A Chance Shot

________________________________________________
Title:     A Chance Shot
Author: Henry Wallace Phillips [More Titles by Phillips]

Reddy and I were alone at the Lake beds. He sat outside the cabin, braiding a leather hat-band--eight strands, and the "repeat" figure--an art that I never could master.

I sat inside, with a one-pound package of smoking tobacco beside me, and newspapers within reach, rolling the day's supply of cigarettes.

Reddy stopped his story long enough to say: "Don't use the 'Princess' Slipper,' Kid--that paper burns my tongue--take the 'Granger'; there's plenty of it."

Well, as I was saying, I'd met a lot of the boys up in town this day, and they threw as many as two drinks into me; I know that for certain, because when we took the parting dose, I had a glass of whisky in both my right hands, and had just twice as many friends as when I started.

When I pulled out for home, I felt mighty good for myself--not exactly looking for trouble, but not a-going to dodge it any, either. I was warbling "Idaho" for all I was worth--you know how pretty I can sing? Cock-eyed Peterson used to say it made him forget all his troubles. "Because," says he, "you don't notice trifles when a man bats you over the head with a two-by-four."

Well, I was enjoying everything in sight, even a little drizzle of rain that was driving by in rags of wetness, when a flat-faced swatty at Fort Johnson halted me.

Now it's a dreadful thing to be butted to death by a nanny-goat, but for a full-sized cowpuncher to be held up by a soldier is worse yet.

To say that I was hot under the collar don't give you the right idea of the way I felt.

"Why, you cross between the Last Rose of Summer and a bobtailed flush!" says I, "what d'yer mean? What's got into you? Get out of my daylight, you dog-robber, or I'll walk the little horse around your neck like a three-ringed circus. Come, pull your freight!"

It seems that this swatty had been chucked out of the third story of Frenchy's dance emporium by Bronc. Thompson, which threw a great respect for our profesh into him. Consequently he wasn't fresh like most soldiers, but answers me as polite as a tin-horn gambler on pay-day.

Says he: "I just wanted to tell you that old Frosthead and forty braves are some'ers between here and your outfit, with their war paint on and blood in their eyes, cayoodling and whoopin' fit to beat hell with the blower on, and if you get tangled up with them, I reckon they'll give you a hair-cut and shampoo, to say nothing of other trimmings. They say they're after the Crows, but it's a ten-dollar bill against a last year's bird's-nest that they'll take on any kind of trouble that comes along. Their hearts is mighty bad, they state, and when an Injun's heart gets spoiled, the disease is d--d catching. You'd better stop awhile."

"Now, cuss old Frosthead, and you too!" says I. "If he comes crow-hopping on my reservation; I'll kick his pantalettes on top of his scalp-lock."

"All right, pardner!" says he. "It's your own funeral. My orders was to halt every one going through; but I ain't a whole company, so you can have it your own way. Only, if your friends have to take you home in a coal-scuttle, don't blame me. Pass, friend!"

So I went through the officers' quarters forty miles an hour, letting out a string of yells you might have heard to the coast, just to show my respect for the United States army.

Now this has always been my luck: Whenever I made a band-wagon play, somebody's sure to strike me for my licence. Or else the team goes into the ditch a mile further on, and I come out about as happy as a small yaller dog at a bob-cat's caucus.

Some fellers can run in a rhinecaboo that 'd make the hair stand up on a buffeler robe, and get away with it just like a mice; but that ain't me. If I sing a little mite too high in the cellar, down comes the roof a-top of me. So it was this day. Old Johnny Hardluck socked it to me, same as usual.

Gosh a'mighty! The liquor died in me after a while, and I went sound asleep in the saddle, and woke up with a jar--to find myself right in the middle of old Frosthead's gang; the drums "_boom_-blipping" and those forty-odd red tigers "hyah-hayahing" in a style that made my skin get up and walk all over me with cold feet.

How in blazes I'd managed to slip through those Injuns I don't know. 'Twould have been a wonderful piece of scouting if I'd meant it. You can 'most always do any darn thing you don't want to do. Well, there I was, and, oh Doctor! but wasn't I in a lovely mess! That war-song put a crimp into me that Jack Frost himself couldn't take out.

