 The Apache Mountain War by Robert Howard. Someday, maybe, when I'm old and gray in the whiskers, I'll have sense enough not to stop when I'm riding my Uncle Shadrack Polk's cabin, and Aunt Tascosa Polk hollers at me. Take the last time, for instance. I ought to have spurred Captain Kidd into a high run when she stuck her head out in the window and yelled, Breckenridge! Oh Breckenridge! But I reckon Papp's right when he says, Nature, give me so much muscle, she didn't have no room left for brains. Anyway, I rang Captain Kidd around, ignoring his playful efforts to bite the muscle out of my left thigh, and I rode up to the stoop and taken off my coonskin cap. I said, Well Aunt Tascosa, how are you all? You may well ask, how are we? She said bitterly. How should a poor weak woman be faring with a critter like Shadrack for a husband? It's a wonder I've got a roof over my head, or so much as a barrel of bar meat put up for the winter. The place is going to rack and ruin. Look at that there busted axe handle, for instance. Is a poor weak female like me got to endure such abuse? You don't mean to tell me Uncle Shadrack's been beating you with that axe handle, I says, scandalized? No, says this poor weak female. I busted it over his head a week ago, and he's refused to mend it. Its liquor has been Shadrack's ruin. When he's sober, he's a passable figure of a man, as men go. But Swig and Blue ruin has brung him to shame and degradation. He looks fat and sassy, I says. Beauty ain't only skin deep, she scowls. Shadrack's like dead seed fruit, fair and fat belly to look on, but ready to dissolve in dust and whiskey fumes when prodded. Do you know where he is right now? And she glared at me so accusingly that Captain Kid recoiled and turned pale. No, I says, war. He's over at the Pachy Mountain settlement, a lappin' up liquor, she snarled, just a rootin' and a wallerin' in sin and corn juice, riskin' his immortal soul and blowin' in the money he got off in his coon hides. I had him locked in the corn crib, aimin' to plead with him and appeal to his better nature. But whilst I was out behind the corral cuttin' me a hickory club to do the appealin' with, he kicked the door loose and scun out. I know where he's headin' to Joel Garfield Stillhouse, which is a bombination in the sight of the Lord and oughta be burnt to the ground and the ashes squinched with the blood of the wicked. But I can't stand here listenin' to your gab. I got hominy to make. What you been wastein' my time like this for? I got a good mind to tell your pap on you. You lied a shuck for a Pachy Mountain and bring Shadrack home. But, I said, don't you give me no arguments you impertinent scoundrel, she hollered. I should think you'd be glad to help a poor, weak female critter. Stead'll waste in your time camblin' and fightin' in such dens of iniquity as war paint. I want you to fix some way so's to disgust Shadrack with drink for the rest of his natural life. And if you don't, you'll hear from me you good for nothin'. All right, I yelled. All right. Anything for a little peace. I'll get him and bring him home and make a teetotaler out of him if I have to strangle the old son of a outcast you use such language in front of me, she hollered. Ain't you got no respect for a lady? I'll be expletive-blanked if I know what the expletive-deleted world's comin' to. Get outta here and don't show your homely mug around here again unless you got Shadrack off a rum for good. Well, if Uncle Shadrack ever took a swig of rum in his life, it was cause they weren't no good red-corn whiskey within reach. But I didn't try to argue with Aunt Toscosa. I lit out down the trail, feelin' like I'd been tied up to a patchy stake with a whole tribe stickin' red-hot Spanish daggers into my hide. Aunt Toscosa affects man that way. I heard Captain Kidd heave a sigh of relief, plum up from his belly, too, as we'd crossed a ridge, and her distant voice was drowned out by the soothing sounds of a couple of bobcats fightin' with a timber-wolf. I thought, what calm and happy lives them simple critters lived without no Aunt Toscosa. I wrote on, forgettin' my own troubles and feelin' sorry for poor Uncle Shadrack. They weren't a mean bone in his carcass. He was just as good-natured and hearty a critter as you'd ever meet, even in the Humboldts. But his main objective in life seemed to be to stow away all the corn juice they is in the world. As I rode along I racked my brain for a plan to break Uncle Shadrack of this here habit. I like a dram myself, but in moderation. Never more than a gallon or so at a time, unless it's a special occasion. I don't believe in a man makin' a hog out of his self, and anyway I was sick and tired runnin' Uncle Shadrack down and fetchin' him home from his sprees. I thought so much about it on my way to Apache Mountain that I got so sleepy I seen I was gettin' into no state to ride cat and kid. He got to lookin' back at me now and then, and I knowed, if he seen me dozin' in the saddle, he'd try his dirtest to break my neck. I was passin' Cousin Bill Gordon's barn about that time, so I thought I'd go in and take me a nap up in the hayloft, and maybe I'd dream about a way to make a water-drinker out of Uncle Shadrack or somethin'. I tied Captain Kidd and started into the barn, and what should I see but Bill's three youngest boys engaged in daubin' paint on Uncle Jeopard Grime's favorite jackass, Joshua. What are you all doin' to Joshua, I demanded, and they jumped back and looked guilty. Joshua was a critter which Uncle Jeopard used for a pack mule when he went prospectin'. He got the urge, maybe, every three or four year, and between times Joshua just ate and slept. He was the sleepin'est jackass I ever seen. He was snoozin' now whilst them young idjits was workin' on him. I seen what they was at. Bill had loaned the feller some money which had a store down to war paint, and the feller went broke, and give Bill a lot of stuff out of the store for pay. They was a lot of paint amongst it. Bill packed it home, though I don't know what he aimed to do with it, because all the houses in the Humboldts was log cabins which nobody ever painted, or if they did, they just whitewashed them. But anyway he had it all stored in his barn, and his boys was smirin' it on Joshua. He was the dirtest sight you ever seen. They painted a big stripe down his spine like a Spanish Mustang. Only this stripe was green instead of black, and more stripes curvin' over his ribs and down under his belly, red, white, and blue, and they painted his ears green. No mean by such do-ins, I asked. Uncle Jeopard will plumb skin you all alive. He sets a lot of store by that there, Jack. It's just funnin', they said. You won't know who'd done it. You go scrub that paint off, I ordered them. Joshua will lick it off and get pisoned. It won't hurt him, they assured me. He got in here yesterday and had three cans of paint and a bucket of whitewash. That's what give us the idea. He can eat anything, eatin' as Jack you ever seen. Snickered one of them. He looks like a drunkard's dream. Joshua to Joel's still-house, they said. You'll be all day gettin' there. You can't hustle, Joshua. I ain't gonna lead him, I said. You all hitch a couple of mules to your pa's spring wagon. I'll leave Captain Kidd here till I get back. We'll put him in the corral behind the barn, they says. Them poles are set four foot deep in concrete, and the fence is braced with railroad iron. So maybe it'll hold him till you get back, if you ain't gone too long. When they got the mules hitched, I tied Joshua's legs and laid him in the wagon bed, where he went to sleep, and I climbed onto the seat and lit out for a patchy mountain. I hadn't gone far when I run over a rock and woke Joshua up, and he started brayin' and kept it up till I stopped and give him a ear a corn to chew on, as I started off. I seen Dick Grimes youngest gal peepin' at me from the brush, and when I called to her, she run off. I hoped she hadn't heard Joshua brayin'. I knowed she couldn't see him, layin' down in the wagon bed, but he had a very peculiar bray, and anybody in the Humboldts could recognize him by it. I hoped she didn't know I had Joshua, because she was the dirtest tattletail in the Bear Creek country. An Uncle Jephard is such a cross-grained old cuss, you can't explain nothin' to him. He was born with the notion that the whole world was plottin' again him. It hadn't been much more than good daylight when I rode past Uncle Shadrack's house, and I'd pushed Captain Kidd pretty brisk from there. The mules made good time, so it warn't noon yet when I come to a patchy mountain. As I approached the settlement, which was a number of cabins strung up and down a brushy run, I swung wide at the wagon-road and took to the trails, because I didn't want nobody to see me with Joshua. It was kind of tough goin' because the trails was mostly foot-pads and not wide enough for the wagon, and I had to stop and pull up saplings every few yards. I was scared the noise would wake up Joshua, and he'd start brayin' again, but that jackass could sleep through a bombardment, long as he weren't bein' jolted personal. I was pretty close to the settlement when I had to get out of the wagon and go ahead and break down some brush so the wheels wouldn't foul, and when I laid hold of it a couple of figures jumped up on the other side. One was Cousin Buckner Kirby's gal, Kitt, and Tothern was young Harry Braxton from the other side of the mountain, and no kin to none of us. Oh, says Kitt, kind of breathless. What you all doin' out here? I scowled, fixin' Harry with an eye which made him shiver and fuss with his gun-belt. Are your intentions honorable, Braxton? I don't know what business it is a yarn, said Kitt bitterly. I