The Sheriff of Badger Part 38

Old man Horne put a different interpretation on Lafe's peculiar nervous dread. Very condescendingly he explained to me that, being a bachelor, I could not be expected to probe the mystery, but the fact was that every married man was seized some time with this species of anxiety.

"That is," said Horne, "if he's conscientious and worth his salt. Some of 'em, they never do get rid of it. It isn't cowardice. He's just afraid for his family."

"But Johnson has no real cause for worry. Not like a lot of others. Look at him."

"Sure not. That's why he's worrying. He's got things too easy, the rascal. If he had some real troubles, probably he wouldn't fret at all."

Winter dragged along--a winter of bl.u.s.tering winds, of abrupt, dead calms and terrible cold. The cold did not last, however. Some snow fell in the hills, and under a bright sun ran down in rills to the river.

Later, the rains held off and the gra.s.s shriveled. The country turned a pale brown.

We never look for the first rains to wash the land until July--for some unexplained reason everybody sets the date at July Fourth. But in early June numberless clouds ma.s.sed in tumbled glory above the mountains and the rain drove down in sheets. Three days later the country showed green and pure, the trees put forth new leaves and the ocatilla flared turkey-red on the ridges.

"The cattle are looking fine," Lafe reported. "Their hides are loose.

We've had a good calf crop. It'll run to seventy per cent, Horne. And there ain't no worms, or likely will be."

"Start the roundup next week," said Horne.

Accordingly, the Anvil outfit gathered its horses, packed its chuckwagon with food and bedding, and set out for Zacaton Bottom, there to pitch the first camp. They would not reach the mountain pastures, where the wild steers roamed, until late in the autumn.

The horses were on edge from their winter's freedom. One in every three were broncos just broken. What the Anvil buster facetiously called a broken horse was one that had had three saddles. After those, he was turned into the remuda--not bridle-wise, full of fight and vicious from memory of what the buster had imposed on him. As a result, we had five or six contests of endurance between riders and mounts each morning. One of the boys was thrown and had his collar bone broken.

As boss, Johnson had the privilege of topping the remuda for his string--that is to say, he had first choice of all horses. Yet it was generally a point of honor not to appropriate all the gentle ones; also, not to a.s.sign all the bad ones to one particular hand; and it is always a point of honor to retain those selected, and ride them, whatever characteristics they may develop afterwards.

In Lafe's mount was a big J A sorrel that had roved the fastnesses of Paloduro in Texas. The buster had christened him Casey Jones, after the celebrated engineer, because of the desperate quality of his courage.

Now, by reason of Lafe's recently developed nervousness concerning himself, I could not repress my impatience for the day to arrive for Casey Jones' saddling--the horses are worked in rotation and, being entirely gra.s.s-fed, each can only be used about once in three days.

In a chill dawn the roper called to Johnson: "Want Casey Jones?"

"No-oo. Catch me Tommy," said the boss.

n.o.body but the roper, the horse wrangler and myself marked this weakening. We did not even comment on it among ourselves, but I was much cast down. Of course no man after he has got beyond twenty-five years, or has otherwise arrived at some degree of sense, wants to ride a bucking horse; but when it is put up to him, when it becomes his duty, then the man who shirks is discredited. Yet none of us could think of Lafe as really shirking. Perhaps he had some excellent reason. Much more of this, though, and there would be a lessening of his authority.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

BUT THE BOSS AGAIN PROVES HIS METTLE

He mounted Tommy, and we rounded up some foothills, where every patch of weed and mesquite gave up a bunch of cattle. While two of his men were working the herd on the roundup ground, Lafe sat Tommy on the outskirts, making one of the cordon of riders that surrounded the cattle and kept them in. He was talking to a strayman from the Lazy L, who worked with our wagon in order to gather the cattle of his brand which had wandered from their range.

Two bulls started a fight. They were Herefords of tremendous bulk, and when they crashed together in the center of the herd, the ma.s.s split apart. Fully a score of bulls had been wandering up and down picking fights, so Lafe and the strayman paid no especial attention.

