Fightin' Fool

by Max Brand

  At the end of each of the three great barns there was a wagon of hay being unloaded by the use of a great four-tined Jackson fork which was lifted by a team of two horses, led or driven. They could hear the slow groaning of the pulleys as the horses started the forkful up. They could hear the click and then the smooth rumbling as the load ran back along the iron running rail at the top of a barn, while the tugging team of derrick horses no longer strained at their collars, but walked easily forward, their traces slack. The observers were so close that they could even hear, dim and far away, the voice of the headman who stowed the hay, calling: “Dump!” when the forkload had reached the desired spot.

  “How’d you like to be in there, Parson?” asked Jingo. “There’s the place for a fellow like you. You’d be worth a whole crew of three or four in there. You could shift a whole load with your pitchfork, and every time you put down your foot on the loose stuff it would be worth the drop of a beater in a baling machine. You’d be worth your weight—in lead!”

  The Parson grinned. “The time was,” said he, “when I figgered that it was a proud and noble dog-gone thing to be able to heave twice as much on a pitchfork as anybody else could. I used to roll bales on a Little Giant press, and throw up the bales four high, and sometimes I’d chuck up a few five high. The ranchers, they used to like to have me working on the hay baler, because they could roll off the top two tiers of the stack onto their wagons afterward without no derrick at all. But after a while I figgered out that a strong head was better than a strong back. I’ve give up working like that, Jingo.”

  “What do you do now?” asked Jingo curiously.

  “I hunt for hard-shelled crabs and crack ’em, and eat the white meat,” said the Parson, moving his hands as though he were breaking in two a crab like a piece of bread.

  “That sort of business is hard on the hands,” said Jingo, grinning.

  “Yeah,” agreed the Parson, “but now I’m resting up. All I gotta do is foller the lion and get fat on what he leaves of his kill.”

  He chuckled as he said this, and Jingo, eyeing him almost tenderly, remarked: “Some day we’re going to have it out, Parson.”

  “It’ll make a lot of dust,” said the Parson. “But I’ll have to break you up small enough for pocket sizes one of these days. You’re too fresh, Jingo.”

  Jingo smiled meditatively. He waved toward the picture before them. “The whole world knows that we’re coming here,” he observed.

  “The whole world knows that you’re coming—and that I’m with you,” corrected the Parson. “It wouldn’t be enough for you to bust in on that dance, but you gotta stand up and announce that you’re going to call on the lady at her own home. Well, go on and call, and meet your finish. Because that’s what it will be when you try to get into that house. I’ll call for the body to-morrow.”

  He rolled a cigarette. Jingo took it out of his hand and threw it away.

  “If we’re close enough to see the dust come out of every forkful of that hay,” said Jingo, “they’re close enough to see the smoke come out of this patch of brush. We might as well be careful.”

  “All right,” said the Parson. “Tell me what scheme you’ve got in your crazy head.”

  “I haven’t any scheme,” said Jingo.

  “Hey!” cried the Parson. “You mean that you’ve rode out here all the way without no idea in your head of how you’re going to get into that house?”

  “Never worry about a bridge till you come to it,” answered Jingo. “They’ve got more men about than I figured on. That’s the chief trouble. And a fellow like Judge Tyrrel is apt to be thorough-minded. It might just happen that he won’t want me to call on his girl.”

  “Maybe he won’t know that you’re going to come?” suggested the Parson hopefully.

  “A fellow like Tyrrel knows everything,” said Jingo. “Besides, she’ll tell him. A girl like that doesn’t keep secrets from the head of the family. That’s the difference, Parson, between her and the rest. That’s why she has clean eyes. Because she washes her mind clean every day of her life. Little secrets are what dirty up the souls of most women. But there’s nothing small about her.”

  “She’s the queen, eh?” said the Parson.

  “That’s what she is.”

  “Then a rosy chance you’ve got of getting her for yourself,” said the Parson.

  “I keep running,” answered Jingo, “not because I expect to win the race, but because I like the exercise. But how am I to get into that house?”

