The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories by B. M. Bower (little red riding hood ebook TXT) 📖

talking in short, jerky sentences, and looking so ghastly, and yet so cool—as if dying were quite an everyday affair.

"I don't see why yuh ask us to do it," spoke Cal Emmet bluntly. "What we want to do is get yuh to help. The chances is you could be—cured. We—"

"Look here." The fellow raised himself painfully to an elbow, and fell back again. "I've got folks—and they don't know—about this scrape. They're square—and stand at the top—And they don't—it would just about— For God sake, boys! Can't yuh see—how I feel? Nobody knows—about this. The sheriff didn't know—they came up on me in the dusk—and I fought. I wouldn't be taken—And it's my first bad break—because I got in with a bad—lot. They'll know something—happened, when they find—my horse. But they'll think—it's just drowning, if they don't find—me with a bullet or two— Can't yuh see?"

The Happy Family looked away across the coulee, and there were eyes that saw little of the yellow sunlight lying soft on the green hillside beyond. The world was not a good place; it was a grim, pitiless place, and—a man was dying, at their very feet.

"But what about the rest oh the bunch?" croaked Happy Jack, true to his misanthropic nature, but exceeding husky as to voice. "They'll likely tell—"

The dying man shook his head eagerly. "They won't; they're both—dead. One was killed—last night. The other when we first tried—to make a getaway. It—it's up to you, boys."

Pink swallowed twice, and knelt beside him; the others remained standing, grouped like mourners around an open grave.

"Yuh needn't worry about us," Pink said softly, "You can count on us, old boy. If you're dead sure a doctor—"

"Drop it!" the other broke in harshly. "I don't want to live. And if I did, I couldn't. I ain't guessing—I know."

They said little, after that. The wounded man seemed apathetically waiting for the end, and not inclined to further speech. Since they had tacitly promised to do as he wished, he lay with eyes half closed, watching idly the clouds drifting across to the skyline, hardly moving.

The Happy Family sat listlessly around on convenient rocks, and watched the clouds also, and the yellow patches of foam racing down the muddy creek. Very quiet they were—so quiet that little, brown birds hopped close, and sang from swaying weeds almost within reach of them. The Happy Family listened dully to the songs, and waited. They did not even think to make a cigarette.

The sun climbed higher and shone hotly down upon them. The dying man blinked at the glare, and Happy Jack took off his hat and tilted it over the face of the other, and asked him if he wouldn't like to be moved into the shade.

"No matter—I'll be in the shade—soon enough," he returned quietly, and something gripped their throats to aching. His voice, they observed, was weaker than it had been.

Weary took a long breath, and moved closer. "I wish you'd let us get help," he said, wistfully. It all seemed so horribly brutal, their sitting around him like that, waiting passively for him to die.

"I know—yuh hate it. But it's—all yuh can do. It's all I want." He took his eyes from the drifting, white clouds, and looked from face to face. "You're the whitest bunch—I'd like to know—who yuh are. Maybe I can put in—a good word for yuh—on the new range—where I'm going. I'd sure like to do—something—"

"Then for the Lord's sake, don't say such things!" cried Pink, shakily. "You'll have us—so damn broke up—"

"All right—I won't. So long,—boys. See yuh later—"

"Mamma!" whispered Weary, and got up hastily and walked away. Slim followed him a few paces, then turned resolutely and went back. It seemed cowardly to leave the rest to bear it—and somebody had to. They were breathing quickly, and they were staring across the coulee with eyes that saw nothing; their lips were shut very tightly together. Weary came back and stood with his back turned. Pink moved a bit, glanced furtively at the long, quiet figure beside him, and dropped his face into his gloved hands.

Glory threw up his head, glanced across the coulee at a band of range horses trooping down a gully to drink at the river, and whinnied shrilly. The Happy Family started and awoke to the stern necessities of life. They stood up, and walked a little way from the spot, avoiding one another's eyes.

"Somebody'll have to go back to camp," said Cal Emmett, in the hushed tone that death ever compels from the living. "We've got to have a spade—"

"It better be the handiest liar, then," Jack Bates put in hastily.
"If that old loose-tongued Patsy ever gets next—"

"Weary better go—and Pink. They're the best liars in the bunch," said Cal, trying unsuccessfully to get back his everyday manner.

Pink and Weary went over and took the dragging bridle-reins of their mounts, caught a stirrup and swung up into the saddles silently.

"And say!" Happy Jack called softly, as they were going down the slope. "Yuh better bring—a blanket."

Weary nodded, and they rode away, their horses stepping softly in the thick grasses. When they were passed quite out of the presence of the dead, they spurred their horses into a gallop.

The sun marked mid-afternoon when they returned, and the four who had waited drew long breaths of relief at sight of them.

"We told Patsy we'd run onto a—den—"

"Oh, shut up, can't yuh?" Jack Bates interrupted shortly. "Yuh'll have plenty uh time to tell us afterwards."

"We've got a place picked out," said Cal, and led them a little distance up the slope, to a level spot in the shadow of a huge, gray bowlder. "That's his headstone," he said, soberly. "The poor devil won't be cheated out uh that, if we can't mark it with his name. It'll last as long as he'll need it."

