THE JONAH
“MOVE ’em out, boys! We’ll see what’ll happen next.” Nabours spoke
with a half sigh in his voice. The departure of McMasters and of the
soldiers had left a strange feeling of loneliness among the Del Sol men.
They began to brood, to lose morale. This was after two more days of
riding, combing cattle out of the timber along the Washita, which very
luckily had caught and left partly nugatory the last run of the much
harassed herd.
The hour was not yet late; and although the tired trail hands had little
enough of sleep, there was no active murmuring, and the order of the day
once more began, the long line of longhorns stringing out, the guides on
either side.
The cattle paced on methodically enough, but the arrival at the Washita
was so late in the day that the trail boss concluded not to cross until
the following morning. They found the banks as McMasters had said—high
and steep; and the river had swimming water. But much to their joy they
found a good-sized raft which some one, probably Rudabaugh and his men,
for reasons of their own, had spent some time and care in building.
“Well, there won’t many of them need it now,” commented Nabours, “and we
do. That’s the first luck we’ve had. I’m scared to swim that girl
again.”
They crossed the carts without difficulty in the morning, and the entire
herd swam over easily, a narrow trail being plain on the other side.
Once more on their way, and with the Washita behind them, a certain
feeling of light-heartedness came to the trail drovers. They sang
cheerily to their cows as they rode alongside, caught the feel of the
new country lying on ahead.
The weather was not unfavorable, but in the afternoon the older trail
men began to look at the sky. There was a dull, lifeless feeling in the
air. The wind had ceased. A bank of clouds lay black in the lower west.
“It may rain,” said Jim Nabours, coming over to Taisie’s near-by camp
after the herd was turned off to bed down. “You and your women, Miss
Taisie, had better sleep in the carts to-night. I hope to the Lord our
little dogies won’t take a notion to run again to-night! This herd’s
getting plumb spoiled. Before long they’ll run every time a feller
lights a cigarrito.”
“Look as that lightning in west, Jim,” remarked Cal Dalhart. “It’s worse
than cigarritos. I hope she’ll pass around.”
But the prairie storm did not intend to pass around them. They lay
directly in the center of a low barometer. The air was oppressively hot,
so still that a leaf would have fallen straight to the ground; yet the
face of the western cloud was lit with continuous electrical discharges.
An uneasiness came into the air that even the cattle felt. The greenhead
flies had swarmed in the grass all day. Now clouds of mosquitoes made
life a burden for men and beasts. It was hard to bed the cattle down.
“Set the wagon tongues on the North Star, boys, while you can see it,”
said Jim Nabours. The dark cloud was steadily rising. “This is going to
be one hell of a night. You’ll need your slickers. Look yonder! I’ve
heard tell about that sort of a thing, but I’ve never saw it afore.”
He pointed toward the bed ground. In the strange electrical condition of
the air the horns of each steer showed two little balls of flame,
thousands of them in the total, a strange and awesome sight in the
gloom. As the night watch rode later they saw electricity on the tips of
their horses’ ears. It almost dripped from the air; the earth seemed
bathed in it.
At midnight the stars passed away under a high vanguard of scurrying
clouds. The strange tensity in the air increased as continuous rolls of
thunder came closer.
“We’ve all got to get on the herd,” said Nabours finally. “There’s going
to be trouble.”
The men all mounted their night horses and made ready. There came to
them all a feeling of pygmylike incompetency as the edge of the storm
extended itself as though with some inner propelling power. The wind had
not yet begun. They knew they were in for one of the terrible electrical
storms of the prairies.
The steady flashes of lightning along the cloud face broke into jagged
forks. Intermittent among these came short bolts of the chain lightning.
A smell of sulphur filled the air. A strange blue tint seemed to come
into some of the lightning bolts. At times there seemed to be a
continuous sheet of fire along the grass tops towards the west. This
later was broken by balls of fire which rolled along the ground,
exploding like bombshells. There seemed nothing in the air except light;
sparks and whirls and wheels of light, like so many pin wheels. A
strange, alarming, oppressive feel, as though of a settling fog, came
upon them all. If a man reached a hand to his hat brim the electricity
literally dripped from it.
Rarely, even on the high prairies, did the tremendous electrical
disturbances ever reach such violence; not one of these hardened range
men had ever seen the like of this. But to the wonder of all the cattle
did not at once make any break. They seemed stupefied themselves. They
now all were on their feet, but in the continuous succession of blinding
flashes on every side, the crash of thunder coming from all quarters,
they could form no course for running and stood rooted in sheer terror.
Nor was there a man who did not think his own end had come.
