CHAPTER II
THE JOKE
Owing to his unaccustomed potations Sundown was perhaps a trifleover-zealous in taking the road at night. He began to realize thisafter he had journeyed along the dim, starlit trail for an hour or soand found no break in the level monotony of the mesa. He peered ahead,hoping to see the blur of a hill against the southern stars. The airwas cool and clear and sweet. He plodded along, happy in the prospectof work. Although he was a physical coward, darkness and the solitudesheld no enemies for him. He felt that the world belonged to him atnight. The moon was his lantern and the stars were his friends.Circumstance and environment had wrought for him a coat of cheerfuleffrontery which passed for hardihood; a coat patched with slang andgaping with inconsistencies, which he put on or off at will. Out onthe starlit mesas he had metaphorically shed his coat. He was at home.Here there were no men to joke about his awkwardness and his ungainlyheight. A wanderer by nature, he looked upon space as his kingdom.Great distances were but the highways of his heritage, each promisingnew vistas, new adventuring. His wayside fires were his altars, theirsmoke the incense to his gods. A true adventurer, albeit timid, hejourneyed not knowing why, but rather because he knew no reason for notjourneying. Wrapped in his vague imaginings he swung along, peeringahead from time to time until at last he saw upon the far background ofthe night a darker something shaped like a tiny mound. "That's her!"he exclaimed, joyously, and quickened his pace. "But Gee Gosh! Iguess them fellas forgot I was afoot. That hill looks turruble faroff. Mebby because it's dark." The distant hill seemed to keep paceahead of him, sliding away into the southern night as he advanced.Having that stubbornness so frequently associated with timidity, heplodded on, determined to top the hill before morning. "Them fellas asrides don't know how far things are," he commented. "But, anyhow, thefolks at that hotel will sure know I want the job, walkin' all nightfor it."
Gradually the outline of the hill became bolder. Sundown estimatedthat he had been traveling several hours, when the going stiffened to aslow grade. Presently the grade became steep and rocky. Thus far theroad had led straight south. Now it swung to the west and skirted thebase of the hill in a gradual ascent. Then it swung back againfollowing a fairly easy slope to the top. His optimism waned as he sawno light ahead. The night grew colder. The stars flickered as thewind of the dawn, whispering over the grasses, touched his face. Hepaused for a moment on the crest of the hill, turned to look back, andthen started down the slope. It was steep and rutted. He had not gonefar when he stumbled and fell. His blanket-roll had pitched ahead ofhim. He fumbled about for it and finally found it. "Them as believesin signs would say it was about time to go to roost," he remarked,nursing his knee that had been cut on a fragment of ragged tufa. Acoyote wailed. Sundown started up. "Some lonesome. But she sure isone grand old night! Guess I'll turn in."
He rolled in his blankets. Hardly had he adjusted his length of limbto the unevenness of the ground when he fell asleep. He had cometwenty-five miles across the midnight mesas. Five miles below him washis destination, shrouded by the night, but visioned in his dreams as apalatial summer resort, aglow with lights and eagerly awaiting thecoming of the new cook.
The dawn, edging its slow way across the mesas, struck palely on thehillside where he slept. A rabbit, huddled beneath a scrub-cedar,hopped to the middle of the road and sat up, staring with moveless eyesat the motionless hump of blanket near the road. In a flash the widemesas were tinged with gold as the smouldering red sun rose, to marchunclouded to the western sea.
Midway between the town of Antelope and the river Concho is thewater-hole. The land immediately surrounding the water-hole isenclosed with a barb-wire fence. Within the enclosure is a ranch-housepainted white, a scrub-cedar corral, a small stable, and a lean-toshading the water-hole from the desert sun. The place is altogetherneat and habitable. It is rather a surprise to the chance wayfarer tofind the ranch uninhabited. As desolate as a stranded steamer on a mudbank, it stands in the center of several hundred acres of desert,incapable, without irrigation, of producing anything more edible thanlizards and horned toads. Why a homesteader should have chosen tolocate there is a mystery. His reason for abandoning the place isglaringly obvious. Though failure be written in every angle and nookof the homestead, it is the failure of large-hearted enterprise, ofdaring to attempt, of striving to make the desert bloom, and not thefailure of indolence or sloth.
Western humor like Western topography is apt to be more or less rugged.Between the high gateposts of the yard enclosure there is a great,twelve-foot sign lettered in black. It reads: "American Hotel." Aband of happy cowboys appropriated the sign when on a visit toAntelope, pressed a Mexican freighter to pack it thirty miles acrossthe desert, and nailed it above the gateway of the water-hole ranch.It is a standing joke among the cattle- and sheep-men of the ConchoValley.
Sundown sat up and gazed about. The rabbit, startled out of itsordinary resourcefulness, stiffened. The delicate nostrils ceasedtwitching. "Good mornin', little fella! You been travelin' all nighttoo?" And Sundown yawned and stretched. Down the road sped a brownexclamation mark with a white dot at its visible end. "Guess he don'thave to travel nights to get 'most anywhere," laughed Sundown. Hekicked back his blankets and rose stiffly. The luxury of his yawn wasstifled as he saw below him the ranchhouse with some strange kind of asign above its gate. "If that's the hotel," he said as he corded hisblankets, "she don't look much bigger than me own. But distances ismighty deceivin' in this here open-face country." For a moment hestood on the hillside, a gaunt, lonely figure, gazing out across thelimitless mesas. Then he jogged down the grade, whistling.
