Delphi Works of Robert E. Howard (Illustrated) (Series Four)

by Robert E. Howard

  I finally had to stun them fool mules with a bat over the ear with my fist, and before they got their senses back, I had ’em harnessed to the wagon, and Cap’n Kidd and Cousin Bearfield’s hoss tied to the rear end.

  “He’s stealin’ our mules!” howled somebody, and taken a wild shot at me, as I headed down the street, standing up in the wagon and keeping them crazy critters straight by sheer strength on the lines.

  “I ain’t stealin’ nothin’!” I roared as we thundered past the cabins where spurts of flame was already streaking out of the winders. “I’ll send this here wagon and these mules back tomorrer!”

  The citizens answered with blood-thirsty yells and a volley of lead, and with their benediction singing past my ears, I left Cougar Paw in a cloud of dust and profanity.

  Them mules, after a vain effort to stop and kick loose from the harness, laid their bellies to the ground and went stampeding down that crooking mountain road like scairt jackrabbits. We went around each curve on one wheel, and sometimes we’d hit a stump that would throw the whole wagon several foot into the air, and that must of been what brung Cousin Bearfield to hisself. He was laying sprawled in the bed, and finally we taken a bump that throwed him in a somersault clean to the other end of the wagon. He hit on his neck and riz up on his hands and knees and looked around dazedly at the trees and stumps which was flashing past, and bellered: “What the hell’s happenin’? Where-at am I, anyway?”

  “Yo’re on yore way to Bear Creek, Cousin Bearfield!” I yelled, cracking my whip over them fool mules’ backs. “Yippee ki-yi! This here is fun, ain’t it, Cousin Bearfield?”

  I was thinking of Joan waiting with her store-bought shoes for me down the road, and in spite of my cuts and bruises, I was rolling high and handsome.

  “Slow up!” roared Cousin Bearfield, trying to stand up. But just then we went crashing down a steep bank, and the wagon tilted, throwing Cousin Bearfield to the other end of the wagon where he rammed his head with great force against the front-gate. “#$%&*?@!” says Cousin Bearfield. “Glug!” Because we had hit the creek bed going full speed and knocked all the water out of the channel, and about a hundred gallons splashed over into the wagon and nearly washed Cousin Bearfield out.

  “If I ever git out of this alive,” promised Cousin Bearfield, “I’ll kill you if it’s the last thing I do—”

  But at that moment the mules stampeded up the bank on the other side and Cousin Bearfield was catapulted to the rear end of the wagon so hard he knocked out the end-gate with his head and nearly went out after it, only he just managed to grab hisself.

  We went plunging along the road and the wagon hopped from stump to stump and sometimes it crashed through a thicket of bresh. Cap’n Kidd and the other hoss was thundering after us, and the mules was braying and I was whooping and Cousin Bearfield was cussing, and purty soon I looked back at him and hollered: “Hold on, Cousin Bearfield! I’m goin’ to stop these critters. We’re close to the place where my gal will be waitin’ for me—”

  “Look out, you blame fool!” screamed Cousin Bearfield, and then the mules left the road and went one on each side of a white oak tree, and the tongue splintered, and they run right out of the harness and kept high-tailing it, but the wagon piled up on that tree with a jolt that throwed me and Cousin Bearfield headfirst into a blackjack thicket.

  Cousin Bearfield vowed and swore, when he got back home, that I picked this thicket special on account of the hornets’ nest that was there, and drove into it plumb deliberate. Which same is a lie which I’ll stuff down his gizzard next time I cut his sign. He claimed they was trained hornets which I educated not to sting me, but the fact was I had sense enough to lay there plumb quiet. Cousin Bearfield was fool enough to run.

  Well, he knows by this time, I reckon, that the fastest man afoot can’t noways match speed with a hornet. He taken out through the bresh and thickets, yelpin’ and hollerin’ and hoppin’ most bodacious. He run in a circle, too, for in three minutes he come bellerin’ back, gave one last hop and dove back into the thicket. By this time I figgered he’d wore the hornets out, so I came alive again.

  I extricated myself first and locating Cousin Bearfield by his profanity, I laid hold onto his hind laig and pulled him out. He lost most of his clothes in the process, and his temper wasn’t no better. He seemed to blame me for his misfortunes.

  “Don’t tech me,” he said fiercely. “Leave me be. I’m as close to Bear Creek right now as I want to be. Whar’s my hoss?”

