Читать книгу Partners of Chance - Henry Herbert Knibbs - Страница 8

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The Overland, westbound, was late. Nevertheless, it had to stop at Antelope, but it did so grudgingly and left with a snort of disdain for the cow-town of the high mesa. Curious-eyed tourists had a brief glimpse of a loading-chute, cattle-pens, a puncher or two, and an Indian freighter's wagon just pulling in from the spaces, and accompanied by a plodding cavalcade of outriders on paint ponies.

Incidentally the westbound left one of those momentarily interested Easterners on the station platform, without baggage, sense of direction, or companion. He had stepped off the train to send a telegram to a friend in California. He discovered that he had left his address book in his grip. Meanwhile the train had moved forward some sixty yards, to take water. Returning for his address book, he boarded the wrong Pullman, realized his mistake, and hastened on through to his car. Out to the station again--delay in getting the attention of the telegraph operator, the wire finally written--and the Easterner heard the rumble of the train as it pulled out.

Even then he would have made it had it not been for a portly individual in shirt-sleeves who inadvertently blocked the doorway of the telegraph office. Bartley bumped into this portly person, tried to squeeze past, did so, and promptly caromed off the station agent whom he met head on, halfway across the platform. Gazing at the departing train, Bartley reached in his pocket for a cigar which he lighted casually.

The portly individual touched him on the shoulder. "'Nother one, this afternoon."

"Thanks. But my baggage is on that one."

"You're lucky it ain't two sections behind, this time of year. Travel is heavy."

Bartley's quick glance took in the big man from his high-heeled boots to his black Stetson. A cattleman, evidently well to do, and quite evidently not flustered by the mishaps of other folks.

"There's a right comfortable little hotel, just over there," stated the cattleman. "Wishful runs her. It ain't a bad place to wait for your train."

Bartley smiled in spite of his irritation.

The cattleman's eyes twinkled. "You'll be sending a wire to have 'em take care of your war bag. Well, come on in and send her. You can catch Number Eight about Winslow."

The cattleman forged ahead, and in the telegraph office, got the immediate attention of the operator, who took Bartley's message.

The cattleman paid for it. "'Tain't the first time my size has cost me money," he said, as Bartley protested. "Now, let's go over and get another cigar. Then we can mill around and see Wishful. You'll like Wishful. He's different."

They strode down the street and stopped in at a saloon where the cattleman called for cigars. Bartley noticed that the proprietor of the place addressed the big cattleman as "Senator."

"This here is a dry climate, and a cigar burns up right quick, if you don't moisten it a little," said the cattleman. "I 'most always moisten mine."

Bartley grinned. "I think the occasion calls for it, Senator."

"Oh, shucks! Just call me Steve--Steve Brown. And just give us a little Green River Tom."

A few minutes later Bartley and his stout companion were seated on the veranda of the hotel, gazing out across the mesas. They were both comfortable, and quite content to watch the folk go past, out there in the heat. Bartley wondered if the title "Senator" were a nickname, or if the portly gentleman placidly smoking his cigar and gazing into space was really a politician.

A dusty cow-puncher drifted past the hotel, waving his hand to the Senator, who replied genially. A little later a Navajo buck rode up on a quick-stepping pony. He grunted a salutation and said something in his native tongue. The Senator replied in kind. Bartley was interested. Presently the Navajo dug his heels into his pony's ribs, and clattered up the road.

The Senator turned to Bartley. "Politics and cattle," he said, smiling.

Having learned the Senator's vocation, Bartley gave his own as briefly. The Senator nodded.

"It is as obvious as all that, then?" queried Bartley.

"I wouldn't say that," stated the Senator carefully. "But after you bumped into me, and then stepped into the agent, and then turned around and took in my scenery, noticin' the set of my legs, I says to myself, 'painter-man or writer.' It was kind of in your eye. I figured you wa'n't no painter-man when you looked at the oil paintin' over the bar.

"A painter-man would 'a' looked sad or said somethin', for that there paintin' is the most gosh-awful picture of what a puncher might look like after a cyclone had hit him. I took a painter-man in there once, to get a drink. He took one look at that picture, and then he says, kind of sorrowful: 'Is this the only place in town where they serve liquor?' I told him it was. 'Let's go over and tackle the pump,' he says. But we had our drink. I told him just to turn his back on that picture when he took his."

"I might be anything but a writer," said Bartley.

"That's correct. But you ain't."

"You hit the nail on the head. However, I can't just follow your line of reasoning it out."

"Easy. Elimination. Now a tourist, regular, stares at folks and things. But a painter or writer he takes things in without starin'. There's some difference. I knew you were a man who did things. It's in your eye."

"Well," laughed Bartley, "I took you for a cattleman the minute I saw you."

"Which was a minute too late, eh?"

"I don't know about that. Since I've been sitting here looking at the mesa and those wonderful buttes over there, and watching the natives come and go, I have begun to feel that I don't care so much about that train, after all. I like this sort of thing. You see, I planned to visit California, but there was nothing definite about the plan. I chose California because I had heard so much about it. It doesn't matter much where I go. By the way, my name is Bartley."

"I'm Steve Brown--cattle and politics. I tell you, Mr. Bartley--"

"Suppose you say just Bartley?"

The Senator chuckled. "Suppose I said 'Green River'?"

"I haven't an objection in the world," laughed Bartley.

"Wishful, here, don't keep liquor," explained the Senator. "And he's right about that. Folks that stay at this hotel want to sleep nights."

The Senator heaved himself out of his chair, stood up, and stretched.

"I reckon you'll be wantin' to see all you can of this country. My ranch lays just fifty miles south of the railroad, and not a fence from here to there. Then, there's them Indians, up north a piece. And over yonder is where they dig up them prehistoric villages. And those buttes over there used to be volcanoes, before they laid off the job. To the west is the petrified forest. I made a motion once, when the Legislature was in session, to have that forest set aside as a buryin'-ground for politicians,--State Senators and the like,--but they voted me down. They said I didn't specify dead politicians.

"South of my place is the Apache reservation. There's good huntin' in that country. 'Course, Arizona ain't no Garden of Eden to some folks. Two kinds of folks don't love this State a little bit'--homesteaders and tourists. But when it comes to cattle and sheep and mines, you can't beat her. She sure is the Tiger Lily of the West. But let's step over and see Tom. Excuse me a minute. There's a constituent who has somethin' on his chest. I'll meet you at the station."

The Senator stepped out and talked with his constituent. Meanwhile, Bartley turned to gaze down the street. A string of empty freight wagons, followed by a lazy cloud of dust, rolled slowly toward town. Here and there a bit of red showed in the dun mass of riders that accompanied the wagons. A gay-colored blanket flickered in the sun. The mesas radiated keen dry heat.

Bartley turned and crossed over to the station. He blinked the effects of the white light from his eyes as he entered the telegraph office. The operator, in shirt-sleeves, and smoking a brown-paper cigarette, nodded and handed Bartley a service message stating that his effects would be carried to Los Angeles and held for further orders.

"It's sure hot," said the operator. "Did you want to send another wire?"

Bartley shook his head. "Who is that stout man I bumped into trying to catch my train?"

"That's Senator Steve Brown--State Senator. Thought you knew him."

"No. I just met him to-day."

The operator slumped down in his chair.

Bartley strode to the door and blinked in the Arizona sunshine. "By George!" he murmured, "I always thought they wore those big Stetsons for show. But all day in this sun--guess I'll have to have one."