The Flockmaster of Poison Creek Page 8

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE SHEEP-KILLER

  It was dusk when Dad Frazer drove the slow-drifting flock home to itssleeping place, which tomorrow night very likely would be on somehillside no softer, many miles away. Only a few days together the campremained in one place, no longer than it took the sheep to crop theherbage within easy reach. Then came the camp-mover and hauled thewagon to fresh pastures in that illimitable, gray-green land.

  Dad Frazer was a man of sixty or sixty-five, who had been an armyteamster in the days of frontier posts. He was slender and sinewy,with beautiful, glimmering, silvery hair which he wore in long curlsand kept as carefully combed as any dandy that ever pranced at thecourt of a king. It was his one vanity, his dusty, greasy raimentbeing his last thought.

  Dad's somber face was brown and weathered, marked with deep lines,covered over with an ashy, short growth of beard which he clipped oncein two weeks with sheep-shears when he didn't lose count of the days.

  Frazer always wore an ancient military hat with a leather thong at theback of his head drawn tight across his flowing hair. The brim of thishat turned up in the back as if he had slept in it many years, whichwas indeed the case, and down in the front so low over his brows thatit gave him a sullen and clouded cast, which the redundancy of hisspirits and words at once denied.

  For Dad Frazer was a loquacious sheepherder, an exception among themorose and silent men who follow that isolated calling upon the lonelyrange. He talked to the dogs when there was nobody by, to the sheep ashe scattered them for an even chance between weak and strong over thegrazing lands, and to himself when no other object presented. He sworewith force and piquancy, and original embellishments for old-timeoaths which was like a sharp sauce to an unsavory dish.

  Frazer was peculiar in another way. He liked a soft bed to pound theground on after his long days after the sheep, and to that end kept aroll of sheepskins under the wagon. More than that, he always washedbefore eating, even if he had to divide the last water in the keg.

  Now as he was employed with his ablutions, after a running fire oftalk from the time he came within hearing to the moment the watersmothered his voice over the basin, Mackenzie saw him turn an eye inhis direction every little while between the soaping and the washingof his bearded face. The old fellow seemed bursting with restraint ofsomething that he had not told or asked about. Mackenzie could readhim like a thermometer.

  "What's the matter, Dad--rattlesnakes?" he asked.

  "Rattlesnakes nothin'!" returned the old man.

  "I thought another one had been crawling up your leg."

  "Nearer boey constructors! Anybody been here but Joan?"

  "No."

  Dad came over to the tail of the wagon, where Mackenzie had supperspread on a board, a box at each end, for that was a sheep-camp _deluxe_. He stood a little while looking about in the gloom, his headtipped as if he listened, presently taking his place, unaccountablysilent, and uncomfortably so, as Mackenzie could very well see.

  "You didn't lose a dog, did you, Dad?"

  "Dog nothin'! Do I look like a man that'd lose a dog?"

  "Well, Dad," Mackenzie said, in his slow, thoughtful way, "I don'texactly know how a man that would lose a dog looks, but I don'tbelieve you do."

  "Swan Carlson's back on the range!" said Dad, delivering it before hewas ready, perhaps, and before he had fully prepared the way, butunable to hold it a second longer.

  "Swan Carlson?"

  "Back on the range."

  "So they fixed him up in the hospital at Cheyenne?"

  "I reckon they must 'a'. He's back runnin' his sheep, and that womanof his'n she's with him. Swan run one of his herders off the firstrattle out of the box, said he'd been stealin' sheep while he wasgone. That's one of his old tricks to keep from payin' a man."

  "It sounds like him, all right. Have you seen him?"

  "No. Matt Hall come by this evenin', and told me."

  "I'm glad Swan got all right again, anyhow, even if he's no better tohis wife than he was before. I was kind of worried about him."

  "Yes, and I'll bet he's meaner than he ever was, knockin' that womanaround like a sack of sawdust the way he always did. I reckon he getsmore fun out of her that way than he does keepin' her tied."

  "He can hang her for all I'll ever interfere between them again,Dad."

  "That's right. It don't pay to shove in between a man and his wife intheir fusses and disturbances. I know a colonel in the army that's gotseventeen stitches in his bay winder right now from buttin' in betweena captain and his woman. The lady she slid a razor over his vest.They'll do it every time; it's woman nature."

  "You talk like a man of experience, Dad. Well, I don't know much about'em."

  "Yes, I've been marryin' 'em off and on for forty years."

  "Who is Matt Hall, and where's his ranch, Dad? I've been hearing abouthim and his brother, Hector, ever since I came up here."