  “My head,” said the Parson, “is as empty as a dog-gone bell. There ain’t any way you can get into the house.”

  “Suppose that I were to sneak into one of the barns?” suggested Jingo. “And—Look here, Parson. Do you think that Tyrrel’s men will be wearing guns on account of you and me?”

  “On account of you, they sure will be wearing guns,” replied the Parson. “And when they salt you down with lead, you’ll stay dead as long as a side of pork.”

  “Simply because a fellow is coming to call?” said Jingo. “It’s absurd for them to go that far!”

  “Well, suppose that the girl has a kind of a notion that you’re the prince of the range, and her father knows what she feels? Ain’t he going to do what he can to sidestep you? And if you come around there trespassing—mightn’t you be a burglar or something? But hurry up with your ideas. It’s going to be sundown before very long.”

  Beneath them, two more hay wagons came groaning around the side of the hill, running down the grade against the brakes, the horses backing into their breechings and shuffling their feet, while the long poles thrust out and up, swaggering from side to side.

  “Well,” said Jingo, “there’s only one thing for me to do, and that’s to turn myself into hay. Once I get into those barns I’m a poor fool if I can’t wangle it as far as the house.”

  “Turn yourself into hay?” said the Parson. “Now, whatcha mean by that?”

  “Keep the horses and stay near this spot,” answered Jingo. “I’ve got an idea that may bring me nothing but the tines of a Jackson fork among my ribs, but I’m going to try it out.”

  “Well, go to it,” said the Parson. He held out his vast hand and took that of Jingo with an almost gentle pressure.

  “If anything happens to you,” said the Parson, “I’m going to take and kick Judge Tyrrel and his whole ranch into a stack of kindling wood.”

  “Thanks,” said Jingo. “Nothing is going to happen. I’ve got luck in my bones.”

  With that he left the brush, ran back down the rear slope of the hill, and came out through a little gulley just as the last of the two wagons was passing. The Parson, from his post of vantage, could see his companion climb up the back of the hay rack and wriggle instantly, with snakelike speed, into the top of the load. And the Parson, lifting his big hands, shook them in a silent wonder at the sky.

  Jingo, in the meantime, had tied his bandanna over his face up to his eyes. He would have been glad to cover the eyes, also, for the dust and chaff that stirred in the load of hay threatened to blind him. Breathing through the silk, he was at least assured of not stifling.

  He kept working until he was at what he felt to be the right depth in the upper layer of the hay. His hope was simply that he would be included in a forkful of the hay, and that when the Jackson fork was dumped in the mow, he would fall with it, and be able to wriggle through the dust cloud and the flying hay out of the observation of the men who were in the mow.

  He felt that he had one chance in five, but he was accustomed to taking the short end of long odds. The chances against him were that he would be found as soon as the driver of the load began to walk over it after halting his wagon beside the barn; that the Jackson fork itself would be fleshed in his body; that even if that were not the case, the weight of his body would prove that something was wrong when the forkful was lifted by the derrick team; and that, if the fall from the traveling beam at the top of the barn were very great, he might be stunned or even bre
ak his neck when the fork was tripped. Last of all, of course, there was the very high chance that the men in the barn, stowing the hay, would discover him as he tried to wriggle into hiding.

  When he added up these chances, he told himself that he was the greatest fool in the world. He was prepared to slide out from the load, but at that moment he heard many voices all about him, and over the amber sunshine that seeped through the hay above his face there passed a cool wall of shadow. The wagon halted, and he knew that he was under the door of the barn. Whatever he feared, it was too late to make a change now. He had to submit.

  Fear in a vast wave came over him, stifling him. After all, the thing had not gone very far. It was only a jest, a prank, and if he appeared out of the load of hay, he would be thrown off the place, to be sure, but he would be thrown off with no more than jeers and laughter.

  But pride was the controlling devil in the heart of Jingo. And when he thought of being hustled off the ranch, he set his teeth grimly and waited.

