Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories Read online

  A BLAZE ON PARD HUFF

  "And I 'm free to say that the grand results of my explorations show That somehow paint gets redder the farther out West I go!" --EUGENE FIELD.

  One summer night I was on a train that was speeding eastward acrosssouthern New Mexico. It was one of the white nights of that region,when the full moon, shining like sun-lighted snow and hanging so low inthe sky that it seems to be dropping earthward, fills the clear, dryair with a silvery radiance and floods the barren plain with atransfiguring whiteness, in which the gray sands glimmer as if withsome unearthly light of their own.

  The day had been long, wearisome, and unspeakably hot and dusty; andwith the coming of this beautiful night and its cool breezes most ofthe passengers betook themselves to the car steps and platforms, wherethey lingered until we reached the little town of Separ, late in theevening. As the train stopped, we saw that apparently the entirepopulation of the village was crowded inside the station house. Oneafter another, men came cautiously out upon the platform, carrying gunsin their hands and casting long, anxious looks across the plain. Theirset faces and ready revolvers and rifles showed that it was no ordinarymatter which had sent the whole town to find protection in the railroaddepot.

  They told us that a man had come running into town a little whilebefore, and, falling headlong, exhausted, at the feet of the firstperson he met, had cried out that the Apaches were coming. Hastilyrevived and cared for, he explained that the Indians had attacked thecattle camp, ten or twelve miles south of Separ, where he and someother cowboys had been making a round-up, and killed all but himself.He had managed to creep out undiscovered and had run at the top of hisspeed all the way to Separ to bring the warning. He said that theApaches, in a large band, numbering at least a hundred, had surprisedthe camp, killing the men as they lay in their blankets and committinghorrible atrocities upon the dead bodies, and had then fallen upon thehorses and cattle, killing and maiming the poor beasts in mere lust ofcruelty. He was sure they were following him--he had heard their yellsseveral times during his desperate race, and each time he had redoubledhis speed. His shoes were gone, his stockings hung in shreds from hisankles, and his feet were a mass of raw and bleeding flesh, pierced byhundreds of cactus thorns. He had hurried away on an Eastern-boundfreight train to Deming, the next station, to rouse the citizens andhelp to raise a militia company, whose coming was expected in a fewhours. And telegrams had been sent to Fort Bayard giving news of theoutbreak and asking for a troop of cavalry.

  Every soul in Separ--men, women, and children--with all the arms andammunition in the town, had huddled into the station house, where theyhoped they would be able to make a successful resistance, and, as oneman said, "make as many good Injuns as the Lord would let them." Forin those days the hearts of the bravest in the Southwest knew terror,and with good reason, when the Apache went on the war path.

  The train sped on into the radiant white night, but the car steps andplatforms were deserted. The passengers all sought their berths assoon as possible, there to lie below the level of the windows and pileall the pillows they could get between themselves and the side of thecar. When we reached Deming we found the place in an uproar. Everybell in town, from the gong of the railroad restaurant to the churchbell, was ringing its loudest and wildest. Men in varied degrees ofundress were running up and down the streets calling loudly upon allcitizens to come out at once. The people were assembling at the depot,where two or three of the cooler-headed had taken the place of leadersand had begun to organize the excited mass into an armed and officeredcompany and get it ready to go quickly to the assistance of beleagueredlittle Separ.

  Then our train sped on again through the wondrous night, and I knew nomore about the Indian war at Separ until I sat on the kitchen doorstepat Apache Teju, one evening some years later, and beguiled Texas Billinto telling me yarns of his long and checkered experience as a cowboy.

  The cool, soft breath of evening filled the air, the alfalfa fieldglowed its most vivid emerald in the yellow rays of the setting sun,and in the same rich light the gray, barren hillside beyond shone likebeaten gold. And Texas Bill, just in from a week's trip on the range,soothed and inspired by the civilizing influences of the ranch-house, ashave, clean clothes, and his supper, unbent from his usual bashfuldignity and talked.

