Cow-Country Part 5

Later--it was after Bud had gone to bed--mother came and had a long talk with him. She was very sweet and sensible, and Bud was very tender with her. But she could not budge him from his determination to go and make his way without a Birnie dollar to ease the beginning. Other men had started with nothing and had made a stake, and there was no reason why he could not do so.

"Dad put it straight enough, and it's no good arguing. I'd starve before I'd take anything from him. I'm ent.i.tled to my clothes, and maybe a horse or two for the work I've done for him while I was growing up. I've figured out pretty close what it cost to put me through the University, and what I was worth to him during the summers. Father's Scotch--but he isn't a darned bit more Scotch than I am, mother. Putting it all in dollars and cents, I think I've earned more than I cost him. In the winters, I know I earned my board doing ch.o.r.es and riding line. Many a little bunch of stock I've saved for him by getting out in the foothills and driving them down below heavy snowline before a storm. You remember the bunch of horses I found by watching the magpies--the time we tied hay in canvas and took it up to them 'til they got strength enough to follow the trail I trampled in the snow? I earned my board and more, every winter since I was ten. So I don't believe I owe dad a cent, when it's all figured out.

"But you've done for me what money can't repay, mother. I'll always be in debt to you--and I'll square it by being the kind of a man you've tried to teach me to be. I will, mother. Dad and the dollars are a different matter. The debt I owe you will never be paid, but I'm going to make you glad I know there's a debt. I believe there's a G.o.d, because I know there must have been one to make you! And no matter how far away I may drift in miles, your Buddy is going to be here with you always, mother, learning from you all there is of goodness and sweetness." He held her two hands against his face, and she felt his cheeks wet beneath her palms. Then he took them away and kissed them many times, like a lover.

"If I ever have a wife, she's going to have her work cut out for her,"

He laughed unsteadily. "She'll have to live up to you, mother, if she wants me to love her."

"If you have a wife she'll be well-spoiled, young man! Perhaps it is wise that you should go--but don't you forget your music, Buddy--and be a good boy, and remember, mother's going to follow you with her love and her faith in you, and her prayers."

It may have been that Buddy's baby memory of going north whenever the trail herd started remained to send Bud instinctively northward when he left the Tomahawk next morning. It had been a case of stubborn father and stubborn son d.i.c.kering politely over the net earnings of the son from the time when he was old enough to leave his mother's lap and climb into a saddle to ride with his father. Three horses and his personal belongings had been agreed upon between them as the balance in Bud's favor; and at that, Bob Birnie dryly remarked, he had been a better investment as a son than most young fellows, who cost more than they were worth to raise.

Bud did not answer the implied praise, but roped the Tomahawk's best three horses out of the REMUDA corralled for him by his father's riders.

You should have seen the sidelong glances among the boys when they learned that Bud, just home from the University, was going somewhere with all his earthly possessions and a look in his face that meant trouble!

Two big valises and his blankets he packed on Sunfish, a deceptively raw-boned young buckskin with much white showing in his eyes--an ornery looking brute if ever there was one. Bud's guitar and a mandolin in their cases he tied securely on top of the pack. Smoky, the second horse, a deep-chested "mouse" with a face almost human in its expression, he saddled, and put a lead rope on the third, a bay four-year-old called Stopper, which was the Tomahawk's best rope-horse and one that would be missed when fast work was wanted in branding.

"He sure as h.e.l.l picked himself three top hawses," a tall puncher murmured to another. "Wonder where he's headed for? Not repping--this late in the season."

Bud overheard them, and gave no sign. Had they asked him directly he could not have told them, for he did not know, except that somehow he felt that he was going to head north. Why north, he could not have explained, since cow-country lay all around him; nor how far north,--for cow-country extended to the upper boundary of the States, and beyond into Canada.

He left his horses standing by the corral while he went to the house to tell his mother good-by, and to send a farewell message to Dulcie, who had been married a year and lived in Laramie. He did not expect to strike Laramie, he told his mother when she asked him.

"I'm going till I stop," He explained, with a squeeze of her shoulders to rea.s.sure her. "I guess it's the way you felt, mother, when you left Texas behind. You couldn't tell where you folks would wind up. Neither can I. My trail herd is kinda small, right now; a lot smaller than it will be later on. But such as it is, it's going to hit the right range before it stops for good. And I'll write."

