Eugene Manlove Rhodes

“ All around, men roused up in the half darkness and took up the word, laughing, as they dressed: “Beds! Beds!”
The call meant that the wagon was to be moved to-day; that each man was to roll bedding and tarp to a hard and tight-roped cylinder, and was then to carry it to a stack by the bed wagon.
The cook bent over pots and pans, an active demon by a wind-blown fire; here already the bobtail ate their private breakfast, that they might depart in haste to relieve the last guard—now slowly moving the herd from the bed ground, half a mile away. ”

“ Johnny rustled tools from the stacked tin plates and cups; he stabbed a mighty beefsteak with his iron fork; he added hot sour-dough biscuit, a big spoonful of hot canned corn; he poured himself a cup of hot black coffee, sat down on one of his own feet in the sand, and became a busy man.
Others joined that business. The last guard came in; the chattering circle round the fire grew with surprising swiftness. Each, as he finished, carried cup, plate and iron cutlery to the huge dishpan by the chuck box, turned his night horse loose, and strode off to the horse herd, making a noose in his rope. ”

“ Johnny gathered up what saddle horses were in the pass and moved them along with his cripples.
At the summit he came to a great gateway country of parks and cedar mottes, gentle slopes and low rolling ridges, with wide smooth valleys falling away to north and south; eastward rose a barrier of red-sandstone hills. High in those red hills Johnny saw two horsemen. They drove a bunch of horses of their own; they rode swiftly down a winding backbone to intercept him. He held up his little herd; the two riders slowed up in response. ”

“ Behind lay the broad and level clearings, orchard, kempt steading and alfalfa; a step beyond was the raw wilderness, the yucca and the sand, dark mesquite in hummocks and mottes and clumps, a brown winding belt between the mother ditch and the first low bench land. The air came brisk and sweet; it rippled the fields to undulant shimmer of flashing purple and green and gold.
“Your ’cequia madre is sure brimful this evenin’,” remarked the guest.
“Always is—when we don’t need it. In dry weather she gets pretty low enough,” said Hobby. ”

“ Charlie See shook his head. “Not none. Here I rest. Gold is nothing to me. I’ve got no time for frivolity. I want but little here below and want that little now. Say, Adam—don’t you never carry a gun?”
“Naw. I take a rifle, of course, for reindeer, snow dear, dear me and antelope—but I haven’t packed a gun for two years. No need of it here. Well, if you won’t side me, you won’t. I’m sorry, but you see how it is about me going right now,” said Adam, swinging into the saddle. “The water in that little tank of mine won’t last long, and there may not be any more rains this fall. ”

“ The night wrangler was to ride the bed wagon, so he needed no horse.
The circle of men melted away from about the horse herd; there was a swift saddling, with occasional tumult of a bucking rebel; the horse herd grazed quietly away; the wranglers went to breakfast; even as they squatted cross-legged by the fire the last horse was saddled, the Bar Cross outfit was off to eastward to begin the day’s drive, half a dozen horses pitching enthusiastically, cheered by ironical encouragement and advice bestowed on their [Pg 120] riders. The sun would not be up for half an hour yet. ”

“ They careened down the steep curves, the cattle were just ahead; Twilight swooped upon them, scattered the tailenders, drove ahead for the Bar Cross cow and her long-ear. A low saddleback pass appeared at the right, a winding trail led up to an overhanging promontory under the pass; below, the wagon road made a deep cut by the base of the hill. Distrusting the cut road as the work of man, the leaders took to the trail. Twilight was at their heels; at the crown of the little promontory Johnny threw again, and his rope circled the long-ear’s neck. ”

“ Lull and Charlie See and old Pete. It was to one of these that all eyes were turned when the rude coffin was lowered into the grave.
“Pete?” said Jim-Ike-Jones.
And old Pete Harkey stepped forth and spoke slowly, while his faded old eyes looked past the open grave and rested on the hills beyond.
“More than at any other time we strive to center and steady our thoughts, when we stand by the loved and dead. It is an effort as vain as to look full and steadily at the blinding sun. I can tell you no thing here which you do not know.
“You all knew Adam Forbes. He was a simple and kindly man. ”

“ And far away, Charlie See rode south through the wizard twilight. There was no singing now. For at the world’s edge some must fare alone; through all their dreams one unforgotten face—laughing, and dear, and lost. ”

“ A fresh bunch of cattle topped a riverward ridge; the leaders raised their heads, snorted, turned and fled; Twilight leaped in pursuit. “River cattle—bosque cattle—outlaws!” said Johnny. From the tail of his eye, as Twilight thundered across the valley, Johnny was aware of a deep gashed cañon heading in the north, of a notch in the western rim of the saucer-shaped basin, and a dark pass at the left. The cattle turned to the left. Johnny closed in on them, taking down his rope from the saddle horn. Twenty head—among them one Bar Cross cow with an unbranded calf some eight or ten months old. ”

“ When he hits a drill he hits her with all his carcass, from the ground up, and when he goes a-judging, justice is what he wants. His habit and disposition is real earnest and he mostly brings back what he goes after. You could rake all hell with a fine-tooth comb and not find a worse man to try you—if you killed Adam Forbes. If you did kill him you’re goin’ to lose your shadow soon—and there’s your fortune told, right now.”
“It is my thinking that I will make old bones yet, and tell tales in the chimney corner. Now you sit back and smoke while I wash up,” said Johnny, gathering up the dishes. ”

