THE KID OF APACHE TEJU
Baby, my babe, What waits you yonder, Out in the world? Dear little feet, There must they wander, Out in the world? Soft little hands, What shall they do there, Out in the world? Baby, my babe, What fate must you dare, Out in the world?
All around Apache Teju for miles and miles lies the gray,cactus-dotted, heat-devoured plain, weird and fascinating, with itsplacid, tree-fringed lakes, that are not; its barren, jagged,turquoise-tinted mountain-peaks, born here and there of the horizon andthe desert; its whirling, dancing columns of sand, which mount tomid-sky; its lying distances and deceiving levels; its silence and itsfierce, white, unclouded sunshine.
And when you draw rein under the cottonwoods at Apache Teju, uncurl thewrinkles of your eyelids in the welcome shade, and cool your eyes inthe vivid green of the alfalfa field, it suddenly comes to you thatnever before did you understand what blessedness there is in a bit ofshadow and a patch of green things growing.
From the spring at the top of the slope behind the house a line ofnoble old cottonwoods files along the _acequia_ halfway down the hill,and there, where the ditch divides, forks into a spreading double row,which incloses the house and stables and comes together again in alittle grove beyond the road, where the two ditches empty into a pond.The house lies there in this circlet of trees, a low, whitewashed,flat-roofed adobe, rambling along in apparent aimlessness from coseyrooms through sheds and stables, until the whole connecting structureincloses a large corral.
In front of the house is a tiny square of blue-grass, bordered by bedsof geraniums and larkspurs and hollyhocks, inclosed by a low adobewall, and shaded by a young cottonwood growing in the centre. Beyond,on the slope of the hill below the ditch, where its waters can bespread over all the surface, is the rich, velvety emerald of thealfalfa field. And the fame of that little square of grass and of thatlittle field of alfalfa fills all the land from Deming to Silver City,and from Separ to the Mimbres.
And that is Apache Teju, headquarters for the northern half of a ranchthat spreads over seven thousand square miles of the arid hills andplains of southern New Mexico, where for hours and hours you may traveltoward a horizon swimming in heat, across the gray, hot, quiveringlevels, broken only by clumps of gay-flowered cactus and the blanchingbones and sun-dried hides of cattle, dead of starvation and thirst.
The superintendent's wife and I sat in the tiny grass plat enjoying thebalmy breath that in the late afternoon steals over and cools thisstrange, hot land. Texas Bill had just galloped home from the nearestrailroad station with a big package of Eastern mail; and the combinedattractions of letters, late magazines, and a box of New York candy soengrossed us that we did not see the Kid until the gate clicked and hestood before us, asking,
"Is this the double A, quart circ., bar H outfit?"
"The what?" I gasped, looking at the queer little figure inastonishment. He was perhaps a dozen years old, though the slender,childish figure and the experienced face belied each other and madeguessing difficult. He wore a man's sombrero, old and dirty, whichcame down to his ears and flopped a wide, unstiffened brim around hisface. With tardy recollection of his manners,--learned who knowswhere,--he doffed his head-gear after he had spoken, and stood withserious face, but unable to repress a smile that twinkled in his greatblue child's eyes at my astonishment. A big rent across one shoulderof his shirt showed a strip of sunburned flesh beneath and sent onesleeve dangling over his hand. His baggy trousers--no, that is not theword, they were "pants"--were held in place by a halter strap buckledtightly about his waist, and his feet were concealed in shoes so muchtoo large for him that his toes were not visible in the mouths gapingat their front ends. And on one foot clanked and jingled the pride andglory of his attire--a huge spur, three inches long, silver-plated andhighly polished, and so heavy that that foot dragged as he walked.
He repeated his question, and the superintendent's wife leaned forward,with a laughing aside to me:
"You tenderfoot! Haven't you learned our brand yet?" And to the boy:"Yes, this is Apache Teju. Do you want to see any one?"
"Boss home yet from Deming?"
"Mr. Williams? I expect him this evening."
The boy threw himself down full length upon the grass and pressed hisface against the cool, green blades.
"Well," he exclaimed, "it's pretty fine here, ain't it? That greendown there is just out of sight. I heard there was blue-grass andalfalfa here, but who 'd have thought it would look so nice?"
"Do you want to see Mr. Williams?"
