The Popular, October, 1909
The Skeleton
By B. M. Bower
Pink, the cherubic Little One of the Flying U outfit, accidentally discovers a grim secret and stands by a friend who is in sore straits
THE herd was grazing quietly all up and down
Still Pink did nothing.
the grassy-walled coulee which opens widely
Big Medicine took a deep breath,
into the Hagamore Flat, and Big Medicine was
twitched his shoulders impatiently, and got up.
due to be relieved, along with Slim, who was
“Yuh sure caught me at it, didn’t yuh, Little
not watching the cattle at all, but was sleeping One?” he said, laughing awkwardly. “Yuh
unashamed in the sun at the head of the wait till you’re growed up and git a skeleton coulee. Him Happy Jack took much pleasure
that rattles its bones every time you’re off by in rousing. Pink it was who rode slowly down
yourself! That’s the way to fix ’em, kid—if
the coulee rim, looking for Big Medicine and
I’d done that at the start I’d been a heap better half expecting that he, also, had yielded to the off, maybe.” He glanced down at the
temptation of a hazy, windless day in trampled, ragged squares of cardboard. “Yuh midsummer. Because there was a possible reckon I’ll hear the bones rattling again, Little chance of tormenting the sleeper, with a grass
One?”
blade drawn lightly across his nose, perhaps,
Pink fidgeted in the saddle. “I hope
Pink went softly.
yuh won’t,” he said slowly. Then, as the other
Big Medicine was sitting upon a still seemed waiting, he added impatiently: hummock of grass, his head propped upon one
“How can I tell? I don’t know who she was, or hand, his elbow on his knee. He did not hear
how much yuh cared, or——”
Pink ride up behind him, so that the other was
“Oh! Yuh seen it was a woman, then;
very close before he turned. Pink, looking
that’s what I wondered. Well, Little One, I’ll
curiously down at him, saw a picture held
tell yuh something. That there”—he swept his
loosely in his fingers—a picture which hand downward—“is all I got left uh my wife.
seemed to be that of a woman. Big Medicine
It wasn’t much, was it? And, seeing it made
was staring at it, lost to everything but his
me act foolish, I reckon I done the wise thing
thoughts. When he turned, Pink saw with when I tore it up. Men I can handle. But amazement that his cheek bones were wet and
memories—and women—they sure do play
that his eyes glistened.
the very devil with a man. You take my word
Pink did not know what to do, and so
for it, Little One, and don’t yuh never let
did nothing at all—which was, perhaps, the
neither one get a hand-hold on yuh.” He
very best he could have done had he chosen
twitched his shoulders again. “B-r-r! It’s like deliberately. Big Medcine started, glared rotten whisky, Pink. It has a blamed mean resentment, glanced down at the picture, and
effect, and yuh can’t get the taste outa your
then deliberately snapped the cardboard in mouth.” He turned abruptly and picked up the two, tore the pieces with a twist of his fingers, hanging bridle reins of his horse.
and dropped them to the ground. He set his
Pink dismounted, stood a second
heel upon them, and glanced defiantly at Pink.
beside the horse, then went over and kicked
The Popular
2
loose a clod of earth from the hummock, than was Happy Jack, for instance—or Slim.
pushed it over the telltale fragments, and Apparently he lived for the purpose of riding looked up at the other, who was watching him.
bad horses, making pretty shots, drinking what
“A good scheme with skeletons is to
whisky came his way, playing games—any
plant ’em out uh sight,” he explained. “I don’t game—for money, and, most of all, for
reckon you’d enjoy having one uh the boys
heralding his exploits with his megaphone
run across these pieces and try to josh yuh
voice. It was extremely hard to believe that,
about your girl, would yuh?”
with so much turbulence upon the surface of
Big Medicine laid his hand heavily
his life, anything could lie hidden beneath;
upon Pink’s shoulder. “Kid, you’re all right.
anything so surprising as matrimony.
I’d ’a’ gone off like a chump and left ’em
When he rode back to camp at supper
there—and I’d likely got into a shooting time, and found Big Medicine declaiming scrape with the jasper that found ’em and
loudly that, with his eyes shut and one hand
started asking questions. When a man’s got
tied behind him, he could beat Patsy making
the blues he ain’t apt to think uh little things peach pie, and that, if it weren’t for the
like that. I’m sure obliged to yuh, kid. I wish disgrace of the thing, he would sure tie an
yuh’d do me another good turn. Forget it, will
apron around him and learn the bunch what
yuh?”
real cooking tasted like, Pink found it hard to
“I’ve got about the poorest memory
keep from looking several times at the man’s
yuh ever heard tell of,” Pink assured him, and
cheeks, in expectation of seeing some sign of
made his dimples bear witness that he refused
the tears which had made them wet.
to consider the incident as other than a trifle.