He took a doughnut in his hand and a package of lunch to slip in his pocket, kissed her with much cheerfulness in his manner and hurried out, his big-rowelled spurs burring on the porch just twice before he stepped off on the gravel. Telling mother good-by had been the one ordeal he dreaded, and he was glad to have it over with.

Old Step-and-a-Half hailed him as he went past the chuck-house, and came limping out, wiping his hands on his ap.r.o.n before he shook hands and wished him good luck. Ezra, pottering around the tool shed, ambled up with the eyes of a dog that has been sent back home by his master.

"Ah shoah do wish yo' all good fawtune an' health, Ma.r.s.e Buddy," Ezra quavered. "Ah shoah do. It ain' goin' seem lak de same place--and Ah shoah do hopes yo' all writes frequent lettahs to yo' mothah, boy!"

Bud promised that he would, and managed to break away from Ezra without betraying himself. How, he wondered, did everyone seem to know that he was going for good, this time? He had believed that no one knew of it save himself, his father and his mother; yet everyone else behaved as if they never expected to see him again. It was disconcerting, and Bud hastily untied the two led horses and mounted Smoky, the mouse-colored horse he himself had broken two years before.

His father came slowly up to him, straight-backed and with the gait of the man who has ridden astride a horse more than he has walked on his own feet. He put up his hand, gloved for riding, and Bud changed the lead-ropes from his right hand to his left, and shook hands rather formally.

"Ye've good weather for travelling," said Bob Birnie tentatively. "I have not said it before, lad, but when ye own yourself a fool to take this way of making your fortune, ten thousand dollars will still be ready to start ye right. I've no wish to shirk a duty to my family."

Bud pressed his lips together while he listened. "If you keep your ten thousand till it's called for, you'll be drawing interest a long time on it," He said. "It's going to be hot to-day. I'll be getting along."

He lifted the reins, glanced back to see that the two horses were showing the proper disposition to follow, and rode off down the deep-rutted road that followed up the creek to the pa.s.s where he had watched the Utes dancing the war dance one night that he remembered well. If he winced a little at the familiar landmarks he pa.s.sed, he still held fast to the determination to go, and to find fortune somewhere along the trail of his own making; and to ask help from no man, least of all his father who had told him to go.

CHAPTER SEVEN: BUD FLIPS A COIN WITH FATE

"I don't think it matters so much where we light, it's what we do when we get there," said Bud to Smoky, his horse, one day as they stopped where two roads forked at the base of a great, outstanding peak that was but the point of a mountain range. "This trail straddles the b.u.t.te and takes on up two different valleys. It's all cow-country--so what do yuh say, Smoke? Which trail looks the best to you?"

Smoky flopped one ear forward and the other one back, and switched at a pestering fly. Behind him Sunfish and Stopper waited with the patience they had learned in three weeks of continuous travel over country that was rough in spots, barren in places, with wind and sun and occasional, sudden thunderstorms to punctuate the daily grind of travel.

Bud drew a half dollar from his pocket and regarded it meditatively.

"They're going fast--we'll just naturally have to stop pretty soon, or we don't eat," He observed. "Smoke, you're a quitter. What you want to do is go back--but you won't get the chance. Heads, we take the right hand trail. I like it better, anyway--it angles more to the north."

Heads it was, and Bud leaned from the saddle and recovered the coin, Smoky turning his head to regard his rider tolerantly. "Right hand goes--and we camp at the first good water and gra.s.s. I can grain the three of you once more before we hit a town, and that goes for me, too.

G'wan, Smoke, and don't act so mournful."

Smoky went on, following the trail that wound in and out around the b.u.t.te, hugging close its sheer sides to avoid a fifty-foot drop into the creek below. It was new country--Bud had never so much as seen a map of it to give him a clue to what was coming. The last turn of the deep-rutted, sandy road where it left the river's bank and led straight between two humpy shoulders of rock to the foot of a platter-shaped valley brought him to a halt again in sheer astonishment.

From behind a low hill still farther to the right, where the road forked again, a bluish haze of smoke indicated that there was a town of some sort, perhaps. Farther up the valley a brownish cloud hung low-a roundup, Bud knew at a glance. He hesitated. The town, if it were a town, could wait; the roundup might not. And a job he must have soon, or go hungry. He turned and rode toward the dust-cloud, came shortly to a small stream and a green gra.s.s-plot, and stopped there long enough to throw the pack off Sunfish, unsaddle Smoky and stake them both out to graze. Stopper he saddled, then knelt and washed his face, beat the travel dust off his hat, untied his rope and coiled it carefully, untied his handkerchief and shook it as clean as he could and knotted it closely again. One might have thought he was preparing to meet a girl; but the habit of neatness dated back to his pink-ap.r.o.n days and beyond, the dirt and dust meant discomfort.