makes it mine, I assured her. If this young buck can't come sparkin' you at a respectable place an hour, why I figures your remarks is ignorant and insulting, says Harry, sweating profusely, but game. I aims to make this here young lady my wife, if it weren't for the toughest prospective father-in-law ever blighted young love's sweet dream with a number twelve boot in the seat of the pants, to put it in words of one syllable so's even you can understand Breckenridge, says Kitt. Harry wants to marry me, but Papp is too darn mean and stubborn to let us. He don't like the Braxtons, count a one of them scunning him on a Haas swap thirty years ago. I don't love him myself, I grunted. But go on. Well, she says, after Papp had kicked Harry out of the house five or six times and dusted his britches with bird-shot on another occasion, we kinda got the idea he was prejudiced against Harry. So we has to take this here method of seeing each other. Why don't you all run off and get married anyway, I asked, Kitt shivered. We wouldn't dare try it. Papp might wake up and catch us and he'd shoot Harry. I'd taken a big chance sneaking out here today. Ma and all the kids are all over visiting a few days with Aunt Washington, but Papp wouldn't let me go, for fear I'd meet Harry over there. I snuck out here for a few minutes. Papp thinks I'm gathering greens for dinner, but if I don't hustle back, he'll come looking for me with a hickory gad. Aw, shucks, I said. You all gotta use your brains like I do. You leave it to me. I'll get your old man out of the way for the night and give you a chance to skip. How you do that, Kitt asks skeptically. Never mind, I told her, not having the slightest idea how I was gonna do it. I'll tend to that. You get your things ready, and you, Harry, you come along the road in a buckboard just about moonrise, and Kitt'll be waitin' for ya. You all can get hitched over to Warpaint. Buckner won't do nothin' after you're hitched. Will ya sure enough? says Harry, brightening up. Sure I will, I assured him. The moose now, and get that buckboard. He hustled off, and I said to Kitt, get in the wagon and ride to the settlement with me. This time tomorrow, you'll be a happy married woman, sure enough. I hope so, she said, sad like. But I'm bettin' somethin''ll go wrong and pap'll catch us, and I'll eat my meals off the metalboard for the next week. Trust me, I assured her as I helped her in the wagon. She didn't seem much surprised when she looked down in the bed, and seen Joshua all tied up and painted, and snoring his head off. Humboldt folks expects me to do unusual things. You needn't look like you thought I was crazy, I says irritably. That critter is for Uncle Shadrack Polk. If Uncle Shadrack sees that thing, says she, he'll think he's seein' worse than snakes. That's what I aim for him to think, I says. Who's he standin' with? Us, says she. Hmm, I says that there complicates things a little. Where at does he sleep? Upstairs, she says. Well, I says he won't interfere with our elopement none. You get out of here and go on home, and don't let your pap suspect nothin'. I'd be likely to, wouldn't I, says she, and clumbed down and pulled out. I'd stopped in a thicket at the edge of the settlement, and I could see the roof of Cousin Buckner's house from where I was. I could also hear Cousin Buckner ballerin', kit, kit, where are you? I know you ain't in the garden. If I have to come huntin' you, I'll keep your britches on, I heard kit call. I'm a comin'. I heard Cousin Buckner subside into grumblins and rumblins like a grisly talkin' to a self. I figured he was out on the road, which run past his house, but I couldn't see him, and neither he couldn't see me, nor nobody could, which might happen to be passin' along the road. I on-hitched the mules and tied him where they could graze and get water, and I heisted Joshua out of the wagon, and takin' the ropes off of his legs and tied him to a tree and fed him in the mules with some corn I'd brung from Cousin Bill Gordon's. Then I went through the brash till I come to Joel Garfield's still house, which was maybe half a mile from there up the run. I didn't meet nobody. Joel was by his self in the still house, for a wonder, but he was makin' up for lack of trade by his own personal attention to his stock. Ain't Uncle's Shadrack pole nowhere round, I asked, and Joel lowered a jug of white corn long enough to answer me. No, he says. He ain't right now. He's likely still sleepin' off the south he was on last night. He didn't leave here till after midnight, says Joel, with another pull at the jug, and he was takin' all sides of the road at once. He'll pull in about the middle of the afternoon and start in to fillin' his hide so full he can just barely stagger back to Buckner Kirby's house by midnight or past. I bet he has a fine old time navigatin' them stairs Buckner's got into his house. I'd be a fear to tackle him myself, even when I was sober. A pole ladders all I want to get into a loft with, but Buckner always did have highfalutin' IDs. Lately he's been arguing with Uncle Shadrack to cut down on his drinkin', especially when he's full his self. Beakin' a cousin Buckner, I says, has he been around for his regular dram yet? Not yet, says Joel. You'll be in right after dinner, as usual. He wouldn't if he know'd what I know'd, I opined, because I'd thought up a way to get Cousin Buckner out of the way that night. He'd be headin' for Wolf Canyon fast as he could sproutle. I'd just met Harry Braxton with a pack mule headin' for there. You don't mean? Somebody's made a strike in Wolf Canyon, says Joel, prickin' up his ears. You never heard nothin' like it, I assured him. Alder Gulch warn't nothin' to this. Says Joel, absentmindedly pourin' his self a quart-sized tin cup full of corn juice. I'm an engine if it ain't, I says, and drinkin' me a dram and went back to layin' the brush and watch the Kirby House. I was well pleased with myself, cause I know'd what a Wolf Cousin Buckner was after gold. If anything could draw him away from home and his daughter, it'd be news of a big strike. I was willin' to bet my six shooters against a prickly pear that as soon as Joel told him the news he'd light out for Wolf Canyon, more especially as he'd think Harry Braxton was goin' there, too, and no chance of him sneakin' off with Kit whilst the old man was gone. After a while I seen Cousin Buckner leave the house and go down the road toward the still house, and pretty soon Uncle Shadrack emerged and headed the same way. Pretty well satisfied with myself, I went back to where I left Cousin Bill's wagon, fried me five or six pounds of venison I'd brung along for provisions and edit, and drunk at the creek, then laid down and slept for a few hours. It was right at sundown when I woke up. I went on foot through the brush till I came out behind Buckner's cow pen and seen Kit Milken. I asked her if anybody was in the house. Nobody but me, she said, and I'm out here. I ain't seen neither Pap nor Uncle Shadrack since they left, right after dinner. Can it be your scheme is actually workin' out? Certainly, I says, Uncle Shadrack'll be swillin' at Joel's still house till past midnight, and your Pap is undoubtedly on his way toward Wolf Canyon. You get through with your chores and get ready to skip. Don't have no light in your room, though. It's just likely your Pap told off one of his relatives to lay in the brush and watch the house, him bein' of a suspicious nature. We don't want to have no bloodshed. When I hear Harry's buckboard, I'll come for you. And if you hear any peculiar noises before he gets here, don't think nothin' of it. It'll just be me luggin' Joshua upstairs. That critter'll brave it to wake the dead, says she. He won't neither, I said. He'll go to sleep and keep his mouth shut. Uncle Shadrack won't suspect nothin' till he lights him a candle to go to bed by. Or if he's too drunk to light a candle and just falls down on the bed in the dark, he'll wake up during the night sometime to get him a drink of water. He's bound to see Joshua sometime between midnight and mornin'. All I hope is the shock won't prove fatal. You go get ready to skip now. I went back to the wagon and cooked me some more venison, also, about a dozen eggs kid had given me along with some cornpone and a gallon of buttermilk. I managed to make a light snack out of them morsels, and then, as soon as it was good and dark, I hitched up the mules and loaded Joshua into the wagon, and went slow and easy down the road. I stopped behind the corral and tied the mules. The house was dark and still. I towed a Joshua into the house and carried him upstairs. I heard Kit movin' around in her room, but they warn't nobody else in the house. Cousin Buckner had regular stairs in his house like what they have in big towns, like War Paint and the like. Most folks in the Bear Creek country just has a ladder goin' up through a trapdoor, and some said they would be a judgment on the Buckner, a count of him indulging in such vain and sinful luxury. But I got to admit that packin' a jackass up a flight of stairs was a lot easier than what it would've been to lug him up a ladder. Joshua didn't brain or kick none. He didn't care what was happenin' to him so long as he didn't have to do no work personal. I unfastened his legs and tied a rope around his neck and to other end to the foot of Uncle Shadrack's bunk and give him a hat I found on a peg to chew on till he went to sleep, which I knowed he'd do pronto. I then went downstairs and heard Kit fussin' around in her room, but it warn't time for Harry, so I went back out behind the corral and stopped down and leaned my back again the fence, and I reckon I must've gone to sleep. Just associatin' with Joshua, give a man