Red Saunders by Henry Wallace Phillips
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9 RED SAUNDERS
His Adventures West & East
By
Henry Wallace Phillips
1901
CONTENTS
A CHANCE SHOT
A RED-HAIRED CUPID
THE GOLDEN FORD
WHEN THE CHINOOK STRUCK FAIRFIELD
A Chance Shot
Reddy and I were alone at the Lake beds. He sat outside the cabin,
braiding a leather hat-band--eight strands, and the "repeat"
figure--an art that I never could master.
I sat inside, with a one-pound package of smoking tobacco beside
me, and newspapers within reach, rolling the day's supply of
cigarettes.
Reddy stopped his story long enough to say: "Don't use the
'Princess' Slipper,' Kid--that paper burns my tongue--take the
'Granger'; there's plenty of it."
Well, as I was saying, I'd met a lot of the boys up in town this
day, and they threw as many as two drinks into me; I know that for
certain, because when we took the parting dose, I had a glass of
whisky in both my right hands, and had just twice as many friends
as when I started.
When I pulled out for home, I felt mighty good for myself--not
exactly looking for trouble, but not a-going to dodge it any,
either. I was warbling "Idaho" for all I was worth--you know how
pretty I can sing? Cock-eyed Peterson used to say it made him
forget all his troubles. "Because," says he, "you don't notice
trifles when a man bats you over the head with a two-by-four."
Well, I was enjoying everything in sight, even a little drizzle of
rain that was driving by in rags of wetness, when a flat-faced
swatty at Fort Johnson halted me.
Now it's a dreadful thing to be butted to death by a nanny-goat,
but for a full-sized cowpuncher to be held up by a soldier is worse
yet.
To say that I was hot under the collar don't give you the right
idea of the way I felt.
"Why, you cross between the Last Rose of Summer and a bobtailed
flush!" says I, "what d'yer mean? What's got into you? Get out of
my daylight, you dog-robber, or I'll walk the little horse around
your neck like a three-ringed circus. Come, pull your freight!"
It seems that this swatty had been chucked out of the third story
of Frenchy's dance emporium by Bronc. Thompson, which threw a great
respect for our profesh into him. Consequently he wasn't fresh
like most soldiers, but answers me as polite as a tin-horn gambler
on pay-day.
Says he: "I just wanted to tell you that old Frosthead and forty
braves are some'ers between here and your outfit, with their war
paint on and blood in their eyes, cayoodling and whoopin' fit to
beat hell with the blower on, and if you get tangled up with them,
I reckon they'll give you a hair-cut and shampoo, to say nothing of
other trimmings. They say they're after the Crows, but it's a
ten-dollar bill against a last year's bird's-nest that they'll take
on any kind of trouble that comes along. Their hearts is mighty
bad, they state, and when an Injun's heart gets spoiled, the
disease is d--d catching. You'd better stop awhile."
"Now, cuss old Frosthead, and you too!" says I. "If he comes
crow-hopping on my reservation; I'll kick his pantalettes on top of
his scalp-lock."
"All right, pardner!" says he. "It's your own funeral. My orders
was to halt every one going through; but I ain't a whole company,
so you can have it your own way. Only, if your friends have to
take you home in a coal-scuttle, don't blame me. Pass, friend!"
So I went through the officers' quarters forty miles an hour,
letting out a string of yells you might have heard to the coast,
just to show my respect for the United States army.
Now this has always been my luck: Whenever I made a band-wagon
play, somebody's sure to strike me for my licence. Or else the
team goes into the ditch a mile further on, and I come out about as
happy as a small yaller dog at a bob-cat's caucus.
Some fellers can run in a rhinecaboo that 'd make the hair stand up
on a buffeler robe, and get away with it just like a mice; but that
ain't me. If I sing a little mite too high in the cellar, down
comes the roof a-top of me. So it was this day. Old Johnny
Hardluck socked it to me, same as usual.
