Arizona Nights

S >> Stewart Edward White >> Arizona Nights

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And, until you've seen a few men called out of their shacks for a
friendly conversation, and shot when they happen to look away; or
asked for a drink of water, and killed when they stoop to the
spring; or potted from behind as they go into a room, it's pretty
hard to believe that any man can he so plumb lackin' in fair play
or pity or just natural humanity.

As you boys know, I come in from Texas to Buck Johnson's about
ten year back. I had a pretty good mount of ponies that I knew,
and I hated to let them go at prices they were offerin' then, so
I made up my mind to ride across and bring them in with me. It
wasn't so awful far, and I figured that I'd like to take in what
New Mexico looked like anyway.

About down by Albuquerque I tracked up with another outfit headed
my way. There was five of them, three men, and a woman, and a
yearlin' baby. They had a dozen hosses, and that was about all I
could see. There was only two packed, and no wagon. I suppose
the whole outfit--pots, pans, and kettles--was worth five
dollars. It was just supper when I run across them, and it
didn't take more'n one look to discover that flour, coffee,
sugar, and salt was all they carried. A yearlin' carcass,
half-skinned, lay near, and the fry-pan was, full of meat.

"Howdy, strangers," says I, ridin' up.

They nodded a little, but didn't say nothin'. My hosses fell to
grazin', and I eased myself around in my saddle, and made a
cigareet. The men was tall, lank fellows, with kind of sullen
faces, and sly, shifty eyes; the woman was dirty and generally
mussed up. I knowed that sort all right. Texas was gettin' too
many fences for them.

"Havin' supper?" says I, cheerful.

One of 'em grunted "Yes" at me; and, after a while, the biggest
asked me very grudgin' if I wouldn't light and eat, I told them
"No," that I was travellin' in the cool of the evenin'.

"You seem to have more meat than you need, though," says I. "I
could use a little of that."

"Help yourself," says they. "It's a maverick we come across."

I took a steak, and noted that the hide had been mighty well cut
to ribbons around the flanks and that the head was gone.

"Well," says I to the carcass, "No one's going to be able to
swear whether you're a maverick or not, but I bet you knew the
feel of a brandin' iron all right."

I gave them a thank-you, and climbed on again. My hosses acted
some surprised at bein' gathered up again, but I couldn't help
that.

"It looks like a plumb imposition, cavallos," says I to them,
"after an all-day, but you sure don't want to join that outfit
any more than I do the angels, and if we camp here we're likely
to do both."

I didn't see them any more after that until I'd hit the Lazy Y,
and had started in runnin' cattle in the Soda Springs Valley.
Larry Eagen and I rode together those days, and that's how I got
to know him pretty well. One day, over in the Elm Flat, we ran
smack on this Texas outfit again, headed north. This time I was
on my own range, and I knew where I stood, so I could show a
little more curiosity in the case.

"Well, you got this far," says I.

"Yes," says they.

"Where you headed?"

"Over towards the hills."

"What to do?"

"Make a ranch, raise some truck; perhaps buy a few cows."

They went on.

"Truck" says I to Larry, "is fine prospects in this country."

He sat on his horse looking after them.

"I'm sorry for them" says he. "It must he almighty hard
scratchin'."

Well, we rode the range for upwards of two year. In that time we
saw our Texas friends--name of Hahn--two or three times in
Willets, and heard of them off and on. They bought an old brand
of Steve McWilliams for seventy-five dollars, carryin' six or
eight head of cows. After that, from time to time, we heard of
them buying more--two or three head from one man, and two or
three from another. They branded them all with that McWilliams
iron--T 0--so, pretty soon, we began to see the cattle on the
range.

Now, a good cattleman knows cattle just as well as you know
people, and he can tell them about as far off. Horned critters
look alike to you, but even in a country supportin' a good many
thousand head, a man used to the business can recognise most
every individual as far as he can see him. Some is better than
others at it. I suppose you really have to be brought up to it.
So we boys at the Lazy Y noted all the cattle with the new T 0,
and could estimate pretty close that the Hahn outfit might own,
maybe, thirty-five head all told.

