The Flockmaster of Poison Creek

by Ogden, George W

  “I don’t seem to want to go away as long as I’m learning something,” Joan confessed, a little ashamed of the admission, it appeared, from her manner of refusing to lift her head.

  Mackenzie felt a great uplifting in his heart, as a song cheers it when it comes gladly at the close of a day of perplexity and doubt and toil. He reached out his hand as if to touch her and tell her how this dawning of his hope made him glad, but withdrew it, dropping it at his side as she looked up, a lively color in her cheeks.

  “As long as you’ll stay and teach me, there isn’t any particular use for me to leave, is there?” she inquired.

  “If staying here would keep you, Joan, I’d never leave,” he told her, his voice so grave and earnest that it trembled a little on the low notes.

  Joan drew her breath again with that long inspiration which was like a satisfied sigh.

  “Well, I must go,” she said.

  But she did not move, and Mackenzie, drawing nearer, put out his hand in his way of silent appeal again.

  “Not that I don’t want you to know what there is out there,” he said, “but because I’d save you the disappointment, the disillusionment, and the heartache that too often go with the knowledge of the world. You’d be better for it if you never knew, living here undefiled like a spring that comes out of the rocks into the sun.”

  “Well, I must go,” said Joan, sighing with repletion again, but taking no step toward her waiting horse.

  Although it was a moment which seemed full of things to be said, neither had words for it, but stood silently while the day went out in glory around them. Dad Frazer was bringing his murmuring flock home to the bedding-ground on the hillside below the wagon; the wind was low as a lover’s breath, lifting Joan’s russet hair from her pure, placid brow.

  And she must go at last, with a word of parting from the saddle, and her hand held out to him in a new tenderness as if going home were a thing to be remembered. And as Mackenzie took it there rose in his memory the lines:

  Touch hands and part with laughter,

  Touch lips and part with tears.

  Joan rode away against the sun, which was red upon the hill, and stood for a little moment sharply against the fiery sky to wave him a farewell.

  “So easily learned, Joan; so hard to forget,” said Mackenzie, speaking as if he sent his voice after her, a whisper on the wind, although she was half a mile away. A moment more, and the hill stood empty between them. Mackenzie turned to prepare supper for the coming of Dad Frazer, who would complain against books and the nonsense contained in them if the food was not on the board when he came up the hill.

  * * *

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE SHEEP-KILLER

  It was dusk when Dad Frazer drove the slow-drifting flock home to its sleeping place, which tomorrow night very likely would be on some hillside no softer, many miles away. Only a few days together the camp remained in one place, no longer than it took the sheep to crop the herbage within easy reach. Then came the camp-mover and hauled the wagon to fresh pastures in that illimitable, gray-green land.

  Dad Frazer was a man of sixty or sixty-five, who had been an army teamster in the days of frontier posts. He was slender and sinewy, with beautiful, glimmering, silvery hair which he wore in long curls and kept as carefully combed as any dandy that ever pranced at the court of a king. It was his one vanity, his dusty, greasy raiment being his last thought.

  Dad’s somber face was brown and weathered, marked with deep lines, covered over with an ashy, short growth of beard which he clipped once in two weeks with sheep-shears when he didn’t lose count of the days.

  Frazer always wore an ancient military hat with a leather thong at the back of his head drawn tight across his flowing hair. The brim of this hat turned up in the back as if he had slept in it many years, which was indeed the case, and down in the front so low over his brows that it gave him a sullen and clouded cast, which the redundancy of his spirits and words at once denied.

  For Dad Frazer was a loquacious sheepherder, an exception among the morose and silent men who follow that isolated calling upon the lonely range. He talked to the dogs when there was nobody by, to the sheep as he scattered them for an even chance between weak and strong over the grazing lands, and to himself when no other object presented. He swore with force and piquancy, and original embellishments for old-time oaths which was like a sharp sauce to an unsavory dish.

  Frazer was peculiar in another way. He liked a soft bed to pound the ground on after his long days after the sheep, and to that end kept a roll of sheepskins under the wagon. More than that, he always washed before eating, even if he had to divide the last water in the keg.