Gosh a'mighty! The liquor died in me after a while, and I went
sound asleep in the saddle, and woke up with a jar--to find myself
right in the middle of old Frosthead's gang; the drums
"_boom_-blipping" and those forty-odd red tigers "hyah-hayahing" in
a style that made my skin get up and walk all over me with cold
feet.
How in blazes I'd managed to slip through those Injuns I don't
know. 'Twould have been a wonderful piece of scouting if I'd meant
it. You can 'most always do any darn thing you don't want to do.
Well, there I was, and, oh Doctor! but wasn't I in a lovely mess!
That war-song put a crimp into me that Jack Frost himself couldn't
take out.
It was as dark as dark by this time. The moon just stuck one eye
over the edge of the prairie, and the rest of the sky was covered
with cloud. A little light came from the Injuns' camp-fire, but
not enough to ride by, and, besides, I didn't know which way I
ought to go.
Says I to myself, "Billy Sanders, you are the champion all-around,
old-fashioned fool of the district. You are a jackass from the
country where ears less'n three foot long are curiosities. You
sassed that poor swatty that wanted to keep you out of this,
tooting your bazoo like a man peddling soap; but now it's up to
you. What are you going to do about it?" and I didn't get any
answer, neither.
Well, it was no use asking myself conundrums out there in the dark
when time was so scarce. So I wraps my hankercher around. Laddy's
nose to keep him from talking horse to the Injun ponies, and
prepared to sneak to where I'd rather be.
Laddy was the quickest thing on legs in that part of the
country--out of a mighty spry little Pinto mare by our thoroughbred
Kentucky horse--and I knew if I could get to the open them Injuns
wouldn't have much of a chance to take out my stopper and examine
my works--not much. A half-mile start, and I could show the whole
Sioux nation how I wore my hair.
I cut for the place where the Injuns seemed thinnest, lifting
myself up till I didn't weigh fifteen pound, and breathing only
when necessary. We got along first-rate until we reached the edge
of 'em, and then Laddy had to stick his foot in a gopher-hole, and
walloped around there like a whale trying to climb a tree.
Some dam cuss of an Injun threw a handful of hay on the fire, and,
as it blazed up, the whole gang spotted me.
I unlimbered my gun, sent the irons into Laddy, and we began to
walk.
I didn't like to make for the ranch, as I knew the boys were
short-handed, so I pointed north, praying to the good Lord that I'd
hit some kind of settlement before I struck the North Pole.
Well, we left those Injuns so far behind that there wasn't any fun
in it. I slacked up, patting myself on the back; and, as the
trouble seemed all over, I was just about to turn for the ranch,
when I heard horses galloping, and as the moon came out a little I
saw a whole raft of redskins a-boiling up a draw not half a mile
away. That knocked me slab-sided. It looked like I got the wrong
ticket every time the wheel turned.
I whooped it up again, swearing I wouldn't stop this deal short of
a dead sure thing. We flew through space--Laddy pushing a hole in
the air like a scart kiyote making for home and mother.
A ways down the valley I spotted a little shack sitting all alone
by itself out in the moonlight. I headed for it, hollering murder.
A man came to the door in his under-rigging.
"Hi, there! What's eating you?" he yells.
"Injuns coming, pardner! The country's just oozing Injuns! Better
get a wiggle on you!"
"All right--slide along, I'll ketch up to you," says he.
I looked back and saw him hustling out with his saddle on his arm.
"He's a particular kind of cuss," I thought; "bareback would suit
most people."
Taking it a little easier for the next couple of miles, I gave him
a chance to pull up.
We pounded along without saying anything for a spell, when I
happened to notice that his teeth were chattering.
"Keep your nerve up, pardner!" says I. "Don't you get
scared--we've got a good start on 'em."
He looked at me kind of reproachful.
"Scared be derned!" says he. "I reckon if you was riding around
this nice cool night in your drawers, _your_ teeth 'ud rattle some,
too."
I took a look at him, and saw, sure enough, while he had hat, coat,
and boots on, the pants was missing. Well, if it had been the last
act, I'd have had to laugh.
"Couldn't find 'em nohow," says he; "hunted high and low, jick,
Jack, and the game--Just comes to my mind now that I had 'em rolled
up and was sleeping on 'em. I don't like to go around this way'--I
feel as if I was two men, and one of 'em hardly respectable."
"Did you bring a gun with you?"
He gave me another stare. "Why, pardner, you must think I have got
a light and frivolous disposition," says he, and with that he
heaves up the great-grand-uncle of all the six-shooters I ever did
see. It made my forty-five-long look like something for a kid to
cut its teeth on. "That's the best gun in this country," he went
on.
"Looks as if it might be," says I. "Has the foundry that cast it
gone out of business? I'd like to have one like it, if it's as
dangerous as it looks."
"When I have any trouble with a man," says he, "I don't want to go
pecking at him with a putty-blower, just irritating him, and giving
him a little skin complaint here and there; I want something
that'll touch his conscience."
He had it, for a broadside from that battery would scatter an
elephant over a township.
We loped along quiet and easy until sun-up. The Grindstone Buttes
lay about a mile ahead of us. Looking back, we saw the Injuns
coming over a rise of ground 'way in the distance.
"Now," says my friend, "I know a short cut through those hills
that'll bring us out at Johnson's. They've got enough punchers
there to do the United States army up--starched and blued. Shall
we take it?"
"Sure!" says I. "I'm only wandering around this part of the
country because this part of the country is here--if it was
anywheres else I'd be just as glad."
So in we went. It was the steepest and narrowest kind of a canon,
looking as if it had been cut out of the rock with one crack of the
axe. I was just thinking: "Gee whiz! but this would be a poor
place to get snagged in," when bang! says a rifle right in front of
us, and m-e-arr! goes the bullet over our heads.
We were off them horses and behind a, couple of chunks of rock
sooner than we hoped for, and that's saying a good deal.
"Cussed poor shot, whoever he is," says my friend. "Some Injun
holding us here till the rest come up, I presume."
"That's about the size of it--and I'd like to make you a bet that
he does it, too, if I thought I'd have a chance to collect."
"Oh, you can't always tell--you might lose your money," says he,
kind of thoughtful.
"I wouldn't mind that half as much as winning," says I. "But on
the square, do you think we can get out? I'll jump him with you if
you say so, although I ain't got what you might call a passion for
suicide."
"Now you hold on a bit," says he. "I don't know but what we'd have
done better to stick to the horses, and run for it, but it's too
late to think of that. Jumping him is all foolishness; he'd sit
behind his little rock and pump lead into us till we wouldn't float
in brine--and we can't back out now."
He talked so calm it made me kind of mad. "Well," says I, "in that
case, let's play 'Simon says thumbs up' till the rest of the crowd
comes."
"There you go!" says he. "Just like all young fellers--gettin'
hosstyle right away if you don't fall in with their plans. Now,
Sonny, you keep your temper, and watch me play cushion carroms with
our friend there."
"Meaning how?"
"You see that block of stone just this side of him with the square
face towards us? Well, he's only covered in front, and I'm a-going
to shoot against that face and ketch him on the glance."
"Great, if you could work it!" says I. "But Lord!"
"Well, watch!" says he. Then he squinched down behind his cover,
so as not to give the Injun an opening, trained his cannon and
pulled the trigger. The old gun opened her mouth and roared like
an earthquake, but I didn't see any dead Injun. Then twice more
she spit fire, and still there weren't any desirable corpses to be
had.
"Say, pardner," says I, "you wouldn't make many cigars at this
game!"
"Now, don't you get oneasy," says he. "Just watch!"
"_Biff_!" says the old gun, and this time, sure enough, the Injun
was knocked clear of the rock. I felt all along that he wouldn't
be much of a comfort to his friends afterwards, if that gun did
land on him.
Still, he wasn't so awful dead, for as we jumped for the horses he
kind of hitched himself to the rock, and laying the rifle across
it, and working the lever with his left hand, he sent a hole plumb
through my hat.
"Bully boy!" says I. I snapped at him, and smashed the lock of his
rifle to flinders. Then, of course, he was our meat.
As we rode up to him, my pard held dead on him. The Injun stood up
straight and tall, and looked us square in the eye--say, he was a
man, I tell you, red-skin or no red-skin. The courage just stuck
out on him as he stood there, waiting to pass in his checks.
My pardner threw the muzzle of his gun up. "D--n it!" says he, "I
can't do it--he's game from the heart out! But the Lord have mercy
on his sinful soul if he and I run foul of each other on the
prairie again!"
Then we shacked along down to Johnson's and had breakfast.
"What became of Frosthead and his gang?" Oh, they sent out a
regiment or two, and gathered him in--'bout twenty-five soldiers to
an Injun. No, no harm was done. Me and my pard were the only ones
that bucked up against them. Chuck out a cigarette, Kid; my lungs
ache for want of a smoke.
A Red-Haired Cupid
"How did I come to get myself disliked down at the Chanta Seechee?
Well, I'll tell you," said Reddy, the cow-puncher. "The play came
up like this. First, they made the Chanta Seechee into a stock
company, then the stock company put all their brains in one think,
and says they, 'We'll make this man Jones superintendent, and the
ranch is all right at once.' So out comes Jones from Boston,
Massachusetts, and what he didn't know about running a ranch was
common talk in the country, but what he thought he knew about
running a ranch was too much for one man to carry around. He
wasn't a bad-hearted feller in some ways, yet on the whole he felt
it was an honour to a looking-glass to have the pleasure of
reflecting him. Looking-glass? I should say he had! And a
bureau, and a boot-blacking jigger, and a feather bed, and
curtains, and truck in his room. Strange fellers used to open
their eyes when they saw that room. 'Helloo-o!' they'd say, 'whose
little birdie have we here?' And other remarks that hurt our
feelings considerable. Jonesy, he said the fellers were a rank lot
of barbarians. He said it to old Neighbour Case's face, and he and
the old man came together like a pair of hens, for Jonesy had sand
in spite of his faults, That was a fight worth travelling to see.
They covered at least an acre of ground; they tore the air with
upper swats and cross swipes; they hollered, they jumped and they
pitched, and when the difficulty was adjusted we found that
Jonesy's coat was painfully ripped up the back and Neighbour Case
had lost his false teeth. One crowd of fellers patted Jones on the
back and said, 'Never mind your coat, old horse; you've licked a
man twice your age,' and the other comforted Neighbour, saying,
'Never mind, Case; you can ease your mind by thinking how you
headed up that rooster, and he fifty pounds lighter than you.'
"Jonesy put on airs after that. He felt he was a hard citizen.
And then he had the misfortune to speak harshly to Arizona Jenkins
when Old Dry Belt was in liquor. Then he got roped and dragged
through the slough. He cried like a baby whilst I helped him
scrape the mud off, but not because he was scared! No, sir! That
little runt was full of blood and murder.
"'You mark me, now, Red,' says he, the tears making bad-land water
courses through the mud on his cheeks, 'I shall fire upon that man
the first time I see him--will you lend me your revolver?'
"'Lord, Jones, see here,' says I, 'don't you go making any such
billy-goat play as that--keep his wages until he apologizes; put
something harmful in his grub; but, as you have respect for the
Almighty's handiwork as represented by your person, don't pull a
gun on Arizona Jenkins--that's the one thing he won't take from
nobody.'
