Part 1
Jay Bird’s Judgement
By W. C. Tuttle
“You may sing of brave sailors Who sail bounding mains On waters where hurricanes blow, But I take more chances whenever I climb On the deck of a bucking bronco.”
Chuck Warner slapped the dust off his chaps and rubbed his hip. He took a few tentative steps and grimaced with pain.
“Darn fool cayuse!” he exclaimed. “Ain’t got a lick of sense! Better round up that mail or it will blow plum to Canada. Darn them ‘Shepherd’s Bibles’ anyway!”
He limped around through the sagebrush until he was satisfied that the Cross J mail was all in his possession once more. He looked them over until he came to a certain letter.
“Some folks ain’t got enough spit to seal a letter proper,” he informed himself. “Now ain’t that a slovenly way to fix a letter for shipment? Sealed just enough so a feller has to open her all up in order to seal her right. Maybe I better look and see if anything got lost out.”
All of which seemed a conscientious way to read somebody else’s letters. Chuck had been to Paradise after the mail, and had complained bitterly on having to carry six heavy mail-order catalogs back with him.
“Shepherd’s Bibles!” grunted Chuck. “Everything from rat-poison to railroads, and me riding a bad animal.”
“Maybe the old man can find a cook in one,” suggested Paddy Morse, the postmaster. “He ought to get married, Chuck. He sure can afford a wife.”
“Yeah,” admitted Chuck, leaning against the counter, and wiggling his flexible ears. “Give me some tobacco, Paddy. The old man would sure make a husband for some good girl, and it might not spoil the cooking at the ranch. The covers of these here Bibles says that their distribution is wide, and I’m betting they will be before I get home.”
Old Doc Milliken wandered over to the rack, where Chuck was tying the offending literature to his saddle, and grinned at Chuck when the roan bronco tried to straddle the rack.
“Starting a library, Chuck?” asked Doc, standing at a safe distance.
“Hello, Doc,” grunted Chuck. “How’s all the little pills?”
“Tolable. How’s the old man feeling these days?”
“Ailing,” panted Chuck, bracing his shoulder against the horse, and yanking the string tight. “Old ‘Jay Bird’ Whittaker is pining away, Doc. He’s cooking for the outfit, ’cause he can’t get a cook, an’ our stummicks are in the sere and yaller leaf. Let’s me and you have a drink. I like to drink with a doctor, ’cause then you sort of feels that you’re follering the lead of a man who ought to know whether it’s bad for the human system or not.”
“I’m a veterinary, Chuck,” grinned Doc, accepting the invitation.
“No matter,” grinned Chuck, “I wiggle my ears--you notice.”
“Do you really think he’s pining away for a female cook?” asked Doc.
He accented the word cook. Chuck poured out a drink and scratched his head.
“Any special female that you know of, Doc?” he asked.
“Suitable one, I reckon,” grinned Doc. “He could afford one.”
“Yeah,” nodded Chuck, thoughtfully. “Yeah.”
Chuck rode toward home, slouched in his saddle, as he tried to conjure up the kind of a woman for J. B., when the offensive catalogs broke their moorings, dropped into the dust with a loud _splat_ and were the cause of Chuck being set on foot a mile from the Cross J.
He sat down on a convenient boulder, and perused the open letter. It was from a man in Great Falls, and after the superscription: “Dear old J. B.,” it was terse and to the point:
No cooks. Advise marriage. Who are you going to leave your money to when you die? Pick a good cook, and yell for a preacher. Very truly yours.
“That’s the third time today,” grunted Chuck, sealing the letter. “Three times is a charm,” and he started for the ranch, cursing high heels and mail-order catalogs.
“Rode all his life in a four-wheeled rig, Pailed the cows and slopped the pig. Thought one day he’d go out West, Of all the punchers he’d be the best. Bought some chaps and a wall-eyed bronc Looked like an actor from a honkatonk. Went to town on a summer’s day, Rode his bronc like a bale of hay. The bronc crow-hopped a couple of lines And the Rube came home full of cactus spines.”
sang Muley Bowles, from the top-pole of the corral beating time with his fat hands on his knees.
“What’s the matter, dear heart? Bronc lose a wheel?”
“Naw!” grunted Chuck. “Trying physical torture. Bronc come home?”
“Sure did,” yelped a voice, and “Telescope” Tolliver, the longest puncher in Yellow Rock County, stuck his face over the corral top. “Had the saddle under his belly, and both feet in the stirrups. Had to cut that cinch to let him loose. Any mail?”
