Panguitch Page 5

  Sue Melberne’s father would never have allowed her to come on this wild horse hunting expedition if he had not calculated on finding a new country where he could homestead. Back there at St. George she had heard her father say to Loughbridge, his partner in this venture: “You know, Jim, I’ve shore got to take root in new soil.”

  This significant remark had remained in Sue’s mind, like others that had struck her strangely since her return from school in Silver City. Her father was always looking for someone to come unexpectedly, so it seemed. There had been some reason for him to leave Texas, then Silver City, then Vegas, and lastly St. George. Sue did not want to dwell on the meaning of this. She had been born in Texas and she had lived long enough in the West to know Westerners.

  The pursuit of wild horses had a remarkable fascination for Sue, but she hated the brutality. She loved to see and watch wild horses, not to capture them. Then the camp life, the riding and packing from place to place, the days in the open country—Utah in its beautiful, wild, carved stone majesty—coming after her four years at school in a bustling town, had irresistible appeal for her.

  There had been a chance for her to remain at St. George, teaching at a school where most of the children were Mormons. She did not dislike Mormons particularly, but she had no wish to live alone among them. On the other hand, the prospect held out by her father had not at first struck Sue as alluring. It would be, sooner or later, no less than hard pioneer life. But she had decided to try it, to be with her father and younger brother. Sue’s mother was dead, and her father had married again while she was attending school, a circumstance she had not hailed with joy. It had turned out, however, that her stepmother was a clever and lovable woman, who had certainly been good for her father.

  Therefore, Sue, who had undertaken the trip out of love for father and brother, and a longing for experience in the desert, found in a few weeks that she was fitting admirably and happily into this nomad life of wild horse wrangling. She was young, healthy, strong; she could ride a horse and cook a meal over a campfire; she found in herself a surprising response to all that was characteristic of primitive life in the open. Still she held most tenaciously to her few worldly possessions—dresses, pictures, books—things that had been a part of her development at school. Many a time, on the journey east from St. George, she had ridden on the wagon seat with Jake, just to keep him from driving recklessly over some of the fearful places along the road. She did not want to see that wagon wrecked, with her precious chest of belongings.

  Melberne’s outfit was not a large one, as wild horse hunting outfits were considered, but as he and his partner, Loughbridge, had brought their womenfolk and the necessary teamsters, wagons, camp equipment, supplies, all together they made quite a party. If a desirable country were found, with abundant grass and water, Loughbridge would be willing to homestead a ranch, along with Melberne. Their main idea, then, was really not alone the capturing and marketing of wild horses. In the interest, however, of that pursuit it was necessary to keep within one day’s travel of the railroad. Melberne was shipping carloads of unbroken horses to St. Louis. In considerable numbers, at thirteen dollars a head, he could make money. But he was not striking any country rich in ranching possibilities.

  It was on an afternoon of September that the Melberne outfit halted at the head of Stark Valley, which was thirty miles from the railroad.

  Sue had heard the men talking about this valley, and all the ride down from the divide to the welcome grove of cottonwood trees below she had gazed and gazed. Utah had been strikingly beautiful with its pink cliffs, wide plains of white sage, rugged black mountains, and then the colorful stone-monumented desert. She had marked that as they traveled eastward the scale and ruggedness and wild beauty had appeared to magnify. This valley was something to make her catch her breath.

  She had grown capable of judging the colorful distances, the deceiving purple shadows, the long sweeping lines of the desert. Here she saw a valley that she estimated to be twenty miles wide and eighty long. Really it seemed small, set down in a vast panorama, with a ragged black range of mountains on one side, an endless waving green rise of land sweeping to a horizon on the other. Far beyond the long length of this valley stood what appeared a flat mountain, very lofty, with red walls now sunlit, and a level black top. It was so different from any landmark Sue had ever seen that she was forcibly struck with it. How far away! How isolated! It had a strange, impelling beauty.

  “Dad, what’s that mountain?” asked Sue, pointing.

  Her father, a stalwart bearded man, turned from his task of unhitching a team to answer Sue. He had gray, penetrating, tired eyes that held a smile for her.

  “Shore I don’t know,” he replied as he glanced in the direction Sue was pointing. “Wal, no wonder it caught your eye. See heah, Alonzo, what’s that flat mountain yonder?”

