Roger Pocock

“ It's no use, because I'm bad, but yet it humbles me down low to watch the clouds when they herd together for prayers, flirting their angel wings against the sun, lifting their gruff voices in supplication, tearing up the sky with their lightnings, sending down the rain of mercy to us poor desert creatures. The respectable people hire preachers to tell the Big Spirit of their wants, but it's the white clouds of the sky that says prayers for us ignorant range folks, for the coyotes, the deer and panthers, the bears and cows, the ponies and the cowboys. ”

“ On the third morning I loaded the pack mule, told the boys good-bye, and trailed off with Curly, pointing for Robbers' Roost.
When water won't cure thirst, but the juice in your mouth turns to slime caking in lumps on your lips, when the skin dries up because there's no more sweat, when your eyes ache and your brain mills round—that's Arizona. The air shakes in waves like a mist of cobwebs, and through that quiver the landscape goes all skeweye, for some of the mountains float up clear of the land, and some turn upside down standing on rows of pillars along the skyline. ”

“ Everybody just had to love that Curly—a born rider, a wonderful scout, a dead shot, a dangerous fighter, who bore pain like an Indian, and had heaps more sense and courage than Jim his partner.
Why do I say all this? Well, from the first, I saw that Curly youngster was undersized and weak, with a narrow chest and wide hips more like a girl than a boy. A right proper man is strong, rough, hardy; he ought to have a temper and be master, ready to work and fight for his women folk. That Curly broke down and sobbed like a girl after the gun-fight, and in a hundred soft ways was not a proper man. ”

“ I sat on my tail to think, feeling lonesome then, looking east toward Texas and wondering if my poor old mother was still alive. Westward the sun was setting, and that way lay the great Pacific Ocean, bigger than all the plains, where the ships rode herd upon their drove of whales—I wanted to see that too. But then I looked south-east, the way I had come, through valleys of scrub and cactus; there, somewheres beyond the hills, was my little ranch, and all the good pasture away to Holy Cross. My heart was crying inside me, but I didn't know what I wanted until I thought of Curly. ”

“ Looking around at present facts, we see how Life is a cold, hard, business proposition, so we have to keep a mighty sharp look-out for fear of being kicked off the premises. The future glows with hope gay as a sunrise, the past is full of memories shining glorious like the setting sun. Seems to me that in Eternity, when the cold present is mixed up with all the rainbow colours of Past and Future—why, then I'll hear Curly's voice come soft through the pines, and see her face in the fire where I camp. ”

“ Getting our horses, Curly and I rode back to Robbers' Roost, pulling up at the edge of the clearing just as the new moon lifted above the pines. The stench of death, black ruins, white ashes, dark patches where blood had dried upon the dust, everywhere broken corpses—coyotes creeping to cover, eagles flapping heavily away—my soul felt small and humble in that place. Black it was and silver under the moon, with something moving slow from corpse to corpse in search—a live man counting the dead. ”

“ Jim sat heaps thoughtful looking away across the desert. "Our breeding cattle," says he, tallying on his fingers, "then Holy Cross, then mother, then father, and now I'm being hunted for a murder I didn't commit."
"Now you know," says Curly, "why we robbers played a hand in yo' game."
"I understand. Say, Curly, I take back all I said about it being bad—this robbery-under-arms. It's the only thing to do."
"Don't you get dreaming," says Curly, "we-all ain't blind; our eyes is open a whole lot wide to truth, and we make no bluff that robbery and murder is forms of holiness." ”

“ I strayed out through the messroom and found the kitchen beyond. Sure enough the cook and I were acquainted, although I had not expected to see this particular person in shirt and overalls, and his bare arms white with flour. He was plenty absorbed too, dipping balls of chopped meat into a pan full of mess.
"How air you, seh?"
He shied right off his feet and turned to face me, looking as guilty as a caught fox.
"I guessed as much," he gasped; "all blackguards are bound to flock together here."
"Glad to meet you, Mr. Ryan," says I.
Then he collected himself for war. ”

