Part 9

The winter arrived in the wake of a norther. It blustered for a fortnight, then set in to be bitterly cold. Bowallopus fared well, and grew ever more malignant and furtive. One rib was cracked owing to misjudgment of distance, but accidents are likely to occur to the best of hunters. In diving from a tree for the back of a colt, he missed and came down close to the mare. In a flash he gathered himself and leaped again, but the mother’s heels crashed full on his side and she went away at full speed, her son running a good second. On another occasion a young bull caught him with a headlong rush, unprepared on his kill, and would have made short work with so excellent a start, had not Bowallopus sought safety in the fleetness of his legs. He was a sapient animal and knew when he had enough.

Spring came at last, and Bowallopus had a fight. It was a family affair--his wife was not wholly blameless--and it is better for all concerned to say only that he came off the victor. A young puma had wandered into his ridges from the south and west, and he never went back. When a mountain lion does fight, it is worth going many miles to see.

Some years it will rain so hard in this part of the cow country that the nesters can but sit and watch their puny efforts at raising corn seep away; but the cattle rejoice exceedingly. It must be admitted, however, that this happens extremely seldom. Generally the land bakes under cloudless skies from February to June and the earth opens in cracks, as though gasping for breath.

Brother Schoonover broke his ground and planned to raise a bumper crop of corn, the signs being propitious. He made two trips to town, three days each way by wagon, in order to make all ready. Bowallopus used often to see him toiling long after sunset; the puma spent many hours of the dark in sinister vigil beyond the fence, where he could see the light burning steadily in the dugout. Again he would prowl completely around the claim, keeping always off the wire, for that solitary strand was associated with man. Once he topped the hill back of the home in late afternoon, though it was seldom he went abroad in daylight, and hid behind a boulder. The Schoonover baby was crawling near the door, on hands and knees. Bowallopus never once removed his gaze from him in a full hour.

His own domestic affairs had progressed of late. Three sons had been born to his wife, who hid them on a day when she detected a certain glint in her lord’s eyes. Bowallopus discovered their hiding-place and slew the cubs and ate them.

Rain should have fallen in June, but it did not. July passed, and the country quivered under a white ball that was the sun. The cattle gave up the hopeless fight. In the valley the air reeked of carcasses. Brother Schoonover finished a weary day in his waste fields in August, and said to his wife:

“Well, Sally Jo, I reckon we’ll be moving agin.”

“No, no; don’t say so. Have we really got to go, Jed? We’re always moving. This is a right cruel country, ain’t it, Jed? Nowhere for a person to get along nice and quiet.”

He made no reply, but picked his son from the floor and set him on his knee. Then he stared out over his bare acres and began to laugh.

“Don’t,” she entreated. “That’s awful. It ain’t so bad as that, Jed.”

“We’ve done nothing but move for six years, Sally Jo. Or I reckon it’s nearer eight, counting them over in the Nations? And I made certain this place would do and we’d have a home.”

“Jed,” she said, putting a hand awkwardly on his shoulder. “Can’t we stay? Ain’t there no way? Perhaps you could get a job somewhere--with the Anvil boys. Oh, anything, so’s we don’t have to move again. It’ll be so soon now. I’ll never live through it, I know.”

He eyed her anxiously, dandling the baby the while.

“That’s one of the reasons,” he said. “You ought to be near where a doctor can be got handy, Sally Jo. No, we’ll have to give this up. I’ll take you back to my folks for the winter. We ought for to be there anyway. The ol’ man, he’s getting feeble, and first thing we know, he’ll be leaving that farm to Sam instead of me, Sally Jo. Cheer up, girl; we’ll find another place.”

“All right,” she returned hopelessly.

Two nights later they made camp among giant pines in the valley. The mare grazed near, hobbled to prevent her straying. Brother Schoonover lighted the fire and his wife cooked supper of bacon and bread and coffee. That must suffice until they reached town--and afterwards, more of the same diet, for the family treasury was down to eleven dollars.

They washed the pots and tin plates, and put the baby to bed in the wagon. Then the couple knelt down and Brother Schoonover offered up a prayer. He always prayed to his Maker in a loud voice before retiring, invoking benedictions on the entire world and all the dwellers thereon. Only two exceptions did he ever make and he made those religiously--nothing could induce him to intercede for reigning monarchs, and he made special mention of the Republican party only that they might be excluded from the general benefits to accrue.

