Hidden Water

by Coolidge, Dane

  “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.

  “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 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 Peaks without a break, and then it swings west in a kind of an ox bow and makes that long ridge up there to the north that we called the Juate. All that high country between our house here and the Peaks––everythin’ east of that long bluff––is Bronco Mesa. That’s the upper range the judge asked me to point out to you. Everythin’ west of Bronco Mesa is The Rolls––all them rollin’ hills out there––and they’s feed enough out there to keep all the sheep in the country, twice over––but no water. Now what makes us cowmen hot is, after we’ve give ’em that country and welcome, the sheepmen’re all the time tryin’ to sneak in on our upper range. Our cows can’t hardly make a livin’ walkin’ ten or fifteen miles out on The Rolls every day, and then back again to water; but them dam’ sheep can go a week without drinkin’, and as much as a month in the winter-time.

  “Why can’t they give us a chanst, then? We give ’em all the good level land and simply ask ’em as a favor to please keep off of the bench up there and leave our cows what little cactus and browse they is. But no––seems like as soon as you give one of them Chihuahua Mexicans a gun he wants to git a fight out of somebody, and so they come crowdin’ in across our dead line, just to see if they can’t git some of us goin’.”

  Once more his eyes were burning, his breath came hard, and his voice became high and sustained. “Well, I give one of ’em all he wanted,” he said, “and more. I took his dam’ pistol away and beat him over the head with it––and I moved him, too. He was Jasper Swope’s pet, and I reckon he had his orders, but I noticed the rest went round.”

  He stopped abruptly and sat silent, twisting his horse’s mane uneasily. Then he looked up, smiling curiously.

  “If you hadn’t come up this year I would’ve killed some of them fellers,” he said quietly. “I’m gittin’ as crazy as old Bill Johnson––and he hears voices. But now lookee here, Rufe, you don’t want to believe a word I say about this trouble. Don’t you pay any attention to me; I’m bughouse, and I know it. Jest don’t mention sheep to me and I’ll be as happy as an Injun on a mescal jag. Come on, I’ll run you to the house!”

  Throwing his weight forward he jumped his big horse down the rocky trail and went thundering across the flat, whooping and laughing and swinging under mesquite trees as if his whole heart was in the race. Catching the contagion Hardy’s sorrel dashed madly after him, and the moment they struck the open he went by like a shot, over-running the goal and dancing around the low adobe house like a circus horse.

  “By Joe,” exclaimed Creede as he came up, “that caballo of yours can run some. I’m goin’ to make a little easy money off of Bill Lightfoot when he comes in. He’s been blowin’ about that gray of his for two years now and I’ll match you ag’inst him for a yearlin’. And don’t you forgit, boy, we’re going after that black stallion up on Bronco Mesa just as soon as the rodér is over.”

  His face was all aglow with friendliness and enthusiasm now, but as they started toward the house, after turning their horses into the corral, he suddenly stopped short in the trail.

  “Gee,” he said, “I wonder what’s keepin’ Tom? Here Tom! Heere Tom! Pussy, pussy, pussy!” He listened, and called again. “I hope the coyotes ain’t caught him while I was gone,” he said at length. “They treed him a few times last year, but he just stayed up there and yelled until I came––spoiled his voice callin’ so long, but you bet he can purr, all right.”

  He listened once more, long and anxiously, then his face lit up suddenly.

  “Hear that?” he asked, motioning toward the bluff, and while Hardy was straining his ears a stunted black cat with a crook in his tail came into view, racing in wildly from the great pile of fallen bowlders that lay at the base of the cliff, and yowling in a hoarse, despairing voice, like a condemned kitten in a sack.

  “Hello, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy!” cried Creede, and as the cat stopped abruptly, blinking warily at Hardy, he strode forward and gathered it gently into his arms. “Well, you poor little devil,” he exclaimed, stroking its rough coat tenderly, “you’re all chawed up again! Did them dam’ coyotes try to git you while I was gone?” And with many profane words of endearment he hugged it against his breast, unashamed.

  “There’s the gamiest cat in Arizona,” he said, bringing him over to Hardy with conscious pride. “Whoa, kitten, he won’t hurt you. Dogged if he won’t tackle a rattlesnake, and kill ’im, too. I used to be afraid to git out of bed at night without puttin’ on my boots, but if any old rattler crawls under my cot now it’s good-bye, Mr. Snake. Tommy is right there with the goods––and he ain’t been bit yet, neither. He killed three side-winders last Summer––didn’t you, Tom, Old Socks?––and if any sheep-herder’s dog comes snoopin’ around the back door he’ll mount him in a minute. If a man was as brave as he is, now, he’d––well, that’s the trouble––he wouldn’t last very long in this country. I used to wonder sometimes which’d go first––me or Tom. The sheepmen was after me, and their dogs was after Tom. But I’m afraid poor Tommy is elected; this is a dam’ bad country for cats.”

  He set him down with a glance of admiring solicitude, such as a Spartan mother might have bestowed upon her fighting offspring, and kicked open the unlocked door.