“ Below us lay the Painted Desert, so wide that the further edge was lost in mist. We rode down to the trickle of water at the bottom, then up the further side, and all the rock lay in belts red as flame, yellow as gold, purple as violets, which seemed to shine of their own light, burning us. The men who stop in that country mostly go mad, the which is natural. ”

“ Riding the ranges of the world and grazing in life's pastures, I've got to be plumb content with things present, which I can grab the same with my teeth, instead of hungering after that heaven above which seems a lot uncertain, and apt to prove disappointing. Here I've got horses for sure, plenty cows, and Monte, one of my old riders, for my partner. Bear Hole is the name of our new ranche, with the bull pines of the coconino forest all around us, the hoary old volcanoes towering above, and the lava-beds fencing our home pasture. ”

“ Once I remember seeing an old bear roped in the desert by cowboys, and dragged by the scruff of his neck into the fierce electric glare of a Western city. Some female tourists said he looked dreadful rough, a school ma'am squealed out he was dangerous, a preacher allowed he was savage, but nobody made excuses for that old bear. Now I reckon that I'm just like Mr. Bear, dragged sudden off the range into the indecent light of civilization. Nobody is going to make allowances for me if I look dreadful rough, and savage, and dangerous. I own up I've no excuse. ”

“ There's a sort of comfortable, smell-your-future-home feeling about old Arizona which attracts such ducks. Anywhere else they would get their necks stretched, but in Arizona they can elect judges and police out of their own tribe. Then if they happen to indulge in a little bigamy, or thieving, or shooting, the lawyers get them off. They love the law which proves them up innocent, so you may class them all as law-abiding citizens.
Now as to us plainsmen. The bad side of us is plumb apparent to the naked eye, and if there's a good side it's known to our friends, not advertised to strangers. ”

“ For a naturally cautious and timid man I took fool risks in exposing Curly to that danger; but honest range-raised fighters are more than a match for the drunken town swabs who had to be dispersed. Besides, my youngsters were not the kind to stay put in a place of safety. After the fight, if there was one, I knew that the fire-bell would call up the whole of the citizens, and the news would spread swifter than flames, of masked robbers attacking a saloon right in the middle of their peaceful town. ”

“ I reckon that for years I'd been heaps virtuous keeping my quick gun off Balshannon's meat, so now I was full of joy because the patrone had finished up all the unpleasantness and made peace without loss or damage. No grown responsible man had any quarrel left.
But then my youngsters weren't grown up a bit, nor responsible, nor anything else, but rattled with a gun-fight too rich for their blood. Curly was scared all to pieces, Jim was right off his head, and as to my three kids outside the window, they had no sense anyways at their best. ”

“ A man's legs are naturally forked to fit onto a horse, and mine have never been broke to walking afoot. Fact is my legs act resentful when I walk, making me waddle all the same as a duck; which it humbles me to think of, because that Curly person loaded a sack on my withers, and herded me along like a pack mule until I felt no better than a spavined, groaning wreck. We must have gone afoot more than two whole miles before we came out at last on the edge of the Grand Cañon. ”

“ He looked at Curly's wound all swollen up, her face which had gone gaunt with pain and weakness. They were afoot, they were hunted, they had no place to hide.
"Whar do you propose to take me?" says Curly.
"I don't know," says Jim; "perhaps your people aren't so bad after all—anyway, they tried to keep you clean."
"And what's the use of that? D'ye think I want to be alone in the hull world—clean with no folks, no home? Why should I want to be different from my father, and all my tribe? Would I want to be safe while they're in danger? Would I want to play coward while they fight? ”

“ Besides the plunder and Curly's trousseau, Dick brought me chocolate creams, a new breed of rim-fire cigars just strong enough to buck, a quart of pickles, and some medicine for our thirst. The old drunkard knows what is good, and before supper we sat in the barn with these comforts talking business.
It needs such surroundings of luxury to get my thoughts down to any manner of business, for I hold that office work is adapted to town sharps only, and not to men. ”

