Sundown Slim

by Knibbs, Henry Herbert

  "See here, boss! I done some ramblin' in my time. Guess because I was lookin' for somethin' new and excitin'. Well, I reckon they's plenty new and excitin' right to home on the Concho. Any time I get tired of fallin' off hosses, and gettin' beat up, and mixin' up in dog and wolf fights, why, I can go to bustin' broncos to keep me from goin' to sleep. Then Chance there, he needs lookin' after."

  Corliss seemingly ignored the gentle hint. He mounted and called to the dog. Chance made no movement to follow him. Corliss frowned. "Here, Chance!" he commanded, slapping his thigh with his gauntleted hand. The dog followed at the horse's heels as Corliss rode across the hard-packed circle around the camp. Sundown's throat tightened. His pal was gone.

  He puttered about, straightening the blankets. "Gee Gosh! but this here shack looks empty! Never knowed sick folks could be so much comp'ny. And Chance is folks, all right. Talk about blue blood! Huh! I reckon a thoroughbred dog is prouder than common folks, like me. Some king, he was! Layin' there lookin' out at them punchers and his eyes sad-like and proud, and turnin' his head slow, watchin' 'em like they was workin' for him. They's somethin' about class that gets a fella, even in a dog. And most folks knows it, but won't let on."

  He took Chance's drinking-basin—a bread-pan appropriated from the outfit—and the frayed saddle-blanket that had been the dog's bed, and carried them to the cottonwoods edging the river. There he hid the things. He returned to the lean-to and threw himself on his blankets. He felt as though he had just buried a friend. A cowboy strolled up and squatted in front of the lean-to. He gazed at the interior, nodded to Sundown, and rolled a cigarette. He smoked for a while, glanced up at the sky, peered round the camp, and shrugged his shoulders.

  Sundown nodded. "You said it all, Joe. He's gone."

  The cowboy blew rings of smoke, watching them spread and dissolve in the evening air. "Had a hoss onct," he began slowly,—"ornery, glass-eyed, she-colt that got mixed up in a bob-wire fence. Seein' as she was like to make the buzzards happy 'most any day, I took to nussin' her. Me, Joe Scott, eh? And a laugh comin'. Well, the boys joshed—mebby you hearn some of 'em call me Doc. That's why. The boys joshed and went around like they was in a horsepital, quiet and steppin' catty. I could write a book out of them joshin's and sell her, if I could write her with a brandin'-iron or a rope. Anyhow, the colt she gets well and I turns her out on the range, which ought to be the end of the story, but it ain't. She come nickerin' after me like I was her man, hangin' around when I showed up at the ranch jest like I was a millionaire and she wantin' to get married. Couldn't get shet of her. So one day I ropes her and says to myself I'll make a trick hoss of her and sell her. The fust trick she done wasn't the one I reckoned to learn her. She lifted me one in the jeans and I like to lost all the teeth in my head. 'You're welcome, lady,' says I, 'for this here 'fectionate token of thanks for my nussin' and gettin' joshed to fare-ye-well. Bein' set on learnin' her, I shortened the rope and let her kick a few holes in the climate. When she got tired of that, I begins workin' on her head, easy-like and talkin' kind. Fust thing I knowed she takes a san'wich out of my shirt, the meat part bein' a piece of my hide. Then I got riled. I lit into her with the boots, and we had it. When I got tired of exercisin' my feet, she comes to me rubbin' her nose ag'in' me and kind of nickerin' and lovin' up tremendous, bein' a she-hoss. 'Now,' says I, 'I'm goin' to do the courtin', sister.' And I sot out to learn her to shake hands. She got most as good as a state senator at it: purfessional-like, but not real glad to see you. Jest put on. Then I learns her to nod yes. That was hard. Then I gets her so she would lay down and stay till I told her to get up. 'Course it takes time and I didn't have the time reg'lar. I feeds her every time, though. Then she took to sleepin' ag'in' the bunk-house every night, seein' as she run loose jest like a dog. When somebody'd get up in the mornin', there she would be with her eyes lookin' in the winder, shinin', and her ears lookin' in, too. You see she was waitin' for her beau to come out, which was me. She took to followin' me on the range when I rid out, and she got fat and sizable. The boys give up joshin' and got kind of interested. But that ain't what I'm gettin' at. Come one day, about two year after I'd been monkeyin' with learnin' her her lessons, when I thinks to break her to ride. I got shet of the idea of sellin' her and was goin' to keep her myself. The boys was lookin' for to see me get piled, always figurin' a pet hoss was worse to break than a bronc. She did some fussin', but she never bucked—never pitched a move. Thinks I, I sure got a winner. Next day she was gone. Never seen her after that. Trailed all over the range, but she sure vamoosed. And nobody never seen her after that. She sure made a dent in my feelin's."