It was as dark as dark by this time. The moon just stuck one eye over the edge of the prairie, and the rest of the sky was covered with cloud. A little light came from the Injuns' camp-fire, but not enough to ride by, and, besides, I didn't know which way I ought to go.

Says I to myself, "Billy Sanders, you are the champion all-around, old-fashioned fool of the district. You are a jackass from the country where ears less'n three foot long are curiosities. You sassed that poor swatty that wanted to keep you out of this, tooting your bazoo like a man peddling soap; but now it's up to you. What are you going to do about it?" and I didn't get any answer, neither.

Well, it was no use asking myself conundrums out there in the dark when time was so scarce. So I wraps my hankercher around. Laddy's nose to keep him from talking horse to the Injun ponies, and prepared to sneak to where I'd rather be.

Laddy was the quickest thing on legs in that part of the country--out of a mighty spry little Pinto mare by our thoroughbred Kentucky horse--and I knew if I could get to the open them Injuns wouldn't have much of a chance to take out my stopper and examine my works--not much. A half-mile start, and I could show the whole Sioux nation how I wore my hair.

I cut for the place where the Injuns seemed thinnest, lifting myself up till I didn't weigh fifteen pound, and breathing only when necessary. We got along first-rate until we reached the edge of 'em, and then Laddy had to stick his foot in a gopher-hole, and walloped around there like a whale trying to climb a tree.

Some dam cuss of an Injun threw a handful of hay on the fire, and, as it blazed up, the whole gang spotted me.

I unlimbered my gun, sent the irons into Laddy, and we began to walk.

I didn't like to make for the ranch, as I knew the boys were short-handed, so I pointed north, praying to the good Lord that I'd hit some kind of settlement before I struck the North Pole.

Well, we left those Injuns so far behind that there wasn't any fun in it. I slacked up, patting myself on the back; and, as the trouble seemed all over, I was just about to turn for the ranch, when I heard horses galloping, and as the moon came out a little I saw a whole raft of redskins a-boiling up a draw not half a mile away. That knocked me slab-sided. It looked like I got the wrong ticket every time the wheel turned.

I whooped it up again, swearing I wouldn't stop this deal short of a dead sure thing. We flew through space--Laddy pushing a hole in the air like a scart kiyote making for home and mother.

A ways down the valley I spotted a little shack sitting all alone by itself out in the moonlight. I headed for it, hollering murder.

A man came to the door in his under-rigging.

"Hi, there! What's eating you?" he yells.

"Injuns coming, pardner! The country's just oozing Injuns! Better get a wiggle on you!"

"All right--slide along, I'll ketch up to you," says he.

I looked back and saw him hustling out with his saddle on his arm. "He's a particular kind of cuss," I thought; "bareback would suit most people."

Taking it a little easier for the next couple of miles, I gave him a chance to pull up.

We pounded along without saying anything for a spell, when I happened to notice that his teeth were chattering.

"Keep your nerve up, pardner!" says I. "Don't you get scared--we've got a good start on 'em."

He looked at me kind of reproachful.

"Scared be derned!" says he. "I reckon if you was riding around this nice cool night in your drawers, _your_ teeth 'ud rattle some, too."

I took a look at him, and saw, sure enough, while he had hat, coat, and boots on, the pants was missing. Well, if it had been the last act, I'd have had to laugh.

"Couldn't find 'em nohow," says he; "hunted high and low, jick, Jack, and the game--Just comes to my mind now that I had 'em rolled up and was sleeping on 'em. I don't like to go around this way'--I feel as if I was two men, and one of 'em hardly respectable."

"Did you bring a gun with you?"

He gave me another stare. "Why, pardner, you must think I have got a light and frivolous disposition," says he, and with that he heaves up the great-grand-uncle of all the six-shooters I ever did see. It made my forty-five-long look like something for a kid to cut its teeth on. "That's the best gun in this country," he went on.

"Looks as if it might be," says I. "Has the foundry that cast it gone out of business? I'd like to have one like it, if it's as dangerous as it looks."

