Читать книгу On the Cowboy's Trail: Western Boxed-Set - Coolidge Dane - Страница 35

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The silence of absolute loneliness lay upon Lost Dog Cañon like a pall and to Pecos Dalhart, sprawling in the door of his cave, it seemed as if mysterious voices were murmuring to each other behind the hollow gurgling of the creek. From far down the cañon the bawling of cows, chafing against the drift fence, echoed with dreary persistence among the cliffs, and the deep subterranean rumbling which gave the place its bad name broke in upon his meditations like the stirring of some uneasy devil confined below. On the rim of the black cañon wall that rose against him a flock of buzzards sat in a tawdry row, preening their rusty feathers or hopping awkwardly about in petty, ineffectual quarrels—as shabby a set of loafers as ever basked in the sun. For a week Pecos had idled about his cave, now building pole houses to protect his provisions from the rats, now going out to the point to watch the Verde trail, until the emptiness of it had maddened him. At first he had looked for trouble—the veiled treachery of some gun-man, happening in on him accidentally, or an armed attack from Old Crit's cowboys—but now he would welcome the appearance of Crit himself. In action Pecos could trust his nerves absolutely, but he chafed at delay like a spirited horse that frets constantly at the bit. If it was to be a game of waiting Crittenden had won already. Pecos threw away his cigarette impatiently and hurried down the cañon to catch his horse.

"Where's Old Crit?" he demanded when, after a long ride, he stalked defiantly into the store at Verde Crossing.

"Damfino," replied Babe, looking up from a newspaper he was reading, "gone down to Geronimo, I guess."

"Is he lookin' for me?" inquired Pecos, guardedly.

"W'y, not so's you notice it," answered the bar-keeper, easily. "It'd be the first case on record, I reckon, bein' as he owes you money. In fact, until you collect your last month's pay the chances are good that you'll be lookin' for him. Did you see the new sign over the door?"

"No," said Pecos, "what is it?"

"Post Office!" replied Babe, proudly. "Yes, sir, Old Good Eye has certainly knocked the persimmon this time and put Verde Crossing on the map. They's lots of ranchers up and down the river—and you, of course, over there at Carrizo—and Crit figured it out some time ago that if he could git 'em to come here for their mail he'd catch their trade in whiskey; so what does he do but apply to the Post Office Department for a mail route from here to Geronimo and bid in the contract himself! Has to send Joe down about once a week, anyhow, you understand, and he might as well git the Government to pay for it. So you can write home to your folks now to send your mail to Verde Crossing—tell your girl too, because if we don't git ten letters a week we lose our route."

Pecos twisted uneasily on his chair. Like many another good Texan he was not writing home.

"Ain't got no girl," he protested, blushing beneath his tan.

"No?" said Angy, "well that's good news for Marcelina—she was inquirin' about you the other day. But say, here's some advertisements in this paper that might interest you. Umm—lemme see, now—'Genuine Diamonds, rings, earrings, and brooches, dollar forty-eight a piece, to introduce our new line.' That's pretty cheap, ain't it! 'Always acceptable to a lady,' it says. Yes, if you don't want 'em yourself you can give 'em away, see? You know, I'm tryin' to git the fellers around here interested, so's they'll write more letters."

He threw this out for a feeler and Pecos responded nobly. "Well, go ahead and order me them rings and earrings," he said, "I'm no cheap sport. What else you got that's good?"

Angevine Thorne dropped his paper and reached stealthily for a large mail-order catalogue on the counter. "Aprons, bath-tubs, curtains, dishes," he read, running his finger down the index. "Here's some silk handkerchiefs that might suit you; 'green, red, blue, and yaller, sixty cents each; with embroidered initials, twenty cents extra.'"

"I'll go you!" cried the cowboy, looking over his shoulder. "Gimme half a dozen of them red ones—no squaw colors for me—and say, lemme look at them aprons."

"Aprons!" yelled Angy. "Well—what—the—"

"Aw, shut up!" snarled Pecos, blushing furiously. "Can't you take a joke? Here, gimme that catalogue—you ain't the only man on the Verde that can read and write—I've had some schoolin' myself!"

He retired to a dark corner with the "poor man's enemy" and pored over it laboriously, scrawling from time to time upon an order blank which Angy had thoughtfully provided. At last the deed was done, all but adding up the total, and after an abortive try or two the cowboy slipped in a twenty-dollar bill and wrote: "Giv me the rest in blue hankerchefs branded M." Then he sealed and directed the letter and called on Babe for a drink.

"How long before I'll git them things?" he inquired, his mind still heated with visions of aprons, jewelry, and blue handkerchiefs, branded M,—"two or three weeks? Well, I'll be down before then—they might come sooner. Where's all the punchers?"

"Oh, they're down in Geronimo, gettin' drunk. Round-up's over, now, and Crit laid 'em off. Gittin' kinder lonely around here."

"Lonely!" echoed Pecos. "Well, if you call this lonely you ought to be out in Lost Dog Cañon, where I am. They's nothin' stirrin' there but the turkey-buzzards—I'm gittin' the willies already, jest from listenin' to myself think. Say, come on out and see me sometime, can't you?"

"Nope," said Babe, "if you knew all the things that Crit expects me to do in a day you'd wonder how I git time to shave. But say, what you doin' out there, if it's a fair question?"

"Who—me? Oh, I've made me a little camp over in that cave and I'm catchin' them wild cattle that ooze along the creek." He tried to make it as matter-of-fact as possible, but Angevine Thorne knew better.

"Yes, I've heard of them wild cows," he drawled, slowly closing one eye, "the boys've been driftin' 'em over the Peaks for two months. Funny how they was all born with a U on the ribs, ain't it?"

