The Mule Driver and the Garrulous Mute
Bill had finished panning the concentrates from our last clean-up,and now the silver ball of amalgam sizzled and fried on the shovelover the little chip-fire, while we smoked in the sun before thecabin. Removed from the salivating fumes of the quicksilver, wewatched the yellow tint grow and brighten in the heat."There's two diseases which the doctors ain't got any license tomonkey with," began Bill, chewing out blue smoke from his lungs witheach word, "and they're both fevers. After they butt into yoursystem they stick crossways, like a swallered toothpick; there ain'tany patent medicine that can bust their holt."I settled against the door-jamb and nodded."I've had them both, acute and continuous, since I was old enoughto know my own mind and the taste of tobacco; I hold them mainlyresponsible for my present condition." He mournfully viewed hisfever-ridden frame which sprawled a pitiful six-feet-two from theheels of his gum-boots to the grizzled hair beneath his white Stetson."The first and most rabid," he continued, "is horse-racing--andt'other is the mining fever, which last is a heap insidiouser in itsaction and more lingering in its effect."It wasn't long after that deal in the Territory that I felt thesymptoms coming on agin, and this time they pinted most emphatictoward prospecting, so me and 'Kink' Martin loaded our kit onto theburros and hit West."Kink was a terrible good prospector, though all-fired unlucky andpeculiar. Most people called him crazy, 'cause he had fits of goin'for days without a peep."Hosstyle and ornery to the whole world; sort of bulging out andexploding with silence, as it were."We'd been out in the hills for a week on our first trip before hegot one of them death-watch faces on him, and boycotted the Englishlangwidge. I stood for it three days, trying to jolly a grin on tohim or rattle a word loose, but he just wouldn't jolt."One night we packed into camp tired, hungry, and dying for a goodfeed."I hustled around and produced a supper fit for old Mr. Eppycure.Knowing that Kink had a weakness for strong coffee that was simply ahinge in him, I pounded up about a quart of coffee beans in thecorner of a blanket and boiled out a South American liquid that wasnothing but the real Arbuckle mud."This wasn't no chafing-dish party either, because the wood was wetand the smoke chased me round the fire. Then it blazed up in spurtsand fired the bacon-grease, so that when I grabbed the skillet thehandle sizzled the life all out of my callouses. I kicked the firedown to a nice bed of coals and then the coffee-pot upset and put itout. Ashes got into the bacon, and--Oh! you know how joyful it is tocook on a green fire when you're dead tired and your hoodoo's onvicious."When the 'scoffings' were finally ready, I wasn't in what you mightexactly call a mollyfying and tactful mood nor exuding genialness andenthusiasms anyways noticeable.""I herded the best in camp towards him, watching for a benevolentsymptom, but he just dogged it in silence and never changed a hair.That was the limit, so I inquired sort of ominous and gentle, 'Isthat coffee strong enough for ye, Mr. Martin?'"He give a little impecunious grunt, implying, 'Oh! it'll do,' andwith that I seen little green specks begin to buck and wing in frontof my eyes; reaching back of me, I grabbed the Winchester and throwedit down on him."'Now, you laugh, darn you,' I says, 'in a hurry. Just turn it outgleeful and infractious.'"He stared into the nozzle of that Krupp for a minute, then swalleredtwice to tune up his reeds, and says, friendly and perlite, butserious and wheezy:"'Why, what in hell ails you, William?'"'Laugh, you old dong-beater,' I yells, rising gradually to theoccasion, 'or I'll bust your cupola like a blue-rock.'"'I've got to have merriment,' I says. 