MY RANGE WHELPS WHIMPERING
Now that I have won through the dull beginning of this story, I've just
got to stop and pat myself before going on any further. There were steep
bits on the trail where I panted for words, rocks where I stumbled,
holes where I bogged down to the hocks, cross-roads where I curved
around lost. At the best I'd a poor eye, a lame tongue, and a heap big
inclination to lie down and quit; so I've done sure fine to keep
a-going. Ride me patient still, for I'm near the beginning of the
troubles which picked up Jim, Curly, and me, to whirl us along like a
hurricane afire. Soon we'll break gait from a limp to a trot, from trot
to canter, then from lope to gallop.
I suppose I had better explain some about Grave City, and how it got to
have such a cheerful name. That was away back in 1878, when two
prospectors, Ed Schieffelin and his brother, pulled out to explore the
desert down by the Mexican boundary. The boys allowed they'd better take
their coffins along with them, because if they missed being scalped by
Apaches, or wiped out by border ruffians, or starved to death, they
would surely perish of thirst. "The only thing you boys will find is
your grave."
Well, they called their discovery Grave City, but it was one of the
richest silver-mines on earth, and a city grew up here in the desert.
For the first few years it was most surely hot, full of artists painting
the town red, and shooting each other up with a quick gun. That was the
time of Mankiller Johnson, Curly Bill, Roosian George, Brazelton of
Tucson, the robber, and a young gentleman aged twenty-two, called Billy
the Kid, who wiped out twenty fellow-citizens and followed them rapid to
a still warmer climate. When these gentlemen had shot each other for
their country's good, and a great many more died a natural death by
being lynched, the city got more peaceful. In the second year it was
burnt, and entirely rebuilt in a fortnight. The first large gambling
joint was called the "Sepulchre," the first weekly paper was the Weekly
Obituary, and in the eighth year Mr. Ryan built his hotel--the
"Mortuary." That was in 1886, the year of the Apache raids, when I went
with the new patrone to Holy Cross. Twelve years I rode for Balshannon,
then, Jim being in his eighteenth year, took charge as foreman and
major-domo of that grand old ranche.
It was the 4th of July, 1900, before I saw that youngster again. We
gathered at Grave City then to celebrate the birthday of our great
republic, and it does me good every time to see our flag Old Glory
waving above the cities of freedom. The Honourable Jim must needs run a
mare of his at the races, the same, as I told him, being suitable meat
to bait traps.
I made him an offer for that mare; ten cents for her tail as a fly
switch, a dollar for her hide, and a five-cent rim-fire cigar if he
would dispose of the other remains. He raced her, lost one thousand
dollars, and came to me humble for the money to pay his debts. I told
him to burn his own paws in his own fire, and be content with his own
howls.
"They're debts of honour!" says he.
"Debts of dishonour, and you're the Dishonourable James du Idiot.
There's your travelling pony been standing saddled all day in the
blazing heat without a feed or a drink. You call yourself a horseman?"
Afterwards we smoothed our fur, and had our supper together. Jim
promised to be good, go home, do his honest cowboy work, and look after
the poor lone lady who was dying by inches at Holy Cross.
Yet I was proud of that boy, keen, fierce, stubborn as a wild ass, with
the air and temper of a thoroughbred, and a laugh which spoiled me for
preaching. He was smart, too, in a new shirt of white silk, a
handkerchief round his neck striped cream and rose colour, Mexican
trousers of yellow leather studded down the seams with lumps of
turquoise stones in silver settings, big silver spurs, and on his belt
a silver-mounted 45-Colt revolver. I've got no earthly use for a boy who
slouches. At supper, while I preached, he called me an old fool for
caring when he was bad. Then he told me good-bye in the dusk, and set
off on his hundred-mile trail for Holy Cross.
I rode home thoughtful, and lay long awake in my little dobe cabin at
Las Salinas, thinking about that boy, whose mother was sick, and his
father riding to sure destruction, a gambler, a drunkard, hopeless,
lost--the best friend I ever had in the world. When I woke the faint
light of dawn shone through the cabin window, and brightened the saddles
on the wall. Something was touching my face, something cold, so I
grabbed it quick--a little small hand. Then I heard Curly's low, queer
laugh. "You, Chalkeye!" he whispered.
