The Texican
He threw this out for a feeler and Pecos responded nobly. "Well, go ahead and order me them rings and earrings," he said, "I'm no cheap sport. What else you got that's good?"
Angevine Thorne dropped his paper and reached stealthily for a large mail-order catalogue on the counter. "Aprons, bath-tubs, curtains, dishes," he read, running his finger down the index. "Here's some silk handkerchiefs that might suit you; 'green, red, blue, and yaller, sixty cents each; with embroidered initials, twenty cents extra.'"
"I'll go you!" cried the cowboy, looking over his shoulder. "Gimme half a dozen of them red ones – no squaw colors for me – and say, lemme look at them aprons."
"Aprons!" yelled Angy. "Well – what – the – "
"Aw, shut up!" snarled Pecos, blushing furiously. "Can't you take a joke? Here, gimme that catalogue – you ain't the only man on the Verde that can read and write – I've had some schoolin' myself!"
He retired to a dark corner with the "poor man's enemy" and pored over it laboriously, scrawling from time to time upon an order blank which Angy had thoughtfully provided. At last the deed was done, all but adding up the total, and after an abortive try or two the cowboy slipped in a twenty-dollar bill and wrote: "Giv me the rest in blue hankerchefs branded M." Then he sealed and directed the letter and called on Babe for a drink.
"How long before I'll git them things?" he inquired, his mind still heated with visions of aprons, jewelry, and blue handkerchiefs, branded M, – "two or three weeks? Well, I'll be down before then – they might come sooner. Where's all the punchers?"
"Oh, they're down in Geronimo, gettin' drunk. Round-up's over, now, and Crit laid 'em off. Gittin' kinder lonely around here."
"Lonely!" echoed Pecos. "Well, if you call this lonely you ought to be out in Lost Dog Cañon, where I am. They's nothin' stirrin' there but the turkey-buzzards – I'm gittin' the willies already, jest from listenin' to myself think. Say, come on out and see me sometime, can't you?"
"Nope," said Babe, "if you knew all the things that Crit expects me to do in a day you'd wonder how I git time to shave. But say, what you doin' out there, if it's a fair question?"
"Who – me? Oh, I've made me a little camp over in that cave and I'm catchin' them wild cattle that ooze along the creek." He tried to make it as matter-of-fact as possible, but Angevine Thorne knew better.
"Yes, I've heard of them wild cows," he drawled, slowly closing one eye, "the boys've been driftin' 'em over the Peaks for two months. Funny how they was all born with a U on the ribs, ain't it?"
"Sure, but they's always some things you can't explain in a cow country," observed Pecos, philosophically. "Did Crit tell you anything about his new iron? No? Called the Wine-glass – in the brand book by this time, I reckon."
"Aha! I see – I see!" nodded Angy. "Well, Old Good Eye wants to go easy on this moonlightin' – we've got a new sheriff down here in Geronimo now – Boone Morgan – and he was elected to put the fear of God into the hearts of these cowmen and make 'em respect the law. W'y, Crit won't even pay his taxes, he's that ornery. When the Geronimo tax-collector shows up he says his cows all run over in Tonto County; and when the Tonto man finally made a long trip down here Crit told him his cows all ran in Geronimo County, all but a hundred head or so, and John Upton had stole them. The tax-collectors have practically give up tryin' to do anything up here in the mountains – the mileage of the assessor and collector eats up all the profits to the county, and it's easier to turn these cowmen loose than it is to follow 'em up. This here Geronimo man jumped all over Crit last time he was up here, but Crit just laughed at him. 'Well,' he says, 'if you don't like the figgers I give, you better go out on the range and count them cows yourself, you're so smart.' And what could the poor man do? It'd cost more to round up Old Crit's cattle than the taxes would come to in a lifetime. But you want to look out, boy," continued Angy earnestly, "how you monkey around with them U cattle – Boone Morgan is an old-timer in these parts and he's likely to come over the hill some day and catch you in the act."
"Old Crit says they never was a man sent up in this county yet for stealin' cattle," ventured Pecos, lamely.
