Owen Wister

“ Above this travelling blur of the soil the top of the water-tank alone rose bulging into the clear sun. The sand spirals would lick like flames along the bulk of the lofty tub, and soar skyward. It was not shipping season. The freight-cars stood idle in a long line. No cattle huddled in the corrals. No strangers moved in town. No cow-ponies dozed in front of the saloon. Their riders were distant in ranch and camp. Human noise was extinct in Separ. Beneath the thunder of the sultry blasts the place lay dead in its flapping shroud of dust. “Why won't you tell me?” droned Billy. ”

“ Lin saw them hurry and smile among the paper fairies; they questioned and hesitated, crowded and made decisions, failed utterly to find the right thing, forgot and hastened back, suffered all the various desperations of the eleventh hour, and turned homeward, dropping their parcels with that undimmed good-will that once a year makes gracious the universal human face. This brotherhood swam and beamed before the cow-puncher's brooding eyes, and in his ears the greeting of the season sang. ”

“ Their speeding, clear-cut forms would shine upon the bluffs, and, descending, merge in the dust their horses had raised. Yet all this was nothing in the vastness of the growing day.
Beyond their voices the rim of the sun moved above the violet hills, and Drybone, amid the quiet, long, new fields of radiance, stood august and strange.
Down along the tall, bare slant from the graveyard the two horsemen were riding back. They could be seen across the river, and the horse-racers grew curious. As more and more watched, the crowd began to speak. ”

“ It is not true that all of us rise through adversity, any more than that all plants need shadow. Some starve out of the sunshine; and I have seen misery deaden once kind people to everything but self—almost the saddest sight in the world! But Lin's character had not stood well the ordeal of happiness, and for him certainly harsh days and responsibility had been needed to ripen the spirit. Yes, Jessamine Buckner would have been much too good for him before that humiliation of his marriage, and this care of young Billy with which he had loaded himself. ”

“ Across from the dance-hall the whining of the fiddle came, high and gay; feet blurred the talk of voices, and voices rose above the trampling of feet. Here and there some lurking form stumbled through the dark among the rubbish; and clearest sound of all, the light crack of billiard balls reached dry and far into the night Barker contemplated the stars and calm splendid dimness of the plain. “'Though every prospect pleases, and only man is vile,'” he quoted. ”

“ Passing each busy prospector, Lin would read on every broad, upturned pair of overalls the same label, “Levi Strauss, No. 2,” with a picture of two lusty horses hitched to one of these garments and vainly struggling to split them asunder. Lin remembered he was wearing a label just like that too, and when he considered all things he laughed to himself. Then, having stretched the ache out of his long legs, he would return to his ditch. As autumn wore on, his feet grew cold in the mushy gravel they were sunk in. He beat off the sand that had stiffened on his boots, and hated Obo, Nevada. ”

“ Her laugh rang out, loud and forlorn—one brief burst that startled the horses and that must have sounded far across the sage-brush. “You men are rich,” she said.
They rode on, side by side, and saying nothing after that. The Drybone road was a broad trail, a worn strip of bareness going onward over the endless shelvings of the plain, visible even in this light; and presently, moving upon its grayness on a hill in front of them, they made out the wagon. They hastened and overtook it.
“Put your carbine down,” said McLean to Lusk. “It's not robbers. It's your wife I'm bringing you.” ”

“ Gazing over the huge plain down in which lies Fort Washakie, Lin heard the faint notes of the trumpet on the parade ground, and took a good-bye look at all things. He watched the American flag grow small, saw the circle of steam rising away down by the hot springs, looked at the bad lands beyond, chemically pink and rose amid the vast, natural, quiet-colored plain. Across the spreading distance Indians trotted at wide spaces, generally two large bucks on one small pony, or a squaw and pappoose—a bundle of parti-colored rags. ”

“ At all times is Riverside beautiful, but most beautiful when the sun draws down through the openings of the hills. From each one a stream comes flowing clearly out into the plain, and fields spread green along the margins. It was beneath the long-slanted radiance of evening that we saw Blue Creek and felt its coolness rise among the shifting veils of light. The red bluff eastward, the tall natural fortress, lost its stern masonry of shapes, and loomed a soft towering enchantment of violet and amber and saffron in the changing rays. ”

“ I am fond of eggs, and eat them constantly—and in Wyoming they were always a luxury. But I never forget those that day, and how Lin and I enjoyed them thinking of Tommy. Perhaps manhood was not quite established in my own soul at that time—and perhaps that is the reason why it is the only time I have ever known which I would live over again, those years when people said, “You are old enough to know better”—and one didn't care!
Salmon, apricots, eggs, we dealt with them all properly, and I had some cigars. ”

“ Who knows the child-soul, young in days, yet old as Adam and the hills? That school-yard slur about his mother was as dim to his understanding as to the offender's, yet mysterious nature had bid him go to instant war! How foreseeing in Lin to choke the unfounded jest about his relation to Billy Lusk, in hopes to save the boy's ever awakening to the facts of his mother's life! “Though,” said the driver, an easygoing cynic, “folks with lots of fathers will find heaps of brothers in this country!” ”