  Sundown sat up blinking. "I reckon that's the difference between a hoss and a dog," he said, slowly. "Now, a hoss and me ain't what you'd call a nacheral combination. And a hoss gets away and don't come back. But a dog comes back every time, if he can. 'Most any hoss will stay where the feedin' is good, but a dog won't. He wants to be where his boss is."

  "And that there Chance is with the boss," said the cowboy, gesturing toward the north. "Seen him foller him down the trail."

  Sundown nodded. The cowboy departed, swaggering away in the dusk.

  Just before Sundown was called to take his turn with the night-shift, a lean, brown shape tore through the camp, upsetting a pot of frijoles and otherwise disturbing the peace and order of the culinary department.

  "Coyote!" shouted Wingle, vainly reaching for the gun that he had given to Sundown.

  "Coyote nothin'!" said a puncher, laughing. "It's the Killer come back hot-foot to find his pardner."

  Chance bounded into the lean-to: it was empty. He sniffed at the place where his bed had once been, found Sundown's tracks and followed them toward the river. Sundown was on his knees pawing over something that looked very much like a torn and frayed saddle-blanket. Chance volleyed into him, biting playfully at his sleeve, and whining.

  Sundown jumped to his feet. He stood speechless. Then a slow grin crept to his face. "Gee Gosh!" he said, softly. "Gee Gosh! It's you!"

  Chance lay down panting. He had come far and fast. Sundown gathered up the blanket and pan, rose and marched to the shack. "I was airin' 'em out against your comin' back," he explained, untruthfully. The fact was that he could not bear to see the empty bed in the lean-to and had hidden it in the bushes.

  The dog watched him spread the blanket, but would not lie down. Instead he followed Sundown to the camp and found a place under the chuck-wagon, where he watched his lean companion work over the fires until midnight. If Sundown disappeared for a minute in search of something. Chance was up and at his heels. Hi Wingle expressed himself profanely in regard to the return of the dog, adding with unction, "There's a pair of 'em; a pair of 'em." Which ambiguity seemed to satisfy him immensely.

  When Sundown finally returned to the lean-to, he was too happy to sleep. He built a small fire, rolled a cigarette and sat gazing into the flames. Chance sat beside him, proud, dignified, contented. Sundown became drowsy and slept, his head fallen forward and his lean arms crossed upon his knees. Chance waited patiently for him to waken. Finally the dog nuzzled Sundown's arm with little jerks of impatience. "What's bitin' you now?" mumbled Sundown. "We're here, ain't we?" Nevertheless he slipped his arm around the dog's muscular shoulders and talked to him. "How'd you get away? The boss'll raise peelin's over this, Chance. It ain't like to set good with him." He noticed that Chance frequently scratched at his collar as though it irritated him. Finally he slipped his fingers under the collar. "Suthin' got ketched in here," he said, unbuckling the strap. Tied inside the collar was a folded piece of paper. Sundown was about to throw it away when he reconsidered and unfolded it. In the flickering light of the fire he spread the paper and read laboriously:—

  "Chance followed me to the Concho because I made him come. He showed that he didn't want to stay. I let him go. If he gets back to you, keep him. He is yours.

  "JOHN CORLISS."

  Sundown folded the note and carefully tucked it in his pocket.
He rose and slapped his chest grandiloquently. "Chance, ole pal," he said with a brave gesture, "you're mine! Got the dockyments to show. What do you think?"

  Chance, with mouth open and lolling tongue, seemed to be laughing.

  Sundown reached out his long arm as one who greets a friend.

  The dog extended his muscular fore leg and solemnly placed his paw in Sundown's hand. No document was required to substantiate his allegiance to his new master, nor his new master's title to ownership. Despite genealogy, each was in his way a thoroughbred.

