Monte Walsh

by Jack Schaefer

  It was a man in clean new overalls and a straw hat who came along in a buggy and said he was a horse buyer for farms back in the cornbelt. But the man was too casual tossing out the remark that being big-hearted he liked to take off ranchers' hands any odd outlaws they had around eating good grass at a loss. "I can get that kind cheap," said the man, "seein' as how they ain't any other use an' I've got ways of breakin' 'em to plow-pullin'." That sounded plausible but Cal noted that a big-hearted horse trader was something new in his long experience and that when he tried questions the man was mighty vague about the plow-breaking ways. Cal stalled and uncorked a bottle and after a while had this straight. The man was really putting together a string of outlaw buckers for use at rodeos back east some, where the shows were becoming organized and edging into a paying business. "Yes," said the man. "I've heard you've a horse here nobody can ride. No use to you. I'll give fifteen dollars." An hour and a half later and after a look at Hellfire the man reached seventy-five.

  "Shucks," said Monte Walsh when he heard. "He's got the disposition of a rattlesnake and the manners of a she-bear with cubs but all the same I'm a-going to miss having that thing around."

  Hellfire left the Slash Y tied to the back of the buggy, respectful of the rope around his neck, maybe satisfied some that he had put respect in the man with a forehoof nearly raking the new overalls off him and taking a few patches of skin too. He went holding back until the rope would tighten, then trotting to get some slack and turn that big hammerhead to look into distance at the far mountains where the badlands climbed in rugged many-colored broken ridges to meet them.

  * * *

  Two years passed the way years do over the range and every now and then during that time word reached the Slash Y by men drifting through or the line-rider grapevine or one of the weekly papers picked up with the mail in town that Hellfire had done it again--had thrown his man or men somewhere along the rodeo circuit. He threw them all and he kept on throwing them and trying to do damage in the process and sometimes doing it and he earned billing above any of the men who tried to ride him and the papers took to using captions like: HELLFIRE AGAIN IN FOUR JUMPS. One time, as a feature stunt at the big show in Denver, not another horse was used in the bronc-riding and he took all entrants and shucked them all, one after another, and one of them was bunged up bad and another was crippled for life by a big splatty hoof that caught him in the hip. And every time word reached the Slash Y a small wry smile flicked on Monte Walsh's lips and he murmured soft to himself: "Ain't that a horse."

  Then one day in the next year in the evening Hat Henderson looked up from the paper he was reading by one of the two kerosene lamps in the bunkhouse and said: "Lookahere. Sonny Jacobs won up at Las Vegas."

  "That ain't news," said Dally Johnson. "Sonny's got the habit of winning."

  "Yeah," said Hat. "But he was riding Hellfire."

  Over on his bunk Monte Walsh raised up and started to say something and thought better of it and eased down again. He was troubled in his mind and could not have told just why and he was troubled that way until he and some of the others were in town for a little well-oiled relaxation and ran into Sonny Jacobs passing through.

  "Yep," said Sonny, swirling the amber liquid in his glass and watching it swirl. "Yep and yessiree and you can bet your roll on it, I rode him. Old Hellfire himself." Then Sonny looked up, grinning around. "But just among you boys I'm free to say that just means I rode him just past the time limit and right after when I was leaving him that wasn't exactly and precisely all my own idea. He was sure helping me go."

  Down the bar a few places Monte Walsh, who had been - mighty quiet, raised his own glass and a small wry smile flicked on his lips and he downed his drink and another fol­lowing and before long he and Sonny were staging a Calam­ity Jane-style race, rules being each man must stay on his horse, ride up on the platform and in the front door of the first saloon and sink a drink in the saddle and out the back door and around to the front of the next saloon and in and ditto on down the street.

  * * *

  Two years again and word about Hellfire had been dwindling and then for a stretch there had been none at all. The Slash Y was changing, with Cal Brennan laid up in town with bad feet and creeping age at last, and a new manager was in charge full of modernization methods and fat lazy Herefords were beginning to multiply where longhorns had grazed and the fence lines were slicing once open range into big pastures with more windmills sprouting at strategic spots. But some of the old crew were still there and occasionally talk about Hell­fire still floated through the bunkhouse.

