Saddle And Mocassin Part 4

"Take a drink?" said he. "There's worse places than Tucson; there's places where you can't get a drink."

I took a drink, in which my new acquaintance joined me.

"Is Mr. Maroney in?" I asked. Mr. Maroney was the proprietor of the hotel, and I had a message of introduction to him.

"Mr. Maroney ain't long gone to bed. The boys was having a little game of 'freeze out' last night. I guess he'll be around at midday."

A bed-room, or rather a loose-box, was a.s.signed me in the quadrangle at the back of the saloon, and after breakfasting I strolled out to enlarge my acquaintance with the town.

Until twelve months previously, Tucson had been an unimportant adobe village; now it was growing rapidly. Edifices of brick were springing up in all directions. Practically it is the gateway between Mexico and the far Western States of America, and as such its future is a.s.sured.

Under the shop awnings in the main street loitered a crowd of handsome, bearded, bronzed miners from the neighbouring mining districts. To and fro flitted a few busy store-clothed store-keepers and clerks, and here and there a knot of men might be seen examining some specimen of quartz.

A couple of leather-overalled cowboys, ostentatiously "heeled" or armed, rode down the street on their Mexican-saddled _bronchos_; a Chinaman stole swiftly and silently by; a half-breed led a lame horse along; a couple more "greasers" seated one behind the other went past on another equine scarecrow; sundry dogs--one dragging a swollen run-over leg after him--loafed about; and a chain-and-ball gang of convicts slowly advanced, sweeping the dusty road.

The town was gay with the bunting displayed in the store signs, advertis.e.m.e.nts, and invitations to "walk in."

The "Head Quarters" store is "selling out at cost price," boots, shoes, bacon, lard, flour, stores, hardware, etc., with all intermediate articles, forming the stock to be sacrificed. A Saddle and Harness manufactory, outwardly rich in signs and specimens of its work, is followed by a "n.o.bby Clothing" store that even surpa.s.ses it in its ticketed display of "pants" and "vests." Inside, a customer, with his feet on the counter, leans back in his chair and chats to the shopman, who is perched on his own cask. "Ladies' Dress Goods," "Fancy Goods,"

"Gents' Furnis.h.i.+ng Goods," "Stores and Tinware," "The Alhambra Billiard Saloon," "The Tucson Restaurant," "Markets," "Estate Offices," diagrams of gouty-looking boots, swollen loaves, gigantic pipes, guns, bottles, etc., etc., without end, in black upon a white linen ground, invite attention everywhere.

In a town of this kind, next to the drinking saloons, the barber's shop is the chief place of resort. The barber, in importance, ranks second only to the artistic mixer of cool drinks. He is hail-fellow-well-met with every one. Especially cheery and amusingly ceremonious is Figaro if he happen to be a coloured man. His memory is prodigious. Men enter that he has not seen for months, and with whom he is perhaps only slightly acquainted; yet he resumes the conversation precisely where it terminated when they parted. He reminds his visitor of what he has said, and of what his projects were when he last was shaved there, and he persistently inquires how far those a.s.sertions have been verified, and those intentions fulfilled. Having posted himself up to the latest date in all that concerns the victim of his curiosity, he proceeds, in return, to furnish him with biographical sketches of such later pa.s.sages in the lives of his friends as may have escaped his knowledge.

In the barber's shop that I entered the three chairs were all occupied.

A slender, graceful, "interesting young man," of an Italian type of face, dressed in a blue sh.e.l.l-jacket bound with yellow, a good deal of loud jewellery, and a "dandy-rig" generally, operated on one customer; a "wooden-mugged down-Easter," with bushy eyebrows, and quick, twinkling eyes, who sang over and over again, absently, though still with heart-wrung pathos, "Oh, my little darling, I love you! Oh, my little darling, yes, I do!" had the second in charge; the third was at the mercy of a black man, who was cross-questioning him very closely as to a recent trip to Tombstone.