  The hosses had broke loose when the wagon piled up, but they hadn’t gone far, because they was fighting with each other in the middle of the road. Bearfield’s hoss was about as big and mean as Cap’n Kidd. We separated ’em and Bearfield clumb aboard without a word.

  “Where you goin’, Cousin Bearfield?” I ast.

  “As far away from you as I can,” he said bitterly. “I’ve saw all the Elkinses I can stand for awhile. Doubtless yore intentions is good, but a man better git chawed by lions than rescued by a Elkins!”

  And with a few more observations which highly shocked me, and which I won’t repeat, he rode off at full speed, looking very pecooliar, because his pants was about all that hadn’t been tore off of him, and he had scratches and bruises all over him.

  I was sorry Cousin Bearfield was so sensitive, but I didn’t waste no time brooding over his ingratitude. The sun was up and I knowed Joan would be waiting for me where the path come down into the road from the mountain.

  Sure enough, when I come to the mouth of the trail, there she was, but she didn’t have on her store-bought shoes, and she looked flustered and scairt.

  “Breckinridge!” she hollered, running up to me before I could say a word. “Somethin’ terrible’s happened! My brother was in Cougar Paw last night, and a big bully beat him up somethin’ awful! Some men are bringin’ him home on a stretcher! One of ’em rode ahead to tell me!”

  “How come I didn’t pass ’em on the road?” I said, and she said: “They walked and taken a short cut through the hills. There they come now.”

  I seen some men come into the road a few hundred yards away and come toward us, lugging somebody on a stretcher like she said.

  “Come on!” she says, tugging at my sleeve. “Git down off yore hoss and come with me. I want him to tell you who done it, so you can whup the scoundrel!”

  “I got a idee, I know who done it,” I said, climbing down. “But I’ll make sure.” I figgered it was one of Cousin Bearfield’s victims.

  “Why, look!” said Joan. “How funny the men are actin’ since you started toward ‘em! They’ve sot down the litter and they’re runnin’ off into the woods! Bill!” she shrilled as we drawed nigh. “Bill, air you hurt bad?”

  “A busted laig and some broke ribs,” moaned the victim on the litter, which also had his head so bandaged I didn’t recognize him. Then he sot up with a howl. “What’s that ruffian doin’ with you?” he roared, and to my amazement I recognized Bill Santry.

  “Why, he’s a friend of our’n, Bill—” Joan begun, but he interrupted her loudly and profanely: “Friend, hell! He’s John Elkins’ brother, and furthermore he’s the one which is responsible for the crippled and mutilated condition in which you now sees me!”

  Joan said nothing. She turned and looked at me in a very pecooliar manner, and then dropped her eyes shyly to the ground.

  “Now, Joan,” I begun, when all at once I saw what she was looking for. One of the men had dropped a Winchester before he run off. Her first bullet knocked off my hat as I forked Cap’n Kidd, and her second, third and fourth missed me so close I felt their hot wind. Then Cap’n Kidd rounded a curve with his belly to the ground, and my busted romance was left far behind me...

  A couple of days later a mass of heartaches and bruises which might of been recognized as Breckinridge Elkins, the pride of Bear Creek, rode slowly down the trail that led to the settlements on the afore-said creek. And as I rode, it was my fortune to meet my brother John coming up the trail on foo
t.

  “Where you been?” he greeted me hypocritically. “You look like you been rasslin’ a pack of mountain lions.”

  I eased myself down from the saddle and said without heat: “John, just what was it that Bill Santry promised you?”

  “Oh,” says John with a laugh, “I skinned him in a hoss-trade before I left Cougar Paw, and he promised if he ever met me, he’d give me the lickin’ of my life. I’m glad you don’t hold no hard feelin’s, Breck. It war just a joke, me sendin’ you up there. You can take a joke, cain’t you?”

  “Sure,” I said. “By the way, John, how’s yore toe?”

  “It’s all right,” says he.

  “Lemme see,” I insisted. “Set yore foot on that stump.”

  He done so and I give it a awful belt with the butt of my Winchester.

  “That there is a receipt for yore joke,” I grunted, as he danced around on one foot and wept and swore. And so saying, I mounted and rode on in gloomy grandeur. A Elkins always pays his debts.

