocks where I stumbled, holes where I bogged down to the hocks, cross-roads where I curved around lost. At the best I'd a poor eye, a lame tongue, and a heap big inclination to lie down and quit; so I've done sure fine to keep a-going. Ride me patient still, for I'm near the beginning of the troubles which picked up Jim, Curly, and me, to whirl us along like a hurricane afire. Soon we'll break gait from a limp to a trot, from trot to canter, then from lope to gallop.

I suppose I had better explain some about Grave City, and how it got to have such a cheerful name. That was away back in 1878, when two prospectors, Ed Schieffelin and his brother, pulled out to explore the desert down by the Mexican boundary. The boys allowed they'd better take their coffins along with them, because if they missed being scalped by Apaches, or wiped out by border ruffians, or starved to death, they would surely perish of thirst. "The only thing you boys will find is your grave."

Well, they called their discovery Grave City, but it was one of the richest silver-mines on earth, and a city grew up here in the desert.

For the first few years it was most surely hot, full of artists painting the town red, and shooting each other up with a quick gun. That was the time of Mankiller Johnson, Curly Bill, Roosian George, Brazelton of Tucson, the robber, and a young gentleman aged twenty-two, called Billy the Kid, who wiped out twenty fellow-citizens and followed them rapid to a still warmer climate. When these gentlemen had shot each other for their country's good, and a great many more died a natural death by being lynched, the city got more peaceful. In the second year it was burnt, and entirely rebuilt in a fortnight. The first large gambling joint was called the "Sepulchre," the first weekly paper was the Weekly Obituary, and in the eighth year Mr. Ryan built his hotel--the "Mortuary." That was in 1886, the year of the Apache raids, when I went with the new patrone to Holy Cross. Twelve years I rode for Balshannon, then, Jim being in his eighteenth year, took charge as foreman and major-domo of that grand old ranche.

It was the 4th of July, 1900, before I saw that youngster again. We gathered at Grave City then to celebrate the birthday of our great republic, and it does me good every time to see our flag Old Glory waving above the cities of freedom. The Honourable Jim must needs run a mare of his at the races, the same, as I told him, being suitable meat to bait traps.

I made him an offer for that mare; ten cents for her tail as a fly switch, a dollar for her hide, and a five-cent rim-fire cigar if he would dispose of the other remains. He raced her, lost one thousand dollars, and came to me humble for the money to pay his debts. I told him to burn his own paws in his own fire, and be content with his own howls.

"They're debts of honour!" says he.

"Debts of dishonour, and you're the Dishonourable James du Idiot.

There's your travelling pony been standing saddled all day in the blazing heat without a feed or a drink. You call yourself a horseman?"

Afterwards we smoothed our fur, and had our supper together. Jim promised to be good, go home, do his honest cowboy work, and look after the poor lone lady who was dying by inches at Holy Cross.

Yet I was proud of that boy, keen, fierce, stubborn as a wild a.s.s, with the air and temper of a thoroughbred, and a laugh which spoiled me for preaching. He was smart, too, in a new s.h.i.+rt of white silk, a handkerchief round his neck striped cream and rose colour, Mexican trousers of yellow leather studded down the seams with lumps of turquoise stones in silver settings, big silver spurs, and on his belt a silver-mounted 45-Colt revolver. I've got no earthly use for a boy who slouches. At supper, while I preached, he called me an old fool for caring when he was bad. Then he told me good-bye in the dusk, and set off on his hundred-mile trail for Holy Cross.

I rode home thoughtful, and lay long awake in my little dobe cabin at Las Salinas, thinking about that boy, whose mother was sick, and his father riding to sure destruction, a gambler, a drunkard, hopeless, lost--the best friend I ever had in the world. When I woke the faint light of dawn shone through the cabin window, and brightened the saddles on the wall. Something was touching my face, something cold, so I grabbed it quick--a little small hand. Then I heard Curly's low, queer laugh. "You, Chalkeye!" he whispered.

He was sitting on the stool beside my bunk, dead weary, covered with dust from the trail. Somehow the boy seemed to have got smaller instead of growing up, and he sure looked weak and delicate for such a life as he led. Twenty years old? He didn't seem fifteen, and yet he spoke old-fas.h.i.+oned, heaps wise and experienced.

"Whar you from?" says I, yawning.

"Speak low, and no questions," said Curly in a hard voice, for on the range we never ask a guest his name, or where he comes from, or which way he goes. When he comes we don't need to tell him any welcome; when he goes we say, 'Adios!' for he'll sure have need of an Almighty Father out in the desert.

"Chalkeye," says my wolf, "are you alone?"

"Sure."

"No boys over thar in yo' ram pasture?"

"My riders is wolfing in Grave City, but they'll stray back 'fore noon."

"Hide me up in yo' barn fo' the day, then."

"An yo' horse, Curly?"

"Say you won him last night at cyards. We'll hide the saddle."

"Have coffee first?"

"I surely will," and kneeling stiff, weary by the hearth, he began to make up a fire.

"There's a notice up for you, Curly. They're offering two thousand dollars dead or alive."

"For robbing that Union Pacific train?"

"I reckon."

"Chalkeye, did you ever know me to lie?"

"None, Curly."

"Then you'll believe me. I wasn't there when our wolves got that train.

I've never done no robberies, ever yet."

"I hope you never may."

"Sometimes I hope so too." He was holding up his hands before the fire.

"How's the patrone?" he asked, as he put on the coffee-pot to boil.

"Going downhill rapid. He's mortgaged Holy Cross to the last dollar."

"What's his play?"

"Faro and monte--you'll see him bucking the game all night down at the Sepulchre. He drinks hard now."