Hidden Water

by Dane Coolidge

  CHAPTER VII

  HELL'S HIP POCKET

  In the days of Ahaz, king of Judah, Isaiah the son of Amoz is reportedto have seen in a vision a wolf which dwelt with a lamb, while a lionate straw like an ox, and a weaned child put his hand in thecockatrice's den. Equally beautiful, as a dream, was the peace atHidden Water, where sheepman and cattleman sat down together in amity;only, when it was all over, the wolf wiped his chops and turned awaywith a wise smile--the millennium not having come, as yet, inArizona.

  Hardy's wrist was a little lame, figuratively speaking, from throwingflapjacks for hungry sheep herders, and the pile of grain and baledhay in the storehouse had dwindled materially; but as the sheep camethrough, band after band, and each turned off to the west, stringingin long bleating columns out across The Rolls, he did not begrudge thehard labor. After Jasper Swope came Jim, and Donald McDonald, as jollya Scottish shepherd as ever lived, and Bazan, the Mexican, who tracedhis blood back to that victorious general whom Maximilian sent intoSonora. There were Frenchmen, smelling rank of garlic and muttontallow; Basques with eyes as blue and vacant as the summer skies;young Mormons working on shares, whose whole fortune was wrapped up inthe one huddle of sheep which they corralled and counted so carefully;and then the common herders, fighting Chihuahuanos, with big roundheads and staring eyes, low-browed Sonorans, slow and brutal in theirways, men of all bloods and no blood, lumped together in thatcareless, all-embracing Western term "Mexicans."

  But though they were low and primitive in mental processes, nearer totheir plodding burros than to the bright-eyed sensitive dogs, theywere the best who would consent to wander with the sheep through thewilderness, seeing nothing, doing nothing, knowing nothing, havingbefore them nothing but the vision of a distant pay day, a drunk, the_calabozo_, and the kind boss who would surely bail them out. Ah, thatwas it--the one love and loyalty of those simple-minded creatures who,unfit for the hurry and competition of the great world, sold theirlives by spans of months for twenty dollars and found; it was alwaysto the boss that they looked for help, and in return they did hiswill.

  When the great procession had drifted past, with its braying clamor,its dogs, its men on muleback and afoot, the herders with theircarbines, the camp rustlers with their burros, belled and laden withwater casks and kyacks of grub, the sheep owners hustling about withan energy that was almost a mania, Hardy sat beneath the _ramada_ ofthe ranch house with dog-fighting Tommy in his lap and pondered deeplyupon the spectacle. A hundred thousand sheep, drifting like theshadows of clouds across the illimitable desert, crossing swiftrivers, climbing high mountains, grazing beneath the northern pines;and then turning south again and pouring down through the passes likethe resistless front of a cloudburst which leaves the earth bare andwasted in its wake. For this one time he had turned the stream asideand the tall grass still waved upon the upper range; but the nexttime, or the next--what then?

  Long and seriously he contemplated the matter, dwelling now upon therough good nature of the sheepmen and this almost miraculousdemonstration of their good will; then remembered with vaguemisgivings their protestations against the unlawful violence whichpresumed to deny them what was their legal right--free grazing on allgovernment lands. And in the end he wrote a brief note to Judge Ware,telling him that while the sheepmen had accepted his hospitality in amost friendly spirit and had respected the upper range, it was in hisopinion only a question of time until they would take the wholecountry, unless they were restrained by law. He therefore recommendedthat the judge look up the status of the bill to set aside thewatershed of the Salagua as a National Forest Reserve, and in case theopposition to it indicated any long delay it would be well either tosell out or reduce his stock. This note he sent out by Rafael, theMexican roustabout, who was still hauling in supplies from Bender, andthen with a glad heart he saddled up his horse, left a bait of meat onthe floor for Tommy, and struck out over the mesa for Carrizo Creek.

  After his long confinement in the pasture the sorrel galloped alongthe rocky trail with the grace and swiftness of an antelope, the warmdry wind puffed little whirls of dust before them, and once more Hardyfelt like a man. If for the best interests of his employer it wasdesirable that he cook beef and bread for sheepmen, he could do sowith good grace, but his spirit was not that of a man who serves.Since he had left home he had taken a great deal from the world,patiently accepting her arrogance while he learned her ways, but hissoul had never been humbled and he rode forth now like a king.

