Where The Horse Is Fate

________________________________________________
Title:     Where The Horse Is Fate
Author: Henry Wallace Phillips [More Titles by Phillips]

One thing's certain, you can't run a sheep ranch, nor no other kind of ranch, without hired men. They're the most important thing, next to the sheep. I may have stated, absent-mindedly, that the Big Bend was organised on scientific principles: none of your gol-darned-heads-or-tails--who's-it--what-makes-the-ante-shy, about it. Napoleon Buonaparte in person, in his most complex minute, couldn't have got at this end of it better than I did. It looked a little roundabout, but that's the way with your Morgan strain of idees. Here's how I secured the first man--he didn't look like good material to the careless eye.

Burton and me had just turned the top of that queer hill, that overlooks the Southwest road into the Bad Lands, when I see a parcel of riders coming out. Somehow, they jarred me.

"Easy," says I, and grabs Burton's bridle.

"What the devil now?" he groans. "Injuns? Road-agents?"

"Nope," says I, getting out my field glass. I had guessed it: there was the bunch, riding close and looking ugly, with the white-faced man in the middle. If you should ask me how I knew that for a lynching, when all I could make out with my eyes was that they weren't cattle, I give it up. Seems like something passed from them to me that wasn't sight. And also if you ask why, when through the glass I got a better view of the poor devil about to be strung, I felt kind towards him, you have me speechless again. I couldn't make out his face, but there was something----

[Illustration: Through the glass I got a better view of the poor devil about to be strung]

"See here, Burton," says I. "There's your peaceful prairie hanging, in its early stage."

"What!" says he, sick and hot at the same time. "How can you speak of the death of a human being so heartlessly? Let me go!"

"Hold!" says I. "You haven't heard me through. Perhaps you can be more use than to run away and hide your eyes. I ain't got a' word to say against quick law. I've seen her work, and she works to a point. She beats having the lawyers sieving all the justice out of it. All the same, they've been too careless around here--that, and a small bad boy's desire to get their names up. I know one case where they hung a perfectly innocent man, for fun, and to brag about it."

He looked at me steady. I had suspected him of being no coward, when it comes to cases.

"Now," I says, "I don't know what that is down there. Perhaps it's all right; then you and me has got to stand by. If not--well, by the sacred photograph of Mary Ann, here's one roping that won't be an undiluted pleasure. Now listen. I'm something of a high private, when it comes to war, but no man is much more than one man, if the other side's blood is bad. Give 'em to me cold, and I can throw a crimp into 'em, for I don't care a hoot at any stage of the game, and they do. But when they're warm--why, a hole between the eyes will stop me just as quick as though I wasn't Chantay Seeche Red. Are you with me? You never took longer chances in your life."

He wet his lips, and didn't speak very loud nor steady, but he says: "You lead."

"Well, hooray, Boston!" says I. "Beans is good food. Now don't take it too serious till you have to. Perhaps there ain't more'n a laugh in it. But--it's like smooth ice. How deep she is, you know when she cracks, or don't. Be as easy as you can when we get up to 'em. Nothing gained by bulling the ring. We must be prepared to look pleasant and act very different. Turn your back and see that your toy pistol is working."

Well, poor Burton! Wisht you seen him fumble his gun.

"I can't _see_ the thing," says he, kind of sniffling. "I'd give something to be a man."

"You'll do for an imitation," I says. "Remember, I was born with red hair; comes trouble, this hair of mine sheds a red light over the landscape; I get happy-crazy; it's summer, and I can smell the flowers; there's music a long ways off--why, I could sing this minute, but there's no use in making matters worse. Honest, trouble makes me just drunk enough to be limber and--talk too much. Come on."

We single-footed it down the hillside. The party stopped and drawed together, four men quietly making a rank in front. That crowd had walked barefoot.

We come to twenty yards of 'em in silence; then a tall lad swung out towards us.

"How, Kola!" says I, wavin' my hand pleasant.

"How do you do!" says he, as if it wouldn't break his heart, no matter what the answer was.

"Why, nicely, thank you to hell," says I. "What's doin'? Horse race?"

"Probably," says he; then kind of yawning: "We're not expectin' company this morning."

"Well," I answered, "it's the unexpected always happens, except the exceptions. You talk like a man that's got something on his mind."

Don't think I'd lost my wits and was pickin' a row to no advantage. I'll admit the gent riled me some, but the point I had in view was what old Judge Hinky used to call "shifting the issue." I wanted to make one stab at just one man--not the whole party--on grounds that the rest of the crowd, who was plainly all good two-handed punchers, would see was perfectly fair. And I intended to land that stab so's they'd see I was no trifler. It was my bad luck that not a soul in the crowd knew me--even by reputation, or my hair would have made it easy for me. So I put a little ginger in the tone of my voice.

