Spanish Crossing

by Alan Lemay

  The boys liked Elmer in spite of his loco ways, an' the Griddle Ranch was heaven to him, especially when Helen was there. It was after the Carson rodeo when Elmer mopped up in the shootin' and ridin' that Helen insisted on ridin' all the way home with him. It made the of man suspicious an' he packs Helen off to school. He always says she never would marry any good-for-nothin', forty-dollar cowpoke, but was going to have some fine-lookin', refined fellow that could take her into society.

  It was about ten o'clock in the morning when Elmer started for Dry Valley. The sun was shinin', a cool breeze was blowin' from the west, and he begun to cheer up an' take an interest in life.

  He rode past a prairie-dog town, shot the head off a rattlesnake what had got up too early, an' stirred up the dust under a ground owl what had stayed up too late. Then he began to sing. If he hadn't been makin' so much noise, he might have heard some shootin' just around the hill. As it was, he bumped into the nicest hold-up anyone ever seen.

  The stagecoach was pulled up at the side of the road. The driver was slumped forward in his seat with his head hangin' down on his breast. The reins had fallen to the ground. A young woman was steppin' out of the coach where a masked man was givin' orders, and a fat drummer from K. C. was stuck halfway through a window where he had tried to get out head first.

  One of the bandits was on top of the coach, unloading the express packages an' mail sacks. Another was rippin' 'em open, and the fourth was standin' in front of the horses which was scared considerable.

  Elmer took the most interest in the last one, 'cause he had a gun held plumb on the middle of Elmer's shirt front. "Git off-a that horse!" he yells.

  Elmer did. He tumbled off on the far side an' come up shootin'. The feller kinda doubled up an' sat down with his hands over his stomach. Elmer banged away at the man on the coach, an' he come tumblin' to the ground head first. It all happened in a couple o' seconds, with Elmer shootin' from underneath his horse.

  The stage horses had been rearin' and plungin' but couldn't get away as long as the man was in front of 'em. Now they went dashin' down the road, the reins strung out behind them, an' the fat drummer yellin' like a buck Sioux at the summer dog feast.

  The two remainin' bandits began poppin' at Elmer, and one of them nicked him in the left hind leg.

  Elmer had to stop shootin' in order to reload. He had a vague sort of notion about identifyin' the bandits, and noticed one of 'em was wearin' yeller chaps an' the other had on a big, gray Stetson.

  Yeller Britches reached his horse an' then come chargin' up, leadin' the other cayuse, which Gray Hat climbs on.

  Elmer began shootin' again, an' Gray Hat reeled in the saddle. Then he dashes in and scoops up the woman an' holds her in front of him for a shield, while the other man rides away. Elmer couldn't shoot at the man and was too danged chicken-hearted to shoot the horse. So all he could do was lay there an' cuss while the bandit backed away slow like with the woman yellin' and strugglin'.

  Elmer stood up, and the girl must have seen him plain for the first time. "Elmer!" she screams. "Elmer, it's me... Helen! Help!"

  Of course, that sent him clear off his noodle, an' he went running out with a better like a locoed steer. Gray Hat took good aim and drops him in the dust, an' then went ridin' away, still carrying Helen who began to scream an' cry when she saw Elmer fall.

  The two bandits had all they wanted of Elmer's fancy shootin', and didn't dare go back after the loot. Yeller Britches came ridin' back and said to bring Helen along and they'd hold her for ransom. She began to yell louder than ever at that, an' Gray Hat told her to shut up or he'd bust her over the head with his gun.

  Elmer struggled up, fell down again, and then crawled to the pinto an' dumb into the saddle. His leg had kinda buckled under him. He had a bullet through the shoulder that he knew had touched a lung, 'cause he was spittin' red. Things was goin' around in a circle an' the ground seemed to be tipping up an' down like a big earthquake, but he yelled at the pinto an' started after the two men an' Helen.

  That pinto of Elmer's wasn't much to look at, but it was made all of steel springs and India rubber, and it wasn't afraid of nothin'. At first, the bandits gained, but Elmer kept 'em in sight an' then drew up closer as his head cleared an' the ground stopped whirling an' tipping.

  Finally they reached the foothills, an' the men disappeared around a bend as they dashed up a little canon. Yeller Britches rode behind a big boulder an' waited while the other one rode on up the canon with Helen.