When they were rising to their feet, Sally Jo clutched her husband’s arm.

“What’s that, Jed? There--back of them mesquite.”

“I cain’t see nothing. Where?”

“Don’t you see? Look along my finger. There, it’s moving again. It looks like a dog, Jed.”

Her husband saw now and sucked in his breath. Off to the right a tawny shape flitted from blotch of shadow to screening bush, blending with the blurred outline of tree and rock.

“Hush,” he cautioned, tiptoeing to the wagon.

The reliable smooth-bore lay on the seat. Brother Schoonover slipped the shell out without a sound and put in another loaded with buckshot. That done, he lay down under the wagon and pretended to be asleep, but the gun protruded through the spokes of a wheel and the Brother occasionally sighted along the barrel. It was dark, but there was a pale glow from the stars, which would suffice for the work in hand.

“When he gits in line with that pine tree,” he murmured.

A mountain lion was circling the camp. He had stumbled upon the nester’s outfit by chance and had no business there, but curiosity beat down doubts and caution. He had glimpsed the baby near the fire and had cringed to earth momentarily. Now, he was the more eager. The sight of the couple on their knees and the man’s harsh tones drove him back a few yards, and he had inadvertently moved from shadow while one might count three; but now all was quiet. He lay in the gloom surveying the camp. The mare cropped the grass noisily on the far side and the puma determined to take a closer look over there.

He emerged so eerily from nowhere that Brother Schoonover almost doubted his senses when he saw a head and neck between the sights in line with the tree. There was a flash and a terrific roar. Brother Schoonover was knocked backward by the kick of the gun, and his wife cried out. The baby awoke and squalled in affright.

The puma made a convulsive leap high into the air, hitting out blindly with his mighty paws. He came down with claws tearing into the earth, and whirled about and crouched to meet the unseen enemy. Mrs. Schoonover cowered in the wagon, covering the baby’s head with her apron that he might not hear the uproar.

“I got you, hey?” Brother Schoonover shouted, furiously elated. “Well, here’s another of the same kind.”

He held the gun firmly against his shoulder and sent a charge straight between the eyes glaring at him like two living coals. The puma lurched forward and stretched out. He coughed once, his muscles jerking; then stiffened.

In the morning, a mountain lion lay on the edge of camp, his hide riddled with shot. Still, he was very handsome. He measured eight feet ten inches from the tip of his nose to tip of tail, and his weight could not have been less than two hundred and forty pounds.

While his mother prepared breakfast and his father watered and harnessed the mare, the Schoonover baby inspected the creature. He pulled its ears and kicked it with fine deliberation on the point of the nose.

“Do you aim to leave it here, Brother Schoonover?” his wife asked, when they were ready to set forward.

“Shore. The hide ain’t no good at this season. And he’s shot all to bits. Do you know, Sally Jo, I got a idea this is the same ol’ mountain line what found our son? It’s like he’s the same one that eat the pore li’l’ Mexican, too, don’t you reckon? Ol’ Bowallopus?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me none,” she answered, and shuddered. Her husband spurned the carcass with his boot.

They got under way. High up in the sky appeared two black specks. Brother Schoonover pointed to them.

“They’ll rip him to pieces in no time. But we’ll keep the claws and whiskers and the end of his tail for the baby to play with. Hey, Sally Jo?”

The specks grew larger. Soon they showed as birds, hovering on effortless wings above the camping ground. Brother Schoonover whacked the mare in high glee, and they set out again on their pilgrimage.

Before they had gone half a mile, the buzzards shot from the blue vault to earth.

VIII THE MANKILLER

All this happened in the Bad Year, which was not so many months ago. The outfit issued daily from their camps--riding bog, skinning cattle and driving in the helpless to the home pastures to be fed on oil-cake and alfalfa. The cows were walking skeletons, wild of eye, ready to wheel in impotent anger on their rescuers; or sinking weakly to the ground at the least urging, never to rise again. Every creek was dry. Springs that were held eternal became slimy mudholes and a trap. A well-grown man could easily step across the San Pedro, oozing sluggishly past mauled carcasses.