"My friend," says the tall lad, "I wouldn't advise you to get gay with us. I would advise you to move right on--or I'll move you."

He played to me, you see. If he'd said, "_We_'ll move you," I'd had to chaw with him some more. Now I had him. Right under the harmless bundle of old clothes dangling from the saddle horn was the gun I'd borrowed from Ike--Mary Ann's twin sister, full of cartridges loaded by Ike himself--no miss-fire government issue. The next second that gun had its cold, hard eye upon Long Jim in front of me.

Whilst my hands seemed carelessly crossed on the horn, my right was really closed on the gun.

"I like to see a man back his advice," says I. "It's your move. Don't any other gentleman get restless with his hands, or I'll make our Christian brother into a collection of holes. Now, you ill-mannered brute," I says, "I don't care what your business is: it's my business to see that you give me civil answers to civil questions."

He shrunk some. He was too durned important, anyhow, that feller.

"Quick!" says I. "Lord of the Mormon hosts! Do you think I'm going to yappee with you all day? Nice morning, ain't it? Say 'yes.'"

"Yes," says he.

"I thought so," says I. "It's a raw deal when a man that's sat a horse as long as me can't say howdy on the open, without havin' a pup like you bark at him."

"Why," says he, feelin' distressed, "I didn't mean to make no bad play at you." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the prisoner, who sat like a white stone. "That's it. Misplaced horse. Got him with the goods."

"Oh!" says I. "Well, 'twouldn't have done no harm to mention that first place. I wasn't noticing you particular, till you got too much alive for any man of my size to stand." I dropped my gun. "Excuse haste and a bad pen," says I; "but why don't I draw cards? Both parents were light complected and I've voted several times. How is it, boys?"

"Sure!" says they. "Take a stack, brick-top."

"Gentlemen," I says; "one word more and I am done. The question as to whether my hair is any particular colour or not, is discussed in private, by familiar friends only--savvy the burro, how he kickee with hees hin' leg?"

They laughed.

"All right, Colonel!" says they. "Come with us!"

I had that crowd. You see, they was all under twenty-five, and if there's anything a young man likes--a good, hearty boy--it's to see a brisk play pushed home. I'd called 'em down so their spinal columns shortened, and gagging about my hair, and the style I put on in general, caught their eye. And their own laughing and easiness wasn't so durned abandoned, as Charley Halleck used to say. There was a streak of not liking the job, and everything a little "put on," evident to the practised vision.

I'd gained two points. Made myself pretty solid with the boys, for one, and give 'em something besides hanging their fellow-man to think of for another: distracted their attention, which you got to do with children.

"I speak for my friend," says I, pointing to Burton.

"We hear you talk, Colonel," says the joker. "He's with us." So we trotted on towards the cotton-woods.

The line of work was marked out for me. I put on a grim look and sized the prisoner up from time to time as though he was nothing but an obstruction to my sight, although the face of the poor devil bit my heart. He glanced neither way, mouth set, face green-white, the slow sweat glassy all over him. Not a bad man, by a mile, I knew. It don't take me a week to size a man up, and I've seen 'em in so many conditions, red and pale, sick, dead, and well, that outside symptoms don't count for much.

I noticed another thing, that I expected. Out of the corner of my eye I see them boys nudgin' each other and talkin' about me. And the more I rode along so quiet, the more scart of me they got.

I tell you how I'd test a brave man. I'd line the competitors up, and then spring a fright behind them. Last man to cross the mark is the bravest man--still, he might only be the poorest runner. With fellers like me, it ain't courage at all. It's lunacy. I ain't in my right mind when a sharp turn comes. Why, I've gone cold a year after, thinking of things I laughed my way through when they happened. But I'm not quarrelling with fate--I thank the good Lord I'm built as I am, and don't feel scornful of a man that keeps his sense and acts scart and reasonable.

In one way, poor old Burton, lugging himself into the game by the scruff of his pants, showed more real man than I did. Yet, he couldn't accomplish anything; so there you are, if you know where that is.

I said nothing until we slid off beneath the first tree. Then I walked up to the three leaders and says, whilst the rest gathered around and listened:

"Has this critter been tried?"

"Why, no!" says one man. "We caught him on the horse."

"Yes, yes, yes," says I, raising my voice. "That's all right. But lend me your ears till I bray a thought or two. I'm that kind of a man that wouldn't string the meanest mistake the devil ever made without givin' him a trial."

"You give me a lot of trial this morning," says Long Jim.

I wasn't bringing up any argument; I was pulling them along with a mother's kind but firm hand, so I says to him: "Ah! I wasn't talking about _gentlemen_; I'd shoot a gentleman if he did or didn't look cross-eyed at me, just as I happened to feel. I'm talking about a man that's suspected of dirty work."

Now, when a man that's held you stiff at the end of a gun calls you a gentleman, you don't get very mad--just please remember my audience, when I tell you what I talked. Boys is boys, at any age; otherwise there wouldn't be no Knights Templars with tin swords nor a good many other things. I spoke grand, but they had it chalked down in their little books I was ready and willing to act grander. Had I struck any one or all of 'em, on the range, thinking of nothing special, and Fourth-o'-July'd to 'em like that, they would have give me the hee-hee. Howsomever, they was at present engaged in tryin' to hang a man; a job one-half of which they didn't like, and would dispose of the balance cheap, for cash. And I'd run over their little attempt to be pompous like a 'Gul engine. Position is everything, you bet your neck.

So up speaks Mr. Long Jim, that I've called a gentleman, loud and clear.

"You're _right_," says he, and bangs his fist into his other hand. "You're dead right, old horse," says he; "and we'll try this son-of-a-gun now and here."

"Sure!" says everybody, which didn't surprise me so much. I told you I was used to handling sheep.

After a little talk with his friend, Long Jim comes up and says: "Will you preside, Colonel?"

"I have a friend here who is a lawyer," I suggested, waving my hand toward Burton.

The speaker rubbed his chin.

"I guess this isn't a case for a lawyer," he says. "The gentleman might give us a point or two, but we'd prefer you took charge. You see," he says to Burton and me earnestly; "there's been a heap of skul-duggery around here lately--horse-stealin', maimin' cattle, and the like--till we're dead sick of it. This bucco made the most bare-faced try you ever heard of--'twas like stealin' the whiskers right off your face--and us fellers in my neighbourhood, old man and all, have saw fit to copper the deal from the soda-card. We ain't for doin' this man; we're for breaking up the play--'tain't a case of law; it's a case of livin'--so if you'll oblige, Colonel?"

"All right, sir; I'll do the best I can. Who accuses this man?"

"I," says a straightforward-looking young man of about twenty odd.

"Step up, please, and tell us."

"Why, it's like this," he says. "I'm ranchin' lone-hand down on Badger. There's the wife and two kiddies, and a job for a circus-man to make both ends meet--piecin' out a few cattle and a dozen hogs with a garden patch. All I got between me and a show-down is my team. Well, this feller comes along, played out, and asks for a drink of water. My wife's laid up--too darn much hard work for any woman--and I've got Jerry saddled by the fence, to ride for the doctor. Other horse is snake bit and weavin' in the stable with a leg like a barrel. I goes in to get the water, and when I comes out there's this sucker dustin' off with the horse. Then I run over to C-bar-nine and routs the boys out. We took out after him, corrallin' him in a draw near the Grindstones. That's about all."

"Make any fight?" I asked.

"Naw!" says the man, disgusted. "I was wanting to put my hands on him, but he comes in like a sick cow--seemed foolish."

"How foolish?"

"Oh, just stared at us. We called to him to halt, and he stopped, kind of grinned at us and says: 'Hello!' I'd a 'hello'd' him if the boys hadn't stopped me."

[Illustration: We called to him to halt, and he stopped, kind of grinned at us and says: "Hello!"]

"Prisoner," I says, "this looks bad. I don't know where you come from, but you must have intelligence enough to see that this man's wife's life might have depended on that horse. You know we're straggled so out here that a horse means something more than so much a head. Why did you do this? Your actions don't seem to hang together."

The poor cuss changed face for the first time. He swallered hard and turned to his accuser. "Hope your lady didn't come to no harm?" says he.

"Why, no thankee; she didn't," says the other lad. "'Bliged to you for inquirin'."

There was a stir in the rest of the crowd. The prisoner had done good work for himself without knowing it. That question of his proved what I thought--he was no bad man. Something peculiar in the case. Swinging an eye on the crowd, I saw I could act. I went forward and laid my hand on his shoulder, speaking kind and easy.

"Here," says I, "you've done a fool trick, and riled the boys considerable. You'd been mad, too, if somebody'd made you ride all day. But now you tell us just what happened. If it was intended to be comical, we'll kick your pants into one long ache, and let it go at that; if it was anything else, spit it out."

He stood there, fumblin' with his hands, runnin' the back of one over his forehead once in a while, tryin' to talk, but unable. You could see it stick in his throat.

"Take time," says I; "there's lots of it both sides of us."

Then he braced.

