Wolfville Nights Part 11

"It so turns out; the Bob-cat's thar as cool as wild plums. He's dressed in his best blankets an' leggin's; an' his feathers an' gay colours makes him a overwhelmin' match for peac.o.c.ks. Thar's a white spot painted over his heart.

"The chief of the Osages, who's present to see jestice done, motions to the Bob-cat, an' that gent steps to a red blanket an' stands on its edge with all the blanket spread in front of him on the gra.s.s. The Bob-cat stands on the edge, as he saveys when he's plugged that he'll fall for'ard on his face. When a gent gets the gaff for sh.o.r.e, he falls for'ard. If a party is. .h.i.t an' falls back'ards, you needn't get excited none; he's only creased an' 'll get over it.

"Wherefore, as I states, the Bob-cat stands on the edge of the blanket so it's spread out in front to catch him as he drops. Thar's not a word spoke by either the Bob-cat or the onlookers, the latter openin'

out into a lane behind so the lead can go through. When the Bob-cat's ready, his cousin, a buck whose name is Little Feather, walks to the front of the blanket an' comes down careful with his Winchester on the white mark over the Bob-cat's heart. Thar's a moment's silence as the Bob-cat's cousin runs his eye through the sights; thar's a flash an' a hatful of gray smoke; the white spot turns red with blood; an' then the Bob-cat falls along on his face as soft as a sack of corn.

"What becomes of the Lance? It's two weeks later when that scientist is waited on by a delegation of Osages. They reminds him that Sunbright has two sisters, the same bein' now widows by virchoo of the demise of that egreegious Black Cloud. Also, the Black Cloud was rich; his teepee was sumptuous, an' he's left a buckskin coat with ivory elk teeth sewed onto it plenty as stars at night. The coat is big medicine; moreover thar's the milk-white big medicine bronco with red eyes. The Osage delegation puts forth these trooths while the Lance sets cross-laiged on a b'arskin an' smokes willow bark with much dignity. In the finish, the Osage outfit p'ints up to the fact that their tribe is shy a medicine man, an' a gent of the Lance's accomplishments who can charm anamiles an' lame broncos will be a mighty welcome addition to the Osage body politic. The Lance lays down his pipe at this an' says, 'It is enough!' An' the next day he sallies over an' weds them two relicts of Black Cloud an' succeeds to that dead necromancer's estate an' both at one fell swoop. The two widows chuckles an' grins after the manner of ladies, to get a new husband so swift; an' abandonin' his lodge on the Polecat the Lance sets up his game at Greyhoss, an' onless he's petered, he's thar dealin' it yet."

CHAPTER VIII.

Tom and Jerry; Wheelers.

"Obstinacy or love, that a-way, when folks pushes 'em to excess, is sh.o.r.e bad medicine. Which I'd be aheap loath to count the numbers them two attribootes harries to the tomb. Why, son, it's them sentiments that kills off my two wheel mules, Tom an' Jerry."

The Old Cattleman appeared to be on the verge of abstract discussion. As a metaphysician, he was not to be borne with. There was one method of escape; I interfered to coax the currents of his volubility into other and what were to me, more interesting channels.

"Tell me of the trail; or a story about animals," I urged. "You were saying recently that perfect systems of oral if not verbal communication existed among mules, and that you had listened for hours to their gossip.

Give me the history of one of your freighting trips and what befell along the trail; and don't forget the comment thereon--wise, doubtless, it was--of your long-eared servants of the rein and trace-chain."

"Tell you what chances along the trail? Son, you-all opens a wide-flung range for my mem'ry to graze over. I might tell you how I'm lost once, freightin' from Vegas into the Panhandle, an' am two days without water--blazin' Jooly days so hot you couldn't touch tire, chain, or bolt-head without fryin' your fingers. An' how at the close of the second day when I hauls in at Cabra Springs, I lays down by that cold an'

blessed fountain an' drinks till I aches. Which them two days of thirst terrorises me to sech degrees that for one plumb year tharafter, I never meets up with water when I don't drink a quart, an' act like I'm layin'

in ag'in another parched spell.