"'D-d-darn him!' snivels Jonesy, 'I ain't afraid o-o-of him;' and
the strange fact is that he wasn't. Well, I saw he was in such a
taking that he might do something foolish and get hurt, so I goes
to Arizona and says I, 'You ought to apologize to Jones.' What
Zony replied ain't worth repeating--'and you along with him,' he
winds up.
"'Now ain't that childish?' I says. 'A six-footer like you that
can shoot straight with either hand, and yet ain't got generosity
enough to ease the feelings of a poor little devil that's fair
busting with shame.'
"'Well, what did he want to tell me to shut up my mouth for?' cried
Old Dry Belt. 'Men have died of less than that.'
"'Aw, shucks, Zony,' I says, 'a great, big man like you oughtn't to
come down on a little cuss who's all thumb-hand-side and left feet.'
"'That be blowed,' says he--only he says it different. 'I'd like
to know what business such a sawed-off has to come and tell a
full-grown man like me to shut up his mouth? He'd ought to stay in
a little man's place and talk sassy to people his own size. When
he comes shooting off his bazoo to a man that could swaller him
whole without loosening his collar, it's impidence; that's what it
is.'
"'Well, as a favour to me?' I says.
"'Well, if you put it in that way--I don't want to be small about
it.'
"So Arizona goes up to Jones and sticks out his hand. 'There's my
hand, Jones,' he says. 'I'm mighty sorry you told me to shut up my
mouth,' says he.
"'So am I,' says Jones heartily, not taking in the sense of the
words, but feeling that it was all in good intention. So that was
all right and I stood in with the management in great shape for
fixing up the fuss so pleasant. But it didn't last. They say
nothing lasts in this world. There's some pretty solid rocks in
the Coeur d'Alene, however, and I should like to wait around and
see if they don't hold out, but I'll never make it. I've been in
too much excitement.
"Well, the next thing after Jonesy got established was that his
niece must come out during vacation and pay him a visit.
'Jee-rusalem!' thinks I, 'Jonesy's niece!' I had visions of a
thin, yaller, sour little piece, with mouse-coloured hair plastered
down on her head, and an unkind word for everybody. Jonesy told me
about her being in college, and then I stuck a pair of them
nose-grabber specks on the picture. I can stand 'most any kind of
a man, but if there's anything that makes the tears come to my eyes
it's a botch of a woman. I know they may have good qualities and
all that, but I don't like 'em, and that's the whole of it. We
gave three loud groans when we got the news in the bull-pen. And I
cussed for ten minutes straight, without repeating myself once,
when it so fell out that the members of the board rolled out our
way the day the girl had to be sent for, and Jonesy couldn't break
loose, and your Uncle was elected to take the buckboard and drive
twenty miles to the railroad. I didn't mind the going out, but
that twenty miles back with Jonesy's niece! Say, I foamed like a
soda-water bottle when I got into the bull-pen and told the boys my
luck.
"'Well,' says Kyle Lambert, 'that's what you might expect; your
sins have found you out.'
"'No, they ain't; they've caught me at home as usual,' says I.
'Well, I'll give that Eastern blossom an idea of the quality of
this country anyhow.' So I togs myself up in the awfullest rig I
could find; strapped two ca'tridge belts to me, every hole filled,
and a gun in every holster; put candle-grease on my mustache and
twisted the ends up to my eye-winkers; stuck a knife in my hatband
and another in my boot; threw a shotgun and a rifle in the
buckboard, and pulled out quick through the colt-pens before Jonesy
could get his peeps onto me.