That was all very well, and nobody had any kick comin'. Then one
day in the spring, we came across our first "sleeper."

What's a sleeper? A sleeper is a calf that has been ear-marked,
but not branded. Every owner has a certain brand, as you know,
and then he crops and slits the ears in a certain way, too. In
that manner he don't have to look at the brand, except to
corroborate the ears; and, as the critter generally sticks his
ears up inquirin'-like to anyone ridin' up, it's easy to know the
brand without lookin' at it, merely from the ear-marks. Once in
a great while, when a man comes across an unbranded calf, and it
ain't handy to build a fire, he just ear-marks it and let's the
brandin' go till later. But it isn't done often, and our outfit
had strict orders never to make sleepers.

Well, one day in the spring, as I say, Larry and me was ridin',
when we came across a Lazy Y cow and calf. The little fellow was
ear-marked all right, so we rode on, and never would have
discovered nothin' if a bush rabbit hadn't jumped and scared the
calf right across in front of our hosses. Then we couldn't help
but see that there wasn't no brand.

Of course we roped him and put the iron on him. I took the
chance to look at his ears,, and saw that the marking had been
done quite recent, so when we got in that night I reported to
Buck Johnson that one of the punchers was gettin' lazy and
sleeperin'. Naturally he went after the man who had done it;
but every puncher swore up and down, and back and across, that
he'd branded every calf he'd had a rope on that spring. We put
it down that someone was lyin', and let it go at that.

And then, about a week later, one of the other boys reported a
Triangle-H sleeper. The Triangle-H was the Goodrich brand, so we
didn't have nothin' to do with that. Some of them might be
sleeperin' for all we knew. Three other cases of the same kind
we happened across that same spring.

So far, so good. Sleepers runnin' in such numbers was a little
astonishin', but nothin' suspicious. Cattle did well that
summer, and when we come to round up in the fall, we cut out
maybe a dozen of those T 0 cattle that had strayed out of that
Hahn country. Of the dozen there was five grown cows, and seven
yearlin's.

"My Lord, Jed," says Buck to me, "they's a heap of these
youngsters comin' over our way."

But still, as a young critter is more apt to stray than an old
one that's got his range established, we didn't lay no great
store by that neither. The Hahns took their bunch, and that's
all there was to it.

Next spring, though, we found a few more sleepers, and one day we
came on a cow that had gone dead lame. That was usual, too, but
Buck, who was with me, had somethin' on his mind. Finally he
turned back and roped her, and threw her.

"Look here, Jed," says he, "what do you make of this?"

I could see where the hind legs below the hocks had been burned.

"Looks like somebody had roped her by the hind feet," says I.

"Might be," says he, "but her heels lame that way makes it look
more like hobbles."

So we didn't say nothin' more about that neither, until just by
luck we came on another lame cow. We threw her, too.

"Well, what do you think of this one?" Buck Johnson asks me.

"The feet is pretty well tore up," says I, "and down to the
quick, but I've seen them tore up just as bad on the rocks when
they come down out of the mountains."

You sabe what that meant, don't you? You see, a rustler will
take a cow and hobble her, or lame her so she can't follow, and
then he'll take her calf a long ways off and brand it with his
iron. Of course, if we was to see a calf of one brand followin'
of a cow with another, it would be just too easy to guess what
had happened.

We rode on mighty thoughtful. There couldn't be much doubt that
cattle rustlers was at work. The sleepers they had ear-marked,
hopin' that no one would discover the lack of a brand. Then,
after the calf was weaned, and quit followin' of his mother, the
rustler would brand it with his own iron, and change its ear-mark
to match. It made a nice, easy way of gettin' together a bunch
of cattle cheap.

