Grim Lands

by Robert E. Howard

  “Pore who?” I ast.

  “Joe!” says he, wiping his eyes on my bandanner. “My partner, up on our claim in the hills. I warned him agen drinkin’ a gallon of corn juice to inoculate hisself agen snake-bite – before the snake bit him – but he wouldn’t listen, so now he’s writhin’ in the throes of delirium tremens. It would bust yore heart to hear the way he shrieks for me to shoot the polka-dotted rhinocerhosses which he thinks is gnawin’ his toes. I left him tied hand and foot and howlin’ that a striped elephant was squattin’ on his bosom, and I went to Blue Lizard for medicine. I got it, but them cussed dawgs scairt my hoss and he got away from me, and it’ll take me till midnight to git back to our claim afoot. Pore Joe’ll be a ravin’ corpse by then.”

  Well, I never heard of a corpse raving, but I couldn’t stand the idee of a man dying from the d.t.’s, so I shucked my pack offa my mule, and said: “Here, take this mule and skeet for yore claim. He’ll be better’n walkin’. I’d lend you Satanta only he won’t let nobody but me ride him.”

  Mister Witherington T. Jones was plumb overcome by emotion. He shaken my hand again and said: “My noble friend, I’ll never forgit this!” And then he jumped on the mule and lit out, and from the way he was kicking the critter’s ribs I reckoned he’d pull into his claim before noon, if it was anywheres within a hundred miles of there. He sure warn’t wasting no time. I could see that.

  I hung his boots onto my saddle horn and I had started gathering up my plunder when I heard men yelling and then a whole gang with Winchesters come busting through the trees, and they seen me and hollered: “Where is he?”

  “We heard the dawgs bayin’ over here,” says a little short one. “I don’t hear ’em now. But they must of had him treed somewheres clost by.”

  “Oh, Mr. Jones,” I said. “Well, don’t worry about him. He’s all right. I druv the dawgs off and and lent him my mule to git back to his claim.”

  At this they let forth loud frenzied yells. It was plumb amazing. Here I’d jest rescued a feller human from a pack of ferocious animals, and these hombres acted like I’d did a crime or something.

  “He helped him git awayl” they hollered. “Le’s lynch him, the derned outlaw!”

  “Who you callin’ a outlaw?” I demanded. “I’m a stranger in these parts. I’m headin’ for Blue Lizard to work me a claim.”

  “You jest helped a criminal to escape!” gnashed they, notably a big black-bearded galoot with a sawed-off shotgun. “This feller Jones as you call him tried to rob a stage coach over on Cochise Mountain less’n a hour ago. The guard shot his pistol out of his hand, and his hoss got hit too, so he broke away on foot. We sot the dawgs on his trail, and we’d of had him by now, if you hadn’t butted in! Now the dawgs cain’t track him no more.”

  “Call ’em back and set ’em on the mule’s trail,” sejests a squint-eyed cuss. “As for you, you cussed Texas hill-billy, you keep on travelin’. We don’t want no man like you in Blue Lizard.”

  “Go to the devil, you flat-nosed buzzard,” I retort with typical Southern courtesy. “This here’s a free country. I come up here to hunt gold and I aim to hunt it if I have to lick every prospector in Lizard Cañon! You cain’t ride me jest because I made a honest mistake that anybody could of made. Anyway, I’m the loser, ’cause he got off with my mule.”

  “Aw, come on and le’s find the dawgs,” says a bow-legged gun-toter with warts. So they went off up the cañon, breathing threats and vengeance, and I taken my plunder on my shoulder and went on down the cañon, leading Satanta. I put on Mister Jones’s boots first, and they was too small for me, of course, but I could wear ’em in a pinch. (That there is a joke, Wash, but I don’t suppose you got sense enough to see the p’int.)

  I soon come to the aidge of the camp, which was spread all over the place where the canyon widened out and shallowed, and the first man I seen was old Polk Williams. You remember him, Wash, we knowed him over to Trinidad when we first come to Colorado with the Seven Prong Pitchfork outfit. I hailed him and ast him where I could find a good claim, and he said all the good ones had been took. So I said, well, I’d strike out up in the hills and hunt me one, and he says: “What you know about prospectin’? I advises you to git a job of workin’ some other man’s claim at day wages till they’s a new strike up in the hills somewheres. They’s bound to be one any day, because the mountains is full of prospectors which got here too late to git in on this’n. Plenty of jobs here at big wages, because nobody wants to work. They all wants to wade creeks till they stub their fool toe on a pocket of nuggets.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll pitch my camp down on the creek.”

  “You better not,” says he. “These mountains is full of hyderphoby skunks. They crawls in yore blankets at night and bites you, and you foam at the mouth and go bite yore best friends. Now, it jest happens I got a spare cabin which I ain’t usin’. The feller who had it rented ain’t with us this mornin’ account of a extry ace in a poker game last night. I’ll rent it to you dirt cheap – ten dollars a day. You’ll be safe from them cussed skunks there.”

  So I said: “All right. I don’t want to git hyderphoby.”

  So I give him ten dollars in advance and put my plunder in the cabin which was on a slope west of the camp, and hobbled Satanta to graze. He said I better look out or somebody would steal Satanta. He said Mustang Stirling and his outlaws was hiding in the hills clost by and terrorizing the camp which didn’t even have a sheriff yet, because folks hadn’t had time to elect one, but they was gittin so sick of being robbed all the time they probably would soon, and maybe organize a Vigilante Committee, too. But I warn’t scairt of anybody stealing Satanta. A stranger had better take a cougar by the whiskers than to monkey with Satanta. That hoss has got a disposition like a sore-tailed rattlesnake.

  Well, while we was talking I seen a gal come out from amongst the cluster of stores and saloons and things, and head up the canyon with a bucket in her hand. She was so purty my heart skipped a beat and my corns begun to throb. That’s a sure sign of love at first sight.

  “Who’s that gal?” I ast.

  “Hannah Sprague,” says Polk. “The belle of Blue Lizard. But you needn’t start castin’ sheep’s eyes at her. They’s a dozen young bucks sparkin’ her already. I think Blaze Wellington’s the favorite to put his brand onto her, though. She wouldn’t look twicet at a hill-billy like you.”

  “I might remove the compertition,” I sejested.

  “You better not try no Wolf Mountain rough stuff in Blue Lizard,” warned he. “The folks is so worked up over all these robberies and killin’s they’re jest in a mood to lynch somebody, especially a stranger.”

  But I give no heed. Folks is always wanting to lynch me, and quite a few has tried, as numerous tombstones on the boundless prairies testifies.

  “Where’s she goin’ with that bucket?” I ast him, and he said: “She’s takin’ beer to her old man which is workin’ a claim up the creek.”

  “Well, listen,” I says. “You git over there behind that thicket and when she comes past you make a noise like a Injun.”

  “What kind of damfoolishness is this?” he demanded. “You want to stampede the hull camp?”

  “Don’t make a loud whoop,” I says. “Jest make it loud enough for her to hear it.”

  “Air you crazy?” says he.

  “No, dern it!” I said fiercely, because she was tripping along purty fast. “Git in there and do like I say. I’ll rush up from the other side and pertend to rescue her from the Injuns, and that’ll make her like me.”

  “I mistrusts you’re a blasted fool,” he grumbled. “But I’ll do it jest this oncet.”

  He snuck into the thicket which she’d have to pass on the other side, and I circled around so she couldn’t see me till I was ready to rush out and save her from being sculped. Well, I warn’t hardly in place when I heard a kind of mild war-whoop and it sounded jest like a Blackfoot, only not so loud. But immejitly there come the crack of a pistol and
another yell which warn’t subdued like the first. It was lusty and energetic.

  I run towards the thicket, but before I could git into the open trail old Polk come b’ilin’ out of the back side of the clump with his hands to the seat of his britches.

  “You planned this a-purpose, you snake in the grass!” he squalled. “Git outa my way!”

  “Why, Polk!” I says. “What happened?”

  “I bet you knowed she had a derringer in her stocking,” he howled as he run past me with his pants smoking. “It’s all yore fault! When I whooped she pulled it and shot into the bresh! Don’t speak to me! I’m lucky that I warn’t hit in a vital spot. I’ll git even with you for this if it takes a hundred years!”

  He headed on into the deep bresh, and I run around the thicket and seen Hannah Sprague peering into it with her gun smoking in her hand. She looked up as I come onto the trail, and I taken off my hat and said perlite: “Howdy, Miss. Can I be of no assistance to you?”

  “I jest shot a Injun,” says she. “I heard him holler. You might go in there and git the sculp, if you don’t mind. I’d like to have it for a soovenear.”

