Sundown Slim

by Knibbs, Henry Herbert

"'Bout three mile. You can take a hoss and mosey over if you like. Figure on gettin' back 'round noon."

  "Any snakes over there?"

  "Comf'table thick. You might get a pretty good mess of 'em, if you was to take your time. I never bother to look for 'em."

  Sundown gazed at his length of nether limb and sighed.

  "Snakes won't bother you none," said Wingle, reassuringly. "They get tired, same as anybody, and they'd have to climb too fur to see if you was to home."

  Sundown rose and saddled a horse. He mounted and rode slowly toward the rim of the distant cañon. At the cañon's brink, he dismounted and led his horse down the trail, stopping frequently to gaze in wonderment at the painted cliffs and masses of red rock strewn along the slopes. High up on the perpendicular face of the cañon walls he saw many caves and wondered how they came to be there. "Makes a fella feel like sayin' his prayers," he muttered. "Wisht I knowed one."

  He drifted on down the trail, which wound around huge fragments of rock riven from the cliffs in prehistoric days. He was awed by the immensity of the chasm and talked continuously to his horse which shuffled along behind paying careful attention to the footing. Arrived at the stream the horse drank. Sundown mounted and rode along the narrow level paralleling the river course. The cañon widened, and before he realized it he was in a narrow valley carpeted with bunch-grass and dotted with solitary cypress and infrequent clumps of pine. He paused to inspect a small mound of rock which was partially surrounded by a wall of neatly laid stone. Within the semicircular wall was a hole in the ground—the entrance to a cave. Farther along he came upon the ruins of a walled square, unmistakably of human construction. He became interested, and, tying his horse to a scrub-cedar, began to dig among the loose stones covering the interior of the square. He discovered a fragment of painted pottery—the segment of an olla, smooth, dark red, and decorated with a design in black. He rubbed the earth from the fragment and polished it on his overalls. He unearthed a larger fragment and found that it matched the other piece. He was happy. He forgot his surroundings, and scratched and dug in the ruin until he accumulated quite a little pile of shards, oddly marked and colored. Eventually he gathered up his spoils and tied them in his handkerchief.

  Leaving his horse, he meandered down the valley until he came to another and larger cave. "Wonder what's down there?" he soliloquized. "Mebby one of them Injuns. Been there a thousand years waitin' for somethin' to turn up. 'Nough to make a fella tired, waitin' that long." He wanted to explore the cave, but he was afraid. Moreover, the interior was dark. He pondered. Finally his natural fondness for mild adventure overcame his fear. "Got some matches!" he exclaimed, joyfully. "Wonder if it's deep? Guess I could put me legs in first, and if nothin' bites me legs, why, I could follow 'em down to bottom." He put his head in the hole. "Hey!" he hallooed, "are you in there?" He rose to his feet. "Nothin' doin'. Well, here goes. I sure want to see what's down there."

  In his excitement he overlooked the possibility of disturbing a torpid rattler. He slid feet first into the cave, found that he could all but stand upright, and struck a match.

  The ancient Hopis buried their dead in a sitting posture on a woven grass mat, with an olla, and frequently a bone dagger, beside them. In the clean, dry air of the uplands of Arizona the process of decay is slow. Sundown, unaware of this, hardly anticipated that which confronted him as the match flamed blue and flared up, lighting the interior of the cave with instant brilliance. About six feet from where he crouched was the dried and shriveled figure of a Hopi chief, propped against the wall of the cave. Beside the figure stood the painted olla untarnished by age. The dead Indian's head was bowed upon his breast, and his skeleton arms, parchment-skinned and rigid, were crossed upon his knees.

  Sundown scrambled for the circle of daylight above him. "Gee Gosh!" he panted, as he got to his feet outside the cave. "It was him!" He clambered over the circle of stones and backed away, eyeing the entrance as though he expected to see the Hopi emerge at any moment. He crouched behind a boulder, his pulses racing. He was keyed to a high tension of expectancy. In fact, he was in a decidedly receptive mood for that which immediately happened. He noticed that his horse, a hundred yards or so up the valley, was circling the cedar and pulling back on the reins. He wondered what was the matter with him. The horse was usually a well-behaved animal. The explanation came rapidly. Sundown saw the horse back and tear loose from the cedar; saw him whirl and charge down the valley snorting. "Guess he seen one, too!" said Sundown making no effort to check the frightened animal. Almost immediately came the long-drawn bell of a dog following a hot scent. Sundown turned from watching his vanishing steed and saw a huge timber-wolf leap from a thicket. Behind the wolf came Chance, neck outstretched, and flanks working at top speed. The wolf dodged a boulder, flashing around it with no apparent loss of ground. Chance rose over the boulder as though borne on the wind. The wolf turned and snapped at him. Sundown decided instantly that the sepulcher of the dead Hopi was preferable to the proximity of the live wolf, and he made for the cave.

