IV. DEEP INTO CATTLE LAND
Morning had been for some while astir in Medicine Bow before I left myquilts. The new day and its doings began around me in the store, chieflyat the grocery counter. Dry-goods were not in great request. The earlyrising cow-boys were off again to their work; and those to whom theirnight's holiday had left any dollars were spending these for tobacco, orcartridges, or canned provisions for the journey to their distantcamps. Sardines were called for, and potted chicken, and devilled ham:a sophisticated nourishment, at first sight, for these sons of thesage-brush. But portable ready-made food plays of necessity a great partin the opening of a new country. These picnic pots and cans were thefirst of her trophies that Civilization dropped upon Wyoming's virginsoil. The cow-boy is now gone to worlds invisible; the wind has blownaway the white ashes of his camp-fires; but the empty sardine box liesrusting over the face of the Western earth.
So through my eyes half closed I watched the sale of these tins, andgrew familiar with the ham's inevitable trademark--that label with thedevil and his horns and hoofs and tail very pronounced, all colored asultry prodigious scarlet. And when each horseman had made his purchase,he would trail his spurs over the floor, and presently the sound of hishorse's hoofs would be the last of him. Through my dozing attention camevarious fragments of talk, and sometimes useful bits of knowledge. Forinstance, I learned the true value of tomatoes in this country. Onefellow was buying two cans of them.
"Meadow Creek dry already?" commented the proprietor.
"Been dry ten days," the young cow-boy informed him. And it appearedthat along the road he was going, water would not be reached much beforesundown, because this Meadow Creek had ceased to run. His tomatoes werefor drink. And thus they have refreshed me many times since.
"No beer?" suggested the proprietor.
The boy made a shuddering face. "Don't say its name to me!" heexclaimed. "I couldn't hold my breakfast down." He rang his silver moneyupon the counter. "I've swore off for three months," he stated. "I'mgoing to be as pure as the snow!" And away he went jingling out of thedoor, to ride seventy-five miles. Three more months of hard, unshelteredwork, and he would ride into town again, with his adolescent bloodcrying aloud for its own.
"I'm obliged," said a new voice, rousing me from a new doze. "She'seasier this morning, since the medicine." This was the engineer, whosesick wife had brought a hush over Medicine Bow's rioting. "I'll give herthem flowers soon as she wakes," he added.
"Flowers?" repeated the proprietor.
"You didn't leave that bunch at our door?"
"Wish I'd thought to do it."
"She likes to see flowers," said the engineer. And he walked out slowly,with his thanks unachieved. He returned at once with the Virginian; forin the band of the Virginian's hat were two or three blossoms.
"It don't need mentioning," the Southerner was saying, embarrassed byany expression of thanks. "If we had knowed last night--"
"You didn't disturb her any," broke in the engineer. "She's easier thismorning. I'll tell her about them flowers."
"Why, it don't need mentioning," the Virginian again protested, almostcrossly. "The little things looked kind o' fresh, and I just pickedthem." His eye now fell upon me, where I lay upon the counter. "I reckonbreakfast will be getting through," he remarked.
I was soon at the wash trough. It was only half-past six, but many hadbeen before me,--one glance at the roller-towel told me that. I wasafraid to ask the landlady for a clean one, and so I found a freshhandkerchief, and accomplished a sparing toilet. In the midst of thisthe drummers joined me, one by one, and they used the degraded towelwithout hesitation. In a way they had the best of me; filth was nothingto them.
The latest risers in Medicine Bow, we sat at breakfast together; andthey essayed some light familiarities with the landlady. But theseexperiments were failures. Her eyes did not see, nor did her earshear them. She brought the coffee and the bacon with a sedateness thatpropriety itself could scarce have surpassed. Yet impropriety lurkednoiselessly all over her. You could not have specified how; it wasinterblended with her sum total. Silence was her apparent habit and herweapon; but the American drummer found that she could speak to the pointwhen need came for this. During the meal he had praised her goldenhair. It was golden indeed, and worth a high compliment; but his kinddispleased her. She had let it pass, however, with no more than a coolstare. But on taking his leave, when he came to pay for the meal, hepushed it too far.
"Pity this must be our last," he said; and as it brought no answer,"Ever travel?" he inquired. "Where I go, there's room for a pair of us."
