Sundown Slim

by Knibbs, Henry Herbert

  "Oh, there's sunshine on the Concho where the little owls are cryin',

  And red across the 'dobe strings of chiles are a-dryin';

  And if Arizona's heaven, tell me what's the use of dyin'?

  Yes, it's good enough down here, just breathin' air;

  "For the posies are a-bloomin' and the mockin'-birds are matin',

  And somewhere in Arizona there's a Chola girl a-waitin'

  For to cook them enchiladas while I do the irrigatin'

  On me little desert homestead over there.

  "While I'm ridin' slow and easy…"

  "Whoa! Wonder what that is? Never seen one of them things before. 'T ain't a lizard, but he looks like his pa was a lizard. Mebby his ma was a toad. Kind of a Mormon, I guess."

  He leaned forward and gravely inspected the horned toad that blinked at him from the edge of the grass. The pinto realized that his rider's attention was otherwise and thoroughly occupied. With that unforgettable drop of head and arch of spine the horse bucked. Sundown did an unpremeditated evolution that would have won him much applause and gold had he been connected with a circus. He landed in a clump of brush and watched his hat sail gently down. The pinto whirled and took the homeward road, snorting and bounding from side to side as the dust swirled behind him. Sundown scratched his head. "Lemme see. 'We was ridin', slow and easy…' Huh! Well, I ain't cussin' because I don' know how. Lemme see… I was facin' east when I started. Now I'm lit, and I'm facin' south. Me hat's there, and that there toad-lizard oughter be over there, if he ain't scared to death. Reckon I'll quit writin' po'try jest at present and finish gettin' acquainted with that there toad-lizard. Wonder how far I got to walk? Anyhow, I was gettin' tired of ridin'. By gum! me eats is tied to the saddle! It's mighty queer how a fella gets set back to beginnin' all over ag'in every onct in a while. Now, this mornin' I was settin' up ridin' a good hoss and thinkin' poetical. Now I'm settin' down restin'. The sun is shinin' yet, and them jiggers in the brush is chirpin' and the air is fine, but I ain't thinkin' poetical. I'd sure hate to have a real lady read what I'm thinkin', if it was in a book. 'Them that sets on the eggs of untruth,' as the parson says, 'sure hatches lies.' Jest yesterday I was tellin' in Usher how me bronc piled me when I'd been ridin' the baggage, which was kind of a hoss-lie. I must 'a' had it comin'."

  He rose and stalked to the roadway. The horned toad, undisturbed, squatted in the grass and eyed him with bright, expressionless eyes.

  "If I was like some," said Sundown, addressing the toad, "I'd pull me six-shooter, only I ain't got it now, and bling you to nothin'. Accordin' to law you're the injudicious cause preceding the act, which makes you guilty accordin' to the statues of this here commonwealth, and I seen lots of 'em on the same street, in Boston, scarin' hosses to death and makin' kids and nuss-girls cry. But I ain't goin' to shoot you. If I was to have the sayin' of it, I'd kind o' like to shoot that hoss, though. He broke as fine a pome in the middle as I ever writ, to say nothin' of hurtin' me personal feelin's. Well, so-long, leetle toad-lizard. Just tell them that you saw me—and they will know the rest—if anybody was to ask you, a empty saddle and a man a-foot in the desert is sure circumvential evidence ag'in the hoss. Wonder how far it is to the Concho?"