  * * *

  THE APACHE MOUNTAIN WAR

  First published in Action Stories, December 1935

  SOME day, maybe, when I’m old and gray in the whiskers, I’ll have sense enough not to stop when I’m riding by Uncle Shadrach Polk’s cabin, and Aunt Tascosa Polk hollers at me. Take the last time, for instance. I ought to of spurred Cap’n Kidd into a high run when she stuck her head out’n the winder and yelled: “Breck-in-ridge! Oh, Breck-inri-ddd-gggge!”

  But I reckon pap’s right when he says Nater gimme so much muscle she didn’t have no room left for brains. Anyway, I reined Cap’n Kidd around, ignoring his playful efforts to bite the muscle out of my left thigh, and I rode up to the stoop and taken off my coonskin-cap. I said: “Well, Aunt Tascosa, how air you all?”

  “You may well ast how air we,” she said bitterly. “How should a pore weak woman be farin’ with a critter like Shadrach for a husband? It’s a wonder I got a roof over my head, or so much as a barr’l of b’ar meat put up for the winter. The place is goin’ to rack and rooin. Look at that there busted axe-handle, for a instance. Is a pore weak female like me got to endure sech abuse?”

  “You don’t mean to tell me Uncle Shadrach’s been beatin’ you with that axe-handle?” I says, scandalized.

  “No,” says this pore weak female. “I busted it over his head a week ago, and he’s refused to mend it. It’s licker is been Shadrach’s rooin. When he’s sober he’s a passable figger of a man, as men go. But swiggin’ blue rooin is brung him to shame an’ degradation.”

  “He looks fat and sassy,” I says.

  “Beauty ain’t only skin-deep,” she scowls. “Shadrach’s like Dead Sea fruit — fair and fat-bellied to look on, but ready to dissolve in dust and whiskey fumes when prodded. Do you know whar he is right now?” And she glared at me so accusingly that Cap’n Kidd recoiled and turned pale.

  “Naw,” says I. “Whar?”

  “He’s over to the Apache Mountain settlement a-lappin’ up licker,” she snarled. “Just a-rootin’ and a-wallerin’ in sin and corn juice, riskin’ his immortal soul and blowin’ in the money he got off’n his coon hides. I had him locked in the corn crib, aimin’ to plead with him and appeal to his better nater, but whilst I was out behind the corral cuttin’ me a hickory club to do the appealin’ with, he kicked the door loose and skun out. I know whar he’s headin’ — to Joel Garfield’s stillhouse, which is a abomination in the sight of the Lord and oughta be burnt to the ground and the ashes skwenched with the blood of the wicked. But I cain’t stand here listenin’ to yore gab. I got hominy to make. What you mean wastin’ my time like this for? I got a good mind to tell yore pap on you. You light a shuck for Apache Mountain and bring Shadrach home.”

  “But—” I said.

  “Don’t you give me no argyments, you imperdent scoundrel!” she hollered. “I should think you’d be glad to help a pore, weak female critter ‘stead of wastin’ yore time gamblin’ and fightin’, in such dens of iniquity as War Paint. I want you to fix some way so’s to disgust Shadrach with drink for the rest of his nateral life, and if you don’t you’ll hear from me, you good-for- nothin’—”

  “All right!” I yelled. “All right! Anything for a little peace! I’ll git him and bring him home, and make a teetotaler outa him if I have to strangle the old son of a—”

  “How dast you use sech langwidge in front of me?” she hollered. “Ain’t you got no respect for a lady? I’ll be #4%*@?-!’d if I know what the &%$@* world’s comin’ to! Git outa here and don’t show yore homely mug around here again onless you git Shadrach off of rum for good!”

  Well, if Uncle Shadrach ever took a swig of rum in his life it was because they warn’t no good red corn whiskey within reach, but I didn’t try to argy with Aunt Tascosa. I lit out down the trail feeling like I’d been tied up to a Apache stake with the whole tribe sticking red-hot Spanish daggers into my hide. Aunt Tascosa affects a man that way. I heard Cap’n Kidd heave a sigh of relief plumb up from his belly, too, as we crossed a ridge and her distant voice was drowned out by the soothing noises of a couple of bobcats fighting with a timber wolf. I thought what ca’m and happy lives them simple critters lived, without no Aunt Tascosa.

  I rode on, forgetting my own troubles in feeling sorry for pore Uncle Shadrach. They warn’t a mean bone in his carcass. He was just as good-natered and hearty a critter as you’d ever meet even in the Humbolts. But his main object in life seemed to be to stow away all the corn juice they is in the world.