When he mounted Stopper and loped away toward the dust-cloud, he rode hopefully, sure of himself, carrying his range credentials in his eyes, in his perfect saddle-poise, in the tan on his face to his eyebrows, and the womanish softness of his gloved hands, which had all the sensitive flexibility of a musician.

His main hope was that the outfit was working short-handed; and when he rode near enough to distinguish the herd and the riders, he grinned his satisfaction.

"Good cow-country, by the look of that bunch of cattle," He observed to himself. "And eight men is a small crew to work a herd that size. I guess I'll tie onto this outfit. Stopper, you'll maybe get a chance to turn a cow this afternoon."

Just how soon the chance would come, Bud had not realized. He had no more than come within shouting distance of the herd when a big, rollicky steer broke from the milling cattle and headed straight out past him, running like a deer. Stopper, famed and named for his prowess with just such cattle, wheeled in his tracks and lengthened his stride to a run.

"Tie 'im down!" someone yelled behind Bud. And "Catch 'im and tie 'im down!" shouted another.

For answer Bud waved his hand, and reached in his pocket for his knife.

Stopper was artfully circling the steer, forcing it back toward the herd, and in another hundred yards or so Bud must throw his loop He sliced off a saddle-string and took it between his teeth, jerked his rope loose, flipped open the loop as Stopper raced up alongside, dropped the noose neatly, and took his turns while Stopper planted his forefeet and braced himself for the shock. Bud's right leg was over the cantle, all his weight on the left stirrup when the jerk came and the steer fell with a thump. By good luck--so Bud afterwards a.s.serted--he was off and had the steer tied before it had recovered its breath to scramble up.

He remounted, flipped off the loop and recoiled his rope while he went jogging up to meet a rider coming out to him.

If he expected thanks for what he had done, he must have received a shock. Other riders had left their posts and were edging up to hear what happened, and Bud reined up in astonishment before the most amazing string of unseemly epithets he had ever heard. It began with: "What'd you throw that critter for?"--which of course is putting it mildly--and ended in a choked phrase which one man may not use to another's face and expect anything but trouble afterwards.

Bud unbuckled his gun and hung the belt on his saddle horn, and dismounted. "Get off your horse and take the d.a.m.nedest licking you ever had in your life, for that!" He invited vengefully. "You told me to tie down that steer, and I tied him down. You've got no call to complain--and there isn't a man on earth I'll take that kinda talk from. Crawl down, you parrot-faced cow-eater--and leave your gun on the saddle."

The man remained where he was and looked Bud over uncertainly. "Who are you, and where'd yuh come from?" he demanded more calmly. "I never saw yuh before."

"Well, I never grew up with your face before me, either!" Bud snapped.

"If I had I'd probably be cross-eyed by now. You called me something!

Get off that horse or I'll pull you off!"

"Aw, yuh don't want to mind--" began a tall, lean man pacifically; but he of the high nose stopped him with a wave of the hand, his eyes still measuring the face, the form and the fighting spirit of one Bud Birnie, standing with his coat off, quivering with rage.

"I guess I'm in the wrong, young fellow--I DID holler 'Tie 'im down.'

But if you'd ever been around this outfit any you 'd have known I didn't mean it literal." He stopped and suddenly he laughed. "I've been yellin'

'Tie 'im down' for two years and more, when a critter breaks outa the bunch, and n.o.body was ever fool enough to tackle it before. It's just a sayin' we've got, young man. We--"

"What about the name you called me?" Bud was still advancing slowly, not much appeased by the explanation. "I don't give a darn about the steer.

You said tie him, and he's tied. But when you call me--"

"My mistake, young feller. When I get riled up I don't pick my words."

He eyed Bud sharply. "You're mighty quick to obey orders," He added tentatively.

"I was brought up to do as I'm told," Bud retorted stiffly. "Any objections to make?"

"Not one in the world. Wish there was more like yuh. You ain't been in these parts long?" His tone made a question of the statement.

"Not right here." Bud had no reason save his temper for not giving more explicit information, but Bart Nelson--as Bud knew him afterwards--continued to study him as if he suspected a blotched past.