Only in the West, perhaps, may one find a funeral like that. No minister stood at the head of the grave and read, "Dust to dust" and all the heartbreaking rest of it. There was no singing but from a meadowlark that perched on a nearby rock and rippled his brief song when, with their ropes, they lowered the blanket wrapped form. They stood, with bare heads bowed, while the meadow lark sang. When he had flown, Pink, looking a choir-boy in disguise, repeated softly and incorrectly the Lord's prayer.

The Happy Family did not feel that there was any incongruity in what they did. When Pink, gulping a little over the unfamiliar words, said:

"Thine be power and glory—Amen;" five clear, youthful voices added the Amen quite simply. Then they filled the grave and stood silent a minute before they went down to where their horse stood waiting patiently, with now and then a curious glance up the hill to where their masters grouped.

The Happy Family mounted and without a backward glance rode soberly away; and the trail they took led, not to the picnic, but to camp.

THE REVELER

Happy Jack, coming from Dry Lake where he had been sent for the mail, rode up to the Flying U camp just at dinner time and dismounted gloomily and in silence. His horse looked fagged—which was unusual in Happy's mounts unless there was urgent need of haste or he was out with the rest of the Family and constrained to adopt their pace, which was rapid. Happy, when riding alone, loved best to hump forward over the horn and jog along slowly, half asleep.

"Something's hurting Happy," was Cal Emmett's verdict when he saw the condition of the horse.

"He's got a burden on his mind as big as a haystack," grinned Jack Bates. "Watch the way his jaw hangs down, will yuh? Bet yuh somebody's dead."

"Most likely it's something he thinks is going to happen," said Pink. "Happy always makes me think of a play I seen when I was back home; it starts out with a melancholy cuss coming out and giving a sigh that near lifts him off his feet, and he says: 'In soo-ooth I know not why I am so sa-ad.' That's Happy all over."

The Happy Family giggled and went on with their dinner, for Happy Jack was too close for further comments not intended for his ears. They waited demurely, but in secret mirth, for him to unburden his mind. They knew that they would not have long to wait; Happy, bird of ill omen that he was, enjoyed much the telling of bad news.

"Weary's in town," he announced heavily, coming over and getting himself a plate and cup.

The Happy Family were secretly a bit disappointed; this promised, after all, to be tame.

"Did he bring the horses?" asked Chip, glancing up over the brim of his cup.

"I dunno," Happy responded from the stove, where he was trying how much of everything he could possibly pile upon his plate without spilling anything. "I didn't see no horses—but the one he was ridin'."

Weary had been sent, two weeks ago, to the upper Marias country after three saddle horses that had strayed from the home range, and which had been seen near Shelby. It was quite time for him to return, if he expected to catch the Flying U wagon before it pulled out on the beef roundup. That he should be in town and not ride out with Happy Jack was a bit strange.

"Why don't yuh throw it out uh yuh, yuh big, long-jawed croaker?" demanded Pink in a voice queerly soft and girlish. It had been a real grievance to him that he had not been permitted to go with Weary, who was his particular chum. "What's the matter? Is Weary sick?"

"No," said Happy Jack deliberately, "I guess he ain't what yuh could call sick."

"Why didn't he come out with you, then?" asked Chip, sharply. Happy did get on one's nerves so.

"Well, I ast him t' come—and he took a shot at me for it."

There was an instant's dead silence. Then Jack Bates laughed uneasily.

"Happy, how many horses did yuh ride out to camp?"

Happy Jack had, upon one occasion, looked too long upon the wine—or whisky, to be more explicit. Afterward, he had insisted that he was riding two horses home, instead of one. He was not permitted to forget that defection. The Happy Family had an unpleasant habit of recalling the incident whenever Happy Jack made a statement which they felt disinclined to credit—as this last statement was.

Happy Jack whirled on the speaker. "Aw, shut up! I never kidnaped no girl off'n no train, and—"

Jack Bates colored and got belligerently to his feet. That hit him in an exceedingly tender place.

"Happy, look here," Chip cut in authoritatively. "What's wrong with Weary? If he took a shot at you, it's a cinch he had some reason for it."

Weary was even dearer to the heart of Chip than to Pink.

"Ah—he never! He's takin' shots permisc'us, lemme tell yuh. And he ain't troublin' about no reason fer what he's doin'. He's plumb oary-eyed—that's what. He's on a limb that beats any I ever seen. He's drunk—drunk as a boiled owl, and he don't give a damn. He's lost his hat, and he's swapped cayuses with somebody—a measly old bench—and he's shootin' up the town t' beat hell!"

The Happy Family looked at one another dazedly. Weary drunk? Weary? It was unbelieveable. Such a thing had never been heard of before in the history of the Happy Family. Even Chip, who had known Weary before either had known the Flying U, could not remember anything of the sort. The Happy Family were often hilarious; they had even, on certain occasions, shot up the town; but they had done it as a family and they had done it sober. It was an unwritten law among the Flying U boys, that all riotous conduct should occur when they were together and when the Family could, as a unit, assume the consequences—if consequences there were to be.

"I guess Happy must a rode