“ Johnny laughed and rode ahead to help Pat. They drove the horses in a wide detour round the slow-grazing day herd. But the chuck wagon held the right of way over everything; when it came to pass the herd an hour or two later, it would be for the herd to swerve aside.
The sun was high and hot now; Preisser Hill, a thin long shadow, rose dim above the plain; Upham tower and tank loomed high and spectral, ahead and at the left. ”

“ To-day the thick and tangled bosques are cleared to smiling farms, linked by a shining network of ditches. The floods are impounded at Engle Dam, and held there for man’s uses. A great irrigation canal keeps high and wide, with just fall enough to move the water; each foot saved of high level means added miles of reclaimed land under the ditch. To a stranger’s eye the water of that ditch runs clearly uphill. ”

“ Grumbling dayherders caught their horses, saddled with miraculous swiftness and departed to take over the herd. The bobtail was back before the roping out of horses was completed. While the bobtail roped out their horses, Johnny and the two wranglers lured out the four big brown mules for the chuck wagon and the two small brown mules for the bed wagon, tied them to convenient soapweeds and hung a nose bag full of corn on each willing brown head. ”

“ Waiting for cars, the outfit was marking time anyhow. Any cattle snared on the river were pure gain. The main point was to handle the stock tenderly. From working the bosques the outfit expected few cattle and got less.—The poets babble about the bosky dell; bosque, literally translated, means “woods.” Yet for this purpose if you understand the word as “jungle,” you will be the less misled.
Johnny Dines sat tailor-wise on his horse at the crest of a sandy knoll and looked down at the day herd, spread out over a square mile of tableland, and now mostly asleep in the brooding heat of afternoon. ”

“ The storm-drenched wind blew out his saddle strings, the fringed edges of his gauntlets, the kerchief at [Pg 192] his neck, the long tapideros at his feet; it beat back his hat’s broad brim, Stargazer’s mane snapped loose and level; horse and man framed against coming night and coming storm in poised wild energy, centered, strong and tense.
“You darned little meddlesome whiffet!” snarled Jody Weir savagely, as Lull galloped away.
See’s gun hand lay at his thigh. “Talk all you like, but don’t get restless with your hands. I’m telling you! Meddlesome? That’s me. Matt is my middle name. ”

“ Adam was found close by your fire—shot in the back and dragged from the stirrup; shot as he rode, so close up that his shirt took fire. And no one rode in Redgate yesterday, but you, and those three, and Adam Forbes.”
“Yes. That might very well be true,” said Johnny.
“It is true. They wouldn’t dare tell it that way if it wasn’t true. Tracks show for themselves. And they knew that good men would be reading those tracks.” ”

“ Johnny felt of his neck again, delicately. “By your tell there isn’t any man in the world to help out your bare word. If you have any fresh dope, spill it.”
“I happen to be in a position to state certainly, at first hand, something which modifies the other evidence,” said Dines slowly and confidentially. “I happen to know positively that I didn’t murder that man. That’s exclusive. You only hear me say it—but I know it. So you mustn’t be hurt if I’m not convinced. If the horse tracks say I’m the killer—the tracks are wrong, that’s all. ”

“ It would be truer to change a word; to say that there are poor soldiers, but no poor regiments. The gloomster picks the poorest soldier he can find, and holds him up to our eyes as a sample. “This is life!” says the pessimist, proud at last. “Now you see the stuff your regiments are made of!” ”

“ Midway of the twisting pass Johnny came to a gate in a drift fence strung from bluff to bluff; here was a frontier of the Bar Cross country. He passed the outpost hills and came out to a rolling open park, a big square corral of cedar pickets, an earthen dam, a deep five-acre tank of water. About this tank two or three hundred head of cattle basked [Pg 130] comfortably in the warm sun, most of them lying down. They were gentle cattle; Johnny rode slowly among them without stirring up excitement. “River cattle—nester cattle,” said Johnny. ”

“ And men in other harbors took heart again to build great lights against night and storm; the world over, realists fare safelier on the sea for Winstanley’s dream.
There is the great distinction between realism and reality: It is the business of a realist to preach how man is mastered by circumstances; it is the business of a man to prove that he will be damned first. ”

“ His mouth was open, gasping, his eyes rolled back so that only the whites were visible, his livid face twitched horribly. See swooped down on Caney’s gun and made swift inspection of the cylinder; he did the like by Weir’s, and then tiptoed to the partition door, first thrusting his own gun into his waistband. The barroom was empty; only the diving Mermaid smiled invitation to him. See turned and raced for the back door. ”

“ If the hill has been tossed about by the hell fires down below, all bets is off and no rule works, not even the exceptions. That’s why they say gold is where you find it. But any time you find a fan-shaped strip of color on a hill that looks like it might have stayed put, or nearly so, it’s worth while to follow it up. If you find the apex of that triangle you’re apt to strike a pocket that will land you right side up with the great and good. ”

“ It has happened so many, many times; even to you and to me, so many, many times! But we learn nothing; we are still bitter, and hard, and unkind—with kindness so cheap and so priceless—as if there was no such thing as loss or change or death. ”

“ He rides into an ambush at dark. Guilty—he fights of course. Innocent—of course he fights! Any man with a bone in his spinal column would fight. First-rate scheme, except that Charlie See and me won’t have it. Innocent, it isn’t hospitable; guilty, we won’t have him shot. The man that killed Adam Forbes has got to hang.”
Leaping, Charlie See’s horse whirled on a pivot and faced the others.
“Speed up, Hobby, and tell that man we’re holding all strangers, him most of all. I’ll hold this bunch. Beat it!” ”

“ Consider now the spreading gospel of despair, and marvel at the power of words—noises in the air, marks upon paper. Let us wonder to see how little wit is needed to twist and distort truth that it may set forth a lie. ”