The climax came in a straight bolt from above, which struck and exploded
directly in the middle of the herd. The detonation was as though a giant
shrapnel shell had dropped. Twenty cattle were killed outright. Two
horses dropped. A rider was smitten dead, another came out of the shock
dazed and for some hours stone deaf. The old Mexican, Sanchez, had a
fashion of wearing a pair of ancient spectacles. They were burned from
his ears, only the bow between the rims remaining, and that burned deep
into his nose. Len Hersey boasted a fancy tie with a stickpin, once
bought in better days. The gold was melted from it, the stone dropped in
the grass. The nap of his sombrero was singed smooth. A score of
unbelievable phenomena, a series of miraculous escapes came all at once.
This last exploding bolt, so disastrous in its effect, was more than any
herd could stand. The cattle started like a covey of quail. The universe
seemed in dissolution. There was nothing for the men to do but follow as
best they could. It was as safe in one place as in another, and of
shelter there was none. Never was a wilder ride than that night; for
now, with a rush and steady roar, came the wind and the slanting rain.
The encampment at the bed ground was afloat, deserted. Old Milly put out
her head.
“Miss Taisie! Miss Taisie!” she called. She got no answer. “My Lord! she
done killed!” she called out to Anita.
Then arose her lamentations continuously as she lay in her drenched
blankets. They two were all that remained. Even Buck was gone.
The run in a general way had headed north. A couple of miles ahead,
between them and the Canadian River, lay a little boggy creek lined with
thickets. Suddenly enlarged by the rain, it overflowed and made very
soft footing for fifty or a hundred yards. Into this boggy trap the
animals plunged in their madness. Within a few moments a third of the
herd was bogged down. An inexplicable confusion took place among the
others. No man could do anything here. The riders only followed such
strings of cattle as they could hear farther down the stream. They all
knew that when daylight came they would have their work to do in
salvaging from the quagmire. Most of them tried to find their way back
to camp, and those who made it sat huddled, drenched, as the weird
flame-edged clouds passed on. Until dawn, they never knew there was a
dead man lying in the grass on the bed ground three hundred yards from
the camp, among the dead cattle and horses. Well, it was another grave;
and this made the first duty of the day. They put up the third little
headboard. So passed Al Pendleton. Though crippled by his gunshot wound,
he had insisted on taking saddle.
Now the work of snaking out bogged cattle—the most unwelcome of all
range work—must go forward along the muddy stream, hour after hour, as
soon as the depressing dawn gave light for the beginning. The waters
falling, some of the cattle struggled ashore as soon as they could see.
Others needed but little help, a few had to be abandoned. In this work
of roping and dragging, it took two men to handle a steer. As soon as
one of the wild creatures got his feet he was certain to charge his
rescuer. Hard work, dirty work, dangerous work; slow, utterly
disheartening. But it was here to be done. Once more, slowly, a battered
and begrimed cohort of broad horns began to assemble, watched by tired,
muddy, cursing men.
“Sinker,” called Nabours to the boy as he came by coiling his muddy rope
in the gray cold dawn, “you go on and find Dalhart, and ride back to
camp. I don’t know where the rest of the horses went. Drive in what cows
you find. It ain’t so far. Tell the cook we’ll be in for a little
coffee, some of us, right soon.”
These two, so commanded, came into camp only to learn the news from
Milly. The bed of Taisie Lockhart was empty. Her horse was gone.
“I’ll bet I know!” said Cinquo. “I’ll bet she follered the remuda in the
dark!”
He was off, following the plain trail of the running horses, Dalhart at
his side. They rode hard for a mile. The horses had struck timber,
slowed up and scattered.
“I see her!” called out the boy at last. “That’s her zebry horse
anyway.”
The white-banded son of Blancocito was not to be mistaken. But the
saddle was empty! At the foot of a near-by tree lay the object which
they sought.
She was alive, was sitting up, propped against a tree trunk; indeed, was
on the point of mounting. So much they saw with sudden joy as they flung
down and ran to her.
The man pushed the boy away roughly. Kneeling, Dalhart caught the girl
in his arms, uttering impetuous words. What he saw filled Cinquo with
shame and horror. This man had touched the divinity of Del Sol! He was
holding her in his arms! He was going to kiss her! Sacrilege!
Cinquo saw flame points. He sprang forward, his long revolver in his
hand.
“Say, you! You let go of her, mister! Stop now, or I’ll stop you for
shore!”
The boy was blubbering in his excitement, but as Dalhart turned he saw
that the aim of the weapon was true. Taisie beat at him with her hands,
weakly, pushing him away.
“I’ll wring your neck!” began Dalhart, starting toward the boy. Only the
girl’s voice saved them one or both.
“No! No!” she called. “He means well! Cinquo, come here!”
Dalhart turned to her almost savagely.
“You promised me!” he said. “You gave me your word down there! Is this
how you keep your promise?”
But between the two of them, the girl with her tears and the boy with
his revolver, Cal Dalhart got on very ill with his wooing.
“I can wait,” said he slowly at last.
