Hidden Water. Coolidge Dane

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СКАЧАТЬ thousand borregos and half of ’em with lambs, when the rio was on a bender? I’ve seen some of these sheepmen wadin’ around up to their chins for two weeks, tryin’ to float twenty-five hundred head across the river––and there wasn’t turkey buzzards enough in the country when they got through.

      “Last year they had the sand bars up around Hidden Water lined with carcasses two deep where they’d jest naturally crowded ’em into the river and let ’em sink or swim. Them Chihuahua Mexicans, you savvy. After they’d wore out their shoes and froze their marrow-bones wadin’ they got tired and shoved ’em in, regardless. Well, if this warm weather holds we’ll be able to git our rodér good and started before the sheep come in. That’s one reason why I never was able to do much with these sheepmen,” he added. “They hit me right square in the middle of the round-up, Spring and Fall, when I’m too busy gatherin’ cattle to pay much attention to ’em. I did plan a little surprise party last year––but that was somethin’ special. But now you’re on the job, Rufe,” he continued reassuringly, “I’m goin’ to leave all sheep and 80 sheepmen strictly alone––you can bank on that. Bein’ as we are goin’ to try the expeeriment I want to see it done right. I never made a cent fightin’ ’em, that’s a cinch, and if you can appeal to their better natures, w’y, go to it! I’d help you if I could, but bein’ as I can’t I’ll git out of the road and give you a chanst.

      “Now I’ll tell you how it’ll be,” he continued, turning in his saddle and hooking one leg over the horn, “the boys’ll come in for the rodér to-morrow or next day; we begin to gather on the first, and it takes us about a month. Well, we look for the sheep to come in on us at about the same time––first of April––and we ain’t been fooled yet. They’ll begin to stack up on the other side any time now, and as soon as the water goes down they’ll come across with a rush. And if they’re feelin’ good-natured they’ll spread out over The Rolls and drift north, but if they’re feelin’ bad they’ll sneak up onto Bronco Mesa and scatter the cattle forty ways for Sunday, and bust up my rodér and raise hell generally. We had a little trouble over that last year,” he added parenthetically.

      “Well, I’ll turn over the house and the grub and the whole business to you this year and camp out with the boys under the mesquite––and then you can entertain them sheepmen and jolly ’em up no end. They 81 won’t have a dam’ thing––horse feed, grub, tobacco, matches, nothin’! Never do have anythin’. I’d rather have a bunch of Apaches camped next to me––but if you want to be good to ’em there’s your chanst. Meanwhile, I’m only a cow-punch pullin’ off a round-up, and your name is Mr.––you’re the superintendent of the Dos S. Your job is to protect the upper range, and I begin to think you can do it.”

      There was a tone of half-hearted enthusiasm about this talk which marked it for a prepared “spiel,” laboriously devised to speed the new superintendent upon his way; but, not being schooled in social deceit, Creede failed utterly in making it convincing.

      “That’s good,” said Hardy, “but tell me––what has been your custom in the past? Haven’t you been in the habit of feeding them when they came in?”

      “Feed ’em?” cried Creede, flaring up suddenly. “Did I feed ’em? Well, I should guess yes––I never turned one away hungry in my life. W’y, hell, man,” he exclaimed, his anger growing on him, “I slep’ in the same blanket with ’em––until I become lousy,” he added grimly.

      “What!” exclaimed Hardy, aghast. “You don’t mean to say––”

      “No,” interrupted Creede ironically, “I don’t mean to say anythin’––not from now on. But while we’re on the subject and to avoid any future misunderstandin’ 82 I might just as well tell you right now that I can’t see nothin’ good in a sheepman––nothin’! I’m like my cat Tom when he sees a rattlesnake, my hair bushes up clean over my ears and I see hell, damnation, and sudden death!”

      He rose up, frowning, on his mighty horse and gazed at Hardy with eyes that burned deep with passion. “If every sheep and sheepman in Arizona should drop dead at this minute,” he said, “it would simply give me a laughin’ sensation. God damn ’em!” he added passionately, and it sounded like a prayer.

      Half an hour later as they passed through the gloomy silence of the box cañon, picking their way over rocks and bowlders and driftwood cast forty feet above the river level in some terrific glut of waters, he began to talk again, evenly and quietly, pointing out indifferent things along the trail, and when at last they mounted the hill and looked down upon Hidden Water his anger was forgotten.

      “Well,” he remarked, throwing out a hand, “there’s home––how do you like it?”

      Hardy paused and looked it over critically––a broad V-shaped valley half a mile in length, beginning at the mouth of a great dry wash and spreading out through trees and hummocks down to the river. A broken row of cottonwoods and sycamores stretched 83 along the farther side, following the broad, twisting bed of the sand wash where the last flood had ripped its way to the Salagua; and on the opposite side, close up against the base of the cliff, a flash of white walls and the shadow of a ramada showed where man had built his puny dwelling high in order to escape its fury. At their feet lay the ranch pasture, a broad elbow of the valley rich with grass and mesquite trees and fenced in with barbed wire that ran from cliff to cliff. Beyond the eastern wall the ground was rough and broken, cut up by innumerable gulches and waterways, and above its ridges there rose the forbidding crags of a black butte whose shoulders ran down to and confined the silvery river. Across the river and to the south the land was even rougher, rising in sheer precipices, above the crests of which towered a mighty needle of rock, standing out against the sky like a cathedral spire, yet of a greater dignity and magnificence––purple with the regal robes of distance.

      “That’s Weaver’s Needle,” volunteered Creede, following his companion’s eyes. “Every lost mine for a hundred miles around here is located by sightin’ at that peak. The feller it’s named after was picked up by the Apaches while he was out lookin’ for the Lost Dutchman and there’s been a Jonah on the hidden-treasure business ever since, judgin’ by the results.

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      “D’ye see that big butte straight ahead? That’s Black Butte. She’s so rough that even the mountain sheep git sore-footed, so they say––we have to go up there on foot and drive our cattle down with rocks. Old Bill Johnson’s place is over the other side of that far butte; he’s got a fine rich valley over there––the sheep haven’t got in on him yet. You remember that old feller that was drunk down at Bender––well, that’s Bill. Calls his place Hell’s Hip Pocket; you wait till you try to git in there some day and you’ll know why.”

      He paused and turned to the north.

      “Might as well give you the lay of the land,” he said. “I’ll be too busy to talk for the next month. There’s the Four Peaks, northeast of us, and our cows run clean to the rocks. They’s more different brands in that forty miles than you saw in the whole Cherrycow country, I bet ye. I’ve got five myself on a couple hundred head that the old man left me––and everybody else the same way. You see, when the sheep come in down on the desert and around Moreno’s we kept pushin’ what was left of our cattle east and east until we struck the Peaks––and here we are, in a corner. The old judge has got nigh onto two thousand head, but they’s about twenty of us poor devils livin’ up here in the rocks that 85 has got enough irons and ear marks to fill a brand book, and not a thousand head among us.

      “Well, I started out to show you the country, didn’t I? You see that bluff back of the house down there? That runs from here clean to the Four СКАЧАТЬ