THE SHEEP-KILLER
It was dusk when Dad Frazer drove the slow-drifting flock home to its
sleeping place, which tomorrow night very likely would be on some
hillside no softer, many miles away. Only a few days together the camp
remained in one place, no longer than it took the sheep to crop the
herbage within easy reach. Then came the camp-mover and hauled the
wagon to fresh pastures in that illimitable, gray-green land.
Dad Frazer was a man of sixty or sixty-five, who had been an army
teamster in the days of frontier posts. He was slender and sinewy,
with beautiful, glimmering, silvery hair which he wore in long curls
and kept as carefully combed as any dandy that ever pranced at the
court of a king. It was his one vanity, his dusty, greasy raiment
being his last thought.
Dad's somber face was brown and weathered, marked with deep lines,
covered over with an ashy, short growth of beard which he clipped once
in two weeks with sheep-shears when he didn't lose count of the days.
Frazer always wore an ancient military hat with a leather thong at the
back of his head drawn tight across his flowing hair. The brim of this
hat turned up in the back as if he had slept in it many years, which
was indeed the case, and down in the front so low over his brows that
it gave him a sullen and clouded cast, which the redundancy of his
spirits and words at once denied.
For Dad Frazer was a loquacious sheepherder, an exception among the
morose and silent men who follow that isolated calling upon the lonely
range. He talked to the dogs when there was nobody by, to the sheep as
he scattered them for an even chance between weak and strong over the
grazing lands, and to himself when no other object presented. He swore
with force and piquancy, and original embellishments for old-time
oaths which was like a sharp sauce to an unsavory dish.
Frazer was peculiar in another way. He liked a soft bed to pound the
ground on after his long days after the sheep, and to that end kept a
roll of sheepskins under the wagon. More than that, he always washed
before eating, even if he had to divide the last water in the keg.
Now as he was employed with his ablutions, after a running fire of
talk from the time he came within hearing to the moment the water
smothered his voice over the basin, Mackenzie saw him turn an eye in
his direction every little while between the soaping and the washing
of his bearded face. The old fellow seemed bursting with restraint of
something that he had not told or asked about. Mackenzie could read
him like a thermometer.
"What's the matter, Dad--rattlesnakes?" he asked.
"Rattlesnakes nothin'!" returned the old man.
"I thought another one had been crawling up your leg."
"Nearer boey constructors! Anybody been here but Joan?"
"No."
Dad came over to the tail of the wagon, where Mackenzie had supper
spread on a board, a box at each end, for that was a sheep-camp _de
luxe_. He stood a little while looking about in the gloom, his head
tipped as if he listened, presently taking his place, unaccountably
silent, and uncomfortably so, as Mackenzie could very well see.
"You didn't lose a dog, did you, Dad?"
"Dog nothin'! Do I look like a man that'd lose a dog?"
"Well, Dad," Mackenzie said, in his slow, thoughtful way, "I don't
exactly know how a man that would lose a dog looks, but I don't
believe you do."
"Swan Carlson's back on the range!" said Dad, delivering it before he
was ready, perhaps, and before he had fully prepared the way, but
unable to hold it a second longer.
"Swan Carlson?"
"Back on the range."
"So they fixed him up in the hospital at Cheyenne?"
"I reckon they must 'a'. He's back runnin' his sheep, and that woman
of his'n she's with him. Swan run one of his herders off the first
rattle out of the box, said he'd been stealin' sheep while he was
gone. That's one of his old tricks to keep from payin' a man."
"It sounds like him, all right. Have you seen him?"
"No. Matt Hall come by this evenin', and told me."
"I'm glad Swan got all right again, anyhow, even if he's no better to
his wife than he was before. I was kind of worried about him."
"Yes, and I'll bet he's meaner than he ever was, knockin' that woman
around like a sack of sawdust the way he always did. I reckon he gets
more fun out of her that way than he does keepin' her tied."
"He can hang her for all I'll ever interfere between them again,
Dad."
"That's right. It don't pay to shove in between a man and his wife in
their fusses and disturbances. I know a colonel in the army that's got
seventeen stitches in his bay winder right now from buttin' in between
a captain and his woman. The lady she slid a razor over his vest.
They'll do it every time; it's woman nature."
"You talk like a man of experience, Dad. Well, I don't know much about
'em."
"Yes, I've been marryin' 'em off and on for forty years."
"Who is Matt Hall, and where's his ranch, Dad? I've been hearing about
him and his brother, Hector, ever since I came up here."
