Part 4 (1/2)
I'm feeling better with twenty miles between me and Invicta City. The sun transpires over the eastern sky-line, the horses is taking a roll, I'm seated on the remnants of the chicken, and Bull Durham says I'm his adopted orphan. ”You rode,” says he, ”like a pudding on a skewer, you've jolted yo' tail through yo' hat, you looks like a half-skinned fool hen, and you've torn that poor mare's mouth till she smiles from ear to ear.
Yet on the whole them proceedings is cheering you up, _and thar's more coming_.”
Looking back it seems to me that the first night's proceedings was calm.
Thar was the fat German fire brigade pursuing an annual banquet across lots by moonlight, all on our way north, too, till the wagon capsized in a river.
Thar was the funeral obsequies of a pig, late deceased, with munic.i.p.al honors, until we got found out.
Then we was an apparition of angels at a revival camp, only Bull's wings caught fire, and spoiled the whole allusion.
Yes, when I looks back on them radium nights entertainments along with Bull Durham, I see now what a success they was in learning me to ride.
”What you need,” says he, ”is confidence. Got to forget mere matters of habeas corpus, and how your toes point, and whether you're looking pretty. Just trust yo' horse to pull through, so that you ain't caught in the flower of youthful innocence, and hung on the nearest telegraph pole. You still needs eclair as the French say, and you got no _ung bong point_, but your _horse de combat_ is feeling encouraged to pack you seventy miles last night, and we'll be in camp by sundown.”
Once I been to a theater, and seen a play. Thar's act one, with fifteen minutes hoping for act two. Thar's act after act till you just has to fill up the times between with injun war-whoops, until act five, when all the ladies and gents is shot or married. It just cayn't go on. So the aujience says ”Let's go'n have a drink,” and the band goes off for a drink, and the lady with the programs tells you to get to h.e.l.l out of that.
It's all over. The millionaire Lord Bishop of Durham is only Bull's father-in-law. Bull's not exactly a cow-boy yet--but a.s.sists his mother, Mrs. Brooke, who is chef at a ranch. It's not exactly a stock ranch, but they raise fine pedigree hogs. Bull won't be quite popular with his mother for having gorgeous celebrations with the hundred dollars she'd give him to pay off a little debt. I'd better not come to the ranch after leading mummie's boy astray from the paths of virtue.
No, I cayn't set a saddle without giving the horse hysterics, and as for turning cow-boy, what's the matter with my taking a job as a colonel?
I'd best climb off that mare, and hunt a job afoot. So long, Jesse.
There's the dust of Bull's horses way off along the road, and me settin'
down by the wayside. A dog sets down in his skin, tail handy for wagging, all his possessions around him. I ain't even got no tail.
CHAPTER IV
THE ORDEAL BY TORTURE
The Labrador was good to me, the sea was better, the stock range--wall, I'd four years punching cows, and I'm most surely grateful. Thar's plenty trades outside my scope of life, and thar's ages and ages past which must have been plenty enjoyable for a working-man. Thar's ages to come I'd like to sample, too. But so far as I seen, up to whar gra.s.s meets sky, this trade of punching cows appeals to me most plentiful. In every other vocation the job's just work, but all a cow-boy's paid for is forms of joy--to ride, to rope, to cut out, to shoot, to study tracks an' sign, read brands, learn cow. A bucking horse, a range fire, a gun fight, a stampede, is maybe acquired tastes, for I've known good men act bashful.
There's drawbacks also--I'd never set up thirst or sand-storms as being arranged to please, or claim to cheerfulness with a lame horse, or in a sheep range, no. But then you don't know you're happy till you been miserable, and you'd hate the sun himself if he never set.
I ain't proposin' to unfold a lot of adventures, the same being mostly things I'd rather'd happened to some one else. An adventure comes along, an' it's ”How d'ye do?” It's done gone, and ”_Adios!_”
I was nigh killed in all the usual ways.
The sun would find us mounted, scattering for cattle; he'd set, leaving us in the saddle with a night herd still to ride. Hard fed, worked plenty, all outdoors to live in, and bone-weary don't ax, ”Whar's my pillow?” No. The sun s.h.i.+nes through us, and if it's cold we'll s.h.i.+ver till we sweat. The rains, the northers--oh, it was all so natural!
Living with nature makes men natural.
We didn't speak much--pride ain't talkative. Riding or fighting we gave the foreman every ounce we'd got, and more when needed. Persons would come among us, mean, dirty, tough, or scared, sized-up before they dismounted, apt to move on, too. Them that stayed was brothers, and all our possessions usually belonged to the guy who kep' the woodenest face at poker.
The world in them days was peopled with only two species, puncher an'
tenderfoot, the last bein' made by mistake. Moreover, we cow-boys belonged to two sects, our outfit, and others of no account. And in our outfit, this Jesse person which is me, laid claims on being best man, having a pair of gold mounted spurs won at cyards from Pieface, our old foreman. I'd a rolled cantle, double-rig Cheyenne of carved leather, and silver horn--a dandy saddle that, first prize for ”rope and tie down”
agin all comers.
Gun, belt, quirt, bridle, hat, gloves, everything, my whole kit was silver mounted and everything in it a trophy of trading, poker, or fighting. Besides my string of ponies I'd Tiger, an entire black colt I'd broke--though I own he was far from convinced. Add a good pay-day in my off hind pocket, and d'ye think I'd own up to them twelve apostles for uncles? D'ye know what glory is? Wall, I suppose it mostly consists of being young.
In these days now, I've no youth left to boast of, but it's sweet to look back, to remember Sailor Jesse at nineteen, six foot one and filling out, full of original sin, and nothin' copied, feelin' small, too, for so much cubic contents of health, of growin' power, and bubbling fun. Solemn as a prairie injun, too, knowing I was all comic inside, and mighty shy of being found out for the three-year kid I was.