“Yuh ain’t got the sense that ---- gave geese in Ireland,” says he.
“Watcha settin’ over there for? You ain’t got no brains a-tall.”
“I never got hit,” says I.
“You never got-- Saya-a-y! Oh, you didn’t get hit, eh? Well, that’s too
bad!”
“Well, what they shootin’ at me for?”
“We might ask ’em--some time. Dang yuh!”
That last wasn’t for me. A puncher raised up out of a wagon-box across
the street and his bullet plowed a furrow in the sidewalk between me and
Hashknife. Hashknife’s .45-70 spoke its little piece, and soon we seen
that feller hop a circle plumb around the corner. Somebody else took a
shot at him on the wing, but I reckon that he was so bow-legged that he
didn’t get hit.
Another Johnny Wise got up on the roof of that gambling-house and begins
to spin lead promiscuous-like, sort of protecting himself with the top
of the false front, but he didn’t reckon on anybody using a rifle on his
fort. He wasn’t shooting at us, but we didn’t mind that. Hashknife lines
up on that false front and his first bullet kicked a hole in them old
boards that you could shove your hand through.
Mister Johnny Wise just upended over the ridge of the building and took
the high dive over the other side. Somebody creased the peak of the roof
just a second after his panties got away from there.
“You keep on and you’ll hurt somebody,” says I. “’Pears to me that
you’re horning into this shindig without knowing the facts of the case.
You may be shooting at our side.”
“In a case like that, I ain’t got no side, Sleepy. I has been shot at
and the same makes me angry.”
“Sa-a-ay,” says a voice kinda behind us, and we turns our heads to see a
little bow-legged puncher hugging the side of the building.
“My ----!” gasps Hashknife. “Hello, Windy.”
The bow-legged _hombre_ stares at us and then begins to laugh.
“Hashknife Hartley, yuh old son-of-a-gun! Where about in ---- did yuh
come from?”
“Git down!” yells Hashknife, as the feller starts to come over to us.
“Thank yuh,” says he. “I plumb forgot them or’nery Bar 20 cow-burglars.”
He gets down on his belly and comes angling over to us, and him and
Hashknife shakes hands laying down.
“Sleepy, meet Windy Woods. Windy used to be with the Hashknife.”
“Yore bunkie?” asks Windy, pointing at me.
“Yeah. Some human drawback, Windy. I has to tell him when to chaw and
kick him when it’s time to spit. I shore has a lot of chores with that
pelican.”
“Haw! Haw! Haw! Howdja ever get so far north, Hashknife?”
“Follerin’ Sleepy. Part Eskimo. Kinda hankers for home scenes. What’s
gone wrong in the saloon?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Windy peers over the edge of the sidewalk and gets dusted with a bullet.
Then he ducks down low and reaches for his cigaret-papers.
“Had a killin’ over there a while ago. My boss, old Mike Haley, mingles
lead with Blazer Thorn, who own that ---- Bar 20, and they both cashes
in.
“Then some of the Bar 20 slaves gits into their heads that they must do
something naughty with their six-guns, and I-- I dunno whether anybody
else hooked a harp or not. Most of the Bar 20 are inside the saloon,
except one which is on the roof of the gamblin’-house.”
“He ain’t up there now,” says Hashknife; “chased him over the edge. One
of ’em got in a wagon-box over there, but I made the old box leak and he
sloped.”
“Yeah, I know,” says Windy, sad-like. “That was me.”
“I begs yore pardon,” says Hashknife. “Why didn’t yuh holler?”
“Holler ----! I didn’t have none comin’. I thought you was some more of
them Bar 20’s, so I circled to get yuh from behind, but I got a look at
yuh and then I knowed you was just company comin’ to our party.”
“How many in your outfit, Windy?”
“Me.”
“Oh!” grunts Hashknife. “They was all shoo tin’ at you?”
“All except ‘Snag’ Thorn--thankin’ him very kindly.”
“Good shot?”
“Ve-e-e-ry good. Yuh see, it was his pa that got a one-way ticket
to ----, and sonny feels bad. Danged bunch of cow-thieves! I reckon they
aimed to wipe out the Circle Dot, but li’l bow-legs was too fast. I’m
foreman of the Circle Dot, Hashknife.
“Yep. Foreman, cow-hands, cook, and chambermaid. Me and old Mike run the
place fine, in spite of him crabbin’ all the time. Poor old devil.
