A Century of Great Western Stories

by A Century of Great Western Stories (retail) (epub)

  He seated himself cross-legged and fell upon his supper vigorously, bandying quips and quirks with the bobtail as they ate. At last he jumped up, dropped his dishes clattering in the dishpan, and drew a long breath.

  “I don’t feel a bit hungry,” he announced plaintively. “Gee! I’m glad I don’t have to stand guard. I do hate to work between meals.” He shouldered his roll of bedding. “Good-bye, old world—I’m going home!” he said, and melted into the darkness. Leo following, they unrolled their bed. But as Leo began pulling off his boots Jeff stopped him.

  “Close that aperture in your face and keep it that way,” he admonished guardedly. “You and me has got to do a ghost dance. Project around and help me find them Three Rivers men.”

  The Three Rivers men, Crosby and Os Hyde, were sound asleep. Awakened, they were disposed to peevish remonstrance.

  “Keep quiet!” said Jeff. “Al, you slip on your boots and go tell Pete you and Os is goin’ to Carrizo and that you’ll be back in time to stand your guard. Tell him out loud. Then you come back here and you and Os crawl into our bed. I’ll show him where it is while you’re gone. You use our night horses. Me and Leo want to take yours.”

  “If there’s anything else don’t stand on ceremony,” said Crosby. “Don’t you want my toothbrush?”

  “You hurry up,” responded Jeff. “D’ye think I’m doin’ this for fun? We’re It. We got to prove an alibi.”

  “Oh!” said Al.

  A few minutes later, the Three Rivers men disappeared under the tarp of the Rainbow bed, while the Rainbow men, on Three Rivers horses, rode silently out of camp, avoiding the firelit circle.

  Once over the ridge, well out of sight and hearing from camp, Jeff turned up the draw to the right and circled back toward the Nogal road on a long trot.

  “Beautiful night,” observed Leo after an interval. “I just love to ride. How far is it to the asylum?”

  “Leo,” said Jeff, “you’re a good boy—a mighty good boy. But I don’t believe you’d notice it if the sun didn’t go down till after dark.” He explained the situation. “Now, I’m going to leave you to hold the horses just this side of the Nogal road, while I go on afoot and eavesdrop. Them fellows’ll be makin’ big medicine when they come along here. I’ll lay down by the road and get a line on their play. Don’t you let them horses nicker.”

  Leo waited an interminable time before he heard the eastside men coming from camp. They passed by, talking, as Jeff had prophesied. After another small eternity Jeff joined him.

  “I didn’t get all the details,” he reported. “But it seems that the Parsons City People has got it framed up to hang a sheepman some. Wes’ is dead set against it—I didn’t make out why. So there’s a deadlock and we’ve got the casting vote. Call up your reserves, old man. We’re due to ride around Nogal and beat that bunch to the divide.”

  It was midnight by the clock in the sky when they stood on Nogal divide. The air was chill. Clouds gathered blackly around Capitan, Nogal Peak, and White Mountain. There was steady, low muttering of thunder; the far lightnings flashed pale and green and rose.

  “Hustle along to Lincoln, Leo,” commanded Jeff, “and tell the sheriff they state, positive, that the hangin’ takes place prompt after breakfast. Tell him to bring a big posse—and a couple of battleships if he’s got ’em handy. Meantime, I’ll go over and try what the gentle art of persuasion can do. So long! If I don’t come back the mule’s yours.”

  He turned up the right-hand road.

  “WELL?” SAID PRINGLE.

  “Light up!” said Uncle Peter. “Nobody’s goin’ to shoot at ye from the dark. We don’t do business that way. When we come we’ll come in daylight, down the big middle of the road. Light up. I ain’t got no gun. I come over for one last try to make you see reason. I knowed thar weren’t use talking’ to you when you was fightin’ mad. That’s why I got the boys to put it off till mawnin’. And I wanted to send to Angus and Salado and the Bar W for Jimmy’s friends. He ain’t got no kinnery here. They’ve come. They all see it the same way. Chavez killed Jimmy, and they’re goin’ to hang him. And, since they’ve come, there’s too many of us for you to fight.”

  Wes’ lit the candle. “Set down. Talk all you want, but talk low and don’t wake Billy,” he said as the flame flared up.

  That he did not want Billy waked up, that there was not even a passing glance to verify Uncle Pete’s statement as to being unarmed, was, considering Uncle Pete’s errand and his own position, a complete and voluminous commentary on the men and ethics of that time and place.