  CHAPTER XIII

  SUNDOWN, VAQUERO

  The strenuous days of the round-up were over. Bands of riders departed for their distant ranches leaving a few of their number to ride line and incidentally to keep a vigilant eye On the sheep-camps.

  David Loring, realizing that he had been checkmated in the first move of the game in which cattle and sheep were the pawns and cowboys and herders the castles, knights, and, stretching the metaphor a bit, bishops, tacitly admitted defeat and employed a diagonal to draw the cattle-men's forces elsewhere. He determined to locate on the abandoned water-hole ranch, homestead it, and, by so doing, cut off the supply of water necessary to the cattle on the west side of the Concho River. This would be entering the enemy's territory with a vengeance, yet there was no law prohibiting his homesteading the ranch, the title of which had reverted to the Government. Too shrewd to risk legal entanglement by placing one of his employees on the homestead, he decided to have his daughter file application, and nothing forbade her employing whom she chose to do the necessary work to prove up. The plan appealed to the girl for various reasons, one of which was that she might, by her presence, avert the long-threatened war between the two factions.

  Sundown and, indirectly, Fadeaway precipitated the impending trouble. Fadeaway, riding for the Blue, was left with a companion to ride line on the mesas. Sundown, although very much unlike Othello, found that his occupation was gone. Assistant cooks were a drug on the range. He was equipped with a better horse, a rope, quirt, slicker, and instructions to cover daily a strip of territory between the Concho and the sheep-camps. He became in fact an itinerant patrol, his mere physical presence on the line being all that was required of him.

  It was the Señora Loring who drove to the Concho one morning and was welcomed by Corliss to whom she gave the little sack of gold. She told him all that he wished to know in regard to his brother Will, pleading for him with motherly gentleness. Corliss assured her that he felt no anger toward his brother, but rather solicitude, and made her happy by his generous attitude toward the wrongdoer. He had already heard that his brother had driven to Antelope and taken the train for the West. His great regret was that Will had not written to him or come to him directly, instead of leaving to the good Señora the task of explanation. "Never figured that repenting by proxy was the best plan," he told the Señora. "But he couldn't have chosen a better proxy." At which she smiled, and in departing blessed him in her sincere and simple manner, assuring him in turn that should the sheep and cattle ever come to an understanding—the Spanish for which embraced the larger aspect of the problem—there was nothing she desired or prayed for more than the friendship and presence of Corliss at the Loring hacienda. Corliss drew his own inference from this, which was a pleasant one. He felt that he had a friend at court, yet explained humorously that sheep and cattle were not by nature fitted to occupy the same territory. He was alive to sentiment, but more keen than ever to maintain his position unalterably so far as business was concerned. The Señora liked him none the less for this. To her he was a man who stood straight, on both feet, and faced the sun. Her daughter Nell… Ah, the big Juan Corliss has such a fine way with him… what a husband for any woman! In the mean time… only thoughts, hopes were possible… yet… mañana… mañana… there was always to-morrow that would be a brighter day.

  To say that Sundown was proud of his unaccustomed regalia from the crown of his lofty Stetson to the soles of his high-heeled riding-boots, would be putting it mildly. To say that he was especially useful in his new calling as vaquero would not be to put it so mildly. Under the more or less profane tutelage of his companions, he learned to throw a rope after a fashion, taking the laughing sallies of his comrades good-naturedly. He persevered. He was forever stealing upon some maternal and unsuspicious cow and launching his rope at her with a wild shout—possibly as an anticipatory expression of fear in case his rope should fall true. More than once he had been yanked bodily from the saddle and had arisen to find himself minus rope, cow, and pony, for no self-respecting cow-horse could watch Sundown's unprecedented evolutions and not depart thitherward, feeling ashamed and grieved to think that he had ever lived to be a horse. And Sundown, despite his length of limb, seemed unbreakable. "He's the most durable rider on the range," remarked Hi Wingle, incident to one of his late assistant's meteoric departures from the saddle. "He wears good."

