ON THE MESA
With the morning sun came a brave, cloudless day and a more jovial mood
to Sundown as he explained the necessity for haste to the Concho.
Chico Miguel would gladly furnish horse and saddle. Juan Corlees was
of men the finest! Once upon a time, in fact, Chico Miguel had ridden
range for the father of Señor Corlees, but that was in years long past,
Ah, yes! Then there were no sheep in the country--nothing but cattle
and vaqueros. Would the caballero accept the loan of horse and saddle?
The horse could be returned at his convenience. And possibly--and here
Chico Miguel paused to roll a cigarette, light it, and smoke awhile
reflectively--and possibly the caballero would again make their humble
home beautiful with his presence. Such pie as the Señor made was a not
unworthy meal for the saints. Indeed, Chico Miguel himself had had
many pleasant dreams following their feast of the evening before.
Would Sundown condescend to grace their home with his presence again
and soon? Sundown would, be Gosh! He sure did like music, especially
them Spanish songs what made a fella kind of shivery and sad-like from
his boots up. And that part of the country looked good to him. In
fact he was willing to be thrun from--er--have his hoss step in a
gopher-hole any day if the accident might terminate as pleasantly as
had his late misfortune. He aspired to become a master of the art of
cooking Mexican dishes. 'Course at reg'lar plain-cookin' and deserts
he wasn't such a slouch, but when it come to spreadin' the chile, he
wasn't, as yet, an expert.
Meanwhile he clung tenaciously to the few Spanish words he knew, added
to which was "Linda Rosa"--"pretty rose,"--which he intended to use
with telling effect when he made his adieux. After breakfast he rose
and disappeared. When he again entered the house the keen Señora
noticed that his shirt front swelled expansively just above his heart.
She wondered if the tall one had helped himself to a few of her beloved
chiles.
Presently Chico Miguel appeared with the pony. Sundown mounted,
hesitated, and then nodded farewell to the Señora and the almost
tearful Anita who stood in the doorway. Things were not as Sundown
would have had them. He was long of arm and vigorous, but to cast a
bouquet of hastily gathered and tied flowers from the gateway to the
hand of the Señorita would require a longer arm and a surer aim than
his. "Gee Gosh!" he exclaimed, dismounting hurriedly. "What's that on
his hind foot?"
He referred to the horse. Chico Miguel, at the gate, hastened to
examine the pony, but Sundown, realizing that the Señorita still stood
beside her mother, must needs create further delay. He stepped to the
pony and, assuming an air of experience, reached to take up the horse's
foot and examine it. The horse, possibly realizing that its foot was
sound, resented Sundown's solicitude. The upshot--used advisedly--of
it was that Sundown found himself sitting in the road and Chico Miguel
struggling with the pony.
With a scream Anita rushed to the gateway, wringing her hands as
Sundown rose stiffly and felt of his shirt front. The flowers that he
had picked for his adored, were now literally pressed to his bosom. He
wondered if they "were mushed up much?" Yet he was not unhappy. His
grand climax was at hand. Again he mounted the pony, turned to the
Señorita, and, drawing the more or less mangled blossoms from his
shirt, presented them to her with sweeping gallantry. Anita blushed
and smiled. Sundown raised his hat. "Adios! Adios! Mucha adios!
Señorita! For you sure are the lindaest little linda rosa of the whole
bunch!" he said.
And with Anita standing in rapt admiration, Chico Miguel wondering if
the kick of the horse had not unsettled the strange caballero's reason,
and the Señora blandly aware that her daughter and the tall one had
become adepts in interpreting the language of the eyes, Sundown rode
away in a cloud of dust, triumphantly joyous, yet with a peculiar
sensation in the region of his heart, where the horse had kicked him.
When he realized that admiring eyes could not follow him forever, he
checked the horse and rubbed his chest.
"It hurts, all right! but hoss-shoes is a sign of _luck_--and posies is
a sign of _love_--and them two signs sure come together this mornin'.
'Oh, down in Arizona there's a--' No, I reckon I won't be temptin'
Providence ag'in. This hoss might have some kind of a dislikin' for
toad-lizards and po'try mixed, same as the other one. I can jest kind
o' work the rest of that poem up inside and keep her on the ice
till--er--till she's the right flavor. Wonder how they're makin' it at
the Concho? Guess I'll stir along. Mebby they're waitin' for me to
show up so's they can get busy. I dunno. It sure is wonderful what a
lot is dependin' on me these here days. I'm gettin' to be kind of a
center figure in this here country. Lemme see. Now I bruk
jail--hopped the Limited, took out me homesteader papers, got thrun off
a hoss, slumped right into love with that sure-enough Linda Rosa, and
got kicked by another hoss. And they say I ain't a enterprisin' guy!
Gee Gosh!"