  Pete Burleson carefully arranged his frame on a bench, and glanced around.

  On his cot Billy tossed and moaned. His fevered sleep was tortured by a phantasmagoria of broken and hurried dreams, repeating with monsterous exaggeration the crowded hours of the past day. The brain-stunning shock and horror of sudden, bloody death, the rude litter, the night-long journey with their awful burden, the doubtful aisles of pine with star galaxies wheeling beyond, the gaunt, bare hill above, the steep zigzag to the sleeping town, the flaming wrath of violent men—in his dream they came and went. Again, hasty messengers flashed across the haggard dawn; again, he shared the pursuit and capture of the sheepherder. Sudden clash of unyielding wills; black anger; wild voices for swift death, quickly backed by wild, strong hands; Pringle’s cool and steady defiance; his own hot, resolute protest; the prisoner’s unflinching fatalism; the hard-won respite—all these and more—the lights, the swaying crowd, fierce faces black and bitter with inarticulate wrath—jumbled confusedly in shifting, unsequenced combinations leading ever to some incredible, unguessed catastrophe.

  Beside him, peacefully asleep, lay the manslayer, so lately snatched from death, unconscious of the chain that bound him, oblivious of the menace of the coming day.

  “He takes it pretty hard,” observed Uncle Pete, nodding at Billy.

  “Yes. He’s never seen any sorrow. But he don’t weaken one mite. I tried every way I could think of to get him out of here. Told him to sidle off down to Lincoln after the sheriff. But he was dead on to me.”

  “Yes? Well, he wouldn’t ’a’ got far, anyway,” said Uncle Pete dryly. “We’re watching every move. Still, it’s a pity he didn’t try. We’d ’a’ got him without hurtin’ him, and he’d ’a’ been out o’ this.”

  Wes’ made no answer. Uncle Pete stroked his grizzled beard reflectively. He filled his pipe with cut plug and puffed deliberately.

  “Now, look here,” he said slowly. “Mr. Procopio Chavez killed Jimmy, and Mr. Procopio Chavez is going to hang. It wa’n’t no weakenin’ or doubt on my part that made me call the boys off yisterday evenin’. He’s got to hang. I just wanted to keep you fellers from gettin’ killed. There might ’a’ been some sense in your fighting then, but there ain’t now. There’s too many of us.”

  “Me and Billy see the whole thing,” said Wes’, unmoved. “It was too bad Jimmy got killed, but he was certainly mighty brash. The sheepherder was goin’ peaceable, but Jimmy kept shootin’, and shootin’ close. When that splinter of rock hit the Mexican man he thought he was shot, and he turned loose. Reckon it hurt like sin. There’s a black-and-blue spot on his leg big as the palm of your hand. You’d ’a’ done just the same as he did.

  “I ain’t much enthusiastic about sheepherders. In fact, I jerked my gun at the time; but I was way down the trail and he was out o’ sight before I could shoot. Thinkin’ it over careful, I don’t see where this Mexican’s got any hangin’ comin’. You know, just as well as I do, no court’s goin’ to hang him on the testimony me and Billy’s got to give in.”

  “I do,” said Uncle Pete. “That’s exactly why we’re goin’ to hang him ourselves. If we let him go it’s just encouragin’ the pastores to kill up some more of the boys. So we’ll just stretch his neck. This is the last friendly warnin’, my son. If you stick your fingers between the anvil and the hammer you’ll get ’em pinched. ’Tain’t any of your business, anyway. This ain’t Rainbow. This i
s the White Mountain and we’re strictly home rulers. And, moresoever, that war talk you made yisterday made the boys plumb sore.”

  “That war talk goes as she lays,” said Pringle steadily. “No hangin’ till after the shootin’. That goes.”

  “Now, now—what’s the use?” remonstrated Uncle Pete. “Ye’ll just get yourself hurted and ’twon’t do the greaser any good. You might mebbe so stand us off in a good, thick ’dobe house, but not in this old shanty. If you want to swell up and be stubborn about it, it just means a grave apiece for you all and likely for some few of us.”

  “It don’t make no difference to me,” said Pringle, “if it means diggin’ a grave in a hole in the cellar under the bottomless pit. I’m goin’ to make my word good and do what I think’s right.”

