Bat Wing Bowles

by Dane Coolidge

  CHAPTER X

  THE FIRST SMILE

  The next three days were one long, aching agony for Bowles. He carried alittle water for Gloomy Gus, but stubbornly refused the job of flunky.He helped the horse wrangler--a wild-eyed youth who could pop a ropelike a pistol-shot and yell like a murdering Apache--but as resolutelyrefused the job of assistant. He had been taken on as a cowboy, and acowboy he tried to be, though every nerve and muscle called a halt. Fromthe first morning, when they sent him out in the dark to wrangle thehorse pasture, to the third evening, when he crawled wearily into an old"bed" that he had picked up, his life was a prolonged succession ofaccidents, mistakes, and awkward happenings; yet he stayed with it,bull-headed and determined, until Henry Lee grew tired of hazing him andput him on the day-herd to get healed up.

  There was very little left of the lily-white Mr. Bowles when the ordealcame to an end. His hands that had been so trim and slender were swelledup too big for his gloves. The outside was raw with sunburn andwind-chap and the inside was blistered and rope-worn. His lips hadcracked wide open from the dry north wind, and his face was beginning topeel like a snake. Also his arms had been nearly jerked from the socketsby a horse he had tried to hold, and a calf had kicked him in the legwhile he was trying to bulldog it at the branding. Like the cowboy inthe ballad, "he was busted from his somber to his heel," but he hadmanaged to come through alive. And now, as a reward for his prowess anddaring, he was set to mind the day-herd.

  Grass was short in the Bat Wing pastures, and every day brought in newherds of dogies to be held for the April shipping; so, just to keep allhands busy and save a little feed, Henry Lee turned his gentle cattleout on to the prairie to rustle what provender they could. Now ridingday-herd is not supposed to be a very high-grade or desirableoccupation, and good punchers have been known to quit a boss who putthem at it; but Bowles was led to believe that it was a post of honor.Awful stories of cowboys who had gone to sleep on guard were told by thefire at night, and the danger from sudden stampedes was played up to theskies. The monotony of the job was admitted, but the responsibility wasgreat. So Bowles accepted the position gladly, and the round-up went onunimpeded.

  Lolling in the shade of his horse or sitting with his back to the drywind, Bowles watched them "pluck the blossoms" while he doctored hisnumerous wounds, meanwhile falling into lovelorn reveries on the subjectof Dixie Lee. It was humiliating, in a way, to be reduced to the ranks;to be compelled to wait on her pleasure, and court her from afar; butsomething told him that Dixie thought of him even though she passed himby; and just to be one of her lovers, to be allowed to worship with therest--that was enough to bear him up and give him courage to wait. Andeither in the end she would speak to him and take him back into herlife, or he would depart in silence to hide from her laughing eyes. Thegame of love was new to Bowles and he knew little of its stealth andwiles; just to be near her was all he knew, and the future must solvethe rest. So, like a questing knight, nursing his hurts after his firstcombat, he sat out on the boundless prairie and communed with his ownsad heart.

  Across the herd from him a battered old-time cowboy sat, crooked-legged,on his horse. On the day before a bronk had thrown him by treachery andkicked him as he dragged--even turned around and jumped on him andstamped him in the face. A great bruise, red and raw, ran up from hisbrows to his bald-spot where the iron shoe had struck; but still theold-timer was content.

  "A cowboy don't need no haid above his eyebrows, nohow," he had said."Jest think if he had hit me on the jaw!" Yes, indeed, but what if hehad hit him in the temple or trampled him to death! Or suppose, just forinstance, that Mr. Bowles, of New York, had been on the bronk instead ofUncle Joe, the veteran--would he have had sense enough to get his footout of the stirrup? That was the trouble with standing day-herd--it gavethe imagination a chance to work.

  Bowles looked out over the plain again and noticed every littlething--the rattleweed, planted so regularly on the sandy flat; thedogholes, each with its high-topped mound to keep out the rain andfloods; the black line of mesquite brush against the distant hills; theband of yuccas along their flanks; and then the soft, moulded summits,now green, now yellow, now creamy white as shrubs and bushes and bunchgrass caught the light. It was very beautiful, but lonely. Yes, itlacked color--a vigorous girlish figure in the foreground to give it thelast poetic touch.

