BILL JUSTIFIES HIS CREATION
Bill Howland careened along the stage route, rapidly leaving Ford's
Station in his rear. He rolled through the arroyo on alternate pairs of
wheels, splashed through the Limping Water, leaving it roiled and
muddy, and shot up the opposite bank with a rush. Before him was a
stretch of a dozen miles, level as a billiard table, and then the
route traversed a country rocky and uneven and wound through cuts and
defiles and around rocky buttes of strange formation. This continued
for ten miles, and the last defile cut through a ridge of rock, called
the Backbone, which ranged in height from twenty to forty feet, smooth,
unbroken and perpendicular on its eastern face. This ridge wound and
twisted from the big chaparral twenty miles below the defile to a branch
of the Limping Water, fifteen miles above. And in all the thirty-five
miles there was but a single opening, the one used by Bill and the stage.
In crossing the level plain Bill could see for miles to either side of
him, but when once in the rough country his view was restricted to yards,
and more often to feet. It was here that he expected trouble if at all,
and he usually went through it with a speed which was reckless, to say
the least.
He had just dismissed the possibility of meeting with Apaches as he
turned into the last long defile, which he was pleased to call a canyon. As
he made the first turn he nearly fell from his seat in astonishment at
what he saw. Squarely in the center of the trail ahead of him was a
horseman, who rode the horse which had formerly belonged to Jimmy of
the Cross Bar-8, and across the cut lay a heavy piece of timber, one
of the dead trees which were found occasionally at that altitude, and
it effectively barred the passing of the stage. The horseman wore his
sombrero far back on his head and a rifle lay across his saddle, while
two repeating Winchesters were slung on either side of his horse. One
startled look revealed the worst to the driver--The Orphan, the terrible
Orphan faced him!
"Don't choke--I'm not going to eat you," assured the horseman with a
smile. "But I'm going to smoke half of your tobacco--and you can bring me
a half pound when you come back from Sagetown. Just throw it up yonder,"
pointing to a rocky ledge, "and keep going right ahead."
Bill looked very much relieved, and hastily fumbled in his hip pocket,
which was a most suicidal thing to do in a hurry; but The Orphan didn't
even move at the play, having judged the man before him and having faith
in his judgment. The hand came out again with a pouch of tobacco, which
its owner flung to the outlaw. After putting half of it in his own pouch
and enclosing a coin to pay for his half pound, The Orphan tossed it
back again and then moved the tree trunk until it fell to the road, when
he dismounted and rolled it aside.
"You forget right now that you have seen me or you'll have heart disease
some day in this place," warned the horseman, moving aside. Bill swore
earnestly that at times his memory was too short to even remember his own
name, and he enthusiastically lashed his cayuse sextet. As he swung out
on the plain again he glanced furtively over his shoulder and breathed a
deep breath of relief when he found that the outlaw was not in sight.
He then tied a knot in his handkerchief so as to be sure to remember to
get a half-pound package of tobacco. A new responsibility, and one which
he had never borne before, weighed upon him. He must keep silent--and what
a rich subject for endless conversations! Talking material which would
last him for years must be sealed tightly within his memory on penalty
of death if he failed to keep it secret.
After an uneventful trip across the open plain, which passed so rapidly
because of his intent thoughts that he hardly realized it, he ripped
into Sagetown with a burst of speed and flung the mail bag at the station
agent, after which he hastened to float the dust down his throat.
When he met his Sagetown friends he had fairly to choke down his secret,
and his aching desire to create a sensation pained and worried him.
"You made her faster than usual, Bill," remarked the bartender casually.
"Yore half-an-hour ahead of time," he added in a congratulatory tone as
he placed a bottle and glass before the new arrival.
"Yes, and I had to stop, too," Bill replied, and then hastily gulped down
his liquor to save himself.
"That so?" asked old Pop Westley, an habitue of the saloon. Pop Westley
had fought through the Civil War and never forgot to tell of his
experiences, which must have been unusually numerous, even for four years
of hard campaigning, if one may judge from the fact that he never had to
repeat, and yet used them as his _coup d'etat_ in many conversational
bouts. "What was it, Injuns?" he asked, winking at the bartender as if
in prophecy as to what the driver would choose for his next lie.
"Oh, no," replied Bill, groping for an idea to get him out of trouble.
"Nope, just had to lose twenty minutes rollin' rocks out of the
canyon--they must have been a little landslide since I went through her
the last time. Some of 'em was purty big, too."
"I thought you might a had to kill some Injuns, like you did when they
broke out four years ago," responded the bartender gravely. "Tell us about
that time you licked them dozen mad Apache warriors, Bill," he requested.
"That was a blamed good scrap from what I can remember."
"Oh, I've told you about that scrap so much I'm ashamed to tell it again,"
replied the driver, wishing that he could remember just what he had said
about it, and sorry that his memory was so inferior to his imagination.