"Them Hall boys used to be cattlemen up on the Sweetwater, but they
was run out of there on account of suspicion of rustlin', I hear. They
come down to this country about four years ago and started up sheep,
usin' on Cottonwood about nine or twelve miles southeast from here.
Them fellers don't hitch up with nobody on this range but Swan
Carlson, and I reckon Swan only respects 'em because they're the only
men in this country that packs guns regular any more."
"Swan don't pack a gun as a regular thing?"
"I ain't never seen him with one on. Hector Hall he's always got a
couple of 'em on him, and Matt mostly has one in sight. You can gamble
on it he's got an automatic in his pocket when he don't strap it on
him in the open."
"I don't see what use a man's got for a gun up here among sheep and
sheepmen. They must be expecting somebody to call on them from the old
neighborhood."
"Yes, I figger that's about the size of it. I don't know what Matt was
doin' over around here this evenin'; I know I didn't send for him."
"Joan spoke of him this afternoon. From what she said, I thought he
must be something of a specimen. What kind of a looking duck is he?"
"Matt's a mixture of a goriller and a goose egg. He's a long-armed,
short-legged, gimlet-eyed feller with a head like a egg upside down.
You could split a board on that feller's head and never muss a hair. I
never saw a man that had a chin like Matt Hall. They say a big chin's
the sign of strength, and if that works out Matt must have a mind like
a brigadier general. His face is all chin; chin's an affliction on
Matt Hall; it's a disease. Wait till you see him; that's all I can
say."
"I'll know him when I do."
"Hector ain't so bad, but he's got a look in his eyes like a man
that'd grab you by the nose and cut your throat, and grin while he was
doin' it."
Mackenzie made no comment on these new and picturesque characters
introduced by Dad into the drama that was forming for enactment in
that place. He filled his pipe and smoked a little while. Then:
"How many sheep do they run?" he asked.
"Nine or ten thousand, I guess."
Silence again. Dad was smoking a little Mexican cigarette with
corn-husk wrapper, a peppery tobacco filling that smarted the eyes
when it burned, of which he must have carried thousands when he left
the border in the spring.
"Tim was over today," said Mackenzie.
"What did he want?"
"About this business between him and me. Is it usual, Dad, for a man
to work a year at forty dollars a month and found before he goes in as
a partner on the increase of the flock he runs?"
"What makes you ask me that, John?"
"Only because there wasn't anything said about it when I agreed with
Tim to go to work here with you and learn the rudiments of handling a
band of sheep. He sprung that on me today, when I thought I was about
to begin my career as a capitalist. Instead of that, I've got a year
ahead of me at ten dollars a month less than the ordinary herder gets.
I just wanted to know."
"Sheepmen are like sand under the feet when it comes to dealin' with
'em; I never knew one that was in the same place twice. You've got a
lot of tricks to learn in this trade, and I guess this is one of them.
I don't believe Tim ever intends to let you in on shares; that ain't
his style. Never did take anybody in on shares but Joan, that I know
of. It looks to me like Tim's workin' you for all he can git out of
you. You'll herd for Tim a year at forty dollars, and teach Joan a
thousand dollars' worth while you're doin' it. You're a mighty
obligin' feller, it looks like to me."
Mackenzie sat thinking it over. He rolled it in his mind quite a
while, considering its most unlikely side, considering it as a
question of comparative values, trying to convince himself that, if
nothing more came of it than a year's employment, he would be even
better off than teaching school. If Tim was indeed planning to profit
doubly by him during that year, Joan could have no knowledge of his
scheme, he was sure.
On Joan's account he would remain, he told himself, at last, feeling
easier and less simple for the decision. Joan needed him, she counted
on him. Going would be a sad disappointment, a bitter discouragement,
to her. All on Joan's account, of course, he would remain; Joan, with
her russet hair, the purity of October skies in her eyes. Why, of
course. Duty made it plain to him; solely on account of Joan.
"I'd rather be a foot-loose shearer, herdin' in between like I do,
than the richest sheepman on the range," said Dad. "They're tied down
to one little spot; they work out a hole in their piece of the earth
like a worm. It ain't no life. I can have more fun on forty dollars
than Tim Sullivan can out of forty thousand."
Dad got out his greasy duck coat with sheepskin collar, such as
cattlemen and sheepmen, and all kinds of outdoor men in that country
wore, for the night was cool and damp with dew. Together they sat
smoking, no more discussion between them, the dogs out of sight down
the hill near the sheep.