  “I’ll be glad to, Miss,” I says gallantly. “I’ll likewise kyore and tan it for you myself.”

  “Oh, thank you, sir!” she says, dimpling. “It’s a pleasure to meet a real gent like you!”

  “The pleasure’s all mine,” I assured her, and went into the bresh and stomped around a little, and then come out and says: “I’m arful sorry, Miss, but the varmint ain’t nowheres to be found. You must of jest winged him. If you want me to, I’ll take his trail and run him down.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t think of puttin’ you to sech trouble,” she says, much to my relief, because I was jest thinking that if she did demand a sculp, the only thing I could do would be to ketch old Polk and sculp him, and I’d hate to have to do that. I bet it would of made him arful mad.

  But she looked me over admiringly and says: “I’m Hannah Sprague.

  Who’re you?”

  “I knowed you the minute I seen you,” I says. “The fame of yore beauty has reached clean to Wolf Mountain, Texas. I’m Pike Bearfield.”

  “Glad to meetcha, Mister Bearfield,” says she. “They must grow big men in Texas. Well, I got to go now. Pap gits arful tetchy if he don’t git his beer along with his dinner.”

  “I’d admire powerful to call on you this evenin’,” I says, and she says, “Well, I dunno. Mister Blaze Wellington was goin’ to call –”

  “He cain’t come,” I says.

  “Why, how do you know?” she ast surprised. “He said –”

  “A unforeseen circumstance,” I says gently. “It ain’t happened to him yet, but it’s goin’ to right away.”

  “Well,” she says, kind of confused, “I reckon in that case you can come on, if you want. We live in that cabin down yonder by that big fir. But when you git within hearin’ holler and tell us who you be, if it’s after dark. Pap is arful nervous account of all these outlaws which is robbin’ people.”

  So I said I would, and she went on, and I headed for the camp. People give me some suspicious looks, and I heard a lot of folks talking about this here Mustang Stirling and his gang. Seems like them critters hid in the hills and robbed somebody nearly every day and night, and nobody could hardly git their gold out of camp without gittin’ stuck up. But I didn’t have no gold yet, and wouldn’t of been scairt of Mustang Stirling if I had, so I went on to the biggest saloon, which they called the Belle of New York. I taken a dram and ast the bartender if he knowed Blaze Wellington. He said sure he did, and I ast him where Blaze Wellington was, and he p’inted out a young buck which was setting at a table with his head down on his hands like he was trying to study out something. So I went over and sot down opposite him, and he looked up and seen me, and fell out of his chair backwards hollering: “Don’t shoot!”

  “Why, how did you know?” I ast, surprised.

  “By yore evil face,” he gibbered. “Go ahead! Do yore wust!”

  “They ain’t no use to git highsterical,” I says. “If you’ll be reasonable nobody won’t git hurt.”

  “I won’t tell you whar it’s hid!” he defied, gitting onto his feet and looking like a cornered wharf-rat.

  “Where what’s hid?” I ast in amazement.

  At this he looked kind of dumfounded.

  “Say,” says he cautiously, “ain’t you one of Mustang Stirling’s spies, after the gold?”

  “Naw, I ain’t,” I says angrily. “I jest come here to ast you like a gent not to call on Hannah Sprague tonight.”

  “What the devil?” says he, looking kind of perplexed and relieved and mad all at the same time. “What you mean, not call on Hannah?”

  “Because I am,” I says, hitching my guns for’ard.

  “Who the devil air you?” he demanded, convulsively picking up a beer mug like he aimed to throw it at me.

  “Pike Bearfield of Wolf Mountain,” I says, and he says: “Oh!” and after a minute he puts the beer mug down and stood there studying a while.

  Then he says: “Why, Bearfield, they warn’t no use in you threatenin’ me. I bet you think I’m in love with Hannah Sprague! Well, I ain’t. I’m a friend of her old man, that’s all. I been keepin’ his gold over to my shack, guardin’ it for him, so Mustang Stirling’s outlaws wouldn’t git it, and the old man is so grateful he wants me to marry the gal. But I don’t keer nothin’ about her.