"Then you'd better find another jackass," she replied quietly.
I was glad that I had not asked for a clean towel.
From the commercial travellers I now separated myself, and wanderedalone in pleasurable aimlessness. It was seven o'clock. MedicineBow stood voiceless and unpeopled. The cow-boys had melted away. Theinhabitants were indoors, pursuing the business or the idleness of theforenoon. Visible motion there was none. No shell upon the dry sandscould lie more lifeless than Medicine Bow. Looking in at the store,I saw the proprietor sitting with his pipe extinct. Looking in at thesaloon, I saw the dealer dealing dumbly to himself. Up in the sky therewas not a cloud nor a bird, and on the earth the lightest strawlay becalmed. Once I saw the Virginian at an open door, where thegolden-haired landlady stood talking with him. Sometimes I strolled inthe town, and sometimes out on the plain I lay down with my day dreamsin the sagebrush. Pale herds of antelope were in the distance, and nearby the demure prairie-dogs sat up and scrutinized me. Steve, Trampas,the riot of horsemen, my lost trunk, Uncle Hughey, with his abortivebrides--all things merged in my thoughts in a huge, deliciousindifference. It was like swimming slowly at random in an ocean that wassmooth, and neither too cool nor too warm. And before I knew it, fivelazy imperceptible hours had gone thus. There was the Union Pacifictrain, coming as if from shores forgotten.
Its approach was silent and long drawn out. I easily reached town andthe platform before it had finished watering at the tank. It moved up,made a short halt, I saw my trunk come out of it, and then it moved awaysilently as it had come, smoking and dwindling into distance unknown.
Beside my trunk was one other, tied extravagantly with white ribbon. Thefluttering bows caught my attention, and now I suddenly saw a perfectlynew sight. The Virginian was further down the platform, doubled up withlaughing. It was good to know that with sufficient cause he could laughlike this; a smile had thus far been his limit of external mirth.Rice now flew against my hat, and hissing gusts of rice spouted on theplatform. All the men left in Medicine Bow appeared like magic, and morerice choked the atmosphere. Through the general clamor a cracked voicesaid, "Don't hit her in the eye, boys!" and Uncle Hughey rushed proudlyby me with an actual wife on his arm. She could easily have been hisgranddaughter. They got at once into a vehicle. The trunk was lifted inbehind. And amid cheers, rice, shoes, and broad felicitations, the pairdrove out of town, Uncle Hughey shrieking to the horses and the bridewaving unabashed adieus.
The word had come over the wires from Laramie: "Uncle Hughey has madeit this time. Expect him on to-day's number two." And Medicine Bow hadexpected him.
Many words arose on the departure of the new-married couple.
"Who's she?"
"What's he got for her?"
"Got a gold mine up Bear Creek."
And after comment and prophecy, Medicine Bow returned to its dinner.
This meal was my last here for a long while. The Virginian'sresponsibility now returned; duty drove the Judge's trustworthy manto take care of me again. He had not once sought my society of his ownaccord; his distaste for what he supposed me to be (I don't exactly knowwhat this was) remained unshaken. I have thought that matters of dressand speech should not carry with them so much mistrust in our democracy;thieves are presumed innocent until proved guilty, but a starched collaris condemned at once. Perfect civility and obligingness I certainly didreceive from the Virginian,
only not a word of fellowship. He harnessedthe horses, got my trunk, and gave me some advice about takingprovisions for our journey, something more palatable than what food weshould find along the road. It was well thought of, and I bought quite aparcel of dainties, feeling that he would despise both them and me. Andthus I took my seat beside him, wondering what we should manage to talkabout for two hundred and sixty-three miles.
Farewell in those days was not said in Cattle Land. Acquaintanceswatched our departure with a nod or with nothing, and the nearestapproach to "Good-by" was the proprietor's "So-long." But I caught sightof one farewell given without words.