"Or I might relate how I stops over one night from Springer on my way to the Canadian at a Triangle-dot camp called Kingman. This yere is a one-room stone house, stark an' sullen an' alone on the desolate plains, an' no scenery worth namin' but a half-grown feeble spring. This Kingman ain't got no windows; its door is four-inch thick of oak; an' thar's loopholes for rifles in each side which shows the sports who builds that edifice in the stormy long-ago is lookin' for more trouble than comfort an' prepares themse'fs. The two cow-punchers I finds in charge is scared to a standstill; they allows this Kingman's ha'nted. They tells me how two parties who once abides thar--father an' son they be--gets downed by a hold-up whose aim is pillage, an' who comes cavortin' along an'

butchers said fam'ly in their sleep. The cow-punchers declar's they hears the spooks go scatterin' about the room as late as the night before I trails in. I ca'ms 'em--not bein' subject to nerve stampedes myse'f, an' that same midnight when the sperits comes ha'ntin' about ag'in, I turns outen my blankets an' lays said spectres with the b.u.t.t of my mule whip--the same when we strikes a light an' counts 'em up bein' a couple of kangaroo rats. This yere would front up for a mighty thrillin' tale if I throws myse'f loose with its reecital an' daubs in the colour plenty vivid an' free.

"Then thar's the time I swings over to the K-bar-8 ranch for corn--bein'

I'm out of said cereal--an' runs up on a cow gent, spurs, gun-belt, big hat an' the full regalia, hangin' to the limb of a cottonwood, dead as George the Third, an' not a hundred foot from the ranch door. An' how inside I finds a half-dozen more cow folks, lookin' grave an' sayin'

nothin'; an' the ranch manager has a b.l.o.o.d.y bandage about his for'ead, an' another holdin' up his left arm, half bandage an' half sling, the toot ensemble, as Colonel Sterett calls it, showin' sech recent war that the blood's still wet on the cloths an' drops on the floor as we talks.

An' how none of us says a word about the dead gent in the cottonwood or of the manager who's shot up; an' how that same manager outfits me with ten sacks of mule-food an' I goes p'intin' out for the Southeast an'

forgets all I sees an' never mentions it ag'in.

"Then thar's Sim Booth of the Fryin' Pan outfit, who's one evenin' camped with me at Antelope Springs; an' who saddles up an' ropes onto the laigs of a dead Injun where they're stickin' forth--bein' washed free by the rains--an' pulls an' rolls that copper-coloured departed outen his sepulchre a lot, an' then starts his pony off at a canter an' sort o'

fritters the remains about the landscape. Sim does this on the argyment that the obsequies, former, takes place too near the spring. This yere Sim's pony two months later steps in a dog hole when him an' Sim's goin'

along full swing with some cattle on a stampede, an' the cayouse falls on Sim an' breaks everything about him incloosive of his neck. The other cow-punchers allers allow it's because Sim turns out that aborigine over by Antelope Springs. Now sech a eepisode, properly elab'rated, might feed your attention an' hold it spellbound some.

"Son, if I was to turn myse'f loose on, great an' little, the divers incidents of the trail, it would consoome days in the relation. I could tell of cactus flowers, blazin' an' brilliant as a eye of red fire ag'in the brown dusk of the deserts; or of mile-long fields of Spanish bayonet in bloom; or of some Mexican's doby s.h.i.+nin' like a rooby in the sunlight a day's journey ahead, the same one onbroken ma.s.s from roof to ground of the peppers they calls _chili_, all reddenin' in the hot glare of the day.