“ Lin McLean, bachelor, sat out in front of his cabin, looking at a small bright pistol that lay in his hand. He held it tenderly, cherishing it, and did not cease slowly to polish it. Revery filled his eyes, and in his whole face was sadness unmasked, because only the animals were there to perceive his true feelings. Sunlight and waving shadows moved together upon the green of his pasture, cattle and horses loitered in the opens by the stream. Down Box Elder's course, its valley and golden-chimneyed bluffs widened away into the level and the blue of the greater valley. ”

“ Soon after four the dropsical clouds materialized once again above open-mouthed Cheyenne. No school let out for an unexpected holiday, no herd of stampeded range cattle, conducts itself more miscellaneously. Gray, respectable men, with daughters married, leaped over fences and sprang back, prominent legislators hopped howling up and down door-steps, women waved handkerchiefs from windows and porches, the chattering Jode flew from anemometer to rain-gauge, and old Judge Burrage apostrophized Providence in his front yard, with the postmaster's label still pinned to his back. ”

“ And Lin—your Lin, not mine, nor never mine in heart for a day so deep as he's yourn right now—he has been gay—gay as any I've knowed. Why, look at that face of his! Could a boy with a face like that help bein' gay? But that don't touch what's the true Lin deep down. Nor will his deep-down love for you hinder him like it will hinder you. Don't you know men and us is different when it comes to passion? We're all one thing then, but they ain't simple. They keep along with lots of other things. I can't make yus know, and I guess it takes a woman like I have been to learn their nature. ”

“ Lin always sent money for Wiggin to place, and he soon opened a bank account, while Honey, besides his racing-bridle, bought a silver-inlaid one, a pair of forty-dollar spurs, and a beautiful saddle richly stamped. Every day (when in Mesa) Honey would step into the drug-store and inquire, “Lin, wher're yu' goin'?”
But Lin never answered any more. He merely came to the soda-water fountain with the whiskey. The passing of days brought a choked season of fine sand and hard blazing sky. Heat rose up from the ground and hung heavily over man and beast. ”

“ We're goin' west.”
“That just suits me,” said Lin.
The busy lanterns wagged among the switches, the steady lights of the saloons shone along the town's wooden facade. From the bluffs that wall Green River the sweet, clean sage-brush wind blew down in currents freshly through the coal-smoke. A wrench passed through the train from locomotive to caboose, each fettered car in turn strained into motion and slowly rolled over the bridge and into silence from the steam and the bells of the railroad yard. ”

“ If you journey in a Pullman from Mesa to Omaha without a waistcoat, and with a silk handkerchief knotted over the collar of your flannel shirt instead of a tie, wearing, besides, tall, high-heeled boots, a soft, gray hat with a splendid brim, a few people will notice you, but not the majority. New Mexico and Colorado are used to these things. As Iowa, with its immense rolling grain, encompasses you, people will stare a little more, for you're getting near the East, where cow-punchers are not understood. ”

“ In these slowly rotting shells people rioted, believing the golden age was here, the age when everybody should have money and nobody should be arrested. For Drybone soil, you see, was still government soil, not yet handed over to Wyoming; and only government could arrest there, and only for government crimes. But government had gone, and seldom worried Drybone! The spot was a postage-stamp of sanctuary pasted in the middle of Wyoming's big map, a paradise for the Four-ace Johnstons. Only, you must not steal a horse. ”

“ The horsemen came at the ditch, a body of daring, a sultry blast of youth. Wheeling at the brink, they turned, whirling their long ropes. The skilful nooses flew, and the ponies, caught by the neck and foot, were dragged back to the quadrangle and held in line. So the pageant started the wild ponies quivering but subdued by the tightened ropes, and the coffin steady in the ambulance beneath the driver. The escort, in their fringed leather and broad hats, moved slowly beside and behind it, many of them swaying, their faces full of health, and the sun and the strong drink. ”

“ Lin now watched the great headlight of a freight train bearing slowly down into Green River from the wilderness. Green River is the end of a division, an epoch in every train's journey. Lanterns swung signals, the great dim thing slowed to its standstill by the coal chute, its locomotive moved away for a turn of repose, the successor backed steaming to its place to tackle a night's work. Cars were shifted, heavily bumping and parting. ”

“ Here the berries were of several sorts, and growing riper each day, and the bears in the timber above knew this, and came down punctually with the season, making variety in the otherwise even life of the prospectors. It was now August, and Lin sat on a wet hill making mud-pies for sixty days. But the philosopher's stone was not in the wash at that placer, nor did Lin gather gold-dust sufficient to cover the nail of his thumb. Then they heard of an excitement at Obo, Nevada, and, hurrying to Obo, they made some more mud-pies. ”

