by Noel Loomis
Chapter Ten
It was nearly morning, however, before Hughes was awakened by the noise of Grasshopper Tanner’s lion pack.
Tanner had no less than fourteen dogs; his pack was one of the largest of its kind in the southwest, as well as one of the best. It was rumored that old man Major had recently raised his bounty on lions to a hundred and twenty-five dollars a head for the admitted purpose of holding Grasshopper Tanner at work in the hills flanking the Buckhorn. The western mountain lion prefers horse meat to any other, and the long-headed, cautious, and powerful breed which infested the rim rock took a heavy toll in the upper Buckhorn every year.
Men who could hunt those lions down were hard to get. There is entirely too much running on foot involved in following a hound pack to suit the average cowboy; and though every year a number took a shot at it, none of them lasted long. Nor can a crack lion pack be built in a week. The long-running, fox-hound type of dog used in hunting lions does not hunt properly of its own accord; long training, and often brutal punishment, is necessary before such faults as sight-running and the following of worthless game are minimized—and the labor of months may be ruined in a day. Nor is a good pack leader easy to come by. Every famous lion pack is built upon the genius of a single dog, and a man’s luck only grants him such a dog two or three times in the course of his life. But with a bounty of a hundred twenty-five dollars on lions, and a hundred dollars each on wolf and bear, Grasshopper Tanner made a good thing of his job. He was a good hunter, a long hunter from way back, who knew how to clean the varmints out of a range.
Yet, nobody seemed to have any particular affection for Tanner; and studying the man now, as the old lion hunter wolfed his breakfast in the mess hall of the Lazy M, Hughes could understand why. Tanner was as gaunt as the rawhide of a braided quirt. He had enormously long arms and legs, more suggestive of a spider than the insect after which he was called. His face was wizened, and deep-carved in hard weathered lines, but Hughes could see that its expression had been fundamentally brutal, once. And his manner was openly scornful, devoid of friendliness, as if he judged all men according to their lion hunting proficiency. Long use of this narrow and exacting standard seemed to have induced in Tanner a permanent contempt for all other men.
Nor did he seem to have any particular respect for the animals with which he worked. Perhaps he had a sort of repressed admiration for lions; but he admitted no liking for horses, which he regarded as simply a poor means of getting from one place to another, and his dogs—they forever kept a furtive eye upon the short blacksnake coiled at his belt—he referred to as “smelling machines.”
In spite of his great proficiency and the scarcity of lion hunters, Grasshopper Tanner always managed, sooner or later, to get himself fired, in a tornado of black rage, from every range on which he worked. Like the time he had worked for old man Major three years hand running. On his very first hunt his dogs had found a she-wolf’s den, and he had dug out an even dozen wolf whelps—at a hundred dollars a head. The next year he had got eleven whelps from the same wolf. The third spring, when Tanner brought in thirteen whelps more, old man Major paid down the thirteen hundred dollars only with severe pain.
“Tanner,” he had complained, “the wolf crop is getting to be a darn sight more regular than the calf crop around here. Now I know darn well that the old wolf comes hanging around when you dig out these whelps. How come you never get a shot at her?”
“A shot at her?” Tanner repeated. “Sure I get a shot at her. Why, this last time, she come so close I could pretty near have brained her with a club!”
“Then why in all hell isn’t her scalp here with the rest?”
“What?” Tanner yelped. “Destroy my brood bitch, that’s bringing me in better than twelve hundred dollars a year?”
It had been years, and the lions had become very bad in the Buckhorn, before old Major got over that sufficiently to send for Grasshopper Tanner again.
So there was no particular warmth of affection for the old hunter among those who attended that extra early breakfast which the cook had been routed out to prepare. Besides Hughes and old man Major, Bob Macumber was there; and by ones and twos the other cowboys of the Lazy M began to trail into the mess hall, grumpy and sleepy-eyed, in the darkness before dawn.