"Sure not," assented Angevine Thorne, "but they's been a whole lot of 'em killed for it! I don't suppose he mentioned that. Have you heard about this Tewkesbury-Graham war that's goin' on up in Pleasant Valley? That all started over rustlin' cattle, and they's over sixty men killed already and everybody hidin' out like thieves. A couple of Crit's bad punchers came down through there from the Hash-knife and they said it was too crude for them – everybody fightin' from ambush and killin' men, women, and children. I tell you, it's got the country stirred up turrible – that's how come Boone Morgan was elected sheriff. The people down in Geronimo figured out if they didn't stop this stealin' and rustlin' and alterin' brands pretty soon, Old Crit and Upton would lock horns – or some of these other cowmen up here in the mountains – and the county would go bankrupt like Tonto is, with sheriff's fees and murder trials. No, sir, they ain't been enough law up here on the Verde to intimidate a jackrabbit so far – it's all down there in Geronimo, where they give me that life sentence for conspicuous drunkenness – but you want to keep your ear to the ground, boy, because you're goin' to hear something drap!"
"What d'ye think's goin' to happen, Babe?" asked the cowboy, uneasily. "Old Crit can't be scared very bad – he's laid off all his punchers."
"Huh! you don't know Crit as well as I do," commented Babe. "Don't you know those punchers would've quit anyhow, as soon as they got their pay? He does that every year – lays 'em off and then goes down to Geronimo about the time they're broke, and half of 'em in jail, mebby, and bails 'em out. He'll have four or five of 'em around here all summer, workin' for nothin' until the fall round-up comes off. I tell you, that man'll skin a flea anytime for the hide and taller. You want to keep out of debt to him or he'll make you into a Mexican peon, like Joe Garcia over here. Joe's been his corral boss and teamster for four years now and I guess they's a hundred dollars against him on the books, right now. Will drink a little whiskey once in a while, you know, like all the rest of us, and the Señora keeps sendin' over for sugar and coffee and grub, and somehow or other, Joe is always payin' for a dead horse. Wouldn't be a Mexican, though," observed Babe, philosophically, "if he wasn't in debt to the store. A Mexican ain't happy until he's in the hole a hundred or so – then he can lay back and sojer on his job and the boss is afraid to fire 'im. There's no use of his havin' anything, anyhow – his relatives would eat 'im out of house and home in a minute. There was a Mexican down the river here won the grand prize in a lottery and his relatives come overland from as far as Sonora to help him spend the money. Inside of a month he was drivin' a wood-wagon again in order to git up a little grub. He was a big man while it lasted – open house day and night, fiestas and bailes and a string band to accompany him wherever he went – but when it was all over old Juan couldn't buy a pint of whiskey on credit if he was snake-bit. They're a great people, for sure."
"That's right," assented Pecos, absently, "but say, I reckon I'll be goin'." The social qualities of the Spanish-Americans did not interest him just then – he was thinking about Boone Morgan. "Gimme a dollar's worth of smoking tobacco and a box of forty-fives and I'll hit the road."
"There's one thing more you forgot," suggested Angevine Thorne, as he wrapped up the purchases.
"What – Marcelina?" ventured Pecos, faintly.
"Naw – your mail!" cried Angy, scornfully, and dipping down into a cracker box he brought out a paper on the yellow wrapper of which was printed "Pecos Dalhart, Verde Crossing, Ariz."
"I never subscribed for no paper!" protested Pecos, turning it over suspiciously. "Here – I don't want it."
"Ump-umm," grunted Angy, smiling mysteriously, "take it along. All the boys git one. You can read it out in camp. Well, if you're goin' to be bull-headed about it I'll tell you. Crit subscribed for it for every man in Verde – only cost two-bits a year. Got to build up this mail route somehow, you know. It's called the Voice of Reason and it's against the capitalistic classes."
"The which?" inquired Pecos, patiently.
"Aw, against rich fellers – these sharks like Old Crit that's crushin' the life outer the common people. That's the paper I was showin' you – where they was advertisin' diamonds for a dollar forty-eight a piece."
"Oh," said Pecos, thrusting it into his chaps, "why didn't you say so before? Sure, I'll read it!"
CHAPTER VI
"THE VOICE OF REASON"
THE fierce heat of summer fell suddenly upon Lost Dog Cañon and all the Verde country – the prolonged heat which hatches flies by the million and puts an end to ear-marking and branding. Until the cool weather of October laid them and made it possible to heal a wound there was nothing for Pecos to do but doctor a few sore ears and read the Voice of Reason. Although he had spent most of his life in the saddle the school-teacher back on the Pecos had managed to corral him long enough to beat the three R's into him and, being still young, he had not yet had time to forget them. Only twenty summers had passed over his head, so far, and he was a man only in stature and the hard experience of his craft. He was a good Texan – born a Democrat and taught to love whiskey and hate Mexicans – but so far his mind was guiltless of social theory. That there was something in the world that kept a poor man down he knew, vaguely; but never, until the Voice of Reason brought it to his attention, had he heard of the conspiracy of wealth or the crime of government. Not until, sprawling at the door of his cave, he mumbled over the full-mouthed invective of that periodical had he realized what a poor, puny creature a wage-slave really was, and when he read of the legalized robbery which went on under the name of law his young blood boiled in revolt. The suppression of strikes by Pinkertons, the calling out of the State Militia to shoot down citizens, the blacklisting of miners, and the general oppression of workingmen was all far away and academic to him – the thing that gripped and held him was an article on the fee system, under which officers of the law arrest all transient citizens who are unfortunate enough to be poor, and judges condemn them in order to gain a fee.
"Think, Slave, Think!" it began. "You may be the next innocent man to be thrown into some vile and vermin-infested county-jail to swell the income of the bloated minions who fatten upon the misery of the poor!"
Pecos had no difficulty in thinking. Like many another man of wandering habits he had already tasted the bitterness of "ten dollars or ten days." The hyenas of the law had gathered him in while he was innocently walking down the railroad track and a low-browed justice of the peace without asking any useless questions had sentenced him to jail for vagrancy. Ten days of brooding and hard fare had not sweetened his disposition any and he had stepped free with the firm determination to wreak a notable revenge, but as the sheriff thoughtfully kept his six-shooter Pecos had been compelled to postpone that exposition of popular justice. Nevertheless the details of his wrongs were still fresh in his mind, and when he learned from the Voice of Reason that the constable and judge had made him all that trouble for an aggregate fee of six dollars Pecos was ready to oppose all law, in whatsoever form it might appear, with summary violence. And as for the capitalistic classes – well, Pecos determined to collect his last month's pay from Old Crit if he had to take it out of his hide.
When next he rode into Verde Crossing the hang-dog look which had possessed Pecos Dalhart since he turned rustler was displaced by a purposeful frown. He rolled truculently in the saddle as he came down the middle of the road, and wasted no time with preliminaries.
"Where's that blankety-blank Old Crit?" he demanded, racking into the store with his hand on his hip.
"Gone down to Geronimo to git the mail," replied Babe, promptly.
"Well, you tell him I want my pay!" thundered Pecos, pacing up and down.
"He'll be back to-night, better stay and tell him yourself," suggested Babe, mildly.
"I'll do that," responded Pecos, nodding ominously. "And more'n that – I'll collect it. What's doin'?"
"Oh, nothin'," replied Babe. "There was a deputy assessor up here the other day and he left this blank for you to fill out. It gives the number of your cattle."
"Well, you tell that deputy to go to hell, will you?"
"Nope," said Babe, "he might take me with him. It happens he's a deputy sheriff, too!"
"Deputy, —huh!" grumbled Pecos, morosely. "They all look the same to me. Did Crit fill out his blank?"
"Sure did. Reported a hundred head of Wine-glasses. Now what d'ye think of that?"
Pecos paused and meditated on the matter for an instant. It was doubtful if Crittenden could gather more than a hundred head of Wine-glasses, all told. Some of them had drifted back to their old range and the rest were scattered in a rough country. "Looks like that deputy threw a scare into him," he observed, dubiously. "What did he say about my cattle?"
"Well, he said you'd registered a new brand and now it was up to you to show that you had some cattle. If you've got 'em you ought to pay taxes on 'em and if you haven't got any you got no business with an iron that will burn over Upton's U."
"Oh, that's the racket, is it? Well, you tell that deputy that I've got cattle in that brand and I've got a bill of sale for 'em, all regular, but I've yet to see the deputy sheriff that can collect taxes off of me. D'ye think I'm goin' to chip in to help pay the salary of a man that makes a business of rollin' drunks and throwin' honest workingmen into the hoosegatho when he's in town? Ump-um – guess again!"
He motioned for a drink and Babe regarded him curiously as he set out the bottle.
