SWAN CARLSON'S DAY
Dad Frazer came over the hills next morning after the dew was gone.
Mackenzie saw him from afar, and was interested to note that he was
not alone. That is to say, not immediately accompanied by anybody, yet
not alone for a country where a quarter of a mile between men is
rather close company.
Somebody was coming on after the old shepherd, holding about the same
distance behind him in spite of little dashes down slopes that Dad
made when for a moment out of sight. Mackenzie's wonder over this
peculiar behavior grew as the old man came near, and it was discovered
to the eye that his persistent shadow was a woman.
Dad wasted neither words nor breath on his explanation when he came
panting up the slope that brought him to the place where Mackenzie
stood above his sheep.
"It's that dad-burned Rabbit!" he said.
There was something between vexation and respect in Dad's voice. He
turned to look back as he spoke. Rabbit had mounted the hilltop just
across the dip, where she stood looking over at her shifty-footed
lord, two sheep-dogs at her side.
"How did she locate you?" Mackenzie inquired, not in the least
displeased over this outreaching of justice after the fickle old man.
"She's been trailin' me four years!" Dad whispered, his respect for
Rabbit's powers on the scent unmistakable.
"That's a long time to hold a cold trail. Rabbit must be some on the
track!"
"You can't beat them Indians follerin' a man if they set their heads
to it. Well, it's all off with the widow-lady at Four Corners
now--Rabbit's got me nailed. You see them sheep-dogs? Them dogs they'd
jump me the minute Rabbit winked at 'em--they'd chaw me up like a
couple of lions. She's raised 'em up to do it, dad-burn her! Had my
old vest to learn 'em the scent."
"A man never ought to leave his old vest behind him when he runs away
from his wife," said Mackenzie, soberly. "But it looks to me like a
woman with the sticking qualities Rabbit's got isn't a bad one to stay
married to. How in the world could a reservation squaw find her way
around to follow you all this time?"
"She's educated, dang her; she went to the sisters' mission. She can
read and write a sight better than me. She's too smart for a squaw,
bust her greasy eyes! Yes, and I'll never dast to lay a hand on her
with them dogs around. They'd chaw me up quicker'n a man could hang up
his hat."
Rabbit composed herself after her patient but persistent way, sitting
among the bushes with only her head showing, waiting for Dad's next
move.
"You're married to her regularly, are you, Dad?"
"Priest marriage, dang it all!" said Dad, hopelessly.
"Then it _is_ all off with the one-eyed widow."
"Yes, and them four thousand sheep, and that range all under fence,
dang my melts!"
"What are you going to do about Rabbit?"
"It ain't what am I goin' to do about her, John, but what she's goin'
to do about me. She'll never leave me out of her sight a minute as
long as I live. I reckon I'll have to stay right here and run sheep
for Tim, and that widow-lady wonderin' why I don't show up!"
"You might do worse, Dad."
"Yes, I reckon I might. Rabbit she's as good as any man on the range
handlin' sheep, she can draw a man's pay wherever she goes. I guess I
could put her to work, and that'd help some."
Dad brightened a bit at that prospect, and drew his breath with a new
hope. Even with the widow gone from his calculations, the future
didn't promise all loss.
"But I bet you I'll shoot them two dogs the first time I can draw a
bead on 'em!" Dad declared.
"Maybe if you'll treat Rabbit the right way she'll sell them. Call her
over, Dad; I'd like to get acquainted with her."
Dad beckoned with his hand, but Rabbit did not stir; waved his hat to
emphasize his command; Rabbit remained quiet among the bushes, the top
of her black head in plain view.
"She's afraid we've hatched up some kind of a trick between us to work
off on her," said Dad.
"You can't blame her for being a little distrustful, Dad. But let her
go; I'll meet her at your camp one of these days."
"Yes, you'll meet her over there, all right, for she's goin' to stick
to me till I'm under ground. That's one time too many I married--just
one time too many!"
"I suppose a man can overdo it; I've heard it said."
"If I hadn't 'a' left that blame vest!"
"Yes, that seems to be where you blundered. You'll know better next
time, Dad."
"Yes, but there never will be no next time," Dad sighed.
"Have you seen Reid over your way this morning?"
"No, I ain't seen him. Is he still roamin' and restless?"
"He left yesterday; I thought he was going to the ranch."
"Didn't pass my way. That feller's off, I tell you, John; he's one of
the kind that can't stand the lonesomeness. Leave him out here alone
two months, and he'd put a bullet in his eye."
"It seems to me like it's a land of daftness," Mackenzie said.
"You'll find a good many cracked people all over the sheep country--I'm
kind o' cracked myself. I must be, or I never would 'a' left that
vest."
Dad took off his hat to smooth his sweeping curled locks, as white as
shredded asbestos, and full of the same little gleams that mineral
shows when a block of it from the mine is held in the sun. His beard
was whitening over his face again, like a frost that defied the heat
of day, easing its hollows and protuberances, easing some of the
weakness that the barber's razor had laid so pitilessly bare. In a few
days more he would appear himself again, and be ready for the
sheep-shears in due time.