'I pine for warmth and genialsmiles, and you're due to furnish the sunshine. You emit a fewshreds of mirth with expedition or the upper end of your spinal-cordis going to catch cold.'"Say! his jaws squeaked like a screen door when he loosened, but hebelched up a beauty, sort of stagy and artificial it was, but a greathelp. After that we got to know each other a heap better. Yes, sir;soon after that we got real intimate. He knocked the gun out of myhands, and we began to arbitrate. We plumb ruined that spot for acamping place; rooted it up in furrows, and tramped each other'sstummicks out of shape. We finally reached an amicable settlement byme getting him agin a log where I could brand him with the coffee-pot."Right there we drawed up a protoplasm, by the terms of which he wasto laugh anyways twice at meal-times."He told me that he reckoned he was locoed, and always had been sincea youngster, when the Injuns run in on them down at Frisbee, the timeof the big 'killing.' Kink saw his mother and father both murdered,and other things, too, which was impressive, but not agreeable for agrowing child. He had formed a sort of antipathy for Injuns at thattime, which he confessed he hadn't rightly been able to overcome."Now, he allus found himself planning how to hand Mr. Lo the doublecross and avoid complications."We worked down into South Western Arizony to a spot aboutthirty-five miles back of Fort Walker and struck a prospect. Sort ofa teaser it was, but worth working on. We'd just got nicely startedwhen Kink comes into camp one day after taking a passiar around thebutte for game, and says:"'The queerest thing happened to me just now, Kid.'"'Well, scream it at me,' I says, sort of smelling trouble in the air."'Oh! It wasn't much,' says he. 'I was just working down the bigcanyon over there after a deer when I seen two feather-dusters comingup the trail. I hid behind a rock, watching 'em go past, and I'mdurned if my gun didn't go off accidental and plumb ruin one of 'em.Then I looks carefuller and seen it wasn't no feather-duster atall--nothing but an Injun.'"'What about the other one?'"'That's the strangest part,' says Kink. 'Pretty soon the other oneturns and hits the back-trail like he'd forgot something; then I seenhim drop off his horse, too, sudden and all togetherish. I'm awfulcareless with this here gun,' he says. I hate to see a man laughfrom his tonsils forrard, the way he did. It ain't humorous."'See here,' I says, 'I ain't the kind that finds fault with mypardner, nor saying this to be captious and critical of your play;but don't you know them Cochises ain't on the warpath? Them Injunshas been on their reservation for five years, peaceable,domesticated, and eating from the hand. This means trouble.""'My old man didn't have no war paint on him one day back atFrisbee,' whispers Kink, and his voice sounded puckered up and dried,'and my mother wasn't so darned quarrelsome, either.'"Then I says, 'Well! them bodies has got to be hid, or we'll have thetribe and the bluebellies from the fort a scouring these hills till ared-bug couldn't hide.'"'To hell with 'em,' says Kink. 'I've done all I'm going to for 'em.Let the coyotes finish the job.'"'No, siree,' I replies. 'I don't blame you for having a prejudiceagin savages, but my parents is still robust and husky, and I havean idea that they'd rather see me back on the ranch than glaringthrough the bars for life. I'm going over to bury the meat.'"Off I went, but when I slid down the gulch, I only found one body.T'other had disappeared. You can guess how much time I lost gettingback to camp."'Kink,' I says, 'we're a straddle of the raggedest proposition inthis country. One of your dusters at this moment is jamming hiscayuse through the horizon between here and the post. Pretty soonthings is going to bust loose. 'Bout to-morrer evening we'll beeating hog-bosom on Uncle Sam.'"'Well! Well!' says Kink, 'ain't that a pity. Next time I'llconquer my natural shyness and hold a post-mortem with a rock.'"'There won't be no next time, I reckon,' I says, ''cause we can'tmake it over into Mexico without being caught up. They'll nail ussure, seeing as we're the only white men for twenty-five milesaround.'"'I'd rather put up a good run than a bad stand, anyhow,' says he,'and I allows, furthermore, there's going to be some hard trails tofoller and a tolable disagreeable fight before I pleads 'not guilty'to the Colonel. We'll both duck over into the Santa--'"'Now, don't tell me what route you're going,' I interrupts,' 'causeI believe I'll stay and bluff it through, rather than sneak for it,though neither proposition don't appeal to me. I may get raised outbefore the draw, but the percentage is just as strong agin your gameas mine.'"'Boy, if I was backing your system,' says Kink, 'I'd shore copperthis move and play her to lose. You come on with me, and we'll makeit through--mebbe.'"'No,' I says; 'here I sticks.'"I made up a pack-strap out of my extry overhalls while he got grubtogether, to start south through one hundred miles of the ruggedestand barrenest country that was ever left unfinished."Next noon I was parching some coffee-beans in the frying-pan, when Iheard hoofs down the gully back of me. I never looked up when theycome into the open nor when I heard a feller say 'Halt!'"'Hello there!' somebody yells. 