Tough? _Mm-m-m!_ Blazer Thorn heezed five .45’s into him but he hung on
to the bar and emptied his gun into Blazer. Betcha that saloon looks
be-yutiful inside.”
“What was you doin’?” asks Hashknife.
“Me? Aw, I couldn’t help Mike none and then my thoughts turned to the
old man Woods’ li’l bow-legged offspring, and I picked up one of the Bar
20 punchers in my arms and packed him plumb to the door, while I backs
out.
“Then I kicks him in the seat of the pants, rakes the saloon with me
gun, and humped into that wagon-box. Nobody knowed where I went until
you sent me a message to get out of there, and then them Bar 20’s are so
flustered that they missed me somethin’ rediculous.”
“Better keep your head down,” advises Hashknife, when Windy peeks over
the edge.
“Looky!” grunts Windy. “Sons of guns want peace.”
* * * * *
There’s a white handkerchief waving out of the saloon-door and then a
man comes out, looks around and motions for the rest to come out, which
they does, packing a man with them.
They crosses the street to a wagon, wherein they places their man, and
then they drives away, two men in the wagon and three more on horses.
Then another man rides out from behind the saloon, sees us and comes
over with both hands in sight. He’s the dark, hatchet-faced person, sort
of serious-looking, and sets his bronc like a regular puncher. We’re on
the sidewalk now and he pulls up near us and says:
“Woods, I’m kinda sorry this happened. I ain’t extendin’ no sympthy to
the Circle Dot, yuh understand, but I don’t like this six-to-one
fightin’.”
“I didn’t get hurt, none to speak about,” says Windy, “and I didn’t hang
out no white flag. If yuh asks me, Snag, I’d say that yo’re payin’ money
to a lot of danged poor shots.”
He turns slow-like, and looks down the road. Then he turns back to us.
“You ought to be glad,” says he.
“Yeah?”
“What’s goin’ be done with the Circle Dot?” he asks.
“The same of which is none of your ---- business, Thorn. I reckon the
three of us can wiggle along--as long as we’ve got any cows left to
foller around.”
He just sets there and looks at us, and I can see that he’s got the face
of a killer, but he don’t make no break for his gun. He looks real hard
at Hashknife, sort of sizing him up, and then he turns his horse and
rides away.
“Bad _hombre_?” I asks.
“Well,” says Windy, “he’s called ‘Snag.’ They don’t make ’em faster with
a gun, but he’s got pe-culiar ideas. I don’t reckon Snag would shoot a
man in the back nor quarrel with a drunk man and I ain’t never heard of
him swearin’ at anybody, but he’s a chip off the old block, and Blazer
Thorn was plumb pizen in a fight.”
“What did yuh mean by ‘three of us?’” I asks.
“You two and me. I’m givin’ yuh each a job.”
“Well,” says Hashknife after a while, “a feller’s got to get a job once
in a while, I reckon, ain’t he, Sleepy? Sleepy’s looking for romance,
Windy. Know what romance is?”
“Yes,” says Windy, “I don’t, but if it is somethin’ yuh can find in the
or’neriest danged cow-country on earth you’ll find her here on the
Sundown range, y’betcha. There’s everythin’ here except peaceable
people. Let’s get poor old Mike and make some funeral arrangements.”
We buries old Mike the next day at Sundown City and there wasn’t much of
a audience. The preacher hurried so he’d have time to say a few words
over the remains of Blazer Thorn, and then we went to the Circle Dot.
“Hackamore” Allen, the sheriff, comes out to the ranch and kinda sets
around a while. He’s a gloomy-looking jasper with a tired eye, and he
radiates cheer like a undertaker.
“Whatcha goin’ to do with the ranch, Windy?” he asks.
“Run it.”
“You don’t own it.”
“What the ---- has that got to do with it, Hack? She don’t owe nobody a
cent, and there’s over a thousand head of good cows--or was, until the
last time the Bar 20 branded.”
“Yeah? Well, I reckon I’ll be driftin’ on.”
He nods to me and Hashknife, and then rides back down the road.
“Windy,” says Hashknife. “Would yuh mind gossipin’ a little? Me and
Sleepy don’t _sabe_ the state of affairs around here.”
“Just ordinary,” says Windy. “She begins quite a long time ago, gents.
This here range used to be milk, honey and brotherly love, you know it?
Sure she did. Blazer Thorn and Mike Haley was thicker than thieves until
one day Mike stops for supper at the Bar 20. I reckon that Mike had a
scoop or two under his belt and he feels comical. He says to Blazer,
‘Know why I eats here so often?’ Blazer says, ‘Why?’
