SEVEN LEAN KINE
"And you looked good, all up above here?" Billy Louise held Blue
firmly to a curved-neck, circling stand, while she had a last word with
John before she went off on one of her long rides.
"All up in the hills, and round over by Cedar Creek, and all over."
John's mittened gesture was even more sweeping than his statement. "I
guess mebby them rustlers git 'em."
"Well, I'm going up to the Cove. I may not be back before dark, so
don't worry if I'm late. Maybe I'll look along the river. I know one
place where I believe cattle can get down to the bottom, if they're
crazy enough to try it. You didn't look there, did you?"
"No, I never looked down there. I know they can't git down nohow."
"Well, all right; maybe they can't." Billy Louise slackened the reins,
and Blue went off with short, stiff-legged jumps. It had been a long
time since he had felt the weight of his lady, and his mood now was
exuberant, especially so, since the morning was clear, with a nip of
frost to tingle the skin and the glow of the sun to promise falsely the
nearness of spring. The hill trail steadied him a little, though he
went up the steepest pitch with rabbit-jumps and teetered on his toes
the rest of the way.
Billy Louise laughed a little, leaned, and grabbed a handful of slatey
mane. "Oh, you Blue-dog!" she said, for that was his full name. "Life
is livable, after all, as long as a fellow has got you and can ride.
You good-for-nothing old ten-dollar hoss! I--wonder would it be wicked
to sing? What do you think, Blue? You'd sing, I know, at the top of
your voice, if you could. Say, Blue! Don't you wish, you were a
donkey, so you could stick out your neck and go _Yee-ee_-haw!
_Yee-ee_--haw? Try it once. I believe you could. It's that or a run,
one or the other. You'll bust, if you don't do something. I know you!"
At last on the high level, seeing Blue could not bray his joy to the
world, Billy Louise let him go. She needed some outlet, herself, after
those horrible, dull weeks weighted with tragedy. She had been raised
on horseback, almost; and for two terrible months she had not been in
the saddle. And there is nothing like the air of the Idaho hills to
stir one's blood and send it singing.
Through the sagebrush and rocks, weaving in and out, slacking speed a
little while he went down into deep gullies, thundering up the other
side, and racing away over the level again, went Blue. And with him,
laughing, tingling with new life, growing pinker-cheeked every minute,
went Billy Louise. Her mother's death did not oppress her then. She
thought of her as she raced, but she thought of her with a little,
tender smile. Her mother was resting peacefully, and there was no more
pain or worry for the little, pale, frail woman who had lived her life
and gone her way.
"Dear old mommie!" said Billy Louise under her breath. "Your kid is
almost as happy as you are, right now. Don't be shocked, there's a
dear, or think I'm going to break my neck. Blue and I have just simply
got to work off steam. You, Blue!" She leaned another inch forward.
Blue threw up his head, lifted his heels, and ran like a scared
jackrabbit over the uneven ground. They were not keeping to the trail
at all; trails were too tame for them in that mood. They ran along the
rim-rock at the last, where Billy Louise could glance down, now and
then, at the river sliding like a bright-blue ribbon with icy edges
through the gray, snow-spotted hills.
"Hold on, Blue!" Billy Louise pulled up on the reins. "Quit it, you
old devil! A mile ought to be enough for once, I should think.
There's cattle down there in that bottom, sure as you live. And we, my
dear sir, are going down there and take a look at them." She managed
to pull Blue down to stiff-legged jumps and then to a walk. Finally
she stopped him, so that she could the better take in her surroundings
and the possibilities of getting down.
In the country it is as in the cities. One forms habits of journeying.
One becomes perfectly familiar with every hill and every little hollow
in certain directions, while some other, closer part remains
practically unexplored. Billy Louise had always loved the Wolverine
canyon, and its brother, Jones canyon, which branched off from the
first. As a child she had explored every foot of both, and had ridden
the hills beyond. As a young woman she had kept to the old playground.
Her cattle ranged at the head of the canyons.