  With many a backward glance, inspired by fond imaginings that the pinto might have stopped to graze, Sundown stalked down the road. Waif of chance and devotee of the goddess "Maybeso," he rose sublimely superior to the predicament in which he found himself. "The only reason I'm goin' east is because I ain't goin' west," he told himself, ignoring, with warm adherence to the glowing courses of the sun the frigid possibilities of the poles. Warmed by the exercise of plodding across the mesa trail in high-heeled boots, he swung out of his coat and slung it across his shoulder. Dust gathered in the wrinkles of his boots, and more than once he stopped to mop his sweating face with his bandanna. Rise after rise swept gently before him and within the hour he saw the misty outline of the blue hills to the south. Slowly his moving shadow shifted, bobbing in front of him as the sun slipped toward the western horizon. A little breeze sighed along the road and whirls of sand spun in tiny cones around the roots of the chaparral. He reached in his pocket, drew forth a silver dollar, and examined it. "Now if they weren't any folks on this here earth, I reckon silver and gold and precious jools wouldn't be worth any more than rocks and mud and gravel, eh? Why, even if they weren't no folks, water would be worth more to this here world than gold. Water makes things grow and—and keeps a fella from gettin' thirsty. And mud makes things grow, too, but I dunno what rocks are for. Just to sit on when you're tired, I reckon." The sibilant burring of a rattler in the brush set his neck and back tingling. "And what snakes was made for, gets me! They ain't good to eat, nohow. And they ain't friendly like some of the bugs and things. I'm thinkin' that that there snake what clumb the tree and got Mrs. Eve interested in the apple business would 'a' been a whole lot better for folks, if he'd 'a' stayed up that tree and died, instead o' runnin' around and raisin' young ones. Accordin' to my way of thinkin' a garden ain't a garden with a snake in it, nohow. Now, Mrs. Eve—if she'd had to take a hammer and nails and make a ladder to get to them apples, by the time she got the ladder done I reckon them apples wouldn't 'a' looked so good to her. That's what comes of havin' a snake handy. 'Course, bein' a woman, she jest nacherally couldn't wait for 'em to get ripe and fall off the tree. That would 'a' been too easy. It sure is funny how folks goes to all kinds o' trouble to get into it. Mebby she did get kind o' tired eatin' the same breakfast-food every mornin'. Lots o' folks do, and hankers to try a new one. But I never got tired of drinkin' water yet. Wisht I had a barrel with ice in it. Gee Gosh! Ice! Mebby a cup of water would be enough for a fella, but when he's dry he sure likes to see lots ahead even if he can't drink it all. Mebby it's jest knowin' it's there that kind o' eases up a fella's thirst. I dunno."

  Romance, as romance was wont to do at intervals, lay in wait for the weary Sundown. Hunger and thirst and a burning sun may not be immediately conducive to poetry or romantic imaginings. But the 'dobe in the distance shaded by a clump of trees, the gleam of the drying chiles, the glow of flowers, offered an acceptable antithesis to the barren roadway and the empty mesas. Sundown quickened his pace. Eden, though circumscribed by a barb-wire fence enclosing scant territory, invited him to rest and refresh himself. And all unexpected the immemorial Eve stood in the doorway of the 'dobe, gazing down the road and doubtless wondering why this itinerant Adam, booted and spurred, chose to walk the dusty highway.

  At the gate of the homestead Sundown paused and raised his broad sombrero. Anita, dusky and buxom daughter of Chico Miguel, "the little hombre with the little herd," as the cattle-men described him, nodded a bashful acknowledgment of the salute, and spoke sharply to the dog which had risen and was bristling toward the Strange wayfarer.

  "Agua," said Sundown, opening the gate, "Mucha agua, Senorita," adding, with a humorous gesture of drinking, "I'm dry clean to me boots."

  The Mexican girl, slow-eyed and smiling, gazed at this most wonderful man, of such upstanding height that his hat brushed the limbs of the shade-trees at the gateway. Anita was plump and not tall. As Sundown stalked up the path assuming an air of gallantry that was not wasted on the desert air, the girl stepped to the olla hanging in the shade and offered him the gourd. Sundown drank long and deep. Anita watched him with wondering eyes. Such a man she had never seen. Vaqueros? Ah, yes! many of them, but never such a man as this. This one smiled, yet his face had much of the sadness in it. He had perhaps walked many weary miles in the heat. Would he—with a gesture interpreting her speech—be pleased to rest awhile? Without hesitation, he would. As he sat on the doorstep gazing contentedly at the flowers bordering the path, Anita's mother appeared from some mysterious recess of the 'dobe and questioned Anita with quick low utterance. The girl's answer, interpretable to Sundown only by its intonation, was music to him. The Mexican woman, more than buxom, large-eyed and placid, turned to Sundown, who rose and again doffed his somb
rero.

  "I lost me horse—back there. I'm headed for the Concho—ma'am. Concho," he reiterated in a louder tone. "Sabe?"

  The mother of Anita nodded. "You sick?" she asked.

  "What? Me? Not on your life, lady! I'm the healthiest Ho—puncher in this here State. You sabe Concho?"

  "Si! Zhack Corlees—'Juan,' we say. Si! You of him?"

  "Yes, lady. I'm workin' for him. Lost me hoss."

  Anita and her mother exchanged glances. Sundown felt that his status as a vaquero was in question. Would he let the beautiful Anita know that he had been ignominiously "piled" by that pinto horse? Not he. "Circumventions alters cases," he soliloquized, not altogether untruthfully. Then aloud, "Me hoss put his foot in a gopher-hole. Bruk his leg, and I had to shoot him, lady. Hated to part with him." And the inventive Sundown illustrated with telling gesture the imaginary accident.