  The Dos S ranch house was a long, low structure of adobe bricks, divided in the middle by the open passageway which the Mexicans always affect to encourage any vagrant breeze. On one side of the corredor was a single large room, half storehouse, half bunk room, with a litter of pack saddles, rawhide kyacks and leather in one corner, a heap of baled hay, grain, and provisions in the other, and the rest strewn with the general wreckage of a camp––cooking utensils, Dutch ovens, canvas pack covers, worn-out saddles, and ropes. On the other side the rooms were more pretentious, one of them even having a board floor. First came the large living-room with a stone chimney and a raised hearth before the fireplace; whereon, each on its separate pile of ashes, reposed two Dutch ovens, a bean kettle, and a frying-pan, with a sawed-off shovel in the corner for scooping up coals. Opening into the living-room were two bedrooms, which, upon exploration, turned out to be marvellously fitted up, with high-headed beds, bureaus and whatnots, besides a solid oak desk.

  To t
hese explorations of Hardy’s Creede paid but slight attention, he being engaged in cooking a hurried meal and watching Tommy, who had a bad habit of leaping up on the table and stealing; but as Hardy paused by the desk in the front bedroom he looked up from mixing his bread and said:

  “That’s your room, Rufe, so you can clean it up and move in. I generally sleep outdoors myself––and I ain’t got nothin’, nohow. Jest put them guns and traps into the other room, so I can find ’em. Aw, go ahead, you’ll need that desk to keep your papers in. You’ve got to write all the letters and keep the accounts, anyhow. It always did make my back ache to lean over that old desk, and I’m glad to git shent of it.

  “Pretty swell rooms, ain’t they? Notice them lace curtains? The kangaroo rats have chawed the ends a little, but I tell you, when Susie and Sallie Winship was here this was the finest house for forty miles. That used to be Sallie’s room, where you are now. Many’s the time in the old days that I’ve rid up here to make eyes at Sallie, but the old lady wouldn’t stand for no sich foolishness. Old Winship married her back in St. Louie and brought her out here to slave around cookin’ for rodér hands, and she wanted her daughters to live different. Nope, she didn’t want no bow-legged cow-punch for a son-in-law, and I don’t blame her none, because this ain’t no place for a woman; but Sal was a mighty fine girl, all the same.”

  He shook a little flour over his dough, brushed the cat off the table absently, and began pinching biscuits into the sizzling fat of the Dutch oven, which smoked over its bed of coals on the hearth. Then, hooking the red-hot cover off the fire, he slapped it on and piled a little row of coals along the upturned rim.

  “Didn’t you never hear about the Winship girls?” he asked, stroking the cat with his floury hands. “No? Well, it was on account of them that the judge took over this ranch. Old man Winship was one of these old-time Indian-fightin’, poker-playin’ sports that come pretty nigh havin’ their own way about everythin’. He had a fine ranch up here––the old Dos S used to brand a thousand calves and more, every round-up; but when he got old he kinder speculated in mines and loaned money, and got in the hole generally, and about the time the sheep drifted in on him he hauled off and died. I pulled off a big rodér for ’em and they sold a lot of cattle tryin’ to patch things up the best they could, but jest as everythin’ was lovely the drouth struck ’em all in a heap, and when the Widde’ Winship got the estate settled up she didn’t have nothin’ much left but cows and good will. She couldn’t sell the cows––you never can, right after these dry spells––and as I said, she wouldn’t let the girls marry any of us cowmen to kinder be man for the outfit; so what does she do but run the ranch herself!

  “Yes, sir––Susie and Sallie, that was as nice and eddicated girls as you ever see, they jest put on overalls and climbed their horses and worked them cattle themselves. Course they had rodér hands to do the dirty work in the corrals––brandin’ and ear-markin’ and the like––but for ridin’ the range and drivin’ they was as good as the best. Well, sir, you’d think every man in Arizona, when he heard what they was doin’, would do everythin’ in his power to help ’em along, even to runnin’ a Dos S on an orehanna once in a while instead of hoggin’ it himself; but they’s fellers in this world, I’m convinced, that would steal milk from a sick baby!”

  The brawny foreman of the Dos S dropped the cat and threw out his hands impressively, and once more the wild glow crept back into his eyes.

  “You remember that Jim Swope that I introduced you to down on the desert? Well, he’s a good sheepman, but he’s on the grab for money like a wolf. He’s got it, too––that’s the hell of it.”

  Creede sighed, and threw a scrap of bacon to Tommy.

  “He keeps a big store down at Moroni,” he continued, “and the widde’, not wantin’ to shove her cows onto a fallin’ market, runs up an account with him––somethin’ like a thousand dollars––givin’ her note for it, of course. It’s about four years ago, now, that she happened to be down in Moroni when court was in session, when she finds out by accident that this same Jim Swope, seein’ that cattle was about to go up, is goin’ to close her out. He’d ’a’ done it, too, like fallin’ off a log, if the old judge hadn’t happened to be in town lookin’ up some lawsuit. When he heard about it he was so durned mad he wrote out a check for a thousand dollars and give it to her; and then, when she told him all her troubles, he up and bought the whole ranch at her own price––it wasn’t much––and shipped her and the girls back to St. Louie.”