"When I have any trouble with a man," says he, "I don't want to go pecking at him with a putty-blower, just irritating him, and giving him a little skin complaint here and there; I want something that'll touch his conscience."

He had it, for a broadside from that battery would scatter an elephant over a township.

We loped along quiet and easy until sun-up. The Grindstone Buttes lay about a mile ahead of us. Looking back, we saw the Injuns coming over a rise of ground 'way in the distance.

"Now," says my friend, "I know a short cut through those hills that'll bring us out at Johnson's. They've got enough punchers there to do the United States army up--starched and blued. Shall we take it?"

"Sure!" says I. "I'm only wandering around this part of the country because this part of the country is here--if it was anywheres else I'd be just as glad."

So in we went. It was the steepest and narrowest kind of a canon, looking as if it had been cut out of the rock with one crack of the axe. I was just thinking: "Gee whiz! but this would be a poor place to get snagged in," when bang! says a rifle right in front of us, and m-e-arr! goes the bullet over our heads.

We were off them horses and behind a, couple of chunks of rock sooner than we hoped for, and that's saying a good deal.

"Cussed poor shot, whoever he is," says my friend. "Some Injun holding us here till the rest come up, I presume."

"That's about the size of it--and I'd like to make you a bet that he does it, too, if I thought I'd have a chance to collect."

"Oh, you can't always tell--you might lose your money," says he, kind of thoughtful.

"I wouldn't mind that half as much as winning," says I. "But on the square, do you think we can get out? I'll jump him with you if you say so, although I ain't got what you might call a passion for suicide."

"Now you hold on a bit," says he. "I don't know but what we'd have done better to stick to the horses, and run for it, but it's too late to think of that. Jumping him is all foolishness; he'd sit behind his little rock and pump lead into us till we wouldn't float in brine--and we can't back out now."

He talked so calm it made me kind of mad. "Well," says I, "in that case, let's play 'Simon says thumbs up' till the rest of the crowd comes."

"There you go!" says he. "Just like all young fellers--gettin' hosstyle right away if you don't fall in with their plans. Now, Sonny, you keep your temper, and watch me play cushion carroms with our friend there."

"Meaning how?"

"You see that block of stone just this side of him with the square face towards us? Well, he's only covered in front, and I'm a-going to shoot against that face and ketch him on the glance."

"Great, if you could work it!" says I. "But Lord!"

"Well, watch!" says he. Then he squinched down behind his cover, so as not to give the Injun an opening, trained his cannon and pulled the trigger. The old gun opened her mouth and roared like an earthquake, but I didn't see any dead Injun. Then twice more she spit fire, and still there weren't any desirable corpses to be had.

"Say, pardner," says I, "you wouldn't make many cigars at this game!"

"Now, don't you get oneasy," says he. "Just watch!"

"_Biff_!" says the old gun, and this time, sure enough, the Injun was knocked clear of the rock. I felt all along that he wouldn't be much of a comfort to his friends afterwards, if that gun did land on him.

Still, he wasn't so awful dead, for as we jumped for the horses he kind of hitched himself to the rock, and laying the rifle across it, and working the lever with his left hand, he sent a hole plumb through my hat.

"Bully boy!" says I. I snapped at him, and smashed the lock of his rifle to flinders. Then, of course, he was our meat.

As we rode up to him, my pard held dead on him. The Injun stood up straight and tall, and looked us square in the eye--say, he was a man, I tell you, red-skin or no red-skin. The courage just stuck out on him as he stood there, waiting to pass in his checks.

My pardner threw the muzzle of his gun up. "D--n it!" says he, "I can't do it--he's game from the heart out! But the Lord have mercy on his sinful soul if he and I run foul of each other on the prairie again!"

Then we shacked along down to Johnson's and had breakfast.

"What became of Frosthead and his gang?" Oh, they sent out a regiment or two, and gathered him in--'bout twenty-five soldiers to an Injun. No, no harm was done. Me and my pard were the only ones that bucked up against them. Chuck out a cigarette, Kid; my lungs ache for want of a smoke.

[The end]
Henry Wallace Phillips's short story: A Chance Shot

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN