Cowboy Life on the Sidetrack Part 7

However, Dillbery was obliged to take charge of her and her traps, as he called them, and when he was finally ready to start, had got everything on the spring wagon, even to the bird cages, and after getting a final drink with the boys and filling a bottle to take along, he loaded the old girl in and whipping up his mules, disappeared in a cloud of alkali dust.

Dillbery sat on his end of the seat, frightened out of his wits, and Sarah Jessica Virginia Smythe sat on the other end, but, of course, sat on all the vacant seat left by Dillbery, 'cause she couldn't help it, she was built that way, and was even more afraid of Dillbery than he was of her. Although she had always been hunting a man, yet she was in a wild country and a stranger; not a house in sight and night coming on, was with a savage-looking man, who was, undoubtedly, very drunk, and acting very strangely to say the least. As time went on Dillbery got dryer and dryer, and studied a good deal how to get a drink out of his bottle without letting Sarah see him. Finally he concluded he could make some excuse that the load was slipping; he might get around back of the wagon to fix it, and under cover of the darkness quietly get a drink out of his bottle. So when they were crossing a canyon in an unusually lonely spot, he stopped the mules and muttering something about the load, he started to get out, but Sarah thought her hour had come, and throwing her arms (which were like pillow bolsters) around Dillbery's neck, began to scream and piteously beg him not to do her any wrong. The more Dillbery Ike tried to explain, the more Sarah Jessica cried, screamed and sobbed, till finally with a despairing sigh, like unto the collapse of a big balloon, she fainted clear away on his breast, pinning him over the back of the seat, his spinal column slowly but surely being sawed in two over the sharp edge. The horror of poor old Dillbery, when he realized that death from a broken back was only a question of her not coming out of the dead faint, which she seemed to have gotten an allopathic dose of, cannot be described.

When some time had elapsed and she showed no signs of animation, he made a great struggle to get from under her; but it was a vain attempt, he was nailed down as completely as a piece of canvas under a paving block.

And when it came over him that he was doomed to this ignominious death, when he fully realized what people would think about him when they found him in this compromising position, and the cowboys would facetiously all agree that he looked like a Texas dogie steer hanging dead on a wire fence after a Wyoming blizzard; when he felt that peculiar, loud buzzing in his ears that is a premonition of death, he made one final desperate struggle, and spitting out a lot of grey hair, hair pins and pieces of switch, which had acc.u.mulated in his mouth, he screamed with all the strength of his lungs in one long despairing cry, the one word "Sarer."

Now in Dillbery Ike's delirium and raging fever on the stock train, he kept continually giving tongue in a long, blood-curdling, soul-freezing, despairing cry to that one word "Sarer." Night and day we had to listen to that heart-broken cry. Finally, when the fever was at its highest stage I consulted the conductor of our special about getting a doctor and he advised me to go back to the last town we had pa.s.sed through, where there was a good physician and get him. He said that we would have plenty of time, as there was a lonely sidetrack just ahead of the train.

So walking back about ten miles to this town, I secured the services of a doctor, and getting a livery rig we soon caught up with the special.

When the doctor had examined Dillbery's tongue and pulse and had put his ear to Dillbery's heart while he was giving one of his despairing cries for "Sarer," he wrote a prescription in some kind of foreign language which he interpreted to us, as he said he had written it down as a mere form to show that he could write in a foreign language. He said our friend was very sick and the one thing that would save his life was to get "Sarer" for him. Now, of course, that was an impossibility, but he said all we needed was an imitation "Sarer," something that looked like her and was about her size and form, so after explaining to him what "Sarer" was like, he drove back to town, and when he caught up to us again, brought into the car a wonderful dummy made out of a large sack of bran with a head tied on it composed mainly of a sack of hair, such as plasterers use to mix mortar with. He had a large, but not too large, Mother Hubbard dress on this wonderful dummy, and the whole well perfumed with Florida water. When we laid this imitation "Sarer" in the emaciated arms of poor old Dillbery, his eyes grew moist for a moment, and straining it to his breast he gave a contented sigh or two, whispered "Sarer, Sarer," and dropped off into a healthy slumber, and the doctor said he would live.

EATS UP "SARER."