But it was pretty hard to guess off-hand who the rustlers might
be. There were a lot of renegades down towards the Mexican
line who made a raid once in a while, and a few oilers [2] livin'
near had water holes in the foothills, and any amount of little
cattle holders, like this T 0 outfit, and any of them wouldn't
shy very hard at a little sleeperin' on the side. Buck Johnson
told us all to watch out, and passed the word quiet among the big
owners to try and see whose cattle seemed to have too many calves
for the number of cows.

[2] "Oilers"--Greasers--Mexicans.

The Texas outfit I'm tellin' you about had settled up above in
this Double R canon where I showed you those natural corrals
this morning. They'd built them a 'dobe, and cleared some land,
and planted a few trees, and made an irrigated patch for alfalfa.
Nobody never rode over his way very much, 'cause the country was
most too rough for cattle, and our ranges lay farther to the
southward. Now, however, we began to extend our ridin' a little.

I was down towards Dos Cabesas to look over the cattle there, and
they used to send Larry up into the Double R country. One
evenin' he took me to one side.

"Look here, Jed," says he, "I know you pretty well, and I'm not
ashamed to say that I'm all new at this cattle business--in fact,
I haven't been at it more'n a year. What should be the
proportion of cows to calves anyhow?"

"There ought to be about twice as many cows as there're calves,"
I tells him.

"Then, with only about fifty head of grown cows, there ought not
to be an equal number of yearlin's?"

"I should say not," says I. "What are you drivin' at?"

"Nothin' yet," says he.

A few days later he tackled me again.

"Jed," says he, "I'm not good, like you fellows are, at knowin'
one cow from another, but there's a calf down there branded T 0
that I'd pretty near swear I saw with an X Y cow last month. I
wish you could come down with me."

We got that fixed easy enough, and for the next month rammed
around through this broken country lookin' for evidence. I saw
enough to satisfy me to a moral certainty, but nothin' for a
sheriff; and, of course, we couldn't go shoot up a peaceful
rancher on mere suspicion. Finally, one day, we run on a
four-months' calf all by himself, with the T 0 iron onto him--a
mighty healthy lookin' calf, too.

"Wonder where HIS mother is!" says I.

"Maybe it's a 'dogie,'" says Larry Eagen--we calls calves whose
mothers have died "dogies."

"No," says I, "I don't hardly think so. A dogie is always under
size and poor, and he's layin' around water holes, and he always
has a big, sway belly onto him. No, this is no dogie; and, if
it's an honest calf, there sure ought to be a T 0 cow around
somewhere."

So we separated to have a good look. Larry rode up on the edge
of a little rimrock. In a minute I saw his hoss jump back,
dodgin' a rattlesnake or somethin', and then fall back out of
sight. I jumped my hoss up there tur'ble quick, and looked
over, expectin' to see nothin' but mangled remains. It was only
about fifteen foot down, but I couldn't see bottom 'count of some
brush.

"Are you all right?" I yells.

"Yes, yes!" cries Larry, "but for the love of God, get down here
as
quick as you can."

I hopped off my hoss and scrambled down somehow.

"Hurt?" says I, as soon as I lit.

"Not a bit--look here."

There was a dead cow with the Lazy Y on her flank.

"And a bullet-hole in her forehead," adds Larry. "And, look
here, that T 0 calf was bald-faced, and so was this cow."

"Reckon we found our sleepers," says I.

So, there we was. Larry had to lead his cavallo down the
barranca to the main canon. I followed along on the rim, waitin'
until a place gave me a chance to get down, too, or Larry a
chance to get up. We were talkin' back and forth when, all at
once, Larry shouted again.

"Big game this time," he yells. "Here's a cave and a mountain
lion squallin' in it."

I slid down to him at once, and we drew our six-shooters and went
up to the cave openin', right under the rim-rock. There, sure
enough, were fresh lion tracks, and we could hear a little faint
cryin' like woman.