He was sitting on the stool beside my bunk, dead weary, covered with
dust from the trail. Somehow the boy seemed to have got smaller instead
of growing up, and he sure looked weak and delicate for such a life as
he led. Twenty years old? He didn't seem fifteen, and yet he spoke
old-fashioned, heaps wise and experienced.
"Whar you from?" says I, yawning.
"Speak low, and no questions," said Curly in a hard voice, for on the
range we never ask a guest his name, or where he comes from, or which
way he goes. When he comes we don't need to tell him any welcome; when
he goes we say, 'Adios!' for he'll sure have need of an Almighty Father
out in the desert.
"Chalkeye," says my wolf, "are you alone?"
"Sure."
"No boys over thar in yo' ram pasture?"
"My riders is wolfing in Grave City, but they'll stray back 'fore noon."
"Hide me up in yo' barn fo' the day, then."
"An yo' horse, Curly?"
"Say you won him last night at cyards. We'll hide the saddle."
"Have coffee first?"
"I surely will," and kneeling stiff, weary by the hearth, he began to
make up a fire.
"There's a notice up for you, Curly. They're offering two thousand
dollars dead or alive."
"For robbing that Union Pacific train?"
"I reckon."
"Chalkeye, did you ever know me to lie?"
"None, Curly."
"Then you'll believe me. I wasn't there when our wolves got that train.
I've never done no robberies, ever yet."
"I hope you never may."
"Sometimes I hope so too." He was holding up his hands before the fire.
"How's the patrone?" he asked, as he put on the coffee-pot to boil.
"Going downhill rapid. He's mortgaged Holy Cross to the last dollar."
"What's his play?"
"Faro and monte--you'll see him bucking the game all night down at the
Sepulchre. He drinks hard now."
"Pore old--er chap, don't you know! And the lady?"
"Dying out down at the Hacienda. The padre sits with her."
"And the young chief?"
"Do you still hate him?"
"Why should I care?"
"Tell me on the dead-thieving Curly, you do care some what happens to
Holy Cross? Don't you remember old Ryan inviting yo' wolves to eat up
the Hacienda?"
"They had stewed Ryan for breakfast afterwards, and he sure squealed!"
"Yesterday I seen a bar keep' who belongs to Ryan go up against young
Jim and rob him of a thousand dollars over a sure-thing horse race. Any
day you'll see Ryan's hired robbers running the crooked faro and monte
games where Balshannon is losing what's left of Holy Cross. Ryan hired
the range wolves, and they went straight for his own throat, but now the
town wolves are eating yo' best friends."
"The only friends I have excep' my gang," said Curly. "Why don't you
shoot up them town scouts, and that Ryan?"
"My gun against a hundred, Curly? No. I tried to get these crooks run
out of the city, but Ryan's too strong for me. If I shoot him up I'd
only get lynched by his friends."
"Show me yo' cyards, old Chalkeye--let me see yo' play."
"I aim to turn the range wolves loose in Grave City."
"The range wolves is some fastidious, Chalkeye, and wants clean meat for
their kill."
"You don't want to save your friends?"
"The boss wolf leads, not me, and he wants good meat. I must point to
good meat, or he ain't hungry none."
"Ryan has lots of wealth."
"We ate some once, and he's got monotonous."
"How about his son, the millionaire?"
"My wolves would shorely enjoy a millionaire, but--shucks! We'll never
get so much as a smell at him."
"Cayn't you suggest some plan for checking Ryan?"
"I'll think that over. I cal'late to spend some weeks in Grave City."
"Two thousand dollars dead or alive! Why, lad, you're crazy."
"When I'm disguised you'll never know it's me."
"Disguised? As how?"
"As a woman perhaps, or maybe as a man. I dunno yet."
I went to sniff the morning, and at the door found Curly's horse, loaded
with an antelope lashed across the saddle.
"I shot you some meat fo' yo' camp," said Curly, throwing coffee into
the boiling pot. "Now let's have breakfast."
I went out and caught some eggs, then we had breakfast.