  The wolf circled the wall of stones and also made for the cave. Sundown had arrived a little ahead of him. The top of Sundown's head appeared for an instant; then vanished. The wolf backed snarling against the wall as Chance leaped in. When Sundown's head again appeared, the whirling mass of writhing fur and kicking legs had taken more definite shape. Chance had fastened on the wolf's shoulder. The wolf was slashing effectively at the dog's side. Presently they lay down facing each other. Chance licked a long gash in his foreleg. The wolf snapped as he lay and a red slaver dripped from his fangs. Not twelve feet away, Sundown gazed upon the scene with fear-wide eyes. "Go to it, Chance!" he quavered, and his encouragement was all but the dog's undoing, for he lost the wolf's gaze for an instant, barely turning in time to meet the vicious charge. Sundown groaned as the wolf, with a slashing stroke, ripped the dog's neck from ear to shoulder. The stones in the enclosure were spattered with red as they whirled, each trying to reach the throat of the other. Suddenly Chance leaped up and over the wolf, lunging for his neck as he descended. The wolf rolled from under and backed toward the cave. "Hey!" yelled Sundown. "You can't come in here!"

  Chance, weakened from loss of blood, lay watching the wolf as it crouched tensely. Again the great gray shadow lunged and a bright streak sprung up on the dog's side. "Gee Gosh!" whined Sundown; "he can't stand much more of that!" Undoubtedly Chance knew it, for he straight-way gathered himself and leaped in, diving low for the wolf's fore leg. As the wolf turned his shoulder, Chance again sprang over him and, descending, caught him just behind the ear, and held. The wolf writhed and snarled. Chance gripped in and in, with each savage shake of his head biting deeper. In a mighty effort to free himself the wolf surged backward, dragging Chance around the enclosure. Sundown, rising from the cave's mouth, crouched before it. "You got him! You got him!" he cried. "Once more, now!"

  The body of the wolf quivered and sagged, then stiffened as if for a last effort. Chance held. They were both lying on the stones now. Chance with fore feet braced against the wolf's chest. Presently the dog gave a final shake, drew back, and lay panting. From head to flanks he was soaked with blood. The wolf was dead.

  Sundown stood up. "Good boy, Chance!" he said. The great, gaunt body of the dog raised itself on trembling legs, the pride of the conqueror lighting for a moment his dimming eyes. "It's me, Chance!" said Sundown, stroking the dog's head. Chance wagged his tail and reaching up his torn and bleeding muzzle licked Sundown's hand. Then slowly he sank to the ground, breathed heavily, and rolled to his side. Sundown knelt over him and unaccustomed tears ran down his lean cheeks and dripped on the clotted fur. "You was some fighter, Chance, ole pal! Gee Gosh! He's nothin' except cuts and slashes all over. Gee Gosh!" He drew the dog's head to his lap and sat crooning weird, broken words and stroking the torn ears. Suddenly he stopped and put his hand over the dog's heart. Then he leaped to his feet and, dumping the fragments of pottery from his bandanna, tore it in strips and beg
an bandaging the wounds. The gash on Chance's neck still bled. Sundown drew his knife and cut the sleeve from his shirt. He ripped it open and bound the dog's neck. Realizing that Chance was not dead, he became valiant. "We sure put up the great scrap, didn't we, pal? We licked him! But if he'd 'a' licked you…" And Sundown gazed at the still form of the wolf and shuddered, not knowing that the wolf would have fled at sight of him had he been able to get away from Chance.

  Two hours later, Eleanor Loring, riding along the cañon stream, met a lean giant, one sleeve of his shirt gone, his hat missing, and his hands splotched with blood. His eyes were wild, his face white and set. He carried a great, shaggy dog in his arms.

