Читать книгу Saddle and Ride: Western Classics - Boxed Set - Ernest Haycox - Страница 20

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Firelight threw its orange arc against the night's steel-black pall. Dark banners whipped across the silvered half-moon. The stars were shrouded, the ceiling of heaven had dropped earthward, and thus imprisoned the gaining wind swept over the earth with a hollow, droning reverberation. At sunset it had been both clear and warm. Now a raw dampness touched men and beasts. Sand sprayed across the prairie, a stem of sage sailed into the light and dropped by Quagmire's crossed boots. Eerie voices beat through space—like that of a rifle shot. The canvas on the chuck wagon slatted against its ribs. One solitary drop of rain fell hissing into the coals.

Quagmire turned his wizened face and nosed the air. "Trouble comin' hell bent out o' the east. Why has they got to be an east, anyhow? Ain't south an' west ample? I think I'll tie my ears down afo' they float away."

A rider cruised around the near side of the herd, and the echo of his improvised song reached the fire. "Lie down, you brutes, lie down. Oh, a Texas gal is the gal for me—Lie down, you measly, locoed receptacles o' sin. The wind is risin' an' so are the dogies' tails—lie doooowwn."

"It takes a good bass voice to soothe 'em," opined Quagmire sagely.

"If this keeps up," murmured his near neighbor, "yo'll be singin' soprano outen the corner o' yo' mouth befo' mo'nin'."

Quagmire crushed this innuendo impressively. "Billy, yo' ort to know I nev' sing soprano lessen I'm vaccinated to the eyebrows with that filthy mescal." A burst of rain struck the fire, frying in the flames. Quagmire reached around and squirmed into his slicker. "Guess I'm goin' to get that bath I fo'got to take las' winter. Dakota, howdedo."

The flat Nebraskan plain stood behind. Both forks of the Platte, that river a mile wide and an inch deep, had baptized the herd. The Niobrara had seen their camp fire; they had passed one stretch of the bad lands and put the Belle Fourche to the rear. Due west lay the dark, granitic folds of the Black Hills; due west lay Deadwood, born of gold fever and now thundering along on the flood tide of prosperity. Indian country. Once they had sighted a brave on a parallel ridge, sitting like a statue on his horse, watching them; and since they were schooled in the red man's thievery they loosened the flaps of rifle boots and doubly guarded the horse herd.

Sand and rain swirled about the group. Tom heard the tempo of the wind rising. Thunder rumbled away off. Things movable began to shiver and strain, and the old cook slid around his wagon, battening down the canvas. Quagmire, true to his ingrained habit, hovered by the fire and nursed it jealously.

"Talk about soprano," mused Quagmire, "that wind will shore be singin' it in a minute. I hope them cow critters have got a clear conscience this night."

"Stampede?"

It was Lispenard speaking. He had come out of darkness and squatted across from Quagmire. Tom Gillette, studying the man, had difficulty in realizing it was the same gay and debonair classmate he had once so freely confided in. In the flickering light the Blond Giant looked as ragged and unkempt as any other of the party. The soft protecting flesh had quite disappeared; under the stubble of his whiskers his jaw bones ran grimly to the jutting button of his chin. And since the night San Saba had brought him back from Ogallala, both drunk and viciously angry, he had adopted a kind of brooding reserve. The man was in splendid shape. At every gesture he made Tom saw the muscles rippling and flexing. Otherwise, Tom was not so certain. It occurred to him that Blondy's big and rolling eyes no longer attracted him, nor did he like the way Blondy's lips now and then slid back from his teeth. In school, his friend had cut quite a swath; sundered from that atmosphere, he seemed never yet to have shaken himself together.

"Stampede?" echoed Quagmire. "Well, I ain't wishin' to draw down any lightnin' by speakin' that word too loud. Who knows what goes on inside a critter's mind? I've seen 'em stand through weather so plumb bad yo' couldn't draw breath. Turn right around on a ca'm peaceful night an' they'd roll tails if a leaf budged. Critters ain't reasonable—no more'n a man."

