Stepsons of Light

Slow red tinged the olive of Johnny’s cheek, betraying the quickened heartbeats.

“You’ve done hired a hand – quick as ever I throw these cattle back home.”

“Wouldn’t Walter Hearn cut out your milk-pen brands as close as you would?”

“Sure! He’s one of the bunch.”

“Your pay started this morning, then. Here’s the lay. To-morrow we work the herd and start the west-bound strays home. Walt can throw in with the S S Bar man and I’ll send Lon along to represent the Bar Cross. Hiram goes to the John Cross work, at the same time helpin’ Pink throw back the John Cross stuff. So that leaves us shy a short man. That’s you. Send your horses home with Walt.”

“I’d like to keep one with me for my private.”

“All right. Leave him at the horse camp. Can’t carry any idlers with the caballada– makes the other horses discontented. You drift into the wagon early, when you see the horse herd coming. I’m goin’ to send you to the horse camp to get you a mount. We’ll cut out all the lame ones and sore backs from our mounts too. I’ll give you a list of fresh ones to bring back for us. You go up to Engle after supper and then slip out to Moongate to-morrow. We’ll be loadin’ ’em at Engle when you get back. No hurry; take your time.”

He rode on. Behind him the most joyous heart between two oceans thumped at Johnny’s ribs. It is likely that you see no cause for pride. You see a hard job for a scanty wage; to Johnny Dines it was accolade and shoulder stroke. Johnny’s life so far had been made up all of hardships well borne. But that was what Johnny did not know or dream; to-day, hailed man-grown, he thought of his honors, prince and peer, not as deserved and earned, but as an unmerited stroke of good fortune.

The herd, suddenly roused, became vociferous with query and rumor; drifted uneasily a little, muttered, whispered, tittered, fell quiet again, to cheerful grazing. The fresh wild cattle, nearing the periphery, glimpsed the dreaded horsemen beyond, and turned again to hiding in the center. Cole and most of his riders drew away and paced soberly campward, leaving ten herders where they found six.

Jody Weir rode over to Johnny.

“Old citizen,” he said, “the rod tells me you are for Engle, and if I wanted to send letters I might go write ’em. But I beat him to it. Letter to my girl all written and ready. All I had to do was to put in a line with my little old pencil, telling her we’d work the herd to-morrow and start home next day. She’ll be one pleased girl; she sure does love her little Jody.”

Johnny knotted his brows in puzzlement. “But who reads your letters to her?” he said wonderingly.

“Now what you doin’ – tryin’ to slur my girl? She’s educated, that child is.”

“No; but when you said she – she liked her little Jody – why, I naturally supposed” – Johnny hesitated – “her eyesight, you know, might be – ”

Weir slapped his leg and guffawed.

“Thought she was blind, did you? Well, she ain’t. If she was I wouldn’t be writing this letter. Most of it is heap private and confidential.” His face took on a broad and knowing leer as he handed over the letter. It was fat; it was face up; it bore the address:

Mr. J. D. Weir, Hillsboro, N. M

Johnny put the letter carefully in his saddle pocket.

“Don’t you think maybe you’re leaving an opening for some of the cattle to slip out?” he said, twitching his thumb toward Weir’s deserted post.

“Let them other waddies circulate a little – lazy dogs! Won’t hurt ’em any. Cattle ain’t troublin’, nohow. Cole, he told me himself to slide over and give you my letters. Darned funny if a man can’t gas a little once in a while.” He gave Johnny a black look. “Say, feller! Maybe you don’t like my talk?”

“No,” said Johnny, “I don’t. Not unless you change the subject. That young lady wouldn’t want you to be talking her over with any tough you meet.”

Jody Weir checked his horse and regarded Dines with a truculent stare. “Aw, hell! She ain’t so particular! Here, let me show you the stuff she writes, herself.” His hand went to his vest pocket. “Some baby!”

“Here! That’s enough! I’m surprised at you, Jody. I never was plumb foolish about you, but I suhtenly thought you was man enough not to kiss and tell. That’s as low-down as they ever get, I reckon.”

“You ain’t got no gun. And you’re too little for me to maul round – say nothing of scaring the herd and maybe wasting a lot.”

“All that is very true – to-day. But it isn’t a question of guns, just now. I’m trying to get you to shut up that big blackguard mouth of yours. If you wasn’t such a numskull you’d see that I’m a-doin’ you a good turn.”

“You little sawed-off, bench-legged pup! I orter throw this gun away and stomp you into the sand! Aw, what’s a-bitin’ you? I ain’t named no names, have I? You’re crowdin’ me purty hard. What’s the matter, feller? Got it in for me, and usin’ this as an excuse? When’d I ever do you any dirt?”

“Never,” said Johnny. “Get this straight: I’m not wanting any fight. It’s decency I’m trying to crowd on to you – not a fight.”

“I can’t write to my girl without your say-so, hey?”