  And still the fear was choking him. He heard the rustling and crunching of the hay as the driver of the wagon, leaving his seat, caught the guide rope of the big Jackson fork with its array of four glistening steel tines, each sharper than a dagger. Those curving teeth would run through his body as through butter. And the driver was coming aft on the load to commence forking it off from that end where Jingo lay!

  CHAPTER 16

  The Last Load

  Before the unloading commenced, however, there was an argument which made Jingo fear that he had made this journey for nothing, perhaps. And that he would have to lie there in the load of hay, able only to sneak away for safety during the middle of the night.

  A man’s voice nearby said: “It’s dog-gone near sunset time. There ain’t enough time to snake off this load. It’ll be getting dark up there in the mow. We oughta quit right here.”

  “What’s the good?” said the gruff voice of the driver. “We gotta work all night, don’t we? What’s the good of knocking off this job and starting to walk a beat? Is that any good? You’re going to be tired of that before morning, I can tell you!”

  “It’s a fool’s game, anyway,” said the other. “He ain’t going to come anywhere near.”

  “Sure he ain’t, but we’ll get extra pay for the time we put in walking around. And suppose he does show up, the gent that pots him will get a cash present that’ll keep him flush for a year.”

  “He won’t show up. Not even Jingo is fool enough to try to walk in through the whole gang, all for the sake of a joke, too.”

  “Well, sink your fork, and we’ll get that load off.”

  Jingo dared not stir for fear of making a noise that might betray him, but he shrank inwardly and lay still in dread. He had a more desperate impulse than ever to spring up from the hay and get out of this pinch. For it was clear that everything he feared might happen was actually in the air. The big gangs of men who worked for Judge Tyrrel were armed and expected to remain on duty all through the night to prevent the approach of Jingo. And now he lay like a fool in a load of hay, waiting to be pronged like a senseless beast!

  He heard the rope run with a loose rattle in the pulley far overhead. Then there was a great crash in the hay near him, a puffing of dust and chaff into his face.

  “All-l right!” yelled the wagoner.

  The derrick driver called to his team and snapped his black snake. The pulley above the wagon rattled again, then groaned as the rope began to straighten at the weight of the embedded fork. The whole load of hay shuddered. There was a pulling on the masses in which Jingo lay so that he hoped that his own body would be drawn up at this first venture. There with a tearing, crunching sound the forkload was torn clear of the rest of the hay. The rope ran up more easily, more swiftly. High above, the fork clinked as it struck the carrier; the iron wheels of the carrier rumbled softly as the load was swept along that hanging track into the mow.

  “Dump!” called a stifled voice inside.

  There was a rushing sound followed by the thump of a good, solid blow.

  Jingo closed his eyes and shut back a groan. It seemed that the mow of this barn was just beginning to fill, and there might be a fall of forty feet from the roof to the low level of the mowed hay.

  “Don’t try to snake off the whole load in two bites!” yelled the angry voice of the derrick driver. “What you trying to do? Break the backs of these horses?”

  “You going to teach me how to handle a Jackson fork?” asked the driver sternly.

  “Yeah, and I could do it!” cried the derrick man. “Any ten-year-old kid could teach you things about handling a Jackson fork.”

  “Aw, shut up, Pete,” called one from a distance.

  “I ain’t going to shut up. He’s trying to stick my team here. He’s trying to fetch off his whole load in two bites.”

  There was a sudden downrushing of a force above Jingo. A weight fell on him. A knife thrust of pain drove into his right leg. He jerked the leg away from the tine that had hooked it. It was hard to move. It was almost hard to breathe, the hay all about him was so wedged and bound together in a mass.

  He thrust a hand upward, forcing it slowly through the most compacted part of the hay until his fingers reached the cold of steel. He closed his grip well up on one tine. In that way, he could hope to keep himself from spilling out of the forkful—if only the horses were able to lift him with the rest of the burden.

  “All-l right!” yelled the wagoner.

  The rope drew up its slack with a jerk. Jingo was wrenched up a yard or so. Then he was dropped again. The dust forced its way through the bandanna and almost choked him. He was half-blinded, too, and barely made out the distant voice of the derrick driver.

