Arizona Nights

by White, Stewart Edward

  Estrella advanced and felt curiously of the rawhide. Tommy was fastening it to the wheel at the ends only.

  “But how can it stay on that way?” she objected. “It’ll come right off as soon as you use it.”

  “It’ll harden on tight enough.”

  “Why?” she persisted. “Does it shrink much when it dries?”

  Senor Johnson stared to see if she might be joking. “Does it shrink?” he repeated slowly. “There ain’t nothing shrinks more, nor harder. It’ll mighty nigh break that wood.”

  Estrella, incredulous, interested, she could not have told why, stooped again to feel the soft, yielding hide. She shook her head.

  “You’re joking me because I’m a tenderfoot,” she accused brightly. “I know it dries hard, and I’ll believe it shrinks a lot, but to break wood—that’s piling it on a little thick.”

  “No, that’s right, ma’am,” broke in Brent Palmer. “It’s awful strong. It pulls like a horse when the desert sun gets on it. You wrap anything up in a piece of that hide and see what happens. Some time you take and wrap a piece around a potato and put her out in the sun and see how it’ll squeeze the water out of her.”

  “Is that so?” she appealed to Tommy. “I can’t tell when they are making fun of me.”

  “Yes, ma’am, that’s right,” he assured her.

  Estrella passed a strip of the flexible hide playfully about her wrists.

  “And if I let that dry that way I’d be handcuffed hard and fast,” she said.

  “It would cut you down to the bone,” supplemented Brent Palmer.

  She untwisted the strip, and stood looking at it, her eyes wide.

  “I—I don’t know why—” she faltered. “The thought makes me a little sick. Why, isn’t it queer? Ugh! it’s like a snake!” She flung it from her energetically and turned toward the ranch house.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ESTRELLA

  The honeymoon developed and the necessary adjustments took place. The latter Senor Johnson had not foreseen; and yet, when the necessity for them arose, he acknowledged them right and proper.

  “Course she don’t want to ride over to Circle I with us,” he informed his confidant, Jed Parker. “It’s a long ride, and she ain’t used to riding yet. Trouble is I’ve been thinking of doing things with her just as if she was a man. Women are different. They likes different things.”

  This second idea gradually overlaid the first in Senor Johnson’s mind. Estrella showed little aptitude or interest in the rougher side of life. Her husband’s statement as to her being still unused to riding was distinctly a euphemism. Estrella never arrived at the point of feeling safe on a horse. In time she gave up trying, and the sorrel drifted back to cow-punching. The range work she never understood.

  As a spectacle it imposed itself on her interest for a week; but since she could discover no real and vital concern in the welfare of cows, soon the mere outward show became an old story. Estrella’s sleek nature avoided instinctively all that interfered with bodily well-being. When she was cool and well-fed and not thirsty, and surrounded by a proper degree of feminine daintiness, then she was ready to amuse herself. But she could not understand the desirability of those pleasures for which a certain price in discomfort must be paid. As for firearms, she confessed herself frankly afraid of them. That was the point at which her intimacy with them stopped.

  The natural level to which these waters fell is easily seen. Quite simply, the Senor found that a wife does not enter fully into her husband’s workaday life. The dreams he had dreamed did not come true.

  This was at first a disappointment to him, of course, but the disappointment did not last. Senor Johnson was a man of sense, and he easily modified his first scheme of married life.

  “She’d get sick of it, and I’d get sick of it,” he formulated his new philosophy. “Now I got something to come back to, somebody to look forward to. And it’s a WOMAN; it ain’t one of these darn gangle-leg cowgirls. The great thing is to feel you BELONG to someone; and that someone nice and cool and fresh and purty is waitin’ for you when you come in tired. It beats that other little old idee of mine slick as a gun barrel.”

  So, during this, the busy season of the range riding, immediately before the great fall round-ups, Senor Johnson rode abroad all day, and returned to his own hearth as many evenings of the week as he could. Estrella always saw him coming and stood in the doorway to greet him. He kicked off his spurs, washed and dusted himself, and spent the evening with his wife. He liked the sound of exactly that phrase, and was fond of repeating it to himself in a variety of connections.