Wherever one rode he found bones of hapless creatures, or starved cows stretched flat on their sides, waiting for death to end their sufferings. And the flies settled in sickening, heaving clusters. Each mire held its victim. Wobbly-legged calves wandered over the range, crying for mothers that could never come. And the sun blazed down out of a pale sky.

Even the saving mesquite in the draws and on the ridges was failing as sustenance; of grass there was none. The country lay bleak and gasping from Tombstone to the border. Not even a desert cow, accustomed to slake her water hunger by chewing cactus, could have long survived such blighting months. How we prayed for rain!

Manuel Salazar gave heed to the comet where he lay on his tarp, and crossed himself to avert the death-curse which was come upon the land. This weird luminary portended dire events and Manuel began, like a prudent man, to take thought of his religion. There might be nothing in religion, as Chico contended; but a man never knows, and it is the part of wisdom to be on the safe side.

Then, one evening, when the mountains were taking on their blue sheen and the beauty of these vast stretches smote one with a feeling akin to pain, Archie Smith rode up to headquarters and tossed a human hand on the porch.

“Found it in the far corner of the Zacaton Bottom,” he said.

Jim Floyd recognized it at once by the triangular scar on the palm. The hand had been gnawed off cleanly at the wrist. Floyd wrapped the gruesome thing in a sack, wishful to give it decent interment when opportunity should offer.

“It’s ol’ man Greer’s,” he said. “You remember ol’ man Greer? He used to dig postholes for the Lazy L. Where’s the rest of him, Smith?”

“I aim to go and see. Ki-yotes eat him up, don’t you reckon, Jim?”

“It sure looks that way. Pore ol’ Greer--he could dig postholes right quick,” the boss answered.

What Archie found of the digger of postholes established nothing of the manner of death. Both arms were gone and wolves had dragged the body; hence, there was no real argument against the theory that old man Greer, who indulged a taste for _tequila_, had sustained a fall from his horse and had perished miserably within sight of the ranch. Yet Archie found this hard to believe. Wolves do not crush in the skull of a man, and it was the cowboy’s conviction that anyone could fall off Hardtimes, the digger’s mount, twice or thrice a day with no other injury than the blow to his pride.

Two days later Manuel Salazar brought in Greer’s horse, shockingly gaunt and worried, and swelled as to the head. But what interested the outfit, when the saddle and bridle had been removed from Hardtimes, were long, parallel wales along neck and flank. Archie pronounced them to be the marks of a horse’s teeth.

“That don’t show anything. He wandered off and got into a fight with another horse,” Floyd asserted. “Yes, sir; it’s like that he done just that.”

After which he dismissed the unfortunate Greer from his mind. The outfit shook its head and expressed sorrow for the lonely digger, but opined that his fate surely went to show how injurious steady application to _tequila_ could be, more especially in cruel weather. The Mexicans, and the nesters in outlying parts, were not satisfied with the explanation put forward. They discussed the mystery during protracted pauses in work and in the dark of the night. When two men met on a trail and halted to pass the time of day, old man Greer was the subject of talk. There were rumors of a snug fortune the digger had amassed and buried--sixty-six thousand dollars in gold, it was. Joe Toole, who made a nice, comfortable living by systematic theft of calves from the cattle company, did not hesitate to hint that Greer had died a victim to its professional gun-fighter for reasons best known to the rich corporation; but, then, Joe was prejudiced. Soon the death grew to a murder, and no man not of white blood would ride the Zacaton Bottom after nightfall.

Tommy Floyd talked of these and other matters to his father as the boss was feeding Apache.

“Pshaw!” Floyd said contemptuously. “Don’t you put no stock in them stories, Tommy, boy. Some people in this here country can smell a skunk when they sight a dead tree.”

“But what do you guess killed him, Dad?”

“I don’t know, son. I sure wish I did,” was the troubled reply.

