by Zane Grey
“Sambo, is there any other way in an’ out of this canyon?” queried Pecos.
“They sho is. Yo can drive a wagon to the rim. It done ain’t no shucks of a road, suh, but we’ve druv it many a time.”
“Then we’ve got a wagon?”
“Sho—up thar on top. Harness, too, all nice hid in de brush. Kuhnel Lambeth done bought dat wagon t’ree years ago.”
“Did you ever drive it to Eagle’s Nest?”
“Yas, suh. But dat’s a long pull around. We can get to de fort in two days.”
“Wal, we’re shore startin’ pronto.”
A jingling step caused Pecos to turn. Terrill had come out in clothes much the worse for wear.
“Mawnin’, Pecos. You scared me stiff.”
“So yore up, lad? Wal, I was gettin’ worried. If yore gonna trail with me, Terrill Lambeth, yore shore gonna rustle. … Do yu sleep in thet old sombrero?”
“Sometimes,” replied Terrill, with a laugh.
“Yo-all come an’ eat,” called Mauree, from within.
Pecos followed him in. The living-room was full of sunlight now. Pecos, sitting at table, gazed from the flushed Terrill around upon the walls, at Mauree’s crude cupboard, at the pots and pans on the coals, at the homemade furniture, the skins and horns over the rude mantel, at the old Henry rifles—and his mental reservation was that the Lambeths had the spirit of the pioneer, but not the resourcefulness.
“Pecos, I heahed you tell Sambo you were startin’ pronto somewhere,” said Terrill, his deep eyes glancing up fleetingly.
“What you think aboot it? We’ll ride hossback. an’ Sambo—an’ his wife, too ——”
“Mauree has a pickaninny.”
“Ump-um! Wal, she can shore take it, if she wants. We’ll drive to thet fort—what’d yu call it—campin’ along easy, an’ load yore wagon till it sags.”
“Pecos, you’re the—the most amazing vaquero I ever heahed of. You filled my head with dreams last night. But this mawnin’ I’m awake.”
“Dog-gone, boy, yu do seem brighter. Not so pale. … Wal, what’s wrong with my idee?”
“Nothing. It’s just inspiring. Only I have no credit at Camp Lancaster, even if I—I dared go in debt again.”
“Wal, yore pardner’s got some money,” drawled Pecos.
“You would lend it to me?”
“No. I’m investin’ in yore ranch. I’ll buy supplies, tools, guns, shells, cattle, hosses, any darn thing we need thet can be bought in this heah Gawd-forsaken country.”
Terrill dropped his head, though not so quickly but that Pecos caught a glimpse of flaming cheeks.
“Terrill, don’t take offense an’ don’t be uppish,” added Pecos, in change of tone. “I want to help yu an’ I know I cain’t lose nothin’. Yu said yu trusted me, though I don’t see how yu can on such short notice. Not west of the Pecos!”
“I do—trust you. But I—it’s only that I’m overcome. It’s too good to be true. Don’t think me uppish or—or ungrateful. … I—I could scream. I could swear!”
“Wal, thet’s fine. Come out with a good old Texas cuss-word.”
“—— ——!” swore Terrill, valiantly. But the profanity did not ring true, so far as familiarity was concerned.
Sambo burst into a roar. “Haw! Haw! Haw! … My Lawd!—Wife, did yo heah dat?”
“I sho did an’ I’se scandalized,” declared Mauree, resentfully. “Terrill never wuz a cusser an’ he ain’t a-gonna begin now.”
“Wal, I’m sorry, Mrs. Sambo,” said Pecos. “But it shore did me good to heah him. … Now, son, yu get a pencil an’ paper. Say, can yu write?”
“I’m not quite so ignorant as I look and sound,” protested Terrill.
“Boy, listen to me. Yu gotta know when I’m in fun, which is shore most of the time, an’ when I’m mad, which ain’t often. I wasn’t mad atall yesterday. … Now if yu’ve lived out heah five years an’ yore fifteen altogether, how’n the devil did yu get much schoolin’?”
“Who said I was fifteen?”
“Reckon I did. Yu shore cain’t be older?”
“I reckon I am, a little,” returned Terrill, dryly. “But never mind my age. … Only, Señor Pecos Smith, I’m no child to tease. … Now I’ll get pencil and paper.”
