Smith Magazine/'Happy Heart' Cowboy

by B. M. Bower

“Happy Heart” Cowboy

 

By B. M. Bower

 

HANNAHAN pulled up just where the trail whips around a huddle of rocks and dips unexpectedly into the valley of the Chiquita, and made him a smoke in the inattentive manner which bespeaks a mind steeped in meditation.

The hills beyond showed yellow in the warm haze of Indian summer; heat waves set the air a-glimmer and drew one's senses into waking dreams. Hannahan, however, was not dreaming—his gaze was too direct and purposeful for that. He studied the level land below as though he were playing chess and the valley was the chessboard.

Chiquita Valley was a stockman's paradise harnessed to the plow of the small farmer. The thick, prairie sod was carved into gray-brown fields, with the sweet, rich grasses buried under four inches of fertile soil. Where the wild, range cattle had wandered at will, long lines of wire fencing checked the land into tilled squares jealously guarded by narrow lanes.

Hannahan drew a match along his stamped saddle skirt, cupped his hands abstractedly, and followed the trail with his eyes to where it was gashed by the unquiet blue of the river; beyond, to where it showed a brown band against the yellow crispness of the hillside.

Chinto lifted a front foot tentatively, got no encouragement from his master to proceed, and planted it pettishly into the flour-fine dust. He swung his head and looked back reproachfully, his ears pointing different ways. He was warm and weary, and he thirsted for the cool swash of river water down his throat. But Hannahan did not move, except to empty his lungs of smoke, and the horse sighed heavily and waited. After a minute the ear that pointed down the hill twitched attention; the other gave over listening for Hannahan's throat-chirp, and leaned forward, listening. His eyes stared alertly at the jumble of rocks which hid the trail, and Hannahan, warned instinctively by the tense ears, brought his eyes and his thoughts up from the valley and listened also.

A girl rode leisurely around the rocks, glanced indifferently at them at first, and then with some interest. Hannahan was conscious of a sudden warmth in his chest; his gray hat went up off his forehead.

“Good-morning. You aren't going to pass up an old friend, I hope?”

“If it isn't Mr. Hannahan—Hannahan of the Happy Heart! What mischief is in the air now? You're getting rather close to the land of the Israelites—for a Philistine.”

“Aw, don't go calling names, Miss Conrad. I guess I am standing with my front feet over the dead line, all right; what of it?”

“You know how we don't love cowboys, down there.”

She waved her hand airily at the valley below.

“Are yuh giving that out for a personal opinion?” Hannahan threw away his cigarette.

“I was speaking for the Israelites. They're just praying for a chance at some of you. They mean to slay and spare not.”

“That there's a prayer that's soon answered—me being a direct answer to prayer.” His tone was unalarmed.

Miss Conrad laughed. “Better not cross the line. If it's the ford, it won't do you a particle of good; they're watching it rather closely—and they're still highly indignant over the last time.”

“What last time? The Big A. J. hasn't made a move toward it yet this year.”

“Some other outfit did, though—and the Israelites never discriminate where the cattlemen are concerned. A large herd came down the lane, one Sunday afternoon, and were so inconsiderate as to meet William McKinley Roosevelt Jones on his bike.”

“The name stampeded the bunch, I reckon.”

“Something did. William McKinley Roosevelt Jones turned out for them, but not soon enough. The herd turned out, also—away out, through old man Hadley's wheat field, and from there into the garden of the Widow McCoy. Did you ever meet the Widow McCoy, Mr. Hannahan?”

“No, but I've heard tell of her,” Hannahan grinned. “She's got a temper and a boy, hasn't she?”

“Yes, and opinions differ as to which is the worst; only, she has two boys and only one temper. The boys divide their time between watching the trail for cattle, and praying to be led into temptation. I really think, Mr. Hannahan, you would better not go down.”

“I wonder if I'd look tempting to them,” Hannahan mused, rolling another cigarette daintily between his fingers. “You haven't explained yet how it comes you are ranging down on the Chiquita,” he remarked.