"Sure, but they's always some things you can't explain in a cow country," observed Pecos, philosophically. "Did Crit tell you anything about his new iron? No? Called the Wine-glass—in the brand book by this time, I reckon."

"Aha! I see—I see!" nodded Angy. "Well, Old Good Eye wants to go easy on this moonlightin'—we've got a new sheriff down here in Geronimo now—Boone Morgan—and he was elected to put the fear of God into the hearts of these cowmen and make 'em respect the law. W'y, Crit won't even pay his taxes, he's that ornery. When the Geronimo tax-collector shows up he says his cows all run over in Tonto County; and when the Tonto man finally made a long trip down here Crit told him his cows all ran in Geronimo County, all but a hundred head or so, and John Upton had stole them. The tax-collectors have practically give up tryin' to do anything up here in the mountains—the mileage of the assessor and collector eats up all the profits to the county, and it's easier to turn these cowmen loose than it is to follow 'em up. This here Geronimo man jumped all over Crit last time he was up here, but Crit just laughed at him. 'Well,' he says, 'if you don't like the figgers I give, you better go out on the range and count them cows yourself, you're so smart.' And what could the poor man do? It'd cost more to round up Old Crit's cattle than the taxes would come to in a lifetime. But you want to look out, boy," continued Angy earnestly, "how you monkey around with them U cattle—Boone Morgan is an old-timer in these parts and he's likely to come over the hill some day and catch you in the act."

"Old Crit says they never was a man sent up in this county yet for stealin' cattle," ventured Pecos, lamely.

"Sure not," assented Angevine Thorne, "but they's been a whole lot of 'em killed for it! I don't suppose he mentioned that. Have you heard about this Tewkesbury-Graham war that's goin' on up in Pleasant Valley? That all started over rustlin' cattle, and they's over sixty men killed already and everybody hidin' out like thieves. A couple of Crit's bad punchers came down through there from the Hash-knife and they said it was too crude for them—everybody fightin' from ambush and killin' men, women, and children. I tell you, it's got the country stirred up turrible—that's how come Boone Morgan was elected sheriff. The people down in Geronimo figured out if they didn't stop this stealin' and rustlin' and alterin' brands pretty soon, Old Crit and Upton would lock horns—or some of these other cowmen up here in the mountains—and the county would go bankrupt like Tonto is, with sheriff's fees and murder trials. No, sir, they ain't been enough law up here on the Verde to intimidate a jackrabbit so far—it's all down there in Geronimo, where they give me that life sentence for conspicuous drunkenness—but you want to keep your ear to the ground, boy, because you're goin' to hear something drap!"

"What d'ye think's goin' to happen, Babe?" asked the cowboy, uneasily. "Old Crit can't be scared very bad—he's laid off all his punchers."

"Huh! you don't know Crit as well as I do," commented Babe. "Don't you know those punchers would've quit anyhow, as soon as they got their pay? He does that every year —lays 'em off and then goes down to Geronimo about the time they're broke, and half of 'em in jail, mebby, and bails 'em out. He'll have four or five of 'em around here all summer, workin' for nothin' until the fall round-up comes off. I tell you, that man'll skin a flea anytime for the hide and taller. You want to keep out of debt to him or he'll make you into a Mexican peon, like Joe Garcia over here. Joe's been his corral boss and teamster for four years now and I guess they's a hundred dollars against him on the books, right now. Will drink a little whiskey once in a while, you know, like all the rest of us, and the Señora keeps sendin' over for sugar and coffee and grub, and somehow or other, Joe is always payin' for a dead horse. Wouldn't be a Mexican, though," observed Babe, philosophically, "if he wasn't in debt to the store. A Mexican ain't happy until he's in the hole a hundred or so—then he can lay back and sojer on his job and the boss is afraid to fire 'im. There's no use of his havin' anything, anyhow—his relatives would eat 'im out of house and home in a minute. There was a Mexican down the river here won the grand prize in a lottery and his relatives come overland from as far as Sonora to help him spend the money. Inside of a month he was drivin' a wood-wagon again in order to git up a little grub. He was a big man while it lasted—open house day and night, fiestas and bailes and a string band to accompany him wherever he went—but when it was all over old Juan couldn't buy a pint of whiskey on credit if he was snake-bit. They're a great people, for sure."

"That's right," assented Pecos, absently, "but say, I reckon I'll be goin'." The social qualities of the Spanish-Americans did not interest him just then—he was thinking about Boone Morgan. "Gimme a dollar's worth of smoking tobacco and a box of forty-fives and I'll hit the road."

"There's one thing more you forgot," suggested Angevine Thorne, as he wrapped up the purchases.

"What—Marcelina?" ventured Pecos, faintly.

"Naw—your mail!" cried Angy, scornfully, and dipping down into a cracker box he brought out a paper on the yellow wrapper of which was printed "Pecos Dalhart, Verde Crossing, Ariz."

"I never subscribed for no paper!" protested Pecos, turning it over suspiciously. "Here—I don't want it."

"Ump-umm," grunted Angy, smiling mysteriously, "take it along. All the boys git one. You can read it out in camp. Well, if you're goin' to be bull-headed about it I'll tell you. Crit subscribed for it for every man in Verde—only cost two-bits a year. Got to build up this mail route somehow, you know. It's called the Voice of Reason and it's against the capitalistic classes."

"The which?" inquired Pecos, patiently.

"Aw, against rich fellers—these sharks like Old Crit that's crushin' the life outer the common people. That's the paper I was showin' you—where they was advertisin' diamonds for a dollar forty-eight a piece."

"Oh," said Pecos, thrusting it into his chaps, "why didn't you say so before? Sure, I'll read it!"