OUT WEST
A NEW railroad to be called the Gold Belt Cut-off was being built in
California. At a little desert town named Spur trains arrived with
almost weekly regularity which bore the outfits of contractors who were
to do the work. These trains and others brought many tramp laborers
from all parts of the United States, for tramps are inseparably
connected with big construction in dirt and rock. Many people imagine
that tramps never work at honest toil. These have never seen a big
railroad in the building.
All was hustle and excitement at Spur this morning, for two long
freight trains, carrying the immense outfit of the main contractors,
Demarest, Spruce and Tillou, had just rolled in, and a hundred tramps
were at the unloading. A temporary camp was pitched until the outfit
was ready for its forty-mile trip by wagon to the mountains, where lay
the heaviest work. The road was to cross the San Antonio Range at an
altitude of approximately six thousand feet, and there the aged hills
were being torn asunder.
Hundreds of horses and mules were led from the stock cars, and turned
over to the stable boss and his helpers. The cooks were busy over
several great ranges, set up temporarily in the open, and the air was
filled with the odors of coffee and frying ham. Knocked-down wagons and
grading implements were being thrown together. The walking boss rode
about on his saddle horse, fat and prancing from its long confinement
on the train, bawling orders to which no one paid attention. Bales of
alfalfa hay by the ton were being opened, and mules brayed and horses
whinnied.
To the stable boss came Joshua Cole, grave-eyed and slim. Joshua had
just left a freight train that had come to rest at Spur, and the train
crew had let him ride for a hundred miles because he was headed for
this scene of intense activity.
To the stable boss he said:
“Got a job?”
“Sure--a hundred of ’em. Don’t bother me! You a skinner?”
“Yes,” said Joshua. “But I’m a hammerman, too, and I prefer to work in
rock.”
“Then see the walker. Or just go to work unloadin’. Don’t bother
anybody about a job, young fella. Help yourself.”
“Thanks,” said Joshua.
“Huh!” said the stable boss.
Joshua walked toward the nearest car of the train, from which men
were dragging bundles of tents, heavy tent poles, and all manner
of camp paraphernalia. He noticed a squat, wide-chested man with a
broad-brimmed tan hat on his head, who, though undemonstrative, stood
watching the unloading in a half-aloof, half-interested manner which
gave him an air of commandership. Toward him Joshua directed his steps,
and as he drew nearer he took note of finely chiseled features, heavy
iron-gray hair, and kindly slate-colored eyes that looked out from
under craggy brows as black as a campfire kettle. They made thick
arches, and here and there solitary hairs that were thrice as long as
the others stuck out like the spines of a cactus. A stubby gray beard
covered the lower portion of his face, and the rest of it was brown as
a cascara berry.
“Are you the boss here?” asked the wayfarer.
“Yep”--and the kindly slate eyes gave Joshua a keen, quizzical look
that seemed to catalogue him from A to Z.
“I want to go to work.”
“Hop to it.”
Here was invitation enough, so Joshua fell in at the end of the line of
men moving to and from the car, and when he reached the door took upon
his shoulders the tongue of a wheeled scraper that was handed out. He
carried it to where a group of men were assembling all sorts of grading
implements, and returned for another load.
For about fifteen minutes he made the same round, carrying anything
that was handed out, often assuming a quarter or a half of some heavy
piece of freight too cumbersome for a single man. And as he worked he
frequently caught the slate eyes of the squat boss upon him.
This man attracted him strangely. The odd contrast of iron-gray hair
and coal-black brows made the man’s face compelling. The slate-blue
eyes, too, added to the contrast, and the myriad crow’s-feet that made
a fine network about them gave the face a kindly personality. He wore a
gray flannel shirt, and his colorless trousers were held up by a belt.
The heels of his boots were high and slender. The trousers legs covered
the tops of them, but they were rolled up smoothly at the bottoms,
displaying four inches of bootlegs.
At the end of the fifteen minutes a great triangle was hammered upon in
the vicinity of where the cooks labored. Instantly every man dropped
whatever he had in hand and hurried in the direction of the odorous ham
and coffee.
No tables had been set up, and the tramp laborers formed a line,
took their food in their hands from the cook’s helpers in the form
of sandwiches, and sat on the ground under lofty cottonwoods. With a
cup of smoking coffee in one hand, two hot fried-ham sandwiches in
the other, and an enormous boiled potato in his pocket, Joshua Cole
found a place. And as he seated himself he saw, likewise laden and
coming toward him, the squat man who had awakened his interest. To his
surprise the man came directly to his tree, squatted on his heels with
a little grunt, and deposited his grub before him in a nest of clean,
slick leaves.