"Or, if you has a fancy for stirrin' incident an' lively scenes, thar's a time when the rains has raised the old Canadian ontil that quicksand ford at Tascosa--which has done eat a hundred teams if ever it swallows one!--is torn up complete an' the bottom of the river nothin' save b'ilin' sand with a shallow yere an' a hole deep enough to drown a house scooped out jest beyond. An' how since I can't pause a week or two for the river to run down an' the ford to settle, I goes spraddlin' an'

tumblin' an' swimmin' across on Tom, my nigh wheeler, opens negotiations with the LIT ranch, an' Bob Roberson, has his riders round-up the pasture, an' comes chargin' down to the ford with a bunch of one thousand ponies, all of 'em dancin' an' buckin' an' prancin' like chil'en outen school. Roberson an' the LIT boys throws the thousand broncos across an'

across the ford for mighty likely it's fifty times. They'd flash 'em through--the whole band together--on the run; an' then round 'em up on the opp'site bank, turn 'em an' jam 'em through ag'in. When they ceases, the bottom of the river is tramped an' beat out as hard an' as flat as a floor, an' I hooks up an' brings the waggons over like the ford--bottomless quicksand a hour prior--is one of these yere asphalt streets.

"Or I might relate about a cowboy tournament that's held over in the flat green bottom of Parker's arroya; an' how Jack Coombs throws a rope an'

fastens at one hundred an' four foot, while Waco Simpson rides at the herd of cattle one hundred foot away, ropes, throws an' ties down a partic'lar steer, frees his lariat an' is back with the jedges ag'in in forty-eight seconds. Waco wins the prize, a Mexican saddle--stamp-leather an' solid gold she is--worth four hundred dollars, by them onpreecedented alacrities.

"Or, I might impart about a Mexican fooneral where the hea.r.s.e is a blanket with two poles along the aige, the same as one of these battle litters; of the awful songs the mournful Mexicans sings about departed; of the candles they burns an' the dozens of baby white-pine crosses they sets up on little jim-crow stone-heaps along the trail to the tomb; meanwhiles, howlin' dirges constant.

"Now I thinks of it I might bresh up the recollections of a mornin' when I rolls over, blankets an' all, onto something that feels as big as a boot-laig an' plenty squirmy; an' how I shows zeal a-gettin' to my feet, knowin' I'm reposin' on a rattlesnake who's bunked in ag'in my back all sociable to warm himse'f. It's worth any gent's while to see how heated an' indignant that serpent takes it because of me turnin' out so early and so swift.

"Then thar's a mornin' when I finds myse'f not five miles down the wind from a prairie fire; an' it crackin' an' roarin' in flame-sheets twenty foot high an' makin' for'ard jumps of fifty foot. What do I do? Go for'ard down the wind, set fire to the gra.s.s myse'f, an' let her burn ahead of me. In two minutes I'm over on a burned deestrict of my own, an' by the time the orig'nal flames works down to my fire line, my own speshul fire is three miles ahead an I myse'f am ramblin' along cool an'

saloobrious with a safe, sh.o.r.e area of burnt prairie to my r'ar.

"An' thar's a night on the Serrita la Cruz doorin' a storm, when the lightnin' melts the tire on the wheel of my trail-waggon, an' me layin'

onder it at the time. An' it don't even wake me up. Thar's the time, too, when I crosses up at Chico Springs with eighty Injuns who's been buffalo huntin' over to the South Paloduro, an' has with 'em four hundred odd ponies loaded with hides an' buffalo beef an' all headed for their home-camps over back of Taos. The bucks is restin' up a day or two when I rides in; later me an' a half dozen jumps a band of antelopes jest 'round a p'int of rocks. Son, you-all would have admired to see them savages shoot their arrows. I observes one young buck a heap clost. He holds the bow flat down with his left hand while his arrows in their cow-skin quiver sticks over his right shoulder. The way he would flash his right hand back, yank forth a arrow, slam it on his bow, pull it to the head an' cut it loose, is sh.o.r.e a heap earnest. Them missiles would go sailin' off for over three hundred yards, an' I sees him get seven started before ever the first one strikes the ground. The Injuns acquires four antelope by this archery an' shoots mebby some forty arrows; all of which they carefully reclaims when the excitement subsides. She's trooly a sperited exhibition an' I finds it mighty entertainin'.