the habit. First thing I knowed, I heard a buckboard rumblin' over a bridge up the draw, and knowed it was Harry comin' in fear and trembling to claim his bride. The moon warn't up yet, but there was a glow above the trees on the eastern ridges. I went up and ran quick and easy to Kit's window. I can move light as a cougar in spite of my size, and I said, Kit, are you ready? I'm ready, she whispered all of a tremble. Don't talk so loud. They ain't nothin' to be scared of. I soothed her but lowered my voice just to humor her. Your path is in Wolf Canyon by this time. Ain't nobody in the house but us. Watchin' out by the corral. Kit sniffed. Where'd that you I heard come into the house while ago? She asked. You've been dreamin', I said. Come on, that's Harry's buckboard comin' up the road. Let me get just a few more things together, she whispered, fumblin' around in the dark. That's just like a woman. No matter how much time they has a forehand, they always has somethin' to do at the last minute. I waited by the window, and Harry drove on past the house a few rods, and tied the husks and come back, walkin' light and soft, and plenty pale in the starlight. Go on out the front door in medium, I told her. No, wait. Because all to once Harry had ducked back out of the road, and he jumped over the fence and come to the window where I was. He was shakin' like a leaf. Somebody's comin' up the road afoot, he says. It's PAP, gasped Kit. Her and Harry was sure scared of the old man. They hadn't said a word above a whisper you could never have heard three yards away, and I was kinda suitin' my voice to them. Aw, it can't be, I said. He's in Wolf Canyon. That's Uncle Shadrack comin' home to sleep off his drunk. But he's back a lot earlier than what I figured he would be. He ain't important, but we don't want no delay. Here, Kit, give me that bag. Now let me lift you out of the window. So, now you all, skin out. I'm gonna climb this here tree where I can see the fun. Now, Kit. They crope out the side gate of the yard, just as Uncle Shadrack come in at the front gate, and he never seen him, because the house was between him. They went so soft and easy, I thought if Cousin Buckner had been in the house, he wouldn't have woke up. They was hustlin' down the road toward the buckboard, as Uncle Shadrack was comin' up on the porch and goin' into the hall. I could hear him climbin' the stair. I could have seen him if they'd been a light in the house, because I could look into a window in his room and one in the downstairs hall, too, from the tree where I was settin'. He got into his room about the time the young folks reached their buckboard, and I seen a light flare up as he struck a match. They weren't no hall upstairs. The stairs run right up to the door of his room. He stood in the doorway and lit a candle on a shelf by the door. I could see Joshua standin' by the bunk with his head down asleep, and I reckon the light musta woke him up, because he'd throwed up his head and give a loud and ringin' bray. Uncle Shadrack turned and seen Joshua, and he let out a shriek and fell backwards downstairs. The candlelight streamed down into the hall, and I got the shock of my life. Because as Uncle Shadrack went pitchin' down them steps, yellin' bloody murder, they sounded a bull's roar below, and out of the room at the foot of the stair came Prancing a huge figure wavin' a shotgun in one hand and pullin' on his britches with the other. It was Cousin Buckner, which I thought was safe in Wolf Canyon. That had been him which Kit heard come in and go to bed a while before. What's goin' on here, he roared. What you doin', Shadrack? Get outta my way, screamed Uncle Shadrack. I just seen the devil in the form of a zebra and jackass. Let me outta here. He busted out of the house and jumped the fence and went up the road like a quarter-hoss, and Cousin Buckner ran out behind him. The moon was just comin' up, and Kit and Harry was just startin' down the road. When she seen her old man erupt from the house, Kit screeched like a scared catamount, and Buckner heard her. He whirled and seen the Buckboard rattling down the road, and he knowed what was happenin'. He'd give a beller and let bam at him with his shotgun, but it was too long a range. Where's my house, he roared, and started for the corral. I know if he got straddle of that darn long-legged baguildon of his, he'd ride them poor infants down before they went ten miles. I jumped down out of the tree and yelled, Is there Cousin Buckner? Hey, Buck, he whirled and shot the tail off of my coonskin cat before he seen who it was. What you mean jumpin' down on me like that, he roared? What you doin' up that tree? Where you come from? Nevermind that, I said. You wanna catch Harry Braxton before he gets away with your gal, don't ya? Don't stop the Saddle-a-Hoss. I got a light wagon hitched up behind the corral. We can run him down easy in that. Let's go, he roared, and in no time at all we was off, him standin' up in the bed and Cousin' and wavin' his shotgun. I'll have his scope, he roared. I'll pickle his heart and feed it to my hound dogs. Can't you go no faster? Then Dern Mules was a lot faster than I'd thought. I didn't dare hold him back for fear Buckner'd get suspicious, and the first thing I'd knowed we was overhaulin' the buck-board foot by foot. Harry's critters warn't much account, and Cousin Bill Gordon's Mules was layin' their bellies to the ground. I don't know what Kit thought when she looked back and seen us tearin' after him, but Harry musta thought I was betrayin' him. Otherwise he wouldn'ta opened up on me with his six-shooter. But all he done was knock some splinters out of the wagon and nick my shoulder. The old man woulda returned the fire with his shotgun, but he was scared he might hit Kit, and both vehicles was boundin' and bouncin' along too fast and furious for careful aimin'. All tauntst we come to a place where the road forked and Kit and Harry takin' the right-hand turn. I takin' the left. Are you crazy, you plain fool? roared Cousin Buckner. Turn back and take the other road. I can't, I responded. These mules is runnin' away. You're a liar, held Cousin Buckner. Quit pourin' leather unto them mules you blasted expletive, and turn back! Turn back, cuss you! With that he started hammerin' me in the head with the stock of his shotgun. We was thunderin' along a road which run along the rim of a slopin' bluff, and when Buckner's shotgun went off accidentally, the mules really did get scared and started runnin' away. Just about the time I reached back to take the shotgun away from Cousin Buckner. The gun bein' beat in the head with the butt was gettin' awful monotonous, cuss he'd been doin' nothin' else for the past half mile. I yanked the gun out of his hand, and just then the left hind wheel hit a stump, and the hind end of the wagon went straight up in the air and the pole splintered. The mules run right out of the harness, and me and the wagon and Cousin Buckner went over the bluff and down the slope and a whirlin' tangle of wheels and legs and heads and profanity. We brung up against a tree at the bottom, and I throwed the ruins off of me and rizz, swearin' fervently when I saw how much money I'd have to pay Cousin Bill Gordon for his wagon. But Cousin Buckner give me no time for meditation. He done tangled his self from a hind wheel and was doin' a war dance in the moonlight and frothin' at the mouth. You done that on purpose, he raged. You never aim to catch them wretches. You takin' the wrong road on purpose. You turned us over on purpose. Now I'll never catch the scoundrel which run away with my dadder. The poor dumb trustin' expletive innocent. Be calm, Cousin Buckner, I advised. We'll make her a good husband. They're well on to their way to war paint and a happy married life. Best thing you can do is forgive them and give them your blessing. Well, he snarled, you ain't neither my daughter or my son-in-law. Here's my blessing to you. It was a poor return for all the trouble I'd taken for him to push me into a cactus bed and hit me with a rock the size of a watermelon. However, I'd taken into consideration that he was overwrought and not his self, so I ignored his incivility and made no retort whatever outside of splinterin' a wagon spoke over his head. I then clumbed the bluff, makin' no reply to his impassioned and profane comments, and looked around for the mules. They hadn't run far. I seen them grazin' down the road and I started after them. When I heard horses gallopin' back up the road toward the settlement and a round turn in the road come uncle Jeopard Grimes with his whiskers streamin' in the moonlight and nine or ten of his boys ridin' hard behind him. There he is! He howled impulsively discharging his six-shooter at me. There's the fiend in human form! There's the kidnapper of helpless jassics! Boys, do your duty! They pulled up around me and started pilin' off the horses with blood in their eyes and weapons in their hands. Hold on, I says. If it's Joshua, you fools are after. He admits the crime, howled uncle Jeopard. Is it Joshua says you? You know darn well it is. We've been combin' the hills for you ever since my granddaughter brought me the news. What you done with him, you scoundrel? Aw, I said he's all right. I was just going to— He evades the question, screamed uncle Jeopard. Get him, boys! I tell ya he's all right, I roared. But they give me no chance to explain. Them Grimes' is all alike. You can't tell them nothin'. You gotta knock it into their fool heads. They descended on me with fence rails and rocks and wagon spokes and loaded quirks and gun stocks in a way which woulda tried the patience of a saint. I always try to be as patient with my errand relatives as I can be. I merely takin' their weapons away from them and kinda pushed them back away from me. And if they'd look where they fell, Jim and Joe and Erath wouldn't have fell down off that bluff and broke their arms and legs. And Bill wouldn't have fractured his skull again that tree. I handled them as easy as babies and kept my temper in spite of Uncle Jeopard dancin' around on his house and yellin' lay into him, boys! Don't be scared of the big grizzly! He can't hurt us! And shootin' at me every time he thought he could shoot without hittin' one of his own offspring. He did puncture two or three of them and then blame me for it, the old jackass. Nobody could've acted with more restraint than I did when Dick Grimes broke the blade of his buoy knife off on my hip bone and the seven fractured ribs I give his brother Jacob was a mild retaliation for jawin' my ear like he'd done. But it was an ill-advised impulse which prompted Esau Grimes to stab me in the seat of the bridges with a pitchfork. There ain't nothin' which sours the melk of human kindness in a man's veins any more than gettin' pitchedforked by a ragein' relative behind his back. I give a beller which shook the acorns out of the oaks all up and down the run and whirled on Esau so quick it jerked the pitchfork out of his hands and left it stickin' in my hide. I wretched back and pulled it out and wrapped the handle around Esau's neck then I'd taken him by the ankles and started remodeling the landscape with him. I mowed down a sapling thicket with him and leveled the cactus bed with him and swept the road with him and when his brothers tried to rescue him I beat him over the head with him till they was too groggy to do anything but run in circles. Uncle Jephard came spurring at me trying to knock me down with his haws and travel me. And Esau was so limp by this time he weren't much good for a club no more. So I whirled him round my head a few times and throwed him an Uncle Jephard. Him and Uncle Jephard and the haws all went down in a heap together. And from the way Uncle Jephard hollered you'd have thought somebody was trying to injuring. It was plum disgusting. Five or six of his boys recovered enough to surge on to me then and I knocked them all down on top of him and Esau and the haws and the haws was trying to get up and kickin' around right and left and his hooves was going bam, bam, bam on human heads and Uncle Jephard was hollering so loud I got to thinkin' maybe he was hurt or somethin' so I wretched down in the heap and got him by the whiskers and pulled him out from under the haws and four or five of his fool boys. Are you hurt, Uncle Jephard? I inquired. Expletive deleted! responded Uncle Jephard rewarding my solicitude by trying to stab me with his buoy knife. This ingratitude irritated me and I tossed him from me fretfully and as he was pullin' his self out of the prickly pear bed where he landed he suddenly give a louder scream than ever. Somethin' come amblin' up the road and I seen it was that fool jackass Joshua which had evidently ed his rope and left the house lookin' for more grub. He looked like a four-legged nightmare in the moonlight but all Uncle Jephard noticed was the red paint on him. Help! Murder! held Uncle Jephard. They wounded him mortally. He's bleedin' to death. Get a tourniquet. Quick! With that they all deserted the fray them which was able to hobble and run to grab Joshua to staunch as bleedin' but when he seen all them grimes as comin' for him Joshua got scared and took out through the brush. They all pelted after him and the last thing I heard as they passed out of herein was Uncle Jephard wailin' Joshua! Stop, Dernet! This here's your friends! Pull up, dang ya! We wants to help you, ya cussid fool! I turned to see what I could do for the casualties which lay groanin' in the road at the foot of the bluff but they said unanimous they didn't want no help from an enemy which they meant me. They one and all promised to pickle my heart and eat it as soon as they was able to get about on crutches. So I abandoned my efforts and headed for the settlement. The fightin' had scared the mules up the road aways but I catched them and made a hackamore out of one of my galluses and rode one and fled to other and lit out straight through the brush for Bear Creek. I'd had a belly full of a patchy mountain but I swung past Joel's still-house to find out how come Cousin Buckner didn't go to Wolf Canyon. When I got there the still-house was dark and the door was shut and they was a note on the door. I could read a little by then and I spelt it out. It said, Gone to Wolf Canyon. Joel Garfield That selfish pole-cat hadn't told Cousin Buckner nor nobody about the strike. He'd got his self a pack mule and lit out for Wolf Canyon his self. A hell of a relative he was maybe doin' poor Cousin Buckner out of a fortune for all he knowed. A mile from the settlement I met Jack Gordon comin' from a dance on to other side of the mountain and he said he'd seen Uncle Shadrack Polk foggin' down the trail on a mule he was ridin' bareback without no bridle. So I thought, well, anyway my scheme for scarin' him out of a taste of liquor worked. Jack said Uncle Shadrack looked like he'd seen a herd of hanks. It was about daylight when I stopped at Bill Gordon's ranch to leave him his mules. I paid him for his wagon and also for the damage Captain Kidd had did to his corral. Bill had to build a new one and Captain Kidd had also run his prized stallion off of the ranch and chowed the ears off a long horned bull and busted into the barn and gobbled up about ten dollars worth of oats. When I lit out for Bear Creek again I warn't feelin' in no benevolent mood. But, thanks I, it's worth it if it's made a water-sweiger out of Uncle Shadrack. It was well along toward noon when I pulled up at the door and called for Aunt Toscosa. Judge my scandalized amazement when I was greeted by a deluge of bilin' water from the winder. An Aunt Toscosa stuck her head out and says, You buzzard in the form of a human being. How you got the brass to come bugling around here? If I were a lady, I'd tell you just what I thought of you, you expletive blankt. Get before I opens up on you with this here shotgun. Why, Aunt Toscosa, what you talkin' about, I asked, combin' the hot water out of my hair with my fingers. You got the nerve to ask, she sneered. Didn't you promise me you'd cure Shadrack a drinkin' rum? Didn't you, huh? Well, come in here and look at him. He arrived home about daylight on one of Buckter Kirby's mules and it about ready to drop. And he's been rastlin' ever since with a jug he had hid. I can't get no sits out of him. I went in and Uncle Shadrack was sittin' by the back door and he had hold of that there jug like a drownin' man clutchin' a straw-stack. I'm surprised at you, Uncle Shadrack, I said. What in the... Shit the door, Breckin' Rich, he says. They is more devil's onto the earth than is dreamed of in our philosophy. I've had a nearer escape, Breckin' Rich. I'll let myself be beguiled by the arguments of Buckner Kirby, a son of Belial which is without understanding. He's been rastlin' with me to give up liquor. Well, yesterday I got so tired of his arguments I said I'd try it a while. Just to have some peace. I never takin' a drink all day yesterday. And Breckin' Rich, I give you my word when I started to go to bed last night I seen a red, white and blue jackass with green ears standin' at the foot of my bunk just as plain as I sees you now. It's where the water that done it, Breckin' Rich, he says, curling his fist lovingly around the handle of the chug. Water's a snare and a delusion. I drunk water all day yesterday and look what it done to me. I don't never want to see no water no more again. Well, I says, losin' all patience, you're a goin' tube by golly if I can heave you from here to that Hostroff in the back-yard. I'd done it. And that's how come the rumor got started that I tried to drown Uncle Shadrack Polk in a Hostroff because he refused to swear off liquor. Et Toscosa was responsible for that there slander which was a poor way to repay me for all I did for her. But people ain't got no gratitude. End of the Apache Mountain War. Pilgrims to the Pachys by Robert Howard. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Pilgrims to the Pachys by Robert Howard. That their wagon rolled up the trail and stopped in front of our cabin one morning just after sun-up. We all come out to see who it was because strangers ain't common on Bear Creek and not very often welcome, neither. They was a long, hungry-looking old coot driving and four or five grown boys sticking their heads out. Good morning, folks, said the old coot, taken off his hat. My name is Joshua Richardson. I'm headin' a wagon train of immigrants which is lookin' for a place to settle. The rest of them camp three miles back down the trail. Everybody we met in these here humble mountings told us we'd have to see Mr. Roaring Bill Elkins about settlin' hereabouts. Be you him. I'm Bill Elkins, says Pap suspiciously. Will Mr. Elkins, says old man Richardson, waggin' his chin whiskers, he'd admire it powerful if you folks would let us people settle somewheres about? Hmm, says Pap, pulling his beard. Are you all from? Kansas, says old man Richardson. Watch it all, says Pap. Get my shotgun. Don't you do no such thing, watchy, says Ma. Don't be stubborn, William. The war's been over for years. And that's what I say, hastily spoke up old man Richardson. Like bygones be bygones, I says. What, says Pap ominously, is your honest opinion of General Sterling Price. One of nature's noblemen, declares old man Richardson earnestly. Hmm, says Pap. You seem to have considerable tact and off-sense for a red leg, but they ain't no more room on Bear Creek