“Hot as hell, ain’t it?” he vouchsafed. “Thought I’d like to make yer
acquaintance, pardner. You ain’t a tramp, I take it?”
The last sentence was a question, and Joshua made reply: “Yes, I’ve
been a tramp for over a year.”
“Uh-huh--I savvy.” The man imbedded a set of perfect white teeth in
a ham sandwich to the ruination of nearly half of it. Then, with his
mouth full, he talked on, thus:
“Uh-huh--I get ye, pardner. Guess I been a tramp myself. One right now,
f’r that matter. But I mean a reg’lar tramp--like these here jaspers
here.” He waved the doomed remainder of the sandwich in a semi-circle
to indicate the squatting diners.
“Well, perhaps not,” Joshua agreed with him. “Anyway, I’m on the bum
and needed a job.”
“Here, too. I drifted in here from up about Wild Woman Springs. Been
drivin’ stage since the Lord knows when between Wild Woman an’ the
mines up at G-string Mountain. Six-up over seventeen miles o’ the worst
grade in the San Antones. Then what d’ye think they done? Built a new
road and put on automobiles. Result--California Bill Fox loses his job.
Broke, as always, o’ course. So I drifts down here to Spur yistiddy,
and to-day when this outfit rambles in I hits the boss for a freightin’
job. Guess I got it, ’cause I know this country. An’ he took a likin’
to me, seems, for he made me a straw boss over the unloadin’ until
the outfit’s ready to move. That’s me, pardner--an’ I ain’t a tramp,
rightly speakin’. I know you ain’t either. But what I’m tryin’ to get
at is, what are you? Course I ain’t aimin’ to be too bold.”
“Well,” Joshua replied, “I guess I’m not much of anything. I’m from the
East--away back, almost on the Atlantic. I was broke, and I rambled
West. I worked here and there all over the country at one thing and
another, and I’ve been on the railroad grade several times. I worked
for three months on a little job on the M. K. and T., and in Texas a
while on the Southern Pacific. I learned how to drive a team and I
worked in heavy rock a little in Colorado. I can use a striking hammer
and handle powder fairly well. That’s what I like best.”
“Not here,” disagreed California Bill Fox. “Me for the _caballos_. I
do know horses an’ mules, but I ain’t keen f’r tearin’ up the earth.
I like to get behind a ramblin’ six o’ Western ponies and tear _over_
the earth, but tearin’ her up goes ag’in’ the grain. Guess I’m what
ye might call one o’ these here nature lovers. I find rocks an’ trees
kinda friendly, ye understand. An’ I’d rather look at the sun settin’
over a mountain-top than a three-ring circus. I’m an old nut about
flowers and things like that, an’ I ain’t perticular who knows it. I
c’n kill a man, but not a deer. An’ that ain’t sayin’ I don’t like
venison, either. D’ye think I’m quaint, pardner?”
Joshua laughed at the suddenness of the question, which in itself was
indisputably quaint. “You may be that,” he said, “but if you are, it’s
nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Uh-huh--I get ye. Thought maybe you’d turn out to be like that when
I was watchin’ ye this mornin’. These here stiffs get my goat, an’ I
can’t tolerate ’em. I was wonderin’ if they wasn’t somebody in all
this mess o’ humanity that I could cotton to, and then you come and I
know immediate that you was different. That there word ‘different’
is all-fired handy, ain’t it? I see it in every story I read, pretty
near. The heroine says to the hero, ‘You’re different,’ an’ he lets out
a sigh an’ shoots back, ‘You’re different, too’--an’ on the next page
she’s callin’ him dear heart. Get two folks together that’s different,
an’ the stuff’s all off--seems.”
Joshua laughed. “Do you read lots?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m a great reader. That’s what makes me different, I guess.
I’m a character, pardner.” The keen eyes studied Joshua from under
their black shelter. “On the desert and in the mountains I’m just Ole
California Bill, but on the inside I’m a character. The inside is what
we call the country on the other side o’ the range--where the big towns
and cities are. Folks from over there would come to the desert and ride
in my stage up into the mountains, an’ before we’d got to Shirt-tail
Bend some skirt would whisper to another one that here was a character.
Ain’t that nice? Now what would you say they mean--that I’m loco--off
my nut?”
“Well, not exactly, perhaps,” ventured Joshua. “Wouldn’t you rather be
called a character than to travel along through life unnoticed--just
one of the herd? Seems to me that’s only a careless way of saying that
you are original--have individuality.”