  “What you got on that fork? You trying to kill my team?”

  The wagoner responded with a roar: “Throw the leather into them cayuses! You try to tell me again how to handle a Jackson fork, and I’ll get down and give you a bust on the nose. Go on!”

  “I’m going to talk to you later!” shouted the furious derrick man. “Get up, boys!”

  The whip cracked. Jingo was jerked upward again. With a great tearing noise in his ears, the forkload that included him tore loose.

  The load swung in and bumped the side of the barn. Slowly it began to mount, with a great groaning of the ropes and the pulleys.

  “What’s in that forkful?” shouted a distant voice.

  Up went Jingo, with a dizziness growing in his head, his grip slipping a little on the polished round of the tine he was grasping. With a bump and a click, the fork jumped into the carrier. The load slid forward. A wave of hotter air bathed Jingo. He seemed to be hurling forward at great speed.

  “Dump!” yelled a voice from beneath.

  The tine wrenched out of his fingers. He dropped, making himself loose and limp from head to foot. There was a stunning shock. His knees drove up and rapped against his chin.

  Out of the dimness of his mind he heard a man exclaiming: “There was a rock of something in that forkful.”

  “Naw. The hay gets wadded sometimes,” said another. “You take where there’s some green, and it gets all wadded up hard. That’s all.”

  Sounds of angry wrangling came from outside the barn also as Jingo, hearing the footfalls come crunching toward him, tried to wriggle away through the loose masses.

  He heard the hiss of pitchfork tines thrust in not far from his head. A mass of hay was flopped down on top of him. Some one was trampling him down, with stamping feet, beating his body, choking him. Then the footfalls withdrew in the noisy brittleness of the hay.

  Jingo lay still. He felt he was stifling. But he swore to himself that there must be air enough percolating through the porous mass. He had only to keep himself in hand and prevent hysteria from grasping him by the throat.

  The heat baked him. The chaff itched his skin. The wound in his leg ached and burned.

  “Hey!” yelled some one. “There’s blood in this here!”

  “Yeah. S
omebody pitchforked a field mouse, maybe. I seen that happen,” said another. The “field mouse” lay very still, finding it more easy to breathe because he wanted to laugh.

  Another forkful ran along the carrier with a distant jumbling sound and then dropped, but not near him. As the men in the barn began to mow away the fresh hay, trampling noisily, Jingo started to wriggle up to the surface, only moving when he heard other sounds.

  So he came like a swimmer to such a position that his face was above the level of the hay and at last he could breathe. It was sunset time. Through the great open western door of the mow the red light poured and filled the dusty air inside with clouds of smoke and of dim fire. The forms of the men in the mow, as they worked, seemed larger than human. The tines of their pitchforks flashed like thin lights. They were cursing the heat, the length of the day. This sort of thing was a dog’s work and a dog’s life, they said.

  Meanwhile the Jackson fork was regularly bringing in fresh loads until the voice of the man on the wagon outside called, thin and far away: “Here’s the last bit, boys!”

  It came up with a rush, as though the derrick team were trotting. The fork crashed against the carrier above. The load of hay entered like an armful of flame, swept back into dimness, streamed down when the fork was dumped, like water from a height. The great Jackson fork hung gleaming from the iron runway, swaying back and forth like a great four-toothed jaw opening and closing. And Jingo had been in the grasp of those teeth!

  The men from the mow climbed out and down. The loudness of their voices no longer rolled through the barn as through a cavern. The wagon outside went off on rumbling wheels. Two men were disputing savagely not far away. And Jingo was left to the heat of the haymow, where small rustling sounds and crinkling had already commenced in the hay.

  CHAPTER 17

  The Guarded House

  On a joining of the second-story tiebeams, which offered a little platform perhaps two feet square, Jingo made his hasty toilet. It took time, and he had little time to spare. But he could not appear for his call covered with dust and his clothes full of wisps of hay. And there was the matter of his wounded leg, for one thing.