  Alonzo was a half-breed Mexican vaquero, guide to the outfit, and reputed to be the best wrangler in Utah. He was a slim, lithe rider, very light of build yet muscular, and he had a sharp, smooth, dark face, and eyes of piercing black. He gazed a moment down the valley.

  “Wild Horse Mesa,” he replied briefly.

  “Reckon I ought to have known, considerin’ all I’ve heard,” said Melberne. “Sue, that’s not a mountain, but a mesa. Biggest mesa in Utah. It’s a refuge for wild horses, so the Mormons say, an’ no white men have set foot on it.”

  “Wild Horse Mesa!” exclaimed Sue. “How beautiful … and wild! So far away … It’s good there’s a place where horses are safe.”

  “Wal, lass, there’ll shore be a lot of wild horses safe for a long time,” said her father as he surveyed the valley. “This country is full of them. Look! I see hundreds of wild horses now.”

  Sue focused her dreamy gaze, and was surprised and thrilled to see bands of horses dotting the valley. They appeared to be of all colors, and grew in numbers until they faded in the gray haze.

  “They’ll shore be the devil to catch,” continued Melberne as his keen eye swept the valley. It was a vast green hollow, treeless, stoneless, with its monotony broken only by the bands of horses and pale gleams of winding streams.

  “Dad, we’re to make permanent camp here, didn’t you say?” asked Sue.

  “Yep, an’ right glad I am,” he rejoined heartily. “We’ve shore been on the go, with no chance to make you womenfolk comfortable. Heah we can make a fine camp. Plenty of grass, water, wood, an’ meat. This grove is in a protected place, too. We’ll be heah days, an’ maybe weeks. I’m shore goin’ to trap a great bunch of wild horses.”

  “Dad, you mean trap them at one time?”

  “That’s my idea. Jim doesn’t agree, but he’ll come to my way of thinkin’.”

  “If you’d only keep the wild horses you do catch and tame them!” protested Sue.

  “Tame wild horses at thirteen dollars a head!” ejaculated her father, with a laugh. “Child, it can’t be done.”

  “Some of the horses I’ve seen, if properly broken, would be worth hundreds of dollars,” Sue replied.

  Melberne scratched his grizzled face and pondered thoughtfully, and then he shook his head as if the problem was beyond him, and returned to his task.

  Many experienced hands made short work of pitching camp. Before the sun set tents were up, fires were blazing, blue smoke was curling upward through the golden-green leaves of the cottonwoods, and the fragrant steam of hot biscuits, venison, and coffee permeated the cool air.

  “I refuse to call out that cowboy slogan,” announced Mrs. Melberne cheerfully, “but I say come to supper.”

  She was a short, stout, pleasant-faced little woman, just now ruddy from the fire heat. Her helper, Mrs. Loughbridge, afforded a marked contrast, in both appearance and manner.

  Young Chess Weymer, who was always offering gallant little courtesies to Sue and Ora Loughbridge, lifted a seat from one of the wagons and placed it convenien
tly out of line of the blowing campfire smoke.

  “There, girls, have a seat,” he said in his rich bass voice.

  Sue complied with a nod of thanks, and seated herself with burdened tin plate in one hand and a cup in the other. But Ora did not get up from where she squatted on the ground. She was a dark-eyed handsome girl, and just now rather sullen of face.

  “Come have a seat, Ora!” called Chess.

  She flashed him an illuminating look. “Chess, I wouldn’t deprive you of such a chance,” she said with sarcasm.

  “Oh, well, if you won’t, I will,” replied Chess, and seated himself beside Sue.

  Sue rather enjoyed the situation. Ora had been plainly captivated by this good-looking boy, who showed a preference for Sue’s society. He was a clean-cut lad of eighteen, brown of face and eye, and possessed of a fine frank countenance, singularly winning. At St. George, where he had joined the caravan, he had appeared to be a wild, happy youngster, not above drinking and fighting, and utterly unable to resist the girls. Sue liked his company so long as he did not grow oversentimental. She was two years older than Chess, and in her mind vastly more mature. She had condescended to regard him with sisterly favor until the Loughbridges joined the party, when Ora had taken most of the pleasure, as well as Chess’ society.

