Flying U Ranch
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B. M. Bower >> Flying U Ranch
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"We haven't tried," Pink defended. "It kinda looked to us as if
he was aiming to make us guy him; so we didn't. We've left him
strictly alone. To-day"--he glanced over his shoulder to where
the becurled chaps swung comically from the willow
branch--"to-day's the first time anybody's made a move. Unless,"
he added, as an afterthought, "you count yesterday in the 'doby
patch--and even then we didn't tell him to ride into it; we just
let him do it."
"And kinda herded him over towards it," Cal amended slyly.
"Can he ride?" asked Andy, going straight to the main point, in
the mind of a cowpuncher.
"W-e-ell-he hasn't been piled, so far. But then," Pink qualified
hastily, "he hasn't topped anything worse than Crow- hop. He
ain't hard to ride. Happy Jack could--"
"Aw, I'm gittin' good and sick of' hearin' that there tune,"
Happy growled indignantly. "Why don't you point out Slim as the
limit, once in a while?"
"Come on down to the stable, and let's talk it over," Andy
suggested, and led the way. "What's his style, anyway? Mouthy, or
what?"
With four willing tongues to enlighten him, it would be strange,
indeed, if one so acute as Andy Green failed at last to have a
very fair mental picture of Miguel. He gazed thoughtfully at his
boots, laughed suddenly, and slapped Irish quite painfully upon
the back.
"Come on up and introduce me, boys," he said. "We'll make this
Native Son so hungry for home--you watch me put it on the
gentleman. Only it does seem a shame to do it."
"No, it ain't. If you'd been around him for two weeks, you'd want
to kill him just to make him take notice," Irish assured him.
"What gets me," Andy mused, "is why you fellows come crying to me
for help. I should think the bunch of you ought to be able to
handle one lone Native Son."
"Aw, you're the biggest liar and faker in the bunch, is why,"
Happy Jack blurted.
"Oh, I see." Andy hummed a little tune and pushed his hands deep
into his pockets, and at the corners of his lips there flickered
a smile.
The Native Son sat with his hat tilted slightly back upon his
head and a cigarette between his lips, and was reaching lazily
for the trick which made the fourth game his, when the group
invaded the bunk-house. He looked up indifferently, swept Andy's
face and figure with a glance too impersonal to hold even a shade
of curiosity, and began rapidly shuffling his cards to count the
points he had made.
Andy stopped short, just inside the door, and stared hard at
Miguel, who gave no sign. He turned his honest, gray eyes upon
Pink and Irish accusingly--whereat they wondered greatly.
"Your deal--if you want to play," drawled Miguel, and shoved his
cards toward Big Medicine. But the boys were already uptilting
chairs to grasp the quicker the outstretched hand of the
prodigal, so that Miguel gathered up the cards, evened their
edges mechanically, and deigned another glance at this stranger
who was being welcomed so vociferously. Also he sighed a bit--
for even a languid-eyed stoic of a Native Son may feel the twinge
of loneliness. Andy shook hands all round, swore amiably at
Weary, and advanced finally upon Miguel.
"You don't know me from Adam's off ox," he began genially, "but I
know you, all right, all right. I hollered my head off with the
rest of 'em when you played merry hell in that bull-ring, last
Christmas. Also, I was part of your bodyguard when them greasers
were trying to tickle you in the ribs with their knives in that
dark alley. Shake, old-timer! You done yourself proud, and I'm
glad to know yuh!"
Miguel, for the first time in two weeks, permitted himself the
luxury of an expressive countenance. He gave Andy Green one
quick, grateful look--and a smile, the like of which made the
Happy Family quiver inwardly with instinctive sympathy.
"So you were there, too, eh?" Miguel exclaimed softly, and rose
to greet him. "And that scrap in the alley--we sure had a hell of
a time there for a few minutes, didn't we? Are you that tall
fellow who kicked that squint-eyed greaser in the stomach? Muchos
gracios, senor! They were piling on me three deep, right then,
and I always believed they'd have got me, only for a tall vaquero
I couldn't locate afterward." He smiled again that wonderful
smile, which lighted the darkness of his eyes as with a flame,
and murmured a sentence or two in Spanish.
"Did you get the spurs me and my friends sent you afterward?"
asked Andy eagerly. "We heard about the Arizona boys giving you
the saddle--and we raked high and low for them spurs. And, by
gracious, they were beauts, too--did yuh get 'em?"
"I wear them every day I ride," answered Miguel, a peculiar,
caressing note in his voice.
"I didn't know--we heard you had disappeared off the earth.