“Wal, if yu balk at teasin’ we’ll dissolve partnership right heah an’ now. What yu say?”
“I’m not a bit balky.”
“Dog-gone! I’ll bet yu are.”
When it came to enumerating supplies and necessities for the ranch, Terrill showed a long-formed habit of economy. After he set his list down Pecos said: “Put an X an’ a four after thet.”
“X and a four?”
“Shore. Thet means multiply by four. … Heah, Sambo, yu ought to know what yu’ve got an’ what yu haven’t. Answer my questions, an’ yu, Terrill, write down what I say.”
At the conclusion of this exercise, Sambo was jubilant and Terrill was awed. Pecos heard Sambo say to his wife: “Mauree, dat man take my bref. If he ain’t crazy we’ze lookin’ at hebben right dis minute.”
Mauree elected to stay home with her pickaninny. “But yu, niggah, yu fetch me some stockin’s an’ shoes an’ some clothes—an’ if yu forgit my smokin’ yu needn’t come honeyin’ around heah no mo.”
What with climbing the gulch trail with saddle horses and team, and clambering over rocks and greasing the wagon and mending the harness, Sambo and Pecos were not ready to start until midday. Then Sambo drove off over rough ground where no sign of wheel tracks was visible. Terrill did not know the way, so he and Pecos followed behind the wagon.
“Boy, yu gotta pack a gun an’ learn how to shoot it,” advised Pecos.
“I told you I could shoot.”
“Wal, take this an’ show me,” replied Pecos, handing over his gun—an action he had never done since that gun had become part of him. “Be careful. Yu have to thumb the hammer.”
“Shoot from the horse?”
“Why, shore! If yu run into a bandit would yu git off polite an’ plug him from the ground?”
“I did meet two bandits—and I ran for all I was worth.”
“Wal, yore education is beginnin’. Hold the gun high with yore thumb on the hammer. Then throw it hard with a downward jerk. The motion will flip the hammer just as the gun reaches a level, an’ it’ll go off, yu bet. Yu gotta sort of guess instead of aimin’. Thet is at a man close to yu, but at some distance yu want to aim.”
“Heah goes. If Spot hangs me in a tree it’ll be on yore head,” replied Terrill, and he threw the gun as directed, pointing it at a big rock. Bang! The mustang leaped straight up, almost unseating his rider. It took a moment to quiet him.
“Take your old gun,” declared Terrill, returning it to Pecos. “It nearly kicked my arm off.”
“Wal, yu hit the rock, anyhow, an’ thet’s fine. I’ll let thet do till we git home.”
Pecos was not long in discovering that Sambo kept to the ridge-tops, seldom crossing a wash. And the direction was away from the river. Once up on top, the horses made better time. They camped at the head of a ravine where water was to be had, having made, according to Sambo, more than fifteen miles. Soon after supper Terrill unrolled his bed in the wagon and crawled into it. Pecos talked to the negro for an hour, with the object of learning what Sambo knew about the country, cattle, rustlers, and all pertaining to the range.
Next day they struck into a road, well defined and lately used. It wound along the ridges, for the most part downhill, and late that evening they made camp on the west bank of the river. Pecos was relieved to hear a ripple of shallow water, denoting an easy ford on the morrow. Before the sky grew red next morning they were across and headed down a good road toward the military camp.
Chapter X
PECOS learned from an old army sergeant that Camp Lancaster was the post of the U.S.A. Fourth Cavalry, who were operating against hostile Indians along the river; and at the present time were up somewhere on the Staked Plains.
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nbsp; It was an old post. Lieutenant N. F. Smith had camped there as early as 1849; and Lieutenant Michler in 1863, had traced out the road which Pecos had struck west of the river. There was a trading-post besides an army supply-store inside the old stone walls. The high chimneys made visible landmarks for miles around.
While Pecos helped Terrill and Sambo buy their extensive list, he did not let anything escape him. Indians lounged around on the stone steps and inside the stores, sullen, greasy, painted savages supposed to be peaceful. They were not Comanches, but all the same Pecos would not have trusted some of them out on the range.
According to the sergeant, the Comanches seldom raided below Horsehead Crossing. That ford, owing to the more frequent passing of the trail drivers, had become a favorite spot for the Indians to waylay and attack cattlemen driving herds up from lower Texas.
“Only last month a bunch of Comanches massacred some cowhands at Horsehead,” said the army man. “Tolerable big bunch of cattle scattered all down the river. The Pecos is treacherous an’ many head of stock mire down in quicksand or drown in floods. But there’s thousands of cattle in the brakes that no one will ever claim.”
Pecos did not linger at the fort after their purchases had been packed in the wagon. He did not ask for an escort back to the ford, but the sergeant sent three troopers with him, jolly fellows who imparted much information. They saw him and his companion safely across the river, just before sunset. This was the last water for a long stretch, but Pecos pushed on west far into the night before halting for camp. Then he staked the horses close, he and Sambo keeping alternate guard. Their next camp was somewhere down on the rocky slopes. And afternoon of the third day saw them arriving safely on the rim above Lambeth Ranch. The following day Pecos conceived the idea of letting the supplies down over the cliff on lassos, a method which saved much time and labor.
South of Lambeth Ranch was a range claimed by Don Felipe before his association with Sawtell, after which time they openly challenged any claim clear down to Devil River. Several other cattlemen, according to Sambo, ran stock on both sides of the river. And as cattle strayed far up and down the Pecos there was a considerable mixing of brands, and always, for the persistent vaqueros, an unfailing number of mavericks.
Pecos said cheerfully to Terrill and Sambo: “Every time yu put a red-hot iron on a maverick we are six dollars richer right then.”
They left the north brakes alone because even Felipe’s vaqueros had not penetrated them, and confined their efforts to riding the river canyon, the intersecting brakes, and up these as far as the heads, where dense thickets never failed to yield calves and yearlings that had never smelled burned hair.
They rode together, or at least Pecos never allowed Terrill to get out of his sight, with the result that the average of brandings a day was small, in the neighborhood of six. This number, however, was eminently satisfactory to Pecos, and it elated Terrill so that the lad daily lost something of his reserve. Pecos, reviewing the situation, seemed to gather that Terrill apparently lost some kind of a fear of him. Pecos did not concern himself much about anything now except the amassing of a herd. He knew where to find mavericks, and many there were that Felipe’s outfit had not sweat hard enough to find.
Summer came, hot and drowsy, with its storms. As a consequence work became harder on the men and easier on the horses. Lambeth owned less than a dozen horses, and these, with the two of Pecos’, were not half enough to stand the grind.
Therefore a day here and there was given the horses to rest, during which time Pecos and his two followers worked on the ranch. There was no end of repairs, and when these were attended to, Pecos began improvements. He was indefatigable, and he made Sambo’s red tongue hang out like that of a driven calf in the brakes.
Terrill turned out to be less hardy and enduring than he looked. Still, for a youth who had not reached his full growth and who had never experienced the grueling drill common to vaqueros, he won praise from Pecos. Terrill lost a little of the fullness of his cheeks and the graceful roundness of form that even the loose and ill-fitting clothes he wore failed to hide.
One still, scorching noon in August, after a hard morning’s toil in pursuit of some wild three-year-old steers, they flung themselves down in a shady place on the banks of the river. Pecos was hot, and Sambo heaved and sweat like a horse, but it was Terrill who had suffered most from the exertion and heat. He had become expert with the rope under Pecos’ tutelage and was mightily proud of it. He could run down, lasso, throw, and tie a calf in short order. But either Sambo or Pecos had to apply the branding-iron. Pecos often took the lad to task for his squeamishness, and finally Terrill, who was easy to exasperate, made a surprising and unanswerable retort. “Aw, burning hair and flesh stink!”
Pecos had gaped at the lad.
This particular day Terrill’s face was as red as fire and as wet as if it had been plunged under water.
“You darned little fool!” ejaculated Pecos. “Why don’t yu ride in yore shirt sleeves?”
“I haven’t any heavy shirts like yours. Mine are thin stuff. Mauree made them for me. If I rode through the brush without my coat I’d be torn to pieces.”
The coat Terrill referred to and which Pecos had complained of was a short jacket much too full for Terrill.
There was a flat rock along the bank and the current of the river swirled green and cool beside it. Terrill lay down to drink. Suddenly Pecos, possessed of one of his teasing moods, leaped down noiselessly, and with a quick action plunged Terrill’s head clear under. Terrill nearly lunged into the river; then bounding erect, he burst out furiously: “Damn fool! … Pushing me in when I can’t swim!”
“By gosh! Thet’s an idee. Swim! We’ll go in,” shouted Pecos. “I was too durned lazy to think of it.”
“No we won’t,” declared Terrill.
“Don’t yu ever bathe, yu dirty boy?”
“Yes, but I’m not doing it today,” retorted Terrill, resentfully.
“Come on, Terrill. I promise not to duck yu,” rejoined Pecos, beginning to strip. By the time he had gotten his shirt off Terrill had disappeared under the trees. Pecos laughed, thinking he had offended the sensitive lad. He removed the rest of his clothes and had his swim.
“Sambo, why don’t you come in? It’s shore nice an’ cool,” called Pecos.
“Too much work. An’ I’se had one baf dis summer. I fell in a hole.”
When Pecos emerged to dress Terrill was not in sight, and did not return until fully half an hour later.
“Terrill, old pard, I’m sorry I ducked yu. Cain’t yu take a little fun? My Gawd! but yore a queer kind. Not wantin’ to go in swimmin’ on a day like this!”
“I’d like it well enough, but I—I couldn’t strip before yu and Sambo.”
“Ahuh. So thet’s it. … Terrill, I didn’t savvy yu was so modest. Heahafter Sambo an’ I will go off an’ let yu take a swim.”
This incident recalled certain things about Terrill that had seemed peculiar to Pecos. Of late weeks, however, the boy had grown less aloof, and had become so zealous in work, so evidently glad to be with Pecos, so thoroughly promising in every way, that Pecos had grown greatly attached to him. It was like bringing up a boy who stayed boyish. There appeared to be limits, however, that Pecos could not exceed; and an altogether hopeless task to make a rough vaquero out of Terrill.
Nevertheless, these convictions of Pecos’ rather endeared Terrill the more to him, because of a sense of guardianship, almost parental, that Terrill inspired. The lad had lost his fear of being alone, and at times he seemed almost happy. Naturally this drew Pecos closer to him. And as the days slipped by, always full of work in the open, these two grew insensibly the closer.
Terrill could stand considerable teasing of certain kinds. But one day, during a rest hour, Pecos had come upon him lying flat on his stomach, so absorbed in contemplation of some flowers—a habit of Terrill’s—that he did not hear Pecos’ step. So that he was wholly unprepared for Pecos’ swoop do
wn upon him, to straddle his back and tickle him in the ribs with steel-like fingers. At first Pecos took the noise Terrill made and the amazing struggle he put up to be the natural outcome of extreme ticklishness. But presently it dawned upon Pecos that the boy was not laughing, or struggling in a sense of response to Pecos’ fingers dug into his ribs. When Pecos got off, Terrill leaped up in a rage.
“If you ever do that again—I’ll fire you!” cried Terrill.
“Fire me?” echoed Pecos, aghast.
“Yes, fire you! Have you no respect for a—a fellow’s person? I told you once before it drives me crazy to be tickled.”
“Shore I remember now, Dog-gone it, Terrill, cain’t I treat yu as I would any other boy?”
“You bet you can’t.”
“An’ yu’d fire me—honest to Gawd?”
“I—I’ve got to do something to—to protect myself,” replied Terrill, choking up.
“It’s got to be home to me—this hyar Lambeth Ranch, an’ I’m shore powerful fond of yu.”
“Shut up! That was a lie. I—I couldn’t get along without you,” flashed Terrill, with another kind of temper, and he ran away to the house, leaving Pecos relieved and glad, and uncomprehensibly moved. From that hour, nevertheless, Pecos realized he and Terrill were going to clash sooner or later. It only waited for the time and the place and the cause; and there was no use for Pecos to attempt to fend it off.
Terrill was subject to moods. He really was astounding in that way, but most of them did not interfere with the work, which, after all, was Pecos’ heartfelt aim. Sometimes when Terrill thought he was alone on the rocks or the banks of the river he would sing at the top of his lungs. Pecos never got close enough to him on these occasions to hear distinctly, but he caught a sweet rising and falling contralto voice. Then again Terrill would be wildly gay, and if opportunity offered where he was safe from attack, he would torment Pecos unmercifully. At times he would be profoundly melancholy and unapproachable, so sad-lipped and somber-eyed that Pecos was glad to let him alone. Again, and this was unusual and rare, happening in the dusk or in shadow, when his face was not visible, he would be provokingly curious about Pecos’ love-affairs.