  Now as he was employed with his ablutions, after a running fire of talk from the time he came within hearing to the moment the water smothered his voice over the basin, Mackenzie saw him turn an eye in his direction every little while between the soaping and the washing of his bearded face. The old fellow seemed bursting with restraint of something that he had not told or asked about. Mackenzie could read him like a thermometer.

  “What’s the matter, Dad––rattlesnakes?” he asked.

  “Rattlesnakes nothin’!” returned the old man.

  “I thought another one had been crawling up your leg.”

  “Nearer boey constructors! Anybody been here but Joan?”

  “No.”

  Dad came over to the tail of the wagon, where Mackenzie had supper spread on a board, a box at each end, for that was a sheep-camp de luxe. He stood a little while looking about in the gloom, his head tipped as if he listened, presently taking his place, unaccountably silent, and uncomfortably so, as Mackenzie could very well see.

  “You didn’t lose a dog, did you, Dad?”

  “Dog nothin’! Do I look like a man that’d lose a dog?”

  “Well, Dad,” Mackenzie said, in his slow, thoughtful way, “I don’t exactly know how a man that would lose a dog looks, but I don’t believe you do.”

  “Swan Carlson’s back on the range!” said Dad, delivering it before he was ready, perhaps, and before he had fully prepared the way, but unable to hold it a second longer.

  “Swan Carlson?”

  “Back on the range.”

  “So they fixed him up in the hospital at Cheyenne?”

  “I reckon they must ’a’. He’s back runnin’ his sheep, and that woman of his’n she’s with him. Swan run one of his herders off the first rattle out of the box, said he’d been stealin’ sheep while he was gone. That’s one of his old tricks to keep from payin’ a man.”

  “It sounds like him, all right. Have you seen him?”

  “No. Matt Hall come by this evenin’, and told me.”

  “I’m glad Swan got all right again, anyhow, even if he’s no better to his wife than he was before. I was kind of worried about him.”

  “Yes, and I’ll bet he’s meaner than he ever was, knockin’ that woman around like a sack of sawdust the way he always did. I reckon he gets more fun out of her that way than he does keepin’ her tied.”

  “He can hang her for all I’ll ever interfere between them again, Dad.”

  “That’s right. It don’t pay to shove in between a man and his wife in their fusses and disturbances. I know a colonel in the army that’s got seventeen stitches in his bay winder right now from buttin’ in between a captain and his woman. The lady she slid a razor over his vest. They’ll do it every time; it’s woman nature.”

  “You talk like a man of experience, Dad. Well, I don’t know much about ’em.”

  “Yes, I’ve been marryin’ ’em off and on for forty years.”

  “Who is Matt Hall, and where’s his ranch, Dad? I’ve been hearing about him and his brother, Hector, ever since I came up here.”

  “Them Hall boys used to be cattlemen up on the Sweetwater, but they was run out of there on account of suspicion of rustlin’, I hear. They come down to this country about four years ago and started up sheep, usin’ on Cottonwood about ni
ne or twelve miles southeast from here. Them fellers don’t hitch up with nobody on this range but Swan Carlson, and I reckon Swan only respects ’em because they’re the only men in this country that packs guns regular any more.”

  “Swan don’t pack a gun as a regular thing?”

  “I ain’t never seen him with one on. Hector Hall he’s always got a couple of ’em on him, and Matt mostly has one in sight. You can gamble on it he’s got an automatic in his pocket when he don’t strap it on him in the open.”

  “I don’t see what use a man’s got for a gun up here among sheep and sheepmen. They must be expecting somebody to call on them from the old neighborhood.”

  “Yes, I figger that’s about the size of it. I don’t know what Matt was doin’ over around here this evenin’; I know I didn’t send for him.”

  “Joan spoke of him this afternoon. From what she said, I thought he must be something of a specimen. What kind of a looking duck is he?”