"I guess it ain't necessary," and he sat up again, pressing a handfulof grass upon each glowing cheek.
I handed him the candy box and he helped himself daintily with thetongs, saying, "Thank you, ma'am," with a sidelong glance which let meknow that his heart was won to my service from that moment. He put apiece in his mouth, and his face beamed with pleasure.
"This just strikes my gait! 'T ain't much like Deming candy, is it? Isaw the boss last night in Deming," he added, turning to Mrs. Williams."You're his wife, ain't you? I thought so, soon as I saw you. He waskidding me about coming out here to be a cowboy, and I told him allright, if he wasn't running a blaze, I 'd go him on that. I was tohave rode out with him in his buggy, but I was up pretty late lastnight with the boys, doing the town, and when I got up this morning hewas gone. I was n't going to have him think I 'd backed out of thebargain, so I says to the conductor, 'I got a job out atApache--cowboy--gimme a ride to Whitewater.' And he says, 'All right,jump on. You 're welcome to a ride on my train whenever you want it.'So I walked over from Whitewater, and I 'm ready to go to work to-nightif the boss says so. He won't find me no tenderfoot, you hear me."
The naive bravado of the child's speech was irresistible. It won myheart as completely as I had won his, and I straightway emptied mycandy box into his hands. "Oh!" he breathed, looking at the heap ofdainties with infantile delight. And then he fell upon them withavidity and did not speak another word until the last one haddisappeared down his throat.
So that was how the Kid came to live at Apache Teju. He said his namewas Guy Silvestre Raymond. But whether a mother's lips had reallybestowed that name upon him, or he had appropriated it to himself outof some blood-and-thunder romance, whose hero he had decided toimitate, name and all, is one of the things that nobody but the Kidwill ever know. But it did n't matter much anyway, for he had alwaysbeen called Kid, and that name followed him to the ranch, much to hisdisgust. For he had decided, as he told me one day, that the ladies ofthe household should call him Guy, and that among the men his nameshould be "Broncho Bob."
He was a waif of the railroad. All his life had been spent along itsline, blacking boots, selling nuts, candy, papers, on the trains oraround the depots of the frontier cities and towns. And he had takencare of himself ever since he could remember. He had reached Deming afew days before in a worse but less picturesque state of dilapidationthan that in which he presented himself at Apache Teju. After decidingthat he would leave the railroad and become a cowboy, he had scrapedtogether, in Heaven knows what devious ways and by what lucky chances,the apparel of state in which he set forth on his new life.
The next morning there was trouble in the corral. Kid had beendirected to mount an old and gentle pony whose meek and humbleappearance did not at all agree with his ideas of the sort of steedBroncho Bob should bestride. There was in the corral a black horsecalled Dynamite, a mettlesome young thing whose one specialty wasbucking. And of this it never failed to give a continuous performancefrom the time a rider mounted its back until he was dislodged. Kid wasdetermined to ride Dynamite. Texas Bill and Red Jack were trying topersuade him out of his notion by telling him how dangerous the horsewas, and how he once landed Mr. Williams, the best rider on the wholeranch, on top of the house.
"Suppose he did," blustered the Kid. "He won't land me on top of thehouse, nor on top of the ground, neither. I tell you, I ain't afraidto fork any ho
rse that ever bucked! I can ride anything that wearshair! You hear me shout? Anything that wears hair!"
"See here, youngster," said Texas Bill, in his longest and mostindifferent drawl, "I 've been ridin' horses more years than you 'vebeen born, an' I 've tamed more pitchin' horses than you ever saw anyother kind, an' I ain't a little bit afraid of a pitchin' horse. I 'ma whole, big, blazin' lot afraid!"
"What if you are?" retorted Kid. "I don't have to be a coward 'causeyou 're one!"
Texas Bill's eye glared, and his hand jerked toward his hip pocket.Then he grunted and walked over to where I was feeding the two Angoragoats out of my hands.
"If he was a man--" he began in an angry voice, and then broke off."But I 'm not fightin' babies. I thought I 'd keep him from breakin'his durn fool neck, but he can go it now as fast as he wants to."
The superintendent came out and told Kid he would have to obey ordersor go back to Deming at once. So he sullenly mounted the meek andhumble pony and cantered off.
About mid-forenoon, when there was no one at home but little Madge, theten-year-old daughter of the house, the cook, and myself, Kid gallopedback alone. Madge came dancing from the corral to where I sat in thefront yard, her eyes blazing and her hands quivering with excitement.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, "He's going to ride Dynamite! He 's run off fromthem and come back to ride Dynamite!"
"He must not do it! I must not let him!" And I started for thecorral. Madge grasped my skirt with both hands.
"Dynamite won't hurt him! I know he won't!"
"What do you know about it?"
"I know he won't because--don't you tell mamma--I was on him myself oneday, and he never bucked a bit!"
"You! How did you dare?"
"I wanted to see if I could, and there was nobody in the corral, and Iclimbed on his back, and he was just lovely!"
And just then, with Kid astride him, Dynamite pranced and curveted downthe road. With a beaming face Kid waved his hat at us and gallopedoff. Dynamite making not even the sign of a desire to buck. Afterthat the boy could not be persuaded to ride any other horse. And aslong as Kid bestrode him, or Madge, with Kid's connivance and help,surreptitiously mounted him, Dynamite's behavior was perfect. But heworked woe upon any grown person that made the attempt.
The black horse's life was not an easy one under Kid's mastership. Theboy never rode at a less pace than a gallop, and even in that dry, hotair Dynamite was always reeking with sweat when they came home.
Just how the Kid put in his time out on the plains was a mystery. Thecowboys with whom and for whose assistance he was sent outgood-naturedly swore that he was "not worth a whoop in h--l." If theyneeded him, he was nowhere in sight, and if they particularly did notwant him he was sure to come charging over the plain, straight upon thecattle they had bunched, and scatter the frightened creatures to thefour winds. But mostly they said he managed to get lost; which wasonly their kindly way of putting the fact that he slipped away fromthem and pursued his own amusements at a sufficient distance not to bedisturbed by their need of him.
What he did with himself all day long Mrs. Williams and I discoveredone day when driving to Whitewater. Out on the plain we saw the Kidyelling like a wild man, with Dynamite at his highest speed, chasing ajack-rabbit. That evening I heard him giving Madge a thrilling accountof how he had chased a gray wolf, which, after running many miles, hadturned on him and viciously sprung at his throat, and how he had madeDynamite jump on the beast and trample its life out. And I recognizedin the tale merely Kid's version for Madge's ears of his chase of thejackrabbit.
Out on the plain we saw the Kid yelling like a wild man,with Dynamite at his highest speed, chasing a jackrabbit.]
For by that time he had become, in her eyes, the exemplar of all thatis inspiringly bold and daring, and he felt it necessary to keep up hisreputation. For her he was a knight of prowess who could do anythinghe wished and against whom nothing could prevail. So he told herwonderful tales of what he had seen and done and been through, and ofhis daily adventures, and brought to her the occasional results of hissingle-handed combats with birds and beasts. He offered to dig up atarantula's nest for her and to catch and tame for her pleasure aside-winder rattlesnake, or, if she preferred, a golden oriole or amocking-bird. It did n't make any difference to him whether she chosea rattlesnake or an oriole; whatever she wanted him to do, he was readyto attempt. And Madge looked and listened and worshipped; and Kid,basking in the warmth of her adoration, swaggered about in everincreasing pride and importance.
One day, just after he had returned from a two days' trip out on therange, I heard him telling her a blood-curdling tale of an adventurewith a mysterious and villainous looking Mexican, who, he said, hadshot off the end of one of his fingers. Then, the Kid declared, he hadmade Dynamite rear and strike the Mexican to the ground with hisforefeet and then trample him until he was so dead that he 'd nevershoot anybody else's finger off.
Madge was filled with horror and admiration and pity, and begged to beallowed to see and bind up the mutilated finger. But he refused withsuperior indifference, clinched his bleeding finger in his fist andsaid it was n't anything and did n't hurt, anyway. Madge's mothercalled her away, and straightway there appeared at my door a boy withpale face, quivering lips, and tear-filled eyes, holding up a bloodyhand. I bound up the wound, which was a clean cut chipping off the endof one finger, and he buried his face in my lap and cried. Soothingand cuddling him, for somehow I felt that was what the child needed, Iasked:
"How did you hurt yourself, Kid?"
"I was making a peg to hang my saddle on, and I chopped my finger withthe hatchet."