  Elmer never did have a lick of sense when it come to cau tion and, of course, wouldn't slack up to spy out what lay ahead. He came bustin' through the canon with the pinto on a dead run. The horse must have smelled out something wrong, for it threw up its head just as a gun cracked behind the boulder.

  Down went the pinto, and Elmer just had time to throw hisself out of the saddle. Both of 'em lay there, the pinto quiverin' all over, and Elmer gaspin' with the wind knocked clean out of him.

  Yeller Britches was peekin' out from behind the rock. As Elmer lay perfectly still, he seemed to think all was over but the shoutin' and that he had winged a horse an' man with one shot. As a matter of fact, he had creased the pinto's head as slick as a whisde. Pretty soon it began to kick, an' next it struggled to its feet, an' stood there snortin'.

  Yeller Britches stepped out from behind the boulder an' took a couple of steps forward. There was a crack from Elmer's gun, an' Yeller Britches tumbled over with a bullet square between the eyes. That was some more of Elmer's fancy rodeo shootin'.

  Elmer struggled to his horse an' next moment was hittin' the trail up the canon. He knew he'd catch up with Gray Hat an' Helen, 'cause no horse carryin' double could stand that pace long. Pretty quick he saw 'em up ahead, weavin' in and out along the trail.

  Elmer's left arm wasn't much good. His leg was painin' like a thousand needles was stickin' into it, and he was bleedin' all down the left side. But he held onto the saddle horn an' kept shakin' his head to keep away the gray mist that seemed to be sweepin' down around everything.

  "Helen!" he says over an' over. "Helen, yuh beautiful, wonderful little son-of-a-gun. I'm comin'."

  A bullet sings past his head an' flattens out against a rock. Another whistles by somewhere, but Elmer didn't pay no attention to 'em. The way the pinto was climbin' over rocks, an' the way Elmer was swayin' in the saddle, the best shot in the world couldn't even a-dusted his feathers.

  Then he heard Helen scream. The gray mist cleared away as he straightened up in the saddle. There they were, not more than fifty yards away, Helen strugglin' with the bandit. The road agent's hat was knocked off, an' he couldn't shoot again 'cause Helen was hangin' onto his gun hand. He began hittin' her, an' she socked her teeth into his wrist.

  "Let go, yuh ugly little hellcat!" he yells.

  "You're a liar!" Elmer shouts. "She's the sweetest, beautifulest, wonderfulest girl in the world."

  Gray Hat got his gun hand free an' smashes down on Helen's head. She dropped to the ground an' sat down on a rock all groggy-like. The bandit shot twice at Elmer an' then dashed on up the canon.

  Elmer couldn't see nothin' but Helen, an' he jumps off his horse by her side. "Are yuh hurt, gal?" he asks.

  "No I'm not. Get that fellow, Elmer! He hit me on the head, and before that he...he kissed me."

  "Yeow!" Elmer yells. His gun roared three times, an' Gray Hat drops out of the saddle an' lay still.

  "Golly!" Elmer says as he stood there, lookin' foolish-like at his gun. "Golly, everything is kinda smoky-like. Are yuh there, Helen?" Then he staggers a little an' plops face down in the trail.

  Helen had been sitting without movin' while Elmer drops the bandit out o' the saddle, but now she jumped up and ran to his side. "Elmer, Elmer!" she cried. "What's the matter, Elmer?"

  He looked up in a surprised sort of way an' then grinned. "Helen," he says, "1 guess 1 brought yuh back fer that edi cated, refined feller from the East." Then he coughed up some blood an' fainted dead away.r />
  The pinto was standin' there chewin' up a soap-weed, an' Helen got the canteen from the saddle. She cut away Elmer's shirt which was covered with blood. The bullet had gone clean through his shoulder.

  She was small an' slender an' graceful, but she sure knowed her oats when it come to bein' a nurse. All her life she had been patchin' up cowboys what had got shot or kicked or hooked, or had sat down on a hot brandin' iron.

  She washed the holes in Elmer's shoulder an' tied 'em up with a part of her skirt. Then she sloshed water in his face till he opened his eyes. "Elmer," she says, "I've got to get you on the horse."

  She did it, too, an' pretty quick she was up behind him, holdin' him with her arms an' steerin' the horse for old Sowbelly Williams's place two miles up the canon.