“Old Mike says, ‘I like the taste of my own beef.’
“Well, Blazer must ’a’ been dyspeptic or somethin’ that day, ’cause he
kicks back his chair and calls Mike a ---- liar. Mike’s plumb
hard-boiled and he don’t think that any man knows enough about him to
call him a name like that, but some punchers grabbed the two of ’em and
stopped a piece of gun-play. Blazer orders Mike off the ranch. Mike was
joshin’ at first, but he’s been losin’ a lot of stock, and he gets to
thinkin’--him bein’ sore anyway, and well--yuh know them things grows.
Blazer’s plumb wild. Swears that the Circle Dot is stealin’ his cows,
the same of which changes this country a heap, scaring out the bees and
smearin’ the honey in the mud.
“Both outfits draws a dead-line. Ours is that old cross-roads, and the
Bar 20 declares Cow Crick to be the stoppin’-place of the Circle Dot
outfit. Then Blazer and Mike makes a agreement. Both of them pelicans
are deadly with a gun. Blazer has a wife and this boy. Yeah, this
started when Snag was mostly a ganglin’ kid, practisin’ with a .22.
“Both of them _hombres_ knows it’s suicide to meet. Mike ain’t wistful
to make Mrs. Thorn a widder with a orphing kid, so he agrees. Mike is to
use Saturday as his day in town, and Blazer is to appear in person on
Wednesdays.
“Fine. Folks got so used to it that they takes it for granted. Well,
Mrs. Thorn goes the way of all critters, and Snag grows up, but the feud
goes on just the same--only worse. It got so that the punchers of both
outfits acts mean towards each other. There is a few killin’s.
“I reckon that Mike forgot. He sold a bunch of cows to a buyer from
Chicago, and the man is in a hurry to get away; so Mike meets him in
Sundown City--on Wednesday. You _sabe_ the rest, I reckon. Mike and
Blazer comes face to face in the saloon. Blooey! They ain’t met before
for ten years, but they didn’t need no introduction. I reckon that’s
all. My gosh, I ain’t talked that much for three years.”
“Is there anything in this rustlin’ stuff?” asks Hashknife.
“Everythin’,” nods Windy. “Everybody suspects everybody else, but she’s
a cinch that the Bar 20 brands more than their share. Funny thing,
though, Hashknife, nobody knows where the stock goes. Just two ways out.
Yuh can take a herd to the railroad at Hollister or yuh can take ’em
back through Hangman’s Pass and over to Blue Nose. There ain’t no other
way out of this basin, but no cows have been taken either way.”
“Can’t yuh take ’em over the divide?” I asks.
“Naw. Not unless the cows has wings.”
“That’s it,” grins Hashknife. “You been lookin’ at the ground when yuh
should ’a’ been lookin’ in the air, Windy. They flew.”
“Mebby. Honest to gosh, I’m willin’ to believe it, Hashknife.”
“Who’s this comin’?” I asks.
“That’s Bowers. He owns the Bar B outfit, which is between us and the
Bar 20. He’s likely comin’ up here to beef about somebody stealin’ his
danged cows.”
* * * * *
Windy was right. This Bowers is a melancholy-looking jasper with sorrel
hair, and he talks like he had a mouthful of mush.
“Yeah, I’m losin’ cows all the danged time,” he wails, humping over his
saddle-horn. “Wisht I knowed what to do.”
“I’ll tell yuh what yuh ought to do,” suggests Hashknife.
“What?”
“Get your adenoids cut out.”
“My addy-noids?”
“Uh-huh. Your talk sounds like a bogged-down calf. You know what I
mean--kinda _glub-glub_.”
“Well,” says he foolish-like: “Well, I’ll be ----!”
Then he looks over at Windy, who looks as serious as a funeral.
“You _sabe_ what he means?”
“Sure. He’s right, too.”
“Well. Mebbe that’s right. Huh!”
Then Mr. Bowers swings his horse around and goes _poco poco_ off down
the road, deep in thought.
“What’s adenoids, Hashknife?” asks Windy. “I know danged well that
Bowers ought to have his cut out, yuh understand, but I ain’t clear in
my own mind what they be.”
“Somethin’ that grows in his head,” says Hashknife.
“Sure,” nods Windy. “I hope they has to remove his whole danged head to
get at ’em.”
“What did the sheriff mean, Windy, when he wanted to know what was going
to be done with the Circle Dot? Didn’t Haley have no relatives?”