'You there at the fire.' I kept onshaking the skillet over the camp-fire."'What's the matter with him?' somebody said. A man got off andwalked up behind me."'See here, brother,' he says, tapping me on the shoulder; 'thisdon't go.'"I jumped clean over the fire, dropped the pan, and let out a deafand dumb holler, 'Ee! Ah!'"The men began to laugh; it seemed to rile the little leftenant."'Cut this out,' says he. 'You can talk as well as I can, and you'rea going to tell us about this Injun killin'. Don't try any fakebusiness, or I'll roast your little heels over that fire like yams.'"I just acted the dummy, wiggled my fingers, and handed him thejoyful gaze, heliographing with my teeth as though I was glad to seevisitors. However, I wondered if that runt would really give mychilblains a treat. He looked like a West Pointer, and I didn't knowbut he'd try to haze me."Well! they 'klow-towed' around there for an hour looking for clues,but I'd hid all the signs of Kink, so finally they strapped me onto ahorse and we hit back for the fort."The little man tried all kinds of tricks to make me loosen on theway down, but I just acted wounded innocence and 'Ee'd' and 'Ah'd' athim till he let me alone."When we rode up to the post he says to the Colonel:"'We've got the only man there is in the mountains back there, sir,but he's playing dumb. I don't know what his game is.'"'Dumb, eh?' says the old man, looking me over pretty keen. 'Well! Iguess we'll find his voice if he's got one.'"He took me inside, and speaking of examinations, probably I didn'tget one. He kept looking at me like he wanted to place me, but Igive him the 'Ee! Ah!' till everybody began to laugh. They tried mewith a pencil and paper, but I balked, laid my ears back, andbuck-jumped. That made the old man sore, and he says: 'Lock him up!Lock him up; I'll make him talk if I have to skin him.' So I wasdragged to the 'skookum-house,' where I spent the night figuring outmy finish."I could feel it coming just as plain, and I begun to see that when Idid open up and prattle after Kink was safe, nobody wouldn't believemy little story. I had sized the Colonel up as a dead stringy oldproposition, too. He was one of these big-chopped fellers with amouth set more'n half way up from his chin and little thin lips likethe edge of a knife blade, and just as full of blood--face, big andrustic-finished."I says to myself, 'Bud, it looks like you wouldn't be forced toprospect for a living any more this season. If that old sport turnshimself loose you're going to get 'life' three times and a holdover.'"Next morning they tried every way to make me talk. Once in a whilethe old man looked at me puzzled and searching, but I didn't know himfrom a sweat-pad, and just paid strict attention to being dumb."It was mighty hard, too. I got so nervous my mouth simply ached tolet out a cayoodle. The words kept trying to crawl through mysesophagus, and when I backed 'em up, they slid down and stood aroundin groups, hanging onto the straps, gradually filling me with witfulgems of thought."The Colonel talked to me serious and quiet, like I had good ears,and says, 'My man, you can understand every word I say, I'm sure, andwhat your object is in maintaining this ridiculous silence, I don'tknow. You're accused of a crime, and it looks serious for you.""Then he gazes at me queer and intent, and says, 'If you only knewhow bad you are making your case you'd make a clean breast of it.Come now, let's get at the truth.'"Them thought jewels and wads of repartee was piling up in me fast,like tailings from a ground-sluice, till I could feel myself gettingbloated and pussy