In the presence of this unearthly beauty and grandeur old Bill Johnson––ex-trapper, ex-soldier, ex-prospector, ex-everything––had dwelt for twenty years, dating from the days when his house was his fortress, and his one desire was to stand off the Apaches until he could find the Lost Dutchman.
Where the valley narrowed down for its final plunge into the gorge the old trapper had built his cabin, its walls laid “square with the world” by sighting on the North Star. When the sun entered the threshold of the western door it was noon, and his watch never ran down. The cabin was built of shaly rocks, squared and laid in mud, like bricks; a tremendous stone chimney stood against the north end and a corral for his burros at the south. Three hounds with bleared eyes and flapping ears, their foreheads wrinkled with age and the anxieties of the hunt, bayed forth a welcome as the cavalcade strung in across the valley; and mild-eyed cattle, standing on the ridges to catch the wind, stared down at them in surprise. Never, even at San Carlos, where the Chiricahua cattle fatten on the best feed in Arizona, had Hardy seen such mountains of beef. Old steers with six and seven rings on their horns hung about the salting places, as if there were no such things as beef drives and slaughter houses in this cruel world, and even when the cowboys spread out like a fan and brought them all in to the cutting grounds there was hardly a calf that bawled.
As the three or four hundred head that made up his entire earthly possession drifted obediently in, the old man rode up to Creede and Hardy and waved his hand expansively.
“Thar, boys,” he said, “thar’s the results of peace and kindness. Nary a critter thar that I heven’t scratched between the horns since the day his maw brought him down to the salt lick. I even git Jeff and the boys to brand and earmark ’em fer me, so they won’t hev no hard feelin’ fer the Old Man. D’ye see that big white-faced steer?” he asked, pointing with pride to the monarch of the herd. “Waal, how much ye think he’ll weigh?” he demanded, turning to Creede. “Fifteen hundred?”
“Um, more ’n that,” responded Creede, squinting his eyes down judicially. “Them Herefords are awful solid when they git big. I reckon he’ll run nigh onto seventeen hundred, Bill.” He paused and winked furtively at Hardy. “I kin git fifty dollars fer that old boy, jest the way he stands,” he said, “and bein’ as he can’t carry no more weight nohow, I’ll jest cut him into the town herd right now, and––”
“Hyar!” shouted Johnson, grabbing the cowboy’s bridle, “who’s doin’ this, anyhow?”
“W’y you, Bill,” answered Creede innocently, “but––”
“That’s all right, then,” said the old man shortly, “you leave that steer alone. I’ll jest cut this herd to suit myself.”
Over at the branding pen the irons were on the fire and the marking was progressing rapidly, but out in the open Mr. Bill Johnson was making slow work of his cut.
“He gets stuck on them cows, like an Irishman with his pig,” observed Creede, as the old man turned back a prime four-year-old. “He’d rather be barbecued by the Apaches than part with that big white-faced boy. If I owned ’em I’d send down a lot of them big fat brutes and buy doggies; but Bill spends all the money he gits fer booze anyhow, so I reckon it’s all right. He generally sends out about twenty runts and roughs, and lets it go at that. Say! You’ll have to git a move on, Bill,” he shouted, “we want to send that beef cut on ahead!”
The old man reined in his mare and surveyed the big herd critically.
“Waal,” he drawled, “I reckon that’ll do fer this trip, then. Take ’em along. And the fust one of you punchers that hits one of them critters over the tail with his hondu,” he shouted, as the eager horsemen trotted over to start them, “will hev me to lick!”
He placed an order for provisions with Creede, asked him to keep the supplies at Hidden Water until he came over for them with the burros, and turned away contentedly as the cowboys went upon their way.
Down by the branding pen the mother cows licked the blood from their offsprings’ mangled ears and mooed resentfully, but the big white-faced steer stood in brutish content on the salting grounds and gazed after the town herd thoughtfully.