I fell to the hands of the dude, and was sheeted and soaped by him with a theatrical flourish that led me to antic.i.p.ate the rest of the performance with interest. Three various strops were necessary to put an edge on the razor that was to execute me. The first, a rough one, sc.r.a.ped like a file; the second made the razor ring like a bell beneath the reckless strokes of its das.h.i.+ng manipulator; over the third it slid like soap. I was prepared for some fancy shaving, and was not disappointed. After a few false starts the young man, at one fell swoop, slid the razor through the stubble on my face from one end of the cheek to the other. For a little while he sliced about in a fas.h.i.+on that irresistibly reminded one of cutla.s.s drill, and then settled down to more delicate work. Certainly he had a sure and dainty touch, but to be shaved by him often would take years off a nervous man's life. Even when the rougher work was finished he was sufficiently alarming. Running his fingers over my chin he would discover a hair that had escaped him, and, as if he were flicking a fly off a wall with a whip-lash, sweep down upon it and smooth it off at one fell stroke. As for the coloured gentleman, he arrayed himself in magnificent clothing and went out; the "down-Easter," having finished his task, took up a guitar and croaked a few amorous ballads in a decayed voice.

Returning to the hotel, I found that Mr. Paul Maroney had arisen. I also found a card of invitation from (I think it was) the "Union Club"

awaiting me. Being dubious with regard to the nature of a club in Tucson, I interrogated Maroney on the subject.

"Do you want to play monte?" he asked, weighing the card between his finger and thumb.

"No."

"Well...."

That "well" drawled out and sustained, with the look that accompanied it, told me quite as much about the Club as I desired to know. Paul and I christened our acquaintance with c.o.c.ktails.

Conversation at any time, on any topic, or with any person in Tucson (as elsewhere on the frontier), invariably led to this ceremony. c.o.c.ktail drinking has a charm of its own, which lifts it above drinking as otherwise practised. Your confirmed c.o.c.k-tail drinker is not to be confounded with the common sot. He is an artist. With what exquisite feeling will he graduate his cup, from the gentle "smile" of early morning, to the potent "smash" of night! The a.n.a.lytical skill of a chemist marks his unerring detection of the very faintest dissonance in the harmony of the ingredients that compose his beverage. He has an antidote to correct, a tonic to induce every mood and humour that man knows. Endless variety rewards a single-hearted devotion to c.o.c.ktails, whilst the refinement and ingenuity that may be exercised in the display of such an attachment, redeem it from intemperance. It becomes an art; I am not sure that it ought not to be termed a science. It is drinking etherealised, rescued from vulgar appet.i.te and brutality, purified of its low origin and enn.o.bled. A c.o.c.ktail hath the soul of wit, it is brief--it is a jest, a bon-mot, happy thought, a gibe, a word of sympathy, a tear, an inspiration, a short prayer. A list of your experienced c.o.c.ktail drinker's potations for the day const.i.tutes a complete picture of life, and the secret joys and sorrows that he hides from all the world may almost be said therein to stand betrayed to the eye of a brother scientist.

The four days' waiting pa.s.sed at length, and seated in the corpulent old coach, with its team of four wheelers and four leaders, we rumbled slowly out of Tucson.

The pa.s.sengers were a Mexican dame with a baby, a Mexican, an American miner, and myself. A sort of second whip sat beside the driver, armed with a short but heavy weapon, with which he made excursions from the box-seat to the ground, and whilst the coach was still in motion fought it out with any refractory member of the team, as he ran beside him.

Collecting a pocketful of the wickedest stones that he could find, he would then return, and pelt the _bronchos_ from his former elevation.

Another of his duties was to disentangle the team, when, as not unfrequently occurred, so many of the leaders faced the wheelers that further progress was impossible. It also fell to his lot to tie the coach together with thongs and string when its dissolution appeared imminent. In the performance of his various duties this individual displayed considerable agility, ability, and resource.

The Mexican woman was frightful, the infant very like her, only by no means so quiet. Mother and child left us at the end of the first stage.

The Mexican slept all day; towards evening he awoke and reduced himself to a state of complete intoxication with _mascal_. The miner never opened his lips until the following morning just before entering Magdalena, when we happened to see a jacka.s.s rabbit.

