Tales from the X-bar Horse Camp: The Blue-Roan «Outlaw» and Other Stories

Meantime Cameron, not daring to leave his place until he knew the girl was safely up the cliff, forced the Navajo to keep to cover by firing an occasional shot in his direction, until, with a sigh of relief, he saw the girl "raise the hill" at his left, and stood up and waved his hat to her. Up to this time she had scarcely known to what cause she owed her deliverance. All she knew was that a shot had been fired, and she heard no more thunder of horse's hoofs behind her, but not being too sure of what it all meant, she never drew rein nor spared her pony until she saw Cameron's figure on the cliff and knew that she was safe.

A few moments later an hysterical, sobbing girl threw herself from her saddle straight into the arms of the man who loved her, and whom, she now knew, she loved.

AN ARIZONA ETUDE

"Las' time I was in Fo't Worth," drawled Peg Leg Russel who was industriously working away, with marlin spike and leather strings, on a new quirt, "I seen a circus band there a-ridin' hosses an' a-playin' at the same time."

"Makin' sure enuff music?" queried one of the boys.

"They sure was," replied Peg Leg; "an' what's more, them ole white hosses they was a-ridin' never batted an eye, but jist tromped along like a bunch of hearse horses.

"I'd sure love to see 'em try any such funny business with these yere little ole diggers we're a-ridin'," he continued, "Lordy, but wouldn't they git up an' rag when the first toot come off."

"If ye'd been wid me in the good old 'gallopin' Sixth Cavalry,' ye'd sure had a chanst to observe jist such a performance," said Pat the cook, who was busy at the mess box with supper preparations.

The mess wagon was backed up into the shade of a great, wide-spreading juniper, and the outfit was waiting there a few days for a bunch of fresh saddle horses from the horse camp. Ten or a dozen punchers were lying about in the shade, some asleep, some overhauling "war bags," sunning bedding, and others like Russel making quirts or hair ropes.

The old red-headed cook's army experiences were the butt of a great many sly jokes among the men, but he always had something new to relate, and the intimation, that he had seen a band mounted on western horses, was enough to excite their curiosity.

"Tell us about it, Pat," said Tex, "them Sixth Cavalry fellers sure rode the outpitchenest lot of bronks I ever see outside of a cow-outfit. I reckin' I'd oughter know, fer I were a workin' fer old man White down in the San Simon Valley clost to Fort Bowie in them days."

Any reference to the old man's former regiment warmed the cockles of the cook's heart, and he needed no urging to start him off on the story.

"We was all a-layin' up at old Fort Tonto," he said rolling out, with an empty beer bottle, what Russel said was the "lid" of a dried apple pie, "the whole regiment being there after two years spent chasin' over them hills and deserts trying to catch those divils of Apaches.

"'Twere the first time in three years we'd seen the band, an' when the General sent word for them bandsmen to come up from Camp Lowell we sure felt mighty pleased, for, barrin' a couple of fiddles an' Danny Hogan's concertina, there wasn't any music worth mentioning in the whole post.

"The old general had been over in Europe the year before an' picked up a lot of cranky idees about soldiering which didn't set well on the old Sixth, them bein' a bunch of rough ridin' hombres, very divils for fightin', but wid mighty little love for drills an' garrison duty.

"Wan day, I was the gineral's orderly, an' a standin' outside the door to his quarters, I could hear him an' the adjutant a-wranglin' about dress parade for next Sunday.

"The old man he was insistin' that them bandsmen could play mounted instead of afoot. 'Why,' ses he, 'didn't I see wid me own eyes in Paris, a army band all mounted an' a-ridin' an' a-playin' like good fellies?'

"'But, gineral,' says the adjutant, 'them there bandsmen of ours, bein' enlisted solely for musicians, not wan of them knows anything about ridin', an' as for ridin' an' a-playin' at the same time, on top of them there horses of ours, sure every wan of them will git thrown off an' hurted.'

"'So much the worse for them,' snorted the gineral, 'let them learn to ride – that's what they've got horses for. This is no bunch of doughboys I'm commandin', 'tis a regiment of cavalry-men, and cavalry-men we'll make of them or kill them a-tryin'.'

"'Sure,' he ses, ses he 'didn't Custer's band use to play mounted, an' why can't my band do the same?'

"The adjutant he tried to argufy wid the old man, tellin' him them there furrin' mounts were jist like a bunch of old dray hosses, an' edicated like trained pigs. But nothin' would suit the gineral but a mounted dress parade for all hands, includin' the band.

