The town lay sprawled over half a square mile of alkali plain, its main
Street depressing in its width, for those who were responsible for its
inception had worked with a generosity born of the knowledge that they
had at their immediate and unchallenged disposal the broad lands of
Texas and New Mexico on which to assemble a grand total of twenty
buildings, four of which were of wood. As this material was scarce, and
had to be brought from where the waters of the Gulf lapped against the
flat coast, the last-mentioned buildings were a matter of local pride,
as indicating the progressiveness of their owners.
These creations of hammer and saw were of one story, crude and
unpainted; their cheap weather sheathing, warped and shrunken by the
pitiless sun, curled back on itself and allowed unrestricted entrance to
alkali dust and air. The other shacks were of adobe, and reposed in that
magnificent squalor dear to their owners, Indians and Mexicans.
It was an incident of the Cattle Trail, that most unique and stupendous
of all modern migrations, and its founders must have been inspired with
a malicious desire to perpetrate a crime against geography, or else they
reveled in a perverse cussedness, for within a mile on every side lay
broad prairies, and two miles to the east flowed the indolent waters of
the Rio Pecos itself. The distance separating the town from the river
was excusable, for at certain seasons of the year the placid stream
swelled mightily and swept down in a broad expanse of turbulent, yellow
flood.
Buckskin was a town of one hundred inhabitants, located in the valley of
the Rio Pecos fifty miles south of the Texas-New Mexico line. The
census claimed two hundred, but it was a well-known fact that it was
exaggerated. One instance of this is shown by the name of Tom Flynn.
Those who once knew Tom Flynn, alias Johnny Redmond, alias Bill Sweeney,
alias Chuck Mullen, by all four names, could find them in the census
list. Furthermore, he had been shot and killed in the March of the
year preceding the census, and now occupied a grave in the young but
flourishing cemetery. Perry's Bend, twenty miles up the river, was
cognizant of this and other facts, and, laughing in open derision at
the padded list, claimed to be the better town in all ways, including
marksmanship.
One year before this tale opens, Buck Peters, an example for the more
recent Billy the Kid, had paid Perry's Bend a short but busy visit. He
had ridden in at the north end of Main Street and out at the south. As
he came in he was fired at by a group of ugly cowboys from a ranch known
as the C 80. He was hit twice, but he unlimbered his artillery, and
before his horse had carried him, half dead, out on the prairie, he had
killed one of the group. Several citizens had joined the cowboys
and added their bullets against Buck. The deceased had been the best
bartender in the country, and the rage of the suffering citizens can
well be imagined. They swore vengeance on Buck, his ranch, and his
stamping ground.
The difference between Buck and Billy the Kid is that the former never
shot a man who was not trying to shoot him, or who had not been warned
by some action against Buck that would call for it. He minded his own
business, never picked a quarrel, and was quiet and pacific up to
a certain point. After that had been passed he became like a raging
cyclone in a tenement house, and storm-cellars were much in demand.
“Fanning” is the name of a certain style of gun play not unknown among
the bad men of the West. While Buck was not a bad man, he had to rub
elbows with them frequently, and he believed that the sauce for the
goose was the sauce for the gander. So be bad removed the trigger of his
revolver and worked the hammer with the thumb of the “gun hand” or the
heel of the unencumbered hand. The speed thus acquired was greater than
that of the more modern double-action weapon. Six shots in a few seconds
was his average speed when that number was required, and when it is
thoroughly understood that at least some of them found their intended
bullets it is not difficult to realize that fanning was an operation of
danger when Buck was doing it.
He was a good rider, as all cowboys are, and was not afraid of anything
that lived. At one time he and his chums, Red Connors and Hopalong
Cassidy, had successfully routed a band of fifteen Apaches who wanted
their scalps. Of these, twelve never hunted scalps again, nor anything
else on this earth, and the other three returned to their tribe with
the report that three evil Spirits had chased them with “wheel guns”
(cannons).
So now, since his visit to Perry's Bend, the rivalry of the two towns
had turned to hatred and an alert and eager readiness to increase the
inhabitants of each other's graveyard. A state of war existed, which for
a time resulted in nothing worse than acrimonious suggestions. But the
time came when the score was settled to the satisfaction of one side, at
least.
Four ranches were also concerned in the trouble. Buckskin was surrounded
by two, the Bar 20 and the Three Triangle. Perry's Bend was the
common point for the C 80 and the Double Arrow. Each of the two ranch
contingents accepted the feud as a matter of course, and as a matter
of course took sides with their respective towns. As no better class of
fighters ever lived, the trouble assumed Homeric proportions and insured
a danger zone well worth watching.
Bar-2's northern line was C 80's southern one, and Skinny Thompson took
his turn at outriding one morning after the season's round-up. He was to
follow the boundary and turn back stray cattle. When he had covered the
greater part of his journey he saw Shorty Jones riding toward him on a
course parallel to his own and about long revolver range away. Shorty
and he had “crossed trails” the year before and the best of feelings did
not exist between them.
Shorty stopped and stared at Skinny, who did likewise at Shorty. Shorty
turned his mount around and applied the spurs, thereby causing his
indignant horse to raise both heels at Skinny. The latter took it all
in gravely and, as Shorty faced him again, placed his left thumb to his
nose, wiggling his fingers suggestively. Shorty took no apparent notice
of this but began to shout:
“Yu wants to keep yore busted-down cows on yore own side. They was all
over us day afore yisterday. I'm goin' to salt any more what comes over,
and don't yu fergit it, neither.”
Thompson wigwagged with his fingers again and shouted in reply: “Yu c'n
salt all yu wants to, but if I ketch yu adoin' it yu won't have to work
no more. An' I kin say right here thet they's more C 80 cows over here
than they's Bar-20's over there.”
Shorty reached for his revolver and yelled, “Yore a liar!”
Among the cowboys in particular and the Westerners in general at that
time, the three suicidal terms, unless one was an expert in drawing
quick and shooting straight with one movement, were the words “liar,”
“coward,” and “thief.” Any man who was called one of these in earnest,
and he was the judge, was expected to shoot if he could and save his
life, for the words were seldom used without a gun coming with them. The
movement of Shorty's hand toward his belt before the appellation reached
him was enough for Skinny, who let go at long range--and missed.
The two reports were as one. Both urged their horses nearer and fired
again. This time Skinny's sombrero gave a sharp jerk and a hole appeared
in the crown. The third shot of Skinny's sent the horse of the other to
its knees and then over on its side. Shorty very promptly crawled behind
it and, as he did so, Skinny began a wide circle, firing at intervals as
Shorty's smoke cleared away.
Shorty had the best position for defense, as he was in a shallow coule,
but he knew that he could not leave it until his opponent had either
grown tired of the affair or had used up his ammunition. Skinny knew it,
too. Skinny also knew that he could get back to the ranch house and lay
in a supply of food and ammunition and return before Shorty could cover
the twelve miles he had to go on foot.
Finally Thompson began to head for home. He had carried the matter as
far as he could without it being murder. Too much time had elapsed now,
and, besides, it was before breakfast and he was hungry. He would go
away and settle the score at some time when they would be on equal
terms.
He rode along the line for a mile and chanced to look back. Two C 80
punchers were riding after him, and as they saw him turn and discover
them they fired at him and yelled. He rode on for some distance and
cautiously drew his rifle out of its long holster at his right leg.
Suddenly he turned around in the saddle and fired twice. One of his
pursuers fell forward on the neck of his horse, and his comrade turned
to help him. Thompson wig-wagged again and rode on, reaching the ranch
as the others were finishing their breakfast.
At the table Red Connors remarked that the tardy one had a hole in his
sombrero, and asked its owner how and where he had received it.
“Had a argument with C 80 out'n th' line.”
“Go 'way! Ventilate enny?”
“One.”
“Good boy, sonny! Hey, Hopalong, Skinny perforated C 80 this mawnin'!”
Hopalong Cassidy was struggling with a mouthful of beef. He turned his
eyes toward Red without ceasing, and grinning as well as he could under
the circumstances managed to grunt out “Gu--,” which was as near to
“Good” as the beef would allow.