“I'm teaching their school; I couldn't get another so near home, and the salary is good.”

Hannahan sighed. “The things people will do for money! Look at me, scouting around a bunch of measly grangers——”

“Then it is the ford?”

“You can just bet it's the ford. We've got twelve hundred fat steers on the trail, with cars ordered at Chinook for day after to-morrow. Sure it's the ford, all right—and it's those sons-uh-toil to the woods if they try to stop us.”

“There's no 'if' about it. Some one is always on the watch, ready to warn the whole valley; and their crops are mostly gathered, so there's nothing but fences for a stampede to demolish.”

Hannahan lifted a square, expressive shoulder. “That's a county road down there, and the Big A. J. isn't an outfit that's going to be bluffed out of a game by any bunch of long-eared Mormons.”

Miss Conrad regarded him with serious, sympathetic eyes. “The lane is a county road, certainly; but the ford is in the middle of a quarter section owned by the Widow McCoy.”

Hannahan let his lids droop, and Miss Conrad recognized the sign; it meant that forty Widow McCoy's could not dismay Hannahan of the Happy Heart.

“How will you manage it?” she asked, not doubting but that he would manage it somehow.

“Search me,” Hannahan said, cheerfully. “But you can gamble we're not going to make any forty-mile drive, with no water, taking that bunch uh long-horns around by Wood's ford. Besides, the cars will be there day after to-morrow—and so will the Big A. J. Old Jimmy Knauss most generally wins out, when he makes up his mind to.”

Miss Conrad looked thoughtfully down into the peaceful valley.

“They do have such a bitter enmity against stockmen,' she remarked. “And they love to fight better than anything else—unless it's dancing.”

“That's me,” Hannahan observed.

“If there were only a dance in the valley——” mused she.

“Well,” he demanded, “why can't there be one?”

“To-night? That's very short notice, and there's no music nearer than Lazy Trail—and that's abominable.”

“Well,” said Hannahan, eagerly, “if you can get the rubes rounded up, I'll fix the music. We've got a couple of fellows in the outfit that can thump thunder out of a guitar and mandolin.”

Miss Conrad's eyes got sparkles in them. The droop of Hannahan's lids grew more pronounced.

“Think we can make it?” There was a dare in his voice and in his eyes.

“I think so; this is Saturday, you see, and early. If we can think of some plausible reason for launching a couple of unknown musicians upon the valley without warning—are you sure that they are unknown?”

“Dead certain. We was talking about this layout, down here, last night.” Hannahan slid over in the saddle to rest himself, and meditated. When Hannahan did that, events were wont to follow swiftly, and obstacles had a way of melting like snow in a chinook.

“Say! I'm your dear cousin Jack,” he announced, in about three minutes.

Miss Conrad opened her eyes, and smiled skeptically.

“Beetle's another, and Parrot Tim is our side-kicker. We're just riding through the country looking for a ranch”—Hannahan made a wry face when he said it—“and we call on you at your boarding place. You can easy persuade us to stay a while, and you can ask the neighbors in for a little, sociable dance—see? How do yuh like the way we stack up?”

Miss Conrad still looked skeptical. “It's rather embarrassing,” she demurred, “to adopt, offhand, a cousin who is known to have a weird attraction for adventures—misadventures, I might say—let alone a cousin I never so much as heard of before, and who is called Beetle. Beetles,” she finished, dismally, “are my especial horror.”

“This one's sure O.K.,” Hannahan assured her. “You'll like him, all right enough—everybody does. He's just a kid-looking fellow, anyway, with dimples and blue eyes, and a soft little voice—you'd almost take him for a girl, dressed up in cowboy togs. But he's there with the goods, all right; a bronco-fighter, and the most surprising little devil that ever wore chaps. He can carry the thing through—I'll back Beetle with all the dough I've got.”

Miss Conrad gave him a queer, sidelong look. “He'll have his work cut out for him, as you cowboys say. I board with the Widow McCoy.”