"So the adjutant he calls to me an he ses, 'Orderly,' ses he, 'my compliments to Mr. Schwartz, the band leader, an' ask him to report to the office immediately.'

"Now Schwartz, he was a little old fat Dutchman, about five feet six, an' weighin' over two hundred pounds. When I gave him me message he ses, ses he,

"'What's up,' ses he.

"'Mounted dress parade for the band,' ses I.

"'Mein Gott, me for sick report,' ses he.

"'Mr. Schwartz,' ses the adjutant when he waddles up to the office, ''tis the orders of the commanding officer that the band attend dress parade next Sunday afternoon, mounted an' wid their instruments ready to play.'

"Schwartz he gasps an' tried hard to say a word, but the adjutant he ses, ses he: 'Git your men out an' drill them every day till they can handle their hosses an' instruments at the same time. An' mind ye,' ses he, 'them there band instruments costs money, an' we want none of thim unnecsarily injured.'

"Schwartz he mumbled somethin' as he went out about them bein' a sight more anxious over not injurin' the instruments than they were the men, men bein' a matter for the recruitin' service, while instruments must be paid for out of the regimental funds.

"For the next four or five days the bandsmen was mighty busy a-drillin' their hosses an' a-gettin' them usened to the sound of the instruments by standin' on the ground in front of them an' a-playin.'

"Comes Saturday, the word goes about the post, that the band would make the first try at playin' on the backs of their hosses that afternoon.

"When they led their steeds out of the corral an' formed on the cavalry prade ground, every soul in the post, officers, sogers, apache injins, dog robbers an' laundresses was there to see the doin's.

"They led them bronks out an' played one chune, a-standin' at their heads, an' barrin' a few of them what pulled back an' got loose from the men, they stood the racket all right.

"Then the drum major, a-ridin' a white hoss, trots out to the front of them, waves his baton, an' gives the command, 'Prepare to mount.'

"Ivery man, accordin' to the latest tactics, grabs a handful of mane, in his left hand, an' his reins an' the saddle pommel wid his right, his instruments a-hangin' to his anatemy by straps or slings.

"When they gits the word 'mount,' they all swings up into their saddles somehow, some of them fat old musicians clamberin' up more like loadin' a sack of bran than anything else in all the world.

"The chap what played the bass drum, he bowed up when it come to tryin' to use his big drum, an' so they compromised on a pair of kittle drums, wan strapped to each side of the saddle horn.

"Them kittle drums looked for all the world like a pair of twenty-gallon water kaigs on a pack saddle.

"The horse, he eyed the load on his back sort of suspicious-like, an' lets the drummer git settled down into his saddle wid a drumstick in each wan of his two hands, but keepin' his ears a-workin' like a couple of wig-wag signal flags.

"Finally, when every wan was safely on top, an' the horses standin' fairly quiet, the drum major he waves his stick, an' wid a sweep of his arms, gives the signal to play.

"An' right there the fun began. The first rap the drummer give wid his drumsticks was too much for his horse, an' wid wan wild look at them two great soup kittles a-hangin' onto his back, an' wid the roar of them in his ears, he jist hung his head down, an' began some of the scientifickest buckin' an' pitchin' you ever seen.

"Bustin' through the band, wid them two kittles a-wavin' an' a-thumpin' on his back, the drummer's horse had little trouble in incitin' several more of them to the same line of conduct, an' in about two minutes half the horses in the outfit were a-buckin' an' a-cavortin' around like very divils.

"The kittle drummer an' the Swiss gent, what played the tubey – an' him a-settin' there in the middle of them great silvery coils like some prehistoric monster – they went through that bunch of wild-eyed Dutch musicians, like two shooting stars.

"The drummer tried hard to stay on top of his load, but what wid them two great copper tubs a-knockin' an' a-thumpin' away on his horse's withers, a-barkin' his shins an' knees wid every jump, an' a-floppin' like two big buzzards' wings, 'twas no disgrace that he couldn't stay there, him bein' no bronco buster, but jist a Dutch bandsman.

"He went up into the air wid them two drumsticks, wan in each hand, describin' a lovely circle, an' a comin' down head first in the soft dirt, while the hoss wid them two drums, beatin' a very divil's tattoo on his ribs, tored off down the road an' out of sight.