"I reckon I'll have to make the best of the place I'm in, but for a
man of puncture, as the feller said, like I used to think I was, I
sure did miscombobble it when I married that educated squaw. No woman
I ever was married to in my life ever had sense enough to track a man
like that woman's follered me. She sure is a wonder on the scent."
Patiently Rabbit was sitting among the bushes, waiting the turn of
events, not to be fooled again, not to be abandoned, if vigilance
could insure her against such distress. Mackenzie's admiration for the
woman grew with Dad's discomfiture over his plight. There was an added
flavor of satisfaction for him in the old man's blighted career. Wise
Rabbit, to have a priest marriage, and wiser still to follow this old
dodger of the sheeplands and bring him up with a short halter in the
evening of his days.
"I'll go on back and look after them sheep," said Dad, with a certain
sad inflection of resignation; "there's nothing else to _be_ done. I
was aimin' to serve notice on Tim to find another man in my place, but
I might as well keep on. Well, I can set in the shade, anyhow, and let
Rabbit do the work--her and them blame dogs."
Dad sighed. It helped a great deal to know that Rabbit could do the
work. He looked long toward the spot where his unshaken wife kept her
watch on him, but seemed to be looking over her head, perhaps trying
to measure all he had lost by this coming between him and the one-eyed
widow-lady of Four Corners.
"I wonder if I could git you to write a letter over to that widow and
tell her I'm dead?" he asked.
"I'll do it if you want me to. But you're not dead yet, Dad--you may
outlive Rabbit and marry the widow at last."
"I never was no lucky man," said Dad, smoothing his gleaming hair. "A
man that's married and nailed down to one place is the same as dead;
he might as well be in his grave. If I'd 'a' got that widow-lady I'd
'a' had the means and the money to go ridin' around and seein' the
sights from the end of one of them cars with a brass fence around it.
But I'm nailed down now, John; I'm cinched."
Dad was so melancholy over his situation that he went off without more
words, a thing unheard of for him. He gave Rabbit a wide fairway as he
passed. When he was a respectable distance ahead the squaw rose from
her bush and followed, such determination in her silent movements as
to make Dad's hope for future freedom hollow indeed. The old man was
cinched at last; Mackenzie was glad that it was so.
The sound of Carlson's sheep was still near that morning, and coming
nearer, as whoever attended them ranged them slowly along. Mackenzie
went a little way across the hill in that direction, but could not see
the shepherd, although the sheep were spread on the slope just before
him. It was a small flock, numbering not above seven hundred.
Mackenzie was puzzled why Swan wanted to employ his own or his wife's
time in grazing so small a number, when four times as many could be
handled as easily.
This question was to be answered for him very soon, and in a way which
he never had imagined. Yet there was no foreboding of it in the calm
noonday as he prepared his dinner in the shade of some welcome
willows, the heat glimmering over the peaceful hills.
It was while Mackenzie sat dozing in the fringe of shade such as a
hedge would cast at noonday that the snarl of fighting dogs brought
him up to a realization of what was going forward among the sheep. His
own flock had drifted like a slow cloud to the point of the long
ridge, and there Swan Carlson's band had joined it. The two flocks
were mingling now, and on the edge of the confused mass his own dogs
and Carlson's were fighting.
Swan was not in sight; nobody seemed to be looking after the sheep; it
appeared as if they had been left to drift as they might to this
conjunction with Mackenzie's flock. Mackenzie believed Mrs. Carlson
had abandoned her charge and fled Swan's cruelty, but he did not
excuse himself for his own stupidity in allowing the flocks to come
together as he ran to the place where his dogs and Carlson's fought.
The sheep were becoming more hopelessly mingled through this commotion
on their flank. Mackenzie was beating the enraged dogs apart when Swan
Carlson came running around the point of the hill.
Swan immediately took part in the melee of gnashing, rolling, rearing
dogs, laying about among them with impartial hand, quickly subduing
them to obedience. He stood looking stonily at Mackenzie, unmoved by
anger, unflushed by exertion. In that way he stood silent a little
while, his face untroubled by any passion that rolled in his breast.
"You're runnin' your sheep over on my grass--what?" said Swan.
"You're a mile over my range," Mackenzie accused.
"You've been crowdin' over on me for a month," Swan said, "and I
didn't say nothing. But when a man tries to run his sheep over amongst
mine and drive 'em off, I take a hand."
"If anybody's tryin' such a game as that, it's you," Mackenzie told
him. "Get 'em out of here, and keep 'em out."
"I got fifteen hundred in that band--you'll have to help me cut 'em
out," said Swan.
"You had about seven hundred," Mackenzie returned, dispassionately,
although it broke on him suddenly what the big flockmaster was trying
to put through.