  Elmer kept faintin' an' then comin' to, and, by the time they reached the shack, he was clear off his head. Old Sowbelly wasn't home, but Helen got Elmer in bed an' did up his hurt again, 'cause it had started bleedin'.

  She couldn't get a doctor or anybody to help her, but she buckled in to pull him through. She tied him down to the bed when he began to kick an' soused him with cold water when he began to rave.

  Elmer talked about her an' about how heartbroken he was 'cause she was goin' to marry a feller from the East. Finally he let out a whole string o' love stuff that was so mushy she went down right by the bed an' begun to kiss him square on the mouth.

  Sowbelly didn't come home till the next Friday, an' then he was so drunk he didn't know nothin' for two days. Elmer was better then but was still out o' his head. He come out all right a couple o' days later, an' the first thing he asked Helen was when she was goin' to get married.

  "Oh, Elmer," she says, all red-like, "I'll marry you just as soon as you are able to go to town."

  That wasn't what he was expectin' at all, an' he was so surprised an' tickled that he got kinda delirious again.

  They rode into town a week later on the pinto an' a horse they borrowed from Sowbelly when he wasn't lookin'. There was still a lot of excitement in Crow Butte over the hold-up. The stage had come in with the wounded driver an' the fat drummer still stickin' halfway out the window. But no one could find out who the girl an' the unknown hero was that the travelin' man told about after they sawed him out an' he got through cussin'.

  They had all went back to where the stage was held up but couldn't find a trace of 'em. One of the gang was dead, an' the other was just enough alive to string up by the neck. They had to hang him quick, or it would have been too late. The mail sacks an' express was all there, so everything was lovely.

  Elmer was kinda dubious about gettin' married. He only had four dollars an' thirty-seven cents, an' he knew that wasn't enough to set up housekeepin' on. Besides, he was kinda scared that Bellerin' Bill might say it with bullets.

  "You leave it to me, Elmer," Helen told him as they rode into town.

  "Well, all right, but I'm afraid he won't like it. Yuh know he run me off the place an' said never to come back."

  "We will see. I'll call him up, and 1 am sure I can get his consent and his blessing."

  "You're a wonder, all right, Helen," grins Elmer. "An' if yuh can do that, I'll let yuh be the boss for the next fifty years."

  There was one of these here new-fangled telephone lines that the ranchers had strung across the fences, an' there was about fifty of 'em on it. You turned a crank so many times for each one, an' usually all the others listened in. Sixteen short rings an' eight longs was the Griddle Ranch.

  Helen cranked away. She could hear receivers taken up all along the line an' finally Bill bettered: "What the hell do yuh want?"

  "Pop," she cries, "it's Helen. I'm in Crow Butte."

  "Fine!" howls Bill. "Get a horse at the livery barn an' come home as fast as the danged thing can run."

  "1 will. But I brought someone with me."

  "Are yuh married?"

  "Not yet, Pop. I was waiting for your consent and your blessing."

  "is he good lookin', Helen?"

  "Oh, Pop, he's the handsomest man in the world."

  "Is he re-fined?"

  "Why, he's the most refined and considerate and gentle man 1 ever knew."

  "Is he brave?"

  "Brave! Why, Pop, he is so brave and wonderful that he shot up that whole gang of robbers that held up the stage, and he rescued me when they carried me away to hold for ransom, and he got wounded, an..."

  "That's fine, Helen," shouted Bill. "He's jest the man I've been waitin' for. Get married right away an' come home as fast as them crowbaits can hit the trail. We'll be waitin' with the fatted calf ready for the meat axe."

  "You're sure it will be all right, Pop?"

  "Sure thing. Hurry up!"

  Bill drops the receiver an' went shoutin' to the cowpokes that Helen was bringin' home that handsome, brave, refined chap from the East.

  Elmer an' Helen got a license an' was married by the sky pilot in Crow Butte. It near busted both of 'em to pay the bill. Then Helen insisted on Elmer gettin' a new outfit of store clothes. "We'll charge it to Pop," she said. "He's so pleased that he'll stand for anything."