The crew, unable to sleep, had drawn near the fire. San Saba, a mere silhouette in his gleaming slicker, stood in the background while all the others squatted on their haunches. Tom, himself a little removed from the fire, saw the foreman's small red eyes dart from man to man. Billy, the skeptic who adjoined Quagmire, thrust a sidling glance at Lispenard and of a sudden he chuckled, slapping one hand across his knee.

"Quagmire, yo'-all remember that twister we bucked down by the Nueces? I wouldn't ever have believed sech a thing could happen if I hadn't seen it with my own two eyes."

The rest of the crew, almost in unison, nodded confirmation. Quagmire studied Billy with a long, mild glance before replying. "Mean the time it picked up Anse Loving's herd an' carried it acrost the river?"

"Wasn't Loving's herd atall," denied Billy. "It was a bunch o' Hogpen stock."

"No such thing. It was Loving's outfit we worked for that year."

"Why, by..."

Lispenard threw in his contribution. "You trying to fool me again? Some dam' fish story about wind picking up cattle bodily..."

Profound silence. Quagmire vainly stirred the fire. "Ever hear of a twister? Don't they teach it in Eastern gee-og-ruffies?"

"Certainly, but..."

"Ever hear of 'em liftin' buildin's offen the ground?"

Lispenard raised his shoulders. "Well, go on, then. That's straight enough. But a whole herd doesn't sound possible."

Quagmire pointed into the darkness. "It's only blowin' mild right now. But yo' go out there an' try to stand up in it. Then imagine a twister."

There was no answer. Quagmire brooded over the remnant of flame, water sluicing down his hat. He appeared to have forgotten the story, yet ever and anon he lifted his thin and wrinkled face to listen to what the wind told him. Slight uneasiness rode the shoulders of the crew.

"Anyhow, it was the Hogpen outfit," muttered Billy somberly.

That roused Quagmire. "Why, man, don't yo' recollect that wall-eyed buckskin I rode with the blaze?"

"Mebbe so," assented Billy, now dubious.

"Sho'" proceeded Quagmire. "I'm tellin' yo' I rode him that night. Black? Say, it was blacker'n the inside o' a crow's windpipe. Never saw a twister come up faster. We was on the east bank of the Nueces."

"West bank," corrected Billy.

"That's right—west bank. On the west bank when it come. Right by that barn, yo' remember? No time to shove the herd aside. Funnel bearin' down on us hell bent. Every man for himself. Me, I lights out on that buckskin. Hadn't gone fifty feet when it struck. Heard an awful crash—must've been the barn—and then I sorter feels like yo'd feel after too much mescal. Yo' understan'—kinda feather-headed. I digs in my spurs, but I wasn't on no horse atall. I was fifty feet offen the ground, goin' over the river. The buckskin had vamoosed. Thought I'd lost him. Figgered I was dead when that twister let me go an' I dropped. Sho', but it's a queer feelin' to get up with the birds."

There was a rumble in the outer darkness, and the crew, to a man, straightened. A puncher rode in, dripping wet. "Still peaceable," he announced briefly, and disappeared. Tom relaxed, grinning when he saw how Lispenard's attention fastened to Quagmire's tale.

"Must've been a mile farther along," continued Quagmire, "with me gettin' higher all the times when I hears a sound like an express train comin' by. It was that dam' barn, with the top ripped off. They was ten ton o' hay in that shebang, yet it sailed by me like a shot. Then I hears a mos' piteous nicker, an' it's the buckskin, right behin' the barn. I remember I sorter prayed the saddle wouldn't fall offen him. Silver inlay saddle, an' it cost a heap.

"Well, we was a good six miles east o' the river by then, an' the twister begins to slide away from me. Me, I falls faster'n a shot duck. Had a watch on me, an' I recalls I takes it out an' throws it clear, not wantin' to light on glass. I knowed I was as good as extinct right then, an' I figgered I'd better pray. But how's a man to pray what ain't never learned the Commandments? Anyhow, I was worryin' about that silver inlay saddle. Down I went, head first. Saw the ground smack below. But that barn had lit befo' me, an' me, I struck the top o' them ten tons o' hay, bounced a couple times, an' slid right down into a manger. An' you may chalk me up as a bald-faced liar if I didn't find..."