"As for the tubey player, he tried hard to stay in the middle of his bucker. But, bein' handicapped as it were, wid some thirty odd feet of German silver tubin' wrapped about his anatemy, an' it a-bumpin' an' a-bangin' agin his head every time the hoss struck the sod, he made hard work of it.

"After makin' some desperate efforts to find somethin' solid to hold onto, an' a-clawin' all the leather offen his saddle pommel in the effort, the wind jammer gives it up for a bad job, turned all holds loose, an' went up into the air like a musical sky rocket. The saddler sergint of G-troop sed he was a Dutch meteor.

"Ony how, he went up, an', encircled wid them great silvery pipes, made a fine landin' in the soft dirt, drivin' the bell of his tubey deep into it.

"The next minute his hoss was a-folerin' the kittle drums like Tam O'Shanter's ghost.

"Then there was a tall hungry Irishman – though what a dacent Irisher was a-doin' in that bunch of Dutchies I dunno – but there he was. He played a clarinet about a yard long, an' when his hoss decided 'twas time for him to do a little stunt of his own, in the buckin' line, he made a wild grab for his reins. But 'twas no good. Ivery time he comes down, he jabbed the sharp pint of that clarinet mouthpiece into the horse's withers, which didn't help matters a little bit.

"He was a-doin' some elegant reachin' for something to hold onto, but some way he couldn't connect wid anything at all. Wan jump an' he lost his cap, the next he landed behind the saddle, which gives his horse an opporchunity for lettin' out a few extry holes in his performance. Back into the saddle he goes, but not findin' conditions there to his likin', he continued on wid a forward movement finally landin' in front of the saddle, then a little furder forward, workin' out on the horse's neck like some sailor lad a-climbin' out on the bowsprit of a ship.

"Finally, the hoss took time enough to lift his nose from scrapin' the ground bechune his two front feet, an' have a look about him; in doin' which he turned the clarinet player end for end like a tumbler in a circus. Down he comes, wid his precious clarinet grabbed in his hand like a black-thorn shillalah, and when he lit, he bored a place in the dirt deep enough for a post hole.

"Over on the porch of the adjutant's office, a-takin' it all in, was the old gineral wid a bunch of ladies. When the last of the twenty or more riderless bronks disappeared over the brow of the hill down the road toward the creek, the old man turned to his orderly standin' near by an' ses, ses he, 'Orderly, prisint me compliments to the adjutant an' tell him that the band's excused from attindin' dress parade mounted till furder orders.'"

STUTTERIN' ANDY

"Oyez, oyez, o-y-e-z, the Honorable Court of the Third Judicial District of the State of New Mexico is now in session," cried the one-armed bailiff, and the district court in Alamo came to order for the afternoon session.

The judge settled back in his easy chair; the twelve jurymen at his left idly watched the crowd pour into the little courtroom. By the time the prisoner had been escorted in by the sheriff, every inch of space was occupied by eager spectators, both men and women; for the case of Andy Morrow, locally known as "Stutterin' Andy," charged by the grand jury with stealing one red yearling branded X V from Joseph Barker, had attracted the attention of the entire community.

During the morning session, the prosecution had given their side of the case. Old man Barker and a detective from Denver had each testified to finding the hide of a yearling bearing Barker's well-known brand, buried beneath a pile of brush on Morrow's "dry farm" claim.

The resurrected hide was also placed before the jury, the X V on the left ribs being plainly visible and when court adjourned for the noon recess, Barker was jubilant.

"We'll git him, we'll git him," he said to his foreman as they tramped down the narrow staircase leading from the courtroom. "I'll make a shinin' example of Mister Stutterin' Andy, what'll put the fear o' God into a lot of them cow thieves, an' last this here community for some time."

"I reckin' so," replied the foreman who felt that the reputation of the X V outfit was at stake. After lunch, court having been duly opened, the young lawyer, who owing to Morrow's poverty, had been appointed by the court to defend him, addressed the jury with a short statement of the case.

The poverty of the prisoner, his struggles to make a home, the iniquitous "fence law" which forced the little farmer to fence his crops against the wandering herds of the cattlemen, the wealth and standing of Barker, the complaining witness, and his use of a hired detective to hunt up evidence, was all pictured to the jury in his strongest language.

"Say, Barker," whispered a man at his side, nudging him with the point of his elbow, "don't you feel sort of ornery like, to be made out such a consarned old renegade?"

"Don't you be a-feelin' sorry for me," he snapped back, "them what laughs last laughs best, an' I reckon' we got a big ole laugh a-comin' when this here performance is concluded."