  Pretty soon Elmer comes out of the store grinnin' like a Hallowe'en punkin. He looked just like the full moon in December. He had on a brown suit, a new purple shirt with red stripes, a green necktie, a high rubber collar an' one o' these round-topped bowler hats. He looked fine, except the hat was too large an' come down over his ears, an' the collar was so high it kinda made his chin stick up in the air like a deacon after church. The tie was one of these here patent contraptions, an' it kept gettin' unhooked. The sleeves of his coat was pretty short, an' his pants was so tight they raised him clear off the ground every time he took a step.

  "Oh, Elmer!" cried Helen when she sees him. "You're marvelous. 1 know Pop will be pleased."

  "But what if he ain't?" asked Elmer.

  "Well," she says kinda thoughtful-like, "it will be all right, anyway, and 1 am sure he will come around when we give him a grand...."

  She stopped an' turned red all of a sudden.

  "Grand what?" asks Elmer, but she shook her head slow an' didn't answer. "Grand piano? Grand march?"

  But she wouldn't say nothin', an' they started for the ranch.

  The gang was all settin' on the corral fence, waitin' for 'em when they drove in. Bill come bustin' out o' the house an' grabbed Helen in a bear hug.

  "Bully for you, gal!" he shouted. "An' so this is the new hero son-in-law."

  He came forward with his hand out an' smilin' all over his face. Then he stopped, his hand dropped to his side, the grin faded away slow, an' he sat down on the well curb an' run his hand over his head like as though he was kinda drunk an' didn't know nothin'.

  "My Gawd!" he said all thick-like. "My Gawd, it's Elmer!"

  An' then we heard a shriek from behind that raised our hair an' sent the cold crinkles all up an' down our backs. We grabs our guns an' whirls around, but it was only Sad Harry, laughin' for the second time since he come to the Griddle Ranch.

  Old Bill took it pretty hard, and we was afraid for his mind for a month or two. Then one evenin' Elmer comes to the bunkhouse grinnin' all over as though someone had tickled him.

  "Bill will be all right now," he grins, "'cause Helen says there is goin' to be a grand...." Then he stops a while an' scratches his yeller head an' tries to think. "By glory!" he shouts all of a sudden. "Now 1 know what she meant over in Crow Butte when she was talkin' about grand somethin'. It's a good one on her that I found out. 1 guess 1 ain't so slow."

  Old Bill sure has made up with Elmer now, an' he brags about his grandson so that yuh can hear him all over Dry Valley County. You'd think that Glory Halleluyah hisself had come to stay at the Griddle Ranch. The most puzzlin' thing about it is that Bellerin' Bill, Junior, is a freckled-faced, yellerheaded little scamp an' looks exactly like Elmer.

  Little seems to be known by Kettle country narrators of the history of Charley Busted Wing. He was an obscure and unconsidered Crow
broncho rider when he rose to momentary prominence in the Wagon Bed water case - a case that is now history of the sort that cattlemen love to recount over and over again at roundup and rodeo. And he dropped back into total obscurity again when the Wagon Bed case was done. His part in the now famous water feud appears in the oftentold story, of course, but of the previous history of Charley Busted Wing little is ever said. This is odd, for the extraordinary odyssey of Charley Busted Wing is perhaps the most curious part of the story of the fight over the Wagon Bed water.

  At the time when it occurred to Charley Busted Wing to revisit the Redregon country of his youth, he had been a broncho rider in the Kettle country for almost fifteen of his thirty years. Since he was the only Indian in the Kettle country to make his living by broncho topping, he had managed to achieve not only toleration, but a certain reputation for being a good Indian. In this he was assisted, rather than hindered, by a popular opinion that he was short only one or two of his wheels. Not that he was mentally queer in any particular way; it was simply that no idea ever penetrated his thick skull without a furious struggle.

  Perhaps Busted Wing's singular talent for improfundity was the reason for his believing that young Verne Harris, his last boss in Kettle country, was the greatest man he had ever known. Verne Harris was a smart and a shrewd business man, and he had extensive cattle-country holdings which he had inherited; but people who had done business with Harris could have told Busted Wing that, in spite of Verne's supremely plausible manner, he was not exactly the proper subject for a dumb Indian's admiring trust.

  Nobody did so, however, and, when Busted Wing swung into the saddle for his return to the Redregon country which he had left so long ago, his proudest possession was a recommendation signed by Verne Harris of the Circle Bar. He would have been less sanguine, perhaps, if he had known what that recommendation contained - but Busted Wing could not read.