  "Are you hurt?" she asked, swinging from her pony and coming to him.

  "Me? No, lady. But me pal here is hurt bad. Jest breathin'. Killed a wolf back there. Mebby I can save him."

  "Why, it's Chance—of the Concho!"

  "Yes, lady. What is left of him."

  "Do you work for the Concho? Won't you take my horse?"

  "I'm assistant cook at the camp. No, thanks, lady. Ridin' might joggle him and start him to bleedin'. I can carry him so he'll be easier-like."

  "But how did it happen?"

  "I dunno. Chance chased the wolf and they went to it where I was explorin' one of them caves. I guess I better be goin'."

  The girl reined her horse around and rode down the valley trail, pausing occasionally to watch the tall figure climbing the cañon with that shapeless burden in his arms. "I wonder if any other man on the Concho would have done that?" she asked herself. And Sundown, despite his more or less terrifying appearance, won her estimation for kindness at once.

  Slowly he climbed the cañon trail, resting at each level. The dog hung a limp, dead weight in his arms. Midway up the trail Sundown rested again, and gazed down into the valley. He imagined he could discern the place of the fight. "That there wolf," he soliloquized, "he was some fighter, too. Mebby he didn't like to get licked any more than Chance, here. Wonder what they was fightin' about? I dunno. But, Gee Gosh, she was one dandy scrap!"

  At the top of the cañon wall he again rested. He expected to be discharged for being late, but solaced himself with the thought that if he could save Chance, it was worth the risk.

  The riders had returned to the chuck-wagon when Sundown arrived lugging the inert body of the wolf-dog. They gathered around and asked brief questions. Sundown, busy washing the dog's wounds, answered as well as he could. His account of the fight did not suffer for lack of embellishment, and while he did not absolutely state that he had taken a hand in the fight, his story implied it.

  "Don't see nothin' on you to show you been in a scrap," remarked a young puncher.

  "That's because you can't see in deep enough," retorted Sundown. "If I wasn't in every jump of that fight, me heart was."

  "Better shoot him and put him out of his sufferin'," suggested the puncher.

  Sundown rose from beside the dog. Shoot Chance? Not so long as he could keep between the dog and the cowboy's gun. The puncher, half in jest, reached for his holster. Sundown's overwrought nerves gave way. He dropped to his knees and lifted his long arms imploringly. "Don't! Don't!" he wailed. "He ain't dead! Don't shoot my pal!"

  Bud Shoop, who had kept silent, shouldered the puncher aside. "Cut it out, Sinker," he growled. "Can't you sabe that Sundown means it?"

  Later in the evening, and fortified with a hearty meal. Sundown gave a revised version of the fight, wherein his participation was modified, though the story lost nothing in re-telling. And, indeed, his own achievement, of lugging Chance up the cañon trail, awakened a kind of respect among the easy-going cowboys. To carry an eighty-pound dog up that trail took sand! Again Sundown had unconsciously won their respect. Nothing was said about his late return. And his horse had found its way back to the camp.

  Sometime in the night, Bud Shoop was awakened by the man next him.

  "What's goin' on?" queried Shoop, rising on his elbow.

  "Ask me again," said the puncher. "Listen!"

  From the vicinity of the wagon came the gurgle of water and then a distinctly canine sneeze.

  "Dinged if he ain't fussin' with that dog again!" grumbled Shoop. "The dam' fool!" Which, as it is the spirit which giveth life to the letter, was not altogether uncomplimentary.

  CHAPTER XII

  A GIFT

  Warned by John Corliss of Loring's evident intent to graze his sheep on the west side of the Concho River, the cattle-men held a quiet meeting at the ranch of the Concho and voted unanimously to round up a month earlier than usual. The market was at a fair level. Beef was in demand. Moreover, the round-up would, by the mere physical presence of the riders and the cattle, check for the time being any such move as Loring contemplated, as the camps would be at the ford. Meanwhile the cattle-men again petitioned the Ranger at Antelope to stir up the service at Washington in regard to grazing allotments.