for no more settlers, even if they was Democrats. There's nine or ten families now within a wretch of a hundred square miles, and I don't believe an overcrowd in the country. But we're plum-tuckered out, wailed old man Richardson, and nowhere's to go. We have been driven from pillar to post by settlers which got here ahead of us and grabbed all the best land. They claims it whether they got any legal rights or not. Legal rights be damned, snorted Pap. Shotgun rights is what goes in this country, but I know just the place for you. It's ten or fifteen days' travel from here in Arizona. Tony, it's called Bowie Knife Canyon, and it's just right for farming people, which I judge you all to be. We be, says old man Richardson, but how we gonna get there? My son Breckenridge will be plum-delighted to guide you there, says Pap. Won't you Breckenridge? No, I won't. I said, why the tarnation have I got to be picked on a ride heard on a pass-a-la, tender-footed mavericks? He'll get you there safe, says Pap, ignoring my remarks. He dotes on Linden folks a helping hand. Don't you Breckenridge? Seeing the futility of argument, I merely snarled and went to saddle Captain Kid. I noticed old man Richardson and his boys looking at me in a very peculiar manner all the time. And when I come out on Captain Kid, him snorting and bucking and kicking the rails out of the corral like he always does, they turn kind of pale. And old man Richardson said, I wouldn't want to impose on your son, Mr. Elkins. After all, we wasn't intending to go to that there canyon in the first place. I'm guiding you to Bowie Knife Canyon, I roared. Maybe you weren't going there before I saddled my horse, but you are now. Come on, I then cut loose onto the mule's feet with my forty-fives to kind of put some ginger in the critters, and they braided and sought off down the trail, just hitting the high places with old man Richardson hanging on to the lines and bouncing all over the seat, and his sons rolling in the wagon bed. We come into the camp full-tilt, and some of the men grabbed their guns, and the women hollered and jerked up their kids, and one feller was so excited he fell into a big pot of beans which was simmering over a fire, and squalled out that the engines was trying to burn him alive. Old man Richardson had his feet braced again the front gate, pulling back on the lines as hard as he could, and yelling bloody murder. But the mule's had the bits betwixt their teeth, pulled to their heads and grabbed them by the bridles, and throwed them back onto their haunches. And old man Richardson ought to have knew that the stop would be sudden. Twernt my fault, he'd done a dive off the seat and hit on the wagon-tongue on his head, and it weren't my fault, neither, that one of the mules kicked him and to other him bit him before I could untangle him from amongst them. Mules is mean critters. Howsoever you take them. Everybody hollered amazing, and he rizz up and mopped the blood off of his face and waved his arms and hollered, and calm down, everybody. This ain't nothing to get excited about. This gentleman is Mr. Breckenridge Elkins, which is kindly agreed to guide us to a land of milk and honey down in Arizona. They receive the news without enthusiasm. There was about fifty of them, mostly women, children, and half-grown youngins. They weren't more than a dozen fit fighting men in the train. They all looked like they'd been on the trail a long time. And they was all some kind of old man Richardson. Sons and daughters, grand children, nieces, nephews, their husbands and wives, and such like. They was one real pretty gal, the old man's youngest daughter Betty, who weren't yet married. They just at breakfast and was hitched up when we arose, so we pulled out without no more delay. I rode along of old man Richardson's wagon, which went ahead with the others strung out behind, and he says to me, if this here buoy-knife canyon is such a remarkable place, why ain't it already been settled? Aw, there was a settlement there, I said, but the Apaches killed some, and the Mexican bandits killed some, and about three years ago, the survivors got to fighting amongst themselves and just kind of killed each other off. He yanked his beard nervously and said, I don't know, I don't know. Maybe we ought to hunt a more peaceful spot than that there sounds like. You won't find no peaceful spots west of the Apaches, I assured him, say no more about it. I've made up our minds that buoy-knife canyon is the place for y'all, and we're going there. I wouldn't think of arguing the point, he assured me hastily. What towns does we pass on our way? Just one, I said, war smoke, right on the Arizona line. Tell your folks to keep out of it. It's a hangout for every kind of outlaw. I'd judge your boys ain't handy enough with weapons to mix in such company. We don't want no trouble, says he. I'll tell him. We rolled along, and the journey was pretty uneventful except for the usual mishaps which generally happens to tender feet, but we progressed until we was within striking distance of the Arizona border, and there we hit a snag. The rear wagon bogged in a creek we had to cross a few miles north of the line. They'd been a head-rise and the wagons churned the mud, so the last one stuck fast. It was getting on toward sundown, and I told the others to go on and make camp a mile west of war smoke, and me and the folks in the wagon would follow when we got it out. But that weren't easy. It was mired clean to the hubs, and the mules was up to their bellies. We pried and heaved and hauled, and night was coming on, and finally I said if I could get them cussed mules out of my way, I might accomplish something. So we unhitched them from the wagon, but they were stuck too, and I had to wade out beside them out of the mud one by one and towed them to the bank. A mule is a helpless critter, but then, with them out of the way, I laid hold of the tongue and hauled the wagon out of the creek in short order. Then Kansas people sure did look surprised. I don't know why. Time we'd scraped the mud off of the wagon and us and hitched up the mules again, it was night, so it was long after dark. When we'd come up to the camp, the rest of the train had made and I told them. Old man Richardson come up to me, looking worried, and he says, Mr. Elkins, some of the boys went into that their town in spite of what I told them. Don't worry, I says. I'll go get them. I clumped on Captain Kidd without stopping to eat supper and rode over to War Smoke and tied my horse outside the only saloon they was there. It was a small town surrounded by a gang of cutthroats and outlaws. They was a Mexican there, too, a tall, slim cuss with a thin black mustache and gilt braid onto his jacket. So you think you saddle in buoy-knife canyon, eh? He says, and one of the boys said, Well, that's what we was aiming to do. I think not, he said, grinning like a cougar and I seen his hand steel to the ivory-handled guns at his hips. You never heard of Sr. Gonzales Zamora? No? Well, he is a big hombre in this country and he has used for this canyon in his business. Start the fireworks whenever you're ready, Gomez, mother to White Desperado, we're back in your play. The Richardson boys didn't know what the deal was about, but they seen they was up again real trouble and they turned pale and looked around like trapped critters, nothing but hostile faces and hands gripping guns. Who tell you you could saddle this canyon? asked Gomez. Who bring you here? Somebody from Kansas? Yes? No? No, I said. Shouldering my way through the crowd. My folks come from Texas. My granddaddy was at San Jacinto. You remember that? His hands fell away from his guns and his brown hide turned ashy. The rest of them renegades give back muttering. Look out boys, it's Breckenridge Elkins. They all suddenly found they had business at the bar or playing cards or something and Gomez found his self standing alone. He licked his lips and looked sick but he tried to keep up his bluff. You may be no like what I say about Senor Zamora, says he, but he's truth. If I tell him Green Goals come to Bowie Knife Canyon, I get very mad. Well, suppose you go and tell him now, I said, and so as to give him a good start, I pick him up and throw him through the nearest winder. He picked himself up and staggered away, streaming blood and mechs profanity, and them and the saloon maintained a kind of pallid silence. I hitched my guns forward and said to the escaped convict which was tinned in bar, I says, you don't want me to pay for what I do to you. Oh no, says he, polishing away with his rag at a spittoon he must have thought was a beer mug. Oh no, no, no, no. We needed that winder busted for the ventilation. Then everybody's satisfied, I suggested. And all the Haas thieves and stagecoach bandits in the saloon give me a hearty agreement. That's fine, I says. Peace is what I aim to have if I have to lick everyone boys, get back to the camp. They was glad to do so, but I lingered at the bar and bought a drink for a train robber I had known at Chaud ear-wanst, and I said just who is this cussed Zamora that mechs was spilling about? I don't know, says he, I never heard of him before. I wouldn't say you was lying, I said tolerantly, you're just suffering from loss of memory. Frequently cases like that is cured by a severe shock or jolt, like a lick onto the head. Now then if I was to take my six-shooter butt and drive your head through that whiskey barrel with it I bet it'd restore your memory right sudden. Hold on, says he in a hurry. I just remembered that Zamora is the boss of a gang of Mexicans which claims Bowie Knife Canyon. He deals at Haas's. You mean he steals Haas's, I says. And he says, I ain't arguing. Anyway, the