"Bet you get scalped goin' back," pleasantly remarked Johnny Sands, who
had not fought in the Civil War, but who often ferociously wished he had
when old Pop Westley was telling of how Mead took Vicksburg, or some other
such bit of history. Pop must have been connected to a flying regiment,
for he had fought under every general on the Union side.
"You're on for the drinks, Johnny," answered Bill promptly, feeling that
it would be a double joy to win. "The war-whoops never lived who could
scalp Bill Howland, and don't forget it, neither," he boastfully averred
as he made for the door, very anxious to get away from that awful gnawing
temptation to open their eyes wide about his recent experience.
"Then The Orphan will get you, shore," came from Pop Westley. Bill jumped
and slammed the door so hard that it shook the building.
He saw that his sextet was being properly fed and watered for the return
trip, which would not take place until the next day. But a trifle like
twenty-four hours had no effect on Bill under his present stress of
excitement, and he fooled about the coach as if it was his dearest
possession, inspecting the king-bolt, running-gear and whiffletrees with
anxious eyes. He wanted no break-down, because the Apaches _might_ be
farther north than was their custom. That done he took his rifle apart
and thoroughly cleaned and oiled it, seeing that the magazine was full
to the end. Then he had his supper and went straight therefrom to bed,
not daring to again meet his friends for fear of breaking his promise
to The Orphan.
At dawn he drew up beside the small station and waited for the arrival of
the train, which even then was a speck at the meeting place of the rails
on the horizon.
The station agent sauntered over to him and grinned.
"I guess I will get that telegraph line after all, Bill," he remarked
happily. "I heard that the division superintendent wanted to get word
to me in a hurry the other day, and raised the devil when he couldn't.
I've been fighting for a wire to civilization for three years, and now I
reckon she'll come."
"I always said you ought to have a telegraph line out here," Bill replied.
"Suppose that train should run off the track some day, what would they
do, hey?"
"Huh, that train never goes fast enough to run off of anything," retorted
the station agent. "She'd stop dead if she hit a coyote--by gosh! Here
she comes now! What do you think of that, eh? Half-an-hour ahead of time,
too! Must be trying to hit up a better average than she's had for the
last year. She's usually due three hours late," he added in bewilderment.
"She owes the world about a month--must have left the day before by
mistake."
"Johnny Sands says he raced her once for ten miles, and beat it a mile,"
replied Bill, crossing his legs and yawning. Then he began one of his
endless talks, and the agent hastily departed and left him to himself.
When the train finally stopped at its destination, after running past
the station and having to back to the platform, three women alighted and
looked around. Seeing the stage, they ordered their baggage transferred to
it and gave Bill a shock by their appearance.
"Is this the stage which runs to Ford's Station?" the eldest asked of Bill.
Bill fumbled at his sombrero and tore it from his head as he replied.
"Yes, sir, er--ma'am!" he said, confusedly. "Are you Sheriff's sister,
ma'am?"
"Yes," she answered. "Why do you ask? Has anything happened to him in this
awful country?" she asked in alarm.
"No, ma'am, not yet," responded Bill in confusion. "He just didn't expect
you 'til the next train, ma'am, that's all. He was going to meet you then."
"Now, _isn't_ that just like a man?" she asked her companions. "I
distinctly remember that I wrote him I would come on the twenty-fourth.
How stupid of him!"
"Yes, ma'am, you did," interposed Bill, eagerly. "But this is only the
twenty-first, ma'am."
She refused to notice the correction and waved her hand toward the coach.
"Get in, dears," she said. "I _do_ so hope it isn't dirty and
uncomfortable, and we have so far to go in it, too. Thirty miles--think
of it!"
Bill thought of it, but refrained from offering correction. If Shields
had said it was thirty miles when he knew it was eighty that was Shields'
affair, and he didn't care to have any unpleasantness. He had offered
correction about the date, and that was enough for him. Clambering down
heavily he opened the side door of the vehicle and then helped the
station agent put the trunks and valises and hat boxes on the hanging
shelf behind the coach and saw that they were lashed securely into
place. Then he threw the mail bag upon his seat, climbed after it and
started on his journey with a whoop and rush, for this trip was to be a
record-breaker. Shields had said it was thirty miles, and it behove
the driver to make it seem as short as possible.
The unexpected arrival of the women had driven everything else from
his mind, even The Orphan, and after he had covered a mile he had a
strong desire to smoke. Giving his whip a jerk he threw it along the top
of the coach and slipped the handle under his arm. Then he felt for
his pouch, and as his fingers closed upon it he suddenly stiffened and
gasped. He had forgotten The Orphan's half pound! Swearing earnestly
and badly frightened at the close call he had from incurring the anger of
a man like the outlaw, he pulled on the reins with a suddenness which
caused the sextet to lay back their ears and indulge in a few heartfelt
kicks. But the darting whip kept peace and he swung around and returned
to town.
