Arizona Nights

S >> Stewart Edward White >> Arizona Nights

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CHAPTER EIGHT
THE CORRAL BRANDING

All that night we slept like sticks of wood. No dreams visited
us, but in accordance with the immemorial habit of those who live
out--whether in the woods, on the plains, among the mountains, or
at sea--once during the night each of us rose on his elbow,
looked about him, and dropped back to sleep. If there had been a
fire to replenish, that would have been the moment to do so; if
the wind had been changing and the seas rising, that would have
been the time to cast an eye aloft for indications, to feel
whether the anchor cable was holding; if the pack-horses had
straggled from the alpine meadows under the snows, this would
have been the occasion for intent listening for the faintly
tinkling hell so that next day one would know in which direction
to look. But since there existed for us no responsibility, we
each reported dutifully at the roll-call of habit, and dropped
back into our blankets with a grateful sigh.

I remember the moon sailing a good gait among apparently
stationary cloudlets; I recall a deep, black shadow lying before
distant silvery mountains; I glanced over the stark, motionless
canvases, each of which concealed a man; the air trembled with
the bellowing of cattle in the corrals.

Seemingly but a moment later the cook's howl brought me to
consciousness again. A clear, licking little fire danced in the
blackness. Before it moved silhouettes of men already eating.

I piled out and joined the group. Homer was busy distributing
his men for the day. Three were to care for the remuda; five
were to move the stray-herd from the corrals to good feed; three
branding crews were told to brand the calves we had collected in
the cut of the afternoon before. That took up about half the
men. The rest were to make a short drive in the salt grass. I
joined the Cattleman, and together we made our way afoot to the
branding pen.

We were the only ones who did go afoot, however, although the
corrals were not more than two hundred yards' distant. When we
arrived we found the string of ponies standing around outside.
Between the upright bars of greasewood we could see the cattle,
and near the opposite side the men building a fire next the
fence. We pushed open the wide gate and entered. The three
ropers sat their horses, idly swinging the loops of their ropes
back and forth. Three others brought wood and arranged it
craftily in such manner as to get best draught for heatin,--a
good branding fire is most decidedly a work of art. One stood
waiting for them to finish, a sheaf of long JH stamping irons in
his hand. All the rest squatted on their heels along the fence,
smoking cigarettes ad chatting together. The first rays of the
sun slanted across in one great sweep from the remote mountains.

In ten minutes Charley pronounced the irons ready. Homer,
Wooden, and old California John rode in among the cattle. The
rest of the men arose and stretched their legs and advanced. The
Cattleman and I climbed to the top bar of the gate, where we
roosted, he with his tally-book on his knee.

Each rider swung his rope above his head with one hand, keeping
the broad loop open by a skilful turn of the wrist at the end of
each revolution. In a moment Homer leaned forward and threw. As
the loop settled, he jerked sharply upward, exactly as one would
strike to hook a big fish. This tightened the loop and prevented
it from slipping off. Immediately, and without waiting to
ascertain the result of the manoeuvre, the horse turned and began
methodically, without undue haste, to walk toward the branding
fire. Homer wrapped the rope twice or thrice about the horn, and
sat over in one stirrup to avoid the tightened line and to
preserve the balance. Nobody paid any attention to the calf.
The critter had been caught by the two hind legs. As the rope
tightened, he was suddenly upset, and before he could realise
that something disagreeable was happening, he was sliding
majestically along on his belly. Behind him followed his anxious
mother, her head swinging from side to side.

Near the fire the horse stopped. The two "bull-doggers"
immediately pounced upon the victim. It was promptly flopped
over on its right side. One knelt on its head and twisted back
its foreleg in a sort of hammer-lock; the other seized one hind
foot, pressed his boot heel against the other hind leg close to
the body, and sat down behind the animal. Thus the calf was
unable to struggle. When once you have had the wind knocked out
of you, or a rib or two broken, you cease to think this
unnecessarily rough. Then one or the other threw off the rope.
Homer rode away, coiling the rope as he went.

"Hot iron!" yelled one of the bull-doggers.

"Marker!" yelled the other.

Immediately two men ran forward. The brander pressed the iron
smoothly against the flank. A smoke and the smell of scorching
hair arose. Perhaps the calf blatted a little as the heat
scorched. In a brief moment it was over. The brand showed
cherry, which is the proper colour to indicate due peeling and a
successful mark.

