Arizona Nights
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Stewart Edward White >> Arizona Nights
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In fact, I never saw anybody take to the wild life as eagerly as
the Honourable Timothy Clare. He wanted to attempt everything.
With him it was no sooner see than try, and he had such an
abundance of enthusiasm that he generally succeeded. The balloon
pants soon went. In a month his outfit was irreproachable. He
used to study us by the hour, taking in every detail of our
equipment, from the smallest to the most important. Then he
asked questions. For all his desire to be one of the country, he
was never ashamed to acknowledge his ignorance.
"Now, don't you chaps think it silly to wear such high heels to
your boots?" he would ask. "It seems to me a very useless sort
of vanity."
"No vanity about it, Tim," I explained. "In the first place, it
keeps your foot from slipping through the stirrup. In the second
place, it is good to grip on the ground when you're roping
afoot."
"By Jove, that's true!" he cried.
So he'd get him a pair of boots. For a while it was enough to
wear and own all these things. He seemed to delight in his
six-shooter and his rope just as ornaments to himself and horse.
But he soon got over that. Then he had to learn to use them.
For the time being, pistol practice, for instance, would absorb
all his thoughts. He'd bang away at intervals all day, and
figure out new theories all night.
"That bally scheme won't work," he would complain. "I believe if
I extended my thumb along the cylinder it would help that side
jump."
He was always easing the trigger-pull, or filing the sights. In
time he got to be a fairly accurate and very quick shot.
The same way with roping and hog-tying and all the rest.
"What's the use?" I used to ask him. "If you were going to be a
buckeroo, you couldn't go into harder training."
"I like it," was always his answer.
He had only one real vice, that I could see. He would gamble.
Stud poker was his favourite; and I never saw a Britisher yet who
could play poker. I used to head him off, when I could, and he
was always grateful, but the passion was strong.
After we got back from founding Tombstone I was busted and had to
go to work.
"I've got plenty," said Tim, "and it's all yours."
"I know, old fellow," I told him, "but your money wouldn't do for
me."
Buck Johnson was just seeing his chance then, and was preparing
to take some breeding cattle over into the Soda Springs Valley.
Everybody laughed at him--said it was right in the line of the
Chiricahua raids, which was true. But Buck had been in there
with Agency steers, and thought he knew. So he collected a trail
crew, brought some Oregon cattle across, and built his home ranch
of three-foot adobe walls with portholes. I joined the trail
crew; and somehow or another the Honourable Timothy got
permission to go along on his own hook.
The trail was a long one. We had thirst and heat and stampedes
and some Indian scares. But in the queer atmospheric conditions
that prevailed that summer, I never saw the desert more
wonderful. It was like waking to the glory of God to sit up at
dawn and see the colours change on the dry ranges.
At the home ranch, again, Tim managed to get permission to stay
on. He kept his own mount of horses, took care of them, hunted,
and took part in all the cow work. We lost some cattle from
Indians, of course, but it was too near the Reservation for them
to do more than pick up a few stray head on their way through.
The troops were always after them full jump, and so they never
had time to round up the beef. But of course we had to look out
or we'd lose our hair, and many a cowboy has won out to the home
ranch in an almighty exciting race. This was nuts for the
Honourable Timothy Clare, much better than hunting silver-tips,
and he enjoyed it no limit.
Things went along that way for some time, until one evening as
I was turning out the horses a buckboard drew in, and from it
descended Tony Briggs and a dapper little fellow dressed all
in black and with a plug hat.
"Which I accounts for said hat reachin' the ranch, because it's
Friday and the boys not in town," Tony whispered to me.
As I happened to be the only man in sight, the stranger addressed
me.
"I am looking," said he in a peculiar, sing-song manner I have
since learned to be English, "for the Honourable Timothy Clare.
Is he here?"
"Oh, you're looking for him are you?" said I. "And who might you
be?"
You see, I liked Tim, and I didn't intend to deliver him over
into trouble.
The man picked a pair of eye-glasses off his stomach where they
dangled at the end of a chain, perched them on his nose, and
stared me over. I must have looked uncompromising, for after a
few seconds he abruptly wrinkled his nose so that the glasses
fell promptly to his stomach again, felt his waistcoat pocket,
and produced a card. I took it, and read:
JEFFRIES CASE, Barrister.
"A lawyer!" said I suspiciously.
"My dear man," he rejoined with a slight impatience, "I am not
here to do your young friend a harm. In fact, my firm have been
his family solicitors for generations."