  Upon that great mesa where the bronco mustangs from the Peaks stilldefied the impetuosity of men, the giant _sahuaros_ towered in amighty forest as far as the eye could see, yet between each stalkthere lay a wide space, studded here and there with niggerheads ofbristling spines, and fuzzy _chollas_, white as the backs of sheep andthorny beyond reason. Nor was this all: in the immensity of distancethere was room for _sahuaros_ and niggerheads and _chollas_, and muchbesides. In every gulch and sandy draw the _palo verdes_, their yellowflowers gleaming in the sun, stood out like lines of fire; the bottomsof the steep ravines which gashed the mesa were illuminated with thegaudy tassels of mesquite blossoms; gray coffee-berry bushes clumpedup against the sides of ridges, and in every sheltered place the longgrass waved its last-year's banners, while the fresh green of tendergrowth matted the open ground like a lawn. Baby rabbits, feeding alongtheir runways in the grass, sat up at his approach or hoppedinnocently into the shadow of the sheltering cat-claws; jack-rabbitswith black-tipped ears galloped madly along before him, imaginingthemselves pursued, and in every warm sandy place where the lizardstook the sun there was a scattering like the flight of arrows as thelong-legged swift-jacks rose up on their toes and flew. All nature wasin a gala mood and Rufus Hardy no less. Yet as he rode along, gazingat the dreamy beauty of this new world, the old far-away look creptback into his eyes, a sad, brooding look such as one often sees inthe faces of little children who have been crossed, and the sternlines at the corners of his mouth were deeper when he drew rein aboveCarrizo Creek.

  Below him lay the panorama of a mountain valley--the steep and rockywalls; the silvery stream writhing down the middle; the green andyellow of flowers along the lowlands; and in the middle, to give itlife, a great herd of cattle on the _parada_ ground, weaving andmilling before the rushes of yelling horsemen, intent on cutting outevery steer in the herd. Beyond lay the corrals of peeled cottonwood,and a square house standing out stark and naked in the supremeugliness of corrugated iron, yet still oddly homelike in a land whereshelter was scarce. As he gazed, a mighty voice rose up to him fromthe midst of the turmoil, the blatting of calves, the mooing of cowsand the hoarse thunder of mountain bulls:

  "Hel-lo, Rufe!"

  From his place on the edge of the herd Hardy saw Jefferson Creede,almost herculean on his tall horse, waving a large black hat.Instantly he put spurs to his sorrel and leaped down the narrow trail,and at the edge of the herd they shook hands warmly, for friends arescarce, wherever you go.

  "Jest in time!" said Creede, grinning his welcome, "we're goin' overinto Hell's Hip Pocket to-morrow--the original hole in the ground--tobring out Bill Johnson's beef critters, and I sure wanted you to makethe trip. How'd you git along with Jasp?"

  "All right," responded Hardy, "he didn't make me any trouble. But I'mglad to get away from that sheep smell, all the same."

  The big cowboy fixed his eyes upon him eagerly.

  "Did they go around?" he asked incredulously. "Jasp and all?"

  "Sure," said Hardy. "Why?"

  For a long minute Creede was silent, wrinkling his brows as hepondered upon the miracle.

  "Well, that's what _I_ want to know," he answered ambiguously. "Butsay, you've got a fresh horse; jest take my place here while me andUncle Bill over there show them ignorant punchers how to cut cattle."

  He circled rapidly about the herd and, riding out into the runwaywhere the cattle were sifted, the beef steers being jumped across theopen into the hold-up herd and the cows and calves turned back, heheld up his hand for t
he work to stop. Then by signals he sent thegalloping horsemen back to the edge of the herd and beckoned for oldBill Johnson.

  For a few minutes he sat quietly on his horse, waiting for theharassed cattle to stop their milling. Then breaking into a song suchas cowboys sing at night he rode slowly in among them, threading aboutat random, while old Bill Johnson on his ancient mare did likewise,his tangled beard swaying idly in the breeze. On the border of theherd they edged in as if by accident upon a fat steer and walked himamiably forth into the open. Another followed out of naturalperversity, and when both were nicely started toward the beef cut thetwo men drifted back once more into the herd. There was no running, noshouting, no gallant show of horsemanship, but somehow the rightsteers wandered over into the beef cut and stayed there. As if bymagic spell the outlaws and "snakes" became good, and with no breaksfor the hills the labor of an afternoon was accomplished in the spaceof two dull and uneventful hours.

  "That's the way to cut cattle!" announced Creede, as they turned thediscard toward the hills. "Ain't it, Bill?"

  He turned to Johnson who, sitting astride a flea-bitten gray mare thatseemed to be in a perpetual doze, looked more like an Apache squawthan a boss cowboy. The old man's clothes were even more ragged thanwhen Hardy had seen him at Bender, his copper-riveted hat was furtherreinforced by a buckskin thong around the rim, and his knees wereshort-stirruped almost up to his elbows by the puny little boy'ssaddle that he rode, but his fiery eyes were as quick and piercing asever.

  "Shore thing," he said, straightening up jauntily in his saddle,"that's my way! Be'n doin' it fer years, while you boys was killin'horses, but it takes Jeff hyar to see the p'int. Be gentle, boys, begentle with um--you don't gain nawthin' fer all yer hard ridin'."

  He cut off a chew of tobacco and tucked it carefully away in hischeek.

  "Jeff hyar," he continued, as the bunch of cowboys began to joshand laugh among themselves, "he comes by his savvy right--his pawwas a smart man before him, and mighty clever to his friends, toboot. Many's the time I hev took little Jeffie down the river andlearned him tracks and beaver signs when he wasn't knee-high to agrasshopper--hain't I, Jeff? And when I tell him to be gentle withthem cows he knows I'm right. I jest want you boys to take noticewhen you go down into the Pocket to-morrer what kin be done bykindness; and the first man that hollers or puts a rope on my gentlestock, I'll sure make him hard to ketch.

  "You hear me, naow," he cried, turning sharply upon Bill Lightfoot,who was getting off something about "Little Jeffie," and then for thefirst time he saw the face of the new cowboy who had ridden in thatafternoon. Not since the day he was drunk at Bender had Bill Johnsonset eyes upon the little man to whom he had sworn off, but herecognized him instantly.

  "Hello thar, pardner!" he exclaimed, reining his mare in abruptly."Whar'd you drop down from?"

  "Why howdy do, Mr. Johnson!" answered Hardy, shaking hands, "I'm gladto see you again. Jeff told me he was going down to your ranchto-morrow and I looked to see you then."

  Bill Johnson allowed this polite speech to pass over his shoulderwithout response. Then, drawing Hardy aside, he began to talkconfidentially; expounding to the full his system of gentling cattle;launching forth his invective, which was of the pioneer variety, uponthe head of all sheepmen; and finally coming around with a jerk to thesubject that was uppermost in his mind.

  "Say," he said, "I want to ask you a question--are you any relation tothe Captain Hardy that I served with over at Fort Apache? Seems's ifyou look like 'im, only smaller."

  His stature was a sore point with Hardy, and especially in connectionwith his father, but making allowance for Mr. Johnson's ways hemodestly admitted his ancestry.

  "His son, eh!" echoed the old man. "Waal--now! I tell you, boy, I_knowed_ you--I knowed you the minute you called down that dog-robberof a barkeep--and I was half drunk, too. And so you're the newsuperintendent down at the Dos S, eh? Waal, all I can say is: God helpthem pore sheepmen if you ever git on their trail. I used to chaseApaches with yore paw, boy!"

  It was Bill Johnson's turn to talk that evening and like mostsolitaries who have not "gone into the silence," he availed himself ofa listener with enthusiasm.

  Stories of lion hunts and "b'ar fights" fell as trippingly from hislips as the words of a professional monologist, and when he hadfinished his account of the exploits of Captain Samuel Barrows Hardy,even the envious Lightfoot regarded Rufus with a new respect, forthere is no higher honor in Arizona than to be the son of an Indianfighter. And when the last man had crawled wearily into his blanketsthe old hermit still sat by the dying fire poking the charred endsinto the flames and holding forth to the young superintendent upon thecourage of his sire.

  Hardly had the son of his father crept under the edge of Creede'sblankets and dropped to sleep before that huge mountain of energy roseup and gave the long yell. The morning was at its blackest, that murkyfour A. M. darkness which precedes the first glimmer of light; butthe day's work had to be done. The shivering horse-wrangler stamped onhis boots and struck out down the canyon after the _remuda_, two orthree cooks got busy about the fire which roared higher and higher asthey piled on the ironwood to make coals, and before the sun had morethan mounted the southern shoulder of the Four Peaks the long line ofhorsemen was well on the trail to Hell's Hip Pocket.

  The frontier imagination had in no wise overleaped itself in namingthis abyss. Even the tribute which Facilis Descensus Vergil paid tothe local Roman hell could hardly be said of the Pocket--it is noteven easy to get into it. From the top of the divide it looks like avalley submerged in a smoky haze through which the peaks and pinnaclesof the lower parks rise up like cathedral spires, pointing solemnly toheaven. As the trail descends through washed-out gulches and"stone-patches," now skating along the backbone of a ridge and nowdropping as abruptly into some hollow waterway, the cliffs andpinnacles begin to loom up against the sky; then they seem to close inand block the way, and just as the canyon boxes in to nothing the trailslips into a gash in the face of the cliff where the soft sandstonehas crumbled away between two harder strata, and climbs precariouslyalong through the sombre gloom of the gorge to the bright light of thefair valley beyond.

  It is a kind of fairy land, that hidden pocket in the hills, alwayscovered by a mystic haze, for which the Mexicans give it the name_Humada_. Its steep canyon comes down from the breast of the mosteasterly of the Four Peaks, impassable except by the one trail; itpasses through the box and there widens out into a beautiful valley,where the grass lies along the hillsides like the tawny mane of alion, and tender flowers stand untrampled in the rich bottoms. Forthree miles or more it spreads out between striated cliffs where hawksand eagles make their nests; then once more it closes in, the creekplunges down a narrow gorge and disappears, writhing tortuously on itsway to the Salagua whose fire-blasted walls rise in huge bulwarksagainst the south, dwarfing the near-by cliffs into nothingness bytheir majestic height.

  In the presence of this unearthly beauty and grandeur old BillJohnson--ex-trapper, ex-soldier, ex-prospector, ex-everything--haddwelt for twenty years, dating from the days when his house was hisfortress, and his one desire was to stand off the Apaches until hecould find the Lost Dutchman.

  Where the valley narrowed down for its final plunge into the gorge theold trapper had built his cabin, its walls laid "square with theworld" by sighting on the North Star. When the sun entered thethreshold of the western door it was noon, and his watch never randown. The cabin was built of shaly rocks, squared and laid in mud,like bricks; a tremendous stone chimney stood against the north endand a corral for his burros at the south. Three hounds with blearedeyes and flapping ears, their foreheads wrinkled with age and theanxieties of the hunt, bayed forth a welcome as the cavalcade strungin across the valley; and mild-eyed cattle, standing on the ridges tocatch the wind, stared down at them in surprise. Never, even at SanCarlos, where the Chiricahua cattle fatten on the best feed inArizona, had Hardy seen such mountains of beef. Old steers with sixand seven rings on their hor
ns hung about the salting places, as ifthere were no such things as beef drives and slaughter houses in thiscruel world, and even when the cowboys spread out like a fan andbrought them all in to the cutting grounds there was hardly a calfthat bawled.

  As the three or four hundred head that made up his entire earthlypossession drifted obediently in, the old man rode up to Creede andHardy and waved his hand expansively.

  "Thar, boys," he said, "thar's the results of peace and kindness. Narya critter thar that I heven't scratched between the horns since theday his maw brought him down to the salt lick. I even git Jeff andthe boys to brand and earmark 'em fer me, so they won't hev no hardfeelin' fer the Old Man. D'ye see that big white-faced steer?" heasked, pointing with pride to the monarch of the herd. "Waal, how muchye think he'll weigh?" he demanded, turning to Creede. "Fifteenhundred?"

  "Um, more 'n that," responded Creede, squinting his eyes downjudicially. "Them Herefords are awful solid when they git big. Ireckon he'll run nigh onto seventeen hundred, Bill." He paused andwinked furtively at Hardy. "I kin git fifty dollars fer that old boy,jest the way he stands," he said, "and bein' as he can't carry no moreweight nohow, I'll jest cut him into the town herd right now, and--"

  "Hyar!" shouted Johnson, grabbing the cowboy's bridle, "who's doin'this, anyhow?"

  "W'y _you_, Bill," answered Creede innocently, "but--"

  "That's all right, then," said the old man shortly, "you leave thatsteer alone. I'll jest cut this herd to suit myself."

  Over at the branding pen the irons were on the fire and the markingwas progressing rapidly, but out in the open Mr. Bill Johnson wasmaking slow work of his cut.

  "He gets stuck on them cows, like an Irishman with his pig," observedCreede, as the old man turned back a prime four-year-old. "He'd ratherbe barbecued by the Apaches than part with that big white-faced boy.If I owned 'em I'd send down a lot of them big fat brutes and buydoggies; but Bill spends all the money he gits fer booze anyhow, so Ireckon it's all right. He generally sends out about twenty runts androughs, and lets it go at that. Say! You'll have to git a move on,Bill," he shouted, "we want to send that beef cut on ahead!"

  The old man reined in his mare and surveyed the big herd critically.

  "Waal," he drawled, "I reckon that'll do fer this trip, then. Take 'emalong. And the fust one of you punchers that hits one of them crittersover the tail with his hondu," he shouted, as the eager horsementrotted over to start them, "will hev me to lick!"

  He placed an order for provisions with Creede, asked him to keep thesupplies at Hidden Water until he came over for them with the burros,and turned away contentedly as the cowboys went upon their way.

  Down by the branding pen the mother cows licked the blood from theiroffsprings' mangled ears and mooed resentfully, but the bigwhite-faced steer stood in brutish content on the salting grounds andgazed after the town herd thoughtfully.

  A bunch of burros gathered about the doorway of the cabin, snoopingfor bacon rinds; the hounds leaned their heavy jowls upon his kneesand gazed up worshipfully into their master's face; and as the sundipped down toward the rim of the mighty cliffs that shut him in, thelord of Hell's Hip Pocket broke into the chorus of an ancient song:

  "Oh, _o_-ver the prairies, and _o_-ver the mountains, And _o_-ver the prairies, and _o_-ver the mountains, And _o_-ver the prairies, and _o_-ver the mountains, I'll go till I find me a home."