  Sympathy flowed freely from the gentle-hearted Señora and her daughter. "Si!" It was not of unusual happening that horses met with such accidents. It was getting late in the afternoon. Would the unfortunate caballero accept of their hospitality in the way of frijoles and some of the good coffee, perhaps? Sundown would, without question. He pressed a dollar into the palm of the reluctant Señora. He was not a tramp. Of that she might be assured. He had met with misfortune, that was all. And would the patron return soon? The patron would return with the setting of the sun. Meanwhile the vaquero of the Concho was to rest and perhaps enjoy his cigarette? And the "vaquero" loafed and smoked many cigarettes while the glowing eyes of Anita shone upon him with large sympathy. As yet Sundown had not especially noticed her, but returning from his third visit to the cooling olla, he caught her glance and read, or imagined he read, deep admiration, lacking words to utter. From that moment he became a changed man. He shed his weariness as a tattered garment is thrown aside. He straightened his shoulders and held his head high. At last a woman had looked at him and had not smiled at his ungainly stature. Nay! But rather seemed impressed, awe-stricken, amazed. And his heart quickened to faster rhythm, driving the blood riotously through his imaginative mind. He grew eloquent, in gesture, if not in speech. He told of his wanderings, his arrival at the Concho, of Chance his great wolf-dog, his horse "Pill," and his good friends Bud Snoop and Hi Wangle. Sundown could have easily given Othello himself "cards and spades" in this chance game of hearts and won—moving metaphor!—in a canter. That the little Señorita with the large eyes did not understand more than a third of that which she heard made no difference to her. His ambiguity of utterance, backed by assurance and illumined by the divine fire of inspiration, awakened curiosity in the placid breast of this Desdemona of the mesas. It required no sophistication on her part to realize that this caballero was not as the vaqueros she had heretofore known. He made no boorish jests; his eyes were not as the eyes of many that had gazed at her in a way that had tinged her dusky cheeks with warm resentment. She felt that he was endeavoring to interest her, to please her rather than to woo. And more than that—he seemed intensely interested in his own brave eloquence. A child could have told that Sundown was single-hearted. And with the instinct of a child—albeit eighteen, and quite a woman in her way—Anita approved of this adventurer as she had never approved of men, or man, before. His great height, his long, sweeping arms, moving expansively as he illustrated this or that incident, his silver spurs, his loose-jointed "tout ensemble," so to speak, combined with an eloquent though puzzling manner of speech, fascinated her. Warmed to his work, and forgetful of his employer's caution in regard to certain plans having to do with the water-hole ranch, Sundown elaborated, drawing heavily on future possibilities, among which he towered in imagination monarch of rich mellow acres and placid herds. He intimated delicately that a rancher's life was lonely at best, and enriched the tender intimation with the assurance that he was more than fond of enchiladas, frijoles, carne-con-chile, tamales, adding as an afterthought that he was somewhat of an expert himself in "wrastlin' out" pies and doughnuts and various other gastronomical delicacies.

  A delicate frown touched the gentle Anita's smooth forehead when her mother interrupted Sundown with a steaming cup of coffee and a plate of frijoles, yet Anita realized, as she saw his ardent expression when the aroma of the coffee reached him, that this was a most sensible and fitting climax to his glowing discourse. Her frown vanished together with the coffee and beans.

  Fortified by the strong black coffee and the nourishing frijoles, Sundown rose from his seat on the doorstep and betook himself to the back of the house where he labored with an axe until he had accumulated quite a pile of firewood. Then he rolled up his sleeves, washed his hands, and asked permission to prepare the evening meal. Although a little astonished, the Señora consented, and watched Sundown, at first with a smile of indulgence, then with awakening curiosity, and finally with frank and complimentary amazement as he deftly kneaded and rolled pie-crust and manufactured a pie that eventually had, for those immediately concerned, historical significance.

  The "little hombre," Chico Miguel, returning to his 'dobe that evening, was greeted with a tide of explanatory utterances that swept him off his feet. He was introduced to Sundown, apprised of the strange guest's manifold accomplishments, and partook of the substantial evidence of his skill until of the erstwhile generous pie there was nothing left save tender reminiscence and replete satisfaction.