I said nothing, but soothed and cuddled him the more, and he sobbed atmy knee in sheer enjoyment of the luxury of being babied. After that Ithink he took occasion to hurt himself upon every possible opportunityin order that he might come to my room to be taken care of and pettedand comforted. He left all his swagger and bluster and bravadooutside, and I babied him to his heart's content, feeling sure that itwas the first time in all his dozen years that this child's right hadcome to him. But he did not allow these private seasons of relaxation,which he trusted me not to betray, to interfere with his doublecharacter of knight of prowess with Madge, and of Broncho Bob with themen.
Excitement did not lack at the ranch-house whenever Kid was at home.If he was sent to help with the milking, one of the cows was sure tokick over a full milk-pail, knock him over with her hoof, or breakloose from her restraining ropes, charge around the corral like a wildbeast, and crash through one of the house windows or plunge in at anopen door. If he was told to house the geese and chickens for thenight, such a commotion ensued as brought the whole household to see ifcoyotes had broken into the chicken yard. At sight of him the petAngora goats fled on their swiftest legs, with a running leap mountedone of the corral sheds, and then sped to what they had learned was theonly place of safety, the roof of the house. And when he was notstirring up the animals, he was playing jokes on the cowboys. HolyJohn, a middle-aged, thick-witted fellow, who never knew what hadhappened to him until the rest were roaring with laughter, was thespecial butt of his tricks.
One evening the boys were sitting around the kitchen door talkingquietly, for Kid was off with Madge, helping her to bury a dead kitten.Holy John sat in a slouching attitude on the doorsteps, his newsombrero, with a stiff, curled brim, tipped far back on his head. Kidcame in through the corral and stood in the kitchen for a few minutes.Then he seized the molasses jug and, tiptoeing very softly behind HolyJohn, filled the brim of his brand-new sombrero with the sticky liquid.It flowed out over his back and down into his trousers, and Holy Johnlifted a wondering and bewildered face to see his companions breakinginto uproarious mirth. Then his long-enduring patience was smotheredin wrath, and he laid violent hands upon Kid and spanked him beforeMadge's eyes.
This was too much for a knight of prowess tamely to endure, and the boyblustered around in his most vigorous impersonat
ion of the character ofBroncho Bob.
"This ranch ain't big enough to hold Holy John and me too. Him or me,one or the other, has sure got to ask for his time, and it won't be meeither, you hear me shout. I 'll get him sure buffaloed, and if hedon't pull his freight before he 's a day older, there 'll be thebiggest killing here that Apache Teju ever heard of."
It was very quiet the next day at the ranch. Mr. and Mrs. Williams andMadge had driven to Silver City, the cowboys were all on the range, andI kept in my room with some work. After a time I heard a noise at theend of the house, just outside my room, and I went to see what it was.Kid was there with a pick and shovel, toilsomely digging a hole in thehard adobe soil.
"What are you doing, Kid?"
"Nothing much. Just digging a hole."
"Isn't that where the old Apache chief is buried?"
He looked up with interest. "Is this the place? Do you know rightwhere it is?"
"They told me it is there where you are digging. Those rocks that youcan barely see, outline his grave. Are you going to dig him up?"
"Me? What would I want to dig him up for? I ain't lost no Injun! I'm just digging a hole--for Madge. She wants to plant a tree. Whatdid they bury him here for? Did they kill him here on the ranch?"
"This was a fort once, before there was any ranch here, and there was awar with the Apaches, and they were getting beaten, and so they sentthis old chief down to the fort to make terms for them. The commanderreceived him and put him in a tent and set a guard over him. In thenight the guard fell asleep, and when he wakened he was frightened lestthe Indian might have escaped. So he punched into the tent with hisbayonet to see if he was still there, and hit the chief in the foot.That made him angry and he came out and killed the guard. The noiseroused the soldiers, and they killed the chief, and they buried himhere, inside the stockade, so that the Indians would n't suspect thathe was dead until they could get reinforcements."
"The Injun killed the guard, did he? Good enough for him! I wish ithad been Holy John!"
He fell to work again with more vigor than ever, but presently hestopped and growled:
"I 'd like to run a blaze on that ornery galoot that he 'd remember allthe rest of his life!"
After a while I chanced to see Kid carrying a bundle done up in a gunnysack down to the _acequia_ and hide it among the currant bushes. Inoticed that he had carefully filled up the hole he had been digging,and I asked,
"Aren't you going to plant the tree?"