Big Medicine greeted him with a
Big Medicine hesitated, decided not to
bellowing laugh, and swept him into a fresh
speak what was evidently in his mind to say,
controversy with Cal Emmett over a trivial
stuck his toe in the stirrup, mounted, and rode matter that had already been worn quite
slowly away toward camp.
threadbare, and Pink decided that there was no
Pink looked after him
skeleton in Big Medicine’s life; or, if there
commiseratingly, and was tempted to uncover
were, it was fast going to pieces, and the
the fragments and piece them together just to
incident of the torn picture was not as serious see how she looked. He resisted the impulse,
as it had seemed to be at the time.
however, and remounted to turn back a few
Neither of them would have to stand
stragglers which were making off across the
guard that night, and Pink looked forward
prairie. “No, darn me if I want to dig up other eagerly to a whole night’s sleep. But he found
men’s troubles,” he said to himself. “She was
himself wakeful for no reason except his
homely, chances are, er he’d ’a’ showed me
vagrant thoughts, though others slept around
the picture. A man ain’t never much reluctant,
him. Because his mind clung to the strange
I’ve noticed, to show up the picture of a good-
spectacle of Big Medicine shedd
ing tears over
looking woman that’s married to him.”
a photograph—Big Medicine, of all men!—it
He could not so easily forget, however.
irritated him to hear the man snoring
He had never suspected Big Medicine, with
comfortably, louder than any of the others;
his wide grin and his blatant good nature, of
there was no mistaking the voice of Big
ever having rubbed elbows with a trouble Medicine, even when he dreamed. Pink raised which went deeper than anger or revenge. He
himself to an impatient elbow and listened.
could not seem to see Big Medicine as a
“Aw, he ain’t got any feelings about a
married man; he was not that sort, any more
blamed thing,” he remonstrated with himself.
The Skeleton
3
“I guess he was just loading me.”
waited until the other had dropped the flap
He lay down again, and immediately
behind him, then cautiously dressed himself
came a vision, startlingly clear and and followed.
convincing—a vision of Big Medicine’s face,
When he put a tousled yellow head out
surprised into revealing the man of him as he
of the tent, he saw no one at all. He went out, was, with cheek bones wet, and eyes awash
stood erect by a guy-rope, and listened. Off to with tears. There could be no joke about that!
one side, beyond the cook tent, he thought he
Pink thumped his pillow, and tried to think of
heard some one stumble, and went that way to
something else.
look. Fifty yards away, headed straight from
It seems strange that night happenings
camp, he saw the man who had left the tent
nearly always come when a man, however
two minutes ago—afoot, and seemingly in a
wakeful he may have been, is just sliding
hurry.
away into sleep. Pink was dreaming
Pink followed him as quietly as he
irrelevantly of playing a hard-fought game of
knew how. To that moment his curiosity had
pool with a drunken Chinaman, when he came
been absolutely unwarranted, a mere matter of
back, with a snap, to consciousness. There
nerves keyed to a pitch above the normal; but
was the dark, sleep-filled tent, with the heavy now he felt in a measure justified. For to leave breathing of ten or twelve full-blooded men.
camp afoot at midnight, and in so stealthy a
Occasionally there was a rasping snort, as
manner, was, to say the least, unusual and
some dreamer reached a crisis in his fancied
deserving investigation. Pink walked a bit
adventures, but it was nothing of this which
faster, though he made no more noise than
held Pink’s breath.
before.
Somewhere across the tent was a
Half a mile went the two, and then he
stealthy movement—the careful pulling of halted, half ashamed. Before, he had not been body which betrayed brain alert and wakeful.
quite certain of the man’s identity in that dim Pink lay quite still and watched, though there
light; but when the fellow stopped beside a
was no sane reason for so doing. When the
rock, hesitated, and went down upon one knee
head and shoulders of a man rose silently
to hover groping there, Pink knew at once the
against the dim whiteness of the tent wall,
man and the meaning.