“The dickens yuh say!” Hannahan instinctively slid straight in the saddle. The Widow McCoy had a spectacular record, and her name was spread abroad in the land.

“Could you come in time for dinner?” she suggested.

Hannahan wrinkled his nose at the sun and considered. Then: “Would we stand any show? Beetle hates like the mischief to miss his regular feed.”

Miss Conrad reassured him. The Widow McCoy held the proud distinction of being the best cook in the valley, and was never more pleased than when strangers rode, hungry, to her door.

“The only danger,” Miss Conrad added, “is that you may suffer from acute indigestion, superinduced by overindulgence.”

Hannahan's face spoke admiration. “Say, you and Parrot would make a pair to draw to, for language. The things he can do to his mother tongue would make a prairie dog sit up and take notice.”

Miss Conrad's lips drew together. “I must confess I can't quite see the connection——”

“That was a compliment, only I forgot to stick the label on. Parrot is educated, let me tell yuh. He was close-herded through Princeton—or some other knowledge factory. Anyway, the brand of learning he's got is about as good as there is made. He don't talk more than once a year or so—that's why they call him Parrot—but when he does once get strung out, it's the clear article. He can sure sing, too. I'd rather listen to him on night guard than go to the best show yuh can name. I'll get him to sing for yuh, if I can.”

“I have a mandolin,” Miss Conrad observed, “and Bud McCoy has a fine guitar. His mother got it for his birthday; he can't find the same string twice, but Mrs. McCoy thinks it looks 'toney' tied with a big, red bow and hung up over the sofa. Bud also has a pugilistic temperament, and an echo in the person of Patsy. Bud does the fighting, and Patsy does the threatening. You needn't mind Patsy at all—but keep an eye on Bud.”

Hannahan's lids drooped again, and he smiled quietly to himself. “I'll put the boys next,” he promised, “and much obliged to you. Say! Beetle's got a reputation trailing behind him like a comet on a dark night. You better call him something else. Call him—well, call him Eddie; he looks the part, all right, but it'll most likely make him grit his teeth. We'll get along about noon—and the Big A. J.'ll sure be grateful to you, Miss Conrad, for helping 'em out. Fact is, I know of a dandy little pinto that'd be a swell lady's horse, and it's safe t' say he's liable to meet that same fate, if this thing goes through. It's got t' go through. The Big A. J. will be down to cases for cars if we don't make Ghinook on time. Cars are mighty scarce this fall, and very hard to get. And—well, you know how I feel about your helping us out.”

Miss Conrad caught a look in his eyes that brought the pink into her cheeks. “I'm only too glad to help. My sympathies are all with the Philistines, I'm afraid.”

Hannahan's eyes said many things his lips were shy of putting into words, and then he remembered the need of haste.

“Well, if I'm going to get the boys hazed into the camp of the Israelites by noon, I'll need to be moving. See yuh later, Miss Conrad.”

Miss Conrad watched him out of sight, and there was a tender light in her eyes. When the dust had settled behind Chinto's flying heels, and the cluckety-cluck of them came so faint they could be heard only by the ears of faith, she turned and rode back around the rocky elbow of the hill, humming a little tune.

 

Beetle sat in a big, cane-seated rocker and looked with the trustful gaze of a child into the magenta countenance of the Widow McCoy. He had pleased her mightily by his frank appreciation of her cookery, and by the sweet innocence of his expression.

“You're the picture of yer cousin, Jennie,” she told him, with some enthusiasm, and Beetle let his cupid-bow lips curve into a smile.

“Jennie's hair is darker than mine,” he demurred, shyly, turning his eyes to the darkly red hair of Miss Conrad. Had Beetle been really as shy as he looked, he would have hesitated long before calling a strange young woman by her first name, even though it was all in the part he was playing.

“It's you have the thrue gold hair of a cherub,” Mrs. McCoy declared. “Jennie's goes more to red.”