  Later in the evening, when the Arizona stars glowed and shimmered on the shadowy adobe, when the wide mesas grew mysteriously beautiful in the soft radiance of the slow moon, Chico Miguel brought his guitar from the bedroom, tuned it, and struck a swaying cadence from its strings. Then Anita's voice, blending with the rhythm, made melody, and Sundown sat entranced. Mood, environment, temperament, lent romance to the simple song. Every singing string on the old guitar was silver—the singer's girlish voice a sunlit wave of gold.

  The bleak and almost barren lives of these isolated folk became illumined with a reminiscent glow as the tinkling notes of the guitar hushed to faint echoes of fairy bells hung on the silver boughs of starlit trees. "Adios, linda Rosa," ran the song. Then silence, the summer night, the myriad stars.

  Sundown, turning his head, gazed spellbound at the dark-eyed singing girl. In the dim light of the lamp she saw that his lean cheeks were wet with tears.

  CHAPTER XXI

  ON THE MESA

  With the morning sun came a brave, cloudless day and a more jovial mood to Sundown as he explained the necessity for haste to the Concho. Chico Miguel would gladly furnish horse and saddle. Juan Corlees was of men the finest! Once upon a time, in fact, Chico Miguel had ridden range for the father of Señor Corlees, but that was in years long past, Ah, yes! Then there were no sheep in the country—nothing but cattle and vaqueros. Would the caballero accept the loan of horse and saddle? The horse could be returned at his convenience. And possibly—and here Chico Miguel paused to roll a cigarette, light it, and smoke awhile reflectively—and possibly the caballero would again make their humble home beautiful with his presence. Such pie as the Señor made was a not unworthy meal for the saints. Indeed, Chico Miguel himself had had many pleasant dreams following their feast of the evening before. Would Sundown condescend to grace their home with his presence again and soon? Sundown would, be Gosh! He sure did like music, especially them Spanish songs what made a fella kind of shivery and sad-like from his boots up. And that part of the country looked good to him. In fact he was willing to be thrun from—er—have his hoss step in a gopher-hole any day if the accident might terminate as pleasantly as had his late misfortune. He aspired to become a master of the art of cooking Mexican dishes. 'Course at reg'lar plain-cookin' and deserts he wasn't such a slouch, but when it come to spreadin' the chile, he wasn't, as yet, an expert.

  Meanwhile he clung tenaciously to the few Spanish words he knew, added to which was "Linda Rosa"—"pretty rose,"—which he intended to use with telling effect when he made his adieux. After breakfast he rose and disappeared. When he again entered the house the ke
en Señora noticed that his shirt front swelled expansively just above his heart. She wondered if the tall one had helped himself to a few of her beloved chiles.

  Presently Chico Miguel appeared with the pony. Sundown mounted, hesitated, and then nodded farewell to the Señora and the almost tearful Anita who stood in the doorway. Things were not as Sundown would have had them. He was long of arm and vigorous, but to cast a bouquet of hastily gathered and tied flowers from the gateway to the hand of the Señorita would require a longer arm and a surer aim than his. "Gee Gosh!" he exclaimed, dismounting hurriedly. "What's that on his hind foot?"

  He referred to the horse. Chico Miguel, at the gate, hastened to examine the pony, but Sundown, realizing that the Señorita still stood beside her mother, must needs create further delay. He stepped to the pony and, assuming an air of experience, reached to take up the horse's foot and examine it. The horse, possibly realizing that its foot was sound, resented Sundown's solicitude. The upshot—used advisedly—of it was that Sundown found himself sitting in the road and Chico Miguel struggling with the pony.

  With a scream Anita rushed to the gateway, wringing her hands as Sundown rose stiffly and felt of his shirt front. The flowers that he had picked for his adored, were now literally pressed to his bosom. He wondered if they "were mushed up much?" Yet he was not unhappy. His grand climax was at hand. Again he mounted the pony, turned to the Señorita, and, drawing the more or less mangled blossoms from his shirt, presented them to her with sweeping gallantry. Anita blushed and smiled. Sundown raised his hat. "Adios! Adios! Mucha adios! Señorita! For you sure are the lindaest little linda rosa of the whole bunch!" he said.

  And with Anita standing in rapt admiration, Chico Miguel wondering if the kick of the horse had not unsettled the strange caballero's reason, and the Señora blandly aware that her daughter and the tall one had become adepts in interpreting the language of the eyes, Sundown rode away in a cloud of dust, triumphantly joyous, yet with a peculiar sensation in the region of his heart, where the horse had kicked him. When he realized that admiring eyes could not follow him forever, he checked the horse and rubbed his chest.