THE DESERT
“LET’S go!” cried Hunter Mangan, seated in the saddle, and cupping his
lean, strong hands about his mouth.
At the cry a four-mule team moved off with a load of tents and took to
the road that wound through Opaco, across the bridge, and through the
rocky defile to the desert. A six-up team of horses followed with a
load of lumber. Teams pulling strings of six-wheeled scrapers fell in
line. Two-mule teams, four-mule teams, six and eight-mule teams swung
into the impressive procession and followed. And soon a parade a mile
and a half long was trailing in a cloud of dust through open-mouthed
Opaco.
Midway in the procession Halfaman Daisy draped himself over a high
spring seat and looked indolently down on the slick backs of six young
mules. A cigarette hung from his lip at the corner of his sagging
good-natured mouth. Halfaman’s load consisted of ranges and commissary
stores, and just behind him, on a huge bundle of canvas lay Falcon the
Flunky, flat on his back, gazing serenely up into the dusty desert sky.
“‘And the children of Amram; Aaron and Moses and Miriam,’” quoted
Halfaman drowsily. “‘The sons also of Aaron; Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar
and Ithamar. Eleazar begat Phinehas’--that’s me--‘Phinehas begat
Abishua.’ Abishua--that’s him! And I’m huntin’ him down--I’m on my way.
I’m on the trail o’ the ‘Wing o’ the Crow’----
“Oh, I been a-down on-a the gumbo line,
A-skinnin’ mules when the weather’s fine,
A-shootin’ craps when the sun don’t shine,
An’ now I’m a-ramblin’ to that baby mine!
With the pay day--for me ba-bay!
With the pay day of that gumbo line!”
As a vocalist there was room for improvement in Mr. Halfaman Daisy, but
he sang the old skinner’s song with a swing and gusto that entertained
his lolling passenger.
“A-hikin’ through a camp on the ole S. P.,
A gypo queen she a-throwed a kiss at me!
The pay was a dollar, and the board cost three,
But I stuck till she beat it with the cook, Hop Lee--
And me pay day--oh, ba-bay!
And me pay day on the ole S. P.!
“How d’ye like that song, ol’-timer?” he drawlingly asked his friend.
“It’s interpretive, to say the least,” Falcon the Flunky vouchsafed.
“They’s a hundred and fifteen verses that I remember,” observed
Halfaway, “but I’ll only spring ’em on you two or three at a time. Know
what a gypo queen is?”
“Yes, I’ve heard of gypo queens, or shanty queens. A gypo man,
or shanty man, as I understand it, is one who owns a very small,
dilapidated construction outfit, and takes subcontracts in light work
from a bigger subcontractor. His daughter--if he has a daughter--is
usually in camp with him, and she flirts with the stiffs to keep ’em on
the job, despite the poor grub and poor pay and long hours. Am I right?”
“Right as a fox,” Halfaman replied. “Say, you have been about the camps
a little, ain’t you? Now, then--did you get an earful o’ my recent
begattin’ remarks--pertickelerly the last, where I says: ‘Eleazar begat
Phinehas. Phinehas begat Abishua?’”
“Yes, I heard.”
“And now another question, ol’-timer: You’re such an old head at the
railroadin’ game, did you ever know anybody named Abishua?”
“I think not.”
“Uh-huh--I guess you’re right. It ain’t known generally that the bird
I’m thinkin’ about is named Abishua. Only the members of his family and
a few close friends--sounds like a newspaper tellin’ about a weddin’
or a funeral--only them know he’s got a Bible name like that. But his
right front name is Abishua. And don’t forget that Phinehas begat
Abishua. Phinehas--that’s me. And if I begat Abishua I’m a bigger
Jasper than Abishua, ain’t I? Well, what I say goes. How ’bout it?”
“I am hoping,” remarked The Falcon dryly, “that if you keep on you you
may tell me something.”
“Gi’me time, Jack--gi’me time,” retorted Halfaman. “Stick yer neck in
th’ collar, there, ole tassel-tail! Gi’me time. So you’ve heard tell of
gypo men and gypo queens, but you never heard of an Ike called Abishua.
Well, then, did you ever hear of a gypo queen called Wing o’ the Crow?”
The Falcon turned on his side and looked down at Halfaman. “Wing o’ the
Crow,” he said thoughtfully. “That’s picturesque. What about her?”
“Her is right. And Abishua begat Wing o’ the Crow. Believe me, ole
Falcon, that was some begattin’!”
“Yes--go on.”
“Well, his name’s Jeddo--Abishua Jeddo. He’s a tall, bony shanty man
with only one arm. And his eyes and his hair are black as a crow. So
the stiffs monikered ’im ‘Jeddo the Crow.’ And what Jeddo the Crow
begat is called Joy. She’s twenty-one years old, as dark as her dad;
and say--you c’n look at her just as easy!
