THE MAN-HUNT
I reckon that civilised folks are trained to run in a rut, to live by
rule, to do what's expected. If they're chased they'll run, if they're
caught they surrender. That's the proper thing to do.
Our plainsman, he's a much resourceful animal: he never runs in the rut,
and he always does exactly what's not expected. Here were Jim and Curly
surrounded by five men all hot for war. Broach could shoot good, but his
horse was a plumb idiot when it came to firing. He was scared he would
miss Jim, and get the counter-jumper who pranced around behind. Of the
rest, one was a railroad man, and useless at that, one was a carpenter,
and one was a barber--all of them bad shots. Still, they knew that their
prisoners could neither fight nor run.
The prisoners did both most sudden, and heaps surprising. While Jim's
moustache was dropping, Curly's first bullet got Broach's horse in the
eye, sending him backwards over on top of the man. Jim unhorsed the
railroad man, the carpenter disabled the barber, and the counter-jumper
bolted.
That posse was all demoralised, shooting liberal, attracting heaps of
attention. So another belated outfit of citizens came whooping down the
road, while at the first sound of battle, the crowd I was with swung
round at full gallop to share the play. I knew my youngsters were in
foul bad luck.
Yet in a single evening these two had got to feeling each other's
thoughts, acting together without talk, partners like the hands of a
man. They knew that for them it was death to show on the skyline, sure
good scouting to jump for the lowest ground, and keep the dust a-rolling
to hide their movements. They struck a gulley, and Jim led over rock and
cactus, riding slack rein, trusting that buckskin mare. After the first
five minutes, looking round, he saw the belated outfit along the skyline
following, and heard the whoops of our crowd closing in on the left.
"I reckon," says Curly, "they'll get us."
"Very awkward," says Jim.
"Say, Curly," he called out, "there's a fence here somewhere on
Chalkeye's pasture. It's broken where it cuts this arroyo, but just
'ware wire! Here! 'Ware wire!"
The mare took a stumble, but cleared the fallen wire. The black horse
just jumped high. Up on the plain above the pursuit was going to be
checked by my standing fence.
"We're plumb in luck to the lips," says Curly.
And now the rocky hollow widened out, the trail was smooth, the pace
tremendous. While our citizens behind were having a check betwixt rock
and wire, Jim struck the further gate of my pasture, and held it wide
for Curly. Horsemanship had given the partners a mile of gain, but now,
on level ground, where any fool could ride, our posse gained rapidly,
for the youngsters had to go moderate and save their horses.
"Down on yo' hawss," says Curly, "you ride too proud," and a spatter of
blue lead made Jim lie humble. The fool gallopers were right handy for
war, when sudden the winding valley poured out its fan of débris upon
the lower plain towards Mexico. Here just below the mouth of the arroyo
a railroad track swung right across the trail on a high embankment. On
the nigh side of the embankment ran a waggon trail, climbing a hill on
the left to cross the track, and that was sure foul luck for Jim and
Curly, for now they rode out clear against the sky in a storm of lead,
and began to reckon they was due at the big front door of heaven. Jim
was all right in a moment, for the buckskin mare just rose to the
occasion, leapt the rails, and got to cover down the bank beyond; but
Curly's horse was an idiot. At the sight of the gleaming rails, he
stopped dead to show himself off, shied, bucked, pawed the full moon,
fell in heaps, tumbled all over himself, dug a hole in the ground with
his nose, and timed the whole exhibition to get Curly shot. The
gallopers were right on to him before he chose to proceed, with flanks
spurred bloody, down the further bank.
Jim circled back to the rescue. "Hurt?" he called.
Curly lay all of a heap on the saddle. "Shoot!" he howled, and flashed
on across the plain.
Jim got the gallopers stark against the sky at point-blank range, and
just whirled in for battle, piling the track with dead and dying horses,
blocking the passage complete. Then he streaked away to see if Curly had
gone dead on Jones' back.
Five minutes after that, Deputy-Marshal Pedersen and I came blundering
into the wreckage. He jumped through somehow, leading eighteen men, but
I stopped to help a hurt man, and used his rifle to splint his broken
leg. The fool gallopers were mostly wrung out, and gone home, or left
afoot by Jim. The good stayers were on ahead, but weary maybe, it being
late for pleasuring. So I proceeded to have an attack of robbers all to
myself, with the wounded man's revolver and my own, shooting
promiscuous. Sure enough, half a dozen of them bold pursuers came
circling back to find out what was wrong.