Jennie's cheeks “went to red,” just then, and Hannahan, over on the stiff-backed sofa, gurgled and stored the remark away for future use.

“You must play for us, Eddie,” put in Miss Conrad, laying spiteful emphasis upon the name, which made Beetle squirm inwardly. When she brought him Bud's guitar, he reproved her with lowered brows and passed it on to Parrot Tim. Miss Conrad had forgotten to inquire which instrument either played.

“I'll try a whirl on your mandolin, if you've got it with you, Jenn,” he said, and Miss Conrad hastened to bring it, remembering what Hannahan had told her of the young gentleman.

Parrot Tim said never a word, as was his habit. But he tuned the guitar with nice precision, listened while Beetle picked a few tentative fragments of tunes, and nodded approval of the harmony. After that, there were no sounds but sweet ones. The Widow McCoy wore a fixed, ecstastic smile, and Bud himself came and stood, black-browed and bullnecked, in the doorway to listen, with Patsy at his elbow.

“The foine music it is, then!” cried the widow, breathlessly, when they stopped.

“It makes me want to dance,” Miss Conrad declared, impulsively and guilefully, and threw a sidelong smile at Bud and Patsy inclusive. “Play that waltz again, Eddie, there's a good little boy.” She stood up and faced Bud McCoy, her eyes challenged.

Beetle swallowed his resentment at her tone, and swung again into the seductive measures of “Over the Waves.” Bud, blinking in the unwonted sunshine of Miss Conrad's favor, went over and slipped an arm around her waist and waltzed clumsily until every rug in the room—and there were many—was kicked into an untidy little heap.

When Miss Conrad felt that the dance fever was rising in Bud's veins, she sat down, panting, beside Hannahan.

“I guess it's all over but the shouting,” he managed to whisper, when no one was looking, and Miss Conrad's long lashes drooped triumphant assent. She felt that she had done the thing rather cleverly, on the whole.

Bud's habitual frown relaxed under Miss Conrad's wistful smile. “We might have a little dance this evenin'. You ain't in no great rush, air yuh?” His eyes went to Hannahan in tacit recognition of his leadership.

Hannahan hesitated diplomatically over his cigarette book. “We ought to hit the sod, and that's no dream,” he parleyed, dallying with temptation, as a man loves to do upon occasion. “We didn't aim to do more than make a fashionable call on Jennie.” His fingers twirled the paper into a tiny tube, the while his heart pounded at the sweetness of calling her that.

“Sure, what's the odds? Ye've only the wance t' live, then,” urged the widow. “We'd be proud t' have ye shtop—an' it's a foine toime we c'n promise ye. An' Jennie does git that lonesome——”

Hannahan showed signs of yielding, and looked doubtfully at his fellows in deceit. Beetle, answering the look, told him briefly that he was the doctor, and Miss Conrad, leaning toward him in a way that set his blood more than ever a-jump, coaxed prettily, so that his mind was tricked almost into the belief that he was being led into temptation, and not carrying out a prearranged plan.

He promised to stay until midnight, when, he said, they could make a night ride to Chinook, which was their destination. Hannahan liked to tell the truth whenever he could.

Miss Conrad straightway went off with the widow, to help make cakes and things, and Bud and Patsy caught up their horses and rode off to notify their neighbors. The “vanguard” sat out on the front steps and strummed melodious snatches for the delectation of the two in the kitchen, and smoked many cigarettes and waited.

As the day grew weary and the sun slid away behind the hills, the wind grew weary also and rested; the night gave promise of dark stillness, with slow, drifting clouds to mask the moon.

“Yuh want t' give it to 'em good and plenty,” Beetle told Hannahan, out in the corral, when they went to feed their horses—and saddle them, also, in readiness for a quick getaway should circumstances render it necessary.

Hannahan was going to “call” for the dancers.

“Yuh want,” Beetle went on, “lots uh double elbow and chassy by your pardners, and swing on the corners. Make 'em hoe 'er down eight all yuh think they'll stand for. Sound'll travel like the devil to-night.”