"You been readin' the Voice, I reckon," he said, absent-mindedly pouring out a drink for himself. "Well, say, did you read that article on the fee system? It's all true, Pardner, every word of it, and more! I'm a man of good family and education – I was brought up right and my folks are respectable people – and yet every time I go to Geronimo they throw me into jail. Two-twenty-five, that's what they do it for – and there I have to lay, half the time with some yegg or lousy gang of hobos, until they git ready to turn me loose. And they call that justice! Pecos, I'm going back to Geronimo – I'm going to stand on the corner, just the way I used to when I was drunk, and tell the people it's all wrong! You're a good man, Pecos – Cumrad – will you go with me?"
Pecos stood and looked at him, wondering. "Comrade" sounded good to him; it was the word they used in the Voice of Reason– "Comrade Jones has just sent us in four more subscriptions. That's what throws a crook into the tail of monopoly. Bully for you, Comrade!" But with all his fervor he did not fail to notice the droop to Angy's eyes, the flush on his cheeks, and the slack tremulousness of his lips – in spite of his solemn resolutions Angy had undoubtedly given way to the Demon Drink.
"Nope," he said, "I like you, Angy, but they'd throw us both in. You'd better stay up here and watch me put it on Crit. 'Don't rope a bigger bull than you can throw,' is my motto, and Old Crit is jest my size. I'm goin' to comb his hair with a six-shooter or I'll have my money – and then if that dog-robber of a deputy sheriff shows up I'll – well, he'd better not crowd me, that's all. Here's to the revolution – will you drink it, old Red-eye?"
Angy drank it, and another to keep it company.
"Pecos," he said, his voice tremulous with emotion, "when I think how my life has been ruined by these hirelings of the law, when I think of the precious days I have wasted in the confinement of the Geronimo jail, I could rise up and destroy them, these fiends in human form and their accursed jails; I could wreck every prison in the land and proclaim liberty from the street-corners – whoop!" He waved one hand above his head, laughed, and leapt to a seat upon the bar. "But don't you imagine f'r a moment, my friend," he continued, with the impressive gravity of an orator, "that they have escaped unscathed. It was not until I had read that wonderful champion of the common people, the Voice of Reason, that I realized the enormity of this conspiracy which has reduced me to my present condition, but from my first incarceration in the Geronimo jail I have been a Thorne in their side, as the Geronimo Blade well said. I remember as if it were yesterday the time when they erected their first prison, over twenty years ago, on account of losing some hoss-thieves. It was a new structure, strongly built of adobe bricks, and in a spirit of jest the town marshal arrested me and locked me up to see if it was tight. That night when all was still I wrenched one of the iron bars loose and dug my way to freedom! But what is freedom to revenge? After I had escaped I packed wood in through the same hole, piled it up against the door, and set the dam' hell-hole afire!"
He paused and gazed upon Pecos with drunken triumph. "That's the kind of an hombre I am," he said. "But what is one determined man against a thousand? When the citizens of Geronimo beheld their new calaboose ruined and in flames they went over the country with a fine-tooth comb and never let up until they had brought me back and shackled me to the old Cottonwood log down by the canal – the one they had always used before they lost the hoss-thieves. That was the only jail they had left, now that the calaboose was burned. In vain I pleaded with them for just one drink – they were inexorable, the cowardly curs, and there they left me, chained like a beast, while they went up town and swilled whiskey until far into the night. As the first faint light of morning shot across the desert I awoke with a terrible thirst. My suffering was awful. I filled my mouth with the vile ditch-water and spat it out again, unsatisfied – I shook my chains and howled for mercy. But what mercy could one expect from such a pack of curs? I tested every link in my chain, and the bolt that passed through the log – then, with the strength of desperation I laid hold upon that enormous tree-trunk and rolled it into the water! Yes, sir, I rolled the old jail-log into the canal and jumped straddle of it like a conqueror, and whatever happened after that I knew I had the laugh on old Hickey, the Town Marshal, unless some one saw me sailing by. But luck was with me, boy; I floated that big log clean through town and down to Old Manuel's road-house – a Mexican deadfall out on the edge of the desert – and swapped it for two drinks of mescal that would simply make you scream! By Joe, that liquor tasted good – have one with me now!"
They drank once more, still pledging the revolution, and then Angy went ahead on his talking jag. "Maybe you've heard of this Baron Mun-chawson, the German character that was such a dam' liar and jail-breaker the king made a prison to order and walled him in? Well, sir, Mun-chawson worked seven years with a single nail on that prison and dug out in spite of hell. But human nature's the same, wherever you go – always stern and pitiless. When those Geronimo citizens found out that old Angy had stole their cottonwood log and traded it to a wood-chopper for the drinks, they went ahead and built a double-decked, steel-celled county jail and sentenced me to it for life! Conspicuous drunkenness was the charge – and grand larceny of a jail – but answer me, my friend, is this a free country or is the spirit that animated our forefathers dead? Is the spirit of Patrick Henry when he cried, 'Give me liberty or give me death,' buried in the oblivion of the past? Tell me that, now!"