  As I rode along I racked my brain for a plan to break Uncle Shadrach of this here habit. I like a dram myself, but in moderation, never more’n a gallon or so at a time, unless it’s a special occasion. I don’t believe in a man making a hawg out of hisself, and anyway I was sick and tired running Uncle Shadrach down and fetching him home from his sprees.

  I thought so much about it on my way to Apache Mountain that I got so sleepy I seen I was gitting into no state to ride Cap’n Kidd. He got to looking back at me now and then, and I knowed if he seen me dozing in the saddle he’d try his derndest to break my neck. I was passing Cousin Bill Gordon’s barn about that time, so I thought I’d go in and take me a nap up in the hayloft, and maybe I’d dream about a way to make a water-drinker out of Uncle Shadrach or something.

  I tied Cap’n Kidd and started into the barn, and what should I see but Bill’s three youngest boys engaged in daubing paint on Uncle Jeppard Grimes’ favorite jackass, Joshua.

  “What air you all a-doin’ to Joshua?” I demanded, and they jumped back and looked guilty. Joshua was a critter which Uncle Jeppard used for a pack- mule when he went prospecting. He got the urge maybe every three or four year, and between times Joshua just et and slept. He was the sleepin’est jackass I ever seen. He was snoozing now, whilst them young idjits was working on him.

  I seen what they was at. Bill had loaned a feller some money which had a store down to War Paint, and the feller went broke, and give Bill a lot of stuff outa the store for pay. They was a lot of paint amongst it. Bill packed it home, though I dunno what he aimed to do with it, because all the houses in the Humbolts was log cabins which nobody ever painted, or if they did, they just white-washed ‘em. But anyway, he had it all stored in his barn, and his boys was smearing it on Joshua.

  He was the derndest sight you ever seen. They’d painted a big stripe down his spine, like a Spanish mustang, only this stripe was green instead of black, and more stripes curving over his ribs and down under his belly, red, white and blue, and they’d painted his ears green.

  “What you all mean by sech doin’s?” I ast. “Uncle Jeppard’ll plumb skin you all alive. He sets a lot of store by that there jack.”

  “Aw, it’s just funnin’,” they said. “He won’t know who done it.”

  “You go scrub that paint off,” I ordered ‘em. “Joshua’ll lick it off and git pizened.”

  “It won’t hurt him,” they assured me. “He got in here yesterday and et three cans of paint and a bucket of wh
itewash. That’s what give us the idee. He kin eat anything. Eatin’est jack you ever seen.”

  “Heh, heh, heh!” snickered one of ‘em. “He looks like a drunkard’s dream!”

  Instantly a idee hit me.

  “Gimme that jackass!” I exclaimed. “He’s just what I need to kyore Uncle Shadrach Polk of drinkin’ licker. One glimpse of that there jack in his present state and Uncle Shadrach’ll think he’s got the delerious trimmin’s and git so scairt he’ll swear off whiskey for life.”

  “If you aims to lead Joshua to Joel’s stillhouse,” they said, “you’ll be all day gittin’ there. You cain’t hustle Joshua.”

  “I ain’t goin to lead him,” I said. “You all hitch a couple of mules to yore pa’s spring wagon. I’ll leave Cap’n Kidd here till I git back.”

  “We’ll put him in the corral behind the barn,” they says. “Them posts are set four foot deep in concrete and the fence is braced with railroad iron, so maybe it’ll hold him till you git back, if you ain’t gone too long.”

  When they got the mules hitched, I tied Joshua’s laigs and laid him in the wagon bed, where he went to sleep, and I climbed onto the seat and lit out for Apache Mountain. I hadn’t went far when I run over a rock and woke Joshua up and he started braying and kept it up till I stopped and give him a ear of corn to chew on. As I started off again I seen Dick Grimes’ youngest gal peeping at me from the bresh, and when I called to her she run off. I hoped she hadn’t heard Joshua braying. I knowed she couldn’t see him, laying down in the wagon bed, but he had a very pecooliar bray and anybody in the Humbolts could recognize him by it. I hoped she didn’t know I had Joshua, because she was the derndest tattletale in the Bear Creek country, and Uncle Jeppard is such a cross-grained old cuss you can’t explain nothing to him. He was born with the notion that the whole world was plotting agen him.