The sheep man rejected the offer of a match, and lit his pipe from a
burning brand. We were down on Buffalo Bayou fishing, and had cooked
and eaten supper. Fried fresh fish, coffee, corn bread, potatoes, and
just enough crisp bacon to flavor gave us a supper at which none
murmured.
We reclined at ease and worshipped the goddess Nicotine. The moon made
a glory in the eastern sky and spread a white shimmering glamour upon
the black water of the bayou. A phantom tug crept down stream, leaving
a ghostly, wavering silver wake, and a mysterious lapping and washing
along the unseen shores. Mosquitoes hummed angrily about the borders
of the hanging cloud of tobacco smoke. A dank fresh smell arose from
bursting buds and wild flowers. We five sat in the chiaroscuro of the
live oaks and cypresses, and babbled as most men and all women will
when Night, the tongue loosener, succeeds the discrete Day.
Night should be held responsible for poets, breach of promise suits,
betrayed secrets and dull stories. The man who will not tell more than
he knows in the moonlight of a spring night is a rarity. Four of us
were more or less hardened to moonlight and roses; one among us was
young enough to note the soft effect of Luna's kiss upon the dim tree
tops, the aerial perspective of the drifting gulf clouds, and the dim
white eyes of the dogwood blossoms peering out of the wooded darkness.
He noted and spake his thoughts without stint of adjectives, while we
world-worn passengers grunted in reply; puffed at our cigars and
pipes, and refused to commit ourselves on such trifling matters.
"Isn't it beautiful?" asked the young man. "The sky like the derne of
some dream temple, the woods dark with mystery and the silence broken
only by the faint breathing of nature."
"It's nice, and no mistake," answered the insurance agent, "but let me
tell you, I've known men to plant the seeds of incurable disease along
this old bayou. Feel that dampness rising every minute? A fellow never
knows what is going to happen. Especially a man with a family
dependent on him should--"
"Shut up," snapped the druggist. "For talking shop, recommend me to a
man in your line. This is a pleasure trip we are on, and I have to
have it spoiled by ringing in business. Talk about your malaria, why,
two bottles of my--"
"There you go, just as bad," said the lawyer. "You fellows have run in
the same old rut so long you can't get your minds on anything else.
Put me on the witness stand, and I'll swear that I never mention my
own business outside of my office; if I don't, kick me clean out of
court."
"This night," said the sheep man, "reminds me of the night I was lost
in the brush along the Frio. That was the night before the morning I
seen the mi-ridge."
"The--ah--oh! the mirage?" said the young man.
"No," said the sheep man, "it wasn't no mi-rosh; this was a mi-ridge,
and the plainest one I ever seen. They happened somethin' queer about
this one, too, and I don't often tell it, after seein' that
incredoolity generally waits upon the relatin' of it."
* * * * *
"Light up," said the druggist, reaching for the tobacco sack, "and let
us have your yarn. There are very few things a man can't believe
nowadays."
"It was in the fall of '80," said the sheep man, "when I was runnin'
sheep in La Salle County. There came a norther that scattered my flock
of 1500 muttons to thunderation. The shepherd couldn't hold 'em and
they split up right and left, through the chaparral. I got on my hoss
and hunted all one day, and I rounded up the biggest part of 'em
during the afternoon. I seen a Mexican ridin' along what told me they
was a big 'tajo of 'em down near the Palo Blanco crossin' of the Frio.
I rode over that way, and when sundown come I was down in a big
mesquite flat, where I couldn't see fifty yards before me any ways.
Well, I got lost. For some four or five hours my pony stumbled around
in the sacuista grass, windin' about this way and that, without
knowin' any more than I did where he was at. 'Bout 12 o'clock I give
it up, staked my pony and laid down under my saddle blanket to wait
till mornin'. I was awful worried about my wife and the kid, who was
by themselves on the ranch, for I knew they'd be scared half to death.
There wasn't much to be afraid of, but you know how women folks are
when night comes, 'specially when they wasn't any neighbor in ten
miles of 'em.
* * * * *
"I was up at daylight, and soon as I'd got my bearin's I knowed just
where I was. Right where I was I seen the Fort Ewell road, and a big
dead elm on one side that I knew. I was just eighteen miles from my
ranch. I jumped in the saddle, when all at once, looking across the
Frio towards home, I seen this mi-ridge. These mi-ridges are sure
wonderful. I never seen but three or four. It was a kind of misty
mornin', with woolly gulf clouds a-flyin' across, and the hollows was
all hazy. I seen my ranch house, shearin' pen, the fences with saddles
hangin' on 'em, the wood pile, with the ax stickin' in a log, and
everything about the yard as plain as if they was only 200 yards away,
and I was lookin' at 'em on a foggy mornin'. Everything looked
somewhat ghostly like, and a little taller and bigger than it really
was, but I could see even the white curtains at the windows and the
pet sheep grazin' 'round the corral. It made me feel funny to see
everything so close, when I knew I was eighteen miles away.
"All to once I seen the door open, and wife come out with the kid in
her arms. It was all I could do to keep from hollerin' at her. You
bet, I was glad to see her anyhow, and know they was all safe. Just
then I seen somethin' big and black a-movin', and it growed plainer,
like it had kinder come into focus, and it was a Mexican with a
broad-brimmed sombrero, on a hoss what rode up to the fence. He
stopped there a minute and then I seen my wife run into the house and
shut the door. I seen the Mexican jump off his hoss, try the door, and
then go and get the ax at the wood pile. He came back and commenced to
split down the door. The mi-ridge commenced to get dimmer and faint
like. I don't know what made me do such a fool thing, but I couldn't
help it. I jerked my Winchester out'n its scabbard, drawed a bead on
the darned scoundrel and fired. Then I cussed myself for an idiot, for
tryin' to shoot somethin' eighteen miles away, jabbed my Winchester
back in the scabbard, stuck my spurs in my broncho, and split through
the brush like a roadrunner after a rattlesnake.
* * * * *
"I made that eighteen miles in eighty minutes. I never took the road,
but crashed through the chaparral, jumped prickly pear and arroyo just
as they come. When I got to the ranch I fell off my pony, and he
leaned up against the fence streamin' wet and lookin' at me mighty
reproachful. I never breathed in jumpin' from the fence to the back
door. I clattered up the steps and yelled for Sallie, but my voice
sounded to me like somebody else's, 'way off. The door opened and out
tumbled the wife and the kid, all right, but scared as wild ducks.
'Oh, Jim,' says the wife, 'where, oh where have you been? A drunken
Mexican attacked the house this morning and tried to cut down the door
with an ax.' I tried to ask some questions, but I couldn't. 'Look,'
says Sallie.
"The other door was busted all to pieces and the ax was lyin' on the
step, and the Mexican was lyin' on the ground and a Winchester ball
had passed clear through his head."
"Who shot him?" asked the lawyer.
"I've told you all I know," said the sheep man. "Sallie said the man
dropped all of a sudden while he was choppin' at the door, and she
never heard no gun shoot. I don't pretend to explain nothin', I'm
telling you what happened. You might say somebody in the brush seen
him breakin' in the door and shot him, usin' noiseless powder, and
then slipped away without leavin' his card, or you might say you don't
know nothin' at all about it, as I do."
"Do you think--" began the young man.
"No, I don't think," said the sheep man, rather shortly. "I said I'd
tell you about the mi-ridge I seen, and I told you just as it
happened. Is they any coffee left in that pot?"
(_Houston Daily Post_, Sunday morning, April 19, 1896.)