"First chance," claims Larry, and dropped to his hands and knees
at the entrance.

"Well, damn me!" he cries, and crawls in at once, payin' no
attention to me tellin' him to be more cautious. In a minute he
backs out, carryin' a three-year-old goat.

"We seem to he in for adventures to-day," says he. "Now, where
do you suppose that came from, and how did it get here?"

"Well," says I, "I've followed lion tracks where they've carried
yearlin's across their backs like a fox does a goose. They're
tur'ble strong."

"But where did she come from?" he wonders.

"As for that," says I, "don't you remember now that T 0 outfit
had a yearlin' kid when it came into the country?"

"That's right," says he. "It's only a mile down the canon. I'll
take it home. They must be most distracted about it."

So I scratched up to the top where my pony was waitin'. It was a
tur'ble hard climb, and I 'most had to have hooks on my eyebrows
to get up at all. It's easier to slide down than to climb back.
I dropped my gun out of my holster, and she went way to the
bottom, but I wouldn't have gone back for six guns. Larry picked
it up for me.

So we went along, me on the rim-rock and around the barrancas,
and Larry in the bottom carryin' of the kid.

By and by we came to the ranch house, stopped to wait. The
minute Larry hove in sight everybody was out to once, and in two
winks the woman had that baby. Thy didn't see me at all, but I
could hear, plain enough, what they said. Larry told how he had
found her in the cave, and all about the lion tracks, and the
woman cried and held the kid close to her, and thanked him about
forty times. Then when she'd wore the edge off a little, she
took the kid inside to feed it or somethin'.

"Well," says Larry, still laughin', "I must hit the trail."

"You say you found her up the Double R?" asks Hahn. "Was it that
cave near the three cottonwoods?"

"Yes," says Larry.

"Where'd you get into the canyon?"

"Oh, my hoss slipped off into the barranca just above."

"The barranca just above," repeats Hahn, lookin' straight at him.

Larry took one step back.

"You ought to be almighty glad I got into the canyon at all,"
says he.

Hahn stepped up, holdin' out his hand.

"That's right," says he. "You done us a good turn there."

Larry took his hand. At the same time Hahn pulled his gun and
shot him through the middle.

It was all so sudden and unexpected that I stood there paralysed.

Larry fell forward the way a man mostly will when he's hit in the
stomach, but somehow he jerked loose a gun and got it off twice.
He didn't hit nothin', and I reckon he was dead before he hit the
ground. And there he had my gun, and I was about as useless as a
pocket in a shirt!

No, sir, you can talk as much as you please, but the killer is a
low-down ornery scub, and he don't hesitate at no treachery or
ingratitude to keep his carcass safe.

Jed Parker ceased talking. The dusk had fallen in the little
room, and dimly could be seen the recumbent figures lying at
ease on their blankets. The ranch foreman was sitting bolt
upright, cross-legged. A faint glow from his pipe barely
distinguished his features.

"What became of the rustlers?" I asked him.

"Well, sir, that is the queer part. Hahn himself, who had done
the killin', skipped out. We got out warrants, of course, but
they never got served. He was a sort of half outlaw from that
time, and was killed finally in the train hold-up of '97. But
the others we tried for rustling. We didn't have much of a case,
as the law went then, and they'd have gone free if the woman
hadn't turned evidence against them. The killin' was too much
for her. And, as the precedent held good in a lot of other
rustlin' cases, Larry's death was really the beginnin' of law and
order in the cattle business."

We smoked. The last light suddenly showed red against the grimy
window. Windy Bill arose and looked out the door.

"Boys," said he, returning. "She's cleared off. We can get back
to the ranch tomorrow."