Why--"
Miguel laughed outright. "To fight a bull with bare hands is one
thing, amigo," he said. "To take a chance on getting a knife
stuck in your back is another. Those Mexicans--they don't love
the man who crosses the river and makes of their bull-fights a
plaything."
"That's right; only I thought, you being a--"
"Not a Mexican." Miguel's voice sharpened a trifle. "My father
was Spanish, yes. My mother"--his eyes flashed briefly at the
faces of the gaping Happy Family--"my mother was born in
Ireland."
"And that sure makes a hard combination to beat," cried Andy
heartily. He looked at the others--at all, that is, save Pink and
Irish, who had disappeared. "Well, boys, I never thought I'd come
home and find--"
"Miguel Rapponi," supplied the Native Son quickly. "As well
forget that other name. And," he added with the shrug which the
Happy Family had come to hate, "as well forget the story, also. I
am not hungry for the feel of a knife in my back." He smiled
again engagingly at Andy Green. It was astonishing how readily
that smile had sprung to life with the warmth of a little
friendship, and how pleasant it was, withal.
"Just as you say," Andy agreed, not trying to hide his
admiration. "I guess nobody's got a better right to holler for
silence. But--say, you sure delivered the goods, old boy! You
musta read about it, you fellows; about the American puncher that
went over the line and rode one of their crack bulls all round
the ring, and then--" He stopped and looked apologetically at
Miguel, in whose dark eyes there flashed a warning light. "I
clean forgot," he confessed impulsively. "This meeting you here
unexpectedly, like this, has kinda got me rattled, I guess.
But--I never saw yuh before in my life," he declared
emphatically. "I don't know a darn thing about--anything that
ever happened in an alley in the city of--oh, come on, old-timer;
let's talk about the weather, or something safe!"
After that the boys of the Flying U behaved very much as do
children who have quarreled foolishly and are trying shamefacedly
to re-establish friendly relations without the preliminary
indignity of open repentance. They avoided meeting the
velvet-eyed glances of Miguel, and at the same time they were
plainly anxious to include him in their talk as if that had been
their habit from the first. A difficult situation to meet, even
with the fine aplomb of the Happy Family to ease the awkwardness.
Later Miguel went unobtrusively down to the creek after his
chaps; he did not get them, just then, but he stood for a long
time hidden behind the willow-fringe, watching Pink and Irish
feverishly combing out certain corkscrew ringlets, and dampening
their combs in the creek to facilitate the process of
straightening certain patches of rebellious frizzes. Miguel did
not laugh aloud, as Big Medicine had done. He stood until he
wearied of the sight, then lifted his shoulders in the gesture
which may mean anything, smiled and went his way.
Not until dusk did Andy get a private word with him. When he did
find him alone, he pumped Miguel's hand up and down and afterward
clutched at the manger for support, and came near strangling.
Miguel leaned beside him and smiled to himself.
"Good team work, old boy," Andy gasped at length, in a whisper.
"Best I ever saw in m'life, impromptu on the spot, like that. I
saw you had the makings in you, soon as I caught your eye. And
the whole, blame bunch fell for it--woo-oof!" He laid his face
down again upon his folded arms and shook in all the long length
of him.
"They had it coming," said Miguel softly, with a peculiar relish.
"Two whole weeks, and never a friendly word from one of them--oh,
hell!"
"I know--I heard it all, soon as I hit the ranch," Andy replied
weakly, standing up and wiping his eyes. "I just thought I'd
learn 'em a lesson--and the way you played up--say, my hat's off
to you, all right!"
"One learns to seize opportunities without stuttering," Miguel
observed calmly--and a queer look came into his eyes as they
rested upon the face of Andy. "And, if the chance comes, I'll do
as much for you. By the way, did you see the saddle those Arizona
boys sent me? It's over here. It's a pip-pin--almost as fine as
the spurs, which I keep in the bunk-house when they're not on my
heels. And, if I didn't say so before, I'm sure glad to meet the
man that helped me through that alley. That big, fat devil would
have landed me, sure, if you hadn't--"
"Ah--what?" Andy leaned and peered into the face of Miguel, his
jaw hanging slack. "You don't mean to tell me--it's true?"
"True? Why, I thought you were the fellow--" Miguel faced him
steadily. His eyes were frankly puzzled.
"I'll tell you the truth, so help me," Andy said heavily. "I
don't know a darned thing about it, only what I read in the
papers. I spent the whole winter in Colorado and Wyoming. I was
just joshing the boys."
"Oh," said Miguel.
They stood there in the dusk and silence for a space, after which
Andy went forth into the night to meditate upon this thing.
Miguel stood and looked after him.
