Hidden Water. Coolidge Dane
to the north.
“Might as well give you the lay of the land,” he said. “I’ll be too busy to talk for the next month. There’s the Four Peaks, northeast of us, and our cows run clean to the rocks. They’s more different brands in that forty miles than you saw in the whole Cherrycow country, I bet ye. I’ve got five myself on a couple hundred head that the old man left me––and everybody else the same way. You see, when the sheep come in down on the desert and around Moreno’s we kept pushin’ what was left of our cattle east and east until we struck the Peaks––and here we are, in a corner. The old judge has got nigh onto two thousand head, but they’s about twenty of us poor devils livin’ up here in the rocks that 85 has got enough irons and ear marks to fill a brand book, and not a thousand head among us.
“Well, I started out to show you the country, didn’t I? You see that bluff back of the house down there? That runs from here clean to the Four Peaks without a break, and then it swings west in a kind of an ox bow and makes that long ridge up there to the north that we called the Juate. All that high country between our house here and the Peaks––everythin’ east of that long bluff––is Bronco Mesa. That’s the upper range the judge asked me to point out to you. Everythin’ west of Bronco Mesa is The Rolls––all them rollin’ hills out there––and they’s feed enough out there to keep all the sheep in the country, twice over––but no water. Now what makes us cowmen hot is, after we’ve give ’em that country and welcome, the sheepmen’re all the time tryin’ to sneak in on our upper range. Our cows can’t hardly make a livin’ walkin’ ten or fifteen miles out on The Rolls every day, and then back again to water; but them dam’ sheep can go a week without drinkin’, and as much as a month in the winter-time.
“Why can’t they give us a chanst, then? We give ’em all the good level land and simply ask ’em as a favor to please keep off of the bench up there and 86 leave our cows what little cactus and browse they is. But no––seems like as soon as you give one of them Chihuahua Mexicans a gun he wants to git a fight out of somebody, and so they come crowdin’ in across our dead line, just to see if they can’t git some of us goin’.”
Once more his eyes were burning, his breath came hard, and his voice became high and sustained. “Well, I give one of ’em all he wanted,” he said, “and more. I took his dam’ pistol away and beat him over the head with it––and I moved him, too. He was Jasper Swope’s pet, and I reckon he had his orders, but I noticed the rest went round.”
He stopped abruptly and sat silent, twisting his horse’s mane uneasily. Then he looked up, smiling curiously.
“If you hadn’t come up this year I would’ve killed some of them fellers,” he said quietly. “I’m gittin’ as crazy as old Bill Johnson––and he hears voices. But now lookee here, Rufe, you don’t want to believe a word I say about this trouble. Don’t you pay any attention to me; I’m bughouse, and I know it. Jest don’t mention sheep to me and I’ll be as happy as an Injun on a mescal jag. Come on, I’ll run you to the house!”
Throwing his weight forward he jumped his big horse down the rocky trail and went thundering across 87 the flat, whooping and laughing and swinging under mesquite trees as if his whole heart was in the race. Catching the contagion Hardy’s sorrel dashed madly after him, and the moment they struck the open he went by like a shot, over-running the goal and dancing around the low adobe house like a circus horse.
“By Joe,” exclaimed Creede as he came up, “that caballo of yours can run some. I’m goin’ to make a little easy money off of Bill Lightfoot when he comes in. He’s been blowin’ about that gray of his for two years now and I’ll match you ag’inst him for a yearlin’. And don’t you forgit, boy, we’re going after that black stallion up on Bronco Mesa just as soon as the rodér is over.”
His face was all aglow with friendliness and enthusiasm now, but as they started toward the house, after turning their horses into the corral, he suddenly stopped short in the trail.
“Gee,” he said, “I wonder what’s keepin’ Tom? Here Tom! Heere Tom! Pussy, pussy, pussy!” He listened, and called again. “I hope the coyotes ain’t caught him while I was gone,” he said at length. “They treed him a few times last year, but he just stayed up there and yelled until I came––spoiled his voice callin’ so long, but you bet he can purr, all right.”
88
He listened once more, long and anxiously, then his face lit up suddenly.
“Hear that?” he asked, motioning toward the bluff, and while Hardy was straining his ears a stunted black cat with a crook in his tail came into view, racing in wildly from the great pile of fallen bowlders that lay at the base of the cliff, and yowling in a hoarse, despairing voice, like a condemned kitten in a sack.
“Hello, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy!” cried Creede, and as the cat stopped abruptly, blinking warily at Hardy, he strode forward and gathered it gently into his arms. “Well, you poor little devil,” he exclaimed, stroking its rough coat tenderly, “you’re all chawed up again! Did them dam’ coyotes try to git you while I was gone?” And with many profane words of endearment he hugged it against his breast, unashamed.
“There’s the gamiest cat in Arizona,” he said, bringing him over to Hardy with conscious pride. “Whoa, kitten, he won’t hurt you. Dogged if he won’t tackle a rattlesnake, and kill ’im, too. I used to be afraid to git out of bed at night without puttin’ on my boots, but if any old rattler crawls under my cot now it’s good-bye, Mr. Snake. Tommy is right there with the goods––and he ain’t been bit yet, neither. He killed three side-winders last Summer––didn’t you, Tom, Old Socks?––and if any sheep-herder’s 89 dog comes snoopin’ around the back door he’ll mount him in a minute. If a man was as brave as he is, now, he’d––well, that’s the trouble––he wouldn’t last very long in this country. I used to wonder sometimes which’d go first––me or Tom. The sheepmen was after me, and their dogs was after Tom. But I’m afraid poor Tommy is elected; this is a dam’ bad country for cats.”
He set him down with a glance of admiring solicitude, such as a Spartan mother might have bestowed upon her fighting offspring, and kicked open the unlocked door.
The Dos S ranch house was a long, low structure of adobe bricks, divided in the middle by the open passageway which the Mexicans always affect to encourage any vagrant breeze. On one side of the corredor was a single large room, half storehouse, half bunk room, with a litter of pack saddles, rawhide kyacks and leather in one corner, a heap of baled hay, grain, and provisions in the other, and the rest strewn with the general wreckage of a camp––cooking utensils, Dutch ovens, canvas pack covers, worn-out saddles, and ropes. On the other side the rooms were more pretentious, one of them even having a board floor. First came the large living-room with a stone chimney and a raised hearth before the fireplace; whereon, each on its 90 separate pile of ashes, reposed two Dutch ovens, a bean kettle, and a frying-pan, with a sawed-off shovel in the corner for scooping up coals. Opening into the living-room were two bedrooms, which, upon exploration, turned out to be marvellously fitted up, with high-headed beds, bureaus and whatnots, besides a solid oak desk.
To these explorations of Hardy’s Creede paid but slight attention, he being engaged in cooking a hurried meal and watching Tommy, who had a bad habit of leaping up on the table and stealing; but as Hardy paused by the desk in the front bedroom he looked up from mixing his bread and said:
“That’s your room, Rufe, so you can clean it up and move in. I generally sleep outdoors myself––and I ain’t got nothin’, nohow. Jest put them guns and traps into the other room, so I can find ’em. Aw, go ahead, you’ll need that desk to keep your papers in. You’ve got to write all the letters and keep the accounts, anyhow. It always did make my back ache to lean over that old desk, and I’m glad to git shent of it.
“Pretty swell rooms, ain’t they? Notice them lace curtains? The kangaroo rats have chawed the ends a little, but I tell you, when Susie and Sallie Winship was here this was the finest house for forty miles. That used to be Sallie’s room,