When I had turned back with my idiots for home, a ripple spread along
the grass, an air from the south, then a lifting wind, full strong,
steady as ice aflow, cold as the wings of Death. Jim fought up wind,
battling at full gallop until he overtook the little partner, then
ranged abreast and steadied knee to knee, nursing his mare at a trot.
The moon slid down flame-red behind the hills, the wind blew a gale, the
night went black, the sky a sheet of stars.
Jim had quit being tired, for his body was all gone numb and dead, so he
felt nothing except the throb of hoofs astern. Then he heard a popping
of guns faint in the rear, and on that saw flashes of signal firing away
on the right, besides other gun-flames back below Mule Pass. He held his
teeth from chattering to speak.
"Curly, old chap, they've wired for a posse up from Naco, and the City
Marshal's men are coming down from Bisley. They're closing in on three
sides, and we can't escape."
Curly said nothing.
"Say, Curly, you're not hurt?"
"Mosquito bite," said Curly; "look a-here, Jim. If anything goes wrong,
you'll find the captain at La Soledad to-morrow."
"What captain?"
"My father. I made him swear he'd wait. How's yo' buckskin?"
"Flagging."
"She'll live through all right. Don't you talk any mo'."
"You're losing hope?"
"There's allus hope," said Curly, "but them stars seem nearer to
we-all."
They were riding through greasewood bushes and long grass, whilst here
and there stood scattered trees of mesquite. That made bad going for
horses, but, when they swung aside for better ground, they nearly
blundered into an arroyo.
Only the dawn grey saved my boys from breaking both their necks in that
deep gap, but now they had got to lose the sheltering darkness, their
horses were mighty near finished, and three big outfits of riders were
closing down all round them. Jim looked up the sky to see if there were
miracles a-coming, for nothing less was going to be much use. Then the
Naco people came whirling down on the right, and the black arroyo lay
broad across their hopes, so they swung north to look for a crossing,
and were thrown right out of the hunt.
Presently soon my youngsters had another big stroke of luck, because the
Bisley crowd missed aim, and had to swing in behind with the men from
Grave City.
"Jim," says Curly, "has they closed in yet?"
"Our wind is covering all three outfits now."
Then came a yell from behind, for in the dawn the hunters had caught
sight of their meat.
Now close ahead loomed something white like a ghost, and Jim let out a
screech as it reared up against him sudden. As he shied wide and
spurred, he saw the ghost some better--a limewashed monument, the
boundary mark of old Mexico.
"Saved!" he yelled. "They can't follow beyond the Line."
"They cayn't, but they will," says Curly; "fire the grass!"
Jim grabbed a hair from the buckskin's mane, took matches from his
wallet and bound them into a torch, struck a light to the tip, and held
it in his paws against the roaring wind. Then he made shift to swing
himself down till the long grass brushed his fingers. He dropped his
torch beside a greasewood bush, and cantered on with Curly knee to knee.
That flicker in the long grass grew to a blazing star, spread with the
flaws of the wind, swayed its small tongues to lick new clumps and pass
the word to others just beyond. The bush blazed up with a roar as only
greasewood can, and flung its burning sticks upon the storm, so that the
fire spread swift as a man could run over acres of greasewood. To the
east was mesquite bush, which burns like gun-cotton in a gale of wind.
But now the draught of the fire had made that gale a scarlet hurricane
with the stride of a running horse, which flushed the flying cloud wrack
overhead, and made red day along the mountain flanks.
I reckon that if I'd happened with that outfit of hunters, I should have
known enough to bear east and circle round the blaze without loss of
time; but the leaders saw the burning mesquite grove, and tried to
swing west of trouble. There the arroyo barred them, and before they won
to the other horn of the fire their horses had gone loco, refusing to
face the heat. Anyways, they stampeded with their riders, and I reckon
those warriors never stopped to look back until they had thrown
themselves safe beyond the railroad. If they had come out for a
man-hunt, they got that liberal and profuse beyond their wildest
dreams.