Pink’s eyes never left the figure. Whoever it
“It’s his wife he wants back—what
was, he was feeling his way cautiously into his there is left of her,” he said to himself. “Yuh clothes—and it was not time for guard relief.
wouldn’t think a man like him—— And I
Pink lay like a dead man, with eyes wide
went and kicked dirt on the picture! But then,
open; and his nerves were in such a state that
he tore it up himself, and you’d naturally
he never once wondered at himself for think———” He turned suddenly, and went attaching any importance to a man’s rising in
thoughtfully back,, to camp, crept quietly into the night.
his blankets, and tried not to concern himself
The dimly seen form rose to its knees,
over the troubles of Big Medicine.
felt its way carefully over the unconscious
It was long before Big Medicine
bodies of Weary, Happy Jack, and Irish, and
returned and went unobtrusively to bed;
lifted the tent flap.
indeed, Pink guessed that it was near daylight.
Outside was clear starlight; a breeze
He was sorry for the man, in a vague, futile
which had the chill of midnight puffed in and
way, and was prepared to show him more
brought to Pink’s nostrils the faintly aromatic friendship than had been his habit. For, while
odor’s of a dewless prairie. He lifted his head, Big Medicine was frankly sincere in his liking
The Popular
4
for Pink, the regard was not more than half
them to their destination.
reciprocated. A man who is close to twenty-
As they turned into the main street,
four does not greatly enjoy being called Little and swung short around the corner of the new
One, and treated as a child.
restaurant kept by the widow Wilson, the
But when the camp stirred to life with
horse of Big Medicine shied and snorted. The
the coming of the sun, Big Medicine did not
rider jerked him back, and lurched drunkenly
seem to be in need of either sympathy or
in the saddle, and a child gave a squeal of
friendship. His grin was quite as wide and
triumphant joy.
frequent; his eyes protruded with the same
“Hello, papa! We rode on the train,
frank assurance; his voice and his laugh and a man gived me ten cents, and we runned dominated the camp just as they had always
over a cow and broke her all to pieces. And
done, since his arrival from Coconino County,
we slept on a shelf away up, and I falled out,
Arizona.
and there’s a big little hill on my head. See?
Pink felt somehow baffled and Right there! And a man——”
resentful. If the bones of the skeleton rattled at Big Medicine swooped like a great
all during the weeks that followed, he could
hawk, and with one arm swept the child up
detect no sound, however faint. When a man
into the saddle before him. With consummate
has a great sorrow hidden deep in his heart,
skill, he controlled the horse, which was so
one expects him to show evidence in some
terrified that it hesitated between bolting,
form or other. Pink watched him covertly for
bucking, and standing upon his hind feet, so
two or three days, made up his mind that Big
that he stood still, with his legs shaking as
Medicine was just what he appeared to be—a
though they would give way beneath him. The
wide-mouthed, empty-headed josher, who boy squealed again with delight, and hugged could not take anything seriously if he Big Medicine almost to the strangling point.
would—and forgot the skeleton.
&
nbsp; “Where’s that lump on your head?” the
They had gathered the first beef herd,
latter demanded, with his voice so hoarse and
and had driven it leisurely in to the Dry Lake
broken that Pink could scarce make out the
stockyards; had loaded a train on a hot, windy
words. “Oh, there it is. Honest to grandma, it’s day; and, when the great door of the last car
a fright. Yuh didn’t cry, I’ll bet a hoss—did
slid shut upon the tail of the last steer, they got yuh, Old-timer?”
upon their horses and raced thirstily down the
“No siree, Bob Jones! Er—the water
hill to Rusty Brown’s place—all save Big
kinda runned outa my eyes, but I didn’t cry.
Medicine, who had trouble With his horse,
They just leaked a little bit. And the man—his
and Pink, who waited to make and light a
face was dirty, papa! It was just black! —he cigarette.
gived me a shiny button outa his pocket——
The two rode slowly after the others,
—”
enjoying their brief freedom after the long,
Big Medicine yanked his horse out of a
dusty drive. There were horses to be shod, the
half-formed decision to pitch, and hugged the
mess wagon to be restocked, and the day was
child close. “Where— where’s—mamma?” he
old; they would have that night, at the feast, in asked gently.
town, and perhaps a good share of the day
The boy wriggled in his arms and
following. They would quench their thirst as
pointed toward the hotel. “She’s over there.
speedily as might be, but they would not set
She—she’ll spank me good and plenty, I
their aching muscles to the swing of galloping
reckon, when I go back. I runned away, ’cause
when two minutes of walking would bring
she telled me to set still and not ast so many
The Skeleton
5
questi’ns. A boy can’t set still. Make him
The Skeleton By B Page 1