He stopped, shaking his head from side to side. Lispenard leaned across the fire. "Well?"

Quagmire spread his hands, palms upward. "The buckskin had ketched up with the barn while both was in the air. The cuss had walked inside to get a free ride. When I slides down to the manger there he was, munchin' oats."

Billy collapsed first, moaning. The crouching punchers swayed back and forth, arms flailing, like priests performing strange rites. Wild laughter ricochetted up and against the whirling air. Lispenard jumped to his feet. "I told you it'd be another cursed fish story!"

He had to shout to make himself heard above the shrilling tempest. Quagmire still sat cushioned on his heels, water pouring down his slicker and pooling at his feet; still a sober, bemused figure. Alone of the Circle G crew, San Saba had not joined the hilarity, and now he stepped into the waning arc of light, unfriendly, brittle-voiced.

"It's an old, stale yarn to tell a gent."

Laughter died. Quagmire looked up. "Old? What's new in this ancient universe? But seein' as yo' speak of old things, I reckon I could relate a few."

"Personal allusions, suh?"

Quagmire got to his feet, but the foreman's height made him tilt his wizened face; it was a face upon which solemnity loved to dwell, yet on occasion it could be as hard as granite, as bleak as death. So it was now. "Once upon a time, San Saba..."

Lispenard stepped ahead. "Thanks, San Saba, but this is my quarrel."

Quagmire snapped at him. "It only takes two oars to row a boat! Yo' ain't got no quarrel!"

The Blond Giant fell silent, full lips twitching. Quagmire's thin chest laboured to shove his words against the wind. "Once they was a bad night—like this one. Looked as if they might be trouble—like it does now. Boss comes up to the boys and says, 'Boys, we are apt to have a stampede. Somebody's like to get killed afo' mo'nin'. Now yo'-all better write yo' true names on a piece o' paper an' tuck in yo' shirts.' That's what he said. Mebbe we'll have trouble. But they's only one man here which needs to write his true name on a paper. An' that's yo'—San Saba!"

"Quagmire—yo' lie!"

"I pay no attention to a dawg when it barks at me," replied Quagmire somberly. "Yo' past history may be unf'miliar to others, But I know it!"

"Yo' lie!" droned San Saba. "Eat those words, hear me?"

Tom Gillette stepped between the men. "Drop it! There'll be no fights in this outfit. We're on the drive."

Quagmire turned away. But San Saba craned his nutshell head forward. "This ain't yo' affair. What yo' hornin' in for?"

"I'll make it my quarrel, San Saba." The wind swept Tom Gillette's words high up, and he had to throw all his power into them. "As for quarrels—you ought to know whether I've got one with you. Wait until the drive is finished if it's in your mind to settle."

The Major rode out of the dark pit, followed by the cavvy herder. "Saddle up! Everybody ride! Lightning striking half a mile off!"

The last flame guttered and was extinguished. Tom reached Lispenard shouting. "Stick with me! If there's trouble, keep away from the herd!"

He felt Lispenard's hand knock his arm away. "Don't worry about that. I'll look out for myself."

Confusion in the horse herd. Tom threw the dripping saddle on his pony, cinched it tight against the knowledge he might have to depend utterly on the solidity of those double bands, and swung out of the melee. A hundred yards off he struck the flank of the herd. The brutes were up, moving uneasily, heads tossing. The force of the wind was shifting them; they were turning spooky—in that frame of mind where any unaccountable sound or sight might set them running. Tom walked his pony along the rim of the straggling circle, rain driving against his slicker and pounding on his skin. He was in no humour to sing, but sing he must; anything to give those uneasy, forboding kine the reassurance of his presence.

"Oh, Buffalo girls, are you comin' out to-night

Comin' out to-night, comin' out to-night,

Oh, Buffalo girls, are you comin' out to-night..."

The drums and trumpets of the storm rolled out a prolonged fanfaronade. Thunder rocked the heavens, and an instant later a sinuous, wavering bolt of lightning cracked the pit-black sky and hung suspended one long second. In the pale blue twilight thus cast over the earth Tom saw the herd massed together, tails and horns and bony backs moving like the wind-whipped surface of the sea. Stray members of the crew were silhouetted ahead, bent against the lashing rain. Then it was dark, abysmally dark, with a phosphorescent glow running across the thousands of horn tips. Thunder again, coming closer; wind and rain struck down against the earth with tenfold force. Tom's pony stood still, bracing its feet on the slippery soil.

"Oh, Buffalo girls, are you comin' out to-night,

To dance by the light of the moon..."

College—law and order—elm trees shading green lawns. What was all that but a dream, a faint echo of life? Here on this tempest-torn prairie animate creatures struggled to survive. And some would not.

Lispenard had not left the chuck wagon, though he, like the others, had saddled his pony. The time might come when he would want to get away in a hurry. San Saba warned him of that after the rest had ridden off. The foreman had waited until he was alone with Lispenard, and even then he spoke as softly as he could manage.

"You stick here, amigo. If they should be a sound like hell bein' pulled up by the roots, skin out."

"Thanks."

And then San Saba grinned, though it was too dark for Lispenard to see this cheerless contraction of lips. "Ain't no call fo' thanks, friend. Mebbe I will be askin' yo' to return the favour some day."

He vanished, trampling the last dull ember of the fire. Nor did he fall into the usual drone as he skirted the herd. He went silently, with the picture of the herd as he had seen them at sunset in his mind. Judge Lynch, the one-eyed hermit, was over on the west side somewhat near the rear. Judge Lynch usually bedded down a little removed from his companions and seldom moved far from the original spot during the night. The critters were all up now, but the foreman was betting strongly that this morose and distrustful animal would be standing in his tracks. Barring earlier developments, he had business with Judge Lynch.

The first streamer of lightning found him half around the circle. Two riders were directly in front, but they were travelling in the same direction and thus didn't see San Saba. The foreman quickened his pace and on the ensuing flash looked behind him. Nobody within fifty yards. At the same time he located Judge Lynch, marking the spot in his mind as the darkness closed down. He bent forward, slipping his quirt; Judge Lynch's vague outline fell athwart his path. The quirt flailed out, struck the steer's rump. San Saba's voice teetered shrilly on the driving wind. "Hyaaaa!" Judge Lynch snorted, whirled from the blow, and lumbered off.

San Saba turned the pony and galloped recklessly into the open prairie. Through the wild beat and roar of the storm came the distinct echo of the herd breaking away. A rumble of those thousands of hoofs, a clamour of bawling and bellowing, a clicking of horns. The reverberation of all this trembled along the earth and up through his pony's pounding feet. San Saba grinned his humourless grin and aimed away from the path of the stampeding brutes. For that path was one of destruction.

Tom Gillette had rounded the windward side of the herd when he felt a shock pass across the darkness. Once experienced, it was a sensation never to be forgotten. He had often been told by old hands that the fright of a single steer could strike through five thousand cattle with all the speed of an electrical impulse. He never had quite believed it until this moment. It came from he knew not where, the cause was equally obscure. Nevertheless, he felt the impact of that surging, milling mass of brutes as they swung, collided, and then struck off with the wind behind them. The babble of their throats drowned even the storm; and when the next flash of lightning played its smoke-blue gleam upon the prairie he saw them running, tails up, horns weaving; here and there they had become trapped by their blind fright—piled together like logs jammed up in the eddy of a river. But they were running away, and Tom saw Quagmire and Billy outlined just for an instant in the glare, trying to circle around to the front of the mass. Darkness dropped; he sank his spurs and raced after them.

Guns cracked. Somebody in front was trying to turn the flight. He heard a shrill yell beside him, and he wondered which one of the crew it happened to be. Not that it made any difference; yet his mind played queer tricks as he found himself on one ragged flank of the racing brutes. Queer tricks; for all the while this night and its fury hammered at his senses he kept remembering the last dance. Even the music of it came back to his memory. There had been a summerhouse out in that green and peaceful yard; a summerhouse open to all the fragrance of a June night. And where was she now, and what dumb man—for it seemed all men were humble and helpless at her hands—was receiving the favour of her provoking and elusive smile? Oh, she knew the game she was playing. What else could it be with her when every gesture and every word had so led him astray? And in the end it was her cool, scornful dismissal. "Tom, you Texan savage, why must you be so ridiculously serious? You ought to command your heart better. Thank you, my dear man, but I'll be no chatelaine out in the wilderness."

It was over, thank God! He found himself shouting the very words into space. He'd had enough. Enough of play acting and fine manners and—falsity. He had been a gentleman. What good was that? Why, those people never knew what living was. And they had infected him with their code, with the specious reasoning of their commandments. Good enough for them, but what would any of them do if they saw San Saba's little red eyes staring through the shadows, like the eyes of a reptile ready to strike? Curse that code, it had tainted his blood. It had made him feel cold fear on matching San Saba's dead, lusterless glance.

The muffled echo of a shot. The racing pony drew well toward the head of the stampede. He felt the steady surge of its muscles, and he thought of the cinches he had drawn so tight. Well enough, so long as the horse kept its feet out of a gopher hole.

The storm maintained its fury. They had gone miles from camp. Of a sudden Tom saw a jagged fragment of the herd break off, then he was surrounded and riding neck and neck with a racing shadow, feeling the touch of a horn against his stirrup. He drew his gun and fired point-blank, shouting at the top of his lungs.

"Pile up, you brutes, pile up!"

On and on he raced. It seemed many hours, it may have been many hours. But he was well ahead and he had company. Quagmire's bullfrog croak came to him at intervals, like the sounding of a foghorn. More shots, more wild incantations. His pony raced down a hollow, up the farther side; the rhythmic jolting of its hoofs lost a beat, the animal stumbled, caught the stride, and pounded on.

"Good boy. This is no place to die."

Gradually, as the time passed, Tom detected a lessening of speed, a kind of faltering among the cattle, a raggedness in their hitherto compact formation. Instantly, he slackened his own pace until he rode abreast of the lead steers. The other punchers along the vanguard likewise had discovered this and were crowding together. Guns flashed in the blackness, voices rose shrill and profane. Tom ranged abreast a steer and pressed against it, sheering it off from a straight course. He heard Quagmire's rumbling cry of encouragement "Now she goes! Swing 'em—swing 'em!"

They swung, brute following brute in a giant circle. More men rode in, shoving against the swirling wall of flesh. The circle dwindled, the herd milled around and around; they fell from a gallop to a shambling trot and presently that trot declined to a walk. Mischief still swayed the more unregenerate, but the fright had worn off, the flight was checked. The stampede was over.

It was a smaller herd by half. Cattle were strung out the many intervening miles, but there was nothing to do but wait the miserable night through. Thus the crew wearily stood guard, wet and tired and uneasy. Rider came abreast rider, establishing identity.

"Where's Mex?"

"Dunno. Last I knew he was 'way back. Had a slow horse. Don't 'spect he could keep up with this hell on wheels. That Carolina over yonder?"

"Yeh, him an' me stuck together."

One by one they mustered. The names of the absentees were repeated in gruffer accents. "That you, Billy?"

"Nope. Billy was last man from camp."

"No, sir, he was right aside me up until ten minutes ago."

"Well, he's all right."

"Shore—shore. Prob'ly trailin' some strays. Show up by daylight."

Somebody began to sing:

"Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie,

In a grave six foot by three..."

It was protested instantly. They were jaded, and an uneasy fear rode each of them. "What fool is that? Lord a'mighty, shut up! Cow critters don't deserve no melody tonight."