  “Matt’s a mixture of a goriller and a goose egg. He’s a long-armed, short-legged, gimlet-eyed feller with a head like a egg upside down. You could split a board on that feller’s head and never muss a hair. I never saw a man that had a chin like Matt Hall. They say a big chin’s the sign of strength, and if that works out Matt must have a mind like a brigadier general. His face is all chin; chin’s an affliction on Matt Hall; it’s a disease. Wait till you see him; that’s all I can say.”

  “I’ll know him when I do.”

  “Hector ain’t so bad, but he’s got a look in his eyes like a man that’d grab you by the nose and cut your throat, and grin while he was doin’ it.”

  Mackenzie made no comment on these new and picturesque characters introduced by Dad into the drama that was forming for enactment in that place. He filled his pipe and smoked a little while. Then:

  “How many sheep do they run?” he asked.

  “Nine or ten thousand, I guess.”

  Silence again. Dad was smoking a little Mexican cigarette with corn-husk wrapper, a peppery tobacco filling that smarted the eyes when it burned, of which he must have carried thousands when he left the border in the spring.

  “Tim was over today,” said Mackenzie.

  “What did he want?”

  “About this business between him and me. Is it usual, Dad, for a man to work a year at forty dollars a month and found before he goes in as a partner on the increase of the flock he runs?”

  “What makes you ask me that, John?”

  “Only because there wasn’t anything said about it when I agreed with Tim to go to work here with you and learn the rudiments of handling a band of sheep. He sprung that on me today, when I thought I was about to begin my career as a capitalist. Instead of that, I’ve got a year ahead of me at ten dollars a month less than the ordinary herder gets. I just wanted to know.”

  “Sheepmen are like sand under the feet when it comes to dealin’ with ’em; I never knew one that was in the same place twice. You’ve got a lot of tricks to learn in this trade, and I guess this is one of them. I don’t believe Tim ever intends to let you in on shares; that ain’t his style. Never did take anybody in on shares but Joan, that I know of. It looks to me like Tim’s workin’ you for all he can git out of you. You’ll herd for Tim a year at forty dollars, and teach Joan a thousand dollars’ worth while you’re doin’ it. You’re a mighty obligin’ feller, it looks like to me.”

  Mackenzie sat thinking it over. He rolled it in his mind quite a while, considering its most unlikely side, considering it as a question of comparative values, trying to convince himself that, if nothing more came of it than a year’s employment, he would be even better off than teaching school. If Tim was indeed planning to profit doubly by him during that year, Joan could have no knowledge of his scheme, he was sure.

  On Joan’s account he would remain, he told himself, at last, feeling easier and less simple for the decision. Joan needed him, she counted on him. Going would be a sad disappointment, a bitter discouragement, to her. All on Joan’s account, of course, he would remain; Joan, with her russet hair, the purity of October skies in her eyes. Why, of course. Duty made it plain to him; solely on account of Joan.

  “I’d rather be a foot-loose shearer, herdin’ in between like I do, than the richest sheepman on the range,” said Dad. “They’re tied down to one little spot; they work out a hole in their piece of the earth like a worm. It ain’t no life. I can have more fun on forty dollars than Tim Sullivan can out of forty thousand.”

  Dad got out his greasy duck coat with sheepskin collar, such as cattlemen and sheepmen, and all kinds of outdoor men in that country wore, for the night was cool and damp with dew. Together they sat smoking, no more discussion between them, the dogs out of sight down the hill near the sheep.

  Not a sound came out of the sheep, bedded on the hillside in contentment, secure in their trust of men and dogs. All day as they grazed there rose a murmur out of them, as of discontent, complaint, or pain. Now their quavering, pathetic voices were as still as the wind. There was not a shuffle of hoof, not a sigh.

  Mackenzie thought of Joan, and the influence this solitary life, these night silences, had borne in shading her character with the melancholy which was so plainly apparent in her longing to be away. She yearned for the sound of life, for the warmth of youth’s eager fire beyond the dusty gray loneliness of this sequestered place. Still, this was what men and women in the crowded places thought of and longed toward as freedom. Loose-footed here upon the hills, one might pass as free as the wind, indeed, but there was something like the pain of prison isolation in these night silences which bore down upon a man and made him old.

  A sudden commotion among the sheep, terrified bleating, quick scurrying of feet, shook Mackenzie out of his reflections. The dogs charged down the hill and stood baying the disturber of the flock with savage alarm, in which there was a note of fear. Dad stood a moment listening, then reached into the wagon for the rifle.

  “Don’t go down there!” he warned Mackenzie, who was running toward the center of disturbance. “That’s a grizzly––don’t you hear them dogs?”

  Mackenzie stopped. The advance stampede of the terrified flock rushed past him, dim in the deeper darkness near the ground. Below on the hillside where the sheep bedded he could see nothing. Dad came up with the gun.

  The sheep were making no outcry now, and scarcely any sound of movement. After their first startled break they had bunched, and were standing in their way of pathetic, paralyzing fear, waiting what might befall. Dad fired several quick shots toward the spot where the dogs were charging and retreating, voices thick in their throats from their bristling terror of the thing that had come to lay tribute upon the flock.

  “Don’t go down there!” Dad cautioned again. “Git the lantern and light it––maybe when he sees it he’ll run. It’s a grizzly. I didn’t think there was one in forty miles.”

  Mackenzie took hold of the gun.

  “Give it to me––hand me another clip.”

  Dad yielded it, warning Mackenzie again against any rash movement. But his words were unheeded if not unheard. Mackenzie was running down the hillside toward the dogs. Encouraged by his coming, they dashed forward, Mackenzie halting to peer into the darkness ahead. There was a sound of trampling, a crunching as of the rending of bones. He fired; ran a little nearer, fired again.

  The dogs were pushing ahead now in pursuit of whatever it was that fled. A moment, and Mackenzie heard the quick break of a galloping horse; fired his remaining shots after it, and called Dad to fetch the light.

  When the horse started, the dogs returned to the flock, too wise to waste energy in a vain pursuit. At a word from Mackenzie they began collecting the shuddering sheep. Dad Frazer came bobbing down the hill with the lantern, breathing loud in his excitement.

  “Lord!” said he, when he saw the havoc his light revealed; “a regular old murderin’ stock-killer. And I didn’t think there was any grizzly in forty miles.”

  Mackenzie took th
e lantern, sweeping its light over the mangled bodies of several sheep, torn limb from limb, scattered about as if they had been the center of an explosion.

  “A murderin’ old stock-killer!” said Dad, panting, out of breath.

  Mackenzie held up the light, looking the old man in the face.

  “A grizzly don’t hop a horse and lope off, and I never met one yet that wore boots,” said he. He swung the light near the ground again, pointing to the trampled footprints among the mangled carcasses.

  “It was a man!” said Dad, in terrified amazement. “Tore ’em apart like they was rabbits!” He looked up, his weathered face white, his eyes staring. “It takes––it takes––Lord! Do you know how much muscle it takes to tear a sheep up that a-way?”

  Mackenzie did not reply. He stood, turning a bloody heap of wool and torn flesh with his foot, stunned by this unexampled excess of human ferocity.

  Dad recovered from his amazement presently, bent and studied the trampled ground.

  “I ain’t so sure,” he said. “Them looks like man’s tracks, but a grizzly’s got a foot like a nigger, and one of them big fellers makes a noise like a lopin’ horse when he tears off through the bresh. I tell you, John, no human man that ever lived could take a live sheep and tear it up that a-way!”

  “All right, then; it was a bear,” Mackenzie said, not disposed to argue the matter, for argument would not change what he knew to be a fact, nor yet convince Dad Frazer against his reason and experience. But Mackenzie knew that they were the footprints of a man, and that the noise of the creature running away from camp was the noise of a galloping horse.

  * * *

  CHAPTER IX

  A TWO-GUN MAN

  “You know, John, if a man’s goin’ to be a sheepman, John, he’s got to keep awake day and night. He ain’t goin’ to set gabbin’ and let a grizzly come right up under his nose and kill his sheep. It’s the difference between the man that wouldn’t do it and the man that would that makes the difference between a master and a man. That’s the difference that stands against Dad Frazer. He’d never work up to partnership in a band of sheep if he lived seven hundred years.”