"Well, sir, I was jarred witless when I laid my eyes on that young
woman. I'd had my mind made up so thorough as to what she must be
that the facts knocked me cold. She was the sweetest, handsomest,
healthiest female I ever see. It would make you believe in fairy
stories again just to look at her. She was all the things a man
ever wanted in this world rolled up in a prize package. Tall,
round and soople, limber and springy in her action as a
thoroughbred, and with something modest yet kind of daring in her
face that would remind you of a good, honest boy. Red, white, and
black were the colours she flew. Hair and eyes black, cheeks and
lips red, and the rest of her white. Now, there's a pile of
difference in them colours; when you say 'red,' for instance, you
ain't cleaned up the subject by a sight. My top-knot's red, but
that wasn't the colour of Loy's cheeks. No; that was a colour I
never saw before nor since. A rose would look like a tomater
alongside of 'em. Then, too, I've seen black eyes so hard and
shiny you could cut glass with 'em. And again that wasn't her
style. The only way you could get a notion of what them eyes were
like would be to look at 'em; you'd remember 'em all right if you
did. Seems like the good Lord was kind of careless when he built
Jonesy, but when he turned that girl out he played square with the
fambly.
"I ain't what you might call a man that's easily disturbed in his
mind, but I know I says to myself that first day, 'If I was ten
year younger, young lady, they'd never lug you back East again.'
Gee, man! There was a time when I'd have pulled the country up by
the roots but I'd have had that girl! I notice I don't fall in
love so violent as the years roll on. I can squint my eye over the
cards now and say, 'Yes, that's a beautiful hand, but I reckon I'd
better stay out,' and lay 'em down without a sigh; whereas, when I
was a young feller, it I had three aces in sight I'd raise the rest
of the gathering right out of their foot-leather--or get caught at
it. Usually I got caught at it, for a man couldn't run the mint
long with the kind of luck I have.
"Well, I was plumb disgusted with the fool way I'd rigged myself
up, but, fortunately for me, Darragh, the station-man, came out
with the girl. 'There's Reddy, from your ranch now, ma'am,' says
he, and when he caught sight of me, 'What's the matter, Red; are
the Injuns up?'
"Darragh was a serious Irishman, and that's the mournfullest thing
on top of the globe; and besides, he believed anything you'd tell
him. There ain't any George Washington strain in my stock, so I
proceeded to get out of trouble.
"'They ain't up exactly,' says I, 'but it looked as if they were a
leetle on the rise, and being as I had a lady to look out for, I
thought I'd play safe.'
"The colour kind of went out of the girl's cheeks. Eastern folks
are scandalous afraid of Injuns.
"'Perhaps I'd better not start?' says she.
"'Don't you be scart, miss,' says Darragh. 'You're all right as
long as you're with Red--he's the toughest proposition we've got in
this part of the country.'
"'I'm obliged to you, Darragh,' says I. He meant well, but hell's
full of them people. I'd have given a month's wages for one lick
at him. Nice reputation to give me before that girl! She eyed me
mighty doubtful.
"I stepped up to her, with my hat in my hand. 'Miss Andree,' says
I (she was Jonesy's sisters child), 'if you come along with me I'll
guarantee you a safe journey. If any harm reaches you it will be
after one of the liveliest times in the history of the Territory.'
"At this she laughed. 'Very well,' says she, 'I'll chance it, Mr.
Red.'
"'His name ain't Red,' puts in Darragh, solemn. 'His name's
Saunders. We call him Red becus uf his hair.'
"'I'm sure I beg your pardon,' says Miss Loys, all of a fluster.
"'That's all right, ma'am; no damage done at all,' says I. 'It's
useless for me to try to conceal the fact that my hair is a little
on the auburn. You mustn't mind what Darragh says. We've had a
good deal of hot weather lately and his brains have gone wrong.
Now hop in and we'll touch the breeze,' So I piled her trunk in
and away we flew.
"Bud and Dandy were a corking little team. They'd run the whole
distance from the railway to the ranch if you'd let 'em--and I
never interfered. A straight line and the keen jump hits me all
right when I'm going some place, although I can loaf with the next
man on occasion. So we missed most of the gulleys.
"The ponies were snorting and pulling grass, the buckboard bouncing
behind 'em like a rubber ball, and we were crowding into the teeth
of the northwest wind, which made it seem as if we were travelling
100 per cent. better than a Dutch clock would show.
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