Author of “Shepherds for Science,” “Evidently Not,” etc.
“Taos” Thompson says he didn’t come from no place, and ain’t got no
definite place to go. There ain’t no doubt in my mind but what he’s
got ancestors, but whether the name of Thompson covers the family or
not is problematical, but that don’t matter.
Probably my family would wonder how I can spell my name B-r-o-w-n, but
as I said before, that don’t matter.
Down here in the cactus we don’t care what a man calls himself. It’s
what he calls others that makes his visit pleasant or unpleasant, and
anyway, why drag the family tree around with you when you ain’t doing
nothing to make it flourish?
One day me and Amarilly--Amarilly is a melodious beast of burden, which
is anti everything except sleep--was plodding across a particularly
torrid stretch of desert when I happens to see a human being trying to
gather itself into the shade of a two-foot snag of mesquite.
We pilgrims over and finds this here shade-hunter just about to cash in
from drouth. I offers him my canteen, and says--
“Have a little water, old trailer?”
He looks up at me and sort of grins out of his cracked face, and reaches
slowly for the canteen, as he mumbles out of split lips--
“If that’s--that’s the best you’ve got.”
That’s how I met Taos Thompson, the only prospector I ever knowed who
didn’t care whether he found gold or not. He didn’t dream of finding a
fortune, but he did love to prospect. I met him early in the Springtime,
and for three months we pesticated around the devil’s griddle trying to
find gold where it ain’t.
Taos is about five feet six inches from his heels to his red top-knot,
and he’s got all the points and angles that human bones are heir to.
He could be thirty years old or three hundred, but I’d make a bet that
Taos hits plumb close to the fifty-mile post.
His hair and whiskers are his crowning beauty. Each and every hair
seems to want to grow in a different direction, and the only way he
can comb it is to soak it in axle-grease. He’s got long, skinny
wrists, and a pair of freckled hands that ain’t got a match no place
in the world. Man, them hands defy comparison, and the way they can
hop a gun out of a holster is a caution. They just seems to envelop
the butt of a big Colt, and it looks plumb like the smoke was coming
out of the end on his index-finger. Taos sure pays his way and don’t
ask favors of no man.
I ain’t saying much about me, except that Taos’ head just comes to the
top button of my vest, and I weighs a hundred and thirty-five. I’m kind
of a bleached blond and ordinarily I packs two guns. One gun makes me
one-sided, so I has to ballast with the other.
Seems like every place we go they finds new names for us, but when we
leave they usually sticks their heads out of the cellar and calls us Mr.
Brown and Mr. Thompson. Taos can lick anybody that I’ve got the nerve to
tackle, so we fits together well.
We’re poking along through the sand, giving oral support to Amarilly,
and finally stops at some vile-smelling pot-hole, which has got a name
’cause it’s wet. If you ain’t never poked into the desert country and
had your dry tongue scrape all the enamel off your teeth, you don’t
know why men take off their hats to a moist spot and give it a name.
This was known as Poison Springs.
Taos is educated. I never knowed a fellow what hankered for reading
like he does. One day he found an old newspaper, and he tied up the
outfit right there for over an hour. You’d ’a’ thought he had enough
reading to satisfy himself for a while, but it ain’t more than two
weeks before he’s wishing for something to read.
We pokes into Poison Springs and stops. I see Taos cock his neck like a
sage-hen, and then he starts sneaking ahead, slow-like. I yanks loose
one of my guns and sneaks right behind him. We sneaks along through the
greasewood, me with my gun held high and handsome for anything that
hops, and all to once Taos drops on his knees, and grunts--
“Glory!”
Then he stands up with a piece of newspaper in his hand.
“Saw it sticking on that little bush,” says he, happy-like.
“----!” says I. “I thought you saw something.” And then I went back and
took the plunder off Amarilly.
I know that Taos ain’t going to mean nothing to me for a long time so I
builds a fire and starts a feed. A newspaper to Taos is like alcohol to
a Injun. A feller like him ought to own a book.
I tried to pry him loose when supper is ready, but he just grunts and
goes on reading. It’s like trying to wake up a hop-head, so I eats in
silence and watches that humped-up figure spell out news. Pretty soon
he gets up and walks over to the fire, still reading, and stumbles over
the coffeepot. Then he sets down in a frying-pan, puts a slice of bacon
in his cup, and sweetens it with a dash of beans. Then he says--
“‘Yallerstone’, have you ever felt the call of love?”