CHAPTER FIVE
THE DRIVE

A cry awakened me. It was still deep night. The moon sailed
overhead, the stars shone unwavering like candles, and a chill
breeze wandered in from the open spaces of the desert. I raised
myself on my elbow, throwing aside the blankets and the canvas
tarpaulin. Forty other indistinct, formless bundles on the
ground all about me were sluggishly astir. Four figures passed
and repassed between me and a red fire. I knew them for the two
cooks and the horse wranglers. One of the latter was grumbling.

"Didn't git in till moon-up last night," he growled. "Might as
well trade my bed for a lantern and be done with it."

Even as I stretched my arms and shivered a little, the two
wranglers threw down their tin plates with a clatter, mounted
horses and rode away in the direction of the thousand acres or so
known as the pasture.

I pulled on my clothes hastily, buckled in my buckskin shirt, and
dove for the fire. A dozen others were before me. It was
bitterly cold. In the east the sky had paled the least bit in
the world, but the moon and stars shone on bravely and
undiminished. A band of coyotes was shrieking desperate
blasphemies against the new day, and the stray herd, awakening,
was beginning to bawl and bellow.

Two crater-like dutch ovens, filled with pieces of fried beef,
stood near the fire; two galvanised water buckets, brimming
with soda biscuits, flanked them; two tremendous coffee pots
stood guard at either end. We picked us each a tin cup and a tin
plate from the box at the rear of the chuck wagon; helped
ourselves from a dutch oven, a pail, and a coffee pot, and
squatted on our heels as close to the fire as possible. Men who
came too late borrowed the shovel, scooped up some coals, and so
started little fires of their own about which new groups formed.

While we ate, the eastern sky lightened. The mountains under the
dawn looked like silhouettes cut from slate-coloured paper; those
in the west showed faintly luminous. Objects about us became
dimly visible. We could make out the windmill, and the adobe of
the ranch houses, and the corrals. The cowboys arose one by one,
dropped their plates into the dishpan, and began to hunt out
their ropes. Everything was obscure and mysterious in the faint
grey light. I watched Windy Bill near his tarpaulin. He stooped
to throw over the canvas. When he bent, it was before daylight;
when he straightened his back, daylight had come. It was just
like that, as though someone had reached out his hand to turn on
the illumination of the world.

The eastern mountains were fragile, the plain was ethereal, like
a sea of liquid gases. From the pasture we heard the shoutings
of the wranglers, and made out a cloud of dust. In a moment the
first of the remuda came into view, trotting forward with the
free grace of the unburdened horse. Others followed in
procession: those near sharp and well defined, those in the
background more or less obscured by the dust, now appearing
plainly, now fading like ghosts. The leader turned
unhesitatingly into the corral. After him poured the stream of
the remuda--two hundred and fifty saddle horses--with an
unceasing thunder of hoofs.

Immediately the cook-camp was deserted. The cowboys entered the
corral. The horses began to circle around the edge of the
enclosure as around the circumference of a circus ring. The men,
grouped at the centre, watched keenly, looking for the mounts
they had already decided on. In no time each had recognised
his choice, and, his loop trailing, was walking toward that part
of the revolving circumference where his pony dodged. Some few
whirled the loop, but most cast it with a quick flip. It was
really marvellous to observe the accuracy with which the noose
would fly, past a dozen tossing heads, and over a dozen backs, to
settle firmly about the neck of an animal perhaps in the very
centre of the group. But again, if the first throw failed, it
was interesting to see how the selected pony would dodge, double
back, twist, turn, and hide to escape second cast. And it was
equally interesting to observe how his companions would help him.

They seemed to realise that they were not wanted, and would push
themselves between the cowboy and his intended mount with the
utmost boldness. In the thick dust that instantly arose, and
with the bewildering thunder of galloping, the flashing change of
grouping, the rush of the charging animals, recognition alone
would seem almost impossible, yet in an incredibly short time
each had his mount, and the others, under convoy of the
wranglers, were meekly wending their way out over the plain.
There, until time for a change of horses, they would graze in a
loose and scattered band, requiring scarcely any supervision.
Escape? Bless you, no, that thought was the last in their minds.