Counting on Mackenzie's greenness, and perhaps on the simplicity of
his nature as they had read it in the sheep country, Swan had prepared
this trap days ahead. He had run a small band of the same breed as
Sullivan's sheep--for that matter but one breed was extensively grown
on the range--over to the border of Tim's lease with the intention of
mingling them and driving home more than he had brought. Mackenzie
never had heard of the trick being worked on a green herder, but he
realized now how simply it could be done, opportunity such as this
presenting.
But it was one thing to bring the sheep over and another thing to take
them away. One thing Mackenzie was sure of, and that was the judgment
of his eyes in numbering sheep. That had been Dad Frazer's first
lesson, and the old man had kept him at it until he could come within
a few head among hundreds at a glance.
"I'll help you cut out as many as you had," Mackenzie said, running
his eyes over the mingled flocks, "they're all alike, one as good as
another, I guess. It looks like you got your stock from this ranch,
anyhow, but you'll not take more than seven hundred this trip."
"My dogs can cut mine out, they know 'em by the smell," Swan said. "I
had fifteen hundred, and I bet you I'll take fifteen hundred back."
The dogs had drawn off, each set behind their respective masters,
panting, eyeing each other with hostility, one rising now and then
with growls, threatening to open the battle again. The sheep drifted
about in confusion, so thoroughly mingled now that it would be past
human power to separate them again and apportion each respective head
to its rightful owner.
"Seven hundred, at the outside," Mackenzie said again. "And keep them
off of my grass when you get 'em."
Carlson stood where he had stopped, ten feet or more distant, his arms
bare, shirt open on his breast in his way of picturesque freedom.
Mackenzie waited for him to proceed in whatever way he had planned,
knowing there could be no compromise, no settlement in peace. He would
either have to yield entirely and allow Carlson to drive off seven or
eight hundred of Sullivan's sheep, or fight. There didn't seem to be
much question on how it would come out in the latter event, for
Carlson was not armed, and Mackenzie's pistol was that moment under
his hand.
"You got a gun on you," said Swan, in casual, disinterested tone. "I
ain't got no gun on me, but I'm a better man without no gun than you
are with one. I'm goin' to take my fifteen hundred sheep home with me,
and you ain't man enough to stop me."
Carlson's two dogs were sitting close behind him, one of them a gaunt
gray beast that seemed almost a purebred wolf. Its jaws were bloody
from its late encounter; flecks of blood were on its gray coat. It sat
panting and alert, indifferent to Mackenzie's presence, watching the
sheep as if following its own with its savage eyes. Suddenly Carlson
spoke an explosive word, clapping his great hands, stamping his foot
toward Mackenzie.
Mackenzie fired as the wolf-dog sprang, staggering back from the
weight of its lank body hurled against his breast, and fired again as
he felt the beast's vile breath in his face as it snapped close to his
throat.
Mackenzie emptied his pistol in quick, but what seemed ineffectual,
shots at the other dog as it came leaping at Carlson's command. In an
instant he was involved in a confusion of man and dog, the body of the
wolfish collie impeding his feet as he fought.
Carlson and the other dog pressed the attack so quickly that Mackenzie
had no time to slip even another cartridge into his weapon. Carlson
laughed as he clasped him in his great arms, the dog clinging to
Mackenzie's pistol hand, and in a desperate moment it was done.
Mackenzie was lying on his back, the giant sheepman's knee in his
chest.
Carlson did not speak after ordering the dog away. He held Mackenzie a
little while, hand on his throat, knee on his chest, looking with
unmoved features down into his eyes, as if he considered whether to
make an end of him there or let him go his way in added humiliation
and disgrace. Mackenzie lay still under Carlson's hand, trying to read
his intention in his clear, ice-cold, expressionless eyes, watching
for his moment to renew the fight which he must push under such
hopeless disadvantage.
Swan's eyes betrayed nothing of his thoughts. They were as calm and
untroubled as the sky, which Mackenzie thought, with a poignant sweep
of transcendant fear for his life, he never had beheld so placid and
beautiful as in that dreadful moment.
Carlson's huge fingers began to tighten in the grip of death; relax,
tighten, each successive clutch growing longer, harder. The joy of his
strength, the pleasure in the agony that spoke from his victim's face,
gleamed for a moment in Carlson's eyes as he bent, gazing; then
flickered like a light in the wind, and died.
Mackenzie's revolver lay not more than four feet from his hand. He
gathered his strength for a struggle to writhe from under Carlson's
pressing knee. Carlson, anticipating his intention, reached for the
weapon and snatched it, laying hold of it by the barrel.
Mackenzie's unexpected renewal of the fight surprised Carlson into
releasing his strangling hold. He rose to sitting posture, breast to
breast with the fighting sheepman, whose great bulk towered above him,
free breath in his nostrils, fresh hope in his heart. He fought
desperately to come to his feet, Carlson sprawling over him, the
pistol lifted high for a blow.
Mackenzie's hands were clutching Carlson's throat, he was on one knee,
swaying the Norseman's body back in the strength of despair, when the
heavens seemed to crash above him, the fragments of universal
destruction burying him under their weight.