  Creede brushed the dirt and flour off the table with a greasy rag and dumped the biscuits out of the oven.

  “Well,” he said, “there’s where I lost my last chanst to git a girl. Come on and eat.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER VI

  THE CROSSING

  From lonely ranches along the Salagua and Verde, from the Sunflower and up the Alamo, from all the sheeped-out and desolate Four Peaks country the cowboys drifted in to Hidden Water for the round-up, driving their extra mounts before them. Beneath the brush ramada of the ranch house they threw off their canvas-covered beds and turned their pack horses out to roll, strapping bells and hobbles on the bad ones, and in a day the deserted valley of Agua Escondida became alive with great preparations. A posse of men on fresh mounts rode out on Bronco Mesa, following with unerring instinct the trail of the Dos S horses, balking their wild breaks for freedom and rushing them headlong into the fenced pasture across the creek. As the hired hands of the Dos S outfit caught up their mounts and endeavored to put the fear of God into their hearts, the mountain boys got out the keg of horseshoes and began to shoe––every man his own blacksmith.

  It was rough work, all around, whether blinding and topping off the half-wild ponies or throwing them and tacking cold-wrought “cowboy” shoes to their flint-like feet, and more than one enthusiast came away limping or picking the loose skin from a bruised hand. Yet through it all the dominant note of dare-devil hilarity never failed. The solitude of the ranch, long endured, had left its ugly mark on all of them. They were starved for company and excitement; obsessed by strange ideas which they had evolved out of the tumuli of their past experience and clung to with dogged tenacity; warped with egotism; stubborn, boastful, or silent, as their humor took them, but now all eager to break the shell and mingle in the rush of life.

  In this riot of individuals Jefferson Creede, the round-up boss, strode about like a king, untrammelled and unafraid. There was not a ridge or valley in all the Four Peaks country that he did not know, yet it was not for this that he was boss; there was not a virtue or weakness in all that crowd that he was not cognizant of, in the back of his scheming brain. The men that could rope, the men that could ride, the quitters, the blowhards, the rattleheads, the lazy, the crooked, the slow-witted––all were on his map of the country; and as, when he rode the ridges, he memorized each gulch and tree and odd rock, so about camp he tried out his puppets, one by one, to keep his map complete.

  As they gathered about the fire that evening it was Bill Lightfoot who engaged his portentous interest. He listened to Bill’s boastful remarks critically, cocking his head to one side and smiling whenever he mentioned his horse.

  “Yes, sir,” asserted Bill belligerently, “I mean it––that gray of mine can skin anything in the country, for a hundred yards or a mile. I’ve got money that says so!”

  “Aw, bull!” exclaimed Creede scornfully.

  “Bull, nothin’,” retorted Lightfoot hotly. “I bet ye––I bet ye a thousand dollars they ain’t a horse in Arizona that can keep out of my dust for a quarter!”

  “Well, I know you ain’t got no thousand dollars––ner ten,” sneered Creede. “Why don’t you bet yearlings? If you’d blow some of that hot air through a tube it’d melt rocks, I reckon. But talk cow, man; we can all savvy that!”

  “Well, where’s the horse that can beat me?” demanded Lightfoot, bristling.

  “That little sorrel out in the pasture,” answered Creede lac
onically.

  “I’ll bet ye!” blustered Lightfoot. “Aw, rats! He ain’t even broke yet!”

  “He can run, all right. I’ll go you for a yearling heifer. Put up or shut up.”

  And so the race was run. Early in the morning the whole rodéo outfit adjourned to the parada ground out by the pole corrals, the open spot where they work over the cattle. Hardy danced his sorrel up to the line where the gray was waiting, there was a scamper of feet, a streak of dust, and Bill Lightfoot was out one yearling heifer. A howling mob of cowboys pursued them from the scratch, racing each other to the finish, and then in a yell of laughter at Bill Lightfoot they capered up the cañon and spread out over The Rolls––the rodéo had begun.

  As the shadow of the great red butte to the west, around which the wagon road toiled for so many weary miles, reached out and touched the valley, they came back in a body, hustling a bunch of cattle along before them. And such cattle! After his year with the Chiricahua outfit in that blessed eastern valley where no sheep as yet had ever strayed Hardy was startled by their appearance. Gaunt, rough, stunted, with sharp hips and hollow flanks and bellies swollen from eating the unprofitable browse of cactus and bitter shrubs, they nevertheless sprinted along on their wiry legs like mountain bucks; and a peculiar wild, haggard stare, stamped upon the faces of the old cows, showed its replica even in the twos and yearlings. Yet he forbore to ask Creede the question which arose involuntarily to his lips, for he knew the inevitable answer.

  Day after day, as they hurriedly combed The Rolls for what few cattle remained on the lower range, the cowmen turned their eyes to the river and to the cañons and towering cliffs beyond, for the sheep; until at last as they sat by the evening fire Creede pointed silently to the lambent flame of a camp fire, glowing like a torch against the southern sky.