“For plain, dumb, swivel-brained monkey-shines,” the lion hunter was saying, “I never see the equal of you fellers.” Tanner, who thought people who had to have regular meals were all sissies, had had nothing to eat since yesterday morning. He now crammed himself mightily with hot cakes, syrup and salt pork, so that his words came as broken interjections between enormous knife-fulls. “You fellers have trampled up and down, and backwards and forwards and across the Crazy Mule until it looks like a passel of sheep’s been through. What’s the matter with you ninnies, anyway?”
Bob Macumber chuckled. “I’m sure glad Bart Holt ain’t here.”
“Bart Holt don’t know a cow track from a dish of potaters,” said Tanner.
“We wasn’t hunting cows,” growled old man Major.
“It’s a good thing,” Tanner grunted. “One of ’em would probably have come up behind you and hooked you. Like one time in the Mokelumne Basin. Bart Holt swang a big circle and cut his own trail, and follered it round and round the Basin for upwards of a week. And he ain’t figgered out to this day how come he never sighted hisself.”
“I’m right sorry we made you fall down,” Oliver Major came back at him. “Of course, if a feller gets so he can’t tell one track from another no more, he has to be the first one to come up, or he’s helpless.”
“Who says I fell down?” Tanner demanded with his mouth full. “I can tell you every move anybody made in the Crazy Mule night before last.” They waited, and after two more knife-loads of hot cakes and syrup Tanner went on. “This feller here—Hughes, did you say his name was?—come riding over the Gun-sight an hour and a half, and maybe two hours, before dark. He—”
“Was you there?” said Macumber.
“No, I wasn’t there.”
“How do you know it was an hour and a half before dark?”
“If you’ll stop asking fool questions you’ll see in a minute. Hughes built his fire”—he pronounced it “far”—“and et, and then he clumb up the rock of the rim to where he could set and look out, and there he smoked a cigarette. If it hadn’t been still daylight, what would o’ been his idee in climbin’ up to look around? A child could see through that.”
“How do you know it was me?” said Hughes.
“You’re the only stranger around here, ain’t you? And you’re smoking brown papers; everybody else around here’s smoking white papers. I found your brown paper butt up on the rim. Meantime,” Tanner went on, “Hugo Donnan has come in the other end over Dog Ridge. He works along, fishin’. Finally he makes his camp. Two fellers is watchin’ him from the rock of the rim as he makes his camp.”
“How do you know that?” said old Major.
“Just keep on buttin’ in,” said Tanner testily, “if you want to keep from findin’ out nothing. They’ve already made up their mind to gun Donnan, but now they see Hughes’ smoke from down canyon. One of ’em walks along the rim in his stockin’ feet to see who it is. He almost walks right onto Hughes where Hughes is settin’ up on the rim. He sights him at twenty yards, and of course, Hughes is lookin’ the other way. Wouldn’t you know it. Also, I guess he don’t hear very good, does he? At least, he doesn’t listen very good. Well, this feller that’s stalking him steps behind a clump of junipers not over twenty yards away and watches him.”
Clay Hughes’ hair rose at this suggestion. It is a queer thing to be told that hostile eyes have watched you from a distance of but twenty yards, while you were unconsciously going about your own affairs. He remembered the stillness of the night, and found himself unable to believe Tanner.
“I would have heard him,” said Hughes.
“Just the same, he was there,” said Tanner, “because there’s a little
dirt collected behind those junipers, and his track is there where he stood quite a while. All right. Hughes goes down to his camp again. The other feller lies down on the rock behind the junipers, keeping Hughes in sight. He lies there between half an hour and an hour.”
“And how do you know that?”
“He left the butts of three white paper cigarettes. Finally Hughes turns in and settles down for the night. The other feller works back along the rim.”
“How do you know he did?”
“Because he ain’t there no more,” said Tanner with withering contempt. “The two fellers that’s been watchin’ Donnan has a hard time gettin’ together in the dark, but finally the feller that’s been watchin Hughes finds his partner, and passes the word that to all intents and purposes Hughes is blind, deef, and dumb. One of them two, probably the feller that’s been watchin’ Donnan, comes climbin’ down the rock. His boots is hangin’ from his belt. He—”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” said Oliver Major. “You couldn’t know what was hangin’ on his belt! Unless—you was him.”