In his sobbing excitement the boy was dangerous as a rattlesnake, and
Dalhart was wise enough to know it. Only one voice could calm him.
Taisie spoke with decision.
“Throw down your gun, Cinquo! Drop it, I tell you!”
Cinquo obeyed. His tears came freely now. He trembled.
“Trouble with me is, ma’am,” said he, “I got chills and fever. To-day I
got ’em both. I been up all night. I don’t give a damn for that man, but
this here is awful hard for you.”
“Cinquo,” said Taisie, putting her hand on his grimy shirt sleeve as she
drew him beside her, “you are as good a man as I’ve got. Listen now! I’m
not hurt. I just ran into a tree in the dark and got knocked out of the
saddle. For a long time I didn’t know anything—my head’s bruised; but I
was going to get up and ride right soon. Now go and find the horses;
they’re not far. I saw the bell mare just below.”
The boy, shivering in his saddle, racked by the native ague, went off
dully about his duties. He cast an eye over his shoulder, saw Dalhart
riding close to the side of the mistress of Del Sol.
“The trouble with you is,” broke out Dalhart moodily, “you don’t know
how a man can love you—you don’t know how I love you!”
He reached out a hand to touch the bridle of her saddle horse, which
flung its head impatiently.
“I think I do,” said Taisie slowly. “You love me like a man. They’re all
alike.”
“I believe you do love that damned Gonzales renegade. He’s gone again,
and he may come back, or he may not. What you need is a man to take care
of you; some one better than that cold-blooded killer that ain’t got a
heart for either man or woman!”
“Stop! I tell you I want to hear no more of this!” The girl’s voice had
in it a quiet fury. “At least I never have heard that man say a word
against you or any one else. If he’s a killer he’d face his man, I’m
sure of that, and not curse him behind his back.”
“He’d better not say anything about me,” Dalhart blustered.
But Taisie Lockhart’s contemptuous laugh at that was the cruelest thing
he had ever heard in all his life. She spurred on and left him.
* * * * *
Dribbles of the herd continued to come in. The draggled encampment was
slow to take on even a little order. The men had begun to lose
confidence, to dread their luck. And now was time for a repetition of
the scene on the south bank of the Red—another rider must find burial
in his blankets. Never had the spirits of the men been so low, the hope
of success so faint, the savage irritability of all so unmistakable.
It took a day and a half to finish the unhappy duties of the last camp
below the Canadian and drive forward the remade herd. It was necessary
to follow down the boggy stream to find a sound crossing. Beyond, within
a mile or so, lay the main Canadian. Here at least they met no trouble.
The spongelike sands had swallowed up the torrents until only an
occasional thread of lazily trickling water marked the wide expanse from
bank to bank. The cattle, warm and thirsty, seemed disposed to break
ranks and explore these little trickles of water, so that the men had
enough to do. Dalhart rode moodily, indifferently, on his point.
“Damn it, man!” called Del Williams to him, approaching him after one
more chase after a wisp of stragglers. “I’d think you could ’tend to
your own end part ways somehow!”
It was the first time he had spoken to Dalhart in days. Their enmity was
smoldering.
“I don’t need any help from anybody about handling cows,” retorted the
other; “least of all from you.”
Del Williams rode straight up to him at what seemed a challenge.
“I don’t see you for no cowman, myself,” said he.
They sat face to face midway of the dry river bed.
“I want to know what you mean,” said Dalhart. “I’ve been as good a hand
on this trail as you have.”
“I don’t think so. Nothing but luck kept you from drownding that girl
crossing the Red. More than that, it was you that let logs come through
the cattle when they was swimming the day before. That started the mill.
Four hundred cows lost and two men drownded. You was upriver side of the
herd.”
This was mortal affront, as Del Williams was willing that it should be.
At the time both men were unarmed.
“You know I won’t stand that,” said Dalhart.
“You heard it plain,” rejoined Williams quietly. “Make your play any
time you like.”
“All right, I will make it! We both said we’d hold off till we struck
Abilene. We’ll not both ride south together,” said Dalhart savagely.
“I hope not,” smiled Del Williams. “I have got plenty of grief riding in
sight of you going north.”
Neither man liked to be the first to back his horse. Their actions
caught the sight of Nabours, who started back.
“Look here!” he began. “What are you two doing here?”
“Well,” began Dalhart, “he told me I wasn’t doing my work.”
“Then he told you plumb right. Look at you now, both of you. You two
give me your word, both of you, that you’d quit this quarreling till you
got to Aberlene. Now quit it or else get out. If a little more happens I
am going to get on the prod my own self.”
They separated. Del Williams later approached Nabours, both moody, sore.
“Jim,” said he, “look at the luck! Could anything more happen to us? I
tell you, there’s a Jonah somewheres on this herd.”
“There shore is!” rejoined the harried foreman. “There shore is! And
it’s got red hair.”