"He's the real goods when it comes to lying--but there are
others," he said aloud, and smiled a peculiar smile. But for all
that he felt that he was going to like Andy very much indeed.
And, since the Happy Family had shown a disposition to make him
one of themselves, he knew that he was going to become quite as
foolishly attached to the Flying U as was even Slim, confessedly
the most rabid of partisans.
In this wise did Miguel Rapponi, then, become a member of Jim
Whitmore's Happy Family, and play his part in the events which
followed his adoption.
CHAPTER III. Bad News
Andy Green, that honest-eyed young man whom everyone loved, but
whom not a man believed save when he was indulging his love for
more or less fantastic flights of the imagination, pulled up on
the brow of Flying U coulee and stared somberly at the picture
spread below him. On the porch of the White House the hammock
swung gently under the weight of the Little Doctor, who pushed
her shipper-toe mechanically against a post support at regular
intervals while she read.
On the steps the Kid was crawling laboriously upward, only to
descend again quite as laboriously when he attained the top. One
of the boys was just emerging from the blacksmith shop; from the
build of him Andy knew it must be either Weary or Irish, though
it would take a much closer observation, and some familiarity
with the two to identify the man more exactly. In the corral were
a swirl of horses and an overhanging cloud of dust, with two or
three figures discernible in the midst, and away in the little
pasture two other figures were galloping after a fleeing dozen of
horses. While he looked, old Patsy came out of the messhouse, and
went, with flapping flour-sack apron, to the woodpile.
Peaceful it was, and home-like and contentedly prosperous; a
little world tucked away in its hills, with its own little
triumphs and defeats, its own heartaches and rejoicings; a lucky
little world, because its triumphs had been satisfying, its
defeats small, its heartaches brief, and its rejoicings untainted
with harassment or guilt. Yet Andy stared down upon it with a
frown; and, when he twitched the reins and began the descent, he
sighed impatiently.
Past the stable he rode with scarcely a glance toward Weary, who
shouted a casual "Hello" at him from the corral; through the big
gate and up the trail to the White House, and straight to the
porch, where the Little Doctor flipped a leaf of her magazine and
glanced at him with a smile, and the Kid turned his plump body
upon the middle step and wrinkled his nose in a smile of
recognition, while he threw out an arm in welcome, and made a
wobbling effort to get upon his feet.
Andy smiled at the Kid, but his smile did not reach his eyes, and
faded almost immediately. He glanced at the Little Doctor, sent
his horse past the steps and the Kid, and close to the railing,
so that he could lean and toss the mail into the Little Doctor's
lap. There was a yellow envelope among the letters, and her
fingers singled it out curiously. Andy folded his hands upon the
saddle-horn and watched her frankly.
"Must be from J. G.," guessed the Little Doctor, inserting a slim
finger under the badly sealed flap. "I've been wondering if he
wasn't going to send some word--he's been gone a week--Baby! He's
right between your horse's legs, Andy! Oh-h--baby boy, what won't
you do next?" She scattered letters and papers from her lap and
flew to the rescue. "Will he kick, Andy? You little ruffian." She
held out her arms coaxingly from the top of the steps, and her
face, Andy saw when he looked at her, had lost some of its color.
"The horse is quiet enough," he reassured her. "But at the same
time I wouldn't hand him out as a plaything for a kid." He leaned
cautiously and peered backward.
"Oh--did you ever see such a child! Come to mother, Baby!" Her
voice was becoming strained.
The Kid, wrinkling his nose, and jabbering unintelligibly at her,
so that four tiny teeth showed in his pink mouth, moved farther
backward, and sat down violently under the horse's sweat-
roughened belly. He wriggled round so that he faced forward,
reached out gleefully, caught the front fetlocks, and cried
"Dup!" while he pulled. The Little Doctor turned white.
"He's all right," soothed Andy, and, leaning with a twist of his
slim body, caught the Kid firmly by the back of his pink dress,
and lifted him clear of danger. He came up with a red face,
tossed the Kid into the eager arms of the Little Doctor, and
soothed his horse with soft words and a series of little slaps
upon the neck. He was breathing unevenly, because the Kid had
really been in rather a ticklish position; but the Little Doctor
had her face hidden on the baby's neck and did not see.
"Where's Chip?" Andy turned to ride back to the stable, glancing
toward the telegram lying on the floor of the porch; and from it
his eyes went to the young woman trying to laugh away her
trembling while she scolded adoringly her adventurous man-child.
He was about to speak again, but thought better of it, and
sighed.
"Down at the stables somewhere--I don't know, really; the boys
can tell you. Mother's baby mustn't touch the naughty horses.
Naughty horses hurt mother's baby! Make him cry!"
