THE JOKE
Owing to his unaccustomed potations Sundown was perhaps a trifle
over-zealous in taking the road at night. He began to realize this
after he had journeyed along the dim, starlit trail for an hour or so
and found no break in the level monotony of the mesa. He peered ahead,
hoping to see the blur of a hill against the southern stars. The air
was cool and clear and sweet. He plodded along, happy in the prospect
of work. Although he was a physical coward, darkness and the solitudes
held no enemies for him. He felt that the world belonged to him at
night. The moon was his lantern and the stars were his friends.
Circumstance and environment had wrought for him a coat of cheerful
effrontery which passed for hardihood; a coat patched with slang and
gaping with inconsistencies, which he put on or off at will. Out on
the starlit mesas he had metaphorically shed his coat. He was at home.
Here there were no men to joke about his awkwardness and his ungainly
height. A wanderer by nature, he looked upon space as his kingdom.
Great distances were but the highways of his heritage, each promising
new vistas, new adventuring. His wayside fires were his altars, their
smoke the incense to his gods. A true adventurer, albeit timid, he
journeyed not knowing why, but rather because he knew no reason for not
journeying. Wrapped in his vague imaginings he swung along, peering
ahead from time to time until at last he saw upon the far background of
the night a darker something shaped like a tiny mound. "That's her!"
he exclaimed, joyously, and quickened his pace. "But Gee Gosh! I
guess them fellas forgot I was afoot. That hill looks turruble far
off. Mebby because it's dark." The distant hill seemed to keep pace
ahead of him, sliding away into the southern night as he advanced.
Having that stubbornness so frequently associated with timidity, he
plodded on, determined to top the hill before morning. "Them fellas as
rides don't know how far things are," he commented. "But, anyhow, the
folks at that hotel will sure know I want the job, walkin' all night
for it."
Gradually the outline of the hill became bolder. Sundown estimated
that he had been traveling several hours, when the going stiffened to a
slow grade. Presently the grade became steep and rocky. Thus far the
road had led straight south. Now it swung to the west and skirted the
base of the hill in a gradual ascent. Then it swung back again
following a fairly easy slope to the top. His optimism waned as he saw
no light ahead. The night grew colder. The stars flickered as the
wind of the dawn, whispering over the grasses, touched his face. He
paused for a moment on the crest of the hill, turned to look back, and
then started down the slope. It was steep and rutted. He had not gone
far when he stumbled and fell. His blanket-roll had pitched ahead of
him. He fumbled about for it and finally found it. "Them as believes
in signs would say it was about time to go to roost," he remarked,
nursing his knee that had been cut on a fragment of ragged tufa. A
coyote wailed. Sundown started up. "Some lonesome. But she sure is
one grand old night! Guess I'll turn in."
He rolled in his blankets. Hardly had he adjusted his length of limb
to the unevenness of the ground when he fell asleep. He had come
twenty-five miles across the midnight mesas. Five miles below him was
his destination, shrouded by the night, but visioned in his dreams as a
palatial summer resort, aglow with lights and eagerly awaiting the
coming of the new cook.
The dawn, edging its slow way across the mesas, struck palely on the
hillside where he slept. A rabbit, huddled beneath a scrub-cedar,
hopped to the middle of the road and sat up, staring with moveless eyes
at the motionless hump of blanket near the road. In a flash the wide
mesas were tinged with gold as the smouldering red sun rose, to march
unclouded to the western sea.
Midway between the town of Antelope and the river Concho is the
water-hole. The land immediately surrounding the water-hole is
enclosed with a barb-wire fence. Within the enclosure is a ranch-house
painted white, a scrub-cedar corral, a small stable, and a lean-to
shading the water-hole from the desert sun. The place is altogether
neat and habitable. It is rather a surprise to the chance wayfarer to
find the ranch uninhabited. As desolate as a stranded steamer on a mud
bank, it stands in the center of several hundred acres of desert,
incapable, without irrigation, of producing anything more edible than
lizards and horned toads. Why a homesteader should have chosen to
locate there is a mystery. His reason for abandoning the place is
glaringly obvious. Though failure be written in every angle and nook
of the homestead, it is the failure of large-hearted enterprise, of
daring to attempt, of striving to make the desert bloom, and not the
failure of indolence or sloth.
Western humor like Western topography is apt to be more or less rugged.
Between the high gateposts of the yard enclosure there is a great,
twelve-foot sign lettered in black. It reads: "American Hotel." A
band of happy cowboys appropriated the sign when on a visit to
Antelope, pressed a Mexican freighter to pack it thirty miles across
the desert, and nailed it above the gateway of the water-hole ranch.
It is a standing joke among the cattle- and sheep-men of the Concho
Valley.
Sundown sat up and gazed about. The rabbit, startled out of its
ordinary resourcefulness, stiffened. The delicate nostrils ceased
twitching. "Good mornin', little fella! You been travelin' all night
too?" And Sundown yawned and stretched. Down the road sped a brown
exclamation mark with a white dot at its visible end. "Guess he don't
have to travel nights to get 'most anywhere," laughed Sundown. He
kicked back his blankets and rose stiffly. The luxury of his yawn was
stifled as he saw below him the ranchhouse with some strange kind of a
sign above its gate. "If that's the hotel," he said as he corded his
blankets, "she don't look much bigger than me own. But distances is
mighty deceivin' in this here open-face country." For a moment he
stood on the hillside, a gaunt, lonely figure, gazing out across the
limitless mesas. Then he jogged down the grade, whistling.