“ But this was the last home-coming for the folks at Holy Cross, and far away across the desert Jim's riders heard the bell—the minute bell tolling soft for the dead. The people met them at the gates, but all the boys uncovered, riding slow. No beef would be killed that night, no lights would shine, no guitars would strum for the dance.
Inside the main gate Jim's servant took his horse, and the lad walked on with clashing spurs to meet the old padre at the door of the dining-hall. ”

“ Mixed in with that milling herd were seven of my La Morita raiders, howling for robbers' blood, and gassing about the disgracefulness of molesting frontier guards. Then they circled round a tenderfoot on a pinto horse, and told him how the robbers fed red-hot coals to a prisoner.
"Wall, I admire!" says the shorthorn.
"Oh, you needn't believe me," says Lying Ike, "ask Chalkeye here. He's truthful."
"Stranger," says I, "allow me to introduce you to Mr. Lying Ike. He has an impediment in his truth, but otherwise will survive until he's lynched. ”

“ Well, they called their discovery Grave City, but it was one of the richest silver-mines on earth, and a city grew up here in the desert. For the first few years it was most surely hot, full of artists painting the town red, and shooting each other up with a quick gun. That was the time of Mankiller Johnson, Curly Bill, Roosian George, Brazelton of Tucson, the robber, and a young gentleman aged twenty-two, called Billy the Kid, who wiped out twenty fellow-citizens and followed them rapid to a still warmer climate. ”

“ Ryan shouted at him, "you beggared gambler, you broken, shaking drunkard, you shall finish this vengeance on yourself, which you began, which needs no hand of mine! Here!" He ran forward, and jammed a long knife into Balshannon's hand. "Finish! Kill yourself, and have done, for shure an' you're not fit to live, ye filthy beast!"
Balshannon was reeling, faint, sick, clinging to the bar for support.
"Boys," I shouted, "if Ryan's a man, let him fight. Stand aside, give him room, give him a gun. Patrone, take this gun!" ”

“ Balshannon stepped aside while Ryan filled the glass for him to drink. "Thank you," he said. But Ryan snatched the full glass, jumped back, swung out his arm—"Take that!" he yelled, and threw the glass straight at Balshannon's face.
The patrone took a handkerchief and wiped his face, slow and dainty, but the blood was starting where the glass had struck. "I'm sorry," he said, "that it should come to this, but as you are not in condition, Mr. Ryan, to fight, I must ask you, Mr. Michael Ryan, to oblige me."
"Fight?" yelled Ryan. "Fight a thing like you? Not much! Back, Michael! ”

“ The shock stampeded them, but Curly swerved clear of their rush, rolled back into the saddle, raced abreast, and shot both horses down. A minute more, and the firing died away behind us, for we were racing neck-and-neck across the desert. Curly had left the police to follow afoot, but now she began to weaken, for, because she had played the man, she broke down and sobbed—a woman. ”

“ This pain has stampeded me, and I'm goin' crazy. To-night the pain is worse. I'll be making fool talk, giving myself away, and you'll find me out. It's better to own up than to be found out."
"To own up what?"
"Oh, don't be hard on me, Jim! I tried so hard! I was born for a boy, I had to be a boy. Don't you see, girls was plumb impossible in a gang of robbers!"
"Have you gone mad?"
"Oh, you cayn't understand, and it's so hard to say." Curly lay face downwards, hiding a shamed face. "My mother must have made a mistake—I wasn't bawn for a boy." ”

“ Half-way down the rock ladder I grabbed a root, which turned out to be a young rattlesnake, and was so surprised that I pretty near took flight. Curly saved me that time from being an angel—which leads me to remark that there's lots of people better adapted to that holy vocation than me. ”

“ We range-folk don't interrupt our teeth with aimless discourse. By smoke-time Buck loped off in the dusk to find the remuda of ponies out at grass, and the boys had a cigarette while he gathered, watered, and drove the ponies home. Then the team for the buckboard was caught, harnessed, and tied up with a feed of corn; each man roped and saddled his night horse; and Buck, with the three relief men, rode out slow, curving away into the starlight.
McCalmont roped a sorrel mare for Jim, then found him a spare saddle, a bridle, a blanket, belt, gun, and spurs. ”