  One morning as Sundown was jogging along, engaged chiefly in watching his shadow bob up and down across the wavering bunch-grass, he saw that which appeared to be the back of a cow just over a rise. He walked his horse to the rise and for some fantastic reason decided to rope the cow. He swung his rope. It fell true—in fact, too true, for it encircled the animal's neck and looped tight just where the neck joins the shoulders. He took a turn of the rope around the saddle horn. At last he had mastered the knack of the thing! Why, it was as easy as rolling pie-crust! He was about to wonder what he was going to do next, when the cow—which happened to be a large and active steer—humped itself and departed for realms unknown.

  With the perversity of inanimate objects the rope flipped in a loop around Sundown's foot. The horse bucked, just once, and Sundown was launched on a new and promising career. The ground shot beneath him. He clutched wildly at the bunch-grass, secured some, and took it along with him. Chance, who always accompanied Sundown, raced alongside, enjoying the novelty of the thing. He barked and then shot ahead, nipping at the steer's heels, and this did not add to his master's prospects of ultimate survival. Sundown shouted for help when he could, which was not often. Startled prairie-dogs disappeared in their holes as the mad trio shot past. The steer, becoming warmed up to his work, paid little attention to direction and much to speed. That a band of sheep were grazing ahead made no difference to the charging steer. He plunged into the band. Sundown dimly saw a sea of sheep surge around him and break in storm-tossed waves of wool on either side. He heard some one shout. Then he fainted.

  When he again beheld the sun, a girl was kneeling beside him, a girl with dark, troubled eyes. She offered him wine from a wicker jug. He drank and felt better.

  "Are you hurt badly?" she asked.

  "Am—I—all here?" queried Sundown.

  "I guess so. You seem to be."

  "Was anybody else killed in the wreck?"

  The girl smiled. "You're feeling better. Let me help you to sit up."

  Sundown for the moment felt disinclined to move. He was in fact pretty thoroughly used up. "Say, did he win?" he queried finally.

  "Who?"

  "Me dog, Chance. I got the start at first, but he kind of got ahead for a spell."

  "I don't know. Chance is right behind you. He's out of breath."

  "Huh! Reckon I'm out more'n that. He's in luck this trip."

  "How did it happen?"

  "That's what I'm wonderin', lady. And say, would you be so kind as to tell me which way is north?"

  Despite her solicitude for the recumbent Sundown, Eleanor Loring laughed. "You are in one of the sheep-camps. I'm Eleanor Loring."

  "Sheep-camp? Gee Gosh! Did you stop me?"

  "Yes. I was just riding into camp when you—er—arrived. I headed the steer back and Fernando cut the rope."

  "Thanks, miss. And Fernando is wise to his business, all right."

  "Can you sit up now?" she asked.

  "Ow! I guess I can. That part of me wasn't expectin' to be moved sudden-like. How'd I get under these trees?"

&nb
sp; "Fernando carried you."

  "Well, little old Fernando is some carrier. Where is he? I wouldn't mind shakin' hands with that gent."

  "He's out after the sheep. The steer stampeded them."

  "Well, miss, speakin' from me heart—that there steer was no lady. I thought she was till I roped him. I was mistook serious."

  "He might have killed you. Let me help you up."

  Sundown had been endeavoring to get to his feet. Finally he rose and leaned against a tree. Fortunately for him his course had been over a stretch of yielding bunch-grass, and not, as might have been the case, over the ragged tufa. As it was his shirt hung from his back in shreds, and he felt that his overalls were not all that their name implied. The numbness of his abrasions and bruises was wearing off. The pain quickened his senses. He realized that his hat was missing, that one spur was gone and the other was half-way up his leg. He was not pleased with his appearance, and determined to "make a slope" as gracefully and as quickly as circumstances would permit.

  Chance, gnawing at a burr that had stuck between his toes, saw his master rise. He leaped toward Sundown and stood waiting for more fun.

  "Chance seems all right now," said the girl, patting the dog's head.

  "John Corliss give him to me, miss. He's my dog now. Yes, he's active all right, 'specially chasin' steers."

  "I remember you. You're the man that carried Chance up the cañon trail that day when he was hurt."

  "Yes, miss. He ain't forgettin' either."

  The girl studied Sundown's lean face as he gazed across the mesas, wondering how he was going to make his exit without calling undue attention to his dearth of raiment. She had heard that this man, this queer, ungainly outlander, had been companion to Will Corliss. She had also heard that Sundown had been injured when the robbery occurred. Pensively she drew her empty gauntlet through her fingers.