The crest of the storm had passed some little while ago; the rain lessened. Thunder echoed from a remote distance, and it seemed to be getting lighter. And so the hours dragged by, the Circle G crew sodden to the skin, riding weary paths in the trampled earth, and every now and then one of them would announce discovery of another member, only to be contradicted. Talk came in shorter spurts. Silence grew the more prolonged, though on occasion there was a crackling rapid-fire exchange of comment. Anything to relieve the tedium.

"What started this cussed party, anyhow?"

"Somebody spit over the wrong shoulder, I reckon."

"Yo' ain't funny, Baldy. Say, did anybody hear a sorter yippy- yip about ten seconds before it happened?"

"Ask Joe Priest. He was on circle then."

"I oughter been out there singin' bass," opined Quagmire, riding into the conversation. "It never would of happened. Tom—hey, Tom."

"Present and accounted for," drawled Tom.

Quagmire drew alongside and his arm rested on Tom's shoulder. "Knew yo' was ridin' with me. But I kinda lost yo' fo' a piece and I..." But he was not given to sentiment. That was as far as he would go.

Tom swore at him. "You galoot, I'm riding a good horse."

"Sho'. An' the good Lord was watchin' yo' too. Else yo' pony wouldn't he'ped none."

The squealing of the chuck-wagon wheels announced Old Mose's approach. He had smelled them out somehow and was coming on the dead run. How or where he had found his horses no one knew. His falsetto voice assailed them.

"Ain' yo' boys got nuthin' else to do but run offen the earth? Gittin' sho'ly tough when doctor has to foller with the grub."

The rain still fell, and there wasn't a dry twig within twenty miles. But the cook knew his business. Presently a fire twinkled directly under the wagon bed, shielded from the downpour. When it had grown enough to threaten the vehicle, Old Mose drove clear of it, threw on the coffee pot, and in ten minutes hailed them. "Come an' wa'm yo' gizzards."

The first gray beam of false dawn crept out of the cast. In a half hour it was light enough to take stock and recount noses. Nothing was said for a good five minutes, and in the end it was Major Bob who brusquely broke the silence. "Guess Billy's out followin' a stray bunch. We'll look. Quagmire, Tom, Joe Priest—you—Carolina—light out that way. Rest of you spread."

They strung to the four corners of the gray and sodden morning. Tom galloped directly back upon the trail—the broad trail flailed by the stampeding herd. The mark of ruin was on the earth, the grass churned into the mud, here and there a cow that had gone down in the rush. Tom rode steadily, tired clear to his bones. Drab tendrils of rain hung raggedly from the dark sky; it would be a sullen day.

Of a sudden he came to a coulee half awash with water. And he stopped dead, his eyes fastened there. Then he turned, pulled his revolver and shot thrice, spacing each shot. The extended riders swung and converged toward him. Those tarrying at the chuck wagon sprang to saddle and came on the dead run. Tom waited until they had assembled before pointing to the coulee.

"Pony threw him, I guess. Must've been tangled in the herd. Never had a Chinaman's chance."

Billy—the skeptic Billy who forever liked to contradict Quagmire—was sprawled in the coulee's bottom, half covered with water and mud, arms outflung, face down. And it was Quagmire who first got from his horse and descended. Somebody broke back for the chuck wagon, returning with a pair of shovels. And while the rain sluiced over the earth the crew stood grimly about as the grave was dug and Billy lifted into it. It was a hard silence to break, a difficult place to say what had to be said. When the last shovel of earth had been tamped down, Major Bob took off his hat.

"If anybody wants to say a prayer, let him do it. I reckon nobody wants to, though. Well, men have got to die, and men have got to be buried. Where is a better place than here? We'll see the boy again, make no doubt of that. It's the same story for us all. The candle burns strongly, but the candle burns fast."

Quagmire's voice rose angrily. "Well, Billy was a good gent—a good gent! Put another shovel o' dirt on that grave, Red. He shore was a good gent. He'll ride in marble halls! Dammit, Red, put another shovel o' earth on that grave! It's awful cold this mornin'!"