“I sure get sick of explaining plain, common things to you block-heads,” said Tanner. “I know he was in his stocking feet, don’t I? And he wasn’t carrying his boots in his hands because he wanted both hands free. A child would know that. But pretty soon when he leaves there, he’s got his boots on. I suppose you fellers would say his boots was just follering him along, jumping from twig to twig or something. Me, I know better. He had ’em hooked to his belt.” Tanner forked another load of hot cakes to his plate.
“All right, go ahead.”
“The feller that’s stalking Donnan eases down onto the little low rock ledge. Donnan’s camped right under him. There’s a little brush on the ledge, givin’ the feller cover. The feller snakes his gun out and pokes it through the brush. The brush rattles. Donnan turns around and sees the other feller and the gun. He makes a jump for his rifle that’s standing against a tree. ‘How do I know it was against the tree?’ says you. Because that’s what a feller does with his rifle—he don’t sink it in the crick to cool. I get tired of these damn fool questions.”
“Nobody asked you a question,” said Major.
“Well, you was about to, wasn’t you? Donnan makes a jump for his rifle—isn’t there somebody wants to know how I know he jumped, instead of walking on his hands?”
The riders stirred restlessly. The slurs of the cantankerous old lion hunter were getting on their nerves. Hughes had known lion hunters before. Mostly they were aloof, self-sufficient men, very quiet except when in argument with others of their own profession; but easy to get along with, full of the generosity and hospitality of men who are much alone. Tanner was different, an aggravated case. Yet Hughes could understand how a lifetime of self-sufficient loneliness had warped the old man’s views. Probably there were months at a time in which the old man spoke to no living beings except his dogs; while the signs of obscure wilderness trails were his only newspapers, and the reading of those signs his only diversion.
Small wonder if he learned, after fifty or sixty years of that, to read and understand a thousand small indications that other men did not even see. In Tanner the lion hunter’s intuition was probably developed to a remarkable degree. More than any other men, perhaps, the lion hunters learned to depend upon a fifth sense that was probably partly imagination, but partly also a restored instinct for verity such as animals possess, and which becomes smothered in the world of men.
“Come on, come on, what happened then?”
“Why, you jug-heads,” said Tanner, “the feller shot him. Ain’t you heard he was shot?” he demanded sarcastically. “Now somebody ask me was he hurt.”
Nobody asked him anything, so Tanner was reduced to going ahead under his own power. “Donnan goes down, out of reach of his rifle. The feller that shot him stands tight, not moving. He’s ready to pop him again if necessary. It ain’t. Donnan lies quiet. After a minute or two, which seems like about an hour to the feller on the ledge, the feller cleans his gun. He has a nail on a string, with a rag on the end of the string. He drops the nail through the barrel of his gun and pulls the rag through three, four times. Why does he do that? He does it so that if anybody comes busting up and wants to know did he shoot Donnan, he can show them he never fired his gun—see, it’s all clean. How do I know he done it? Because I found his cleanin’ wad, nail, string, and all, hanging on the bush. It’s a wonder you jiggers wouldn’t have found it and took it for a fish hook, and put it in the crick, so’s it would look more at home.”
“Somebody’s going to put you in the creek one of these days,” Macumber grunted, “and I’ll bet you’ll look at home there too!” Tanner devoted himself to concentrated eating for a moment or two. In the comparative silence, two or three of his dogs outside could be heard blooping mournfully in the loud pointless conversation that lion packs carry on incessantly.
“The feller that shot Donnan went away. After he’s gone Donnan gets on his hands and knees and crawls over to his rifle, and pulls it down onto the ground. He lies restin’ on top of it. Then he changes his mind. He don’t need no rifle, the fellers is gone. He crawls over and puts a stick on the fire, leavin’ the rifle lie. Next day when you fellers are wanderin’ around up there, one of you picks up the rifle and lays it across his saddle. Now, if you fellers want to ask me somethin’ I can’t answer, there’s the chance of a lifetime. What did you fellers do that for? I don’t know. A man can figure out almost anything, except what is you fellers’ theory when you do most of the things you do.”