As he drew near the ranch his whistling ceased and his expressionchanged to one of quizzical uncertainty. "That's the sign, allright,--'American Hotel,'--but the hotel part ain't livin' up to thesign. But some hotels is like that; mostly front."
He opened the ranch-house gate and strode to the door. He knockedtimidly. Then he dropped his blanket-roll and stepped to a window.Through the grimy glass he saw an empty, board-walled room, a slant ofsunlight across the floor, and in the sunlight a rusted stove. Hewalked back to the gateway and stood gazing at the sign. He peeredround helplessly. Then a slow grin illumined his face. "Why," heexclaimed, "it's--it's a joke. Reckon the proprietor must be outhuntin' up trade. And accordin' to that he won't be back direct."
He wandered about the place like a stray cat in a strange attic,timorous and curious. Ordinarily he would have considered himselffortunate. The house offered shelter and seclusion. There was clearcold water to drink and a stove on which to cook. As he thought of thestove the latitude and longitude of the "joke" dawned upon him withfull significance. He drank at the water-hole and, gathering a fewsticks, built a fire. From his blankets he took a tin can, drew a wadof newspaper from it, and made coffee. Then he cast about forsomething to eat. "Now, if I was a cow--" he began, when he suddenlyremembered the rabbit. "Reckon he's got relations hoppin' around inthem bushes." He picked up a stick and started for the gate.
Not far from the ranch he saw a rabbit crouched beneath a clump ofbrush. He flung his stick and missed. The rabbit ran to another bushand stopped. Encouraged by the little animal's nonchalance, he dashedafter it with a wild and startling whoop. The rabbit circled the brushand set off at right angles to his pursuer's course. Sundown made theturn, but it was "on one wheel" so to speak. His foot caught in aprairie-dog hole and he dove headlong with an exclamation that soundedas much like "Whump!" as anything else. He uttered another and lessforced exclamation when he discovered in the tangle of brush that hadbroken his fall, another rabbit that had not survived his suddenvisitation. He picked up the limp, furry shape. "Asleep at theswitch," he said. "He ain't much bigger than a whisper, but he'sbreakfast."
Rabbit, fried on a stove-lid, makes a pretty satisfying meal wheneating ceases to be a pleasure and becomes a necessity. Sundown wiselyreserved a portion of his kill for futur
e consumption.
As the morning grew warmer, he fell asleep in the shade of theranch-house. Late in the afternoon he wakened, went into the house andmade coffee. After the coffee he came out, rolled a cigarette, and satsmoking and gazing out across the afternoon mesas. "I feel it comin',"he said to himself. "And it's a good one, so I guess I'll put her inme book."
He rummaged in his blankets and unearthed a grimy, tattered notebook.Lubricating the blunt point of a stubby pencil he set to work. When hehad finished, the sun was close to the horizon. He sat back and gazedsideways at his effort. "I'll try her on meself," he said, drawing uphis leg and resting the notebook against his lean knee. "Wish I couldstand off and listen to meself," he muttered. "Kind o' get the defectbetter." Then he read laboriously:--
"Bo, it's goin' to be hot all right; Sun's a floodin' the eastern range. Mebby it was kind o' cold last night, But there's nothin' like havin' a little change. Money? No. Only jest room for me; Mountings and valleys and plains and such. Ain't I got eyes that was made to see? Ain't I got ears? But they don't hear much: Only a kind of a inside song, Like when the grasshopper quits his sad, And says: 'Rickety-chick! Why, there is nothin' wrong!' And after the coffee, things ain't so bad."
"Huh! Sounds all right for a starter. Ladies and them as came withyou, I will now spiel the next section."
"The wind is makin' my bed for me, Smoothin' the grass where I'm goin' to flop, When the quails roost up in the live-oak tree, And my legs feel like as they want to stop. Pal or no pal, it's about the same, For nobody knows how you feel inside. Hittin' the grit is a lonesome game,-- But quit it? No matter how hard I tried. But mebby I will when that inside song Stops a-buzzin' like bees that's mad, Grumblin' together: 'There's nothin' wrong!' And--after the coffee things ain't so bad."
"Bees ain't so darned happy, either. They're too busy. Guess it's agood thing I went back to me grasshopper in the last verse. And now,ladies and gents, this is posituvely the last appearance of the notedelectrocutionist, Sundown Slim; so, listen."
"Ladies, I've beat it from Los to Maine. And, gents, not knowin' jest what to do, I turned and slippered it back again, Wantin' to see, jest the same as you. Ridin' rods and a-dodgin' flies; Eatin' at times when me luck was good. Spielin' the con to the easy guys, But never jest makin' it understood, Even to me, why that inside song Kep' a-handin' me out the glad, Like the grasshopper singin': 'There's nothin' wrong!' And--after the coffee things ain't so bad."
Sundown grinned with unalloyed pleasure. His mythical audience seemedto await a few words, so he rose stiffly, and struck an attitudesomewhat akin to that of Henry Irving standing beside a milk-can andcontemplating the village pump. "It gives me great pleasure to informyou"--he hesitated and cleared his throat--"that them there words ofmine was expired by half a rabbit--small--and two cans of coffee. HadI been fed up like youse"--and he bowed grandly--"there's no tellin'what I might 'a' writ. Thankin' you for the box-office receipts, I amyours to demand, Sundown Slim, of Outdoors, Anywhere, till furthernotice."
Then he marched histrionically to the ranchhouse and made a fire in therusted stove.
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