"I swear," muttered a man in the audience to his neighbor, "ef that there lawyer chap hopes to make anything out of Andy's testimony that will help him, I miss my guess. Why the pore devil stutters so that nobody kin git a word outa him scarcely, when there's nothin' excitin' goin' on, let alone with all these here people a-settin' there a-listenin'. I'm a-bettin' he won't be able to tell his own name to say nothin' about explainin' how he didn't kill that there yearlin'."

But the attorney knew his business and Morrow remained quietly in his seat beside the sheriff. Having finished his preliminary statement, the young lawyer whispered to the bailiff, who walked across to a small jury room opening off the main courtroom, and opened a door.

A low-spoken word, and there stepped from the room a woman – the wife of the prisoner.

She was tall, slim and about twenty-five years of age. From the corner of her mouth protruded the "dip-stick," that ever present solace of the sex among her class, and without which she probably never could have faced the crowd.

A faded blue calico dress over which she wore a small shawl, and on her head a bedraggled hat with a few tousled roses stuck on one side, made up a costume which only accentuated her drawn face and sorrowful eyes.

After a few moments of whispered conversation with the lawyer, she took the witness chair.

At first her answers to his questions as to her name, age, etc., were given in a low, scarcely audible voice, and the room was so still it was fairly oppressive.

"You understand, do you," he asked her, "that your husband is charged with killing a yearling belonging to Mr. Barker?"

"I shore do," was the reply.

"Will you, please, tell the jury in your own words, just what you know about this matter," the lawyer said.

"Mought I tell it jist as I want to, jist as I done tole it to you down to the hotel?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied very kindly, "tell the jury your story just as you told it to me."

She carefully removed the "dip stick" from her mouth, placing it in a little wooden box which she carried in a battered leather hand bag. Then, turning to the jury, she began her story in a clear firm voice, as if she realized that upon her testimony hung the fate of her husband.

"I want to tell you-all men, the truth about this here thing," she said looking into their faces with unflinching eye, "jist how it happened, an' don't mean to hide narry part of it from nobody.

"Andy an' me's been married now nigh onto six year. We moved into this country about a year ago, comin' from Arkin-saw in a wagon. We had two chillen, a boy an' a gal.

"When we gits here, Andy located down there on the claim an' tried dry farmin'; 'kaffir korners' I reckin' some of them calls us. It tuck mighty nigh every cent we had to git the seed an' some farmin' tools, an' after the crap were in, Andy he gits work in a sawmill up into the mountings, leavin' me an' the kids to make the crap.

"Andy he done built a little loghouse an' a corral, an' puts a brush fence around the land we broke up to keep the critters out, we not havin' any money fer to buy barbed wire fer the fence.

"We had a heap o' trouble with the range stock all summer an' it kep' me a-steppin' pretty lively to keep 'em out, but I managed to fight 'em off, an' we done pretty well that year.

"Andy worked all winter in the sawmill and jist about spring the man closed down, an' tole the boys a-workin' fer him that he couldn't pay 'em anything he was a-owin' 'em. Most of 'em he owed a right smart to, because he kep' a-promisin' he'd pay every month, an' when he done busted up he owed my man 'bout two hundred dollars.

"So Andy he come home to put in the crap, an' we both worked powerful hard to git it in, an' as we owed the store up thar so much, we couldn't git anything more on our account.

"So, 'bout all we had to eat was taters what we raised the year before. Then the little gal took sick, an' we nussed her fer a time till she got powerful weak, an' then Andy he goes to town fer a doctor, tellin' him we ain't got no money to pay him, but fer God's sake to come an' see her.

"'Twas twenty-five miles fer the doctor to ride, but he come along with Andy all right, an' when he sees the little gal he ses, 'Scarlet fever, an' a bad case too.'

"The doctor done give her some medicine he brung with him, an' said she'd orter be carried to town where he could see her, kase he couldn't come out that way very often, even if we done paid him fer it.

"So me an' Andy hooked up the hosses an' brung her in here, an' bein' as it was what the doc calls a contagious disease, we couldn't git no house to live in; so we had to camp down below town in the creek bottom under a big cottonwood. 'Twere powerful hard to take keer of the little gal there, an' Andy had hard work gittin' grub an' medicine, an' 'cept fer Frank Walton, the man what keeps the 'Bucket of Blood' saloon, we'd never a-pulled her through.

"Frank he sends down a lot of stuff fer us an' tells Andy to git all the medicine he needed at the drug store an' he'd pay fer it hisself.