  "Hey, Monte," said Dally Johnson. "What d'you think happened to him?"

  "Aw, hell," said Monte Walsh. "I reckon the bastards ruined him then dumped him. Likely his ankles gave out. There never was a horse pounded like that. He'd cripple himself to shake a man."

  Then one day, a Saturday, with the branding done, they went into town to see a little Wild West show. It was a two­bit affair, mostly fake as most of them usually were, but such things had a kind of fascination for cowmen, even the old­time hands, if only for the fun of picking them to pieces for weeks after in talk.

  They rode in early for a good start on the serious business of being properly lubricated for appreciation of the proceedings. By early afternoon they were ranked with the usual crowd on the bleacher-style seats set along one side of a big corral. The show droned along with the usual stunts and a big-voiced presiding barker trying to whip up excitement with words and the one thing that really tickled the audience, particularly a bunch of Apaches from the reservation off southeast, was when an old stagecoach came careening in one end gate to go jouncing across and out another gate with the driver snapping a long whip and two men on top blazing away with blanks followed by half a dozen fake Indians painted scarey and bareback on ponies whooping and yelling and trying to handle bows and arrows and stay on those ponies at the same time and on the way out the coach lost a wheel against a gatepost and tipped with a lovely crash and the driver and two top-blazers went sprawling forward and in among the horses and harness.

  Then the barker let out another notch on that voice and whipped up excitement in himself at least and two men came in an end gate leading by a rope around its neck something which seemed to resemble a horse.

  Big-boned and homely as sin. Big hammerhead hanging low and just about every one of those big bones showing under shrunken dun-colored hide along slab-sided but deep barrel and hollow flanks and once-heavy hindquarters. A dark patch running from the few remaining wisps of almost­black mane on under the saddle and back to the remnants of almost-black tail. Light splotches showing on the gaunt belly from too-tight cinch scalds where the hair had grown out again white. Ankles swollen to twice normal size. Big splatty hoofs coming down gingerly into the dust and tiny muscle tremors running up the thick legs with every step.

  He stood, shuddering and muscle-twitching, big head hanging, respectful of the rope around his neck, and one of the men loosened the loop and flipped it off and leaped back as the big head moved, jaws reaching for the arm. He stood, big head hanging, and as the other man stepped in close, cautious, and took the reins, the big head rose and turned some, watching out of rolled eye, and as the man swung up, light and quick, he exploded into action.

  Meanness and concentrated fury and utter disregard of the pain stabbing up the legs from pounding hoofs into starved weakened body, a good show still, no doubt of that, but slow, a slow-motion parody to certain men in the stand, the bitter brutal wrench and the final snap gone.

  "Would you look at that," said Sugar Wyman. "Old Hell­fire's still willin' to fight!"

  Two seats away Monte Walsh sat still and quiet, staring out across trodden dust at a big unbeaten horse standing stiff­legged, gulping in air and gathering strength to try again. He tried and the man rocked and swayed in the saddle and raked the gaunt slab sides with spurs and waved his hat yipping. He stood again, stiff-legged, and the man swung down in one swift motion, dodging t
he heels that blazed at him as he left, and the other man flipped his loop and Hellfire was led away.

  Up in the stand Monte Walsh stared down at his boot toes. Slowly one hand moved into a pants pocket and out again. He stared down at the open palm. Four dollar bills and some change. He shifted weight to turn toward Chet Rollins beside him.

  "All right, Monte," said Chet. "I got seven dollars. You go around and start dickering while I see what the rest of the boys've got."

  They bought him for twenty-eight dollars. He returned to the neighborhood of the Slash Y buildings, slow and easy and with full escort, the way he had come there once before, with Chet Rollins's rope around his neck. They did not stop there. They went right on past and through the open gap in one fence line and on to the gate in the next. Monte Walsh dismounted and opened the gate and moved in, wary, and flipped the loop over the big head and away and lost a piece of sleeve doing it and had to dodge behind the open gate or he might have lost more.

  Old Hellfire faced the open gap as if wondering was there a trick in this. Then he raised that hammerhead and bugled to all the simple things like wolves and lions that he was coming home. He plunged through the gap and blazed with both heels in passing and hit the gate and knocked it into Monte and sent him sprawling.

  "Shucks," said Monte, coming to his feet to watch old Hellfire head for the badlands, not able to streak any more but moving right along at a good trot then into a lumbering lope.

  "If that thing could talk, he couldn't have said it better."

  * * *

  It was early the next year that Chet Rollins and Monte Walsh, looking for a four-year-old that had jumped and scrambled over the breaking corral rails and made it through fence lines into the badlands with a saddle still on him, came on the bones. There was no mistaking those big ones and the scraps of dun-colored hide clinging to a few. Monte sat still in his saddle, staring down. It was Chet who found the other remains, rib cage smashed in, with bits of a tawny fur showing on the fanged skull.

  Monte drew a deep breath. "Must of been two of them jumped him."

  "Maybe," said Chet. "Or maybe again only one and they did for each other. The coyotes have sure been working on them both. One thing sure, he put up a real fight."

  "Certain he did," said Monte Walsh. "He was always willing."

  * * *

  BELLES OF THE BALL

  Rumors Laid to Rest

  From a gentleman who came in on the train this morning we have at last learned the identity of the two "ladies" whose charms captivated all present and made festive the occasion of the dance at Holloway's Livery Stable in the town of Harmony last month.

  It seems that the masculine attendance at the affair surpassed all expectations. Men of the saddle came in from as far as seventy miles away. All the wives and sisters and daughters of the town did their loyal best but, alas, to put it bluntly, they were in short supply. Complaints on the subject were frequent. Then the two "ladies" about whom so many rumors have circulated put in an appearance. Mr. Monte Walsh and Mr. Chester Rollins, the two inseparables of the Slash Y range whose names should be familiar to readers of this newspaper from previous occasions, had raided a nearby store and arrayed themselves in feminine apparel. About their manly chests were those items which are unmentionable in a family newspaper but are well known to our feminine readers. About their legs swung other items which are normally covered by outer skirts. Our informant states that at least the flowered hats on their heads were properly respectable. He states further that they never lacked for enthusiastic partners the entire evening and that there were several vigorous encounters between jealous suitors anxious for their favors.

  The best of these, he solemnly states upon oath, was provided by "Miss" Walsh. When some admirer became too fresh "she" so far forgot "herself" as to pick the offender up and throw him into the hayloft.

  All in One Place

  1894

  I

  SONNY JACOSS, who would have dropped the Sonny if he could have long ago, ambled easy in saddle aboard a sleek grain-fed gray along the road that led to and ended at the range headquarters of the Consolidated Cattle Company. He was plumping around the middle and his broad face had the ruddy full-blown look of good food and soft living, but the squint of the eyes was still there and he sat the saddle with the simple assurance of the old days. Several years on the emerging rodeo circuit and two seasons with Colonel Cody's Wild West Show had given him a traveled sophistication he was rapidly and cheerfully shedding.

  He passed a batch of fat lazy white-faced cattle. "Haven't seen a longhorn yet," he murmured. "Makes me feel kind of lonesome." A few of them raised heads to look at him, indif­ferent and away, through and over the four-strand barbed wire fence that paralleled the road. "Wonder how they feel about that," he murmured. "Kind of like being in jail." He ambled on. The ranch buildings were just ahead. A gate barred the way. He swung down and opened the gate and led the gray through and closed the gate behind him. "Something new all the time," he murmured, swinging up. "Bet the boys don't like that nuisance." He ambled on.

  The old adobe ranch house had a fresh coating of soft toned mud plaster. Curtains, starched and frilly, showed in the front and side windows. The old veranda was painted and along each end small beds of flowers made patches of color. He stared at these, ambling past, finding nothing to murmur.

  He stopped by the first small corral and dismounted and led the gray in. Slowly, leisurely, he unsaddled and heaved the saddle up on a top rail and looped the bridle over the horn and watched the gray move toward the inside water trough. He turned to look with knowing eyes at the eight other horses that had crowded to the far side away from him.

  "Always had good hosses," he murmured. "Monte'd see to that." Suddenly he chuckled. "If that ain't his old dun, Monkey Face. Used to think of trying to steal that thing from him."

  He went out through the gate and closed it and turned to look at the other buildings, still and quiet in the serenity of afternoon sun. A new-built chicken house and run stretched out beside the long low plank barn and a mixed flock of hens squatted in dust holes, only a few paying any attention to the self-important scratchings of a flop-combed rooster. "Wonder who rides herd on those things," he murmured.

  He wandered over by the cracked surface of the still solid adobe bunkhouse and put one hand on each side of the open doorway and leaned in over the doorstep. Scattered clothing and gear hung from wooden pegs at one end. Old worn straw mattresses and pillows, blanket-covered, lay on six of the bunks along the sides. The other six were bare, empty. "Shrinking,". he murmured, pushing back out and looking around again. "Like everything else these days. Put up bob­wire and get rid of men."

  Smoke floated upward from the tin stovepipe of the adobe cookhouse. He strolled toward this, moving a bit faster. "Hey, Skimpy," he shouted, stepping up into the doorway. He stopped short, holding to the doorjambs.

  Beyond the plank table and benches, by the big old cook­stove, a short enormously fat woman with gray hair pulled haphazard up on her head and partly covered by a torn dust­cap was turning, big spoon in hand, to glare at him. "You stop that noise," she said. "Mrs. Morris'll raise hell. You'll wake the baby."

  Sonny's lower jaw dropped some. "Baby?" he said.

  "Up at the house," said the woman, contemptuous of his ignorance. "The boss-man's wife."

  "I'll make like a mouse," said Sonny. He took off his hat and tried a smile. "Morris? Only Morris I remember's old Jake used to hang around at the Triple Seven."

  "Him?" said the woman, relenting some. "That one? With a baby? It's a young one, nephew or something."

  "Rnnning the Slash Y?" said Sonny.

  "He's been to school," said the woman. "Back east somewheres. He knows everything. Or thinks he does. You ever work here?"

  "No ma'am," said Sonny. "I was Diamond Six to the south. But I was around often. Whatever happened to Skimpy? Skimpy Eagens, did the cooking."

  "How should I know?" said the woman. "Nobody tells
me much. But I hear them say he fell down one day right by the stove here. Dead when they found him. I suppose you'll be staying the night and I'll have to be feeding you too."

  "I was kind of counting on that," said Sonny, backing out. He wandered over by the bunkhouse again and sat on the bench along the front of it. He laid his hat beside him and leaned back against the adobes. "Skimpy too," he murmured. "There was nobody could make doughnuts like old Skimpy." He slumped further on the bench, feeling the warmth of the sun-soaked adobes against his back. The familiar remembered quiet and there's time-for-all-things of the big land began to seep into him.

  He turned his head slightly. The woman was in the door­way of the cookhouse, stepping down, carrying a thick-sided big cup of hot coffee. She came over and set the cup on the bench beside his hat. "If you're like the rest of them," she said, "you never get enough of it. I keep a pot on the stove."

  "Thank you, ma'am," said Sonny. "I sure like to think I'm still like the rest of 'em. Where is everybody? I mean the menfolks."

  "Over in the southeast pasture," said the woman, turning away to return to the cookhouse. "Dipping sheep."

  Sonny slumped further on the bench. "Sheep," he mur­mured. "Oh ... my ... God."

  * * *

  Far down the road and off to the right seven small figures moved, seven men mounted, jogging across the big land. They came to the fence paralleling the road and hesitated briefly while one dismounted and opened a wire gap and they rode through and the gap was closed and they jogged forward along the road.

  Sonny Jacobs, relaxed and lazy in angled shadow now on the bench along the front of the bunkhouse, watched them come.

  They approached the gate that barred the way and one of them, a lean length of rawhide thickening some at last with the slow subtle sag of the beginnings of middle age, struck spurs to his horse and it leaped ahead and reared, wheeling on hind legs, and dropped down alongside the gate and the man leaned down from the saddle unfastening the latch and the horse danced, backing and pivoting with short springy steps as he pulled the gate wide open. The others rode through and again the horse danced, enjoying the game, and the man leaned out from the saddle, pulling the gate shut, swinging low to reach through and fasten the latch.