As we drove by the eating-house, the shade of a side window was raised,and the landlady looked her last upon the Virginian. Her lips werefaintly parted, and no woman's eyes ever said more plainly, "I am one ofyour possessions." She had forgotten that it might be seen. Her glancecaught mine, and she backed into the dimness of the room. What lookshe may have received from him, if he gave her any at this too publicmoment, I could not tell. His eyes seemed to be upon the horses, andhe drove with the same mastering ease that had roped the wild ponyyesterday. We passed the ramparts of Medicine Bow,--thick heaps andfringes of tin cans, and shelving mounds of bottles cast out of thesaloons. The sun struck these at a hundred glittering points. And in amoment we were in the clean plains, with the prairie-dogs and the paleherds of antelope. The great, still air bathed us, pure as water andstrong as wine; the sunlight flooded the world; and shining upon thebreast of the Virginian's flannel shirt lay a long gold thread of hair!The noisy American drummer had met defeat, but this silent free lancehad been easily victorious.
It must have been five miles that we travelled in silence, losing andseeing the horizon among the ceaseless waves of the earth. Then I lookedback, and there was Medicine Bow, seemingly a stone's throw behindus. It was a full half-hour before I looked back again, and there sureenough was always Medicine Bow. A size or two smaller, I will admit, butvisible in every feature, like something seen through the wrong end ofa field glass. The East-bound express was approaching the town, and Inoticed the white steam from its whistle; but when the sound reached us,the train had almost stopped. And in reply to my comment upon this, theVirginian deigned to remark that it was more so in Arizona.
"A man come to Arizona," he said, "with one of them telescopes to studythe heavenly bodies. He was a Yankee, seh, and a right smart one, too.And one night we was watchin' for some little old fallin' stars that hesaid was due, and I saw some lights movin' along across the mesa prettylively, an' I sang out. But he told me it was just the train. And I toldhim I didn't know yu' could see the cyars that plain from his place,'Yu' can see them,' he said to me, 'but it is las' night's cyars you'relookin' at.'" At this point the Virginian spoke severely to one of thehorses. "Of course," he then resumed to me, "that Yankee man did notmean quite all he said.--You, Buck!" he again broke off suddenly tothe horse. "But Arizona, seh," he continued, "it cert'nly has a mos'deceivin' atmospheah. Another man told me he had seen a lady close oneeye at him when he was two minutes hard run from her." This time theVirginian gave Buck the whip.
"What effect," I inquired with a gravity equal to his own, "does thisextraordinary foreshortening have upon a quart of whiskey?"
"When it's outside yu', seh, no distance looks too far to go to it."
He glanced at me with an eye that held more confidence than hitherto hehad been able to feel in me. I had made one step in his approval. ButI had many yet to go. This day he preferred his own thoughts to myconversation, and so he did all the days of this first journey; whileI should have greatly preferred his conversation to my thoughts. Hedismissed some attempts that I made upon the subject of Uncle Hughey sothat I had not the courage to touch upon Trampas, and that chill briefcollision which might have struck the spark of death. Trampas! I hadforgotten him till this silent drive I was beginning. I wondered if Ishould ever see him, or Steve, or any of those people again. And thiswonder I expressed aloud.
"There's no tellin' in this country," said the Virginian. "Folks comeeasy, and they go easy. In settled places, like back in the States, evena poor man mostly has a home. Don't care if it's only a barrel on a lot,the fello' will keep frequentin' that lot, and if yu' want him yu' canfind him. But out hyeh in the sage-brush, a man's home is apt to be hissaddle blanket. First thing yu' know, he has moved it to Texas."
"You have done some moving yourself," I suggested.
But this word closed his mouth. "I have had a look at the country," hesaid, and we were silent again. Let me, however, tell you here that hehad set out for a "look at the country" at the age of fourteen; andthat by his present age of twenty-four he had seen Arkansas, Texas,New Mexico, Arizona, California, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.Everywhere he had taken care of himself, and survived; nor had hisstrong heart yet waked up to any hunger for a home. Let me also tell youthat he was one of thousands drifting and living thus, but (as you shalllearn) one in a thousand.
