the Drift Fence (1992) (11 page)

"So I've been told, Mr. Dunn," rejoined Jim. "I'm just beginning to learn the cattle business, and can't say one way or the other."

"Wal, I reckon you won't go far," replied the other, meaningly, and he rolled a cigarette without ever taking his gleaming eyes off Jim.

"Arch, I'm sayin' let's rustle out of this," interposed Haverly, teaching over to give Dunn a jerk.

"I'm going to the end of the Diamond with this drift fence." averred Jim.

"And after it is finished my outfit will see that it Lays up."

"Your outfit?"

"Yes, my outfit."

"Say, mister, you cain't have it in your haid thet your Diamond oufit will stick to you."

"I've got that notion."

"Wal, you're plumb off the trail. Even down in the brakes we heah what Jocelyn thinks of you. An' Cherry Winters. An' Uphill Frost."

"I'm sorry to admit that some of my men ridicule me," said Jim, feelingly. "Perhaps deserved, for I sure am a tenderfoot. But all the same the drift fence goes up and stays up, if it takes half a dozen Diamond outfits."

Dunn poised his cigarette, arrested by a speech that evidently struck him.

"Traft, no drift fence will ever stay up in Cibeque County," he returned, presently, with grim passion.

"That remains to be seen. Thanks for giving me a hunch. And now, since you're neither polite nor agreeable, will you please mozey on out of my camp?"

Dunn's face showed the darker for a wave of blood. His companion roughly seized him, nearly unseating him from the saddle. "Slinger, I shore ain't waitin' to be ordered out of no tenderfoot's camp," he said, gruffly, dragging at Dunn.

"You're a little late," put in Jim, with sarcasm. "My invitation included you. Now I say to both of you-get out!"

The instant Jim had delivered this contemptuous order he realized he had done something terrible. Not only Dunn's aspect, but Jim's men appeared to freeze. Jim had never seen such a blazing hell in human eyes as he encountered in Dunn's.

Haverly reached down, and grasping the bit of Dunn's horse wheeled it and the rider away. Dunn could be heard cursing his comrade and getting roundly cursed in return. They were watched out of sight into the woods.

Jim turned to his men. As he did so he observed Curly Prentiss move his right hand, containing a cocked gun, from behind his back. This revealed to Jim more of the nature of this encounter with the two riders from the Cibeque, but it in no wise mitigated his temper.

"I don't think much of you men," he said, with a ring in hi voice, "If I told my uncle about this he'd fire every last one you. You may be the great Diamond outfit, but to me you're a I of four-Rushers. What the hell do I know about Slinger Dunn an his kind? Some of you might have chipped in and stood by me.

"Boss, I reckon we stood by you without you knowin' it," declared Curly Prentiss. "You were doin' the talkin'. An' if we'd chipped in there would have been gun-play."

"Curly's right, boss," added Lonestar Holliday. "I don't know if Dunn seen Curly slip his gun out. But I reckon he did, as he was shore civil for him. This Slinger Dunn has a bad rep. He's killed several men an' shot up more'n you could count."

"Boss, I'll chip in a word," said Hack Jocelyn. "It shore was nervy of you to fire Dunn out of our camp. If you hadn't been a tenderfoot you'd never have done it. You want to look out for Slinger Dunn."

"Aw, I'm not afraid of him, even if he is a gun-slinger." declared Jim, passionately. "How do I know it wasn't another trick, hatched by some of you? You may think you're having fun at my expense. Perhaps you are. But there ought to be a limit. You're such awful liars I can't believe one word you say."

"Boss, are you callin' us liars?" inquired Curly, in a queer tone.

"I reckon I am. Damn liars! You're more. You're a flock of swell-headed, cross-grained, cantankerous cowboys. Now put that in your cigarettes and smoke it!"