  "Them Hall boys used to be cattlemen up on the Sweetwater, but theywas run out of there on account of suspicion of rustlin', I hear. Theycome down to this country about four years ago and started up sheep,usin' on Cottonwood about nine or twelve miles southeast from here.Them fellers don't hitch up with nobody on this range but SwanCarlson, and I reckon Swan only respects 'em because they're the onlymen in this country that packs guns regular any more."

  "Swan don't pack a gun as a regular thing?"

  "I ain't never seen him with one on. Hector Hall he's always got acouple of 'em on him, and Matt mostly has one in sight. You can gambleon it he's got an automatic in his pocket when he don't strap it onhim in the open."

  "I don't see what use a man's got for a gun up here among sheep andsheepmen. They must be expecting somebody to call on them from the oldneighborhood."

  "Yes, I figger that's about the size of it. I don't know what Matt wasdoin' over around here this evenin'; I know I didn't send for him."

  "Joan spoke of him this afternoon. From what she said, I thought hemust be something of a specimen. What kind of a looking duck is he?"

  "Matt's a mixture of a goriller and a goose egg. He's a long-armed,short-legged, gimlet-eyed feller with a head like a egg upside down.You could split a board on that feller's head and never muss a hair. Inever saw a man that had a chin like Matt Hall. They say a big chin'sthe sign of strength, and if that works out Matt must have a mind likea brigadier general. His face is all chin; chin's an affliction onMatt Hall; it's a disease. Wait till you see him; that's all I cansay."

  "I'll know him when I do."

  "Hector ain't so bad, but he's got a look in his eyes like a manthat'd grab you by the nose and cut your throat, and grin while he wasdoin' it."

  Mackenzie made no comment on these new and picturesque charactersintroduced by Dad into the drama that was forming for enactment inthat place. He filled his pipe and smoked a little while. Then:

  "How many sheep do they run?" he asked.

  "Nine or ten thousand, I guess."

  Silence again. Dad was smoking a little Mexican cigarette withcorn-husk wrapper, a peppery tobacco filling that smarted the eyeswhen it burned, of which he must have carried thousands when he leftthe border in the spring.

  "Tim was over today," said Mackenzie.

  "What did he want?"

  "About this business between him and me. Is it usual, Dad, for a manto work a year at forty dollars a month and found before he goes in asa partner on the increase of the flock he runs?"

  "What makes you ask me that, John?"

  "Only because there wasn't anything said about it when I agreed withTim to go to work here with you and learn the rudiments of handling aband of sheep. He sprung that on me today, when I thought I was aboutto begin my career as a capitalist. Instead of that, I've got a yearahead of me at ten dollars a month less than the ordinary herder gets.I just wanted to know."

  "Sheepmen are like sand under the feet when it comes to dealin' with'em; I never knew one that was in the same place twice. You've got alot of tricks to learn in this t
rade, and I guess this is one of them.I don't believe Tim ever intends to let you in on shares; that ain'this style. Never did take anybody in on shares but Joan, that I knowof. It looks to me like Tim's workin' you for all he can git out ofyou. You'll herd for Tim a year at forty dollars, and teach Joan athousand dollars' worth while you're doin' it. You're a mightyobligin' feller, it looks like to me."

  Mackenzie sat thinking it over. He rolled it in his mind quite awhile, considering its most unlikely side, considering it as aquestion of comparative values, trying to convince himself that, ifnothing more came of it than a year's employment, he would be evenbetter off than teaching school. If Tim was indeed planning to profitdoubly by him during that year, Joan could have no knowledge of hisscheme, he was sure.

  On Joan's account he would remain, he told himself, at last, feelingeasier and less simple for the decision. Joan needed him, she countedon him. Going would be a sad disappointment, a bitter discouragement,to her. All on Joan's account, of course, he would remain; Joan, withher russet hair, the purity of October skies in her eyes. Why, ofcourse. Duty made it plain to him; solely on account of Joan.

  "I'd rather be a foot-loose shearer, herdin' in between like I do,than the richest sheepman on the range," said Dad. "They're tied downto one little spot; they work out a hole in their piece of the earthlike a worm. It ain't no life. I can have more fun on forty dollarsthan Tim Sullivan can out of forty thousand."

  Dad got out his greasy duck coat with sheepskin collar, such ascattlemen and sheepmen, and all kinds of outdoor men in that countrywore, for the night was cool and damp with dew. Together they satsmoking, no more discussion between them, the dogs out of sight downthe hill near the sheep.