Medicine Bow did not forever remain in sight. When next I thought of itand looked behind, nothing was there but the road we had come; it laylike a ship's wake across the huge ground swell of the earth. We wereswallowed in a vast solitude. A little while before sunset, a cabin camein view; and here we passed our first night. Two young men lived here,tending their cattle. They were fond of animals. By the stable a chainedcoyote rushed nervously in a circle, or sat on its haunches and snappedat gifts of food ungraciously. A tame young elk walked in and out ofthe cabin door, and during supper it tried to push me off my chair. Ahalf-tame mountain sheep practised jumping from the ground to the roof.The cabin was papered with posters of a circus, and skins of bear andsilver fox lay upon the floor. Until nine o'clock one man talked to theVirginian, and one played gayly upon a concertina; and then we all wentto bed. The air was like December, but in my blankets and a buffalo robeI kept warm, and luxuriated in the Rocky Mountain silence. Going to washbefore breakfast at sunrise, I found needles of ice in a pail. Yet itwas hard to remember that this quiet, open, splendid wilderness (withnot a peak in sight just here) was six thousand feet high. And whenbreakfast was over there was no December left; and by the time theVirginian and I were ten miles upon our way, it was June. But alwaysevery breath that I breathed was pure as water and strong as wine.
We never passed a human being this day. Some wild cattle rushed up tous and away from us; antelope stared at us from a hundred yards; coyotesran skulking through the sage-brush to watch us from a hill; at our noonmeal we killed a rattlesnake and shot some young sage chickens, whichwere good at supper, roasted at our camp-fire.
By half-past eight we were asleep beneath the stars, and by half-pastfour I was drinking coffee and shivering. The horse, Buck, was hard tocatch this second morning. Whether some hills that we were now inhad excited him, or whether the better water up here had caused aneffervescence in his spirits, I cannot say. But I was as hot as July bythe time we had him safe in harness, or, rather, unsafe in harness. ForBuck, in the mysterious language of horses, now taught wickedness tohis side partner, and about eleven o'clock they laid their evil headstogether and decided to break our necks.
We were passing, I have said, through a range of demi-mountains. It wasa little country where trees grew, water ran, and the plains were shutout for a while. The road had steep places in it, and places here andthere where you could fall off and go bounding to the bottom amongstones. But Buck, for some reason, did not think these opportunitiesgood enough for him. He selected a more theatrical moment. We emergedfrom a narrow canyon suddenly upon five hundred cattle and some cow-boysbranding calves by a fire in a corral. It was a sight that Buck knew byheart. He instantly treated it like an appalling phenomenon. I sawhim kick seven ways; I saw Muggins kick five ways; our furious motionsnapped my spine like a whip. I grasped the seat. Something gave aforlorn jingle. It was the brake.
"Don't jump!" commanded the trustworthy man.
"No," I said, as my hat flew off.
Help was too far away to do anything
for us. We passed scatheless througha part of the cattle, I saw their horns and backs go by. Some earthcrumbled, and we plunged downward into water rocking among stones, andupward again through some more crumbling earth. I heard a crash, and sawmy trunk landing in the stream.
"She's safer there," said the trustworthy man.
"True," I said.
"We'll go back for her," said he, with his eye on the horses and hisfoot on the crippled brake. A dry gully was coming, and no room to turn.The farther side of it was terraced with rock. We should simply fallbackward, if we did not fall forward first. He steered the horsesstraight over, and just at the bottom swung them, with astonishingskill, to the right along the hard-baked mud. They took us along the bedup to the head of the gully, and through a thicket of quaking asps. Thelight trees bent beneath our charge and bastinadoed the wagon as it wentover them. But their branches enmeshed the horses' legs, and we came toa harmless standstill among a bower of leaves.
I looked at the trustworthy man, and smiled vaguely. He considered mefor a moment.
"I reckon," said he, "you're feelin' about halfway between 'Oh, Lord!'and 'Thank God!'"
"That's quite it," said I, as he got down on the ground.
"Nothing's broke," said he, after a searching examination. And heindulged in a true Virginian expletive. "Gentlemen, hush!" he murmuredgently, looking at me with his grave eyes; "one time I got pretty nearscared. You, Buck," he continued, "some folks would beat you now tillyu'd be uncertain whether yu' was a hawss or a railroad accident. I'd doit myself, only it wouldn't cure yu'."
I now told him that I supposed he had saved both our lives. But hedetested words of direct praise. He made some grumbling rejoinder, andled the horses out of the thicket. Buck, he explained to me, was a goodhorse, and so was Muggins. Both of them generally meant well, and thatwas the Judge's reason for sending them to meet me. But these broncoshad their off days. Off days might not come very often; but when thehumor seized a bronco, he had to have his spree. Buck would now behavehimself as a horse should for probably two months. "They are just likehumans," the Virginian concluded.