Never so much at home as when alone, the mellifluous Sundown's
imagination expanded, till it embraced the farthest outpost of his
theme. He became the towering center of things terrestrial. The world
revolved around but one individual that glorious morning, and he
generously decided to let it revolve. He felt--being, for the first
time in his weird career, very much in love--that Dame Fortune, so long
indifferent to his modest aspirations, had at last recognized in him a
true adventurer worthy of her grace. He was a remarkable man,
physically. He considered himself a remarkable man mentally, and he
was, in Arizona. "Why," he announced to his horse, "they's folks as
says they ain't no romantics left in this here world! Huh! Some of
them writin' folks oughter jest trail my smoke for a week, instead o'
settin' in clubs and drinkin' high-balls and expectin' them high-balls
to put 'em wise to real life! Huh! A fella's got to sweat it out
himself. The kind of romantics that comes in a bottle ain't the real
thing. Pickles is all right, but they ain't cucumbers, nohow. Wisht I
had one--and some salt. The stories them guys write is like pickles,
jest two kinds of flavor, sweet and sour. Now, when I write me life's
history she'll be a cucumber sliced thin with a few of them little red
chiles to kind o' give the right kick, and mebby a leetle onion
representin' me sentiment, and salt to draw out the proper taste, and
'bout three drops o' vinegar standin' for hard luck, and the hull thing
fixed tasty-like on a lettuce leaf, the crinkles representin' the
mountings and valleys of this here world, and me name on the cover in
red with gold edges. Gee Gosh!"
The creak of the saddle, the tinkle of his spurs, the springy stride of
the horse furnished a truly pastoral accompaniment to Sundown's
"romantics."
As he rode down a draw, he came suddenly upon two coyotes playing like
puppies in the sun. He reined up and watched them, and his heart
warmed to their antics. "Now, 'most any fella ridin' range would
nacherally pull his gun and bling at 'em. What for? Search me! They
ain't botherin' nobody. Jest playin'. Guess 'most any animals like to
play if they wasn't scared o' gettin' shot all the time. Funny how
some folks got to kill everything they see runnin' wild. What's the
use? Now, mebby them coyotes is a pa and ma thinkin' o' settin' up
ranchin' and raisin' alfalfa and young ones. Or mebby he's just
a-courtin' her and showin' how he can run and jump better than any
other coyote she ever seen. I dunno. There they go. Guess they seen
me. Say! but they are jest floatin' across the mesa--they ain't
runnin'. Goin' easy, like their legs belonged to somebody else and
they was jest keepin' up with 'em. So-long, folks! Here's hopin' you
get settled on that coyote-ranch all right!"
Thus far on his journey Sundown had enjoyed the pleasing local flavor
of the morning and his imaginings. The vinegar, which was to represent
"hard luck," had not as yet been added to the salad.
As he ascended the gentle slope of the draw he heard a quick, blunt
sound, as though some one had struck a drum and immediately muffled the
reverberations with the hand. He was too deeply immersed in himself to
pay much attention to this. Topping the rise, the fresh vista of
rolling mesa, the far blue hills, and a white dot--the distant
Concho--awakened him to a realization of his whereabouts. Again he
heard that peculiar, dull sound. He lifted his horse to a lope and
swept along, the dancing shadow at his side shortening as noon overtook
him. He was about to dismount and partake of the luncheon the kindly
Señora had prepared for him, when he changed his mind. "Lunch and
hunch makes a rhyme," he announced. "And I got 'em both. Guess I'll
jog along and eat at the Concho. Mebby I'll get there in two, three
hours."
As the white dot took on a familiar outline and the eastern wall of the
cañon of the Concho showed sharply against the sky, he saw a horseman,
strangely doubled up in the saddle, riding across the mesa toward the
ranch-house. Evidently he also was going to the Concho. Possibly it
was Bud, or Hi Wingle, or Lone Johnny. Following an interval of
attending strictly to the trail he raised his eyes. He pulled his
horse up and sat blinking. Where there had been a horse and rider
there was but the horse, standing with lowered head. He shaded his
eyes with his palm and gazed again. There stood the horse. The man
had disappeared. "Fell into one of them Injun graves," remarked
Sundown. "Guess I'll go see."
It took much longer than he had anticipated to come up with the
riderless horse. He recognized it as one of the Concho ponies. Almost
beneath the animal lay a huddled something. Sundown's scalp tingled.
Slowly he got from his horse and stalked across the intervening space.
He led the pony from the tumbled shape on the ground. Then he knelt
and raised the man's shoulders. Sinker, one of the Concho riders,
groaned and tore at the shirt over his stomach. Then Sundown knew. He
eased the cowboy back and called his name. Slowly the gray lids
opened. "It's me, Sundown! Who done it?"
The cowboy tried to rise on his elbow. Sundown supported his head,
questioning him, for he knew that Sinker had but little time left to
speak. The wounded man writhed impotently, then quieted.
"God, Sun!" he moaned, "they got me. Tell Jack--Mexican--Loring--sheep
at--waterhole. Tried to bluff--'em off--orders not to shoot. They got
orders to shoot--all right. Tell Jack--Guess I'm bleedin'
inside--So-long--pardner."
The dying man writhed from Sundown's arms and rolled to his face,
cursing and clutching at the grass in agony. Sundown stood over him,
his hat off, his gaze lifted toward the cloudless sky, his face white
with a new and strange emotion. He raised his long arms and clenched
his hands. "God A'mighty," he whispered, rocking back and forth, "I
got to tell You that sech things is _wrong_. And from what I seen
sence I come to this country, You don't care. But some of us does
care . . . and I reckon we got to do somethin' if You don't."
[Illustration: "God A'mighty, sech things is wrong."]
The cowboy raised himself on rigid arms, he lifted his head, and his
eyes, filmed with the chill of death, grew clear for an instant.
"'Sandro--the herder--got me," he gasped. His lips writhed back from
his clenched teeth. A rush of blood choked him. He sank to the
ground, quivered, and was still.
"'Sandro . . . the herder" . . . whispered Sundown. "Sinker was me
friend. I reckon God's got to leave the finish of this to me."