cabin is very convenient for his business. And if you dump them immigrants in his front yard, he'll be very much put out. He sure will, I agreed, as quick as I can get my hands on to him. I finished my drink and strode to the door and turned suddenly with a gun in each hand. The nine or ten fellers which had drawed their guns aiming to shoot me in the back as I went through the door they dropped their weapons and shot their hands and yelled, Don't shoot! So I just shot the lights out and went out and got on the cabin kid whilst them idjits was hollering and falling over each other in the dark and rode out of war smoke, casually shattering a few winter lights along the street as I went. When I got back to camp, the boys had already got there and the whole wagon train was holding their weapons and scared most to death. I'm mighty relieved to see you back safe, Mr. Elkins says, old man Richardson. We heard the shooting and was a feared them bullies had killed you. Let's hitch up and pull out right now. Them tender foots is beyond my comprehension. They'd have all pulled out in the dark if I'd let them, and I believe most of them stayed awake all night expecting to be butchered in their sleep. I didn't say nothing to them about Zamora. The boys hadn't understood what Gomez was talking about and they weren't no use getting them scared than what they generally was. Well, we pulled out before daylight because I aimed to reach the canyon without another stop. We kept rolling and got there pretty late that night. It weren't really no canyon at all, but a whopping big valley, well timbered and mighty good water and grass. It was a perfect place for a settlement as I pined it out, but tender foots is powerful peculiar. I happened to pick our campsite that night on the spot where the Duchies wiped out a mule train of Mexicans six years before, and it was too dark to see the bones scattered around till next morning. Old Man Richardson was using what he thought was a round rock for a pillar and when he woke up the next morning and found he'd been sleeping with his head onto a human skull, he liked a throat of fit. And when I wanted to stop for the noonday meal in that their grove where the settlers hanged them seven cattle rustlers three years before, them folks when they seen some of the ropes still sticking onto the limbs and wouldn't on no account eat their dinner there. You got no idea what peculiar folks them immigrants is till you saw some. Well, we stopped a few miles further on in another grove in the midst of a wide, rolling country with plenty of trees and tall grass, and I didn't tell them that was where them outlaws murdered the three grissom boys in their sleep. Old Man Richardson said it looked like as good a place as any to locate the settlement. But I told him we was going to look over the whole Dern Valley before we chose to spot. He kind of wilted and said at least for God's sake let them rest a few days. I never seen folks which tired out so easy, but I said all right, and we camped there that night. I hadn't saw no signs as the Morris Gang since we come into the Valley and it was likely they was all off steel and hauses somewhere, not that it made any difference. Early next morning Ned and Joe, the old man's boys, they wanted to go look for deer, and I told them not to go more than a mile from camp and be careful, and they said they would and sought out to the south. I went back to the camp a mile or two to the creek where Jim Dornley and Bush Tom Harrigan four years before and taken me a swim. I stayed longer than I intended to, it was a relief to get away from them helpless tender foots for a while, and when I rode back into camp I seen Ned approaching with a stranger, a young white man, which carried himself with an air of great importance. They papped while our young Ned as we dismounted. Where's Mr. Elkins? This fella says we can't stay in Bowie Knife Canyon. Who are you, I demanded, emergent from behind a wagon and the stranger's eyes bugged out as he seen me. My name's George Warren, says he. A wagon train of us just came into the valley from the east yesterday. We're from Illinois and by what right does you order people out of this canyon, I asked. We got the fightin'est man in the world guidein' us, says he. I thought he was the biggest man in the world till I seen you, but he ain't to be fooled with. When he heard there was another train in the valley he sent me to tell you to get you better, too, if you got any sense. We don't want no trouble, quavered old man Richardson. You got a nerve, I snorted. And I pulled George Warren's hat down so the brim came off and hung around his neck like a collar, and turned him around and lifted him off the ground with a boot in the pants, then throwed him bodily onto his house. Go back and tell your champion that Bowie Knife Canyon belongs to us, I roared, slingin' bullets around his house's feet, and we gives him one hour to hitch up and clear out. I'll get even for this, wept George Warren as he streaked it for his home range. You'll be sorry, you big pole cat. Just wait a little I tell mister. I couldn't catch what else he said. Now I bet he's mad, says old man Richardson. We better go. After all, shut up, I roared. This here valley is ours, and I intend to defend our rights to it to the last drop of your blood. Hitch them mules and swing the wagons in a circle, pile your saddles and plunder betwixt the wheels. I got a ID you all fight better behind breastworks. Did you see their camp Ned? No, says he, but George Warren says it lies about three miles east to iron. Me and Jill got separated, and I was swingin' east round the south end of that ridge over there. When I met this George Warren, he said he was out looking for a Haas before sun up and seen our camp, and went back and told their guide, and he sent him over to tell us to get out. I'm worried about Joe, said old man Richardson. He ain't come back. I'll go look for him, I said. I'll also scout their camp. And if the odds ain't more than ten to one, we then to attack. We goes over and wipes them out pronto. Then we hangs their full sculpts on our wagon-bows as a warning to other such scoundrels. Old man Richardson turned pale and his knees knocked together, but I told him sternly to get to work swingin' them wagons and climb on the captain kid and lit out. Reason I hadn't saw the smoke of the Illinois camp was on account of a thick-tempered ridge which lay east of our camp. I swung round south-end of that ridge and headed east and I'd gone maybe a mile and a half when I saw a man riding toward me. When he seen me he'd come lickety-split and I could see the sun shining on his Winchester barrel. I cocked my forty-five ninety and rode toward him and we met in the middle of an open flat, and suddenly we both lured our weapons and pulled up, breast-to-breast glaring at each other. Breckenridge Elkins says he. Cousin Bearfield Buckner says I. Are you the man which sent that unlicked cub of a George Warren to bring me a defiance? Who else? He snarled. He always had an awful temper. Well I says, this here is our valley. You all got to move on. What you mean move on? He yelled. I brung them four critters all the way from Dodge City, Kansas for I encountered them being tormented by some wootless buffalo hunters, which is no longer in the land of the living. I've led them through fire, flood, hostile engines, and white renegades. I promise to lead them into a land of milk and honey and I've been firm with them, even when they weakened their cells. Even when they begged on bended knee to be allowed to go back to Illinois, I wouldn't hear of it, because as I told them I knowed what was best for them. I had this canyon in mind all the time. And now you tells me to move on, because in Bearfield rolled an eye and spit on his hand. I just waited. What sort of reply does you make to my request to go on and leave us in peace? He goes on. George Warren come back to camp wearing his hat brim around his neck and standing up in the stirrups because he was too sore to set in the saddle. So I set out to fortify in the camp whilst I went forth to Reconnoiter. That word I sent you, I now repeats in person. You're my blood kin, but principles come first. Me too, I said. A Nevada Elkins Principles is as lofty as a Texas Buckner's any day. I whooped you a year ago in Cougar Park. That's a cussed lie, Nash T. You've taken a base advantage and land me with an oak log when I warn't expecting it. Be that as it may, says I, ignoring the fact that you had just been me with a rock the size of a water bucket, the only way to settle this dispute is to fight it out like gents. But we've got to determine what weapons to use. The matter's too deep for fists. I'd prefer butcher knives in a dark room, says he. Only they ain't no room if we'd just had a couple of shotguns or good double bidded axes. I'd tell you, Breck, let's tie our left hands together and work on each other with our buoys. Nah, I says. I got a better idea. We'll back our hausses together, then ride for the opposite sides of the flat. When we get there, we'll wheel and charge back, shooting at each other with our winchesters. Time they're empty, we'll be close enough to use our pistols. And when we've emptied them, we'll be close enough to finish the fight with our buoys. Good idea, agreed Bearfield. You always was a brainy, cultured sort of lobo, if you wasn't so damn stubborn. Now me, I'm reasonable. When I'm wrong, I admit it. You ain't never admitted it so far, says I. I ain't never been wrong yet, he roared, and I'll carve the gizzard of the buzzard which says I am. Come on, let's get going. The opposite sides of the flat when I heard a voice hollering. Mr. Elkins! Mr. Elkins! Hold on, I says. That's