  “When I get in I’ll spend the evening with my wife.” “If I don’t ride over to Circle I, I’ll spend the evening with my wife,” and so on. He had a good deal to tell her of the day’s discoveries, the state of the range, and the condition of the cattle. To all of this she listened at least with patience. Senor Johnson, like most men who have long delayed marriage, was self-centred without knowing it. His interest in his mate had to do with her personality rather than with her doings.

  “What you do with yourself all day to-day?” he occasionally inquired.

  “Oh, there’s lots to do,” she would answer, a trifle listlessly; and this reply always seemed quite to satisfy his interest in the subject.

  Senor Johnson, with a curiously instant transformation often to be observed among the adventurous, settled luxuriously into the state of being a married man. Its smallest details gave him distinct and separate sensations of pleasure.

  “I plumb likes it all,” he said. “I likes havin’ interest in some fool geranium plant, and I likes worryin’ about the screen doors and all the rest of the plumb foolishness. It does me good. It feels like stretchin’ your legs in front of a good warm fire.”

  The centre, the compelling influence of this new state of affairs, was undoubtedly Estrella, and yet it is equally to be doubted whether she stood for more than the suggestion. Senor Johnson conducted his entire life with reference to his wife. His waking hours were concerned only with the thought of her, his every act revolved in its orbit controlled by her influence. Nevertheless she, as an individual human being, had little to do with it. Senor Johnson referred his life to a state of affairs he had himself invented and which he called the married state, and to a woman whose attitude he had himself determined upon and whom he designated as his wife. The actual state of affairs—whatever it might be—he did not see; and the actual woman supplied merely the material medium necessary to the reality of his idea. Whether Estrella’s eyes were interested or bored, bright or dull, alert or abstracted, contented or afraid, Senor Johnson could not have told you. He might have replied promptly enough—that they were happy and loving. That is the way Senor Johnson conceived a wife’s eyes.

  The routine of life, then, soon settled. After breakfast the Senor insisted that his wife accompany him on a short tour of inspection. “A little pasear,” he called it, “just to get set for the day.” Then his horse was brought, and he rode away on whatever business called him. Like a true son of the alkali, he took no lunch with him, nor expected his horse to feed until his return. This was an hour before sunset. The evening passed as has been described. It was all very simple.

  When the business hung close to the ranch house—as in the bronco busting, the rebranding of bought cattle, and the like—he was able to share his wife’s day. Estrella conducted herself dreamily, with a slow smile for him when his actual presence insisted on her attention. She seemed much given to staring out over the desert. Senor Johnson, appreciatively, thought he could understand this. Again, she gave much leisure to rocking back and forth on the low, wide veranda, her hands idle, her eyes vacant, her lips dumb. Susie O’Toole had early proved incompatible and had gone.

  “A nice, contented, home sort of a woman,” said Senor Johnson.

  One thing alone besides the deserts on which she never seemed tired of looking, fascinated her. Whenever a beef was killed for the uses of the ranch, sh
e commanded strips of the green skin. Then, like a child, she bound them and sewed them and nailed them to substances particularly susceptible to their constricting power. She choked the necks of green gourds, she indented the tender bark of cottonwood shoots, she expended an apparently exhaustless ingenuity on the fabrication of mechanical devices whose principle answered to the pulling of the drying rawhide. And always along the adobe fence could be seen a long row of potatoes bound in skin, some of them fresh and smooth and round; some sweating in the agony of squeezing; some wrinkled and dry and little, the last drops of life tortured out of them. Senor Johnson laughed good-humouredly at these toys, puzzled to explain their fascination for his wife.

  “They’re sure an amusing enough contraption honey,” said he, “but what makes you stand out there in the hot sun staring at them that way? It’s cooler on the porch.”

  “I don’t know,” said Estrella, helplessly, turning her slow, vacant gaze on him. Suddenly she shivered in a strong physical revulsion. “I don’t know!” she cried with passion.

  After they had been married about a month Senor Johnson found it necessary to drive into Willets.

  “How would you like to go, too, and buy some duds?” he asked Estrella.

  “Oh!” she cried strangely. “When?”

  “Day after tomorrow.”

  The trip decided, her entire attitude changed. The vacancy of her gaze lifted; her movements quickened; she left off staring at the desert, and her rawhide toys were neglected. Before starting, Senor Johnson gave her a check book. He explained that there were no banks in Willets, but that Goodrich, the storekeeper, would honour her signature.

  “Buy what you want to, honey,” said he. “Tear her wide open. I’m good for it.”

  “How much can I draw?” she asked, smiling.

  “As much as you want to,” he replied with emphasis.

  “Take care”—she poised before him with the check book extended—“I may draw—I might draw fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Not out of Goodrich,” he grinned; “you’d bust the game. But hold him up for the limit, anyway.”

  He chuckled aloud, pleased at the rare, birdlike coquetry of the woman. They drove to Willets. It took them two days to go and two days to return. Estrella went through the town in a cyclone burst of enthusiasm, saw everything, bought everything, exhausted everything in two hours. Willets was not a large place. On her return to the ranch she sat down at once in the rocking-chair on the veranda. Her hands fell into her lap. She stared out over the desert.

  Senor Johnson stole up behind her, clumsy as a playful bear. His eyes followed the direction of hers to where a cloud shadow lay across the slope, heavy, palpable, untransparent, like a blotch of ink.

  “Pretty, isn’t it, honey?” said he. “Glad to get back?”

  She smiled at him her vacant, slow smile.

  “Here’s my check book,” she said; “put it away for me. I’m through with it.”

  “I’ll put it in my desk,” said he. “It’s in the left-hand cubbyhole,” he called from inside.

  “Very well,” she replied.

  He stood in the doorway, looking fondly at her unconscious shoulders and the pose of her blonde head thrown back against the high rocking-chair.

  “That’s the sort of a woman, after all,” said Senor Johnson. “No blame fuss about her.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE ROUND-UP

  This, as you well may gather, was in the summer routine. Now the time of the great fall round-up drew near. The home ranch began to bustle in preparation.

  All through Cochise County were short mountain ranges set down, apparently at random, like a child’s blocks. In and out between them flowed the broad, plain-like valleys. On the valleys were the various ranges, great or small, controlled by the different individuals of the Cattlemen’s Association. During the year an unimportant, but certain, shifting of stock took place. A few cattle of Senor Johnson’s Lazy Y eluded the vigilance of his riders to drift over through the Grant Pass and into the ranges of his neighbour; equally, many of the neighbour’s steers watered daily at Senor Johnson’s troughs. It was a matter of courtesy to permit this, but one of the reasons for the fall round-up was a redistribution to the proper ranges. Each cattle-owner sent an outfit to the scene of labour. The combined outfits moved slowly from one valley to another, cutting out the strays, branding the late calves, collecting for the owner of that particular range all his stock, that he might select his marketable beef. In turn each cattleman was host to his neighbours and their men.

  This year it had been decided to begin the circle of the round-up at the C 0 Bar, near the banks of the San Pedro. Thence it would work eastward, wandering slowly in north and south deviation, to include all the country, until the final break-up would occur at the Lazy Y.

  The Lazy Y crew was to consist of four men, thirty riding horses, a “chuck wagon,” and cook. These, helping others, and receiving help in turn, would suffice, for in the round-up labour was pooled to a common end. With them would ride Jed Parker, to safeguard his master’s interests.

  For a week the punchers, in their daily rides, gathered in the range ponies. Senor Johnson owned fifty horses which he maintained at the home ranch for everyday riding, two hundred broken saddle animals, allowed the freedom of the range, except when special occasion demanded their use, and perhaps half a thousand quite unbroken—brood mares, stallions, young horses, broncos, and the like. At this time of year it was his habit to corral all those saddlewise in order to select horses for the round-ups and to replace the ranch animals. The latter he turned loose for their turn at the freedom of the range.

  The horses chosen, next the men turned their attention to outfit. Each had, of course, his saddle, spurs, and “rope.” Of the latter the chuck wagon carried many extra. That vehicle, furthermore, transported such articles as the blankets, the tarpaulins under which to sleep, the running irons for branding, the cooking layout, and the men’s personal effects. All was in readiness to move for the six weeks’ circle, when a complication arose. Jed Parker, while nimbly escaping an irritated steer, twisted the high heel of his boot on the corral fence. He insisted the injury amounted to nothing. Senor Johnson however, disagreed.

  “It don’t amount to nothing, Jed,” he pronounced, after manipulation, “but she might make a good able-bodied injury with a little coaxing. Rest her a week and then you’ll be all right.”

  “Rest her, the devil!” growled Jed; “who’s going to San Pedro?”

  “I will, of course,” replied the Senor promptly. “Didje think we’d send the Chink?”

  “I was first cousin to a Yaqui jackass for sendin’ young Billy Ellis out. He’ll be back in a week. He’d do.”

  “So’d the President,” the Senor pointed out; “I hear he’s had some experience.”

  “I hate to have you to go,” objected Jed. “There’s the missis.” He shot a glance sideways at his chief.

  “I guess she and I can stand it for a week,” scoffed the latter. “Why, we are old married folks by now. Besides, you can take care of her.”

  “I’ll try,” said Jed Parker, a little grimly.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE LONG TRAIL

  The round-up crew started early the next morning, just about sun-up. Senor Johnson rode first, merely to keep out of the dust. Then followed Torn Rich, jogging along easily in the cow-puncher’s “Spanish trot” whistling soothingly to quiet the horses, giving a lead to the band of saddle animals strung out loosely behind him. These moved on gracefully and lightly in the manner of the unburdened plains horse, half decided to follow Tom’s guidance, half inclined to break to right or left. Homer and Jim Lester flanked them, also riding in a slouch of apparent laziness, but every once in a while darting forward like bullets to turn back into the main herd certain individuals whom the early morning of the unwearied day had inspired to make a dash for liberty. The rear was brought up by Jerky Jones, the fourth cow-puncher, and the four-mule chuck wagon
, lost in its own dust.

  The sun mounted; the desert went silently through its changes. Wind devils raised straight, true columns of dust six, eight hundred, even a thousand feet into the air. The billows of dust from the horses and men crept and crawled with them like a living creature. Glorious colour, magnificent distance, astonishing illusion, filled the world.

  Senor Johnson rode ahead, looking at these things. The separation from his wife, brief as it would be, left room in his soul for the heart-hunger which beauty arouses in men. He loved the charm of the desert, yet it hurt him.

  Behind him the punchers relieved the tedium of the march, each after his own manner. In an hour the bunch of loose horses lost its early-morning good spirits and settled down to a steady plodding, that needed no supervision. Tom Rich led them, now, in silence, his time fully occupied in rolling Mexican cigarettes with one hand. The other three dropped back together and exchanged desultory remarks. Occasionally Jim Lester sang. It was always the same song of uncounted verses, but Jim had a strange fashion of singing a single verse at a time. After a long interval he would sing another.

  “My Love is a rider

  And broncos he breaks,

  But he’s given up riding

  And all for my sake,

  For he found him a horse

  And it suited him so

  That he vowed he’d ne’er ride

  Any other bronco!”

  he warbled, and then in the same breath:

  “Say, boys, did you get onto the pisano-looking shorthorn at Willets last week?

  “Nope.”

  “He sifted in wearin’ one of these hardboiled hats, and carryin’ a brogue thick enough to skate on. Says he wants a job drivin’ team—that he drives a truck plenty back to St. Louis, where he comes from. Goodrich sets him behind them little pinto cavallos he has. Say! that son of a gun a driver! He couldn’t drive nails in a snow bank.” An expressive free-hand gesture told all there was to tell of the runaway. “Th’ shorthorn landed headfirst in Goldfish Charlie’s horse trough. Charlie fishes him out. ‘How the devil, stranger,’ says Charlie, ‘did you come to fall in here?’ ‘You blamed fool,’ says the shorthorn, just cryin’ mad, ‘I didn’t come to fall in here, I come to drive horses.’”