"I throws these hints loose to show what might be allooded to by way of stories, grave and gay, of sights pecooliar to the trail if only some gent of experience ups an' devotes himse'f to the relations. As it is, however, an' recurrin' to Tom an' Jerry--the same bein' as I informs you, my two wheel mules--I reckons now I might better set forth as to how they comes to die that time. It's his obstinacy that downs Jerry; while pore, tender Tom perishes the victim--volunteer at that--of the love he b'ars his contrary mate.

"Them mules, Tom an' Jerry, is obtained by me, orig'nal in Vegas.

They're the wheelers of a eight-mule team; an' I gives Frosty--who's a gambler an' wins 'em at monte of some locoed sport from Chaparita--twelve hundred dollars for the outfit. Which the same is cheap an' easy at double the _dinero_.

"These mules evident has been part an' pa.s.sel of the estates of some Mexican, for I finds a cross marked on each harness an' likewise on both waggons. Mexicans employs this formal'ty to run a bluff on any evil sperit who may come projectin' round. Your American mule skinner never makes them tokens. As a roole he's defiant of sperits; an' even when he ain't he don't see no refooge in a cross. Mexicans, on the other hand, is plenty strong on said symbol. Every mornin' you beholds a Mexican with a dab of white on his fore'erd an' on each cheek bone, an' also on his chin where he crosses himse'f with flour; sh.o.r.e, the custom is yooniversal an' it takes a quart of flour to fully fortify a full-blown Greaser household ag'inst the antic'pated perils of the day.

"No sooner am I cl'ar of Vegas--I'm camped near the Plaza de la Concepcion at the time--when I rounds up the eight mules an' looks 'em over with reference to their characters. This is jest after I acquires 'em. It's allers well for a gent to know what he's ag'inst; an' you can put down a stack the disp'sitions of eight mules is a important problem.

"The review is plenty satisfactory. The nigh leader is a steady practical person as a lead mule oughter be, an' I notes by his ca'm jedgmatical eye that he's goin' to give himse'f the benefit of every doubt, an' ain't out to go stampedin' off none without knowin' the reason why. His mate at the other end of the jockey-stick is nervous an'

hysterical; she never trys to solve no riddles of existence herse'f, this Jane mule don't, but relies on her mate Peter an' plays Peter's system blind. The nigh p'inter is a deecorous form of mule with no bad habits; while his mate over the chain is one of these yere hard, se'fish, wary parties an' his little game is to get as much of everything except work an' trouble as the lay of the kyards permits. My nigh swing mule is a wit like I tells you the other day. Which this jocose anamile is the life of the team an' allers lettin' fly some dry, quaint observation.

This mule wag is partic'lar excellent at a bad ford or a hard crossin', an his gay remarks, full of p'int as a bowie knife, sh.o.r.ely cheers an'

uplifts the sperits of the rest. The off swing is a heedless creature who regyards his facetious mate as the very parent of fun, an' he goes about with his y'ear c.o.c.ked an' his mouth ajar, ready to laugh them 'hah, hah!' laughs of his'n at every word his pard turns loose.

"Tom an' Jerry is different from the others. Bein' bigger an' havin'

besides the respons'bilities of the hour piled onto them as wheel mules must, they cultivates a sooperior air an is distant an' reserved in their att.i.toodes towards the other six. As to each other their pose needs more deescription. Tom, the nigh wheeler--the one I rides when drivin'--is infatyooated with Jerry. I hears a sky-sharp aforetime preach about Jonathan an' David. Yet I'm yere to a.s.sert, son, that them sacred people ain't on speakin' terms compared to the way that pore old lovin' Tom mule feels towards Jerry.