  “To tell you the truth, if it warn’t that I like the old man, I’d throw up the job, it’s so dangerous. Mustang Stirling has got spies in the camp, and they dogs me night and day. I thought you was one of ’em when I seen yore arful face … Well, I’m glad the old man’s goin’ to send it out on the stage tomorrer. It’s been an arful strain on me and my partner, which is over at the shack now. Somebody’s got to stay there on guard all the time, or them cussed outlaws would come right in and tear the shack apart and find where I got it hid. Tonight’ll be the wust. They’ll make a desprut effort to git it before mornin’.”

  “You mean old man Sprague wants you to marry Hannah because yo’re guardin’ his gold?” I ast, and he says yes, but the responsibility was aging him prematurely. I says: “Looky here! Lemme take this job off’n yore hands! Lemme guard the gold tonight! I hates to see a promisin’ young man like you wore down to a nubbin by care and worry.”

  “I hate to do that,” he demurred, but I said: “Come on, be a good feller! I’ll do as much for you, some time.”

  He thought it over a while, shaking his head, whilst I was on needles and pins, and then he stuck out his hand and said: “I’ll do it! Shake! But don’t tell nobody. I wouldn’t do it for nobody but you … What’s that noise?”

  Because we heard a lot of men running up the street and yelling: “Git yore guns ready, boys! We’re right on his trail!”

  Somebody hollered “Who?” And somebody else yelled: “Jones! The hounds picked up his foot-tracks whilst we was tryin’ to git ’em after the mule’s! He musta jumped offa the mule and doubled back afoot! We’ve trailed him right down Main Street!”

  Then somebody else whooped: “They’re goin’ into the Belle of New York! We got him cornered! Don’t let him git away!”

  The next minute here come them three fool bloodhounds b’ilin’ in at the front door and grabbed me by the hind laig again. It was most ann’ying. I dunno when I was ever so sick of a pack of hounds in my life. But I controlled my temper and merely jerked ’em loose from my laig and throwed ’em out the winder, and they run off. Then a crowd of faces jammed in the door and looked at me wildly and said: “You again!”

  I recognized Black-Beard and Squint-Eye and Shorty and Warts and the rest of the men which was in the posse chasing Mister Jones, and I said fretfully: “Gol-dern it, whyn’t you all lemme alone?”

  But they ignored my remark, and Squint-Eye said: “I thought we told you not to stop in Blue Lizard!”

  Before I could think of anything insulting enough to say in respon
se, Warts give a yelp and p’inted at my laigs.

  “Look there!” he howled. “He’s got on Jones’s boots! I was on the stage coach when Jones tried to hold it up, and he had on a mask, but I remember them boots! Don’t you remember – this hill-billy didn’t have on no boots when we seen him before! He traded boots with Jones to fool the dawgs! No wonder they wouldn’t foller the mule! He’s a derned outlaw! He knowed what Jones’s name was! He’s one of Stirling’s spies! Git him!”

  I started to tell Blaze to tell ’em I was all right, but at this moment Shorty was so overcome by excitement that he throwed a cuspidor at me. I ducked and it hit Blaze betwixt the eyes and he curled up under the table with a holler gasp.

  “Now look what you done!” I says wrathfully, but all Shorty says is to holler: “Grab him, boys! Here’s where we starts cleaning up this camp right now! Let the hangin’s commence!”

  If he hadn’t made that last remark, I probably wouldn’t of broke his arm when he tried to stab me with his bowie, but I’m kind of sensitive about being hung. I would of avoided vi’lence if I could of, but sech remarks convinced me that them idjits was liable to do me bodily harm, especially when some of ’em grabbed me around the laigs and five or six more tried to twist my arms around behind my back. So I give a heave and slung them loose from me which was hanging onto my arms, and then I ast the others ca’mly and with dignity to let go of me before I injured ’em fatally, but they replied profanely that I was a dadgasted outlaw and they was going to hang me if it was the last thing any of ’em done. They also tried to rassle me off my feet and Black-Beard hit me over the head with a beer bottle.

  This made me mad, so I walked over to the bar with nine or ten of ’em hanging onto me and bracing their feet in a futile effort to stop me, and I stooped and tore up a ten-foot section of brass rail, and at the first swipe I laid out Black-Beard and Squint-Eye and Warts, and at the second I laid out four more gents which was perfect strangers to me, and when I heaved her up for the third swipe they warn’t nobody in the saloon but me and them on the floor. It is remarkable the number of men you can fotch at one lick with a ten-foot section of brass railing. The way the survivors stampeded out the front door yelling blue murder you’d of thought it was the first time anybody had ever used a brass rail on ’em.