“Two letters for the old man, and a package for each one of you. I piled them beside the road after I got dumped. I don’t know what’s in ’em. I ain’t in the habit of opening mail, if anybody asks you. Right--down--beside--the--road--where--the--trail--cuts--to--Pole-Cat--Perkins’--place! Want me to draw you a map?”
Chuck wiggled his ears, and plodded off up to the ranch-house. The old man was not in sight, but the rattle of dishes in the kitchen proclaimed his presence.
“Couple of letters for you, J. B.,” yelled Chuck.
The old man came in, his face a combination of flour and soot, and supreme disgust.
“This one must be from a lady,” opined Chuck.
The old man turned the letter over in his hands, and grunted:
“Lady ----! From the looks of that flap, it must be from a coal-miner. Wish I had a cook. Just made bread, and the only way it will ever raise is to use dynamite instead of yeast.”
The old man read the letter, and scowled at the ceiling. Then he opened the other, which was a legal-looking document. He read it part way through, put the other letter in his mouth, and puffed thoughtfully on it. Chuck lit a match, and held it to one corner of the letter, and it burned half-way up before the old man saw it. He spit it out, and stared at Chuck.
“Did you hear what Muley said about your cooking?” asked Chuck.
“No,” whispered the old man, absently. “Nope.”
“Went like this:
“He greased his pans with coal-oil And put liniment in the stew His coffee tastes like alkali And his beans are full of glue. His bread shows streaks of iron rust, His ----”
“Muley!” yelped the old man. “Muley be----! Gol dingle dang!”
“Of course it ain’t none of my business, old-timer,” observed Chuck, “but if I was you I’d get married.”
Whittaker stared at Chuck for a moment, and then:
“I’d give a thousand dollars if I was! There’s that blasted bread burning up!”
And he raced for the kitchen, leaving Chuck dumbfounded.
“Thousand dollars!” whispered Chuck. “Twenty-five months’ salary. Mama!”
* * * * *
He wandered down to the bunkhouse, and began strumming on Hen Peck’s banjo. Muley and Telescope came in, unconcerned-like, proceeded to surround Chuck, and then to administer chastisement with a quirt.
Chuck managed to squirm loose, and stood at bay on top of a bunk, with the banjo as a weapon of defense.
“Keep away or I’ll fill you both full of discords!” he yelped. “I didn’t lie to you, did I? Wasn’t the packages there? Listen to words of comfort and good cheer, you cannibals: the old man is going to get married.”
“Yeah?” chirped Telescope. “Chuck, ain’t you got no sense at all? Why didn’t you tell us that he wasn’t and we’d dress for the wedding? As the champion blockhead liar of the world----”
“All right, he ain’t then,” said Chuck, in an injured voice, and began tuning up the banjo.
“Why tell us a lie like that?” inquired Muley, sadly. “What do you reckon old Ananias would say if he heard his pupil talk that away?”
“I’m a liar,” admitted Chuck cheerfully. “Let her go as she lies.”
Muley and Telescope shook their heads, sadly, but the seed was sown, and it was only a few minutes later that Telescope asked:
“Was that letter from her, Chuck?”
“I ain’t feeding no pearls to hogs,” declared Chuck with finality.
“You’re among friends,” stated Telescope.
“Not a word. If anybody says that I mentioned it I’ll swear that they lied. _Sabe_?” And he went on playing discords.
The next morning Chuck went up to the house to see if the old man wanted anything in town, and he found him humped over in a chair, reading that legal-looking letter, of the day before. He grunted at Chuck, and put the letter back into the envelope.
“Chuck, a woman is a queer critter, ain’t she?” he mused.
“Not when you _sabe_ them like I do.”
“Don’t slam the door as you go out, Mister Warner. Where’d you learn to lie like that?”
“I ain’t lying,” defended Chuck. “There’s plenty to learn about women but nobody ever finds it out. One would be a great comfort and cheer to you, old-timer.”
“Don’t slam the door,” repeated the old man, and went back into another room.
Chuck went down to the corral, climbed to the top rail, and rolled a cigaret. Chuck always smoked innumerable cigarets and wiggled his ears when pondering a weighty subject. He had perfect control of his ear muscles, the trusting eyes of a child, and utter disregard for the truth. His legs were far too short for his huge body, and the wide Texas chaps made him look shorter and wider than he really was. He fumbled with his buckskin chin-strap, and nodded solemnly to a pinto in the shade of the high fence.
“One thousand dollars,” he repeated aloud. “Ye gods and small fish! I’ll get Ricky Henderson to do it, ’cause he writes good. Mine looks like I was trying to vent a bunch of brands. I may be unjustly branded as a liar but it will sure improve the culinary end of this ranch. Reckon I’ll let Hen Peck in on it, ’cause Hen’s as big a liar as I am.”