At least for once Jim silenced them. He had no idea of the magnitude of his offence and he did not care. He had been frightened, and if anger had not come to his rescue he would have betrayed it. That would be the finish. He had vowed he would never let any of this famed Diamond outfit see him scared. At that juncture Jeff called them to supper, but Jim stalked oil into the woods and walked under the dark pines. He recovered from his fit of temper, but not from the sense of disaster that had slowly accumulated. This task he had undertaken seemed well-nigh impossible. At length, gloomy and troubled, he stalked back to camp and to bed.

Next day the stretching of wire fence went on, and now with a remarkable celerity, compared with that done in the open country. The strands of wire were nailed upon trees, and seldom had a post-hole to be dug.

Perhaps this had a cheering effect upon the members of the Diamond, but Jim regarded their attempts at approaching him, their sudden solicitude, their amazing amiability, with suspicion. He was right, too, for that night, when he opened his bed-roll be found the blankets soaked. Someone had poured a bucketful of cold spring water into one end of the roll. Jim pondered over this mean trick. Oh, he would get even, but what ought he do on the moment? He could strip a blanket off every one of his men and by so doing catch the guilty party. But he decided against that course of procedure. Instead he built a roaring fire, so hot that he almost roasted the boys alive before they could awake and move back in the woods. Such profanity! Jim had heard a little on the docks at St. Louis, but it could not hold a candle to this. He took half the night to dry his blankets, knowing, of course, that a huge fire would keep his men awake. Then he went to bed, and in the darkness before dawn he crawled out to yell words he had heard them often use:

"THE DAY'S BUSTED! ROLL OUT!"

That day and another passed. The camp was moved ten miles down in the woods, into a wide, pleasant draw where the creek ran, and wild turkeys gave Jim a thrill. The wagon had to go into Flagerstown for more wire, and the driver returned with a note from Traft, asking Jim why he had not been in to the ranch to report. Jim never answered it, nor did he ride in. Another week-end went by, including Sunday, when Jim was left in peace. He was nearing the end of his rope now. As the days passed and the drift fence lengthened, these incomprehensible cowboys of the Diamond outfit were driving Jim to distraction. They meant to break him. They were going to. No tenderfoot out of Missouri could ever run the Diamond!

So Jim had overheard.

They were bewildering in the infinite variety of their attacks, and he was almost helpless because he knew so little of the West, and horses, and of the nature of cowboys. To him they seemed inhuman--cool, still-faced or smiling devils, hiding their sincerity, if they had any, possessed of a fiendish desire to nag him, worry him, inconvenience him, make him acknowledge defeat.

On Monday the wire-wagon went on ahead, along a line Jim had blazed on Sunday, and dropped its load, then went back to town for another, necessitating now a trip of three days.

Jim, driving the men hard that week, reached the end of the blazed line before the wagon returned. There was a wide, deep ravine that had to be crossed. The country was growing rougher.

"Boss," said Bud, that morning, "there's a lot of bales of wire been rolled down in the draw."

The rest of the outfit whooped, but Jim could not tell whether it was front resentment or satisfaction.

"Who rolled them?" he roared.

"How'n'll do I know?" retorted Bud.

"Another funny trick!" ejaculated Jim. And he walked on along the line to the ravine. There far down at the bottom he espied a dozen or more bales lying scattered about.

"Go down and pack them up,' ordered Jim to his men, who bad followed him.

"Wha-at?"

"Up thet hill on foot?"

One and all they sat down in the shade, to begin rolling cigarettes. When Jim swore at them they smiled in the slow, cool way that always infuriated him.

"All right," he fumed. "I'll pack them up myself."

He strode down the slope, which he found steeper and longer than it had appeared at first glance. Like a toy he handled a bale of wire. Jim was powerful. He could throw a sack of grain or a barrel up into a wagon.

However, by the time he had packed that bale up the hill he knew what a heavy load was. He had bitten off more than he could chew. But with those intent eyes on him so watchfully, he could not quit. He went down again, and this time was careful to zigzag up the steep slope. It took him two hours of the most trying toil to finish the job. Then, hot as fire, wringing wet with sweat, he panted at the silent cowboys. "Now--if you're rested--we'll go on--with the fence."

"Boss, we was just waitin' to see how soon you'd think of gettin' a pack-hors fer thet job," observed Hump Stephens, amiably.