"This affection of Tom's is partic'lar amazin' when you-all recalls the fas.h.i.+on in which the sullen Jerry receives it. Doorin' the several years I spends in their s'ciety I never once detects Jerry in any look or word of kindness to Tom. Jerry bites him an' kicks him an' cusses him out constant; he never tol'rates Tom closter than twenty foot onless at times when he orders Tom to curry him. Sh.o.r.e, the imbecile Tom submits. On sech o'casions when Jerry issues a summons to go over him, usin' his upper teeth for a comb an' bresh, Tom is never so happy. Which he digs an' delves at Jerry's ribs that a-way like it's a honour; after a half hour, mebby, when Jerry feels refreshed s'fficient, he w'irls on Tom an'

dismisses him with both heels.

"'I track up on folks who's jest the same,' says Dan Boggs, one time when I mentions this onaccountable infatyooation of Tom. 'This Jerry loves that Tom mule mate of his, only he ain't lettin' on. I knows a lady whose treatment of her husband is a dooplicate of Jerry's. She metes out the worst of it to that long-sufferin' shorthorn at every bend in the trail; it looks like he never wins a good word or a soft look from her once. An' yet when that party cashes in, whatever does the lady do?

Takes a hooker of whiskey, puts in p'isen enough to down a dozen wolves, an' drinks off every drop. 'Far'well, vain world, I'm goin' home,' says the lady; 'which I prefers death to sep'ration, an' I'm out to jine my beloved husband in the promised land.' I knows, for I attends the fooneral of that family--said fooneral is a double-header as the lady, bein' prompt, trails out after her husband before ever he's pitched his first camp--an' later a.s.sists old Chandler in deevisin' a epitaph, the same occurrin' in these yere familiar words:

"She sort o got the drop on him, In the dooel of earthly love; Let's hope he gets an even break When they meets in heaven above."

"'Thar,' concloods Dan, 'is what I regyards as a parallel experience to this Tom an' Jerry. The lady plays Jerry's system from soda to hock, an'

yet you-all can see in the lights of that thar sooicide how deep she loves him.'

"'That's all humbug, Dan,' says Enright; 'the lady you relates of isn't lovin'. She's only locoed that a-way.'

"'Whyever if she's locoed, then,' argues Dan, 'don't they up an' hive her in one of their madhouse camps? She goes chargin' about as free an'

fearless as a cyclone.'

"'All the same,' says Texas Thompson, 'her cas.h.i.+n' in don't prove no lovin' heart. Mebby she does it so's to chase him up an' continyoo onbroken them hectorin's of her's. I could onfold a fact or two about that wife of mine who cuts out the divorce from me in Laredo that would lead you to concloosions sim'lar. But she wasn't your wife; an' I don't aim to impose my domestic afflictions on this innocent camp, which bein'

troo I mootely stands my hand.'

"This Jerry's got one weakness however, I don't never take advantage of it. He's scared to frenzy if you pulls a gun. I reckons, with all them crimes of his'n preyin' on his mind, that he allows you're out, to shoot him up. Jerry is ca'm so long as your gun's in the belt, deemin' it as so much onmeanin' ornament. But the instant you pulls it like you're goin' to put it in play, he onbuckles into piercin' screams. I reaches for my six-shooter one evenin' by virchoo of antelopes, an' that's the time I discovers this foible of Jerry's. I never gets a shot. At the sight of the gun Jerry evolves a howl an' the antelopes tharupon hits two or three high places an' is miles away. Sh.o.r.e, they thinks Jerry is some new breed of demon.

"When I turns to note the cause of Jerry's clamours he's loppin' his fore-laigs over Tom's back an' sobbin' an' sheddin' tears into his mane.

Tom sympathises with Jerry an' says all he can to teach him that the avenger ain't on his trail. Nothin' can peacify Jerry, however, except jammin' that awful six-shooter back into its holster. I goes over Jerry that evenin' patiently explorin' for bullet marks, but thar ain't none.