"Next jacka.s.s rabbit we see, I'll be durned if I don't shoot him," he said.

He forthwith produced and c.o.c.ked a long Colt's revolver. But, as we saw no more rabbits, I missed this exhibition of his skill.

From the pace at which we proceeded during the night, I presumed that the Mexican's bottle of _mascal_ was not the only one we had on board.

The jolting was terrific. Besides encountering the ordinary ruts and irregularities in the ground, we struck every now and then, when going at full gallop, against a loose boulder, or the projecting corner of a rock, the shock of which brought our heads in stunning contact with the bra.s.s-capped nails that studded the roof of the coach. I was sometimes in doubt a moment whether my neck were broken or not. When Magdalena was reached my scalp was raw, and every angle of my body bruised.

Stage travelling in Mexico, if this were a fair sample of it, is neither luxurious nor speedy. Owing to the irregularity with which the service is conducted, it is impossible for relays to be in attendance. Not until the coach arrives is a _peon_ sent out to drive in fresh horses from the country. As they roam free over the broad _vegas_, they may be miles from home; consequently it is no unusual thing for the best part of a day to be wasted before they are found. Outward bound, we were singularly fortunate in this respect. On the return journey, our delays were all prolonged, in some cases exceeding even five or six hours. The wattled sheds and huts at which these intervals were pa.s.sed were of the filthiest description.

Some of our teams were curiously mixed. One consisted of three donkeys, two mules, and three _bronchos_. Most of them were partly composed of mules. Some were poor, others were remarkably good. Particularly noteworthy was the performance of a level team of st.u.r.dy _bronchos_, that we picked up late in the afternoon, and that of a fine team of mules that took us into Magdalena on the following morning. The stages were about sixteen and eighteen miles respectively, but with the exception of a few short stoppages, caused by trouble with the harness, were covered at full gallop; notwithstanding which, the teams pulled up almost as fresh as they had started.

In one instance a deficiency of stock necessitated the la.s.soing and breaking in of a horse that had never been used before. He fought gallantly for nearly half-an-hour, and several times was thrown half-strangled on the ground, when the la.s.so was loosened and he was given a few minutes to recover. Eventually he allowed himself to be harnessed, and once in the team had to go with the rest. I must do our driver the justice to say that he handled the ribbons with admirable skill and boldness.

To add to the interest of the trip, it was expected that we should be stopped by cow-boys. These gentlemen had lately "gone through" the coaches with great regularity, and, in antic.i.p.ation of trouble, our whip and second whip were armed to the teeth. Fortunately, the journey was without incident of this kind.

With demoniacal yells, and a furious cracking of both whips, we dashed into Magdalena, and pulled up in the _plaza_. It was Sunday. The good people were just issuing from church. Mexican maidens, in white or brilliant robes, trooped out in twos and threes, and hand in hand went laughingly homewards. And here I feel the scribbling traveller's temptation to romance. A fanciful picture of some dark-eyed beauty, with proud Castilian features, and bewitching dignity and grace of manner, would fit my tale so well. Besides, in a Mexican sketch, one expects a pretty woman, even as one looks for lions in African, and elephants in Indian scenery. But I was so disgusted in this respect myself, that it will be of some satisfaction to me to have you disappointed also.

Expect, therefore, no glowing description of female loveliness from me.

Good-looking women doubtless exist in Mexico; but, in the few miles that I went over the border on this occasion, I saw none. A hazy recollection of flowers in connection with this scene of church-going damsels haunts me, but whether they were worn in the hair, or in the dress, or simply carried, I no longer remember. Men in their coloured _zarapas_, and broad-brimmed hats, chatted and smoked the eternal cigarette. Old women in black robes loitered in knots (very like old wives elsewhere) and gossiped. The _commandante_ and a few officials sat on one of the old, carved stone seats. A few miners loafed before the "American Hotel,"

kept by a plump, jovial, masterful American woman, and her subdued matter-of-fact English husband, by name Bennett. Here I breakfasted, and in the afternoon rode out, twenty-three miles, to the mine of a friend of mine, whom I had come down to visit.