Lanky Smith now chimed in as he repeatedly stuck his knife into a
reluctant boiled potato, “How'd yu do it, Skinny?”
“Bet he sneaked up on him,” joshed Buck Peters; “did yu ask his pardin,
Skinny?”
“Ask nuthin',” remarked Red, “he jest nachurly walks up to C 80 an' sez,
'Kin I have the pleasure of ventilatin' yu?' an' C So he sez, 'If yu do
it easy like,' sez he. Didn't he, Thompson?”
“They'll be some ventilatin' under th' table if yu fellows don't lemme
alone; I'm hungry,” complained Skinny.
“Say, Hopalong, I bets yu I kin clean up C 80 all by my lonesome,”
announced Buck, winking at Red.
“Yah! Yu onct tried to clean up the Bend, Buckie, an' if Pete an' Billy
hadn't afound yu when they come by Eagle Pass that night yu wouldn't be
here eatin' beef by th' pound,” glancing at the hard-working Hopalong.
“It was plum lucky fer yu that they was acourtin' that time, wasn't it,
Hopalong?” suddenly asked Red. Hopalong nearly strangled in his efforts
to speak. He gave it up and nodded his head.
“Why can't yu git it straight, Connors? I wasn't doin' no courtin', it
was Pete. I runned into him on th' other side o' th' pass. I'd look fine
acourtin', wouldn't I?” asked the downtrodden Williams.
Pete Wilson skillfully flipped a potato into that worthy's coffee,
spilling the beverage of the questionable name over a large expanse of
blue flannel shirt. “Yu's all right, yu are. Why, when I meets yu, yu
was lost in th' arms of yore ladylove. All I could see was yore feet. Go
an' git tangled up with a two hundred and forty pound half-breed squaw
an' then try to lay it onter me! When I proposed drownin' yore
troubles over at Cowan's, yu went an' got mad over what yu called th'
insinooation. An' yu shore didn't look any too blamed fine, neither.”
“All th' same,” volunteered Thompson, who had taken the edge from his
appetite, “we better go over an' pay C 80 a call. I don't like what
Shorty said about saltin' our cattle. He'll shore do it, unless I camps
on th' line, which same I hain't hankerin' after.”
“Oh, he wouldn't stop th' cows that way, Skinny; he was only afoolin',”
exclaimed Connors meekly.
“Foolin' yore gran'mother! That there bunch'll do anything if we wasn't
lookin',” hotly replied Skinny.
“That's shore nuff gospel, Thomp. They's sore fer mor'n one thing. They
got aplenty when Buck went on th' warpath, an they's hankerin' to git
square,” remarked Johnny Nelson, stealing the pie, a rare treat, of his
neighbor when that unfortunate individual was not looking. He had
it halfway to his mouth when its former owner, Jimmy Price, a boy of
eighteen, turned his head and saw it going.
“Hi-yi! Yu clay-bank coyote, drap thet pie! Did yu ever see such a
son-of-a-gun fer pie?” he plaintively asked Red Connors, as he grabbed
a mighty handful of apples and crust. “Pie'll kill yu some day, yu
bob-tailed jack! I had an uncle that died onct. He et too much pie an'
he went an' turned green, an so'll yu if yu don't let it alone.”
“Yu ought'r seed th' pie Johnny had down in Eagle Flat,” murmured Lanky
Smith reminiscently. “She had feet that'd stop a stampede. Johnny
was shore loco about her. Swore she was the finest blossom that
ever growed.” Here he choked and tears of laughter coursed down his
weather-beaten face as he pictured her. “She was a dainty Mexican, about
fifteen han's high an' about sixteen han's around. Johnny used to chalk
off when he hugged her, usen't yu, Johnny? One night when he had got
purty well around on th' second lap he run inter a feller jest startin'
out on his fust. They hain't caught that Mexican yet.”
Nelson was pelted with everything in sight. He slowly wiped off the
pie crust and bread and potatoes. “Anybody'd think I was a busted grub
wagon,” he grumbled. When he had fished the last piece of beef out of
his ear he went out and offered to stand treat. As the round-up was
over, they slid into their saddles and raced for Cowan's saloon at
Buckskin.