Not a sound came out of the sheep, bedded on the hillside in
contentment, secure in their trust of men and dogs. All day as they
grazed there rose a murmur out of them, as of discontent, complaint,
or pain. Now their quavering, pathetic voices were as still as the
wind. There was not a shuffle of hoof, not a sigh.
Mackenzie thought of Joan, and the influence this solitary life, these
night silences, had borne in shading her character with the melancholy
which was so plainly apparent in her longing to be away. She yearned
for the sound of life, for the warmth of youth's eager fire beyond the
dusty gray loneliness of this sequestered place. Still, this was what
men and women in the crowded places thought of and longed toward as
freedom. Loose-footed here upon the hills, one might pass as free as
the wind, indeed, but there was something like the pain of prison
isolation in these night silences which bore down upon a man and made
him old.
A sudden commotion among the sheep, terrified bleating, quick
scurrying of feet, shook Mackenzie out of his reflections. The dogs
charged down the hill and stood baying the disturber of the flock with
savage alarm, in which there was a note of fear. Dad stood a moment
listening, then reached into the wagon for the rifle.
"Don't go down there!" he warned Mackenzie, who was running toward the
center of disturbance. "That's a grizzly--don't you hear them dogs?"
Mackenzie stopped. The advance stampede of the terrified flock rushed
past him, dim in the deeper darkness near the ground. Below on the
hillside where the sheep bedded he could see nothing. Dad came up with
the gun.
The sheep were making no outcry now, and scarcely any sound of
movement. After their first startled break they had bunched, and were
standing in their way of pathetic, paralyzing fear, waiting what
might befall. Dad fired several quick shots toward the spot where the
dogs were charging and retreating, voices thick in their throats from
their bristling terror of the thing that had come to lay tribute upon
the flock.
"Don't go down there!" Dad cautioned again. "Git the lantern and light
it--maybe when he sees it he'll run. It's a grizzly. I didn't think
there was one in forty miles."
Mackenzie took hold of the gun.
"Give it to me--hand me another clip."
Dad yielded it, warning Mackenzie again against any rash movement. But
his words were unheeded if not unheard. Mackenzie was running down the
hillside toward the dogs. Encouraged by his coming, they dashed
forward, Mackenzie halting to peer into the darkness ahead. There was
a sound of trampling, a crunching as of the rending of bones. He
fired; ran a little nearer, fired again.
The dogs were pushing ahead now in pursuit of whatever it was that
fled. A moment, and Mackenzie heard the quick break of a galloping
horse; fired his remaining shots after it, and called Dad to fetch the
light.
When the horse started, the dogs returned to the flock, too wise to
waste energy in a vain pursuit. At a word from Mackenzie they began
collecting the shuddering sheep. Dad Frazer came bobbing down the hill
with the lantern, breathing loud in his excitement.
"Lord!" said he, when he saw the havoc his light revealed; "a regular
old murderin' stock-killer. And I didn't think there was any grizzly
in forty miles."
Mackenzie took the lantern, sweeping its light over the mangled bodies
of several sheep, torn limb from limb, scattered about as if they had
been the center of an explosion.
"A murderin' old stock-killer!" said Dad, panting, out of breath.
Mackenzie held up the light, looking the old man in the face.
"A grizzly don't hop a horse and lope off, and I never met one yet
that wore boots," said he. He swung the light near the ground again,
pointing to the trampled footprints among the mangled carcasses.
"It was a man!" said Dad, in terrified amazement. "Tore 'em apart like
they was rabbits!" He looked up, his weathered face white, his eyes
staring. "It takes--it takes--Lord! Do you know how much muscle it
takes to tear a sheep up that a-way?"
Mackenzie did not reply. He stood, turning a bloody heap of wool and
torn flesh with his foot, stunned by this unexampled excess of human
ferocity.
Dad recovered from his amazement presently, bent and studied the
trampled ground.
"I ain't so sure," he said. "Them looks like man's tracks, but a
grizzly's got a foot like a nigger, and one of them big fellers makes
a noise like a lopin' horse when he tears off through the bresh. I
tell you, John, no human man that ever lived could take a live sheep
and tear it up that a-way!"
"All right, then; it was a bear," Mackenzie said, not disposed to
argue the matter, for argument would not change what he knew to be a
fact, nor yet convince Dad Frazer against his reason and experience.
But Mackenzie knew that they were the footprints of a man, and that
the noise of the creature running away from camp was the noise of a
galloping horse.