Dillbery slept for a long time, and awoke somewhat refreshed, but somewhat under the influence of his animal scalp, and no one being in the car, the spirit of the goat probably overtook him, as he devoured the head of the dummy "Sarer," which will be remembered consisted of plastering hair. Then the spirit of the sheep and the pig coming over him, he devoured the sack of bran, and laying down in front the stove like a Newfoundland dog, he went to sleep. Thus I found him on my return to the car. But, alas! his stomach was too weak to digest all the stuff he had consumed and in a few hours he was in a raging fever and calling for "Sarer" again. But, of course, he had devoured "Sarer," and we had nothing to fix up in the place of the dummy. And while it was heart-rending to hear his sobbing cry for "Sarer" growing weaker and weaker as the night wore on, yet we could only listen and hope. About 4 o'clock in the morning his cries stopped and he seemed to be sleeping for a few minutes, and then opened his eyes and took my hand and in a weak but rational voice told me the story of his boyhood in the following words:

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Dillbery Ike's Darling Mother Under Arrest._]

He said he was born in the mountains in Virginia. He was the only child, so far as he knew, of a moonshiner's daughter. His mother was not an unhappy woman, he said, when she had plenty of snuff and moonshine whisky; in fact, was quite gay at times. No one, not even his mother, knew exactly who his father was. Some people said it was a revenue officer and some said it was the member of Congress from that district, but most people thought it was a live stock agent of one of the western railroads. However this may be, he thrived on corn pone, dewberries, wild honey, and sow bosom, and as soon as he got old enough helped his mother cut wood and haul it to town in a two-wheeled hickory cart drawn by a steer. They lived with his grandfather, who was quite a prominent man in that part of Virginia and who was finally killed by revenue officers. His mother was sent to the pen for selling moonshine whiskey and he was taken charge of by a family who immigrated to Utah. He said the last time he saw his darling mother 'twas at their old home in the mountains in Virginia. The steer was. .h.i.tched to the cart one beautiful spring morning. The sun's rays was just kissing the mountain tops, when two revenue officers had appeared at their home, and after a lively sc.r.a.p with his mother they had succeeded in arresting her. Not though till she had thoroughly furrowed their cheeks with her finger nails and plenteously helped herself to sundry handfuls of their hair, after which she had peacefully seated herself in the cart and was placidly chewing a snuff stick in each corner of her mouth, when the steer and cart disappeared around a bend in the mountain road, and fate had decreed he should never see her again.

The family that took charge of him were neighbor moonshiners and had a day or so after this took place traded off their Virginia estate for a team of antique mules and a linch-pin wagon, and storing a goodly supply of moonshine whiskey, apple jack, corn meal and bacon in the wagon, loaded the family, consisting of nine children, himself included, in the wagon, and immigrated for Utah. He said as long as he was with these people he was treated like one of the family, but as they immigrated back to Virginia the next year they left him in Utah with a poor family and he was hungry many times, and was always telling the children he a.s.sociated with how big the dewberries grew where he came from, so the other children nicknamed him Dewberry, which was finally changed to Dillbery and that name had stuck to him ever since.

After finishing the story of his boyhood, Dillbery lay quiet for a short time and then motioning me to bend down close to him he whispered to me not to bury him in Nebraska where, he said, the only way a man could hope to be resurrected was in the shape of a yellow ear of corn, to be fed to a yellow steer, followed by a yellow hog and the hog meat eaten by a yellow-whiskered malarial Populist, and so on. After I promised to see that he was buried on his ranch in Utah, he asked me to sing that old cowboy song, "Oh! give me a home where the buffalo roams, a place where the rattlesnake plays."

THE Pa.s.sING OF DILLBERY IKE.

'Twas a dismal night on a way-car, the rain pattering on the roof o'erhead, The man who has told this story was alone with the silent dead.

The voice that had been calling for Sarah was hushed and stilled at last, He had finished telling the story of his childhood's checkered past.

No more would he ride the ranges, no more the mavericks brand, Nor subdue the bucking broncho, in that far western land; Never again to meet the school-marms, when they came traveling West Under the guise of school teaching, to get in a bachelor's nest.

Dillbery folded his hands gently, as he quietly went to sleep, In the death that knows no waking, for which no shipper could weep; While some of his life had been stormy, of hardships he'd had his share, Pen cannot paint a cattleman's troubles, nor picture his heart sick care.

When he's got his cattle on a special, and getting a special run, Death for him hasn't a single terror, he longs for it to come; And so with poor old Dillbery, when his weary eyes closed in death, Blotted out his sorrows and troubles, all blown away with his last breath.

He had gone to meet his grandfather, and get some of his latest brew, For who shall say that old moonshiner had quit distilling some mountain dew; For all say the other world is better, we'll get what we like over there, While of our joys here we are stinted, in the hereafter we get double share.

His eyes grew bright with a vision that he saw on the other side, He got a glimpse of a right good cow country, just before he started to ride; And his eyes lit up with a gladness, his face o'erspread with hope, As without a trace of sadness, his spirit rode away in a lope.

CHAPTER XXIII.

ARRIVAL AT THE TRANSFER TRACK OF SOUTH OMAHA.

One dark, dismal, rainy morning, a little before daylight, I arrived with the remnant of our stock train on the stockyards transfer at South Omaha. The conductor and brakeman ordered me out of the way-car. So picking up my belongings I got out in the mud and rain and looked around for some shelter. There was a lot of railroad tracks and switches, but no houses or hotels, or anyone to inquire from, as I had learnt by experience that conductors, brakemen and switchmen never give any information to stockmen in a dark, rainy night.

So after wandering up and down the tracks for a ways, and not being able to find out which way the town lay I got on top of the stock cars, and huddling down in my rain-soaked rags I prepared to wait till daylight.

The rain was very cold, and after a bit turned to snow and chilled me to the bone. But I was afraid to leave the stock cars, as I had never been there before and was sure to get lost if I left the stock, as the town is quite a ways from the transfer. I thought of Dillbery Ike, Packsaddle Jack and old Chuckwagon in the other world, and wondered why I should be left shivering in this awful storm, suffering the pangs of hunger and cold, while doubtless they had more fire than they really needed. No matter what their condition was in the other world, it was bound to be better than mine. Even the sheepmen's condition in the other world couldn't be much worse, though some claim there is a h.e.l.l set apart a-purpose for sheepmen on the other side.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Arrival of the Survivor at the Transfer._]

My clothes were all worn out long ago; my beard had grown down to my knees and the hair on my head having never been cut since we started, now reached to my waist, and, of course, it and my beard was some protection from the storm. But I realized that if I stayed where I was it would only be a short time till I should meet my comrades who had gone before, and I thought it would be proper to make some preparations for the other world. I never had prayed or went to church much, 'cause a cowman don't have any chance to attend to these, as there is always either some calves to brand Sundays, or else some of the neighbors coming visiting. But I remembered a pa.s.sage of scripture I had heard when a boy, and it came back to me now and kept ringing in my ears: "Forgive thine enemy." I never had an enemy in my whole life that I knew of, without it was this blamed railroad, and while I wasn't sure they was enemies, yet they had dealt me more misery than anyone, except it might be this stockyards company that was keeping me and my stock out on this transfer, starving and freezing in the storm after me and my steers had all got to be Rip Van Winkles getting that far on the road. I studied over the matter and could see it would be too great a job to forgive them both at the same time, and, of course, couldn't tell how much forgiveness the stockyards company would have to have, as I hadn't got through with them yet. There might be so much against them before they got my cattle unloaded that it would be impossible to forgive it.

It was very lucky, as it turned out afterwards, that I had this forethought, because, as I take it, forgiveness only comes from the heart no matter what your lips say, and your heart is the blamedest thing to control in forgiveness, as well as love, and when that stockyards company finally got around to bring my cattle in and unload them, I reckon it would have been impossible for any mortal man with the least spark of vitality left in his veins to have forgiven them. They have tried over and over to explain it to me by saying that when they built the transfer tracks and unloading chutes, their receipts only run about 1,500 to 2,000 cattle a day, with about the same number of hogs and about 200 sheep. And, now in the fall of the year, their receipts of cattle run up to 7,000 to 12,000 a day, with the same number of hogs and 20,000 to 25,000 of sheep, and they are trying to handle them with the same facilities they had to start with. So they are pretty near always so far behind in unloading stock in the busy season that it takes all the slack business season to finish unloading the stock that acc.u.mulated during the rush.

Having made up my mind to put off forgiving the stockyards company till some future date, I turned all my attention to forgiving the railroad company. I had noticed a good many religious people when some one had done them an injury and they couldn't get at them any other way they would pray for them. And while they generally asked the Lord to forgive them, yet they always told their side of the story in such a way that if the Lord was anyways easily prejudiced, he would be pretty tolerable slow about handing out any unsought-for clemency to their enemies, as they always started in by telling of all the mean things their enemies had ever done in order to remind the Lord what a big contract it was.

After studying the matter over I thought this would be the proper way to pray for the railroad company. But after I got started telling the Lord what mean things they had done, I see 'twas no use to try to finish unless I'd hand the matter down to future generations, as one life wouldn't be long enough to get fairly started in.

THE INFERNO OF THE TRANSFER.

All night long I had heard voices on all sides of me and apparently the owners of them were in the direst distress. Some were praying undoubtedly, but the most were cursing. A few were crying and moaning with the cold and I thought for a long time I must have got into an inferno of lost souls, and added to my sufferings in the storm in which I had come close to death was the terror of listening to these distressing cries, and I longed for daylight to appear so these horrors would be explained.