"Bimeby, the little gal gits better, an' Andy he bein' anxious to git back an' look after the crap, we packs our traps an' goes back to the ranch.

"The doc he ses the little gal's all rite if we git her plenty good strengthnin' stuff, an' Frank he gits us considerable to take home.

"When we left the place we done turned the ole milk cow out on the range till we comes back. Andy he rode three days a-lookin' fer her an' finally meets up with her where she lays daid in a little medder up on the mounting. Andy ses he reckoned she was pizened eatin' wild pasnip. She had a big long-eared calf along with her, but 'twan't nowhere about, an', as the round-up passed that-away a few days afore, Andy he 'lowed they done picked it up fer a dogie an' put ole man Barker's brand on it.

"Andy he couldn't git no work, fer he couldn't leave me alone with the two chillen, an' we tried to save the little handful of grub we brung out fer the gal, an' lived mighty nigh on straight taters an' water. One day, the little boy he come sick too an' Andy he gits on a hoss an' rides to town to see the doctor agin'.

"The doctor he ses he reckined 'twas scarlet fever too, 'cause the simptons was about the same an' he give him some medicine to take out an' sed he'd come out hisself soon as he could, but he had a lot of sick folks to look after, an' didn't like to leave 'em to make the trip, he bein' a lunger hisself, an' not fitten to work very hard.

"Somehow the little feller didn't seem to do very well, an' Andy he goes in after the doctor agin', an' he come out to see him. He looks mighty serous when he gits thar an' he sed: 'I reckin' this little chap's mighty porely; what be ye a-feedin' him?' Andy he busted out a-cryin' an' ses; 'Doc,' ses he, 'we ain't got nothin' but taters an' a little hawg meat what Frank Walton sent out when we brung the little gal back, an' we been a-savin' that fer her, not thinkin' that the boy was gittin' sick too.'

"'Ain't ye got no cow,' ses the doc, an' Andy tole him how she done died while we was all in town before.

"The doc he ses fer Andy to git ready an' come on to town with him that night, an' he'd git him some more grub, an' so 'bout a hour afore sun Andy an' the doc sets off fer town leavin' me with the two chillen."

The courtroom was so still excepting for the low, spiritless voice of the woman, that one could hear the muffled sobs of one or two of the women in the room whose hearts were touched with the sorrowful story she was unfolding.

She stopped for a moment to choke back her own tears, and the attorney, leaning towards her as she faced the jury, said almost in a whisper, "What happened that night?"

"The pore little feller died in my arms jist about a hour before sun up next mornin'," she replied without a quaver in her voice, but with both hands clinched in an agony which could find no tongue in her disheartened, hopeless condition of mind.

"Please continue, if you can," said the lawyer kindly, knowing that in her homely recital of their grief and misfortunes lay the open road to her husband's acquittal.

"Well, that mornin' Andy he come home with the grub, but 'twas too late fer the boy.

"He was shore all broke up over it an' sat all day long without sayin' a word 'ceptin' he guessed the Lord 'sort of had it in fer us pore folks an' only looked after the rich ones like ole man Barker an' his kind.

"'Twas fifteen miles to the nearest neighbors, an' anyhow they was all a-skeered of the fever, they havin' a lot of kids of their own, so me an' Andy we reckoned the best thing we could do was to bury him rite in our field whar we could take keer of his little grave.

"'Bout this time, the range stock began to bother us a-gittin' in the field an' a-damagin' the crap. Andy he sent word to Barker to send some of his men down thar an' carry off the worst ones, but the foreman he said 'twan't none of his business, thar was a fence law in this here state, an' we must fence our land ef we wanted to raise a crap.

"Then the grub what we brung down from town done give out an' the little gal she sort of seemed to be a pinin' away right afore our eyes.

"One evenin' some of the cattle broke into the field agin', an' Andy was a-drivin' 'em out, a yearlin' calf breaks back an' dodged into the little pole corral we done made fer a milk pen.

"Andy he vowed he'd put a 'yoke' onto him, he bein' the wust one of em all for breakin' through the fence; so he puts up the bars intendin' to fix him as soon as we got the rest out.

"Bimeby, we goes to the corral meanin' to fix him with a yoke an' turn him out, but when I seed that there brand of Barker's onto him, an' we ain't nothin' to eat but taters, an' Barker's stock a-ruinin' our crap faster than it could grow; I just got that bitter I didn't much care what did happen.