Joe Richardson. Next minute, Joe come tearing out of the brush from the south on a Mustang I hadn't never seen before, with a Mexican saddle and bridal on. He didn't have no hat in their shirt, and his back was crisscrossed with bloody streaks. He likewise had a cut in his skull puts dribbled blood down his face. Mexicans, he panted. I got separated from Ned, and rode further than I should ought to had. About five miles down the canyon I run into a big gang of Mexicans. About thirty of them. One was that fellow Gomez. Their leader was a big feller they called Zamora. They grabbed me and taken my horse and wolfed me with their quirks. Zamora said they was going to wipe out every white man in the canyon. He said we'll use of our camp on another east of Iron, and he aimed to destroy both of them at one sweep. Then they all got under their horses and headed north except one man which I believe they left there to kill me before he followed them. He hit me with his six shooter and knocked me down. Then put up his gun and started to cut my throat with his knife. But I wasn't unconscious like he thought, so I grabbed his gun and knocked him down with it, and jumped down. I heard you and this gent talking loud to each other and headed this way. Which camp was they going for first, I demanded? I don't know, he said. They talk mostly in Spanish, I can't understand. The duel will have to wait, I says. I'm heading for our camp. And me for mine, says Bearfield. Listen, let's decide it this way. The one that scuppers the most creasers wins, and the other takes his crowd and pulls out. Bueno, I says, and headed to the camp. The trees was dense. Then bandits could have passed either to the west or the east of us without us seeing them. I quickly left Joe in about a quarter mile further on, I heard a sudden burst of fire and screaming, and then silence. A bit later I bust out of the trees and decided the camp, and I cussed earnestly. Instead of being drawed up in a circle, with the men shooting from between the wheels and holding them bandits off like I expected. Then darned the horses was cut loose from some of them, and the mules was laying across the poles of others, shot full of lead. Women were screaming, and kids were squallin', and I seen young Jack Richardson laying face down in the ashes of the campfire with his head in a puddle of blood. Old man Richardson come limping toward me with tears running down his face. Mexicans, he blubbered. They hit us like a hurricane just a little while ago. They shot Jack down like he was a dog. Three or four of the other boys has got knife slashes or bullet marks or bruises from loaded courteans. As they rolled off, they yelled they'd come back and kill us all. Why didn't you throw them wagons around like I told you? I roared. We didn't want no fightin', he bawled. We decided to pull out of the valley and find some more peaceful place. And now Jack's dead and your stock scattered, I raged. Just because you didn't want to fight what the hell you ever crossed the Pachys for if you didn't aim to fight nobody. Set the boys together in such stock as you got left. But the Mexicans takin' Betty. He shrieked, tearing his scantilocks. Most of them headed east, but six or seven grabbed Betty right out of the wagon and rode off south with her, driving the horses they stole from us. I'll get your weapons and follow me, I roared. For lord's sake, forget they as places where sheriffs and policemen protect you and make up your minds to fight. I'm goin' after Betty. I headed south as hard as Captain Kidd could run. The reason I hadn't met the Mexicans as I rode back from the flat where I met Cousin Bearfield was because they swung round the north into the ridge when they headed east. I heard a sudden burst of firing off to the east and figured they'd hit the Illinois camp, but I reckon Bearfield had got there ahead of them. Still, it didn't seem like the shooting was far enough off to be at the other camp, but I didn't have no time to study it. Them gal thieves had a big start, but it didn't do no good. I hadn't rode over three miles till I heard the stolen horses runnin' ahead of me, and in a minute I bust out into an open flat and seen six Mexicans and them critters at full speed, and one of them was holdin' Betty onto the saddle in front of him. It was that blasted Gomez. I come swoopin' down onto him with a six-shooter in my right hand and a buoy knife in my left. Captain Kidd needed no guidance. He'd smelt blood and fire, and he'd come like a hurricane on Judgment Day, with his mane flyin' and his hooves burnin' the grass. The Mexicans seen I'd ride them down before that, and they turned to meet me, shootin' as they come. But Mexicans always was rotten shots. As we'd come together, I let bam three times with my forty-five and three, says I. One of them rode at me from the side and clubbed his rifle and hit it my head, but I ducked and made one swipe with my buoy. Four, says I. Then the others turned and hightailed it, lettin' the stolen horses run where they wanted to. One of them headed south, and I was left close. He whirled round and lit a shuck west. Keep back, or I kill the girl! He howled, lifting a knife, but I shot it out of his hand, and he gave a yowl and let go of her, and she fell off into the high grass. He kept foggin' it. I pulled up to see if Betty was hurt, but she warn't. Just scared. The grass cushioned her fall. I seen her papp, and such of the boys as was able to ride, was all coming at a high run, so I left her to them and takin' in after Gomez again. Pretty soon he looked back and seen me overhaulin' him, so he reached for his Winchester, which he'd evidently just thought of usin'. When about that time his haas stepped into a prairie dog hole and throwed him over his head. Gomez never twitched after he hit the ground. I turned around and rode back, cussin' disgustedly, because I Elkins is ever truthful, and I couldn't honestly count Gomez in my record. But I thought I'd scuttle that coyote that runs south, and I headed in that direction. I hadn't gone far when I heard a lot of haas' runnin' somewhere ahead of me into the east, and then presently I bust out of the trees and come onto a flat, which run to the mouth of a narrow gorge openin' into the main canyon. On the left wall of this gorge-mouth there was a ledge about fifty foot up, and there was a log cabin on that ledge with loopholes in the walls. The only way up onto the ledge was a log ladder, and about twenty Mexicans was runnin' their haas' toward it across the flat. Just as I reached the edge of the bushes, they got to the foot of the wall and jumped off their haas' and run up that ladder like monkeys, lettin' their haas' run anyways. I seen a big feller with gold ornaments on his sombrero, which I figured was Zamora, but before I could unlimber my Winchester, they was all in the cabin and slam the door. The next minute, Cousin Bearfield busted out of the trees a few hundred yards east of where I was and started recklessly across the flat. Immediately all them Mexicans started shootin' at him and he grudgingly retired into the brush again with terrible language. I yelled and rode toward him, keepin' to the trees. How many you got? He bellard as soon as he seen me. Four, I says, and he grinned like a timbre wolf and says, I got five. I was ridin' for my camp when I heard the shootin' behind me, so I was your camp they hit first. I turned round to go back and help you out. When did I ever ask you for any help? I bristled. Then he said, but pretty soon I seen a gang of Mexicans coming round the north end of the ridge, so I takin' cover and shot five of them out of their saddles. They must've noted it was me because they hightailed it. How could they know that you conceited jackass, I snorted? They run off because they probably thought a whole gang Richardson and his boys had rode up whilst we was talkin' and now he broke in with some heat and said, that ain't the question. The pint is we got him hemmed up on that ledge for the time being and can get away before they come down and massacre us. What you talkin' about, I roared. They're the ones which is in need of gettin' away. If any massacrian is did around here, we does it. It's flyin' in the face of Providence, he bleated, but I told him sternly to shut up and Bearfield says, send somebody over to my camp to bring my warriors, so I told Ned to go and he pulled out. Then me and Bearfield studied the situation, settin' our horses in the open whilst bullets from the cabin whistled all around us and the Richardson hid in the brush and begged us to be careful. That ledge is sheer on all sides, says Bearfield. Nobody couldn't climb down onto it from the cliff and anybody could ladder in the teeth of twenty Winchester's would be plum crazy. But I says, look Bearfield, how the ledge overhangs about ten foot to the left of that ladder, a man could stand at the foot of the bluff there and then coyotes couldn't see to shooting. And, says Bearfield, he could sling his rope up over that spur of a rock at the rim and they couldn't shoot it off. Only way to get to it would be to come out of the cabin and wretch down opens toward the ladder and they ain't no door in the wall on that side. A man could climb right up onto the ledge before they noted. If they didn't shoot him through the loopholes as he'd come over the rim you stay here and shoot him when they tries to cut the rope, I says. You go to hell, he roared. I see through your hellish plot. You aims to get up there and kill all them mexes before I has a chance at them. You thinks you'll out with me by golly. I got him. Ah, shut up, I says disgustedly. We'll both go. I hollered to old man Richardson. You all lay low in the brush and shoot at every