A bunch of burros gathered about the doorway of the cabin, snooping for bacon rinds; the hounds leaned their heavy jowls upon his knees and gazed up worshipfully into their master’s face; and as the sun dipped down toward the rim of the mighty cliffs that shut him in, the lord of Hell’s Hip Pocket broke into the chorus of an ancient song:
“Oh, o-ver the prairies, and o-ver the mountains,
And o-ver the prairies, and o-ver the mountains,
And o-ver the prairies, and o-ver the mountains,
I’ll go till I find me a home.”
* * *
CHAPTER VIII
A YEAR’S MAIL
The beef herd was safely delivered at Bender, the feeders disposed of at Moroni, and the checks sent on to the absentee owner, who did not know a steer from a stag; the rodéo hands were paid off and successfully launched upon their big drunk; bills were paid and the Summer’s supplies ordered in, and then at last the superintendent and rodéo boss settled down to a little domesticity.
Since the day that Hardy had declined to drink with him Creede had quietly taken to water, and he planted a bag of his accumulated wages in a corner of the mud floor, to see, as he facetiously expressed it, if it would grow. Mr. Bill Johnson had also saved his “cow money” from Black Tex and banked it with Hardy, who had a little cache of his own, as well. With their finances thus nicely disposed of the two partners swept the floor, cleaned up the cooking dishes, farmed out their laundry to a squaw, and set their house in order generally. They were just greasing up their reatas for a run after the wild horses of Bronco Mesa when Rafael pulled in with a wagon-load of supplies and destroyed their peaceful life.
It was late when the grinding and hammering of wheels upon the boulders of the creek-bed announced his near approach and Creede went out to help unload the provisions. A few minutes later he stepped into the room where Hardy was busily cooking and stood across the table from him with his hands behind his back, grinning mischievously.
“Rufe,” he said, “you’ve got a girl.”
Hardy looked up quickly and caught the significance of his pose, but he did not smile. He did not even show an interest in the play.
“How do you figure that out?” he asked, indifferently.
“Oh, I know,” drawled Creede. “Got a letter from her.”
A single hawk-like glance was the only answer to this sally.
“She says: ‘Why the hell don’t you write!’” volunteered the cowboy.
“’S that so!” commented Hardy, and then he went on with his cooking.
For a minute Creede stood watching him, his eyes keen to detect the slightest quaver, but the little man seemed suddenly to have forgotten him; he moved about absently, mechanically, dropping nothing, burning nothing, yet far away, as in a dream.
“Huh!” exclaimed Creede, disgusted with his own make-believe, “you don’t seem to care whether school keeps or not. I’ll excuse you from any further work this evenin’––here’s your mail.”
He drew a bundle of letters from behind his back and dropped it heavily upon the table, but even then Hardy did not rise.
“Guess the Old Man must’ve forwarded my mail,” he remarked, smiling at the size of the pack. “I’ve been knocking around so, I haven’t received a letter in a year. Chuck ’em on my desk, will ye?”
“Sure,” responded Creede, and stepping across the broad living-room he threw the bundle carelessly on the bed.
“You’re like me,” he remarked, drawing his chair up sociably to supper, “I ain’t got a letter fer so long I never go near the dam’ post office.”
He sighed, and filled his plate with beans.
“Ever been in St. Louis?” he inquired casually. “No? They say it’s a fine burg. Think I’ll save up my dinero and try it a whirl some day.”
The supper table was cleared and Cree
de had lit his second cigarette before Hardy reverted to the matter of his mail.
“Well,” he said, “I might as well look over those letters––may be a thousand-dollar check amongst them.”
Then, stepping into his room, he picked up the package, examined it curiously, and cut the cords with his knife.
A sheaf of twenty or more letters spilled out and, sitting on the edge of the bed, he shuffled them over in the uncertain light of the fire, noting each inscription with a quick glance; and as he gathered up the last he quietly tucked three of them beneath the folds of his blankets––two in the same hand, bold and dashing yet stamped with a certain feminine delicacy and grace, and each envelope of a pale blue; the third also feminine, but inscribed in black and white, a crooked little hand that strayed across the page, yet modestly shrank from trespassing on the stamp.
With the remainder of his mail Hardy blundered over to the table, dumping the loose handful in a great pile before the weak glimmer of the lamp.
“There,” he said, as Creede blinked at the heap, “I reckon that’s mail enough for both of us. You can read the advertisements and I’ll see what the judge has to say for himself. Pitch in, now.” He waved his hand towards a lot of business envelopes, but Creede shook his head and continued to smoke dreamily.
“Nope,” he said briefly, “don’t interest me.”
He reached out and thumbed the letters over dumbly, spelling out a long word here and there or scrutinizing some obscure handwriting curiously, as if it were Chinese, or an Indian sign on a rock. Then, shoving back his chair, he watched Hardy’s face as he skimmed rapidly through the first letter.
“Good news in the first part of it and bad in the last,” he remarked, as Hardy put it down.
“That’s right,” admitted Hardy, “but how’d you know?”
He gazed up at his complacent partner with a look of innocent wonder, and Creede laughed.
“W’y, hell boy,” he said, “I can read you like a book. Your face tells the whole story as you go along. After you’ve been down here in Arizona a few seasons and got them big eyes of yourn squinched down a little––well, I may have to ast you a few questions, then.”
He waved his hand in a large gesture and blew out a cloud of smoke, while a twinkle of amusement crept into Hardy’s unsquinched eyes.
“Maybe I’m smoother than I look,” he suggested dryly. “You big, fat fellows get so self-satisfied sometimes that you let lots of things go by you.”
“Well, I’ll take my chances on you,” answered Creede placidly. “What did the old judge say?”
“He says you did fine with the cattle,” said Hardy, “and sold ’em just in time––the market fell off within a week after we shipped.”
“Um-huh,” grunted Creede. “And what’s the bad bunch of news at the end?”
The bad bunch of news was really of a personal nature, stirring up unpleasant memories, but Hardy passed it off by a little benevolent dissimulation.
“He says he’s mighty glad I steered the sheep away, but there is something funny going on back in Washington; some combine of the sheep and lumber interests has got in and blocked the whole Forest Reserve business and there won’t be any Salagua Forest Reserve this year. So I guess my job of sheep-wrangler is going to hold; at least the judge asked me to stay with it until Fall.”
“Well, you stay then, Rufe,” said Creede earnestly, “because I’ve kinder got stuck on you––I like your style,” he added half apologetically.
“All right, Jeff,” said Hardy. “Here’s another letter––from my father. See if you can guess what it is like.”
He set his face rigidly and read the short letter through without a quaver.
“You and the Old Man have had a fallin’-out,” observed Creede, with a shrewd grin, “and he says when you git good and tired of bein’ a dam’ fool you might as well come home.”
“Well, that’s about the size of it,” admitted Hardy. “I never told you much about my father, did I?”
“Never knew you had one,” said Creede, “until Bill Johnson began to blow about what an Injun-fighter he was. I reckon that’s where you git your sportin’ blood, ain’t it?”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” began Hardy. “The Old Man and I never did get along together. He’s used to commanding soldiers and all that, and I’m kind of quiet, but he always took a sneaking pride in me when I was a boy, I guess. Anyway, every time I’d get into a fight around the post and lick two or three Mexican kids, or do some good work riding or shooting, he’d say I’d be a man before my mother, or something like that––but that was as far as he got. And all the time, on the quiet, he was educating me for the Army. His father was a captain, and he’s a colonel, and I can see now he was lotting on my doing as well or better––but hell, that only made matters worse.”
He slid down in his chair and gazed into the fire gloomily. It was the first time Creede had heard his partner use even the mildest of the range expletives, for in that particular he was still a tenderfoot, and the word suddenly conveyed to him the depths of the little man’s abandonment and despair.
“Why––what was the matter?” he inquired sympathetically. “Couldn’t you git no appointment?”
“Huh!” growled Hardy. “I guess you know, all right. Look at me!” he exclaimed, in a sudden gust of passion and resentment. “Why, damn it, man, I’m an inch too short!”
“Well––I’ll––be––dogged!” breathed Creede. “I never thought of that!”