Henry Peck wasn’t a hard person to explain things to, and he nodded solemnly when Chuck broke the news to him.
“Thousand dollars! Gee gosh, Chuck! That’s a lot of money to give for a wife. Go ahead, old-timer. I’m one of the best little lookers-on you mostly ever seen. I ain’t fool-proof, so I don’t monkey with the fair sex. You know what happened to John Alden when he went huntin’ a squaw for Miles Standish? Well, I’m a innocent bystander, Chuck, ’cause the old man might fall for one of the Mudgett sisters, and then where’d old man Peck’s little offspring be, eh?”
“You come down with me anyway, Hen,” pleaded Chuck. “You help me talk it into Ricky’s hard head, will you?”
“I’ll help that much, Chuck.”
Ricky Henderson was sprawled in his lone barber-chair, trying to hone an edge on a decrepit razor, when they dropped their reins out in front.
“Howdy, cow-trailers,” he greeted them lazily. “Want a mass-age today?”
“You shaved me so close a week ago, Ricky, that I have to swab my mouth out with hair restorer every day to try and drive ’em out the right way,” laughed Chuck.
“Holee Moses!” yelped Hen, looking at a picture over the mirror. “Who sent you that, Ricky?”
“I should hope to find out,” grunted Ricky disgustedly. “Some female, I’d bet.”
The picture in question was a cheap lithograph caricature of a barber shaving a pig, and underneath these lines:
Your razors all pull And your scissors are broke. As a barber, you boob, You are surely a joke.
“Valentine,” explained Ricky. “Got it today. Believe me, I’m sure taking no chances on who sent it. I may make some folks sore as a boil, but I’ll hit the female what sent it, ’cause I’m sure going to scatter ’em far and wide.”
“You write a good hand, Ricky,” observed Chuck, rolling a cigaret one-handed. “We got a little scheme. Listen.” And then he proceeded to outline it to Ricky, who nodded and grinned.
“Fine!” he applauded. “Do I know all the cooks around here? Well, I’d kiss a Kiowa. I’ll write a note to each one, and mail ’em as you tell me to. We’ll sure land somebody. Do you think he’d stand for paying a good salary while they’re cooking? I won’t go so far as to sign the old man’s name, but I will use his initials, J. B. W. How’s that strike you?”
“I’ll buy a drink--that’s how it strikes me,” grinned Chuck.
Chuck and Hen spent the night in Paradise. The next day Chuck wandered down to the bunkhouse, where Muley was deep in the mysteries of a game of solitaire.
“Shepherd!” hissed Chuck, mussing the layout. “Where is Telescope?”
“I don’t know. Found a bride for the old man yet?”
“Who put you wise?” asked Chuck.
“Aw, don’t get sore,” advised Muley, grinning. “We’ve got the old man’s interests as much at heart as you have. Me and Telescope both feels for him, Chuck.”
“This is my matrimonial bureau!” snapped Chuck. “You and that long-complected cross between a peanut and a pelican will just about jinx the whole system I’ve worked up. Can’t a feller do nothing except work around here without having a volunteer crew working behind his back?”
“Matrimony be darned!” grunted Muley. “I ain’t losing no sleep over love’s young dream--I’m hungry! My insides clamor for cooked food.”
Just then the old man came into the bunkhouse, and sat down to watch the game.
“Muley,” he asks, after the cards are dealt, “Muley, have I been--uh--acting natural lately?”
“Never did,” replied Muley, uninterestedly.
“What seems to ail you?” inquired Chuck.
“Well,” the old man scratched his head, foolishly, “well, a while ago that female cook from the Triangle shows up with all her plunder, and moves in on me. I asked her what she meant, and gol dingle dang it, she winked at me!”
“She’s a good cook,” observed Chuck, wiggling his ears.
“Maybe Johnny Myers made you a present of her,” suggested Muley. “Never kick a gift cook in the face.”
“Gift ----!” snorted the old man. “Myers was paying her fifty a month, and she quit him to cook for me at seventy-five.”
“Business-woman,” observed Chuck.
“Business ----! Said I wrote and made her the offer!”
“Well, don’t yell your head off about it then,” advised Muley. “Stick to your written word, J. B.”
The old man muttered to himself, and ambled back to the house. Hen came home in time to partake of the best feed the Cross J outfit had eaten in weeks. Annie Schmidt surely could cook. Chuck and Hen grinned across the table at each other, and after the meal they shook hands on the results.
“Ricky made a bulls-eye the first shot,” chuckled Hen. “Some feed!”
“See anything of Telescope?” asked Chuck, but Hen shook his head.