  Not a sound came out of the sheep, bedded on the hillside incontentment, secure in their trust of men and dogs. All day as theygrazed there rose a murmur out of them, as of discontent, complaint,or pain. Now their quavering, pathetic voices were as still as thewind. There was not a shuffle of hoof, not a sigh.

  Mackenzie thought of Joan, and the influence this solitary life, thesenight silences, had borne in shading her character with the melancholywhich was so plainly apparent in her longing to be away. She yearnedfor the sound of life, for the warmth of youth's eager fire beyond thedusty gray loneliness of this sequestered place. Still, this was whatmen and women in the crowded places thought of and longed toward asfreedom. Loose-footed here upon the hills, one might pass as free asthe wind, indeed, but there was something like the pain of prisonisolation in these night silences which bore down upon a man and madehim old.

  A sudden commotion among the sheep, terrified bleating, quickscurrying of feet, shook Mackenzie out of his reflections. The dogscharged down the hill and stood baying the disturber of the flock withsavage alarm, in which there was a note of fear. Dad stood a momentlistening, then reached into the wagon for the rifle.

  "Don't go down there!" he warned Mackenzie, who was running toward thecenter of disturbance. "That's a grizzly--don't you hear them dogs?"

  Mackenzie stopped. The advance stampede of the terrified flock rushedpast him, dim in the deeper darkness near the ground. Below on thehillside where the sheep bedded he could see nothing. Dad came up withthe gun.

  The sheep were making no outcry now, and scarcely any sound ofmovement. After their first startled break they had bunched, and werestanding in their way of pathetic, paralyzing fear, waiting whatmight befall. Dad fired several quick shots toward the spot where thedogs were charging and retreating, voices thick in their throats fromtheir bristling terror of the thing that had come to lay tribute uponthe flock.

  "Don't go down there!" Dad cautioned again. "Git the lantern and lightit--maybe when he sees it he'll run. It's a grizzly. I didn't thinkthere was one in forty miles."

  Mackenzie took hold of the gun.

  "Give it to me--hand me another clip."

  Dad yielded it, warning Mackenzie again against any rash movement. Buthis words were unheeded if not unheard. Mackenzie was running down thehillside toward the dogs. Encouraged by his coming, they dashedforward, Mackenzie halting to peer into the darkness ahead. There wasa sound of trampling, a crunching as of the rending of bones. Hefired; ran a little nearer, fired again.

  The dogs were pushing ahead now in pursuit of whatever it was thatfled. A moment, and Mackenzie heard the quick break of a gallopinghorse; fired his remaining shots after it, and called Dad to fetch thelight.

  When the horse started, the dogs returned to the flock, too wise towaste energy in a vain pursuit. At a word from Mackenzie they begancollecting the shuddering sheep. Dad Frazer came bobbing down the hillwith the lantern, breathing loud in his excitement.

  "Lord!" said he, when he saw the havoc his light revealed; "a regularold murderin' stock-killer. And I didn't think there was any grizzlyin forty miles."

  Mackenzie took the lantern, sweeping its light over the mangled bodiesof several sheep, torn limb from limb, scattered about as if they hadbeen the center of an explosion.

  "A murderin' old stock-killer!" said Dad, panting, out of breath.

  Mackenzie held up the light, looking the old man in the face.

  "A grizzly don't hop a horse and lope off, and I never met one yetthat wore boots," said he. He swung the light near the ground again,pointing to the trampled footprints among the mangled carcasses.

  "It was a man!" said Dad, in terrified amazement. "Tore 'em apart likethey was rabbits!" He looked up, his weathered face white, his eyesstaring. "It takes--it takes--Lord! Do you know how much muscle ittakes to tear a sheep up that a-way?"

  Mackenzie did not reply. He stood, turning a bloody heap of wool andtorn flesh with his foot, stunned by this unexampled excess of humanferocity.

  Dad recovered from his amazement presently, bent and studied thetrampled ground.

  "I ain't so sure," he said. "Them looks like man's tracks, but agrizzly's got a foot like a nigger, and one of them big fellers makesa noise like a lopin' horse when he tears off through the bresh. Itell you, John, no human man that ever lived could take a live sheepand tear it up that a-way!"

  "All right, then; it was a bear," Mackenzie said, not disposed toargue the matter, for argument would not change what he knew to be afact, nor yet convince Dad Frazer against his reason and experience.But Mackenzie knew that they were the footprints of a man, and thatthe noise of the creature running away from camp was the noise of agalloping horse.