The Sheriff of Badger: A Tale of the Southwest Borderland
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CHAPTER XXV
JOHNSON BECOMES BOSS OF THE ANVIL
The Johnsons went to live at Lafe's place beyond the Willows, in HopeCanon. And there they occupied a frame house on the crest of a knoll. Itwas an ideal locality for a bridal couple, privacy being its mostpronounced feature. For nobody else lived in the Canon and their nearestneighbors were the citizens of Badger, fourteen miles distant, beyond aswelling valley and a fringe of hills.
Hetty was so busy making habitable the three bare rooms of the home,that the days were as minutes to her and the weeks took wings. It wasabsolutely amazing what she achieved with two tables, a packing case,six chairs, a bureau and some mats and window curtains--all thesefreighted from Badger in a wagon. No room of the three gave theappearance of having been slighted. In lieu of pictures, she contrivedto bestow brightness to the walls by tacking up covers from magazines,and solid comfort was afforded by bunks built in corners of two of therooms. They were draped with Navajo blankets and Hetty had constructedthem herself of substantial oak, Lafe being an indifferent carpenter andimmensely impatient of it. After the manner of his kind he hated anytask that could not be done on horseback. That Hetty had a taste forshow cannot be denied, because the bed in her room was hung withmosquito netting in the shape of a canopy, and there was a wondrous bluecoverlet. Indeed, it was fit for a royal couch.
To a bachelor of long standing, adjustment to married life brings withit certain brain shocks and sudden vistas. It is constantly unfoldingsurprises that burst on his vision as wonders. So many shifts of theirhousehold arrangements struck Lafe as unique that he could not forbearmention of them to his friends in Badger--with the air of a discoverer,confident that nothing like this had ever been done or attempted beforein history. Whereupon they would emit merry jeers and the older menwould assure him that he would soon be harness-broken.
But the greatest change was in his outlook on life, in the newperspective and the new responsibilities that the married state openedto him. A year before, the sheriff would have chafed at any restraintwhich prohibited enjoyment with his friends after the fashion of thecountry. Now, he willingly abandoned all his former boon companions whomhe chanced to meet, and did not do it with a sense of righteousness forhaving lived up to his duty, but cheerfully, gladly, because theircompanionship seemed now stale and flat and purposeless. And he wasalways anxious to get home.
"Don't you lose none of them parcels, sheriff," they would chaff,standing on the sidewalk to watch Johnson tie his purchases to thesaddle.
"Has she done begun to cut your hair yet, Lafe?" another inquired.
Johnson would grin comfortably, and with an "Adios, you fellers," rideoff towards Hope Canon. Invariably he brought a present for Hetty.Everything pretty that he saw struck him as a possible gift for her, sothat their home waxed in comfort.
In his blighted days of singleness, Lafe had often taken heartyamusement out of the simple fact that some among his married friendswere obliged to rise at unearthly hours in order to light fires and dohousehold chores which he considered to be within the feminine province.On the first mornings of their residence in the new home, he performedthese tasks as a loving attention. Of course, ever after he had to dothem as a duty. Once a man does a thing, he establishes a precedentwhich a conscientious individual finds it hard to break--but, bless you,Lafe would never have permitted Hetty to do jobs of this sort, that werewithin his own powers of performance. So he helped cheerily asdishwasher and assistant housemaid, this gunfighting sheriff of Badger.
Yet Lafe did not emerge wholly scatheless from the ill customs of alifetime. On a day, old man Horne sent him to Badger in company of acattle buyer, with whom Horne was making a deal that ran into hundredsof thousands of dollars. And his orders were that Johnson was to get thebuyer drunk and keep him in that enviable condition as long as he could.This is considered legitimate in the cow country and "good business."
Lafe did so. And in the course of his enthusiastic labors, he took on acargo which he found some difficulty in storing. The night of hisreturn, Johnson, as he rode up Hope Canon, sang a ditty which were bestforgotten by a respectable married man.
The house was in darkness, and when he would have entered their bedroom,he found the door locked.
"This ain't no time to get mad," Lafe said warily, winking into thedark, and went to sleep on one of the bunks.
Next morning his appetite for breakfast was far below normal, but hekept Hetty busy boiling coffee.
"What was the trouble last night?" he had the brazenness to ask.
"I knew there was something the matter when I saw that note you sentfrom town by the boy," said Hetty, "and I didn't want to see you. What Idon't know won't hurt me much, I reckon."
Lafe was feeling very shaky, and looked up at her from his plate withmarked shamefacedness.
"It won't never happen again," he promised, and Hetty came around behindhis chair and put her arms about his neck.
"You've been a pretty good boy," she whispered, "but, oh, Lafe, I justcouldn't bear to see you. That's why I locked the door."
Johnson took to his cow work with much zest. The Anvil range was a hugedomain, a kingdom in itself. The bawling of Horne's calves sounded fromthe 108th to the 111th meridian of longitude and the Anvil steers grazeda thousand hills. Much of this land was free range, the property of theAmerican people; but Horne controlled it by owning all the water-holes,and defended his rights by the iron hand. In addition to the free grass,he had some hundreds of thousands of acres under fence, which was his bypurchase of Spanish grants--a portion of it on the other side of theBorder.
To be boss of the Anvil, then, meant something. Directly and indirectly,Lafe had two hundred men under him. Fifty of these were cowboys; theothers were employed as windmill hands, as farmers to grow feed for thecattle in winter, and as laborers to put up new fences, corrals anddivision camps, for Horne was laying out the range on his own lines.
Johnson chose his outfit with considerable shrewdness. He was a keenjudge of men and knew cattle from horn to hoof and beyond to the stockyards. Therefore the Anvil riders were famed in the land as expertcowmen. Ability to ride or dexterity with the rope did not win a cowboya place with the Anvil. He took those who best understood the science ofthe range. Most of them were Texans, and men of mature years.
"The northern boys make better busters," he told Horne. "Take 'em all inall and they can beat our boys riding. But they don't know cattle likethese longhorn Texans do. No, sir; it takes our southern boys to knowhow to handle cattle."
Thus did Lafe make a propitious start and win respect. And the monthswent by, and the two in Hope Canon were ridiculously happy.
Unruffled happiness cannot endure for long. Perhaps it would pall if itdid. A thing, to be deemed precious, must have contrasts to establishits value. So there entered into the wedded life of the Johnsons itsfirst severe jar.