Daylight began to appear while I was thinking about these things, and I could see other stock trains near me, and on every train I could see one or more miserable wretches like myself huddled down on top of a car in the snow and cold rain, and the only sign of life you could detect was when they took spells of shivering. One of them was pretty close, and I hailed him once or twice, and finally he roused up enough to answer me; but the poor, shivering wretch was so numb with the cold he didn't sense much of anything, and when I asked him why all the shippers stayed out all night with their cattle, place of going into town, he said lots of times cattle were so tired when they got to Omaha and they were so long about getting them to the chutes, that there was more danger of their getting down after they got to the transfer and getting tramped to death than before. Then he said lots of stockmen who tried to get to town from the transfer in the night and had got killed, and some got their legs cut off by trains that were all the time switching on the transfer tracks. He said if the Humane Society took half the pains to protect the shippers that they did the stock being shipped he thought it would be better. He said a shipper was a human being even if he did look like a orangoutang just dragged out of a Chicago sewer when he got through to Omaha with a shipment of livestock. I thought maybe he was getting personal, so told him he didn't look so fine himself; that I thought anyone who resembled a jacka.s.s in a Wyoming blizzard hadn't any call to make reflections on other people's looks. Just then the switch engine coupled onto his train and hauled him and his stock off to the unloading chutes, and I was kinda glad he was gone, as I had conceived a dislike to him anyway. I can't bear anyone who makes disagreeable reflections and comparisons on one's personal appearance when one isn't looking their best, especially a person who ain't got anything to brag of themselves.

THE FARMER'S PRAYER.

I looked on the other side of me and saw another stock train with a group of four or five stockmen on top the cars. They were huddled down together in the snow and wet, and I thought at first one of them was making a speech, but soon discovered he was praying. It turned out one of their number was dying from ill health and the exposure of the night before, they having been there all night waiting for the switch engine to haul them to the chutes. They were a bunch of Nebraska farmers who had bought some feeders in Omaha sometime previous, shipped them out to their farms a couple hundred miles west, fed up their corn crop and was bringing the cattle back. The man that was praying seemed to be a son and partner of the dying man, and was telling the Lord the whole transaction from a to izard. Whether he was doing this to relieve his own feelings, or whether he thought the Lord would size his father up as an honest man in place of a sucker, it's hard to tell. Anyway, you could tell by his prayer that him and his dying father had got the worst of the deal all the way through. What I heard of his prayer run something like this:

"O Lord, Thou knowest how Thy humble servants have been the victims of designing and unscrupulous men. Thou knowest, Lord, how a hooked-nosed Sheeny first induced Thy poor servants to buy of him a lot of crooked-backed, narrow-hipped, long-tailed, high-on-the-rump, ewe-necked, dehorned, Southern steers, and how they had kept them off of water for seven days, waiting for a sale, and then let them drink till their stomachs was like unto ba.s.s drums, when they weighed them up to Thy deceived servants, and then, O Lord, Thy wretched servants, not having any money to pay for them, we had to go to a grasping commission man and, O Lord, Thou knowest how he did charge us usury cent for cent and all kinds of percent, how he figured up interest on the cost of the steers, then figured interest on that interest, then figured interest on the interest that he had figured on the interest, then figured a commission for buying them, then another commission for selling them, then figured the interest on the commission, then figured the interest on the interest that he had figured on the commission; and, how when we had got these steers home, two of them were dead, three were cripples, five were lump jaws, and how their feet were so large, and they had such wise, old-fashioned countenances, we were behooved to look into their mouths to determine by their teeth how old they were, and Thy astonished servants discovered that in place of two year-olds, as was represented, they were a great many times two years old; and how many times when we had a little fat on their ribs, they saw someone afoot, and becoming frightened, ran round and round the feed lots till they were poorer than ever, and some there was that escaping over the fence were never seen by Thy servants any more, they having disappeared over the hills and in adjacent corn fields; and Thou knowest how we were always sober, law-abiding citizens till we were inveigled into buying these imitation steers, and since that time have lived in a constant round of excitement, terror and riot."

The switch engine now coupled on to the dying man's stock train and pulled it away to the chutes, so I didn't hear the last of the prayer.

Probably his commission man heard it after he got through explaining why the steers didn't bring any more money.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE FINAL ROUNDUP.

Two railroad men of mighty brain, The steadfast friends of true cowmen; No matter which the first you name, We all love George Crosby and Charlie Lane.

And if in this story, they should see Some mentioned evil, for which a remedy That's in their power and can be used, They'll fix it so the shipper is less abused.

Of all things needed, and it's a crying shame, Is some kind of toilet room on each stock train; In regard to fires, let the shippers agree, Whether they'll be froze or roasted into eternity.

Have a call-boy escort with lantern bright, When at division stations we come in darkest night; To save our anxiety, fear and doubt, Put us on the right way-car that's going out.

To the stockyards company a suggestion could be made, If they expect to keep and gain more trade; When our cattle are delivered on their transfer track, Try and unload them, or else we'll ship them back.

If one or two of these evils should be wiped away By these suggestions in this humble lay, Then will I rejoice and forget the days of toil When I composed this work and burnt the midnight oil.