  Everybody was hungry after the long ride, and ate without conversing. Sue’s appetite was as healthy as any. It took considerably less time to dispose of the supper than it had required to prepare it. This meal hour, and the campfire hour afterward, were about the only opportunities Sue had to observe the men all together, and she made the most of them.

  The wranglers of the outfit were a continual source of delight to her. There were six of these employed by her father, and they worked in every capacity that such travel and strenuous activity demanded.

  Alonzo, the half-breed, was the most fascinating, but not because he was particularly interesting to look at when out riding or dealing with horses. It was what knowledge he could impart. Utah, a wild horse wrangler, was probably a Mormon, though he never admitted that—a sharp-featured, stone-faced young man, long, slim, bowlegged, hard as rock, and awkward on his feet. He somehow resembled the desert. Tway Miller appeared to be a cowboy who had abandoned cattle riding because he hated wire fences. He complained that there were no great ranges left, and when taken to task about this, he showed his idea of a range to be the whole Southwest. Tway was a tough, wiry little rider, dusty always, ragged and shiny, and he had a face like the bark of a tree. He got his name Tway from a habit he had of stuttering, something his comrades took fiendish glee in making him do. Bonny was a stalwart Irishman, sandy bearded and haired, freckle faced, and he possessed a wonderful deep bass voice, the solemnity of which suited his big light blue eyes. His age was about thirty, and he had been ten years in America. His one dislike, it appeared, was anything in the shape of a town. Jake, a man of years and experience, possessed a heavy square frame that had begun to show the wear of time. He was bald. His round brown face was a wrinkled record of all the vicissitudes of life, not one of which had embittered him. Everything ill had happened to Jake. He had once had wife, children, home, prosperity, position, all of which had gone with the years. Yet he was the most cheerful and unselfish and helpful of men. If anyone wanted a service he ran to Jake. And Jake would say, “Why, sure! I’ll be glad to do it.” Jake had been engaged, as had the others, to chase wild horses, and between times help at all jobs. But it turned out that his active riding days were past. It tortured him, racked his bones, to ride all day even on a trotting horse. As teamster, however, cook, and handy man around camp he was incomparable. The last of this sextet so interesting to Sue was a tenderfoot they had named Captain Bunk. The sea to him had been what the desert was to the riders. Somehow he had drifted to Utah. His talk about boats, engines, ships, his bunkmates, had earned him the sobriquet of Captain Bunk. He had a face as large as a ham, bright red, an enormous nose that never got over sunburn, and eyes and lips that always showed the effect of the dry winds of the desert.

  Supper had long passed and the sun was setting when the chores of these men had been completed for the day. Sue stopped a moment, on her way out to find some quiet outlook, there to watch and dream as was her habit, and listened to the campfire conversation.

  “How many wild horses in the valley?” inquired her father eagerly.

  “Reckon I seen five thousand,” replied Loughbridge, holding up his field glasses.

  “Shore you’re jokin’!” ejaculated Melberne.

  “No. These glasses don’t lie.”

  “By thunder, that’s great news,” declared Melberne, clapping his hands. “Now to plan some kind of a trap to catch five hundred … a thousand … at one clip!”

  “Reckon you’re locoed, Mel,” declared his partner. “If we could ketch a hundred at once, I’d be satisfied. What’s the use ketchin’ so many when we can only drive a few to the railroad?”

  “Wal, that’s so. But we’ve got to learn a way to catch a bunch, an’ drive them, too. Alonzo says he has seen that done, but it kills a lot of horses. An’ he won’t tell me.”

  Like a majority of the real wild horse wranglers, Alonzo had a love for all horses. Melberne was not a hard man, but he was keen to acquire money. Loughbridge would have been glad to sacrifice any number of horses, just so long as he saved enough to make a rich stake. He argued with the reticent Mexican, but to no avail. Alonzo would not reveal the secret of how to capture and drive large numbers of wild horses. Sue liked him for that, as much as she disliked Loughbridge. Her father, she knew, was earnest, strong, but easily led, especially in the direction of profits. Presently he and Loughbridge strolled off into the grove, evidently to talk alone. Whereupon the conversation grew loquacious and general.