Several cow-boys arrived on a gallop to find how many pieces of us wereleft. We returned down the hill; and when we reached my trunk, it wassurprising to see the distance that our runaway had covered. My hat wasalso found, and we continued on our way.
Buck and Muggins were patterns of discretion through the rest of themountains. I thought when we camped this night that it was strange Buckshould be again allowed to graze at large, instead of being tied to arope while we slept. But this was my ignorance. With the hard work thathe was gallantly doing, the horse needed more pasture than a rope'slength would permit him to find. Therefore he went free, and in themorning gave us but little trouble in catching him.
We crossed a river in the forenoon, and far to the north of us we sawthe Bow Leg Mountains, pale in the bright sun. Sunk Creek flowed fromtheir western side, and our two hundred and sixty-three miles began togrow a small thing in my eyes. Buck and Muggins, I think, knew perfectlythat to-morrow would see them home. They recognized this region; andonce they turned off at a fork in the road. The Virginian pulled themback rather sharply.
"Want to go back to Balaam's?" he inquired of them. "I thought you hadmore sense."
I asked, "Who was Balaam?"
"A maltreater of hawsses," replied the cow-puncher. "His ranch is onButte Creek oveh yondeh." And he pointed to where the diverging roadmelted into space. "The Judge bought Buck and Muggins from him in thespring."
"So he maltreats horses?" I repeated.
"That's the word all through this country. A man that will do whatthey claim Balaam does to a hawss when he's mad, ain't fit to be calledhuman." The Virginian told me some particulars.
"Oh!" I almost screamed at the horror of it, and again, "Oh!"
"He'd have prob'ly done that to Buck as soon as he stopped runnin' away.If I caught a man doin' that--"
We were interrupted by a sedate-looking traveller riding upon an equallysober horse.
"Mawnin', Taylor," said the Virginian, pulling up for gossip. "Ain't youstrayed off your range pretty far?"
"You're a nice one!" replied Mr. Taylor, stopping his horse and smilingamiably.
"Tell me something I don't know," retorted the Virginian.
"Hold up a man at cards and rob him," pursued Mr. Taylor. "Oh, the newshas got ahead of you!"
"Trampas has been hyeh explainin', has he?" said the Virginian with agrin.
"Was that your victim's name?" said Mr. Taylor, facetiously. "No, itwasn't him that brought the news. Say, what did you do, anyway?"
"So that thing has got around," murmured the Virginian. "Well, it wasn'tworth such wide repawtin'." And he gave the simple facts to Taylor,while I sat wondering at the contagious powers of Rumor. Here, throughthis voiceless land, this desert, this vacuum, it had spread like achange of weather. "Any news up your way?" the Virginian concluded.
Importance came into Mr. Taylor's countenance. "Bear Creek is going tobuild a schoolhouse," said he.
"Goodness gracious!" drawled the Virginian. "What's that for?"
Now Mr. Taylor had been married for some years. "To educate theoffspring of Bear Creek," he answered with pride.
"Offspring of Bear Creek," the Virginian meditatively repeated. "I don'tremember noticin' much offspring. There was some white tail deer, and aright smart o' jack rabbits."
"The Swintons have moved up from Drybone," said Mr. Taylor, alwaysseriously. "They found it no place for young children. And there's UncleCarmody with six, and Ben Dow. And Westfall has become a family man,and--"
"Jim Westfall!" exclaimed the Virginian. "Him a fam'ly man! Well, ifthis hyeh Territory is goin' to get full o' fam'ly men and empty o'game, I believe I'll--"
"Get married yourself," suggested Mr. Taylor.
"Me! I ain't near reached the marriageable age. No, seh! But UncleHughey has got there at last, yu' know."
"Uncle Hughey!" shouted Mr. Taylor. He had not heard this. Rumor is verycapricious. Therefore the Virginian told him, and the family man rockedin his saddle.
"Build your schoolhouse," said the Virginian. "Uncle Hughey hasqualified himself to subscribe to all such propositions. Got your eye ona schoolmarm?"