"Very well," I agreed, and led the way to the one-room adobe that
Tim and I occupied.
If I had expected an enthusiastic greeting for the boyhood friend
from the old home, I would have been disappointed. Tim was
sitting with his back to the door reading an old magazine. When
we entered he glanced over his shoulder.
"Ah, Case," said he, and went on reading. After a moment he said
without looking up, "Sit down."
The little man took it calmly, deposited himself in a chair and
his bag between his feet, and looked about him daintily at our
rough quarters. I made a move to go, whereupon Tim laid down his
magazine, yawned, stretched his arms over his head, and sighed.
"Don't go, Harry," he begged. "Well, Case," he addressed the
barrister, "what is it this time? Must be something devilish
important to bring you--how many thousand miles is it--into such
a country as this."
"It is important, Mr. Clare," stated the lawyer in his dry
sing-song tones; "but my journey might have been avoided had you
paid some attention to my letters."
"Letters!" repeated Tim, opening his eyes. "My dear chap, I've
had no letters."
"Addressed as usual to your New York bankers."
Tim laughed softly. "Where they are, with my last two quarters'
allowance. I especially instructed them to send me no mail. One
spends no money in this country." He paused, pulling his
moustache. "I'm truly sorry you had to come so far," he
continued, "and if your business is, as I suspect, the old one of
inducing me to return to my dear uncle's arms, I assure you the
mission will prove quite fruitless. Uncle Hillary and I could
never live in the same county, let alone the same house."
"And yet your uncle, the Viscount Mar, was very fond of you,"
ventured Case. "Your allowances--"
"Oh, I grant you his generosity in MONEY affairs--"
"He has continued that generosity in the terms of his will, and
those terms I am here to communicate to you."
"Uncle Hillary is dead!" cried Tim.
"He passed away the sixteenth of last June."
A slight pause ensued.
"I am ready to hear you," said Tim soberly, at last.
The barrister stooped and began to fumble with his bag.
"No, not that!" cried Tim, with some impatience. "Tell me in
your own words."
The lawyer sat back and pressed his finger points together over
his stomach.
"The late Viscount," said he, "has been graciously pleased to
leave you in fee simple his entire estate of Staghurst, together
with its buildings, rentals, and privileges. This, besides the
residential rights, amounts to some ten thousands pounds sterling
per annum."
"A little less than fifty thousand dollars a year, Harry," Tim
shot over his shoulder at me.
"There is one condition," put in the lawyer.
"Oh, there is!" exclaimed Tim, his crest falling. "Well, knowing
my Uncle Hillary--"
"The condition is not extravagant," the lawyer hastily
interposed. "It merely entails continued residence in England,
and a minimum of nine months on the estate. This provision is
absolute, and the estate reverts in its discontinuance, but may I
be permitted to observe that the majority of men, myself among
the number, are content to spend the most of their lives, not
merely in the confines of a kingdom, but between the four walls
of a room, for much less than ten thousand pounds a year. Also
that England is not without its attractions for an Englishman,
and that Staghurst is a country place of many possibilities."
The Honourable Timothy had recovered from his first surprise.
"And if the conditions are not complied with?" he inquired.
"Then the estate reverts to the heirs at law, and you receive an
annuity of one hundred pounds, payable quarterly."
"May I ask further the reason for this extraordinary condition?"
"My distinguished client never informed me," replied the lawyer,
"but"--and a twinkle appeared in his eye--"as an occasional
disburser of funds--Monte Carlo--"
Tim burst out laughing.
"Oh, but I recognise Uncle Hillary there!" he cried. "Well, Mr.
Case, I am sure Mr. Johnson, the owner of this ranch, can put you
up, and to-morrow we'll start back."
He returned after a few minutes to find me sitting' smoking a
moody pipe. I liked Tim, and I was sorry to have him go. Then,
too, I was ruffled, in the senseless manner of youth, by the
sudden altitude to which his changed fortunes had lifted him.
He stood in the middle of the room, surveying me, then came
across and laid his arm on my shoulder.
"Well," I growled, without looking up, "you're a very rich man
now, Mr. Clare."
At that he jerked me bodily out of my seat and stood me up in the
centre of the room, the Irish blazing out of his eyes.
"Here, none of that!" he snapped. "You damn little fool! Don't
you 'Mr. Clare' me!"