“No,” rejoined Hardy bitterly, “nor the Old Man, either––not until I stopped growing! Well, he hasn’t had a bit of use for me since. That’s the size of it. And he didn’t take any pains to conceal the fact––most army men don’t. There’s only one man in the world to them, and that’s a soldier; and if you’re not a soldier, you’re nothing.”
He waved a hand as if dismissing himself from the universe, and sank moodily into his seat, while Creede looked him over in silence.
“Rufe,” he said quietly, “d’ye remember that time when I picked you to be boss sheep-wrangler, down at Bender? Well, I might as well tell you about that now––’t won’t do no harm. The old judge couldn’t figure out what it was I see in you to recommend you for the job. Like’s not you don’t know yourself. He thought I was pickin’ you because you was a peaceful guy, and wouldn’t fight Black Tex; but that’s where he got fooled, and fooled bad! I picked you because I knew dam’ well you would fight!”
He leaned far over across the table and his eyes glowed with a fierce light.
“D’ye think I want some little suckin’ mamma’s-joy of a diplomat on my hands when it comes to a show-down with them sheepmen?” he cried. “No, by God, I want a man, and you’re the boy, Rufe; so shake!”
He rose and held out his hand. Hardy took it.
“I wouldn’t have sprung this on you, pardner,” he continued apologetically, “if I didn’t see you so kinder down in the mouth about your old man. But I jest want you to know that they’s one man that appreciates you for a plain scrapper. And I’ll tell you another thing; when the time comes you’ll look jest as big over the top of a six-shooter as I do, and stand only half the chanst to git hit. W’y, shucks!” he exclaimed magnanimously, “my size is agin’ me at every turn; my horse can’t hardly pack me, I eat such a hell of a lot, and, well, I never can git a pair of pants to fit me. What’s this here letter?”
He picked one up at random, and Hardy ascertained that his tailor some six months previously had moved to a new and more central location, where he would be pleased to welcome all his old customers. But the subject of diminutive size was effectually dismissed and, having cheered up his little friend as best he could, Creede seized the occasion to retire. Lying upon his broad back in his blankets, with Tommy purring comfortably in the hollow of his arm, he smoked out his cigarette in speculative silence, gazing up at the familiar stars whose wheelings mark off the cowboy’s night, and then dropped quietly to sleep, leaving his partner to bro
od over his letters alone.
For a long time he sat there, opening them one by one––the vague and indifferent letters which drift in while one is gone; and at last he stole silently across the dirt floor and brought out the three letters from his bed. There in a moment, if he had been present, Creede might have read him like a book; his lips drawn tight, his eyes big and staring, as he tore open one of the pale blue envelopes with trembling hands. The fragments of a violet, shattered by the long journey, fell before him as he plucked out the note, and its delicate fragrance rose up like incense as he read. He hurried through the missive, as if seeking something which was not there, then his hungry eyes left the unprofitable page and wandered about the empty room, only to come back to those last words: “Always your Friend, Kitty Bonnair.”
“Always your friend,” he repeated bitterly––“always your friend. Ah, God!” He sighed wearily and shook his head. For a moment he lapsed into dreams; then, reaching out, he picked up the second letter, postmarked over a year before, and examined it idly. The very hour of its collection was recorded––“Ferry Sta. 1.30 A. M.”––and the date he could never forget. Written on that very same day, and yet its message had never reached him!
He could see as in a vision the shrouded form of Kitty Bonnair slipping from her door at midnight to fling a final word after him, not knowing how far he would flee; he could see the lonely mail collector, half obscured in the San Francisco fog, as he scooped the letter from the box with many others and boarded the car for the ferry. It was a last retort, and likely bitter, for he had spoken in anger himself, and Kitty was not a woman to be denied. There was an exaggerated quirk to the square corners of her letters, a brusque shading of the down strokes––undoubtedly Kitty was angry. But for once he had disarmed her––it was a year after, now, and he had read her forgiveness first! Yet it was with a strange sinking of the heart that he opened the blue envelope and stared at the scribbled words:
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