  “Bonny, how do you like this country?” inquired Captain Bunk with a defiant note of curiosity.

  “My Gawd, Captain, it’s shure gr-r-rand!” replied Bonny, his deep voice ringing solemnly.

  “Blow me if it ain’t a hell of a place … this Utah!” exploded Bunk disgustedly. “There ain’t any water. Why, you couldn’t float a skiff in the whole of this desert!”

  “Shure this is land, mon, an’ dom’ foine land!” expostulated Bonny. “All we need is water enough to drink.”

  “T-t-t-t-twa-tway-tway …” began Tway Miller.

  “Aw, hev a cigarette,” interrupted Utah, handing Miller his pouch. “Listen to our Irish pard an’ this seafarin’ man.”

  “T-t-t-t-t-ttt-tway-d-d-da-dam’ it! I can talk if I w-w-want to!” shouted Tway.

  “Talk? Say, hombre, you’ve never showed me any sign of talkin’ yet,” drawled Utah.

  “Bonny, you wouldn’t live out here among all these headlands?” queried Captain Bunk, hot for argument.

  “Live here? Shure I’m goin’ to. It’s gr-r-rand country. I’ll marry one of them squaw Injuns phwat owns a lot of land. Mebbe they’ll be gold or oil. An’ after I’m rich … I’ll git rid of her.”

  Some of his listeners howled with glee, while Captain Bunk ejaculated in amazement, “Get rid of your squaw! How?”

  “Shure there’d be ways. Knock her on the head, or somethin’ loike,” Bonny replied earnestly.

  “You’re a bloody pirate,” declared Captain Bunk.

  “Aw, Bonny’s just talkin’,” put in Jake in his easy, friendly voice. “He wouldn’t hurt a flea. I think he’s stringin’ you boys.”

  “Wal, my Irish lad, if you’ll take a hunch from me, shut up on thet squaw talk,” advised Utah forcibly. “Squaw men ain’t liked in this country.”

  “P-p-p-p-per-perfectly natu-ral,” interposed Tway Miller. “You Mormons want all the w-w-w-wim-wim-men … redskins an’ white.”

  “Tway, if you make a crack like thet in Saint George, you’d sure get cured,” replied Utah.

  “C-c-c-cured of w-w-what?” demanded Tway.

&nbs
p; “Talkin’,” retorted Utah, his lean face lighting with a smile.

  At this sally all the men, except Tway, roared with mirth. Even the half-breed laughed at Tway’s discomfiture.

  Sue lingered near until her presence became rather obvious to the bantering riders. Then she strolled farther on, to the edge of the cottonwood grove, where she found a seat on a log.

  The sun had set. The valley was full of purple shadows, and far beyond them rose the dim strange bulk of Wild Horse Mesa. She did not think anything particular about this aloof tableland, yet she was conscious that it grew on her. How vast and open this Utah wilderness! Reluctantly she confessed its beauty, its appeal to the depths of her, its all-satisfying, inexplicable charm. She heard the fluttering of cottonwood leaves; she smelled fragrant wood smoke; she saw the dim bands of wild horses down on the level floor of the valley. Something took hold of her soul, and the nearest she could come to interpreting its meaning was in her vague glad sense that this experience of hers had just begun and would last long. It seemed connected with dreams of childhood, far off, sweetly remembered things, yet too deep, too mysterious to recall.

  A footfall on the leaves roused Sue. Turning, she saw Chess coming, a smile on his frank face.

  “Sue, may I sit with you?” he asked.

  “Yes … if you’ll be a good boy and fetch my coat. It’s on the wagon tongue.”

  “Sue, I’d get anything for you,” he said, and turned away.

  Presently he returned with it and held it for her. Chess had thoughtful, courteous little ways that pleased Sue. They spoke well for what he had been to his mother and sister, and for the home where he had learned them.

  “Sue, you take me for such a boy,” he expostulated as he flopped down before her and sat Indian fashion with his legs crossed. He was bareheaded and his curly brown locks had a glint of gold.

  “Of course I do. You’re only eighteen,” replied Sue.

  “Sure. But I’m a man. I had that out with my brother Chane. I feel old as the hills. And, Sue, you’ll only be twenty next month. You’re no Methuselum, or whatever they called him.”