Bat Wing Bowles

by Dane Coolidge

  CHAPTER XVII

  AND HIS SQUIRREL STORY

  The upper range of the Bat Wing was a country by itself. To reach itthey rode due north from Chula Vista, following an old road that hadbeen fenced so many times that Gloomy Gus became discouraged. Twistingand turning, driving around through new-made lanes, or jerking a worldof staples and laying the wire on the ground, he toiled on in the wakeof the outfit, which was rounding up spare corners of the unfencedrange. Behind him came the horse wrangler and his helper, doing theirbest to keep the remuda out of the barbed-wire, and jerking up morefence with their ropes than Gus laid down with his nail-puller.Certainly in that wide, windmill-dotted valley, the open range was athing of the past. It was only thirty feet to water, and the nesterswere settling everywhere.

  "One more day like that," observed Gloomy Gus as he threw together alate supper, "and I quit!"

  "Me too!" chimed in the wrangler; and the punchers felt much the same.

  "A few more years like this last," remarked Henry Lee, gazing gloomilyout across his former estate, "and we'll all quit. But, thank God, theycan't farm the Black Mesa."

  On the second day they turned east, crossing the boggy river andmounting up on a great plateau, and then Bowles saw why Henry Lee'sremark was true. The Black Mesa was high and level, with a wealth ofcoarse grass on the flats and wooded hills behind; but hills and flatsalike were covered with a layer of loose rocks that made the land awilderness. Even the wagon road on which they traveled was a mere rutacross the rock patch, and from a distance it looked like a ruined stonewall where the rocks had been thrown to both sides. And the rocks wereblack, a scorched, volcanic black, with square corners and unerodededges that gashed at the horses' ankles. Deep-cut canons woundtortuously across the level mesa, their existence unsuspected until therider stopped at their brink; and, hidden in their sullen depths, thescant supply of water was lost to all but the birds.

  Yet to the cowboys the landscape was cheering, for there was bunch-grassbetween the rocks and not a house in sight. It is hard to pleaseeverybody in this world, but cowboys are easily pleased. All they wantis a good horse and plenty of swing room, and a landscape gardenercouldn't make it better. To Bowles the lower valley had been a wild andunsettled country, but he found that even the Black Mesa was tame tothese seasoned nomads.

  "Jest wait till I take you to the White Mountains," said Brig, as herode by his side. "This country has all been fed off till they's nothin'much left but the rocks--no game nor nothin'. But the Sierra Blancas aredifferent--that's them over that far ridge."

  He pointed at a filmy point of white, half lost between the blue of thepine-clad mountains and the blue of the sky beyond, and Bowles' heartleaped up at the sight. At last he was in the Far West--that strange,elusive country of which so many speak and which is yet so hard tofind--and the untrod wilderness lay before him. The Sierra Blancas, homeof the deer and the bear and the wolf and the savage Apache Indians!Even in his age and time, there was still a wilderness to conquer andthe terrors of the old frontier to stir the blood.

  "How far is it?" he inquired, his eyes questing out the way; and whenBrig told him he reached over and clutched his hand. "Brig," he cried,"I want to go there. I'd like to go right now!"

  He looked across at his partner, but Brigham did not answer, and Bowlesknew what was in his mind.

  "Of course, now that you're made foreman----" he began; but Brig smileda cynical smile.

  "Don't you let that worry you none," he growled. "The way these Texicansis takin' on, I don't reckon I'll last very long. Hardy Atkins is theleader of this bunch, and he's bound to git his job back--I'm jestholdin' on fer spite."

  "But how can he get it back?" protested Bowles. "Mr. Lee told me youwere one of the best cowmen he ever knew, and you certainly know therange all right----"

  "Yes, but that ain't it," put in Brig. "Here's the proposition. HenryLee is gittin' old--he can't be his own wagon-boss forever, and he'slookin' round for a man. The man that gits the job will git more thanthat--he'll marry Dixie Lee."

  "Oh, nonsense!" cried Bowles. "Why should he?"

  "Don't know why," answered Brigham doggedly. "Only that's the way italways goes--and Hardy, he wants Dixie."

  "But surely, after the way he conducted himself down at Chula Vista----"

  "Oh, that's nothin'," asserted Brigham.

  "You think she would marry him?"

  "Don't know," grumbled Brig. "She's got us all a-guessin'. All I knowis, I won't last long as a straw-boss. You wait till we git up in themountains where old Henry can't git no more hands, and then watch thefur begin to fly. Didn't they all eat dirt to git took back fer greenhands? Didn't you see 'em talkin' it over? All they got to do now is togit _us_ fired, and then _they'll_ be the top hands. Huh! That's easy!"

  The second-in-command would say no more, but a few days gave token ofthe coming storm. As they pulled in at the upper ranch, where cowboysand "station-men" did duty all the year, the stray men from otheroutfits threw in with them again and increased their number to a scanttwenty. Bar Seven was there, after a return to his own headquarters, andseveral of the other men; but the men who dwelt in the hills were of adifferent breed, with hair long and beards scrubby, and overalls greasyfrom lonely cooking; and they looked at Bowles askance.

  "Who's that feller?" they asked; and the answer was always the same, ifthey asked it of a Texan.

  "Oh, that's a young English dude," they said. "He's got his eye onDixie."

  Strange how these men of the frontier were so quick to read hisheart--Bowles had talked with Dixie Lee only twice in a month but theyhad read him like a book. Or perhaps it was just plain jealousy, sincethey, too, had their eyes on Dixie--jealousy and a sneaking knowledgethat he had a chance to win. They cast appraising glances at hisexpensive saddle, his silver-mounted spurs and eleven-dollar Stetson,and hated him for his prosperity; they watched him work in the corral,and scoffed at him for his horsemanship; and when he talked, theylistened to his broad "a's," his soft "r's" and his purling "er's" withwonder and contempt. Not that they listened very much, for they tookpains to break in on him as grown folks do when a child is speaking; butthey curled their lips at his coming, and exchanged glances behind hisback, and finally, as the work progressed, their hostility began to takeform.

  For three days the outfit lay at headquarters while fresh horses werecaught and shod; and here Hardy Atkins and his followers suffered thehumiliation of losing their mounts. As top hands they had taken the pickof the remuda, the fleetest runners, the gentlest night horses, thebest-reined cutting horses; but now in the reapportionment they foundthemselves reduced to "skates and bronks." Three days of shoeing theskates, and especially the bronks, did not tend to sweeten their tempersany, and as they moved up to Warm Springs and began to rake the rangethe spirit of rebellion broke loose.

  Warm Springs lies at the bottom of a gash in the face of the mesa, andthe cow-trails lead to it for miles. Above there is no water, below itis shut in by the rim of the canon, and the cattle file down the longtrail day and night. Consequently the nearby grass is fed down to theroots, and the remuda had to be held up on the high mesa. All day thehorse wrangler grazed his charges in distant swales, bringing them infor water and the horse-changing morning and noon; and at night thecowboys watched them beneath the cold stars--that is, when they keptawake.

  On the second morning three horses were missing, the next day two more,and on the next eight horses more were gone and several men werepractically afoot.

  "Who let those horses get away?" demanded Henry Lee, as he rounded uphis night herders by the corral.

  "Not me!" said the members of the first guard.

  "We never stopped ridin'," said the second guard.

  "They was gone when we come on," said the third guard.

  And the fourth guard swore they were innocent.

  "Well, somebody's been asleep--that's all I know!" said Henry Lee; andhe sent off two mountain men on their best mounts to trail the runawaysdown and bring them
back. Then he listened to the mutual recriminationsof the night herders, and guessed shrewdly at who was at fault. For whenthe night herders get to quarreling among themselves, waking each otherup ahead of time, and sleeping on one hand till it slips and wakes themup, that is a sure sign and precursor of greater troubles to come, andit calls for an iron hand. Even as he was listening, a row broke out inthe round corral, where the cowboys were roping their mounts.

  "Turn that hawse loose!" roared Brigham, suddenly mounting up on thefence.

  "I will not!" retorted the voice of Hardy Atkins from within.

  "He belongs to my mount!" protested Brigham with appropriate oaths.

  "I don't care whose mount he belongs to!" snarled the ex-straw-boss,dragging the horse out by the neck. "You top hands mash yore ear allnight and let my hawses drift--and then expect me to walk. You bet yoreboots that don't go--I'll take the best I can find. You can't put _me_afoot!"

  "I'll put you on yore back," rumbled Brigham, dropping truculently downfrom his perch, "if you try to git gay with me. You may be from BitterCrick, Texas, but you got to whip me before you break into my mount!"

  "Well, he's got the Bat Wing brand on 'im," sulked Atkins; "that's all Iknow. And as long as they's a hawse left in the remuda----"

  "Here, here!" said Henry Lee, walking in on the squabble. "What's allthis about? What are you doing with Brig's hawse, Hardy? Why don't youride your own?"

  "Well, these hyer nester kids and Mormons went to sleep on guard and letmy top hawses pull--now I got nothin' but bronks to ride!"

  "Well, ride 'em, then!" commanded Henry Lee severely. "And, anotherthing, Mr. Atkins! Next time you've got a grievance, come to me--don'ttry to correct it yourself!"

  He regarded his former straw-boss with narrowing eyes, and Atkins ropedout a bronk; but in the evening he took the first occasion to pick aquarrel with Brigham. They were gathered about the fire in the scanthour between branding and first guard, and Brigham was telling a story.As was his custom, Henry Lee had pitched his tent to one side, for henever mixed with his men; and Brig had the stage to himself.

  "Well, you fellers talk about gittin' lost," he was saying; "you oughtto be up in that Malapai country. We had a land-sharp along--claimed toknow the world by sections--and he----"

  "Aw, what do you know about the Malapai country?" broke in Atkinsrudely. "You cain't even lead a circle on the Black Mesa and git back tocamp the same day! My hawse give out this mornin' tryin' to----"

  "Say," interposed Brigham peaceably, "you know what the boss said thismornin'--if you got any grievance, tell it to him. I'm tellin' thesegentlemen a story."

  "A dam' lie would come nearer to it!" sneered Hardy, curling his lipswith spleen; and at the word Brigham rose swiftly to his feet.

  "If you're lookin' fer trouble, Mr. Atkins," he said, taking off his hatand laying it carefully to one side, "you don't need to go no further.And if you _ain't_," he cried, suddenly advancing with blood in his eye,"you take back what you said, or I'll slap yore face off!"

  The astounding ease with which he got a rise out of his adversary seemedto take all the fight out of Hardy Atkins, and he mumbled some vaguewords of apology; but Brigham was hard to mollify.

  "Well, that's all right," he grumbled. "It ain't my fault if you go on adrunk and lose yore job, and it ain't my fault if the boss makes mestraw--but don't you try to crowd me, Hardy Atkins, or I'll make youmatch yore words. The man never lived that can call me a liar and gitaway with it, and I'll thank you to let me alone."

  He went back and sat down by the fire, puffing and panting with theviolence of his emotions; but as he gazed thoughtfully into the fire andno one interrupted his mood he fell into a cynical philosophy.

  "Mighty funny about these Tee-hannos," he said, glancing around at therespectful company. "They say, back in Texas, when a man gits where hecan count fifty they set him to teachin' school--and when he can countup to a hundred he gits on to himse'f and leaves the cussed country.Ordinary folks kin only count to twenty--ten fingers and ten toes, likean Injun. It's sure a fine country to emigrate from."

  He looked about with a superior smile, and Buck Buchanan took up thecudgels for Texas.

  "They tell me, Brig," he said, "that them Mormons down on the rivercain't talk no mo'--jest kinder git along by signs and a kind ofsheep-blat they have."

  "Nope," answered Brigham; "they is sech people, but they don't livealong the Heely. Them fellers you're thinkin' of is in the goatbusiness--they don't say _baaa_, like a sheep; they go _maaa_ like agoat. I've heard tell of them, too. It seems they don't wear nopants--nothin' but shirts. They live on them goat ranches back inwestern Texas."

  He paused and looked around for appreciation, but only the nester kidssmiled.

  "I was drivin' a bunch of strays down through that Mormon country onetime," explained Buck Buchanan; "that's where I got the idee. That's agreat country, ain't it, Brig? Lots of houses, too. I remember I stoppedone time at a street crossin' and they was houses on all four corners.They was a lot of kids playin' around, and I asked one of 'em whosehouses they were, and he says: 'My father's.'

  "'How comes yore father to have so many houses?' I says. 'Does he rent'em?'

  "'No, sir,' the kid says, 'he lives in 'em. Don't you know him? He's thebishop!'"

  A roar of laughter followed this brutal innuendo, but Brigham was notset back. His mind had become accustomed to all such jests.

  "Aw, you're jealous," he grunted, and let the Gentiles rage until, asthe talk ran on, he gradually assumed the lead.

  "That's one thing you'll never find around a Mormon town," he began,still speaking with philosophical calm; "you'll never find no Texican.Of course, a Mormon has to work, and that bars most of 'em at the start;but, I dunno, seems like the first settlers took a prejudice ag'inst'em. I remember my old man tellin' how it come that way--course theymust be mistaken, but the Mormons think a Texan ain't got no sense.

  "It seems the Mormons was the first folks to settle along the Heely, andmy grandpaw was one of the leaders--he killed a lot of Injuns, believeme! But one day when he was gittin' kinder old and feeble-like, he got anotion in his head that he wanted a squirrel-skin, and so he called inmy father and said:

  "'Son, you take yore rifle and go out and git me a gray squirrel; and becareful not to shoot 'im in the head, because I want the brains to tanthe skin with.'

  "So my father he went up in the pines and hunted around; but the onlysquirrel he could find was stickin' his head over the limb, and ratherthan not git nothin' he shot him anyhow. Well, he brought him back tothe old man and he said to 'im:

  "'I'm mighty sorry, Dad; the squirrels was awful scarce, and rather thannot git any I had to shoot this one through the head.'

  "'Oh, that's all right,' the old man says. 'You got a nice skin anyway,and I reckon we can fix it somehow. I tell you what you do. They's abunch of Texans camped down by the lower water--you go down and kill oneof them, and mebbe we can use _his_ brains.'"

  Brigham paused and looked around with squinched-up, twinkling eyes; andat last Buck Buchanan broke the dramatic silence.

  "Well," he demanded roughly, "what's the joke?"

  "Well, sir," ran on Brig, "you wouldn't hardly believe it, but my oldman had to kill six of them Texicans to git brains enough to tan thatsquirrel-skin! That's why they won't take 'em into the church."