  The round-up began. The Concho outfit moved camp to the ford and Sundown had his first introduction to real work. From morning till night and far into the night the fires were going. Groups of belated riders swung in and made for the chuck-wagons. Sundown, following a strenuous eighteen hours of uninterrupted toil, solemnly borrowed a piece of "tarp" from his outfit on which he lettered the legend:—

  "CAFE DE CONCHO—MEELS AT ALL

  HOURS—PRIVIT TABELS FOR LADYS"

  He hung the tarp in a conspicuous place and retired to rest. The following morning his efforts were applauded with much picturesque expletive, and even criticism was evoked by a lean puncher who insisted "that the tall guy might be a good cook all right, but he sure didn't know how to spell 'calf.'" Naturally the puncher's erudition leaned toward cattle and the range.

  At all times conspicuous, for he topped by a head and shoulders the tallest rider on the range. Sundown became doubly conspicuous as the story of his experience with the hold-ups and his rescue of Chance became known. If he strutted, it was pardonable, for he strutted among men difficult to wrest approval from, and he had won their approval.

  At Hi Wingle's suggestion, he "packed a gun"—a formidable .45 lent him by that gracious individual, for it grieved the solid Wingle's soul to see so notable a character go unarmed. Sundown, like many a wiser man, was not indifferent to the effect of clothing and equipment. Obliged frequently to relate his midnight adventure with the robbers, he became a past-master in the art of dramatic expression. "If I'd 'a' had me gun with me," he was wont to say, slapping the holster significantly, "the deal might 'a' turned out different. I reckon it's luck I didn't." Which may have been true enough, for Sundown would undoubtedly have been afraid to use the weapon and Fadeaway might have misunderstood his bungling.

  In his spare time he built a lean-to of odds and ends, and beneath it Chance drowsed away the long, sunny hours while Sundown was rustling firewood or holding hot argument with an obstreperous dutch-oven. And Chance became the pet and the pride of the outfit. Riders from distant ranches would stray over to the lean-to and look at him, commenting on his size and elaborating on the fact that it usually took two of the best dogs ever whelped to pull down a timber-wolf.

  Even Fadeaway, now riding for the Blue, became enthusiastic and boasted of his former friendship with Chance. When he essayed the intimacy of patting the dog's head, some of the onlookers doubted him, for Chance received these overtures with a deep-throated growl.

  "He won't let nobody touch him but that Sundown gent," cautioned a bystander.

  "Guess he's loco since he got chewed up," said Fadeaway, retreating.

  Chance licked his wounds and recovered slowly. He would lie in the sun, watching with unwinking gaze the camp and the cluster of men about it until the form of Sundown loomed through the mass. Then he would beat the ground with his tail and whine expectantly. As he became stronger, he ventured to stretch his wound-stiffened muscles in short pilgrimages to the camp, where the men welcomed him with hearty and profane zest. Was he not the slayer of their enemy's sheep and t
he killer of the timber-wolf? Eventually he was presented with a broad collar studded with brass spikes, and engraved upon it was the sanguinary and somewhat ambiguous legend: "Chance—The Killer of the Concho."

  John Corliss, visiting the round-up, rode over to Sundown's tepee, as it was called. The assistant cook was greasing Chance's wounds.

  "How is he getting along?" asked Corliss.

  "Fine, boss, fine! This here is some little ole red-cross ward, believe me! He's gettin' over bein' lame and he eats regular."

  "Here, Chance!" called Corliss.

  The dog rose stiffly and stalked to his master, smelt of him and wagged his tail, then stood with lowered head as though pondering some serious dog-logic.

  "He's kind of queer," explained Sundown, "but he's a whole pile better than he was a spell ago. Had to bring him water and feed him like a baby cuttin' teeth—though I never seen one doin' that. He wouldn't let nobody touch him 'ceptin' me."

  "Is he able to travel?"

  "Oh, some."

  "Think he could make it to the Concho?"

  Sundown hesitated. "Mebby. Yes, I reckon he could. He can run all right, only I guess he kind of likes hangin' around me." And Sundown glanced sideways at Corliss.

  "He seems all right. I guess I'll take him back with me. I don't like the idea of his running loose here."

  "He ain't bitin' nobody," assured Sundown.

  Corliss glanced shrewdly at the other's lean, questioning face. "Guess you won't miss him much. How are you making it?"

  "Me? Fine! Reckon I'll take out me papers for a full-chested range cook afore long. You see the L.D. outfit says that I could have a job with them after the round-up. It kind of leaked out about them pies. 'Course they was joshin', mebby. I dunno."

  "The L.D. boys are all right," said Corliss. "If you want to make a change—"