"Boys," says he, "I got a wife an' two little roosters too. I feel sorry for the trouble I made that gentleman. I got split like this. Come to this town with seven hundred dollars, to make a start. Five hundred of that's my money, and two hundred m' wife saved up--and she was that proud and trustin' in me!" He stopped for a full minute, workin' his teeth together. "Well, I ain't much. I took to boozin' and tryin' to put the faro games out of business. Well, I went shy--quick. The five hundred was all right," he says, kind of defiant. "Man's got a right to do what he pleases with his own money; but . . . but . . . well, the girl worked hard for that little old two hundred. God Almighty! I was drunk! You don't s'pose I'd do such a thing sober?" turning to us, savage. "That ain't no excuse, howsomever," he goes on, droppin' his crop. "Comes to the point when there's nothin' left, and then I get a letter." He begun taking things out of his pockets, dropping 'em from his big tremblin' hands. "It's somewheres here--ain't that it? My eyes is no good."

He hands me a letter, addressed to Martin Hazel, in a woman's writing. "Well, that druv me crazy. So help me God, sir, I ain't pleadin' for no mercy--I'll take my medicine--but I didn't know no more what I was doin' when I jumped your horse than nothin'. I only wanted to get away from everybody. I was crazy. You read 'em that letter," says he, taking hold of me. "See if it wouldn't drive any man crazy."

Now, there's no good repeatin' the letter. It wasn't written for an audience, and the spellin' was accordin' to the lady's own views, but it was all about how happy they was going to be when Martin had things fixed up, and how funny the little boy was, and just like his pa, and, oh, couldn't he fix it so's they'd be with him soon, for her heart was near broke with waiting.

There was sand in my eyes before I'd read long, and that crowd of fierce lynchers was lookin' industriously upon the ground. One man chawed away on his baccy, like there'd be an earthquake if he stopped, and another lad, with a match in his mouth, scratched a cigarette on his leg, shieldin' it careful with his hands, and your Uncle Willy tried to fill a straight face on a four-card draw, and to talk in a tone of voice I wasn't ashamed of hearing.

During the last part of the letter the prisoner stood thoughtful, with the back of his hand to his mouth; you'd never known he was settin' his teeth into it, if it wasn't for the blood dropping from his thumb.

"The prisoner will retire," says I, with the remnants of my self-respect, "while the court passes sentence. Go sit down under the tree yonder." He shambled off. Soon's he was out of hearin' the feller that lost the horse jumps up into the air with an oath like a streak of lightning. "Here's a fine play we come near makin' by bein' so sudden," says he. "I wouldn't have that man's death on my soul for the whole territory--think of that poor woman! And he's paid the freight. Colonel, I want to thank you for drawin' things down."

So he come up and shook me by the hand, and up files the rest and does the same thing.

"Now, friends," says I, "hold on. Court hasn't passed sentence yet. I pass that this crowd put up to the tune of what it can spare to buy"--consulting the letter--"to buy Peggy a ticket West, kids included, exceptin' only the gentleman that lost the horse."

"Why, we ain't broke altogether on Badger!" says he. "You ain't goin' to bar me, boys?"

"Not on your life, if that's the way you feel," says I. I don't know what amount that crowd could spare, but I'll bet high on one thing. If you'd strong-armed the gang, you wouldn't start a bank with the proceeds after the collection was taken. There wasn't a nickel in the outfit. "I'm glad I didn't bring any more with me," says Burton, strapping himself.

Of course, I was appointed to break the news to the prisoner. He busted then; put his head on his arm and cried like a baby. But he braced quick and stepped up to the lads. "There ain't nothing I can say except thank you," says he. "I want to get each man's name so's I can pay him back. Now, if anybody here knows of a job of work I can get--well, you know what it would mean to me. Sporty life is done for me, friends; I'll work hard for any man that'll take me."

"I got you," I says. "Come along with me and I'll explain."

Then we said by-by to the boys. I played the grand with 'em still, and I'll just tell you why, me and you bein' such old friends. Although it may sound queer, coming from my mouth, yet it was because I thought I might give them boys the proper steer, sometime. You can't talk Sunday-school to young fellers like that! They don't pay no attention to what a gent in black clothes and a choker tells 'em; but suppose Chantay Seeche Red--rippin', roarin' Red Saunders, that fears the face of no man, nor the hoof of no jackass--lays his hand on a boy's shoulder, and says, "Son, I wouldn't twist it just like that." Is he goin' to get listened to? I reckon yes. So I played straight for their young imaginations, and I had 'em cinched to the last hole. And after the last one had pulled my flipper, and hoped he'd meet me soon again, me and Burton and the new hired man took out after sheep. "But," says Burton, still sort of dazed, "God only knows what we'll meet before we find them. Even sheep aren't so peaceful in this country."

He was right, too. However, when I start for sheep, I get 'em. You can see by the deep-laid plan I set to catch help for the ranch, how there's nothing for fortune to do but lay down and holler when I make up my mind.

[The end]
Henry Wallace Phillips's short story: Where The Horse Is Fate

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN