"Luke had his own ideas of legality and justice. He was kind of training me to succeed him when he went out of office. He was always looking ahead to the time when he"d quit sheriffing. What he wanted to do was to build a yellow house with lattice-work under the porch and have hens scratching in the yard. The one main thing in his mind seemed to be the yard.
""Bud," he says to me, "by instinct and sentiment I"m a contractor.
I want to be a contractor. That"s what I"ll be when I get out of office."
""What kind of a contractor?" says I. "It sounds like a kind of a business to me. You ain"t going to haul cement or establish branches or work on a railroad, are you?"
""You don"t understand," says Luke. "I"m tired of s.p.a.ce and horizons and territory and distances and things like that. What I want is reasonable contraction. I want a yard with a fence around it that you can go out and set on after supper and listen to whip-poor-wills,"
says Luke.
"That"s the kind of a man he was. He was home-like, although he"d had bad luck in such investments. But he never talked about them times on the ranch. It seemed like he"d forgotten about it. I wondered how, with his ideas of yards and chickens and notions of lattice-work, he"d seemed to have got out of his mind that kid of his that had been taken away from him, unlawful, in spite of his decree of court. But he wasn"t a man you could ask about such things as he didn"t refer to in his own conversation.
"I reckon he"d put all his emotions and ideas into being sheriff.
I"ve read in books about men that was disappointed in these poetic and fine-haired and high-collared affairs with ladies renouncing truck of that kind and wrapping themselves up into some occupation like painting pictures, or herding sheep, or science, or teaching school--something to make "em forget. Well, I guess that was the way with Luke. But, as he couldn"t paint pictures, he took it out in rounding up horse thieves and in making Mojada County a safe place to sleep in if you was well armed and not afraid of requisitions or tarantulas.
"One day there pa.s.ses through Bildad a bunch of these money investors from the East, and they stopped off there, Bildad being the dinner station on the I. & G. N. They was just coming back from Mexico looking after mines and such. There was five of "em--four solid parties, with gold watch chains, that would grade up over two hundred pounds on the hoof, and one kid about seventeen or eighteen.
"This youngster had on one of them cowboy suits such as tenderfoots bring West with "em; and you could see he was aching to wing a couple of Indians or bag a grizzly or two with the little pearl-handled gun he had buckled around his waist.
"I walked down to the depot to keep an eye on the outfit and see that they didn"t locate any land or scare the cow ponies. .h.i.tched in front of Murchison"s store or act otherwise unseemly. Luke was away after a gang of cattle thieves down on the Frio, and I always looked after the law and order when he wasn"t there.
"After dinner this boy comes out of the dining-room while the train was waiting, and prances up and down the platform ready to shoot all antelope, lions, or private citizens that might endeavour to molest or come too near him. He was a good-looking kid; only he was like all them tenderfoots--he didn"t know a law-and-order town when he saw it.
"By and by along comes Pedro Johnson, the proprietor of the Crystal Palace _chili-con-carne_ stand in Bildad. Pedro was a man who liked to amuse himself; so he kind of herd rides this youngster, laughing at him, tickled to death. I was too far away to hear, but the kid seems to mention some remarks to Pedro, and Pedro goes up and slaps him about nine feet away, and laughs harder than ever. And then the boy gets up quicker than he fell and jerks out his little pearl-handle, and--bing! bing! bing! Pedro gets it three times in special and treasured portions of his carca.s.s. I saw the dust fly off his clothes every time the bullets. .h.i.t. Sometimes them little thirty-twos cause worry at close range.
"The engine bell was ringing, and the train starting off slow. I goes up to the kid and places him under arrest, and takes away his gun. But the first thing I knew that _caballard_ of capitalists makes a break for the train. One of "em hesitates in front of me for a second, and kind of smiles and shoves his hand up against my chin, and I sort of laid down on the platform and took a nap. I never was afraid of guns; but I don"t want any person except a barber to take liberties like that with my face again. When I woke up, the whole outfit--train, boy, and all--was gone. I asked about Pedro, and they told me the doctor said he would recover provided his wounds didn"t turn out to be fatal.
"When Luke got back three days later, and I told him about it, he was mad all over.
""Why"n"t you telegraph to San Antone," he asks, "and have the bunch arrested there?"
""Oh, well," says I, "I always did admire telegraphy; but astronomy was what I had took up just then." That capitalist sure knew how to gesticulate with his hands.
"Luke got madder and madder. He investigates and finds in the depot a card one of the men had dropped that gives the address of some _hombre_ called Scudder in New York City.
""Bud," says Luke, "I"m going after that bunch. I"m going there and get the man or boy, as you say he was, and bring him back. I"m sheriff of Mojada County, and I shall keep law and order in its precincts while I"m able to draw a gun. And I want you to go with me. No Eastern Yankee can shoot up a respectable and well-known citizen of Bildad, "specially with a thirty-two calibre, and escape the law. Pedro Johnson," says Luke, "is one of our most prominent citizens and business men. I"ll appoint Sam Bell acting sheriff with penitentiary powers while I"m away, and you and me will take the six forty-five northbound to-morrow evening and follow up this trail."
""I"m your company," says I. "I never see this New York, but I"d like to. But, Luke," says I, "don"t you have to have a dispensation or a habeas corpus or something from the state, when you reach out that far for rich men and malefactors?"
""Did I have a requisition," says Luke, "when I went over into the Brazos bottoms and brought back Bill Grimes and two more for holding up the International? Did me and you have a search warrant or a posse comitatus when we rounded up them six Mexican cow thieves down in Hidalgo? It"s my business to keep order in Mojada County."
""And it"s my business as office deputy," says I, "to see that business is carried on according to law. Between us both we ought to keep things pretty well cleaned up."
"So, the next day, Luke packs a blanket and some collars and his mileage book in a haversack, and him and me hits the breeze for New York. It was a powerful long ride. The seats in the cars was too short for six-footers like us to sleep comfortable on; and the conductor had to keep us from getting off at every town that had five-story houses in it. But we got there finally; and we seemed to see right away that he was right about it.
""Luke," says I, "as office deputy and from a law standpoint, it don"t look to me like this place is properly and legally in the jurisdiction of Mojada County, Texas."
""From the standpoint of order," says he, "it"s amenable to answer for its sins to the properly appointed authorities from Bildad to Jerusalem."
""Amen," says I. "But let"s turn our trick sudden, and ride. I don"t like the looks of this place."
""Think of Pedro Johnson," says Luke, "a friend of mine and yours shot down by one of these gilded abolitionists at his very door!"
""It was at the door of the freight depot," says I. "But the law will not be balked at a quibble like that."
"We put up at one of them big hotels on Broadway. The next morning I goes down about two miles of stairsteps to the bottom and hunts for Luke. It ain"t no use. It looks like San Jacinto day in San Antone.
There"s a thousand folks milling around in a kind of a roofed-over plaza with marble pavements and trees growing right out of "em, and I see no more chance of finding Luke than if we was hunting each other in the big pear flat down below Old Fort Ewell. But soon Luke and me runs together in one of the turns of them marble alleys.
""It ain"t no use, Bud," says he. "I can"t find no place to eat at.
I"ve been looking for restaurant signs and smelling for ham all over the camp. But I"m used to going hungry when I have to. Now," says he, "I"m going out and get a hack and ride down to the address on this Scudder card. You stay here and try to hustle some grub. But I doubt if you"ll find it. I wish we"d brought along some cornmeal and bacon and beans. I"ll be back when I see this Scudder, if the trail ain"t wiped out."
"So I starts foraging for breakfast. For the honour of old Mojada County I didn"t want to seem green to them abolitionists, so every time I turned a corner in them marble halls I went up to the first desk or counter I see and looks around for grub. If I didn"t see what I wanted I asked for something else. In about half an hour I had a dozen cigars, five story magazines, and seven or eight railroad time-tables in my pockets, and never a smell of coffee or bacon to point out the trail.
"Once a lady sitting at a table and playing a game kind of like pushpin told me to go into a closet that she called Number 3. I went in and shut the door, and the blamed thing lit itself up. I set down on a stool before a shelf and waited. Thinks I, "This is a private dining-room." But no waiter never came. When I got to sweating good and hard, I goes out again.
""Did you get what you wanted?" says she.
""No, ma"am," says I. "Not a bite."
""Then there"s no charge," says she.
""Thanky, ma"am," says I, and I takes up the trail again.
"By and by I thinks I"ll shed etiquette; and I picks up one of them boys with blue clothes and yellow b.u.t.tons in front, and he leads me to what he calls the caffay breakfast room. And the first thing I lays my eyes on when I go in is that boy that had shot Pedro Johnson. He was setting all alone at a little table, hitting a egg with a spoon like he was afraid he"d break it.
"I takes the chair across the table from him; and he looks insulted and makes a move like he was going to get up.
""Keep still, son," says I. "You"re apprehended, arrested, and in charge of the Texas authorities. Go on and hammer that egg some more if it"s the inside of it you want. Now, what did you shoot Mr.
Johnson, of Bildad, for?"
"And may I ask who you are?" says he.
""You may," says I. "Go ahead."
""I suppose you"re on," says this kid, without batting his eyes. "But what are you eating? Here, waiter!" he calls out, raising his finger.
"Take this gentleman"s order.
""A beefsteak," says I, "and some fried eggs and a can of peaches and a quart of coffee will about suffice."
"We talk awhile about the sundries of life and then he says:
""What are you going to do about that shooting? I had a right to shoot that man," says he. "He called me names that I couldn"t overlook, and then he struck me. He carried a gun, too. What else could I do?"
""We"ll have to take you back to Texas," says I.
""I"d like to go back," says the boy, with a kind of a grin--"if it wasn"t on an occasion of this kind. It"s the life I like. I"ve always wanted to ride and shoot and live in the open air ever since I can remember."
""Who was this gang of stout parties you took this trip with?" I asks.