Andy gave her a long look, which had in it much pity, and rode
away. He knew what was in that telegram, for the agent had told
him when he hunted him up at Rusty Brown's and gave it to him;
and the horse of Andy bore mute testimony to the speed with which
he had brought it to the ranch. Not until he had reached the
coulee had he slackened his pace. He decided, after that glance,
that he would not remind her that she had not read the telegram;
instead, he thought he ought to find Chip immediately and send
him to her.
Chip was rummaging after something in the store-house, and, when
Andy saw him there, he dismounted and stood blotting out the
light from the doorway. Chip looked up, said "Hello" carelessly,
and flung an old slicker aside that he might search beneath it.
"Back early, aren't you?" he asked, for sake of saying something.
Andy's attitude was not as casual as he would have had it.
"Say, maybe you better go on up to the house," he began
diffidently. "I guess your wife wants to see yuh, maybe."
"Just as a good wife should," grinned Chip. "What's the matter?
Kid fall off the porch?"
"N-o-o--I brought out a wire from Chicago. It's from a doctor
there--some hospital. The--Old Man got hurt. One of them cussed
automobiles knocked him down. They want you to come."
Chip had straightened up and was hooking at Andy blankly. "If
you're just--"
"Honest," Andy asserted, and flushed a little. "I'll go tell some
one to catch up the team--you'll want to make that 11:20, I take
it." He added, as Chip went by him hastily, "I had the agent wire
for sleeper berths on the 11:20 so--"
"Thanks. Yes, you have the team caught up, Andy." Chip was
already well on his way to the house.
Andy waited till he saw the Little Doctor come hurriedly to the
end of the porch overlooking the pathway, with the telegram
fluttering in her fingers, and then led his horse down through
the gate and to the stable. He yanked the saddle off, turned the
tired animal into a stall, and went on to the corral, where he
leaned elbows on a warped rail and peered through at the turmoil
within. Close beside him stood Weary, with his loop dragging
behind him, waiting for a chance to throw it over the head of a
buckskin three-year-old with black mane and tail.
"Get in here and make a hand, why don't you?" Weary bantered, his
eye on the buckskin. "Good chance to make a 'rep' for yourself,
Andy. Gawd greased that buckskin--he sure can slide out from
under a rope as easy--"
He broke off to flip the hoop dexterously forward, had the reward
of seeing the buckskin dodge backward, so that the rope barely
flicked him on the nose, and drew in his rope disgustedly. "Come
on, Andy--my hands are up in the air; I can't land him-- that's
the fourth throw."
Andy's interest in the buckskin, however, was scant. His face was
sober, his whole attitude one of extreme dejection.
"You got the tummy-ache?" Pink inquired facetiously, moving
around so that he got a fair look at his face.
"Naw--his girl's went back on him!" Happy Jack put in, coiling
his rope as he came up.
"Oh, shut up!" Andy's voice was sharp with trouble. "Boys, the
Old Man's--well, he's most likely dead by this time. I brought
out a telegram--"
"Go on!" Pink's eyes widened incredulously. "Don't you try that
kind of a load, Andy Green, or I'll just about--"
"Oh, you fellows make me sick!" Andy took his elbows off the rail
and stood straight. "Dammit, the telegram's up at the house--go
and read it yourselves, then!"
The three stared after him doubtfully, fear struggling with the
caution born of much experience.
"He don't act, to me, like he was putting up a josh," Weary
stated uneasily, after a minute of silence. "Run up to the house
and find out, Cadwalloper. The Old Man--oh, good Lord!" The tan
on Weary's face took a lighter tinge. "Scoot--it won't take but a
minute to find out for sure. Go on, Pink."
"So help me Josephine, I'll kill that same Andy Green if he's
lied about it," Pink declared, while he climbed the fence.
In three minutes he was back, and before he had said a word, his
face confirmed the bad news. Their eyes besought him for details,
and he gave them jerkily. "Automobile run over him. He ain't
dead, but they think--Chip and the Little Doctor are going to
catch the night train. You go haze in the team, Happy. And give
'em a feed of oats, Chip said."
Irish and Big Medicine, seeing the, three standing soberly
together there, and sensing something unusual, came up and heard
the news in stunned silence. Andy, forgetting his pique at their
first disbelief, came forlornly back and stood with them.
The Old Man--the thing could not be true! To every man of them
his presence, conjured by the impending tragedy, was almost a
palpable thing. His stocky figure seemed almost to stand in their
midst; he looked at them with his whimsical eyes, which had the
radiating crows-feet of age, humor and habitual squinting against
sun and wind; the bald spot on his head, the wrinkling
shirt-collar that seldom knew a tie, the carpet slippers which
were his favorite footgear because they were kind to his bunions,
his husky voice, good-naturedly complaining, were poignantly real
to them at that moment. Then Irish mentally pictured him lying
maimed, dying, perhaps, in a far-off hospital among strangers,
and swore.