“I dunno--dang it all, Sleepy. Never said nothin’ to nobody about any.
Never left no will nor nothin’. Reckon he feels that he’s so danged
tough that he’ll outlive anybody else anyway, so why make a will? I’ve
got somethin’--wait.”
Windy goes into the house and brings out a couple of sheets of paper.
“This is all I can find,” says he. “Looks like Mike started to write a
letter and then tore it up, ’cause this is just part of it.”
The top part of the letter had been torn off, but what we’ve got reads
like this:
--family, and I reckon you’ll have it all when I pass out. Feller back
East tells me where he thinks you are, so I’m taking a chance. I would
rather like to see you, but this ain’t no--
And the rest is torn off.
“Here is the envylope,” says Windy. “Same as the old man’s, only his
middle letter was H, and this’n is J. What is a em-po-ree-um?”
“I dunno,” says Hashknife, looking at the envelope. “Must be somethin’.”
“My ----, you’ve got a fine head on yuh,” says Windy. “You’re goin’ to
do well.”
“I sure has,” grins Hashknife, “and I’ll prove it to yuh, Windy. I’ve
got a friend in Frisco--a lawyer, and he’ll find out for us.”
“Lawyers costs money, Hashknife.”
“This one won’t. I packed this whippoorwill out of a tight corner on the
Barbary Coast one night and I’m bettin’ he ain’t forgot it. He comes
danged near bein’ a sailor, y’betcha. Crimps, they calls ’em, and I sure
put a crimp into about six of ’em.
“He wasn’t very heavy and I just had enough hooch under my belt to shoot
straight, but at that I had to hit two with my gun-barrel. If M. J.
Haley is at the em-po-ree-um, I’m bettin’ that Billy Winters will find
him. Sounds like a gamblin’-house to me.”
“All right, cowboy,” grins Windy. “You do the writin’, will yuh? I ain’t
noways pencil-wise--me.”
* * * * *
Hashknife writes the letter, explaining the best he can, and we posts it
the next day in Sundown City. We don’t meet none of the Bar 20 bunch,
but we does run into the sheriff and he seems glad to see us.
“Nice weather,” says Hashknife, and then adds, “I like it hot.”
“Yeah?” says the sheriff, and then he says to Windy--
“Baldy Willis got shot yesterday.”
“Did he?” says Windy. “Accidental, I suppose. Gol dang it, sheriff, they
ought to have a school where a feller like him can learn to handle a gun
and--”
“He didn’t get shot accidental,” says the sheriff, deliberate-like.
“Oh!” grunts Windy. “’Sassed somebody, eh?”
“Nope. He was crossin’ around at the lower end of Devil’s Dooryard and
got a rifle-bullet plumb through his shoulder.”
Windy squints at the sheriff and then at us. Then he rubs his nose,
kinda thoughtful-like, and says--
“Well, I reckon you can talk a little more, sheriff.”
“Baldy says that he was knocked plumb hazy, but he seems to remember
hearin’ a voice say, ‘Maybe you’ll keep off the Circle Dot Range after
this.’”
“That’s a lie!” snaps Windy, dropping his hand to his gun.
“Now, now, don’t get in a hurry,” says the sheriff. “I’m just saying
what Baldy said. Yuh can’t blame me for what somebody else said, can
yuh?”
“Yuh hadn’t ought to repeat scandal,” says Hashknife. “Now, we’ll tell
it to somebody, kinda exaggeratin’ it a little, and they’ll tell it to
somebody else, kinda exaggeratin’ it a little, and by and by she gets to
be a regular whale of a statement.”
“I’m just tellin’ what Baldy said,” insists the sheriff. “He says he
thinks he heard that, and--”
“If yuh go out to the Bar 20 soon, yuh can tell Baldy that I think he’s
a ---- liar,” says Windy.
“Bar 20?” says Hashknife, like he’d never heard of it before. “Oh yeah.
Ain’t that the place where all their cows has twin calves, Windy?”
“Uh-huh. Funny, ain’t it. The Circle Dot cows are like Mary’s little
lamb. They never bring nothin’ but their tails behind them.”
“I don’t know who shot Baldy,” says the sheriff, “but I do know that I’m
plumb sick and tired of the way things is goin’. The Bar 20 is losin’
cows every day and Bowers is wailin’ all the time about his cows being
missin’. I tell yuh, it’s got to stop.”