“Her ma’s dead. The girl was born in her dad’s gypo outfit, and she’s
a gypo queen. But not like the rest of ’em. Oh, no! She don’t slip none
of ’em a kiss on the side to keep ’em followin’ Jack and Ned for Jeddo
the Crow. No, no! Get fresh with her, and she’ll bend a pick handle
over your frontispiece. She works in the cook shack, waits table,
washes the dishes, and then goes out and hitches up a team and moves
dirt till mealtime again. Or she c’n stick pigs”--load scrapers without
wheels, commonly called “slips”--“swing a drillin’ hammer, skin four-up
or six-up or jerkline--do anything on a railroad grade, by golly! And
purty! Say, am I gettin’ talkative?
“Well, anyway, she’s her dad’s right-hand man. Bein’ one-armed, he
couldn’t run the outfit without Wing o’ the Crow. And now d’ye savvy
where she gets that moniker! Ole Jeddo the Crow is shy a wing, but he’s
got the girl. So she’s Wing o’ the Crow to the stiffs. And purty----
But now I know I’m gettin’ talkative!”
“You’re very entertaining,” admitted Falcon the Flunky. “But I’m
curious to know what brought Jeddo the Crow and Wing o’ the Crow to
your mind just now.”
“Huh! That’s easy! ‘Phinehas begat Abishua,’ and Abishua gotta do
what Phinehas says. An’ ole Phinehas he says: ‘Jeddo the Crow he’s so
reckless with giant powder and things he’s likely to lose his other
wing. And he’d better prepare for it by gettin’ another wing in the
family beforehand.’ That’s what Jeddo the Crow’s begatter says.”
“Oh-ho! I think I begin to understand. It may be that out over the
desert there Wing o’ the Crow is in camp, waiting for her Phinehas.”
“Well, if she ain’t there now she’s gonta be soon. Say, mule, poke
yer neck furder into that, will you? Gonta be soon, ole Falcon. And
Phinehas crossed four States like a ramblin’ kid to be there, too.
“Oh, when I’m a-ramblin’ down to rest,
Just ramble me out into the Golden West,
On a ramblin’ train, on a ramblin’ quest.
To die like a rambler on the tramp queen’s breast!
On pay day--oh, ba-bay!
On a pay day lay me down to rest!”
“Is it all settled between you and the young lady of the picturesque
moniker, Halfaman?”
“Settled! I’ve chased them crows from coast to coast! Worked for half
wages and et two suppers in one night! Beans? I hate the sight o’
beans--unless Wing o’ the Crow boils ’em! Settled! I’ve lost weight
and ambition and everything to get things settled. But on this job,
boy, I’m gonta make one big effort to nail the Wing o’ the Crow to a
convenient tree. I won’t be with Mangan long after Jeddo the Crow gets
perched out there, ’cause I gotta get that gypo queen this time or
lose me reason. I’m what you might call distraught right now.
“Oh, a-Jeddo the Crow he’s a gypo man,
Gotta sling-bloke harness and a movin’ van,
Gotta three ole mules and a wheeler pan,
But I’ll stick around forever if I can-can-can!
Without a pay day--oh, _ba-bay_!
Without a pay day from that gypo man!
“I didn’t just make that up. Whoever did I don’t savvy. But I guess he
was nuts about Wing o’ the Crow like I am. And, say, when a plug tells
the truth right out like I do, he sure is nuts, ain’t he? Oh, well, at
the worst I’m a ramblin’ kid. Now, I’ll say this is some desert--what,
ol’-timer?”
The Falcon looked and gloried in the sight.
Away to the east appeared a hazy line of irregular calico buttes. To
the south and west the pine-studded ridges of the mountains rose.
Between them, level as a dance floor and covered sparsely with yucca
palms, bronze greasewood, sage, and innumerable dry lakes, lay
the colorful desert baking in the sun. Now and then a lone coyote
stood staring, then slunk away mysteriously through the low growth.
_Tecolote_, the wise-eyed little desert owl, perched himself on the
dirt heap beside his hole in the ground and scolded at them, brave as a
lion. Lean jack rabbits hopped away indifferently through the avenues
of the greasewood. Halfaman pointed ahead with the long whip that he
never seemed to need for another purpose.
“I think we’re makin’ for the saddle in that range o’ buttes,” he said.
“That’s where the ole road comes through and hits the desert--our old
road, boy. I think Squawtooth Ranch is about in there. That’s where
we’re gonta camp, I hear. Boy, boy! Pass me that ole water bag. Make
haste or I die! ‘And Phinehas begat Abishua!’”
Higher and higher mounted the yellow dust cloud. On and on into the
mocking desert forged the wagon train, a long, winding snake whose
joints were men and teams and vehicles--a mere worm wriggling slowly
over a yellow carpet in the banquet hall of the gods.