"If he's got to die, it oughta be here, where folks know him
and--where he knows--" Irish was not accustomed to giving voice
to his deeper feelings, and he blundered awkwardly over it.
"I never did go much on them darned hospitals, anyway," Weary
observed gloomily. "He oughta be home, where folks can look after
him. Mam-ma! It sure is a fright."
"I betche Chip and the Little Doctor won't get there in time,"
Happy Jack predicted, with his usual pessimism. "The Old Man's
gittin' old--"
"He ain't but fifty-two; yuh call that old, consarn yuh? He's
younger right now than you'll be when you're forty."
"Countess is going along, too, so she can ride herd on the Kid,"
Pink informed then. "I heard the Little Doctor tell her to pack
up, and 'never mind if she did have sponge all set!' Countess
seemed to think her bread was a darned sight more important than
the Old Man. That's the way with women. They'll pass up--"
"Well, by golly, I like to see a woman take some interest in her
own affairs," Slim defended. "What they packin' up for, and where
they goin'?" Slim had just ridden up to the group in time to
overhear Pink's criticism.
They told him the news, and Slim swallowed twice, said "By
golly!" quite huskily, and then rode slowly away with his head
bowed. He had worked for the Flying U when it was strictly a
bachelor outfit, and with the tenacity of slow minds he held J.
G. Whitmore, his beloved "Old Man," as but a degree lower than
that mysterious power which made the sun to shine--and, if the
truth were known, he had accepted him as being quite as eternal.
His loyalty adjusted everything to the interests of the Flying U.
That the Old Man could die--the possibility stunned him.
They were a sorry company that gathered that night around the
long table with its mottled oil-cloth covering and benches
polished to a glass-like smoothness with their own vigorous
bodies. They did not talk much about the Old Man; indeed, they
came no nearer the subject than to ask Weary if he were going to
drive the team in to Dry Lake. They did not talk much about
anything, for that matter; even the knives and forks seemed to
share the general depression of spirits, and failed to give forth
the cheerful clatter which was a daily accompaniment of meals in
that room.
Old Patsy, he who had cooked for J. G. Whitmore when the Flying U
coulee was a wilderness and the brand yet unrecorded and the
irons unmade--Patsy lumbered heavily about the room and could not
find his dish-cloth when it was squeezed tight in one great, fat
hand, and unthinkingly started to fill their coffee cups from the
tea-kettle.
"Py cosh, I vould keel der fool vot made her first von of der
automo-beels, yet!" he exclaimed unexpectedly, after a long
silence, and cast his pipe vindictively toward his bunk in one
corner.
The Happy Family looked around at him, then understandingly at
one another.
"Same here, Patsy," Jack Bates agreed. "What they want of the
damned things when the country's full uh good horses gits me."
"So some Yahoo with just sense enough to put goggles on to cover
up his fool face can run over folks he ain't good enough to speak
to, by cripes!" Big Medicine glared aggressively up and down the
table.
Weary got up suddenly and went out, and Slim followed him, though
his supper was half-uneaten.
"This goin' to be hard on the Little Doctor--only brother she's
got," they heard Happy Jack point out unnecessarily; and Weary,
the equable, was guilty of slamming the door so that the whole
building shook, by way of demonstrating his dislike of speech
upon the subject.
They were a sorry company who waved hands at the Little Doctor
and the Kid and the Countess, just when the afterglow of a red
sunset was merging into the vague, purple shadows of coming dusk.
They stood silent, for the most part, and let them go without the
usual facetious advice to "Be good to yourselves," and the
hackneyed admonition to Chip to keep out of jail if he could.
There must have been something very wistful in their faces, for
the Little Doctor smiled bravely down upon then from the buggy
seat, and lifted up the Kid for a four-toothed smile and an
ecstatic "Bye!" accompanied by a vigorous flopping of hands,
which included then all.
"We'll telegraph first thing, boys," the Little Doctor called
back, as the rig chucked into the pebbly creek crossing. "We'll
keep you posted, and I'll write all the particulars as soon as I
can. Don't think the worst--unless you have to. I don't." She
smiled again, and waved her hand hastily because of the Kid's
contortions; and, though the smile had tears close behind it,
though her voice was tremulous in spite of herself, the Happy
Family took heart from her courage and waved their hats gravely,
and smiled back as best they could.
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