“ For a short while the cow-puncher stood looking down upon the woman. She lay lumped in her gaudiness, the ribbons darkly stained by the laudanum; but into the stolid, bold features death had called up the faint-colored ghost of youth, and McLean remembered all his Bear Creek days. “Hind sight is a turruble clear way o' seein' things,” said he. ”

“ Frank found himself standing alone before any reply to these sentences had occurred to him. He walked slowly to his club, where a friend joked him on his glumness.
Lin made a sore failure of amusing himself that night; and in the bright, hot morning he got into the train for Swampscott. At the graveyard he saw a woman lay a bunch of flowers on a mound and kneel, weeping.
“There ain't nobody to do that for this one,” thought the cow-puncher, and looked down at the grave he had come to see, then absently gazed at the woman. ”

“ Alphabets are worse than photographs. It is not the lungs of every man that can produce these effects, nor even from armies, eagles, or mules were such sounds ever heard on earth. The cow-puncher invented them. And when the last cow-puncher is laid to rest (if that, alas! have not already befallen) the yells will be forever gone. Singularly enough, the cattle appeared to appreciate them. Tommy always did them very badly, and that was plain even at this distance. Nor did he give us a homestretch, after all. The bald-faced horse made a number of evolutions and returned beside the wagon. ”

“ The cow-boys had caught sight of it and captured it. Rushing to the post-trader's, they carried the sleeping men from the counter and laid them on the dray. Then, searching Drybone outside and in for any more incapable of following, they brought them, and the dray was piled.
Limber Jim called for another drink and, with his cigar between his teeth, cracked his long bull-whacker whip. The ponies, terrified, sprang away, scattering the men that held them, and the swaying hearse leaped past the husband, over the stones and the many playing-cards in the grass. ”

“ I had witnessed a series of flighty romances, where the cow-puncher had come, seen, often conquered, and moved on. Nor had his affairs been of the sort to teach a young man respect. I am putting it rather mildly.
For the first part of our way this afternoon he was moody, and after that began to speak with appalling wisdom about life. Life, he said, was a serious matter. Did I realize that? A man was liable to forget it. A man was liable to go sporting and helling around till he waked up some day and found all his best pleasures had become just a business. ”

“ In the silent room sat Lin McLean, his body coming to life more readily than his shaken spirit. Barker, seeing that the cow-puncher meant to watch until the end, brought the whiskey to him. Slaghammer drew documents from his pocket to fill the time, but was soon in slumber over them. In all precincts of the quadrangle Drybone was keeping it up late. The fiddle, the occasional shouts, and the crack of the billiard-balls travelled clear and far through the vast darkness outside. ”

“ And while she scanned the floor and corners, and slid the door back and forth, Lin whispered in my ear: “Her name's Jessamine. She told me. Don't yu' like that name?” So I answered him, “Yes, very much,” thinking that some larger flower—but still a flower—might have been more apt.
“Nobody seems to have slept in these,” said she, stepping down; and on learning that even the tramp avoided Separ when he could, she exclaimed, “What lodging could be handier than this! Only it would be so cute if you had a Louavull an' Nashvull car,” said she. “Twould seem like my old Kentucky home!” ”

“ He had a special eye upon the Virginian, his mate in such a tale of mischiefs, and now he led him on. He suggested to the Southerner that caution might be wise; this change at Separ was perhaps some new trick of the company's.
“We mostly take their tricks,” observed the Virginian.
“Yes,” said Lin, nodding sagely at the fire, “that's so, too.”
Yet not he, not any one, could have foreseen the mortifying harmlessness of the outcome. They swept down upon Separ like all the hordes of legend—more egregiously, perhaps, because they were play-acting and no serious horde would go on so. ”

“ None save the cook was up, so far, this morning. Lin's brother punchers slept about him on the ground, some motionless, some shifting their prone heads to burrow deeper from the increasing day. The busy work of spring was over, that of the fall, or beef round-up, not yet come. It was mid-July, a lull for these hard-riding bachelors of the saddle, and many unspent dollars stood to Mr. McLean's credit on the ranch books.
“What's the matter with some variety?” muttered the boy in his blankets. ”

“ A picture of a cow-puncher and himself discussing a couple of dolls rose nimbly in Barker's mental eye, and it was with an imperfect honesty that he said, “You'll help me a heap.”
And Lin, quite sincere, replied, “Thank yu'.”
So together these two went Christmasing in the throng. Wyoming's Chief Executive knocked elbows with the spurred and jingling waif, one man as good as another in that raw, hopeful, full-blooded cattle era, which now the sobered West remembers as the days of its fond youth. For one man has been as good as another in three places—Paradise before the Fall ”

“ The next thing that I knew Ogden and I were grappling with Lin McLean; for everything had happened at once. The bride had swooped upon her first wedded love and burst into tears on the man's neck, which Lin was trying to break in consequence. We do not always recognize our benefactors at sight. They all came to the ground, and we hauled the second husband off. The lady and Lusk remained in a heap, he foolish, tearful, and affectionate; she turned furiously at bay, his guardian angel, indifferent to the onlooking crowd, and hurling righteous defiance at Lin. ”