So in five minutes we were talking it over. Tim was very much
excited at the prospect. He knew Staghurst well, and told me all
about the big stone house, and the avenue through the trees; and
the hedge-row roads, and the lawn with its peacocks, and the
round green hills, and the labourers' cottages.
"It's home," said he, "and I didn't realise before how much I
wanted to see it. And I'll be a man of weight there, Harry, and
it'll be mighty good."
We made all sorts of plans as to how I was going to visit him
just as soon as I could get together the money for the passage.
He had the delicacy not to offer to let me have it; and that
clinched my trust and love of him.
The next day he drove away with Tony and the dapper little
lawyer. I am not ashamed to say that I watched the buckboard
until it disappeared in the mirage.
I was with Buck Johnson all that summer, and the following
winter, as well. We had our first round-up, found the natural
increase much in excess of the loss by Indians, and extended our
holdings up over the Rock Creek country. We witnessed the start
of many Indian campaigns, participated in a few little brushes
with the Chiricahuas, saw the beginning of the cattle-rustling.
A man had not much opportunity to think of anything but what he
had right on hand, but I found time for a few speculations on
Tim. I wondered how he looked now, and what he was doing, and
how in blazes he managed to get away with fifty thousand a year.
And then one Sunday in June, while I was lying on my bunk, Tim
pushed open the door and walked in. I was young, but I'd seen a
lot, and I knew the expression of his face. So I laid low and
said nothing.
In a minute the door opened again, and Buck Johnson himself came
in.
"How do," said he; "I saw you ride up."
"How do you do," replied Tim.
"I know all about you," said Buck, without any preliminaries;
"your man, Case, has wrote me. I don't know your reasons, and I
don't want to know--it's none of my business--and I ain't goin'
to tell you just what kind of a damn fool I think you are--that's
none of my business, either. But I want you to understand
without question how you stand on the ranch."
"Quite good, sir," said Tim very quietly.
"When you were out here before I was glad to have you here as a
sort of guest. Then you were what I've heerd called a gentleman
of leisure. Now you're nothin' but a remittance man. Your
money's nothin' to me, but the principle of the thing is. The
country is plumb pestered with remittance men, doin' nothin', and
I don't aim to run no home for incompetents. I had a son of a
duke drivin' wagon for me; and he couldn't drive nails in a
snowbanks. So don't you herd up with the idea that you can come
on this ranch and loaf."
"I don't want to loaf," put in Tim, "I want a job."
"I'm willing to give you a job," replied Buck, "but it's jest an
ordinary cow-puncher's job at forty a month. And if you don't
fill your saddle, it goes to someone else."
"That's satisfactory," agreed Tim.
"All right," finished Buck, "so that's understood. Your friend
Case wanted me to give you a lot of advice. A man generally has
about as much use for advice as a cow has for four hind legs."
He went out.
"For God's sake, what's up?" I cried, leaping from my bunk.
"Hullo, Harry," said he, as though he had seen me the day before,
"I've come back."
"How come back?" I asked. "I thought you couldn't leave the
estate. Have they broken the will?"
"No," said he.
"Is the money lost?"
"No."
"Then what?"
"The long and short of it is, that I couldn't afford that estate
and that money."
"What do you mean?"
"I've given it up."
"Given it up! What for?"
"To come back here."
I took this all in slowly.
"Tim Clare," said I at last, "do you mean to say that you have
given up an English estate and fifty thousand dollars a year to
be a remittance man at five hundred, and a cow-puncher on as much
more?"
"Exactly," said he.
"Tim," I adjured him solemnly, "you are a damn fool!"
"Maybe," he agreed.
"Why did you do it?" I begged.
He walked to the door and looked out across the desert to where
the mountains hovered like soap-bubbles on the horizon. For a
long time he looked; then whirled on me.
"Harry," said he in a low voice, "do you remember the camp we
made on the shoulder of the mountain that night we were caught
out? And do you remember how the dawn came up on the big snow
peaks across the way--and all the canon below us filled with
whirling mists--and the steel stars leaving us one by one? Where
could I find room for that in English paddocks? And do you
recall the day we trailed across the Yuma deserts, and the sun
beat into our skulls, and the dry, brittle hills looked like
papier-mache, and the grey sage-bush ran off into the rise of the
hills; and then came sunset and the hard, dry mountains grew
filmy, like gauze veils of many colours, and melted and glowed
and faded to slate blue, and the stars came out? The English
hills are rounded and green and curried, and the sky is near, and
the stars only a few miles up. And do you recollect that dark
night when old Loco and his warriors were camped at the base of
Cochise's Stronghold, and we crept down through the velvet dark
wondering when we would be discovered, our mouths sticky with
excitement, and the little winds blowing?"