He punched Apache in the ribs to make him move over. The huge jack laid back his ears and his tail whisked threateningly, but he gave place with an awkward flop, and Floyd laughed. Others might fear Apache, but he knew there was not the least particle of viciousness lurking in that hammerlike head. Of all the ranch possessions--blooded horses, thoroughbred Herefords and cowponies--he liked the jack best. It pandered to his vanity that others should avoid the monster, or approach him in diffidence, with suspicion and anxiety; and, in truth, Apache’s appearance was sufficiently appalling. Great as was his blue-gray bulk, it was dwarfed by the ponderous head; his knees were large and bulbous, and when he opened his mouth to bray, laying bare the powerful teeth, Apache was a spectacle to scare the intrepid. Horses would run at sight of him; an entire pasture would squeal with fear and flee on his approach. Yet there was not a gentler animal to handle in the million acres of the company’s range.

Toward the fag-end of a day Tommy was eating _panocha_ on the steps of the porch, a favorite diversion with him. While removing some particles thereof from his cheek, in the region of his ear, he espied his father riding homeward from the Zacaton Bottom. Something in the way the boss swayed in the saddle brought Tommy’s head up alertly. Floyd was clinging to the horn and the reins trailed on the ground. The boy threw his crust away and ran to meet him. A dozen yards from the house the horse stopped, as though he knew that the end of the journey had come for his master.

“That black devil, Tommy!” his father gasped, and lurched outward and to the ground.

Two of the boys came running and bore Floyd to his bed. That he had contrived to ride home filled them with wonder at his endurance and fortitude--nearly the whole of his right side was torn away, one arm swung limply, and there were ragged cuts on the head. Tommy hovered near, crying to him to open his eyes.

The boss never regained consciousness, and died at midnight.

A Mexican doctor was summoned from a border village--his American competitor was off in the Dragoons, assisting at an increase to the population. After a minute examination the man of medicine announced that five ribs were broken. It was his opinion that Señor Floyd had met with an accident, from the effects of which he had passed away. Nobody was inclined to dispute this finding.

“Something done tromped him,” Dan Harkey asserted. “It’s like one of them bulls got into the Bottom and went for him when he got down to drink.”

“No,” said Archie positively; “a bull couldn’t have tore him up that way. It looks to me like teeth done that.”

Then Tommy awoke from the benumbed state in which he had moved since the tragedy and repeated his father’s dying words. They were very simple of interpretation. A black man had drifted into the country from eastern Texas, and lived, an outcast, on a place not fifteen miles from headquarters. It was well known that Floyd had had trouble with him, being possessed of an aggressive contempt for negroes, and twice had made threats to run the newcomer off.

“A nigrah could easy have beat him up thataway,” Dan declared. “A nigrah could do most anything. Yes, sir; he beat him to death--that’s what he done. It’s like he used that old hoe of his’n.”

Word of the killing flew over the land in the marvelous fashion news is carried in the cow-country. Within twelve hours men knew of it in the most remote cañons of the Huachucas, and a party of nine set forth from headquarters. But somebody had carried warning, for the lonely hut was untenanted and the door swung loose on its rawhide hinges.

They buried Floyd on top of a hill where the wind had a free sweep, and piled a few stones atop. Tommy fashioned a cross out of two rough boards; and the boss sleeps there to-day. The sheriff was deeply stirred and had notices posted throughout the territory.

$250 REWARD

For the arrest, dead or alive, of the man who brutally murdered James Floyd, boss of the Tumbling K, sixteen miles from here, some time yesterday evening. This man is supposed to be a negro; about forty years of age; black; about six feet in height and weighing close to two hundred pounds. Has a razor scar above the left ear.

He has in his possession a .35 caliber autoloading rifle, No. 5096, and a .32-30 pistol. He may be riding a sorrel horse with a roached mane, branded 93 on left hip.

This crime is one of the most dastardly in the criminal annals of the Territory, and I earnestly urge every officer and other person receiving this circular to do everything in his power to effect the capture of this human fiend.

The above reward is only a preliminary reward, which may be increased later to one thousand dollars, when the governor, with whom the matter will be taken up, is heard from.

Wire me if any suspect is arrested, or if any information is obtained whatever concerning this negro, at my expense.