  Texas Bill was tall and big and loose-jointed, and he spoke always in along, soft, indifferent drawl. He held two articles of belief which noman might dispute without getting sight of the knife in his bootleg orthe revolver on his hip. One was that Texas was the biggest and bestState in the Union; and the other, that the cow business was no longerfit for a gentleman to follow. He lounged on a bench beside the doorand told me tales of the range and the round-up, of herds of cattlestampeded by the smell of water, of long rides in blinding sand storms,of the taking in of the tenderfoot, of centipedes and side-winders, ofIndian fights and narrow escapes.

  "Were you ever in one of these Indian attacks yourself?" I asked, forhis Indian yarns had been about other men.

  Texas Bill solemnly considered the heel of his boot a moment, and thenjust as solemnly replied:

  "Yes, I was killed by the Apaches oncet."

  He turned a serious face off toward Cooke's Peak, which towered, amighty, sculptured mass of purest sapphire blue, against a turquoisesky; and I, seeing that his countenance bore just such an expression ofinscrutable solemnity as it might have done had he been acting as chiefmourner at his own funeral, answered just as soberly:

  "That must have been very interesting! I wish you would tell me aboutit."

  His gaze returned to his feet, his face relaxed into a smile, a chucklebegan somewhere in his throat, wandered down his long frame and lostitself in his boots, which were high-heeled and two sizes too small forhim. Then he spoke again:

  "That was the time we run a blaze on Pard Huff."

  Then he relapsed into silence, contemplation of his boots, and severalsuccessive and long-drawn chuckles. But at last he began his story.

  "You see, Pard Huff, he was a tenderfoot, and there was n't nothin' hewas n't afraid of a-tall. You could n't convince him that coyotesain't dangerous; and he thought it was sure death if a tarantula lookedat him; and you could make him jump out of his boots any time by justbuzzin' your tongue behind his ear. I reckon he 'd have sure died offright if he had ever seen a live rattlesnake spittin' its tongue athim.

  "And Injuns! Well, he watched for Apaches all day long a durn sightmore 'n he did for cattle, and he could n't sleep nights for bein'afraid they 'd catch him. He did n't seem to think of anything butApaches, and he had n't been with us very long till the boys did n'tgive him a chanst to think of anything else a-tall.

  "We was makin' a round-up down below Separ then, and there was ten ofus and the chuck wagon when we made camp at night. Well, one night,Pard Huff, he was scareder than ever, and the boys struck his gaitright off and kep' him a-runnin'. I did n't know they was goin' toblaze him quite so bad or I 'd have done my best to stop the thing.Well, and they would n't, either, if he had n't been the meanest sortof a coward that ever laid awake nights. He asked each of us separate,and then all of us in a bunch at supper, if there was any danger ofApaches down there, and we-all told him there was, lots of it. One ofthe boys said he 'd seen signs over toward Hatchet Mountain that veryday that sure meant Apaches, and another said he 'd heard that a littleranch about forty mile away had lately been cleaned out by them andeverybody killed. Then we-all talked about it and agreed that theymight come on us any minute, that most likely they 'd attack us thatvery night and that we ought to be ready for them.

  "Well, sir, that Pard Huff, he never said another word. He just setthere with his eyes getting bigger and his face whiter every minute.We kep' it up and told stories about the way them devils do--everythingwe 'd ever heard of--how they hold you and pull out your tongue, or cutoff your ears, or run a stake through you and pin you to the ground, orsmash your face to a jelly with a rock, or bur
n you alive, till PardHuff did n't know which end he was a-standin' on a-tall.

  "We got out our blankets and turned in, but just kep' a-talkin' aboutthe Apaches till that Pard Huff, he was shakin' as if he had a fit.One of the boys said he 'd bet if the Apaches did come, Pard Huff wouldget his ears cut off the first rattle, because they was so big theInjuns could n't see nothin' else a-tall in camp till they got them outof the way. And then _bang! bang! bang!_ went some six-shooters, theboys yelled 'Injuns!'--'Apaches!' as loud as they could, and the felleron the other side of Pard Huff (Pard was layin' next to me) yelled out.'Boys, I 'm killed!' says he, and he rolled over on his face and kickedand yelled and groaned. Then _bang! bang! bang!_ went the six-shootersagain; and then you ought to have seen that Pard Huff! Well, sir, hewas sure buffaloed! He jumped out of his blankets and let out oneyell. The chuck wagon was right behind us, and he give one jump andwent clean over it and lit out across country like an antelope.You-all just ought to 've seen that tenderfoot pull his freight!