He walked up and down a half-dozen times, his breast heaving.
"It's all very well for the man who is brought up to it, and
who has seen nothing else. Case can exist in four walls; he
has been brought up to it and knows nothing different. But a
man like me--
"They wanted me to canter between hedge-row,--I who have ridden
the desert where the sky over me and the plain under me were
bigger than the Islander's universe! They wanted me to oversee
little farms--I who have watched the sun rising over half a
world! Talk of your ten thou' a year and what it'll buy! You
know, Harry, how it feels when a steer takes the slack of your
rope, and your pony sits back! Where in England can I buy that?
You know the rising and the falling of days, and the boundless
spaces where your heart grows big, and the thirst of the desert
and the hunger of the trail, and a sun that shines and fills
the sky, and a wind that blows fresh from the wide places!
Where in parcelled, snug, green, tight little England could I
buy that with ten thou'--aye, or an hundred times ten thou'?
No, no, Harry, that fortune would cost me too dear. I have
seen and done and been too much. I've come back to the Big
Country, where the pay is poor and the work is hard and the
comfort small, but where a man and his soul meet their Maker face
to face."
The Cattleman had finished his yarn. For a time no one spoke.
Outside, the volume of rain was subsiding. Windy Bill reported
a few stars shining through rifts in the showers. The chill that
precedes the dawn brought us as close to the fire as the
smouldering guano would permit.
"I don't know whether he was right or wrong," mused the
Cattleman, after a while. "A man can do a heap with that much
money. And yet an old 'alkali' is never happy anywhere else.
However," he concluded emphatically, "one thing I do know: rain,
cold, hunger, discomfort, curses, kicks, and violent deaths
included, there isn't one of you grumblers who would hold that
gardening job you spoke of three days!"
CHAPTER FOUR
THE CATTLE RUSTLERS
Dawn broke, so we descended through wet grasses to the canon.
There, after some difficulty, we managed to start a fire, and
so ate breakfast, the rain still pouring down on us. About
nine o'clock, with miraculous suddenness, the torrent stopped.
It began to turn cold. The Cattleman and I decided to climb to
the top of the butte after meat, which we entirely lacked.
It was rather a stiff ascent, but once above the sheer cliffs we
found ourselves on a rolling meadow tableland a half-mile broad
by, perhaps, a mile and a half in length. Grass grew high;
here and there were small live oaks planted park-like; slight and
rounded ravines accommodated brooklets. As we walked back, the
edges blended in the edges of the mesa across the canon. The
deep gorges, which had heretofore seemed the most prominent
elements of the scenery, were lost. We stood, apparently, in
the middle of a wide and undulating plain, diversified by little
ridges, and running with a free sweep to the very foot of the
snowy Galiuros. It seemed as though we should be able to ride
horseback in almost any given direction. Yet we knew that ten
minutes' walk would take us to the brink of most stupendous
chasms--so deep that the water flowing in them hardly seemed to
move; so rugged that only with the greatest difficulty could a
horseman make his way through the country at all; and yet so
ancient that the bottoms supported forests, rich grasses, and
rounded, gentle knolls. It was a most astonishing set of double
impressions.
We succeeded in killing a nice, fat white-tail buck, and so
returned to camp happy. The rain, held off. We dug ditches,
organised shelters, cooked a warm meal. For the next day we
planned a bear hunt afoot, far up a manzanita canon where
Uncle Jim knew of some "holing up" caves.
But when we awoke in the morning we threw aside our coverings
with some difficulty to look on a ground covered with snow; trees
laden almost to the breaking point with snow, and the air filled
with it.
"No bear today" said the Cattleman.
"No," agreed Uncle Jim drily. "No b'ar. And what's more, unless
yo're aimin' to stop here somewhat of a spell, we'll have to make
out to-day."
We cooked with freezing fingers, ate while dodging avalanches
from the trees, and packed reluctantly. The ropes were frozen,
the hobbles stiff, everything either crackling or wet. Finally
the task was finished. We took a last warming of the fingers and
climbed on.
The country was wonderfully beautiful with the white not yet
shaken from the trees and rock ledges. Also it was wonderfully
slippery. The snow was soft enough to ball under the horses'
hoofs, so that most of the time the poor animals skated and
stumbled along on stilts. Thus we made our way back over ground
which, naked of these difficulties, we had considered bad enough.