“Nope. I’m betting he went down to Silver Bend with that bunch that went to see that opery show.”
“Show down there?” asked Muley, flopping down beside them.
“Uh-huh! ‘Mickydoo’! Lot of females in tights. You ought to see them bills.”
“Huh!” grunted Chuck. “Let me tell you what I seen once when I was in New York.”
“Go ahead and lie, Chuck,” grinned Muley. “What did you see in New York?”
“I seen a feller what was just as fat as you are, Muley. He looked a lot like you, but he had brains, which spoiled the resemblance.”
* * * * *
The next morning Chuck was sitting on top of the corral, trying to teach Muley how to spin a rope, when the old man came down and climbed up on the fence. He waited until Muley stopped to untangle his legs from a rope, and then remarked, softly--
“Chuck, I must be sick.”
“Well, if you must it’s o.k. with me,” replied Chuck. “But why insist?”
“I--I’ve been doing things I ain’t got no recollection of.”
“Meaning which, J. B.?”
The old man motioned back toward the house, and slid closer to Chuck.
“A little while ago that Swede cook from the Seven A shows up, and moves into the house. She--she orates that I’m paying her seventy-five a month.”
Chuck wiggled his ears at Muley, and nodded.
“You must be sick, old-timer. Hundred and fifty to run the kitchen. Why for that money you could hire a French chef and have patty defoy grass.”
“Another female?”
“Naw! Patty is something to eat.”
“----!” snorted the old man. “Who wants to eat grass that’s got a middle name? Loco-weed suits me.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Muley.
“Do? I can’t do a thing. She says I wrote to her, and made the offer.”
The old man wandered down to the barn, while Muley did a few waltz steps, and recited:
“He never had a decent meal in all his blasted life. He hires two expensive cooks to choose one for a wife. He must have been a little mixed the day he sent the screed, ’Cause it’s mighty hard to choose between a Dutchman and a Swede.”
A little later on Doc Milliken rode in, and went up to the ranch-house. When he left there he met Chuck.
“Been up to see the old man,” stated Doc, as he untied his mount. “Old man sure acts queer, Chuck. Wanted to talk about women. When a man wants to talk about women, he’s getting serious.”
“Yeah,” agreed Chuck, “I reckon he’s serious all right.”
Chuck wandered on up to the house, and found the old man sitting out on the back steps, puffing away on an empty pipe, and staring off into space. Chuck sat down beside him, and they both seemed deep in thought, when the back door opened and a voice announced:
“Please, Mister Vittaker, a gentleman is inside for you.”
“What did she say?” grunted the old man.
“Your skee-jumping stew-artist said there was a gentleman inside for you,” replied Chuck.
“Please,” repeated the voice of Hulda Hansen. “He vishes you, Mister Vittaker.”
“Better go in,” advised Chuck. “You’re being wished for.”
The old man grunted, and went into the house. Chuck smoked up his cigaret, and started for the bunkhouse. When he was half-way down there he heard a crash, a few expressive cuss-words, and two men, locked in each other’s arms, fell off the porch into the dust.
A couple of dogs danced around the two, barking with joy, while a cloud of dust arose from the field of battle. In the angle of the house stood a rain barrel, half-full of water, and the fight terminated when one of the disheveled figures doubled the other like a jack-knife, and dumped him into the barrel.
The other limped wrathfully past Chuck, and toward a horse tied at the corner of the corral.
“Howdy, Wick,” greeted Chuck. “How you feeling this fine day?”
Wick Smith turned and spat viciously.
“Fine ----!” he snapped, and went on down to his horse, and rode away.
Chuck walked up and helped the old man out of the barrel.
“What seemed to be ailing Wick?” he asked, dumping the barrel over.
“Ailing?” The old man shook himself like an old dog. “Ailing? Chuck, I don’t blame him--gol dingle dang me if I do! I sent his wife a letter, asking her to cook for me, and stating matrimony as the main consideration.”
The old man shook himself and went into the house. Chuck took a deep breath, and started for the barn.
“I’m going to kill Ricky!” he muttered. “I sure am!”
He saddled his horse and raced all the way to Paradise. Ricky took one look at Chuck’s face, as he came in, and dropped his razor.
“Ricky, you--say, what did you send all them letters for?”
“Letters? Why I never sent but one, Chuck. One to Annie Schmidt.”
“Sure?”
“Hope to die. Here’s the rest.”
Ricky opened his desk, and handed Chuck a bunch of envelopes.
Chuck grunted, and glanced at them before he put them in his pocket.
“What seems to be the matter, Chuck?” asked Ricky, anxiously.