"Don't know," responded Pecos, lightly, "too deep a question for me – but say, gimme one more drink and then I'm goin' down the road to collect my pay from Crit. I'm a man of action – that's where I shine – I refer all such matters to Judge Colt." He slapped his gun affectionately and clanked resolutely out of the door. Half a mile down the river he sighted his quarry and rode in on him warily. Old Crit was alone, driving a discouraged team of Mexican horses, and as the bouquet of Pecos's breath drifted in to him over the front wheel the Boss of Verde Crossing regretted for once the fiery quality of his whiskey.
"I come down to collect my pay," observed Pecos, plucking nervously at his gun.
"Well, you don't collect a cent off of me," replied Crit, defiantly, "a man that will steal the way you did! Whenever you git ready to leave this country I might give you a hundred or so for your brand, but you better hurry up. There was a deputy sheriff up here the other day, lookin' for you!"
"Yes, I heard about it," sneered Pecos. "I reckon he was lookin' for evidence about this here Wine-glass iron."
A smothered curse escaped the lips of Isaac Crittenden, but, being old at the game, he understood. There was nothing for it but to pay up – and wait.
"Well, what guarantee do I git that you don't give the whole snap away anyhow?" he demanded, fiercely. "What's the use of me payin' you anything – I might as well keep it to hire a lawyer."
"As long as you pay me what you owe me," said Pecos, slowly, "and treat me square," he added, "I keep my mouth shut. But the minute you git foxy or try some ranikaboo play like sayin' the deputy was after me – look out! Now they was a matter of a hundred and twenty dollars between us – do I git it or don't I?"
"You git it," grumbled Crittenden, reluctantly. "But say, I want you to keep away from Verde Crossing. Some of them Wine-glass cows have drifted back onto the upper range and John Upton has made a roar. More than that, Boone Morgan has undertook to collect our taxes up here and if that deputy of his ever gits hold of you he's goin' to ask some mighty p'inted questions. So you better stay away, see?"
He counted out the money and held it in his hand, waiting for consent, but Pecos only laughed.
"Life's too short to be hidin' out from a deputy," he answered, shortly. "So gimme that money and I'll be on my way." He leaned over and plucked the bills from Crit's hand; then, spurring back toward the Crossing he left Old Crit, speechless with rage, to follow in his dust.
A loud war-whoop from the store and the high-voiced ranting of Babe made it plain to Crit that there was no use going there – Angy was launched on one of his periodicals and Pecos was keeping him company – which being the case there was nothing for it but to let them take the town. The grizzled Boss of Verde stood by the corral for a minute, listening to the riot and studying on where to put in his time; then a slow smile crept over his hardened visage and he fixed his sinister eye on the adobe of Joe Garcia. All was fair, with him, in love or war, and Marcelina was growing up to be a woman.
"Joe," he said, turning upon his corral boss, "you tell your wife I'll be over there in a minute for supper – and say, I want you to stay in the store to-night; them crazy fools will set the house afire."
"Stawano," mumbled José, but as he turned away there was an angry glint in his downcast eye and he cursed with every breath. It is not always pleasant, even to a Mexican, to be in debt to the Boss.
CHAPTER VII
THE REVOLUTION
THE coyotes who from their seven hills along the Verde were accustomed to make Rome howl found themselves outclassed and left to a thinking part on the night that Pecos Dalhart and Angevine Thorne celebrated the dawn of Reason. The French Revolution being on a larger scale, and, above all, successful, has come down in history as a great social movement; all that can be said of the revolution at Verde Crossing is packed away in those sad words: it failed. It started, like most revolutions, with a careless word, hot from the vitriolic pen of some space-writer gone mad, and ended in that amiable disorder which, for lack of a better word, we call anarchy. Whiskey was at the bottom of it, of course, and it meant no more than a tale told by an idiot, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." At the same time, it managed by degrees to engross the entire attention of Verde Crossing and after the fall of the Bastile, as symbolized by the cracking of a bottle, it left Pecos and Babe more convinced than ever that the world was arrayed against them.