Imagine riding along a slant of rock shelving off to a bad
tumble, so steep that your pony has to do more or less expert
ankle work to keep from slipping off sideways. During the
passage of that rock you are apt to sit very light. Now cover it
with several inches of snow, stick a snowball on each hoof of
your mount, and try again. When you have ridden it--or its
duplicate--a few score of times, select a steep mountain side,
cover it with round rocks the size of your head, and over that
spread a concealing blanket of the same sticky snow. You are
privileged to vary these to the limits of your imagination.
Once across the divide, we ran into a new sort of trouble. You
may remember that on our journey over we had been forced to
travel for some distance in a narrow stream-bed. During our
passage we had scrambled up some rather steep and rough slopes,
and hopped up some fairly high ledges. Now we found the
heretofore dry bed flowing a good eight inches deep. The steep
slopes had become cascades; the ledges, waterfalls. When we
came to them, we had to "shoot the rapids" as best we could,
only to land with a PLUNK in an indeterminately deep pool at the
bottom. Some of the pack horses went down, sousing again our
unfortunate bedding, but by the grace of fortune not a saddle
pony lost his feet.
After a time the gorge widened. We came out into the box canon
with its trees. Here the water spread and shoaled to a depth of
only two or three inches. We splashed along gaily enough, for,
with the exception of an occasional quicksand or boggy spot, our
troubles were over.
Jed Parker and I happened to ride side by side, bringing up the
rear and seeing to it that the pack animals did not stray or
linger. As we passed the first of the rustlers' corrals, he
called my attention to them.
"Go take a look," said he. "We only got those fellows out of
here two years ago."
I rode over. At this point the rim-rock broke to admit the
ingress of a ravine into the main canon. Riding a short
distance up the ravine, I could see that it ended abruptly in a
perpendicular cliff. As the sides also were precipitous, it
became necessary only to build a fence across the entrance into
the main canon to become possessed of a corral completely
closed in. Remembering the absolute invisibility of these
sunken canons until the rider is almost directly over them, and
also the extreme roughness and remoteness of the district, I
could see that the spot was admirably adapted to concealment.
"There's quite a yarn about the gang that held this hole," said
Jed Parker to me, when I had ridden back to him "I'll tell you
about it sometime."
We climbed the hill, descended on the Double R, built a fire in
the stove, dried out, and were happy. After a square meal--and a
dry one--I reminded Jed Parker of his promise, and so, sitting
cross-legged on his "so-gun" in the middle of the floor, he told
us the following yarn:
There's a good deal of romance been written about the "bad man,"
and there's about the same amount of nonsense. The bad man is
justa plain murderer, neither more nor less. He never does get
into a real, good, plain, stand-up gunfight if he can possibly
help it. His killin's are done from behind a door, or when he's
got his man dead to rights. There's Sam Cook. You've all heard
of him. He had nerve, of course, and when he was backed into a
corner he made good; he was sure sudden death with a gun. But
when he went for a man deliberate, he didn't take no special
chances. For a while he was marshal at Willets. Pretty soon it
was noted that there was a heap of cases of resisting arrest,
where Sam as marshal had to shoot, and that those cases almost
always happened to be his personal enemies. Of course, that
might be all right, but it looked suspicious. Then one day he
killed poor old Max Schmidt out behind his own saloon. Called
him out and shot him in the stomach. Said Max resisted arrest on
a warrant for keepin' open out of hours! That was a sweet
warrant to take out in Willets, anyway! Mrs. Schmidt always
claimed that she say that deal played, and that, while they were
talkin' perfectly peacable, Cook let drive from the hip at about
two yards' range. Anyway, we decided we needed another marshal.
Nothin' else was ever done, for the Vigilantes hadn't been
formed, and your individual and decent citizen doesn't care to be
marked by a gun of that stripe. Leastwise, unless he wants to go
in for bad-man methods and do a little ambusheein' on his own
account.
The point is, that these yere bad men are a low-down, miserable
proposition, and plain, cold-blood murderers, willin' to wait for
a sure thing, and without no compunctions whatsoever. The bad
man takes you unawares, when you're sleepin', or talkin', or
drinkin', or lookin' to see what for a day it's goin' to be,
anyway. He don't give you no show, and sooner or later he's
goin' to get you in the safest and easiest way for himself.
There ain't no romance about that.
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