In the meantime the saddles and bridles were adjusted. Always in
a cowboy's "string" of from six to ten animals the boss assigns
him two or three broncos to break in to the cow business.
Therefore, each morning we could observe a half dozen or so men
gingerly leading wicked looking little animals out to the sand
"to take the pitch out of them." One small black, belonging to a
cowboy called the Judge, used more than to fulfil expectations of
a good time.

"Go to him, Judge!" someone would always remark.

"If he ain't goin' to pitch, I ain't goin' to make him", the
Judge would grin, as he swung aboard.

The black would trot off quite calmly and in a most matter of
fact way, as though to shame all slanderers of his lamb-like
character. Then, as the bystanders would turn away, he would
utter a squeal, throw down his head, and go at it. He was a very
hard bucker, and made some really spectacular jumps, but the
trick on which he based his claims to originality consisted in
standing on his hind legs at so perilous an approach to the
perpendicular that his rider would conclude he was about to fall
backwards, and then suddenly springing forward in a series of
stiff-legged bucks. The first manoeuvre induced the rider to
loosen his seat in order to be ready to jump from under, and the
second threw him before he could regain his grip.

"And they say a horse don't think!" exclaimed an admirer.

But as these were broken horses--save the mark!--the show was all
over after each had had his little fling. We mounted and rode
away, just as the mountain peaks to the west caught the rays of a
sun we should not enjoy for a good half hour yet.

I had five horses in my string, and this morning rode "that C S
horse, Brown Jug." Brown Jug was a powerful and well-built
animal, about fourteen two in height, and possessed of a vast
enthusiasm for cow-work. As the morning was frosty, he felt
good.

At the gate of the water corral we separated into two groups.
The smaller, under the direction of Jed Parker, was to drive the
mesquite in the wide flats. The rest of us, under the command of
Homer, the round-up captain, were to sweep the country even as
far as the base of the foothills near Mount Graham. Accordingly
we put our horses to the full gallop.

Mile after mile we thundered along at a brisk rate of speed.
Sometimes we dodged in and out among the mesquite bushes,
alternately separating and coming together again; sometimes we
swept over grassy plains apparently of illimitable extent,
sometimes we skipped and hopped and buck-jumped through and over
little gullies, barrancas, and other sorts of malpais--but always
without drawing rein. The men rode easily, with no thought to
the way nor care for the footing. The air came back sharp
against our faces. The warm blood stirred by the rush flowed
more rapidly. We experienced a delightful glow. Of the morning
cold only the very tips of our fingers and the ends of our noses
retained a remnant. Already the sun was shining low and level
across the plains. The shadows of the canons modelled the
hitherto flat surfaces of the mountains.

After a time we came to some low hills helmeted with the outcrop
of a rock escarpment. Hitherto they had seemed a termination of
Mount Graham, but now, when we rode around them, we discovered
them to be separated from the range by a good five miles of
sloping plain. Later we looked back and would have sworn them
part of the Dos Cabesas system, did we not know them to be at
least eight miles' distant from that rocky rampart. It is always
that way in Arizona. Spaces develop of whose existence you had
not the slightest intimation. Hidden in apparently plane
surfaces are valleys and prairies. At one sweep of the eye you
embrace the entire area of an eastern State; but nevertheless the
reality as you explore it foot by foot proves to be infinitely
more than the vision has promised.

Beyond the hill we stopped. Here our party divided again, half
to the right and half to the left. We had ridden, up to this
time, directly away from camp, now we rode a circumference of
which headquarters was the centre. The country was pleasantly
rolling and covered with grass. Here and there were clumps of
soapweed. Far in a remote distance lay a slender dark line
across the plain. This we knew to be mesquite; and once entered,
we knew it, too, would seem to spread out vastly. And then this
grassy slope, on which we now rode, would show merely as an
insignificant streak of yellow. It is also like that in Arizona.

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