“I picked it up to see if it had been fired,” said Macumber.
“He didn’t know if it was loaded,” said Tanner, sarcastically. “Well, anyway, Donnan now drags hisself up onto the ledge where the shot comes from. Somethin’ flickers in the light from the fire. He picks up the shell from the gun of the feller that’s dropped him.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Because the shell ain’t there anymore. And I know that the feller that shot him ejected it, because he never would go to work and clean his gun without he reloaded it. Furthermore, and lastly, it looks to me like Donnan went up there and picked up something—and what else would be there for him to pick up?
“Maybe you fellers was hopin’ that the killer would drop his gun—and you’d find his name carved on it. Well, it’s too bad, but things don’t work that way. If you fellers think that Donnan didn’t go up there and pick up no empty shell, I’ll just bet you two to one that proof will turn up he so done. ‘Why is Donnan collecting empty shells?’ says you. Because Donnan is dumb, he used to be a cowboy, didn’t he? Sure. He’s a game feller, though very easy done for, and he figgers he’ll get a clue as to who knocked him over.
“The shell is nice and shiny so he picks it up and saves it, thinking it may mean something. Of course, all it means is that some feller reloaded his gun. If you fellers think that that was a nutty thing for Donnan to do, you’re right. But what you want to hold in mind is that you master minds could of been counted on to do something different maybe, but just as crazy. I’ve worked around cow pokes for a long time, and all I ever found out is, you can’t never tell what fool thing is liable to appeal to a cow hand as reasonable to do.”
“Just the same,” said Macumber, “he’s telling a good story for a man that’s just making it up as he goes along.”
“Leave him alone, Bob,” said Major. “Grasshopper, go ahead.”
“Donnan grabs up some moss and holds it on his wound, and starts down canyon, where he seen the smoke from Hughes’ fire. Undoubtless, he figgers he’s goin’ for help. ‘Help for what?’ Don’t ask me—I’ll leave that to some of you that understands cowboy minds. He gets clear down to Hughes’ camp. Well, down there you fellers played drop the handkerchief or something, and it’s pretty hard to find out much, but it looked to me like Donnan walked right spang into camp and fell down on top of Hughes’ fire. Hard to say. Some darn fool has sifted out them ashes and sprin
kled ’em all around—probably noticed somebody fell in the ashes, and was sifting ’em out to see if he was still in ’em.”
“Just the same, we found something,” said Major. “We found the empty shell of a forty-five. Hughes claims he didn’t put it there, and nobody else had been there up to the time we went up. So maybe you’re right about that empty shell, Grasshopper. Maybe Donnan had it in his hand, and dropped it in the ashes himself!”
“And there you are!” said Tanner. “Who was it wanted to bet me about that shell?”
“Those two gun throwers,” Major asked: “did you locate where they left their saddle stock?”
“No. If they had any sense, they left ’em a good ways off, where saddle stock’s got every right to be. There’s plenty places in walking range of there where you can find hoof prints; and I s’pose there’re ten thousand places where they could have come on and off the rock. Now, I’ve told you exactly what happened up there night before last. Take it or leave it, it’s all one to me.”
“Looks like,” said Major grumpily, “you could have taken a look around for them hoof prints, while you was at it, just the same.”
“My work’s done,” declared Tanner stubbornly. “And I’ll tell you right now, I got no notion of chasing my pack all over the Sweetwaters trying to track down no mule. It’s hard enough to get a bunch of smelling machines to follow—”
“Mule?” said Hughes.
Old Tanner’s eyes struck upward at Hughes’ face, but he hesitated only a fraction of a second. “Horse or mule,” he corrected himself. “I’ve got enough trouble with this pack, teaching ’em not to go hollering off after every buck deer that jumps, without giving ’em the idee they can take out after every cow, horse or mule that cresses—”