In the meantime the marker was engaged in his work. First, with
a sharp knife he cut off slanting the upper quarter of one ear.
Then he nicked out a swallow-tail in the other. The pieces he
thrust into his pocket in order that at the completion of the
work he could thus check the Cattleman's tally-board as to the
number of calves branded.[3] The bull-dogger let go. The calf
sprang up, was appropriated and smelled over by his worried
mother, and the two departed into the herd to talk it over.

[3] For the benefit of the squeamish it might be well to note
that the fragments of the ears were cartilaginous, and therefore
not bloody.

It seems to me that a great deal of unnecessary twaddle is
abroad as to the extreme cruelty of branding. Undoubtedly it is
to some extent painful, and could some other method of ready
identification be devised, it might be as well to adopt it in
preference. But in the circumstance of a free range, thousands
of cattle, and hundreds of owners, any other method is out of the
question. I remember a New England movement looking toward small
brass tags to be hung from the ear. Inextinguishable laughter
followed the spread of this doctrine through Arizona. Imagine a
puncher descending to examine politely the ear-tags of wild
cattle on the open range or in a round-up.

But, as I have intimated, even the inevitable branding and
ear-marking are not so painful as one might suppose. The
scorching hardly penetrates below the outer tough skin--only
enough to kill the roots of the hair--besides which it must be
remembered that cattle are not so sensitive as the higher nervous
organisms. A calf usually bellows when the iron bites, but as
soon as released he almost invariably goes to feeding or to
looking idly about. Indeed, I have never seen one even take the
trouble to lick his wounds, which is certainly not true in the
case of the injuries they inflict on each other in fighting.
Besides which, it happens but once in a lifetime, and is over in
ten seconds; a comfort denied to those of us who have our teeth
filled.

In the meantime two other calves had been roped by the two other
men. One of the little animals was but a few months old, so the
rider did not bother with its hind legs, but tossed his loop over
its neck. Naturally, when things tightened up, Mr. Calf entered
his objections, which took the form of most vigorous bawlings,
and the most comical bucking, pitching, cavorting, and bounding
in the air. Mr. Frost's bull-calf alone in pictorial history
shows the attitudes. And then, of course, there was the gorgeous
contrast between all this frantic and uncomprehending excitement
and the absolute matter-of-fact imperturbability of horse and
rider. Once at the fire, one of the men seized the tightened
rope in one hand, reached well over the animal's back to get a
slack of the loose hide next the belly, lifted strongly, and
tripped. This is called "bull-dogging." As he knew his
business, and as the calf was a small one, the little beast went
over promptly, bit the ground with a whack, and was pounced upon
and held.

Such good luck did not always follow, however. An occasional and
exceedingly husky bull yearling declined to be upset in any such
manner. He would catch himself on one foot, scramble vigorously,
and end by struggling back to the upright. Then ten to one he
made a dash to get away. In such case he was generally snubbed
up short enough at the end of the rope; but once or twice he
succeeded in running around a group absorbed in branding. You
can imagine what happened next. The rope, attached at one end to
a conscientious and immovable horse and at the other to a
reckless and vigorous little bull, swept its taut and destroying
way about mid-knee high across that group. The brander and
marker, who were standing, promptly sat down hard; the
bull-doggers, who were sitting, immediately turned several most
capable somersaults; the other calf arose and inextricably
entangled his rope with that of his accomplice. Hot irons, hot
language, and dust filled the air.

Another method, and one requiring slightly more knack, is to
grasp the animal's tail and throw it by a quick jerk across the
pressure of the rope. This is productive of some fun if it
fails.

By now the branding was in full swing. The three horses came and
went phlegmatically. When the nooses fell, they turned and
walked toward the fire as a matter of course. Rarely did the
cast fail. Men ran to and fro busy and intent. Sometimes three
or four calves were on the ground at once. Cries arose in a
confusion: "Marker" "Hot iron!" "Tally one!" Dust eddied and
dissipated. Behind all were clear sunlight and the organ roll of
the cattle bellowing.

Toward the middle of the morning the bull-doggers began to get a
little tired.

"No more necked calves," they announced. "Catch 'em by the hind
legs, or bull-dog 'em yourself."

And that went. Once in a while the rider, lazy, or careless, or
bothered by the press of numbers, dragged up a victim caught by
the neck. The bull-doggers flatly refused to have anything to do
with it. An obvious way out would have been to flip off the loop
and try again; but of course that would have amounted to a
confession of wrong.

"You fellows drive me plumb weary," remarked the rider, slowly
dismounting. "A little bit of a calf like that! What you all
need is a nigger to cut up your food for you!"

Then he would spit on his hands and go at it alone. If luck
attended his first effort, his sarcasm was profound.

"There's yore little calf," said he. "Would you like to have me
tote it to you, or do you reckon you could toddle this far with
yore little old iron?"

But if the calf gave much trouble, then all work ceased while the
unfortunate puncher wrestled it down.

Toward noon the work slacked. Unbranded calves were scarce.
Sometimes the men rode here and there for a minute or so before
their eyes fell on a pair of uncropped ears. Finally Homer rode
over to the Cattleman and reported the branding finished. The
latter counted the marks in his tally-book.

"One hundred and seventy-six," he announced.

The markers, squatted on their heels, told over the bits of ears
they had saved. The total amounted to but an hundred and
seventy-five. Everybody went to searching for the missing bit.
It was not forth-coming. Finally Wooden discovered it in his hip
pocket.

"Felt her thar all the time," said he, "but thought it must
shorely be a chaw of tobacco."

This matter satisfactorily adjusted, the men all ran for their
ponies. They had been doing a wrestler's heavy work all the
morning, but did not seem to be tired. I saw once in some crank
physical culture periodical that a cowboy's life was physically
ill-balanced, like an oarsman's, in that it exercised only
certain muscles of the body. The writer should be turned loose
in a branding corral.

Through the wide gates the cattle were urged out to the open
plain. There they were held for over an hour while the cows
wandered about looking for their lost progeny. A cow knows her
calf by scent and sound, not by sight. Therefore the noise was
deafening, and the motion incessant.

Finally the last and most foolish cow found the last and most
foolish calf. We turned the herd loose to hunt water and grass
at its own pleasure, and went slowly back to chuck.

CHAPTER NINE
THE OLD TIMER

About a week later, in the course of the round-up, we reached the
valley of the Box Springs, where we camped for some days at the
dilapidated and abandoned adobe structure that had once been a
ranch house of some importance.

Just at dusk one afternoon we finished cutting the herd which our
morning's drive had collected. The stray-herd, with its new
additions from the day's work, we pushed rapidly into one big
stock corral. The cows and unbranded calves we urged into
another. Fifty head of beef steers found asylum from dust, heat,
and racing to and fro, in the mile square wire enclosure called
the pasture. All the remainder, for which we had no further use
we drove out of the flat into the brush and toward the distant
mountains. Then we let them go as best pleased them.

By now the desert bad turned slate-coloured, and the brush was
olive green with evening. The hard, uncompromising ranges,
twenty miles to eastward, had softened behind a wonderful veil of
purple and pink, vivid as the chiffon of a girl's gown. To the
south and southwest the Chiricahuas and Dragoons were lost in
thunderclouds which flashed and rumbled.

We jogged homewards, our cutting ponies, tired with the quick,
sharp work, shuffling knee deep in a dusk that seemed to
disengage itself and rise upwards from the surface of the desert.
Everybody was hungry and tired. At the chuck wagon we threw off
our saddles and turned the mounts into the remuda. Some of the
wisest of us, remembering the thunderclouds, stacked our gear
under the veranda roof of the old ranch house.

Supper was ready. We seized the tin battery, filled the plates
with the meat, bread, and canned corn, and squatted on our heels.
The food was good, and we ate hugely in silence. When we could
hold no more we lit pipes. Then we had leisure to notice that
the storm cloud was mounting in a portentous silence to the
zenith, quenching the brilliant desert stars.

"Rolls" were scattered everywhere. A roll includes a cowboy's
bed and all of his personal belongings. When the outfit includes
a bed-wagon, the roll assumes bulky proportions.

As soon as we had come to a definite conclusion that it was going
to rain, we deserted the camp fire and went rustling for our
blankets. At the end of ten minutes every bed was safe within
the doors of the abandoned adobe ranch house, each owner
recumbent on the floor claim he had pre-empted, and every man
hoping fervently that he had guessed right as to the location of
leaks.

Ordinarily we had depended on the light of camp fires, so now
artificial illumination lacked. Each man was indicated by the
alternately glowing and waning lozenge of his cigarette fire.
Occasionally someone struck a match, revealing for a moment
high-lights on bronzed countenances, and the silhouette of a
shading hand. Voices spoke disembodied. As the conversation
developed, we gradually recognised the membership of our own
roomful. I had forgotten to state that the ranch house included
four chambers. Outside, the rain roared with Arizona ferocity.
Inside, men congratulated themselves, or swore as leaks developed
and localised.

Naturally we talked first of stampedes. Cows and bears are the
two great cattle-country topics. Then we had a mouth-organ solo
or two, which naturally led on to songs. My turn came. I struck
up the first verse of a sailor chantey as possessing at least the
interest of novelty:

Oh, once we were a-sailing, a-sailing were we,
Blow high, blow low, what care we;
And we were a-sailing to see what we could see,
Down on the coast of the High Barbaree.

I had just gone so far when I was brought up short by a
tremendous oath behind me. At the same instant a match flared.
I turned to face a stranger holding the little light above his
head, and peering with fiery intentness over the group sprawled
about the floor.

He was evidently just in from the storm. His dripping hat lay at
his feet. A shock of straight, close-clipped vigorous hair stood
up grey above his seamed forehead. Bushy iron-grey eyebrows
drawn close together thatched a pair of burning, unquenchable
eyes. A square, deep jaw, lightly stubbled with grey, was
clamped so tight that the cheek muscles above it stood out in
knots and welts.

Then the match burned his thick, square fingers, and he dropped
it into the darkness that ascended to swallow it.

"Who was singing that song?" he cried harshly. Nobody answered.

"Who was that singing?" he demanded again.

By this time I had recovered from my first astonishment.

"I was singing," said I.

Another match was instantly lit and thrust into my very face. I
underwent the fierce scrutiny of an instant, then the taper was
thrown away half consumed.

"Where did you learn it?" the stranger asked in an altered voice.

"I don't remember," I replied; "it is a common enough deep-sea
chantey."

A heavy pause fell. Finally the stranger sighed.

"Quite like," he said; "I never heard but one man sing it."

"Who in hell are you?" someone demanded out of the darkness.

Before replying, the newcomer lit a third match, searching for a
place to sit down. As he bent forward, his strong, harsh face
once more came clearly into view.

"He's Colorado Rogers," the Cattleman answered for him; "I know
him."

"Well," insisted the first voice, "what in hell does Colorado
Rogers mean by bustin' in on our song fiesta that way?"

"Tell them, Rogers," advised the Cattleman, "tell them--just as
you told it down on the Gila ten years ago next month."

"What?" inquired Rogers. "Who are you?"

"You don't know me," replied the Cattleman, "but I was with Buck
Johnson's outfit then. Give us the yarn."

"Well," agreed Rogers, "pass over the 'makings' and I will."

He rolled and lit a cigarette, while I revelled in the memory of
his rich, great voice. It was of the sort made to declaim
against the sea or the rush of rivers or, as here, the fall of
waters and the thunder--full, from the chest, with the caressing
throat vibration that gives colour to the most ordinary
statements. After ten words we sank back oblivious of the storm,
forgetful of the leaky roof and the dirty floor, lost in the
story told us by the Old Timer.

CHAPTER TEN
THE TEXAS RANGERS

I came from Texas, like the bulk of you punchers, but a good
while before the most of you were born. That was forty-odd years
ago--and I've been on the Colorado River ever since. That's why
they call me Colorado Rogers. About a dozen of us came out
together. We had all been Texas Rangers, but when the war broke
out we were out of a job. We none of us cared much for the
Johnny Rebs, and still less for the Yanks, so we struck overland
for the West, with the idea of hitting the California diggings.

Well, we got switched off one way and another. When we got down
to about where Douglas is now, we found that the Mexican
Government was offering a bounty for Apache scalps. That looked
pretty good to us, for Injin chasing was our job, so we started
in to collect. Did pretty well, too, for about three months, and
then the Injins began to get too scarce, or too plenty in
streaks. Looked like our job was over with, but some of the boys
discovered that Mexicans, having straight black hair, you
couldn't tell one of their scalps from an Apache's. After that
the bounty business picked up for a while. It was too much for
me, though, and I quit the outfit and pushed on alone until I
struck the Colorado about where Yuma is now.