However, it is the essence of folly to ignore bulls in combat if the combat be anywhere near you. None knew this better than Lafe. The bull that finds himself getting the worst of it will invariably break free, swerve aside and dash at the nearest object, as a diversion. Usually his foe goes in hot pursuit.

The two Herefords pawed and bawled and rumbled and b.u.t.ted. Johnson and the cowboy talked, lolling in the saddle. The bulls drew off from each other a few steps, bellowed and crashed head-on. The impact was terrific. One of them rocketed out of the press of cattle straight at Lafe.

It happened that Tommy--finding that no work faced him--was taking it easy, with one hip down and his eyes half shut. The bull caught the horse under the belly and hurled him and his rider a good ten feet through the air. Lafe struck the ground partly under his mount, his right leg held by Tommy's shoulders. The horse did not rise. He was disemboweled.

The cowboys spurred to his aid and dragged Tommy off him. The bulls had trotted back to the herd and were now engaged in thundering challenges to other range monarchs. Lafe stood up painfully. He put his right foot to the ground, very carefully. A smile of intense satisfaction came over his face.

"Nothing broken," he said--"just shaken up. Jim-in-ee, but I'm sure lucky."

He turned to Tommy, wheezing on the ground and trying weakly to rise.

"Poor li'l devil. Poor ol' Tommy," he said pityingly. After a brief examination, he shot him between the eyes in order to spare him useless suffering.

The boss was very blue throughout the day, and I knew it was for the horse. Tommy had been a pet, and every one of us felt what it had cost Lafe. "Poor li'l devil"--that was all, but Johnson was of the kind who would hardly have said as much audibly for a human being.

Back of his grief I detected a great relief. It was almost a new sense of freedom, revealed in his eyes and his altered manner towards his men.

The old quiet authority was his again. Just what he felt was shown when he said to me that night, "I reckon if a big ol' bull can't even hurt me, that I've got a few years to live yet awhile. Hey, Dan?"

"You're whistling. That was a close call, though, Lafe."

"If it had been Casey Jones now--" he began, but something in my face stopped him.

"Did you notice?" he asked, without embarra.s.sment.

"Yes. Why did you do it?"

"I got to thinking about Hetty and the kid. And then I quit--quit cold--laid down. Just watch me ride ol' Casey Jones to-morrow, though.

I'll sure clean that fine gentleman."

I watched him. We all did. It was a joy to behold. The sorrel was in high fettle and the ground was hard. So furiously did Casey Jones pitch--squalling through his gaping mouth at every jump--that one of his hoofs was split in two. Lafe sat him firmly, his poise yielding to every new move of the bronco, and he shouted in delight as he plied quirt and spur. Time and again Casey Jones leaped straight into the air and turned back under his rider. Johnson's head would snap back, but his seat was never shaken, and he raked the sorrel from shoulder to flank-cinch. At last Casey Jones stopped, his legs wide apart, his head drooped and his breath whistling. The Anvil men gazed in silence, but with deep approval.

"Crackee," said a cowboy to me, "the boss is sure some peeler."

"He certainly hasn't forgotten how."

"Me and some of the boys," he went on, "we'd been figuring as how Lafe had sort of lost his nerve. It seemed queer, too, but he's been mighty low-sperited. Did you notice? I reckon that was just a mistake, don't you? It must have been."

"A big mistake," I agreed. "He was just a bit worried. That was all.

He'll never be that way again."

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

HOW A MOFFATT HENCHMAN WAS OUSTED

Another episode during this roundup gave Lafe a lasting reputation among cowmen for cool judgment.

The outfit was working the foothills country. In nearly all the draws of this region nesters had settled, for one could grow corn and alfalfa in abundance, and some had laid out small peach orchards. They farmed in quarter-sections, and generally six or eight miles separated the farms.

Some of them owned a few head of cattle, which grazed on the open range with the herds of the big companies.

Consequently, when the Anvil wagon went on its roundup and began gathering cows and calves from valley and hill and brakes, it was joined at various points by nesters. They came to see that the calves belonging to any of their cows that might be in a roundup got the proper brand; and they received free chuck, and worked as members of the outfit.