  “So am I, by Jupiter! Mr. Also Ran Pringle, it is a privilege to have known you!” Billy, half awake, covered Uncle Pete with a gun held in a steady hand. “Let’s keep him here for a hostage and shoot him if they attempt to carry out their lynching,” he suggested.

  “We can’t, Billy. Put it down,” said Pringle mildly. “He’s here under flag of truce.”

  “I was tryin’ to save your derned fool hides,” said Uncle Pete benignantly.

  “Well—’tain’t no use. We’re just talkin’ round and round in a circle, Uncle Pete. Turn your wolf loose when you get ready. As I said before, I don’t noways dote on sheepmen, but I seen this, and I’ve got to see that this poor devil gets a square deal. I got to!”

  Uncle Pete sighed. “It’s a pity!” he said. “A great pity! Well, we’re comin’ quiet and peaceful. If there’s any shootin’ done you all have got to fire the first shot. We’ll have the last one.”

  “Did you ever stop to think that the Rainbow men may not like this?” inquired Pringle. “If they’re anyways dissatisfied they’re liable to come up here and scratch your eyes out one by one.”

  “Jesso. That’s why you’re goin’ to fire the first shot,” explained Uncle Pete patiently. “Only for that—and likewise because it would be a sorter mean trick to do—we could get up on the hill and smoke you out with rifles at long range, out o’ reach of your six-shooters. You all might get away, but the sheepherder’s chained fast and we could shoot him to kingdom come, shack and all, in five minutes. But you’ve had fair warnin’ and you’ll get an even break. If you want to begin trouble it’s your own lookout. That squares us with Rainbow.”

  “And you expect them to believe you?” demanded Billy.

  “Believe us? Sure! Why shouldn’t they?” said Uncle Pete simply. “Of course they’ll believe us. It’ll be so.” He stood up and regarded them wistfully. “There don’t seem to be any use o’ sayin’ any more, so I’ll go. I hope there ain’t no hard feelin’s?”

  “Not a bit!” said Pringle, but Billy threw his head back and laughed angrily. “Come, I like that! By Jove, if that isn’t nerve for you! To wake a man up and announce that you’re coming presently to kill him, and then to expect to part the best of friends!”

  “Ain’t I doin’ the friendly part?” demanded Uncle Pete stiffly. He was both nettled and hurt. “If I hadn’t thought well of you fellers and done all I could for you, you’d ’a’ been dead and done forgot about it by now. I give you all credit for doin’ what you think is right, and you might do as much for me.”

  “Great Caesar’s ghost! Do you want us to wish you good luck?” said Billy, exasperated almost to tears. “Have it your own way, by all means—you gentle-hearted old assassin! For my part, I’m going to do my level best to shoot you right between the eyes, but there won’t be any hard feeling about it. I’ll just be doing what I think is right—a duty I owe to the world. Say! I should think a gentleman of your sportsmanlike instincts would send over a gun for our prisoner. Twenty to one is big odds.”

  “Twenty to one is a purty good reason why you could surrender without no disgrace,” rejoined Uncle Pete earnestly “You can’t make nothin’ by fightin’, cause you lose your point, anyway. And then, a majority of twenty to one—ain’t that a good proof that you’re wrong?”

  “Now, Billy, you can’t get around that. That’s your own argument,” cried Pringle, delighted. “You’ve stuck to it right along that you Republicans was dead right because you always get seven votes to our six. Nux vomica, you know.”

  Uncle Pete rose with some haste. “Here’s where I go. I never could talk politics without gettin’ mad,” he said.

  “Billy, you’re certainly making good. You’re a square peg. All the same, I wish,” said Wes’ Pringle plaintively, as Uncle Pete crunched heavily through the gravel, “that I could hear my favorite tune now.”

  Billy stared at him. “Does your mind hurt your head?” he asked solicitiously.

  “No, no—I’m not joking. It would do me good if I could only hear him sing it.”

  “Hear who sing what?”

  “Why, hear Jeff Bransford sing ‘The Little Eohippus’—right now. Jeff’s got the knack of doing the wrong thing at the right time. Hark! What’s that?”

  It was a firm footstep at the door, a serene voice low chanting:

  There was once a little animal

  No bigger than a fox,

  And on five toes he scampered—

  “Good Lord!” said Billy. “It’s the man himself.”

  Questionable Bransford stepped through the half-open door, closed it, and set his back to it.

  “That’s my cue! Who was it said eavesdroppers never heard good of themselves?”