Two months passed, and nothing was heard or seen of the black man. The rains held off. North and east the ranges were deluged. A blight appeared to have fallen upon the Tumbling K. The land grew a shade grayer, the dust spurts whirled in gleeful, savage dance, and the cattle gave up the effort of living and lay down to die. All that the boys could do was to distribute salt and feed and work frantically to maintain the water supply. The emaciated brutes would eat of the oil-cake and hay, and sweat profusely on the nose, then stiffen out and expire with a sigh. Those that clung to life carried swollen under-jaws from the strain of tearing at the short grass.

“Poor bastard!” Archie grunted, tailing up a cow he had already helped to her feet three times. “It fair makes a man sick at the stummick to see ’em. Here, you doggone ol’ she-devil! Why don’t you try for to help yourself? Up you come! That’s it; try to hook me.”

It was no use. He shot her where she lay, and skinned her. Then, with the wet hide dragging at the end of a rope and her calf thrown over the fork of the saddle, he set out for headquarters. The orphan was a lusty youngster, and Archie made him many promises, accompanied by many strange oaths.

“Li’l’ dogy,” he said, “I’ll find a mammy for you to-night if I have to tie up the old milch cow. Do you think you can suck a milch cow, dogy? Sure you can. Man alive, feel of him kick! He’s a stout rascal. You’ll be a fine steer some day, dogy.”

On a black-dark night flames leaped above the rim of the mountain, and the Tumbling K were roused from bed to go forth with wet sacks, and rage in their hearts, for the scum of humanity who would fire a range. Twenty-six hours in the saddle and six more fighting the leaping, treacherous enemy; then two hours of sweating sleep on saddle-blankets beside their hobbled horses, and back a score of miles on desperate trails for fresh mounts--three separate times they beat out the blaze with sacks and back-firing. Once more, rising heavy-lidded and dripping from the stupor of utter exhaustion, they saw it licking hungrily through the Gap. No unlucky cigarette-stub thrown amid parched grass, no abandoned campfire, had done this. It was the deliberate work of an enemy.

Orders came to move the cattle down into the valley, lest they perish to the last horn, to the last torn hoof.

“It’ll take you three days to move ’em ten miles,” the manager said; “but never mind. Ease ’em. Ease ’em careful. The man who yells at a cow, or pushes her along, gets his time right there. The only real way to handle cattle is to let ’em do what they want and work ’em as you can. Think that over, boys.”

Manuel Salazar remembered this warning as he moved his tired horse at a snail’s pace behind a bunch of sick ones in the Zacaton Bottom. Manuel made twenty dollars a month with consummate ease, working only seven days in the week and only thirteen hours a day; and he would not throw his job away lightly. Therefore he permitted the gaunt cows to straggle as pleased them, humming to himself while they nibbled at tufts here and there. If one turned its head to look at him it fell from sheer weakness; therefore he held aloof. So the sad procession crept along.

It was in Manuel’s mind to save a mile by moving the bunch through the horse pasture. He put them through the gate with no trouble and was dreamily planning how he might steal back a hair rope Chico had stolen from him, when the quirt slipped out of his fingers. The vaquero got down to pick it from the ground.

“Hi! Hi!” he yelled in panic, and ducked just in time.

A black shape towered above him, striking with forefeet, reaching for the nimble Manuel with its teeth. Its mouth yawned agape; Salazar swore he could have rammed a lard bucket into it. The vaquero swerved from under the deadly hoofs and hit out blindly with the quirt. The stallion screamed his rage for the first time and lunged at him, head swinging low, the lips flicking back from the ferocious teeth. Manuel seized a stone, put to his hand by the blessed saints, and hurled it with precision, striking the horse on the nose. Midnight blared from pain and shook his royal mane in fury, but the shock stayed him and Salazar gained his horse.

“Now,” he yelled, pulling his gun and maneuvering his mount that he might be ready to flee, “come on, you! You want to fight? That’s music to me.”

But Midnight did not want to fight. He had employed craft in stealing upon the man, and now he moved off sulkily, the whites of his eyes rolled back, a thin stream of blood trickling from his muzzle. Salazar longed to shoot holes through his shiny black hide, but contented himself with abuse instead. Was not the stallion worth five thousand dollars? Who was he--Manuel, a poor vaquero--to be considered in the same thought with so noble a beast?