The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains by Owen Wister (beach read book txt) 📗

Shorty forded the creek and slung his saddle off, and on invitation turned Pedro, his buckskin pony, into Balaam's pasture. This was green, the rest of the wide world being yellow, except only where Butte Creek, with its bordering cottonwoods, coiled away into the desert distance like a green snake without end. The Virginian also turned his horse into the pasture. He must stay at the ranch till the Judge's horses should be found.

“Mrs. Balaam's East yet,” said her lord, leading the way to his dining room.

He wanted Shorty to dine with him, and could not exclude the Virginian, much as he should have enjoyed this.

“See any Indians?” he enquired.

“Na-a!” said Shorty, in disdain of recent rumors.

“They're headin' the other way,” observed the Virginian. “Bow Laig Range is where they was repawted.”

“What business have they got off the reservation, I'd like to know,” said the ranchman, “Bow Leg, or anywhere?”

“Oh, it's just a hunt, and a kind of visitin' their friends on the South Reservation,” Shorty explained. “Squaws along and all.”

“Well, if the folks at Washington don't keep squaws and all where they belong,” said Balaam, in a rage, “the folks in Wyoming Territory 'ill do a little job that way themselves.”

“There's a petition out,” said Shorty. “Paper's goin' East with a lot of names to it. But they ain't no harm, them Indians ain't.”

“No harm?” rasped out Balaam. “Was it white men druv off the O. C. yearlings?”

Balaam's Eastern grammar was sometimes at the mercy of his Western feelings. The thought of the perennial stultification of Indian affairs at Washington, whether by politician or philanthropist, was always sure to arouse him. He walked impatiently about while he spoke, and halted impatiently at the window. Out in the world the unclouded day was shining, and Balaam's eye travelled across the plains to where a blue line, faint and pale, lay along the end of the vast yellow distance. That was the beginning of the Bow Leg Mountains. Somewhere over there were the red men, ranging in unfrequented depths of rock and pine—their forbidden ground.

Dinner was ready, and they sat down.

“And I suppose,” Balaam continued, still hot on the subject, “you'd claim Indians object to killing a white man when they run on to him good and far from human help? These peaceable Indians are just the worst in the business.”

“That's so,” assented the easy-opinioned Shorty, exactly as if he had always maintained this view. “Chap started for Sunk Creek three weeks ago. Trapper he was; old like, with a red shirt. One of his horses come into the round-up Toosday. Man ain't been heard from.” He ate in silence for a while, evidently brooding in his childlike mind. Then he said, querulously, “I'd sooner trust one of them Indians than I would Trampas.”

Balaam slanted his fat bullet head far to one side, and laying his spoon down (he had opened some canned grapes) laughed steadily at his guest with a harsh relish of irony.

The guest ate a grape, and perceiving he was seen through, smiled back rather miserably.

“Say, Shorty,” said Balaam, his head still slanted over, “what's the figures of your bank balance just now?”

“I ain't usin' banks,” murmured the youth.

Balaam put some more grapes on Shorty's plate, and drawing a cigar from his waistcoat, sent it rolling to his guest.

“Matches are behind you,” he added. He gave a cigar to the Virginian as an afterthought, but to his disgust, the Southerner put it in his pocket and lighted a pipe.

Balaam accompanied his guest, Shorty, when he went to the pasture to saddle up and depart. “Got a rope?” he asked the guest, as they lifted down the bars.

“Don't need to rope him. I can walk right up to Pedro. You stay back.”

Hiding his bridle behind him, Shorty walked to the river-bank, where the pony was switching his long tail in the shade; and speaking persuasively to him, he came nearer, till he laid his hand on Pedro's dusky mane, which was many shades darker than his hide. He turned expectantly, and his master came up to his expectations with a piece of bread.

“Eats that, does he?” said Balaam, over the bars.

“Likes the salt,” said Shorty. “Now, n-n-ow, here! Yu' don't guess yu'll be bridled, don't you? Open your teeth! Yu'd like to play yu' was nobody's horse and live private? Or maybe yu'd prefer ownin' a saloon?”

Pedro evidently enjoyed this talk, and the dodging he made about the bit. Once fairly in his mouth, he accepted the inevitable, and followed Shorty to the bars. Then Shorty turned and extended his hand.

“Shake!” he said to his pony, who lifted his forefoot quietly and put it in his master's hand. Then the master tickled his nose, and he wrinkled it and flattened his ears, pretending to bite. His face wore an expression of knowing relish over this performance. “Now the other hoof,” said Shorty; and the horse and master shook hands with their left. “I learned him that,” said the cow-boy, with pride and affection. “Say, Pede,” he continued, in Pedro's ear, “ain't yu' the best little horse in the country? What? Here, now! Keep out of that, you dead-beat! There ain't no more bread.” He pinched the pony's nose, one quarter of which was wedged into his pocket.

“Quite a lady's little pet!” said Balaam, with the rasp in his voice. “Pity this isn't New York, now, where there's a big market for harmless horses. Gee-gees, the children call them.”

“He ain't no gee-gee,” said Shorty, offended. “He'll beat any cow-pony workin' you've got. Yu' can turn him on a half-dollar. Don't need to touch the reins. Hang 'em on one finger and swing your body, and he'll turn.”

Balaam knew this, and he knew that the pony was only a four-year-old. “Well,” he said, “Drybone's had no circus this season. Maybe they'd buy tickets to see Pedro. He's good for that, anyway.”

Shorty became gloomy. The Virginian was grimly smoking. Here was something else going on not to his taste, but none of his business.

“Try a circus,” persisted Balaam. “Alter your plans for spending cash in town, and make a little money instead.”

Shorty having no plans to alter and no cash to spend, grew still more gloomy.

“What'll you take for that pony?” said Balaam.

Shorty spoke up instantly. “A hundred dollars couldn't buy that piece of stale mud off his back,” he asserted, looking off into the sky grandiosely.

But Balaam looked at Shorty, “You keep the mud,” he said, “and I'll give you thirty dollars for the horse.”

Shorty did a little professional laughing, and began to