  HE WAS SMILING, his step was light, his tones were cheerful, ringing. His eyes had looked on evil and terrible things. In this desperate pass they wrinkled to pleasant, sunny warmth. He was unhurried, collected, confident. Billy found himself wondering how he had found this man loud, arbitrary, distasteful.

  Welcome, question, answer; daybreak paled the ineffectual candle. The Mexican still slept.

  “I crawled around the opposition camp like a snake in the grass,” said Jeff. “There’s two things I observed there that’s mightily in our favor. The first thing is, there’s no whiskey goin’. And the reason for that is the second thing—and our one best big chance. Mister Burleson won’t let ’em. Fact! Pretty much the entire population of the Pecos and tributary streams had arrived. Them that I know are mostly bad actors, and the ones I don’t know looked real horrid to me; but your Uncle Pete is the bell mare. ‘No booze!’ he says, liftin’ one finger; and that settled it. I reckon that when Uncle Simon Peter says ‘Thumbs up!’ those digits’ll be elevated accordingly. If I can get him to see the gate the rest will only need a little gentle persuasion.”

  “I see you persuading them now,” said Billy. “This is a plain case of the irresistible force and the immovable body.”

  “You will,” said Jeff confidently. “You don’t know what a jollier I am when I get down to it. Watch me! I’ll show you a regular triumph of mind over matter.”

  “They’re coming now,” announced Wes’ placidly. “Two by two, like the animals out o’ the ark. I’m glad of it. I never was good at waitin’. Mr. Bransford will now oblige with his monologue entitled ‘Givin’ a bull the stop signal with a red flag.’ Ladies will kindly remove their hats.”

  It was a grim and silent cavalcade. Uncle Pete rode at the head. As they turned the corner Jeff walked briskly down the path, hopped lightly on the fence, seated himself on the gatepost, and waved an amiable hand.

  “Stop, look, and listen!” said this cheerful apparition.

  The procession stopped. A murmur, originating from the Bar W contingent, ran down the ranks. Uncle Pete reined up and demanded of him with marked disfavor: “Who in merry hell are you?”

  Jeff’s teeth flashed white under his brown mustache. “I’m Ali Baba,” he said, and paused expectantly. But the allusion was wasted on Uncle Pete. Seeing that no introduction was forthcoming, Jeff went on: “I’ve been laboring with my friends inside, and I’ve got a proposition to make. As I told Pringle just now, I don’t see any sense of us getting�
� killed, and killin’ a lot of you won’t bring us alive again. We’d put up a pretty fight—a very pretty fight. But you’d lay us out sooner or later. So what’s the use?”

  “I’m mighty glad to see someone with a leetle old horse sense,” said Uncle Pete. “Your friends is dead game sports all right, but they got mighty little judgment. If they’d only been a few of us I wouldn’t ’a’ blamed ’em a might for not givin’ up. But we got too much odds of ’em.”

  “This conversation is taking an unexpected turn,” said Jeff, making his eyes round. “I ain’t named giving up that I remember of. What I want to do is to rig up a compromise.”

  “If there’s any halfway place between a hung Mexican and a live one,” said Uncle Pete, “mebbe we can. And if not, not. This ain’t no time for triflin’, young fellow.”

  “Oh, shucks! I can think of half a dozen compromises,” said Jeff blandly. “We might play seven-up and not count any turned-up jacks. But I was thinking of something different. I realize that you outnumber us, so I’ll meet you a good deal more than halfway. First, I want to show you something about my gun. Don’t anybody shoot, ’cause I ain’t going to. Hope I may die if I do!”

  “You will if you do. Don’t worry about that,” said Uncle Pete. “And mebbe so, anyhow. You’re delayin’ the game.”

  Jeff took this for permission. “Everybody please watch and see there is no deception.”

  Holding the gun, muzzle up, so all could see, he deliberately extracted all the cartridges but one. The audience exchanged puzzled looks.

  Jeff twirled the cylinder and returned the gun to its scabbard. “Now!” he said, sparkling with enthusiasm. “You all see that I’ve only got one cartridge. I’m in no position to fight. If there’s any fighting I’m already dead. What happens to me has no bearing on the discussion. I’m out of it.

  “I realize that there’s no use trying to intimidate you fellows. Any of you would take a bit chance with odds against you, and here the odds is for you. So, as far as I’m concerned, I substitute a certainty for chance. I don’t want to kill up a lot of rank strangers—or friends, either. There’s nothing in it.