Past the Sierra Ventana (so called on account of the hole that completely perforates one shoulder of it), and over wave after wave of rolling country, spa.r.s.ely covered with _mesketis_-bush, my guide and I rode on towards some hills in the distance; and dusk had fallen and night had come when we ascended the spur on which the mine was situated.

The stalwart form of my friend (whom I will call by his local sobriquet, Don Cabeza) appeared at his cottage door as I drew up, and, not expecting me, in the dark he took me to be a new hand in quest of work.

"Buenas nochas, senor, said I.

"Buenas nochas."

"Habla V. Castellano?"

"No hablo so much as all that comes to."

Then I burst out laughing.

"Why----! If it isn't Francis!"

What a warm-hearted greeting he gave me! How hospitably he spread the best of everything before me, and even would he have relinquished his own bed to me had I allowed it. I had a big budget of news from San Francisco about mutual friends, but much as he wished to hear it, he insisted on its narration being deferred until I had slept and rested.

It was odd. When I had last seen and known Don Cabeza, it had been in an atmosphere of clubs and drawing-rooms, where his wit, good-nature, geniality, and a certain old-fas.h.i.+oned thoughtfulness and courtesy of manner had made him one of the most popular men in a pleasant circle.

Here, with that adaptability to circ.u.mstance which is so marked a characteristic of Americans (_when_ they choose to exert the faculty), he had shed the drawing-room air, and appeared, for the time being, as a bluff, light-hearted, practical miner. The white linen, patent leather, and general fastidiousness of speech and taste, formerly so marked, were temporarily laid aside for the flannel s.h.i.+rts, top boots, Western slang, and sublime indifference to fare and comfort peculiar to the dweller in a mining camp. And yet he had not changed either. There is a tinge of old world chivalry in the character of those who came in early days to California. They are lost in a crowd of a different type and of later date now; wherever you do find one though, you find a large-hearted, generous man, with nothing small or mean in his whole composition. In the better type of old Californian, there is less of the sn.o.b than in any man in the world; and in supporting what he thinks is manly and unselfish, he is as fearless of what others may think, as of what they may do. Animated by the love of adventure, the Don had left a luxurious home in the East to come in early times to California, and had there "toughed through" all those scenes and times that now read like pages from a fascinating romance. And a fine type of "old Californian" he was.

The Santa Ana was a new purchase that he had come down there to prospect. It promised well, but was not as yet worked on a large scale.

Those were pleasant days up at the mine. Lazy? Well, yes; I fancy everything in Mexico is more or less lazy. We were so entirely out of the world; the trip, moreover, was so utterly disconnected with anything that came before or followed it, that it stands out now in solitary relief.

An _adobe_ cottage, of three rooms, had been built for the Don and his foreman, and here we lived. Below us, in wattled huts, dwelt the Yaqui miners and their families. A little removed from the adobe was an open arbour, with wattled roof, in which we took our meals. Near it was a stunted tree, that served for various purposes, besides being shady and ornamental. Lodged in the first fork was our water-barrel. The coffee-grinder was nailed to its trunk. In a certain crevice the soap was always to be found. Upon one bough hung the towels, the looking-gla.s.s depended from another. One branch supported the long steel drill, that, used as a gong, measured with beautifully musical tones the various watches of the miners. Amidst the exposed roots the axe in its leisure moments reposed. Our tree, in short, was a kind of dumb waiter, without which we should have been lost.

The country teemed with quail and jacka.s.s rabbits. We bought an old Westley Richards shot-gun in Magdalena, and did great slaughter amongst them. Deer were reported to be numerous, but during my stay we saw none.

A good deal of our time was spent in cooking. The "China-boy," nominally _chef_, was so wondrously dirty, that one day we rose against him, and degraded him to the post of scullion, and being, both of us, proud of our culinary skill, we undertook the preparation of our meals ourselves.

Jerked beef, bacon, quails, jacka.s.s rabbit, beans, rice, chilies, and potatoes were the articles that we had to work upon.