The river bottoms came as near being unknown territory as she could
have found within forty miles of her home. For one thing, the river
bottom was narrow, except where was the Cove, and pinched in places
till there seemed no way of passing from one to another. Little
pockets there were, tucked away under the rocky bluff with its collar
of "rim-rock" above. One might climb down afoot, but Billy Louise was
true to her range breeding; she never went anywhere afoot if she could
possibly get there on a horse. And down there by the river she never
had happened to find it necessary to go, either afoot or a-horseback.
Still, if cattle could get down there--
"I guess we'll have to ride back a way," she said, after a brief
inspection, during which Blue stood so close to the rim that Billy
Louise must have had a clear head to feel no tremor of nerves or
dizziness.
She turned and rode slowly back along the edge, looking for the place
where she believed cattle could get down if they were crazy enough to
try.
"Don't look very encouraging, does it, Blue?" Billy Louise stared
doubtfully at the place, leaning and peering over the rim. "What d'ye
think? Reckon we can make it?"
Blue had caught sight of the moving specks far down next the river and
up the stream half a mile or more. He was a cow-horse to the bone. He
knew those far-off specks for cattle, and he knew that his lady would
like a closer look at them. That's what cattle were made for: to haze
out of brush and rocks and gullies and drive somewhere. So far as Blue
knew, cattle were a game. You hunted them out of ungodly places, and
the game was to make them go somewhere else against their wishes. He
prided himself on being able to play that game, no matter what were the
odds against him.
Now he tilted his head a little and looked down at the bluff beneath
him. The game was beginning. He must get down that bluff and overtake
those specks and drive them somewhere. He glanced up and down the
bluff to see if a better trail offered. Billy Louise laughed
understandingly.
"It's this or nothing, Blue. Looks pretty fierce, all right, doesn't
it? Of course, if you're going to make a perfect lady get off and
walk--"
Blue snuffed at the ledge with his neck craned. The rim-rock had
crumbled and sunk low into the bluff, like a too rich pie-crust when
the oven is not quite hot enough. From a ten- or fifteen-foot wall it
shrunk here to a three-foot ledge. And below the rocks and bowlders
were not actually piled on top of one another; there were clear spaces
where a wary, wise, old cow-horse might possibly pick his way.
Blue chose his trail and crumpled at the knees with his hoofs on the
very edge of the ledge; went down with a cat-jump and landed with all
four feet planted close together. He had no mind to go on sliding in
spite of himself, and the bluff was certainly steep enough to excuse a
bungle.
"So far so good." Billy Louise glanced ruefully back at the ledge.
"We're down; but how the deuce do you reckon we'll get up again?"
Blue was not worrying about that part. He went on, picking his way
carefully among the bowlders, with his nose close to earth, setting his
hindlegs stiffly and tobogganing down loose, shale slopes. Billy
Louise sat easily in the saddle and enjoyed it all. She was making up
in big doses for the drab dullness of those hospital weeks. She ought
to walk down the bluff, for this was dangerous play; but she craved
danger as an antidote to that shut-in life of petty rules and
regulations.
It was with a distinct air of triumph that Blue reached the bottom,
even though he slid the last forty feet on his haunches and landed
belly-deep in a soft snow-bank. It was with triumph to match his perky
ears that Billy Louise leaned and slapped him on the neck. "We made
it!" she cried, "and I didn't have to walk a step, did I, Blue? You're
there with the goods, all right!"
Blue scrambled out of the bank to firm footing on the ripened grass of
the bottom, and with a toss of his head set off in a swinging lope,
swerving now and then to avoid a badger hole or a half-sunken rock.
They had done something new, those two; they had reached a place where
neither had ever been before, and Blue acted as if he knew it and
gloried in the escapade quite as much as did his lady.
The cattle spied them and went trotting away up the river, and Blue
quickened his stride a little and followed after. Billy Louise left
the reins loose upon his neck. Blue could handle cattle alone quite as
skillfully as with a rider, if he chose.