For Jim to realize how again, for the thousandth time, he had showed how utterly unfit he was to be foreman of the Diamond, did not improve his mood. He worked off the mood at length, as he invariably succeeded in doing, just as if he did not know another would soon be imposed upon him.

It was Curly Prentiss who discovered horse tracks along the line, and he showed them to Jim, no doubt in the interest of himself and companions.

"Fresh tracks, an' unshod horses at thet." he said. "Reckon we can lay it to some of the Cibeque outfit."

"I'm sorry I accused you fellows." he replied, regretfully. No matter what he did or said now, it was wrong.

Friday, at the lunch hour, Bud Chalfack approached Jim. "Boss, I'm talkin' fer the outfit," he announced. "We figger thet we're aboot up on this week's work, an' we want this afternoon an' tomorrow off."

"What for?" queried Jim, in surprise.

"We want to ride in today. There's a fair on in Flag, an' tomorrow's rodeo day. Most of us are entered."

"But we can't stop our fence-building to go to rodeos," protested Jim.

"Shore we can. We-all cain't see any hurry aboot the fence. An' when the Fourth comes we'll be 'way down too far to ride in. So we want to have a chanct at this rodeo."

Jim actually could not decide whether this was insubordination or the legitimate claim of a cowboy. He felt helpless. If he refused they would go, anyhow. If he gave his consent it might well be that they had him "buffaloed," as Curly had been overheard to say.

"Very well, you go on your own hook," he said to Bud.

They rode off, a gay and superb group of young riders who made his heart swell with pride and vet saddened it with the thought that he never could be received by them. Why had they not asked him to go with them? He would have been delighted. He had never seen a rodeo. But they did not want him; they were ashamed of their tenderfoot foreman.

After they had gone, Jim strode off toward the woods. He was astounded to hear Jeff Davis call.

"Boss, you oughtn't go out alone. But if you must go, take a rifle."

Jim did not answer, though he was grateful to Jeff. The cook, then, had perpetrated a hoax on the Diamond. He was not dumb. And it was a sure bet that neither was he slightly deaf, as he had claimed. He would be one on the cowboys, presently. Jim assured himself that he would not betray Jeff. He did not, however, take the latter's advice, but went on into the forest alone and unarmed.

He was beginning to feel a strange solace or help or something in the deep solitude of the woodland. It was early summer now. The ferns and wild flowers were springing up along the brown aisles. His step made not the slightest noise. He saw squirrels and birds, and, once, gray vanishing forms that might have been deer. Huge cliffs festooned with moss and vines, from which dripped water, arrested him in his walk. There was a pleasant, low sough of wind in the tree-tops, if anything could have spurred his flagging spirits, the sweetness and loneliness of this forest would have done so. But he guessed he was about beaten. And that confession, gaining audible admission into his consciousness, could not be dislodged.

The afternoon passed, and he returned to camp, there to cat supper in silence, without appearing to remember that the cook bad spoken to him.

He slept well, but in the morning the old bitterness and hopelessness assailed him again. An impulse to ride to town seized him, and straightway he acted upon it. He did not quite acknowledge to himself that this was a signal of defeat, but it would probably come out when he faced his uncle. He reached home about noon, to ascertain that his uncle was at the fair. Jim rode out there, and walked his horse. What a vacillating jackass he was! It would hurt Uncle Jim to find him a quitter. Ought he not to try again? Weary and distressed, he entered the fairground; and espying a gaily decorated booth advertising lunch, he dismounted and approached the counter. He gave an order to a girl behind.

When he was about through he happened to look up to see a pair of gold-brown eyes upon him.

And they wrenched out of him the query, "What would you do if you were about licked?"

It was when the girl had finally said, "I'd get up an' fight some more!" that Jim really looked at her with seeing eyes. If her spirited reply had stirred him, what more did the toss of her pretty dark head, with its glints of gold. She was a little girl, very young, and she wore a dainty blue dress. Still, there were contours under it that betrayed womanhood.