As he drove past the station Mary Shields, the sheriff's elder sister,
poked her head out of the door and called to him.
"Driver!" she exclaimed. "Driver!"
Bill craned his neck and looked down.
"Yes, ma'am," he replied anxiously.
"Are we there already?" she asked.
"Why, no, ma'am, it's ei--thirty miles yet," he responded as he sprang
to the ground.
"Then where are we, for goodness' sake?"
"Back in Sagetown, ma'am," he hurriedly replied. "I shore forgot
something," he added in explanation of the return as he ran toward
the saloon.
She turned to her companions with a gesture of despair:
"Isn't it awful," she asked, "what a terrible thing drinking is? A most
detestable habit! Here we are back to where we started from and just
because our driver must have a drink of nasty liquor! Why, we would have
been there by this time. I will most assuredly speak to James about this!"
"Well, I suppose we may go on now!" she exclaimed as Bill bolted into
sight again, holding a package firmly in his two hands. "I suppose he
feels quite capable of driving now."
Bill, blissfully ignorant of the remarks he had called forth, tossed
the tobacco upon the mail bag and climbed to his seat again. The long
whip hissed and cracked as he bellowed to the team, and once more they
started for Ford's Station.
The passengers had all they could do to keep their seats because of the
gymnastics of the erratic stage. Bill, who had always found delight in
seeing how near he could come to missing things and who was elated at
the joy of getting over the worst parts of the trail with speed, decided
that this was a rare and most auspicious occasion to show just what he
could do in the way of fancy driving. The return to town had spoiled
his chances for a record, but he still could do some high-class work
with the reins. The weight of the baggage on the tail-board bothered
him until he discovered that it acted as a tail to his Concord kite,
and when he learned that he joyously essayed feats which he had long
dreamed of doing. The result was fully appreciated by the terrified
passengers who, choking with the dust which forced its way in to them,
could only hold fast to whatever came to their grasp and pray that they
would survive.
As he passed a peculiarly formed clump of organ cacti, which he regarded
as being his half-way mark, he happened to glance behind, and his face
blanched in a sudden fear which gripped his heart in an icy grasp.
He leaped to his feet, wrapping the reins about his wrists, and the
"blacksnake" coiled and writhed and hissed. Its reports sounded like
those of a gun, and every time it straightened out a horse lost a bit of
hair and skin. Both of the leaders had limp and torn ears, and a sudden
terror surged through the team, causing their eyes to dilate and grow
red. The driver's voice, strong and full, rang out in blood-curdling
whoops, which ended in the wailing howl of a coyote, wonderfully well
imitated. The combination of voice and whip was too much, and the six
horses, maddened by the terrible sting of the lash and the frightful,
haunting howl, became frenzied and bolted.
Braced firmly on the footboard, poised carefully and with just the right
tension on the reins, the driver scanned the trail before him, avoiding
as best he could the rocks and deep ruts, and watching alertly for a
stumble. His sombrero had deserted him and his long brown hair snapped
behind him in the wind. Bill was frightened, but not for himself alone.
With all his bravado he was built of good timber, and his one thought was
for the women under his care. He unconsciously prayed that they might not
be brought face to face with the realization of what menaced them; that
they would not learn why the coach lurched so terribly; that the trunk
which obstructed the back window of the coach would not shift and give
them a sight of the danger. Oh, that the running gear held! That the
king-bolt, new, thank God, proved the words of the boasting blacksmith
to be true! He soon came to the beginning of a three-hundred-yard stretch
of perfect road and he hazarded a quick backward glance. Instantly his
eyes were to the front again, but his brain retained the picture he had
seen, retained it perfectly and in wonderful clearness. He saw that the
Apaches were no longer a mile away, but that they had gained upon him
a very little, so very little that only an eye accustomed to gauging
changing distances could have noticed the difference. And he also saw
that the group was no longer compact, but that it was already spreading
out into the dreaded, deadly crescent, a crescent with the best horses at
the horns, which would endeavor to sweep forward and past the coach,
drawing closer together until the circle was complete, with the stage
as the center.
Another yell burst from him, and again and again the whip writhed and
hissed and cracked, and a new burst of speed was the reward. Well it
was that the horses were the best and most enduring to be found on the
range. He was dependent on his team, he and his passengers. He could not
hope to take up his rifle until the last desperate stand. Oh, if he only
had the sheriff, the cool, laughing, accurate sheriff with him to lie
against the seat and shoot for his sisters! Already the bullets were
dropping behind him, but he did not know of it. They dropped, as yet,
many yards too short, and he could not hear the flat reports. The wind
which roared and whistled past his ears spared him that.