  "The boys come up a-laughin' and watched him run. They was a-bettin'he would n't stop till he got to Apache Teju, but I said it was n'tright to buffalo him that bad. So we-all yelled and called him to comeback, but he only run the faster. The durn fool tenderfoot thought itwas the Apaches chasin' him! We-all thought he 'd soon find out therewas nothin' wrong a-tall and come back, and so we went to bed again.But he did n't.

  "The next day I had to come to Apache Teju and I found Pard Huff'sbloody tracks most all the way to Separ. He 'd run right over stonesand cactus and prairie dog holes and everything else in his way. Andthem fool people at Separ was all huddled up in the depot, and acompany of men with Winchesters and six-shooters was there from Deming,and everybody was watchin' the country all 'round with spyglasses, forInjuns! Well, sir, that durn fool tenderfoot, that Pard Huff, had toldthem a fool yarn about the Apaches surprisin' our camp and killin'everybody but him, and they was sure buffaloed!"

  "Yes," I said, "I know they were."

  "You! How did you know anything about it?"

  "Oh, I was there that night. I passed through on the train, and Separand Deming were the worst scared towns I ever saw."

  Texas Bill chuckled, pleased at this verification of his story, andwent on:

  "Then you know what I 'm tellin' you is sure true! I thought mebbeyou-all mightn't believe it, a-tall, for it sure don't look reasonablethat folks could get so buffaloed over a durn fool tenderfoot's yarn.They looked at me with mighty big eyes when I rode into Separ.

  "'Why,' says they, 'how did you-all get out alive? We sure thought youwas dead!'

  "'Well,' says I, 'as far as I know, I 'm sure alive; and I don't knowas I 've been into anything to get out of a-tall.'

  "'Why,' says they, 'Pard Huff--'

  "'Oh,' says I, 'damn Pard Huff! He 's a tenderfoot and afraid of hisshadder! He dreamed about Apaches and jumped up with a yell and litout for God's sake. We tried to call him back, and he thought it wasthe Apaches after him. I reckon he 's scared you-all half to deathwith his yarn. You 're as bad as tenderfeet yourselves!'

  "But they 'd got the notion scared into them so bad they could n'tbelieve anything else, and they sure thought there must be Injunsaround somewheres; and so I left 'em and rode on for Apache Teju.Pretty soon I met a troop of cavalry from Fort Bayard on the trot forSepar. The captain rode up to me and says, 'Have you been near thescene of the Indian depredations?'

  "'No, sir,' says I, 'I hain't seen no Injun depredations, nor Injunsneither, this summer.'

  "'Humph!' says he, 'that's queer!'

  "'Yes, sir,' says I, 'I think likely. I _heard_ there was some troublewith 'em last night down below Separ, but if there 's _been_ any Injundepredations I hain't seen 'em a-tall.' And then I rode on, for I hadn't time to be bothered with no more of his questions, and, too, Ireckoned likely him and his soldiers needed some exercise.

  "And they got it, too. They just kep' on the trot for the Mexicanline, and kep' a-goin' for three months. They 'd started out forInjuns, and Injuns they was bound to have. They jest wound aroundthrough all that country south of Separ, and over into old Mexico, andback again, and up into the mountains and across the plains, and didn't even see an Apache the whole three months. And they did n't findout it was all nothin' but a blaze on Pard Huff till after they 'd comeback. I reckon about that time they concluded there ain't no biggerfool on earth than a tenderfoot, a-tall. And there ain't, neither.

  "Well, I tell you, that Pard Huff was sure mad when he found out we-allhad been running a blaze on him! I don't know as I blame him much, forthat ten-mile run of his to Separ in his sock feet over cactus andstones was n't much of a joke, a-tall. But he was an all-fireder fooltenderfoot than we s'posed, or we would n't have done it."