"No," he replied carelessly, "it would n't grow there. The soil's toohard."
The cowboys spread their beds every night under the cottonwoods besidethe lower acequia, and that night we heard them in earnest discussionlong after they had gone to bed. Mr. Williams was with them for ashort time and came back, saying that they were talking about ghosts,and that Kid had declared emphatically that the old Apache chief walkedo' nights and that he had both seen and heard him.
"He gave a vivid description," Mr. Williams went on, "of waking up onenight and seeing the Indian's skeleton rise up out of the ground andpounce on a soldier who stood near and kill him outright. He will haveHoly John so terrified that the poor fellow will want his time at once.For John believes everything that is impossible, and he will see ghostsall night long and be afraid of his own shadow in the daytime."
That night, just as morning broke, the whole household was awakened bya loud, piercing yell, followed by another and another, and all rushedfrom their beds in time to see Holy John leap over the fence and dartdown the road, still shrieking as if fiends were after him. And besidehis deserted bed under the cottonwoods lay some grisly thing, shiningin the gray light with streaks and patches of white. Kid looked afterthe flying figure and said, in a tone of extremest satisfaction,
"He's sure buffaloed!"
Holy John had awakened in the dim, early dawn and found the skeleton ofthe Apache chief cuddling against him.
That morning, as I sat in the yard reading, the voices of Kid and Madgecame to me from around the corner of the house, and I heard a snatch oftheir conversation.
"Madge, I 'm going to pull my freight. I won't work on the same ranchwith such a coward as that Holy John."
"Truly, Guy, are you going away?"
"Yes, I am. I ain't going to stop to ask for my time. I 'm goingto-day, before the boss comes home."
"Well, then, what am I going to do? You 're not going off to leave me?"
Silence for the space of ten seconds.
"Jiminy! Tell you what, you come too!"
"I can't! Mamma wouldn't let me!"
"Don't ask her. Come right along with me! We 'll elope! That's morefun than anything! Girls that is anything always elopes!"
Then they wandered off to the alfalfa field, and soon I saw themthrowing stones at the prairie dogs with which it was infested. So Iconcluded that what I had heard was merely some of the Kid'sbraggadocio, and, smiling at the sentimental turn he had taken, I wenton with my book and thought no more of it.
But when lunch time came neither Madge nor Kid appeared for the meal.Much calling failed to bring a response. Then I remembered and gaveaccount of the conversation I had heard. It was found that Dynamitewas gone from the corral. Evidently the little scapegrace had meantwhat he said and had carried Madge off. Mrs. Williams ordered the cartand at once we started after the fugitives.
"He has most probably gone toward Deming," she said. "I will send RedJack to Whitewater to stop them if they are there, but I think we hadbetter drive toward Deming as fast as possible."
About ten miles out we caught sight of the runaways. They were mountedon Dynamite, Madge holding fast behind. Kid was urging the horsefuriously back and forth among a flock of carrion crows, and practisingwith his lasso upon them as they rose and flapped about in short andheavy flight. They seemed to be having great sport, for Kid wasshouting and yelling at the birds, and Madge screaming with laughter attheir clumsy efforts to escape. So absorbed were they in their playthat they did not see us until we were almost beside them. At firstKid made as if he would start Dynamite off on the gallop, but Mrs.Williams called to him sternly, and he turned and trotted back to us,smiling and looking amazingly innocent.
Madge sat still and stared at us with big, frightened eyes, until Mrs.Williams had twice spoken to her, and then she slipped quickly down, tobe folded in her mother's arms and sob upon her bosom all the way home.I persuaded the Kid to sit between us in the cart and drive us back,tying Dynamite behind.
"He was awful mad at first," the boy confidingly said, "to have tocarry double. But I made him sure hump himself right along."
At home we found the superintendent just returned. He gave the Kid apaternal lecture, which probably did him as much good as if it had beenin Chinese, and then, in cattle-ranch parlance, gave him his time--paidhim to date and discharged him.
And a few minutes later we saw the last of the Kid, as the forlornlittle figure, with the wide, flopping sombrero, and the big, draggingspur, walked out of the gate and down the road toward Whitewater, andwas soon swallowed in the shimmering heat of the plain.