A stumble! But up again and without injury, for a master hand held the
reins, a hand as cunning as the eyes were calculating. Could Bill's
scoffing friends see him now their scoffing would freeze on lips open in
admiring astonishment. If he attained nothing more in his life he was
justifying his creation. He was doing his best, and doing it wonderfully
well. Long since had fear left him. He was now only a superb driver,
an alert, quick-thinking master of his chosen trade. He thrilled with
a peculiar elation, for was he not playing his hand against death? A
lone hand and with no hope of a lucky draw. All he could hope for was that
he be not unlucky and lose the game because of the weakness of a wheel,
or the traces, or that new king-bolt; that the splendid, ugly, terrorized
units of his sextet would last until he had gained the canyon, where
the stage would nearly block the narrow opening, and where he could
exchange reins for rifle!
Within the coach three women were miserably huddled in a mass on the
floor. Two would be more proper, because the third, a slim girl of
nineteen, was temporarily out of her misery, having fainted, which was a
boon denied to her companions. Thrown from side to side as if they were
straws in weight, they first crashed into one wall and then into the
other, buffeted from the edge of the front seat to that of the rear one.
Bruised and bleeding and terrified, they dumbly prayed for deliverance
from the madman up above them.
The driver's eye caught sight of the turn, which lay ten miles northeast
of the canyon--then he had passed it.
"Only ten miles more, bronchs!" he shouted, imploringly, beseechingly.
"Hold it, boys! Hold it, pets! Only ten miles more!" he repeated until
the left-hand leader lurched forward and lost its footing. Another bit
of masterly manipulation of the reins saved it from going down, and again
the coyote yell rang out in all of its acute, quavering, hair-raising
mournfulness. The blacksnake again and again mercilessly leaped and
struck, and another wonderful burst of speed rewarded him.
His heart suddenly went out to his horses, as he realized what speed they
were making and had been holding for so long a time, and he swore to treat
them better than they had ever known if they pulled him safely to the
mouth of the canyon.
A second backward glance, forced from him because of the awful uncertainty
at his back, because if it was the last thing he ever did he must look
behind him as a child looks back into the awful darkness of the room,
caused his face to be convulsed with smiles, sudden and sincere. He
shouted madly in his joy at what he saw, dancing up and down regardless
of his perilous footing, bending his knees with a recklessness almost
criminal, as he uncoiled the hissing blacksnake high up in the air.
Again and again the whistling, hissing length of braided rawhide curled
and straightened and cracked, faster and faster until the reports
almost merged. He tossed his head and laughed wildly, hysterically,
and danced as only a man can dance when eased of a terrible nervous
tension; the rasping of the icy, grasping fingers of Death along his
back suddenly ceased, and there came to him assurance of life and
vengeance. Turning again he hurled the writhing length of his whip at
the yelling Apaches, snapping the rifle-like reports at their faces,
cursing them in shouted words; hot, joyous, cynical, taunting words
fresh from the soul of him, throbbing with his hatred; venomous,
contemptuous, scathing, too heartfelt to be over-profane.
"Come _on_, d----n you! Your slide to h--l is greased _now!_ Come on,
you wolves! You cheap, blind vultures! Come on! _Come on!!_" he yelled,
well nigh out of his senses from the reaction. "Yes, yell! Yell, d----n
you!" he shouted as they replied to his taunts. "Yell! Shoot your tin guns
while you can, for you'll soon be so full of lead you'll stop forever!
_Come on!_ COME ON!"
They came. All their energies were bent toward the grotesque figure that
reviled them. They could not catch his words, but their eyes flashed at
what they could see. Dust arose in huge, low clouds behind them, and they
gained rapidly for a time, but only for a time, for their mounts had
covered many miles in the last few days and were jaded and without their
usual strength because of insufficient food. But they gained enough to
drop their shots on the coach, although accurate shooting at the pace they
were keeping was beyond their skill.
Puffs of dust spurted from the plain in front of the team and arose
beside it, and a jagged splinter of seasoned ash whizzed past the driver's
ear. A long, gray furrow suddenly appeared in the end of the seat and
holes began to show in the woodwork of the stage. One bullet, closer than
the others, almost tore the reins from the driver's hands as it hit the
loose end of leather which flapped in the air. Its jerk caused him to
turn again and renew his verbal cautery, tears in his eyes from the
fervor of his madness.
"Hi-yi! Whoop-e-e!" he shouted at his straining, steaming sextet. "Keep it
up, bronchs! Hold her for ten minutes more, boys! We'll win! We'll win!
We'll laugh them into h--l yet! We'll dance on their painted faces! Keep
her steady! You're all right, every d----d one of you! Hold her steady!
Whoop-e-e!"
A new factor had drawn cards, and the new factor could play his cards
better than any two men under that washed-out, faded blue sky.