  The only men who can stand the monotony of day-herding are those who arenot overburdened with brains, and so have the ability to turn off thethinking-machine entirely until they need it again. Smoking helps, andsinging long-drawn songs; but Bowles turned back to Wordsworth, the poetof nature. Stray snatches of poems and sonnets rose in his mind, and hetried to piece out the rest; then he gazed at the quivering mirage, theplain, the straying cattle, and wondered how Wordsworth would see it. Hewas engaged in this peaceful occupation when, on the second day, henoted a moving figure, far away; dreamily he watched it as it emergedfrom the barbed-wire lanes of the nesters, and then, like a flash, thewords of Brigham came back to him: "I knowed her four miles away bysection lines." It was Dixie Lee, and she was coming his way!

  There were three other worthless cowboys like himself on the day-herd,and they had seen her already. Like Brigham, they knew her by the wayshe rode, miles and miles away. Steadily she pounded along, keeping therangy bay at an even lope, and then she turned toward the ranch. Thelong wire fence of the horse pasture had thrown her from her course, butnow she was on the barren prairie and could skirt the north fence home.A series of muttered comments marked this sudden turn to the west, andthe tall, cigarette-smoking youth who had been rubbing the sleep fromhis eyes lopped down beneath his salt-bush again. But he had returned toMorpheus too soon, for almost immediately after he had laid his hat overhis eyes the distant rider changed her course, and the boys held uptheir hands for silence. Dixie Lee was going to make them a visit, afterall, and they would let her catch him asleep.

  Swiftly the tireless bay came loping across the flats, winding in andout to dodge the dog towns, and soon the queen of the cowboys was up tothe edge of the herd.

  "Hello, Uncle Joe!" she hailed, riding over toward the old-timer. "How'syour head?"

  "All right, Miss Dix," replied the puncher amiably. "Cain't hurt acowboy in the haid, you know."

  "No, but you can spoil his looks, Uncle," retorted Dixie May playfully."You want to remember that--I heard a lady down here inquiring for youmighty special. What's the matter with Slim over there?"

  A whoop went up at this, and the sleeper sat up guiltily.

  "Oh, him?" queried Uncle Joe, speaking loud so that all could hear."W'y, kinder overcome by the heat, I reckon. He gits took that way everyonce in a while."

  "Ever since he begin settin' up with that nester girl!" put in the otherday-herder, with a guffaw; and Dixie May began to chuckle with laughteras she rode around the herd.

  "Well, it's too bad about him," she called back. "I'll have to go overthere and see if he's likely to die."

  It took her but a moment to diagnose the sad case of Slim, and then theother cowboy had his call from the consulting physician. Bowles was thelast man on the circuit, but he did not step out and bow. He did notexpect a visit--and, besides, something told him she did not approve ofit. So he stood quietly by his horse, and only his eyes followed her asshe bore down on him, her head turned back to fling some gay retort andher horse falling into his stride. She rode to the right of him, and asshe faced about and met his glance she stared, as if surprised.

  "Why, hello there, cowboy!" she challenged bluntly; and then, with asmile on her face, she went galloping on toward the ranch.

  Nobody heard her speak but Bowles; and he, poor, unsophisticated man,was more puzzled than enlightened by her remarks. Of one thing he wassure--she had lowered her voice on purpose, and her words were for himalone. But her smile--was it one of derision, or a token of forgivenessand regard? And her secret greeting--was it an accident, or was sheashamed of his friendship? Perhaps she had weighty reasons for keepingthe
ir acquaintance unknown. Somehow, that thought appealed to him abovethe rest. Perhaps she knew more than he did of the dangers whichsurrounded him--from Hardy Atkins, or some other jealous suitor, to whoma single smile for him might be the signal for reprisal. Theymight--why, there were a thousand things they might do if they knew whatwas in his heart! Bowles ran it all over in his mind: her sudden turningupon him as they approached the Chula Vista hotel; her haughtyrepudiation of him when he met her at the big house; and now this secretgreeting, so carelessly given, yet so fraught with hidden meaning.

  "Why, hello there, cowboy!" she had said. And she appeared surprised, asif she had not expected to see him in the guise of an ordinary puncher.She had smiled, too; but--well, a little too broadly. Of course, out inthe West--but, even then, it was a little broad.