As he drew near the ranch his whistling ceased and his expression
changed to one of quizzical uncertainty. "That's the sign, all
right,--'American Hotel,'--but the hotel part ain't livin' up to the
sign. But some hotels is like that; mostly front."
He opened the ranch-house gate and strode to the door. He knocked
timidly. Then he dropped his blanket-roll and stepped to a window.
Through the grimy glass he saw an empty, board-walled room, a slant of
sunlight across the floor, and in the sunlight a rusted stove. He
walked back to the gateway and stood gazing at the sign. He peered
round helplessly. Then a slow grin illumined his face. "Why," he
exclaimed, "it's--it's a joke. Reckon the proprietor must be out
huntin' up trade. And accordin' to that he won't be back direct."
He wandered about the place like a stray cat in a strange attic,
timorous and curious. Ordinarily he would have considered himself
fortunate. The house offered shelter and seclusion. There was clear
cold water to drink and a stove on which to cook. As he thought of the
stove the latitude and longitude of the "joke" dawned upon him with
full significance. He drank at the water-hole and, gathering a few
sticks, built a fire. From his blankets he took a tin can, drew a wad
of newspaper from it, and made coffee. Then he cast about for
something to eat. "Now, if I was a cow--" he began, when he suddenly
remembered the rabbit. "Reckon he's got relations hoppin' around in
them bushes." He picked up a stick and started for the gate.
Not far from the ranch he saw a rabbit crouched beneath a clump of
brush. He flung his stick and missed. The rabbit ran to another bush
and stopped. Encouraged by the little animal's nonchalance, he dashed
after it with a wild and startling whoop. The rabbit circled the brush
and set off at right angles to his pursuer's course. Sundown made the
turn, but it was "on one wheel" so to speak. His foot caught in a
prairie-dog hole and he dove headlong with an exclamation that sounded
as much like "Whump!" as anything else. He uttered another and less
forced exclamation when he discovered in the tangle of brush that had
broken his fall, another rabbit that had not survived his sudden
visitation. He picked up the limp, furry shape. "Asleep at the
switch," he said. "He ain't much bigger than a whisper, but he's
breakfast."
Rabbit, fried on a stove-lid, makes a pretty satisfying meal when
eating ceases to be a pleasure and becomes a necessity. Sundown wisely
reserved a portion of his kill for future consumption.
As the morning grew warmer, he fell asleep in the shade of the
ranch-house. Late in the afternoon he wakened, went into the house and
made coffee. After the coffee he came out, rolled a cigarette, and sat
smoking and gazing out across the afternoon mesas. "I feel it comin',"
he said to himself. "And it's a good one, so I guess I'll put her in
me book."
He rummaged in his blankets and unearthed a grimy, tattered notebook.
Lubricating the blunt point of a stubby pencil he set to work. When he
had finished, the sun was close to the horizon. He sat back and gazed
sideways at his effort. "I'll try her on meself," he said, drawing up
his leg and resting the notebook against his lean knee. "Wish I could
stand off and listen to meself," he muttered. "Kind o' get the defect
better." Then he read laboriously:--
"Bo, it's goin' to be hot all right;
Sun's a floodin' the eastern range.
Mebby it was kind o' cold last night,
But there's nothin' like havin' a little change.
Money? No. Only jest room for me;
Mountings and valleys and plains and such.
Ain't I got eyes that was made to see?
Ain't I got ears? But they don't hear much:
Only a kind of a inside song,
Like when the grasshopper quits his sad,
And says: 'Rickety-chick! Why, there is nothin' wrong!'
And after the coffee, things ain't so bad."
"Huh! Sounds all right for a starter. Ladies and them as came with
you, I will now spiel the next section."
"The wind is makin' my bed for me,
Smoothin' the grass where I'm goin' to flop,
When the quails roost up in the live-oak tree,
And my legs feel like as they want to stop.
Pal or no pal, it's about the same,
For nobody knows how you feel inside.
Hittin' the grit is a lonesome game,--
But quit it? No matter how hard I tried.
But mebby I will when that inside song
Stops a-buzzin' like bees that's mad,
Grumblin' together: 'There's nothin' wrong!'
And--after the coffee things ain't so bad."
"Bees ain't so darned happy, either. They're too busy. Guess it's a
good thing I went back to me grasshopper in the last verse. And now,
ladies and gents, this is posituvely the last appearance of the noted
electrocutionist, Sundown Slim; so, listen."
"Ladies, I've beat it from Los to Maine.
And, gents, not knowin' jest what to do,
I turned and slippered it back again,
Wantin' to see, jest the same as you.
Ridin' rods and a-dodgin' flies;
Eatin' at times when me luck was good.
Spielin' the con to the easy guys,
But never jest makin' it understood,
Even to me, why that inside song
Kep' a-handin' me out the glad,
Like the grasshopper singin': 'There's nothin' wrong!'
And--after the coffee things ain't so bad."
Sundown grinned with unalloyed pleasure. His mythical audience seemed
to await a few words, so he rose stiffly, and struck an attitude
somewhat akin to that of Henry Irving standing beside a milk-can and
contemplating the village pump. "It gives me great pleasure to inform
you"--he hesitated and cleared his throat--"that them there words of
mine was expired by half a rabbit--small--and two cans of coffee. Had
I been fed up like youse"--and he bowed grandly--"there's no tellin'
what I might 'a' writ. Thankin' you for the box-office receipts, I am
yours to demand, Sundown Slim, of Outdoors, Anywhere, till further
notice."
Then he marched histrionically to the ranchhouse and made a fire in the
rusted stove.