“Now you listen! Writing to a girl, fair and above-board, is one thing. Writing unbeknownst to her folks, with loose talk about her on the side, is another thing altogether. It’s yourself you’re doing dirt to – and to this girl that trusted you.”

Jody’s face showed real bewilderment. “How? You don’t know her name. Nobody knows her name. No one knows I have more than a nodding acquaintance with her – unless she told you!” His eyes flamed with sudden suspicion. “You know her yourself – she told you!”

“Jody, you put me in mind of the stealthy hippopotamus, and likewise of the six-toed Wallipaloova bird, that hides himself under his wing,” said Dines. “I’ve never been in Hillsboro, and I never saw your girl. But when you write her a letter addressed to yourself – why don’t your dad take that letter home and keep it till you come? How is she going to get it out of the post office? She can’t – unless she works in the post office herself. Old man Seiber is postmaster at Hillsboro. I’ve heard that much. And he’s got a daughter named Kitty. You see now I was telling you true – you talk too much.”

Weir’s face went scarlet with rage.

“Here’s a fine how-de-do about a damn little – ”

That word was never uttered. Johnny’s horse, with rein and knee and spur to guide and goad, reared high and flung sidewise. White hoofs flashed above Weir’s startled eyes; Johnny launched himself through the air straight at Jody’s throat. Johnny’s horse fell crashing after, twisting, bestriding at once the other horse and the two locked and straining men. Weir’s horse floundered and went down, men and horses rolled together in the sand. From first to last you might have counted – one – two – three – four! Johnny came clear of the tangle with Jody’s six-shooter in his hand. He grabbed Jody by the collar and dragged him from under the struggling horses.

“We can’t go on with this, Jody!” he said gravely. “You’ve got no gun!”

II

“She is useful to us, undoubtedly,’ answered Corneuse, ‘but she does us an injury by ruining us.’”

    – The Elm Tree on the Mall.

The Jornada is a high desert of tableland, east of the Rio Grande. In design it is strikingly like a billiard table; forty-five miles by ninety, with mountain ranges for rail at east and west, broken highlands on the south, a lava bed on the north. At the middle of each rail and at each corner, for pockets, there is a mountain passway and water; there are peaks and landmarks for each diamond on the rail; for the center and for each spot there is a railroad station and water – Lava, Engle and Upham. Roughly speaking there is road or trail from each spot to each pocket, each spot to each spot, each pocket to every other pocket. In the center, where you put the pin at pin pool, stands Engle.

Noon of the next day found Johnny nearing Moongate Pass, a deep notch in the San Andreas Mountains; a smooth semicircle exactly filled and fitted by the rising moon, when full and seen from Engle. Through Moongate led the wagon road, branching at the high parks on the summit to five springs: The Bar Cross horse camp, Bear Den, Rosebud, Good Fortune, Grapevine.

Johnny drove his casualties slowly up the gentle valley. On either hand a black-cedared ridge climbed eastward, each to a high black mountain at the head of the pass. Johnny gathered up what saddle horses were in the pass and moved them along with his cripples.

At the summit he came to a great gateway country of parks and cedar mottes, gentle slopes and low rolling ridges, with wide smooth valleys falling away to north and south; eastward rose a barrier of red-sandstone hills. High in those red hills Johnny saw two horsemen. They drove a bunch of horses of their own; they rode swiftly down a winding backbone to intercept him. He held up his little herd; the two riders slowed up in response. They came through a greenwood archway to the little cove where Johnny waited. One was a boy of sixteen, Bob Gifford, left in charge of the horse camp; the other a tall stranger who held up his hand in salute. Young Bob reined up with a gay flourish.

“Hello, Dinesy!” He took a swift survey of Johnny’s little herd and sized up the situation. “Looks like you done signed up with the Bar Cross.”

“Oh, si! Here’s a list of horses Cole sent for. I don’t know ’em all, so I brought along all I saw.”

Bob took the scrap of paper.

“Calabaza, Jug, Silver Dick – Oh, excuse me! Mr. Hales, this is Johnny Dines. Mr. Hales is thinkin’ some of buying that ornery Spot horse of mine. Johnny, you got nigh all you need to make good your hospital list. Now let’s see. Um-m! – Twilight, Cyclone, Dynamite, Rebel, Sif Sam, Cigarette, Skyrocket, Straight-edge, and so forth. Um! Your mount, that bunch? Sweet spirits of nitre! Oh, cowboy! You sure got to ride!”

“Last man takes the leavings,” said Johnny.

“You got ’em.” Bob rolled his eyes eloquently. “I’ll tell a man! Two sticks and eleven catawampouses! Well, it’s your funeral. Any rush?”

“Just so I get back to Engle to-morrow night.”

“Easy as silk, then. All them you ain’t got here will be in to water to-night or to-morrow morning, ’cept Bluebeard and Popcorn. They run at Puddingstone Tanks, down the cañon. You and me will go get ’em after dinner.”