“Darn me if I know, Ricky. I reckon Muley and Telescope must have got too enthusiastic. I’ll keep these letters, Ricky, and I can prove that me and Hen are innocent if it comes to a show-down.”
When Hen came in that afternoon he found Chuck playing solitaire in the bunkhouse. He flopped down and fanned his face with his hat.
“Chuck,” he blurted, “somebody’s playing the joker wild around here!”
“Uh-huh,” grunted Chuck, “mis-deals and frosted decks, too, if anybody asks you. What happened to you?”
“Well,” Hen cleared a place on the table for his feet, “well, I was coming past the Mudgett place a while ago, and Annie Mudgett came out and yelled at me. Showed me a letter, and wanted to know if it was on the square. Letter from our beloved boss.”
“Read it?” asked Chuck.
“Uh-huh.” Hen clapped his hands, and assumed an angelic expression.
“Dear Miss: You have attracted me for some time, but I have been too bashful to set up with you. I reckon I can make you happy and feed you thrice a day. I don’t want nobody to _sabe_ the state of my feelings, so I’m offering you seventy-five a month to cook for me. Yours very affectionately and truly ----”
“My ----!” yelped Chuck. “Jay Bird Whittaker, Pasha of Paradise!”
“At seventy-five dollars per month for each inmate,” nodded Hen seriously. “Let’s go and kill Ricky.”
“Muley or Telescope,” corrected Chuck, and then he told about his visit to Ricky.
Hen listened and shook his head, and just then the old man came down and leaned disconsolately against the door.
“Why don’t you cheer up?” asked Chuck.
“With the asylum staring me in the face?” wailed the old man.
“Asylums ain’t so awful bad,” consoled Hen. “You won’t have to cook. Where do you figure you’re headed towards, Warm Springs?”
“Got three cooks!” he wailed, counting on his finger. “T-h-r-e-e!”
“Three cooks is a crowd in a kitchen,” agreed Chuck, wiggling his ears. “Who is the third one?”
“Widder Saunders! Gol A’mighty! Said she was of the same mind as me.”
“Nothing like harmony,” nodded Hen, and the old man went back to the house, cursing like a muleskinner.
Telescope and Muley failed to show up that night, and the old man occupied their bunk.
“Can’t sleep up at the house,” he stated, sadly. “It can’t be did. Them females are occupying all the beds, and you never can tell when they’ll start a war. They ain’t speaking--they ain’t, and they sure look at me like a hungry coyote sizing up a sick calf. Dang it all, I--I ain’t so much afraid of an asylum as I was. Maybe, if I don’t get too crazy, I’ll sell out my cows and go in for sheep.”
* * * * *
The next morning, before the occupants of the bunkhouse were awake, somebody knocked loudly on the door, and Chuck yelled sleepily--
“Come in!”
The door opened, and there stood Abe Mudgett.
Be it known that Abe Mudgett was born with a cross-grained disposition, and acquired more ability than judgment with a gun. He leaned against the doorway and considered the sleepy face of J. B. Whittaker, protruding from under a blanket.
“Whittaker, you wrote a letter to my sister.”
His remark was more of a statement than a question. The old man blinked rapidly a few times and moistened his lips. He tried to speak, and nodded weakly.
“You’re on the square in this are you?” asked Abe, and the old man clucked deep in his dry throat.
“She’s up at the house,” stated Abe. “I just wanted to know if you was on the square. Shake hands with your prospective brother-in-law. Annie will make you a good wife.”
The old man got up, wobbled across the room and shook hands with Abe. He tried to put his feet through the sleeves of his coat, but they wouldn’t go, so he sat down on the bunk and put on his hat. Abe rolled a cigaret and slapped the old man on the back.
“Me and you are going to shake up this here place, brother-in-law,” he declared. “You been running things slack lately. See you later.”
The old man threw his hat over into the corner and picked up his belt and gun. He ran his fingers over the filled loops of the belt and then:
“----!” It was more of a prayer than profanity. “I wish I hadn’t traded off that .38. A .44 hops too much for a feller what ain’t got a strong grip.”
He slipped on a pair of pants and boots, and walked outside. He stopped on the step, seemed to look down the road, and then stumbled back inside.
“Look!” he whistled weakly. “Coming!”
Henry and Chuck stepped outside and glanced down the road. Coming up to the bunkhouse is old Runs-With-A-Wolf, a Piegan warrior, and a gaily-dressed squaw. The squaw was resplendent in a yellow and vermilion blanket, and her hair was greased until it shone in the rising sun. They stopped at the door, and the old buck grinned from ear to ear, as old Whittaker peeked around the corner of the doorway.