“You ---- tootin’ she has!” snaps Windy. “The Circle Dot ain’t bothered
yuh none about missin’ cows, but if anybody asks yuh--we’re loser,
y’betcha. I reckon you’ve got plenty to do, dry-nursin’ Snag Thorn and
‘Blubber’ Bowers, so I won’t take up none of yore time. _Sabe?_”
“Bowers said--” begins the sheriff, but Windy stops him.
“Bowers be ----!”
“He’s got complaints.”
“Adenoids,” says Hashknife. “Aggravated case. Yuh ought to send him to a
doctor.”
“Addy--what?” asks the sheriff.
“Noids. Shouldn’t be surprised if they’re doin’ the work that his brain
ought to do. You’ve got a touch of ’em, too. How’s your tonsils?”
“My which?”
“Let’s play a game of pool, Windy,” suggests Hashknife. “It’s too hot to
stand here in the sun. See yuh later, sheriff.”
“Baldy might not live,” says the sheriff, offhanded-like.
“Well,” says Windy, “ther’s enough of ’em at the Bar 20 to bury him
decently, but tell ’em not to fire no salutes over his grave, ’cause
they might accident’ly hurt each other. _Adios._”
We left the sheriff standing there, chawing at the corner of his
mustache, and we went into the saloon and started a game. The bartender
looks us over, sort of suspicious-like, but can’t refuse to let us play.
“All I asks of you fellers is this. If any of the Bar 20 shows up,
fer ----’s sake don’t shoot toward my back-bar,” says he. “That last
ruckus ruined all my whisky-glasses and everybody has had to drink out
of beer-glasses, and they ain’t got no sense of proportion. _Sabe?_”
Bowers comes in after while and stands around watching the game. After
while he says to Windy, confidential-like--
“I been up to the Bar 20.”
“Well, well,” grunts Windy, amazed-like. “You’re gettin’ to be a regular
traveler. When did yuh get back and how are the folks?”
“Baldy ain’t expected to live.”
“Who don’t expect him to live--Baldy?”
“Nope. He’s danged awful low and might pass out any time.”
“He ain’t got nothin’ on the rest of ’em,” states Windy, “and they can
all pass out, for all of me.”
“Snag says somebody has got to pay for shootin’ Baldy.”
“Well, if he has to pay what Baldy’s worth, I reckon it won’t break
nobody.”
“Somebody took seven white-faced cows of mine out of my Salt Spring
Corral, and I can’t find ’em,” says Bowers, complainin’-like.
“Yuh sure got troubles, ain’t yuh, feller?” laughs Hashknife, squinting
down his cue. “Yuh ought to have patience, don’t yuh know it?
“Ever hear of Job? No? He had boils. Fact. Millions of ’em, but he stuck
it out and didn’t whimper.
“You’ve got a cinch alongside of poor old Job. You ain’t got nothin’ but
loss of beef, other folks’ troubles and adenoids. Get cheerful, why
don’t yuh?”
“Well, dawggone it, I lost seventeen head of cows last--”
“I tell yuh what to do,” says Hashknife, serious-like. “You make out a
list describin’ your lost cows, givin’ the name, age and general
disposition and mail it to us, will yuh? Fine!”
“What good will that do yuh?”
“No good on earth; but yuh hankers to tell about ’em so bad that I just
thought it might relieve yuh to set down and write it out--and I don’t
like to listen to your voice. Honest to grandma, I don’t, Bowers. I
ain’t jokin’.”
Bowers goes out, talking to himself, and Windy sets down in a chair.
“Mamma mine!” he chuckles. “Hashknife, you sure knows how to talk to
folks. I wish I had eddication like that. All I can do is say something
that is either plumb full of sugar, or else it’s fightin’ talk.
“You can say awful things to people and send ’em away talking to
themselves, and they don’t know whether to get sore or shake hands with
yuh. I’ll say you’re a wonder.”
* * * * *
For a couple of days we had perfect peace at the ranch. We don’t do a
danged thing--much, except set around and wait for trouble. Windy
insists that the Bar 20 is going to make trouble for us; so we polishes
up all the guns and waits for the explosion.
Bowers pesticates up our way and sets down with us. I reckon he’s lost
so much stock that it’s on his mind all the time.
“I’ll be busted in a little while,” he wails. “I just sets there and
watches my money disappear. Was over to the Bar 20 yeste’-day. Doctor
don’t know yet if Baldy will pull through or not. I asked Snag if he had
any suspicions who shot Baldy, and he said he sure did. I asked him
who.”
“He told yuh it was none of your business,” says Hashknife.