with langwidge, but I thought, 'No! to-morrow Kink'll be safe, and then I'll throw a jolt into this man's camp that'llgo down in history. They'll think some Chinaman's been thawing out abox of giant powder when I let out my roar.'"I goes to the guard-house again, with a soldier at my back.Everything would have been all right if we hadn't run into a muleteam."They had been freighting from the railroad, and as we left thebarracks we ran afoul of four outfits, three span to the wagon, withthe loads piled on till the teams was all lather and the wheelscomplainin' to the gods, trying to pass the corner of the barrackswhere there was a narrow opening between the buildings."Now a good mule-driver is the littlest, orneriest speck in the humanline that's known to the microscope, but when you get a poor one,he'd spoil one of them cholera germs you read about just by contact.The leader of this bunch was worse than the worst; strong onwhip-arm, but surprising weak on judgment. He tried to make theturn, run plump into the corner of the building, stopped, backed,swung, and proceeded to get into grief."The mules being hot and nervous, he sent them all to the loco patchinstanter. They began to plunge and turn and back and snarl. Beforeyou could say 'Craps! you lose,' them shave-tails was giving thegrandest exhibition of animal idiocy in the Territory, barring theteamster. He follered their trail to the madhouse, yanking themouths out of them, cruel and vicious."Now, one mule can cause a heap of tribulation, and six mules canbreak a man's heart, but there wasn't no excuse for that driver tostand up on his hind legs, close his eyes, and throw thirty foot oflash into that plunging buckin', white-eyed mess. When he did it,all the little words inside of me began to foam and fizzle likesedlitz; out they came, biting, in mouthfuls, and streams, andsquirts, backwards, sideways, and through my nose."'Here! you infernal half-spiled, dog-robbing walloper,' I says; 'youdon't know enough to drive puddle ducks to a pond. You quit heavingthat quirt or I'll harm you past healing.'"He turned his head and grit out something through his teeth thatstimulated my circulation. I skipped over the wheels and put my leftonto his neck, fingering the keys on his blow-pipe like a flute.Then I give him a toss and gathered up the lines. Say! it was likethe smell of grease-paint to an actor man for me to feel the ribbonsagain, and them mules knew they had a chairman who savvied 'em too,and had mule talk pat, from soda to hock."I just intimated things over them with that whip, and talked to themlike they was my own flesh and blood. I starts at the worst wordsthe English langwidge and the range had produced, to date, and gotsteadily and rapidly worse as long as I talked."Arizony may be slow in the matter of standing collars and rag-time,but she leads the world in profanity. Without being swelled onmyself, I'll say, too, that I once had more'n a local reputation inthat line, having originated some quaint and feeling conceits whichhas won modest attention, and this day I was certainly trained to theminute."I addressed them brutes fast and earnest for five minutes steady,and never crossed my trail or repeated a thought."It must have been sacred and beautiful. Anyhow, it was strongenough to soak into their pores so that they strung out straight as achalk-line. Then I lifted them into the collars, and we rumbled pastthe building, swung in front of the commissary door, cramped andstopped. With the wheelers on their haunches, I backed up to thedoor square as a die."I wiped the sweat out of my eyes and looked up into the grinningface of about fifty swatties, realizing I was a mute--and a prisoner."I heard a voice say, 'Bring me that man.' There stood the Coloneloozing out wrath at every pore."I parted from that wagon hesitating and reluctant, but two soldiersto each leg will bust any man's grip, I lost some clothes, too, afterwe hit the ground, but I needed the exercise."The old man was alone in his office when they dragged me in, and hesent my guards out."'So you found your voice, did you?' he says."'Yes, sir," I answers. 'It came back unexpected, regular miracle.'"'He drummed on the table for a long time, and then says, sort ofimmaterial and irreverent, 'You're a pretty good mule puncher, eh?'"'It ain't for me to say I'm the best in the Territory,' I says; 'butI'm curious to meet the feller that claims the title.'"He continues, 'It reminds me of an exhibition I saw once, back inNew Mexico, long time ago, at the little Flatwater Canyon.'"'Maybe you've heard tell of the fight there when the Apaches wereup? Yes? Well, I happened to be in that scrimmage.'"'I was detailed with ten men to convoy a wagon train through to FortLewis. We had no trouble till we came to the end of that canyon,just where she breaks out onto the flats. There we got it. Theywere hidden up on the ridges; we lost two men and one wagon before wecould get out onto the prairie."'I got touched up in the neck, first clatter, and was bleedingpretty badly; still I hung to my horse, and we stood 'em off till theteams made it out of the gulch; but just as we came out my horse felland threw me--broke his leg. I yelled to the boys:"'"Go on! For God's sake go on!" Any delay there meant loss of thewhole outfit. Besides, the boys had more than they could manage,Injuns on three sides."'We had a young Texan driving the last wagon. When I went down heswung those six mules of his and came back up that trail into thegut, where the bullets snapped like grasshoppers."'It was the prettiest bit of driving I ever saw, not to mentionnerve. He whirled the outfit between me and the bluff on two wheels,yelling, "Climb on! Climb on! We ain't going to stay long!" I wasjust able to make it onto the seat. In the turn they dropped one ofhis wheelers. He ran out on the tongue and cut the brute loose. Wewent rattling down the gulch behind five mules. All the time therecame out of that man's lungs the fiercest stream of profanity my earsever burned under. I was pretty sick for a few weeks, so I never gota chance to thank that teamster. He certainly knew the mind of anarmy mule, though. His name was--let me see--Wiggins--yes, Wiggins."'Oh, no it wasn't,' I breaks in, foolish; 'it was Joyce.'"Then I stopped and felt like a kid, for the Colonel comes up andshuts the circulation out of both my hands."'I wasn't sure of you, Bill,' he says, 'till I saw you preside overthose mules out there and heard your speech--then I recognized thegift.' He laughed like a boy, still making free with my hands. 'I'mdarn glad to see you, Bill Joyce. Now then,' he says, 'tell me allabout this killing up in the hills,' and I done so."After I finished he never said anything for a long time, justdrummed the desk again and looked thoughtful."'It's too bad you didn't speak out, Bill, when you first came in.Now, you've showed everybody that you can talk--just a little,anyhow,' and he smiles, 'and they all think you're the man caused thetrouble. I don't see but that you've got to stand trial. I wish Icould help you, Bill.'"'But see here, Colonel,' I says; 'I couldn't squeal on Kink. We'repardners. I just had to give him a chance to cut. I played dumb'cause I knew if I talked at all, being simple and guileless, you allwould twist me up and have the whole thing in a jiffy. That man giveme the last drop of water in his canteen on the Mojave, and him withhis own tongue swelled clean out of his mouth, too. When we wassnowed in, up in the Bitter Roots, with me snow-blind and starving,he crawled from Sheeps-Horn clean to Miller's--snow twelve foot deep,too, and nary a snow-shoe in miles, but he brought the outfit in towhere I was lyin' 'bout gone in. He lost some fingers and more toeswallering through them mountain drifts that day, but he never laiddown till he brought the boys back."'Colonel! we've slept on the same blanket, we've et the same grub,we've made and lost together, and I had to give him a show, that'sall. I'm into this here trouble now. Tell me how I'm going to getout. What would you do?'"He turns to the open window and says: 'Partners are partners!That's my horse out there at that post. If I were you I'd run likehell.'"That was the willingest horse I ever rode, and I hated to sell him,but he was tolable used up when I got across the line."
zpostcode
Recruit
weather
mreligion
Yellowpages
sport
constellation
shopping
name
game
directory
literature
Word
tour
furnish
Lottery
tftnews
lyrics
News
digital
car
dir
Edu
Finance