At that time the California immigrants by the southern route used
to cross just there, and these Yuma Injins had a monopoly on the
ferry business. They were a peaceful, fine-looking lot, without
a thing on but a gee-string. The women had belts with rawhide
strings hanging to the knees. They put them on one over the
other until they didn't feel too decollotey. It wasn't until the
soldiers came that the officers' wives got them to wear
handkerchiefs over their breasts. The system was all right,
though. They wallowed around in the hot, clean sand, like
chickens, and kept healthy. Since they took to wearing clothes
they've been petering out, and dying of dirt and assorted
diseases.

They ran this ferry monopoly by means of boats made of tules,
charged a scand'lous low price, and everything was happy and
lovely. I ran on a little bar and panned out some dust, so I
camped a while, washing gold, getting friendly with the Yumas,
and talking horse and other things with the immigrants.

About a month of this, and the Texas boys drifted in. Seems they
sort of overdid the scalp matter, and got found out. When they
saw me, they stopped and went into camp. They'd travelled a heap
of desert, and were getting sick of it. For a while they tried
gold washing, but I had the only pocket--and that was about
skinned. One evening a fellow named Walleye announced that he
had been doing some figuring, and wanted to make a speech. We
told him to fire ahead.

"Now look here," said he, "what's the use of going to California?
Why not stay here?"

"What in hell would we do here?" someone asked. "Collect Gila
monsters for their good looks?"

"Don't get gay," said Walleye. "What's the matter with going
into business? Here's a heap of people going through, and more
coming every day. This ferry business could be made to pay big.
Them Injins charges two bits a head. That's a crime for the only
way across. And how much do you suppose whisky'd be worth to
drink after that desert? And a man's so sick of himself by the
time he gets this far that he'd play chuck-a-luck, let alone faro
or monte."

That kind of talk hit them where they lived, and Yuma was founded
right then and there. They hadn't any whisky yet, but cards were
plenty, and the ferry monopoly was too easy. Walleye served
notice on the Injins that a dollar a head went; and we all set to
building a tule raft like the others. Then the wild bunch got
uneasy, so they walked upstream one morning and stole the Injins'
boats. The Injins came after them innocent as babies, thinking
the raft had gone adrift. When they got into camp our men opened
up and killed four of them as a kind of hint. After that the
ferry company didn't have any trouble. The Yumas moved up river
a ways, where they've lived ever since. They got the corpses and
buried them. That is, they dug a trench for each one and laid
poles across it, with a funeral pyre on the poles. Then they put
the body on top, and the women of the family cut their hair off
and threw it on. After that they set fire to the outfit, and,
when the poles bad burned through, the whole business fell into
the trench of its own accord. It was the neatest, automatic,
self-cocking, double-action sort of a funeral I ever saw. There
wasn't any ceremony--only crying.

The ferry business flourished at prices which were sometimes hard
to collect. But it was a case of pay or go back, and it was a
tur'ble long ways back. We got us timbers and made a scow; built
a baile and saloon and houses out of adobe; and called her
Yuma, after the Injins that had really started her. We got our
supplies through the Gulf of California, where sailing boats
worked up the river. People began to come in for one reason or
another, and first thing we knew we had a store and all sorts of
trimmings. In fact we was a real live town.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE SAILOR WITH ONE HAND

At this moment the heavy beat of the storm on the roof ceased
with miraculous suddenness, leaving the outside world empty of
sound save for the DRIP, DRIP, DRIP of eaves. Nobody ventured
to fill in the pause that followed the stranger's last words, so
in a moment he continued his narrative.

We had every sort of people with us off and on, and, as I was
lookout at a popular game, I saw them all. One evening I was on
my way home about two o'clock of a moonlit night, when on the
edge of the shadow I stumbled over a body lying part across the
footway. At the same instant I heard the rip of steel through
cloth and felt a sharp stab in my left leg. For a minute I
thought some drunk had used his knife on me, and I mighty near
derringered him as he lay. But somehow I didn't, and looking
closer, I saw the man was unconscious. Then I scouted to see
what had cut me, and found that the fellow had lost a hand. In
place of it he wore a sharp steel hook. This I had tangled up
with and gotten well pricked.

I dragged him out into the light. He was a slim-built young
fellow, with straight black hair, long and lank and oily, a lean
face, and big hooked nose. He had on only a thin shirt, a pair
of rough wool pants, and the rawhide home-made zapatos the
Mexicans wore then instead of boots. Across his forehead ran a
long gash, cutting his left eyebrow square in two.

There was no doubt of his being alive, for he was breathing hard,
like a man does when he gets hit over the head. It didn't sound
good. When a man breathes that way he's mostly all gone.

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