mex which comes out of the cabin. What you gotta do now, he hollered. Don't be rash. But me and Bearfield was already heading for the ledge at a dead run. This move surprised the Mexicans because they knowed we couldn't figure to ride or hausses up that ladder. Being surprised they shot wild and all they done was graze my scalp and nick Bearfield's ear. Then, just as they began to get their range and start treminous close, we swerved aside and thundered in under the overhanging rock. We clumb off and tied our horses well apart, otherwise they had started fighting each other. The Mexicans above us was yelling most amazing, but they couldn't even see us, much less shoot us. A world malaria yet, which is plenty longer and stronger than the average lasso and rope the spur of rock which jutted up just below the rim. I'll go up first, I says, and Bearfield showed his teeth and drawed his bully knife. You won't neither, says he. We'll cut cards, high man wins. So we squatted and old man Richardson yelled from the trees, for God's sake, what are you doing now? They're fixing to roll rocks down onto you. You tend to your own business, I advised him to shuffle the cards which Bearfield hauled out of his britches. As it turned out, the Mexs had a supply of boulders in the cabin. They just opened the door and rolled them toward the rim, but they shot off the ledge and hit beyond this. Bearfield cut and yelped. A ace, you can't beat that. I can equal it, I says, and draw an ace of diamonds. I wins, he clamored. Hearts beats diamonds. That rule don't apply here, I says. It were a draw and why you, says Bearfield, leaning forward to grab the deck and just then a rock about the size of a bushel basket come bounding over the ledge and hit a projection which turned its course. So instead of shooting over us, it fell straight down and hit Bearfield smack between the ears. It's stunning for an instant and I jumped up and started climbing the rope, ignoring more rocks which was thundering down. I was about halfway up when Bearfield came to and he rizzed with a ballerar rage. Why, you dirty double crossing, so and so, says he, and started throwing rocks at me. They was a awful racket. The Mexicans howling, guns banging, Bearfield cussing, and old man Richardson wailing. They're crazy, I tell you. They're both crazy as mud hens. I think everybody west of the Pekas must be maniacs. Bearfield grabbed the rope and started climbing up behind me, and about that time one of the Mexicans run to cut the rope. But for once, my idiotic followers was on the job. He run into about seven bullets that hit him all to once, and fell down just above the spur of where the loop was caught onto. So when I wretched my arm over the rim to pull myself up, they couldn't see me on account of the body. But just as I was pulling myself up, they let go of a boulder at random and it bounded along and bounced over the dead Mexican and hit me right smack in the face. It was about as big as a pumpkin. I give an infuriated baller and swarmed up onto the ledge, and it surprised him so that most of them missed me clean. I only got one slug through the arm. Before they had time to shoot again, I made a jump to the wall and flattened myself between the loopholes, and grabbed the rifle barrels and poked through the loopholes and bent them and ruined them. Bearfield was coming up the rope right behind me, so I folded the logs and tore that whole side of the wall out, and the roof fell in and the other walls come apart. In an instant, all you could see was logs fallen and rolling and Mexicans busting out into the open. Some got pinned by the fallen logs and some was shot by my embattled Kansans and Bearfields Illinois warriors, which had just come up, and some fell off of the ledge and broke their full necks. One of them run again me and tried to stab me, so I throwed him after them, which had already fell off the ledge and hollered, five for me, Bearfield! Expletive deleted, says Bearfield, arriving onto the scene with blood in his eye and his buoy in his hand. Seeing which, a big Mexican made for him with a butcher knife which was poor judgment on his part and in about the flick of a tang's tail, Bearfield had a sixth man to his credit. Now this made me mad. I seen some of the Mexicans was climbing down the ladder, so I run after them and one turned around and missed me so close with a shotgun he burnt my eyebrows. I'd taken it away from him and hit him over the head with it and yelled, Six for me, too cousin Bearfield! Look out! He yelled, Zamora's getting away. I seen Zamora had tied a rope to the backside of the ledge and was sliding down it. He dropped the last ten feet and run for a corral which was full of hausses back up the gorge behind the ledge. We seen the other Mexicans was all laid out or running off up the valley, pursued by our immigrants. So I went down the ladder and Bearfield slid down my rope. Zamora's rope wouldn't have held our weight. We grabbed our hausses and lit out up the gorge around a bend of which Zamora was just disappearing. He had a fast hauss and a long start but I had overtook him within the first mile. Only Captain Kidd kept trying to stop and fight Bearfield's hauss, which was about as big and mean as he was. After we'd run about five miles and come out of the gorge onto a high plateau, I got far enough ahead of Bearfield so Captain Kidd forgot about his hauss then he settled down the business and ran Zamora's hauss right off his legs. They was a steep slope on one side of us and a five hundred foot drop on the other. In Zamora seen his hauss was winded, so he jumped off and started up the slope on foot. Me and Bearfield jumped off too and run after him. Each one of us got him by a leg as he was climbing up a ledge. Let go my prisoner, roared Bearfield. He's my meat, I snarled. This makes me seven. I wins. You lie bellard Bearfield, jerking Zamora away from me and hitting me over the head with him. This made me so mad I grabbed Zamora and throwed him in Bearfield's face. His spurs jabbed Bearfield in the belly and my cousin give a maddened bellar and fell on me fist and tush. And in the battle which followed, we forgot all about Zamora till we heard a man scream. He'd snuck away and tried to mount Captain Kid. We stopped fighting and looked round just in time to see Captain Kid kick him in the belly and knocking clean over the edge of the cliff. Well, says Bearfield disgustedly, that decides nothing and our score is a draw. It was my hauss which done it I said it ought to count for me. Over my corpse it will, roared Bearfield. But look here, it's nearly night. Let's get back to the camps before my followers start cutting your Kansans' throats. Whatever fight is to be fought to decide who owns the canyon, it's betwixt you and me, not them. All right, I said, if my Kansans boys ain't already killed all your idjits, we'll fight this out somewhere where we got better light and more room. But I just expect to find your Illinoisans writhing in their gore. Don't worry about them, he snarled. There was wildest painters when they smell gore. I only hope they ain't killed all your Kansans' mavericks. So we pulled for the valley. When we got there it was dark and as we rode out of the gorge we seen fires going on the flat and folks dancing around them and fiddles was going at a great rate. What the hell is this Ballard Bearfield? And then old man Richardson come up to us overflowing with good spirits. Glad to see you gents, he says. This is a great night. Jack warn't killed after all. Just creased. We come out of that great fight whole and sound. But what you doing, Lord Bearfield? What's my people doing here? Oh, says old man Richardson. We got together after you gents left and agreed the valley was big enough for both parties. So we decide to join together into one settlement and we're celebrating. Them Illinois people is fine folks. They're as peace loving as we are. Bloodthirsty painters I sneers to Cousin Bearfield. I ain't no bigger liar than you are. He says more in sorrow than in anger. Come on. There's nothing more we can do. We are swamped in a mess of pacifism. The race is degeneratin'. Let's head for Bear Creek. This atmosphere of brotherly love is more than I can stand. We set our hauses there a minute and watch them pilgrims dance and listen to them singin'. I squint across at Cousin Bearfield's face and dog gone if it didn't look almost human in the light. He hauls out his plug at the back and offers me first chaw. Then we headed yonderly riding stirrup to stirrup. Must have been ten miles before Captain Kidd wretches over and bites Cousin Bearfield's horse on the neck. Bearfield's horse bites back and by accident Captain Kidd kicks Cousin Bearfield on the ankle. He lets out a howl and gets our arms around each other and roll in the brush in a tangle. We've fit for two hours, I reckon, and we've been fightin' yet if we hadn't scrambled under Captain Kidd's hoofs where he was feedin'. He kicked Cousin Bearfield one way and me the other. I got up after a while and went huntin' my hat. The brush crackled and in the moonlight I could see Cousin Bearfield on his hands and knees. Says he. Are you all right? Well, maybe my clothes was torn more than his was and a lip split and a rib or two busted, but I could still see which is more than he could say with both of his eyes swolled that way. Sure I'm all right, I says. How are you, Cousin Bearfield? He let out a groan and tried to get up. He made her on the second he even stood there swaying. Why, I'm fine, he says. Plumb fine. I feel a whole lot better, Brack. I was afraid for a minute back there whilst we was ridin' long that that daggone brotherly love would turn out to be catchin'. End of Pilgrims to the Pacos.