Evening on the desert, with the mountains casting their long shadows
athwart the rapidly cooling land. Three black specks, far apart, but
drawing together slowly at a converging point between them and the
squat adobe house at Squawtooth, with its sheltering cottonwoods and
its oasis of green alfalfa set like an emerald in a sheet of yellow
brass.
The three black specks grow larger and larger--two galloping horses,
the one a pinto, the other a bay, and a mouse-colored pack burro--the
California chuck wagon. A girl rides the pinto, a boy the bay, the
burro trotting ahead of the latter. The boy and girl wave their hands
at each other and gallop on. The ponies neigh greetings; the burro adds
his mournful “Aw-ee-aw!” Two of the specks now become one. Side by side
in the cow pony trot, Manzanita and Martin Canby ride home together
from a day on the desert, the burro, with Martin’s camp outfit,
trotting ahead.
Manzanita was colored almost as brown as the stumpy trunk of the
beautiful shrub after which her mother had named her. Her hair was
chestnut. She usually wore it in two girlish braids that reached
to the bottom of her saddle skirts. Her eyes were hazel. With the
possible exception of the waxen plume of the Spanish bayonet, there was
nothing prettier nor more graceful on the desert; and the hill-billies
and desert rats of the male persuasion would not have admitted the
exception. One thing certain, the plume of the Spanish bayonet was far
more dignified than its animate beauty rival. She rode with the ease of
an amazon in her silver-mounted man’s saddle--a prize won at a rodeo
for horsewomanship--and carried a holstered Colt .38 on a .45 frame for
company. She wore a man’s hat with a rattlesnake band, an olive drab
shirt, fringed leather chaps, and riding boots.
Martin Canby was just a freckle-faced, chapped, spurred, sombreroed
kid of the desert--live as an eel, all grins, good nature, and
backwardness. He was three years younger than Manzanita.
“Well, kid, did you find those strays?” asked the girl.
“Yes--a dozen of ’em. That old breechy bunch with them calves. They’d
wandered down the mountainside and was makin’ it for Caldron Cañon. Ask
me why? I dunno. No grass down there like’s up on top. Cows don’t know
nothin’.”
“Your speech is artistic, _mi hermano_. Say ‘Cows don’t know anything.’”
“‘Cows don’t know anything,’” repeated Mart dutifully. “Has pa got back
from Opaco?”
“_Quién sabe!_ Hadn’t when I left home. I don’t expect him before
to-night.”
“What’d he go for, anyway? Said he wanted to see ‘Flip’ Globe. What’d
he wanta see Flip for?”
“I haven’t the remotest idea, Martie.”
“I have,” Mart declared. “Not what he wanted to see Flip about, but
what took ’im to Opaco. I met ‘Splicer’ Kurtz this afternoon. He was
comin’ down from the mountains for somethin’--I forget what. Said he
heard yer friend Mangan had got into Opaco with his outfit. If that’s
so, pa went to see Mangan. What’ll ye bet?”
“Nothing. I’m positive he rode in for the sole purpose of seeing Mr.
Mangan and that the Flip Globe story was--well, just a story.”
“Pa Squawtooth sure took to that Mangan, didn’t he, Nita?”
“_Si, señor. Yo penso._”
“And I know why! I know why!” Mart sang boyishly, wrinkling his snubbed
and peeling nose at his sister.
“Oh, you do! Well, let me tell you something, old kid--he’s on a
wild-goose chase. This Hunter Mangan seems to be a pretty square
sort of a fellow. But that ends it so far as I’m concerned. Between
you and me, podhead, I don’t dislike Mr. Mangan nearly so much as I
pretended I do to Pa Squawtooth. That is, personally, you understand.
But I do detest what he represents--the railroad through Squawtooth. I
don’t want it there; and if I had my way it would never be there. Pa
Squawtooth, old money snob that he is, thinks it the finest thing on
earth, of course. It’s a wonder he didn’t try to have it through the
front yard, with a depot before the door! It’ll ruin my desert--that’s
what it’ll do! Soon folks will be moving in and taking up land,
and--oh, dear!--it makes me sick to think of it!”
“Aw, what d’you care? We’ll have lots fun when the camps get here.”
“You will, maybe, but I won’t. And furthermore, Mr. Wiseman Pod, you
don’t know whether even you will have fun, as you so youthfully express
it. What do you know about camps like that? You know nothing of the
world that you haven’t seen between a cow’s horns, _muchacho_. Maybe
you’ll have fun, and maybe you won’t.”