The cattle dodged into a fringe of bushes close to the river and
disappeared, which was queer, since the bluff curved in close to the
bank at that point. Blue pricked up his ears and went clattering
after, slowed a little at the willow-fringe, stuck his nose straight
out before him, and went in confidently. The cattle were just ahead.
He could smell them, and his listening ears caught their heavy
breathing. It was very rocky there in the willows, and he must pick
his way with much care. But when he crashed through on the far side,
and Billy Louise straightened from leaning low along his neck to avoid
the stinging branches, the cattle gave a snort and went lumbering away,
still following the river.
This was another small, grassy bottom. Blue went galloping after them,
indignant that they should even attempt to elude him. They were making
for the head of that pocket, and Billy Louise twitched the reins
suggestively. Blue obeyed the hint, which proved that the human brain
is greater in strategy than is brute instinct, and raced in an angle
from the fleeing cattle. Billy Louise leaned and called to him sharply
for more speed; called for it and got it. They jumped a washout that
the cattle went into and out of with great lunges, farther down toward
its mouth. They gained a little there, and by a burst of hard running
they gained more on the level beyond.
The cattle began to swerve away from them, closer to the river. Blue
pulled ahead a little, swerving also, and as Billy Louise tightened the
reins, he slowed and circled them craftily until they huddled on the
steep bank, uncertain which way to go. Billy Louise pulled Blue down
to a walk as she drew near and eyed the cattle sharply. They did not
look like any of hers, after all. There were five dry cows and two
steers.
One of the steers stood broadside to Billy Louise. The brand stared
out from his dingy red side, the most conspicuous thing about him.
Billy Louise caught her breath. There was no faintest line that failed
to drive its message into her range-trained brain. She stared and
stared. Blue looked around at her inquiringly, reproachfully. Billy
Louise sent him slowly forward and stirred up the huddled little bunch.
She read the brand on each one; read the story they shouted at her, of
bungling theft. She could not believe it. Yet she did believe it, and
she went hot with anger and disappointment and contempt. She sat and
thought for a minute or two, scowling at the cattle, while she decided
what to do.
Finally she swung Blue on the down-stream side and shouted the range
cattle-cry. The animals turned awkwardly and went upstream, as they
had been going before Billy Louise stopped them. Blue followed
watchfully after, content with the game he was playing. Where the
bluffs drew close again to the river, the cattle climbed to a narrow,
shelving trail through the rocks and went on in single file, picking
their way carefully along the bluff. Below them it fell sheer to the
river; above them it rose steeply, a blackened jumble, save where the
snow of the last storm lay drifted.
Billy Louise had never known there was a trail up this gorge. She eyed
it critically and saw where bowlders had been moved here and there to
make its passage possible. Her lips were set close together and they
still bore the imprint of her contempt.
She thought of Ward. Mentally she abased herself before him because of
her doubts. How had she dared think him a thief? Her brave buckaroo!
And she had dared think he would steal cattle! Her very remorse was a
whip to lash her anger against the guilty. She hurried the cattle
along the dangerous trail, impatient of their cautious pace.
When finally they clattered down to the level again, it was to plunge
into willow thickets whose branches reached out to sweep her from the
saddle. Blue went carefully, stopping now and then at a word from his
lady, to wait while she put a larger, more stubborn branch out of her
way. She could not see just where she was going, but she knew that she
was close upon the cattle, and that they seemed familiar with the
trail. Now and then she caught sight of a rough-haired rump and
switching tail in the thicket before her. Then the whip-like branches
would swing close, and she could see nothing but their gray tangle
reaching high above her head. She could hear the crackling progress of
the cattle close ahead, and the gurgling clamor of the river farther
away to her right. But she could not see the bluff for the
close-standing willows, and she did not know whether it was near or far
to its encircling wall.
Then, just as she was beginning to think the willows would never end,
she came quite suddenly out into the open, and Blue lifted himself and
jumped a dry ditch. The cattle were before her, shambling along the
fenced border of a meadow.