“D’ye think so?”
“Sure.”
“I see I’m gonta cotton to you a lot, pardner,” said California Bill.
“Say, when we ramble out, you make it to ride with me on my freight
wagon--if I get one. Will ye? I wonder if ye’ve got any particular
hobby that maybe both of us could talk about.”
“Science? Astronomy?” suggested Joshua.
“Know anythin’ about ’em? I sure do like to talk about things--kinda
wonder about things, ye understand. Me f’r the why-are-we-here
business every time. The desert an’ the mountains makes a fella
thataway--seems. Say, I’ve wondered about why I’m here so much that I
think I’ve got the answer. But, then, ye’ll only think I’m a nut--so
why bother ye? And I wonder about stars and the moon a lot, too. Sun
don’t interest me much, except that, seein’ all life depends on the
sun, I c’n sympathize with the sun-worshipers without half tryin’. But
the sun’s too all-fired prominent to raise my curiosity. The moon and
stars, now, I c’n look up at them without havin’ my eyes put out. And
say--wonder! Leave it to me! D’ye know anythin’ at all about astronomy?”
“A little.”
The slate eyes studied Joshua again. “Ye was well raised, I c’n see
that,” said California Bill. “Maybe ye ain’t talkin’ through yer hat.
I’ve seen men an’ men--I think I know ’em pretty well. I took men to
the penitentiary-- That is, I mean I seen men goin’ to the penitentiary
that could reel off Shakespeare an’ trigonometry an’ socialism--say!
An’ one fella that I saw knew more about this here Einstein than
Einstein does ’imself. ’Tleast, it sounded like he did to me. Ye can’t
tell about men from th’ clothes they wear ner the job they got, ner
nothin’ like that--but I’m a hog fer readin’ their face. Well, you ride
with me an’ we’ll talk about astronomy. I’m harmless. Just a character.”
“Have you lived in California long?” asked Joshua.
“Longer’n that. I lived here forever.”
“Forever?”
“Fifty-three year, if ye press me, pardner. An’ I’m fifty-three year
old. What call’d they have to brand me California Bill Fox if I’d ever
been anywhere else? I was born here an’ ain’t ever goin’ to leave.
That’s forever far’s I’m concerned.”
California Bill found it impossible to talk while he gulped down half
a cup of hot coffee, so Joshua took the opportunity to shift the
conversation into the channel that he wanted it to travel.
“Have you been up where the road is building?” he asked.
California Bill lowered his granite cup. “Yeah--a billion times. But
that’s before a railroad was thought of. The new wagon road’s just been
finished to G-string, though, an’ I drove stage up there right along
until Saturday week ago. Then the Old West says, ‘Bill, I’m passin’.
It’s up to you. What’re ye doin’?’ An’ I says, ‘I pass, too.’”
“Know any of the contractors up there?”
“Pretty near all of ’em--seems. Some of ’em been on the job six months,
ye know. These people, the main contractors, didn’t move in until they
couldn’t sub-let any more of the work. Then they hadta take holt an’
handle what was left--and they got a rarin’ tough job, too.”
“Back in Utah, as I was traveling West,” said Joshua thoughtfully, “a
stiff who had been working here told me that a man called Bloodmop
Mundy had a piece on the Gold Belt Cut-off. Is that so?”
“Well, it was until about three months ago, an’ then he ups and dies.”
“He’s dead?”
“Well, they planted him, anyway,” drawled California Bill. “I reckon
their intentions was good. Nice _hombre_. His daughter is runnin’ the
outfit now. That is, her and her maw; but Madge is the boss because
Mis’ Mundy is retirin’ like. Some kid, this here Shanty Madge. Pretty
as sunset on a mountain lake. An’ she’s makin’ good with the work,
but they got a whopper of a job. One o’ these days a whole blame
hill’s gonta fall down on ’em; an’ then I’m thinkin’ somethin’s gonta
go bust. Bloodmop was makin’ good for the last sev’r’l years, they
tell me. Started in as a gypo man back East, with a few old skates
an’ a handful o’ geed-up tools. Come West an’ branched out, and was
swingin’ big jobs in Nevada an’ California. Then he took this one,
subbin’ offen Demarest, Spruce an’ Tillou--biggest thing he’d so far
undertook--seems. An’ then--just gettin’ a good start--he croaked. But
Shanty Madge’ll swing it, if that confoun’ hill don’t come down on her
an’ ruin her complete. There goes th’ blame’ triangle, an’ we gotta get
to work. Say, I didn’t get yer name, ol’-timer.”