Mart grasped his saddle horn and leaned toward the ground, hooking the
counter of one of his high-heeled cowboy boots about the cantle. Mart
had been still entirely too long. With ease he grasped a bunch of the
plant called squawtooth, which gave the district its name, and five
spears of which, shaped like the ribs of a fan, was the Squawtooth
brand. Mart held on for dear life while his pony polled. The slender,
fluted, rushlike spears were tough and held tenaciously; and next
instant Mart was unhorsed and standing on his head in the sand.
His sister shouted with derisive laughter. “You’re a goose!” she cried.
“Watch me!”
Leaning low in the saddle, she set her mare at a gallop toward a bunch
of squawtooth that upreared itself from a bed of fine desert sand. As
the pinto neared it Manzanita swung toward the earth, hooked a heel
about her cantle, and grasped the plant as the mare sped by.
This was an old game of the two. The squawtooth was tenacious;
sometimes they were able to snap it off, sometimes otherwise. If not,
and they refused to loose their hold----
Well, in this instance, too, there was a flutter of leather chaps, a
girl spinning head down in air, and a smothered plup in the sand bed.
A hundred yards apart brother and sister sat on the ground and watched
their horses and the burro, the latter with his shaggy head down and
playfully kicking to right and left, racing off toward home without
them.
“Le’s walk!” shouted Mart. “Darn that burro! There goes my fryin’ pan!”
The girl brushed the sand from her hair and ears and eyebrows.
“All right!” she sputtered. “And there goes your bacon, too! And that
last looked like a loaf of bread. As I was saying,” she continued
serenely when he came up to her, “you know nothing whatever about
railroad-construction camps. Neither do I, and I’m content in my
ignorance. I know just what pa means to do. He’ll invite Mr. Mangan and
any of the rest of the bosses that he thinks are big bugs to the house;
and he’ll do everything in his power to make me interested in one of
them--Mangan, of course, since he’s supposed to be the wealthiest of
all of them. Oh, he makes me sick! Say--wait a minute; my boot’s full
of sand.”
She sat down, removed her elaborately stitched tampico-top riding boot,
shook the sand from it, and dusted her stocking. Mart waited, chewing
absently on a spear of squawtooth. Mart had been told by the Indians
that to chew squawtooth was good for kidney trouble. Mart did not know
that he had kidney trouble, and he did not like the bitter taste of
squawtooth. But considering that an ounce of prevention is better than
a pound of cure, he chewed it all day long when riding the desert and
mountains after cows.
“There! That feels better.”
Manzanita had slipped her boot on again and removed her silver spurs.
Side by side they plodded on through the clinging sand.
“Darn them _caballos_!” muttered Mart.
“You should say, ‘Darn those _caballos_,’ brother mine.”
“‘Darn those _caballos_,’” seriously repeated Mart, chewing his
squawtooth and stooping to recover his frying pan.
“But I’ll fix Pa Squawtooth,” Manzanita went on. “I’ve got it all
planned out. He can’t sell me like one of his beef stock to any moneyed
man. I’m going to revolt.”
“What d’ye mean revolt?”
“Can you keep your young face closed?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, then, I’m going to make monkeys out of Pa Squawtooth and any one
who contemplates aiding and abetting him in the crime of making a lady
out of me. I’m going to pretend to fall right in with the big scheme
of getting friendly with the men in the camps. I’m going to pick me a
railroader and make up to him. Listen, kid brother--I’m going to pick
out the least prominent person in the whole shooting match--the man who
gets the lowest pay of all of them, the scum of the camps. And I’ll at
least give him the time of his young life. Say, won’t they be sick,
podhead! Try to make a monkey out of me! We’ll see who’s a monkey by
the time I’m through. Mart, I’m going to be a regular little devil! You
watch!”
“That’ll be fun,” Mart observed sagely. “Who you gonta make out like
you’re stuck on, Nita? Say, that was my side o’ bacon! Here she is half
covered with sand. That ole skate o’ yours stepped on her!”
“It’s all right. Dust it off, and it’ll be good as ever. Sand’s good
for your craw. It’s a wonder you wouldn’t learn how to throw a diamond
hitch on a pack, Mart. But listen: Mr. Mangan told me all about the
camps, and the different kinds of work the men do. I’m going to
make friends with the man who wallops the pots in the Mangan-Hatton
cook tent. I don’t care who he is or what he’s like. Pa says I’m a
roughneck, and I’ll at least show him he’s right about that. I’m going
to get stuck--as you so vulgarly put it--on the helper of Mangan’s
cook. They call him a flunky, Mr. Mangan said. Now you keep that under
your hat, will you?”
“Sure,” Mart promised, still taking his kidney treatment.
Then suddenly he stopped in his tracks and pointed across the darkening
desert toward Opaco. “What’s that big dust cloud?” he wondered. “Can’t
be a whirlwind--she’s too big. Say, Nita! That’s Mangan’s outfit
a-comin’. What’ll ye bet?”