Hannahan's teeth showed white in the dusk. He reached out a gloved hand and patted Beetle's shoulder caressingly.

“Right you are, Little Goldenhair,” he murmured, tenderly.

Beetle squirmed loose and swore vigorously. His face, at that moment, was not particularly cherubic.

“Damn that old hen,” he remarked, and stalked back to the house in a fit of ill temper that lasted as much as five minutes.

At eight o'clock, every man, woman and child in the valley was waiting expectantly at the Widow McCoy's.

At nine o'clock, the big living room was filled to overflowing with gyrating figures, and the overflow was footing it in the kitchen, with Hannahan standing in the connecting doorway, calling both ways at once. Beetle and Parrot Tim, their chairs perched upon a table pulled close to the doorway, looked down upon the dancers with faces calm, fingers flying and hearts a-stir with the exhilarating sense of danger.

Far out on the bench land, a slow-moving blotch of shade swept steadily down to the valley's rim, with shadowy horsemen vaguely outlined here and there upon the wavering border. The steaming breath from many wide-flaring nostrils rose mysteriously through the silence, and the faint, swishing crackle of dry buffalo grass mingled with the muffled thud of five thousand hoofs beating steadily the prairie sod.

At ten o'clock, Beetle laid down his mandolin, fished a red-boxed harmonica from his coat pocket, handed it, whispering, to Hannahan and stole out into the cool blackness to listen.

Hannahan had blown himself breathless before the mandolin was shrilling, high and sweet, above the uproar. There was a pink splotch on Beetle's cheeks, and in his eyes the deep, purple glow which came only under stress of a crisis. Parrot Tim, the observant, recognized the signs and, leaning toward him, questioned with his calm, gray eyes.

Beetle's dimpled chin lowered a scant half inch in answer. He turned to Hannahan.

“Give 'em hell from now on,” he urged, under his breath. “Call a hot one—the hottest yuh know, and the longest.”

Hannahan went out into the kitchen and poured near a quart of sweet, spring water down his tired throat, and then went to work—the real work of the evening.

The Widow McCoy danced wisps of gray hair down into her eyes and seemed upon the verge of apoplexy, but Hannahan was merciless. Miss Conrad, flushed and disheveled, turned her eyes reproachfully his way, caught the meaning of his level brows and half-closed lids, and smiled encouragement instead of reproof as she whirled away like a leaf in the wind, in the endless chain: “Balance, swing!—allemane left, chasse by your pardner, balance—swing! Allemane left, right hand to pardner and grand right-and-left with a double elbow—balance, swing!”

The amount of swinging inflicted upon those trustful tillers of the Chiquita soil was amazing, and it was a limp, exhausted company which made for the nearest seats when, finally, a string snapped and the mandolin stopped for repairs, and Hannahan hoarsely shouted the welcome command: “All promenade—you know where, and I don't care!”

But he did care. His heart misgave him as he leaned his long length, the picture of careless ease, against the door jamb, shoved his hands deep into his pockets and watched Bud McCoy stumble out into the night.

Bud had been dancing with Miss Conrad, and his brain reeled with something more than the dizzying succession of swings. He could yet feel an electric thrill in his shoulder, where the gold-bronze head of Miss Conrad had rested for the fraction of a second during that last breath-taking whirl.

Beetle's head bent over the broken string; to all appearances, his mind was wholly absorbed in its mending. Hannahan put his lips close to Beetle's ear.

“Where was they when you was outside?” he whispered, cautiously.

“Just coming into the field, here. They ought t' be pretty well across by now. Can't yuh get busy with that mouth-organ? We got t' keep 'em inside.”

“Bud McCoy's outdoors now.”

“The hell he is!” came from the lips of the cherub. He shifted uneasily in his chair. “Things'll begin t' tighten, then. He——”

The voice of Bud McCoy bellowed through the room like a challenging bull: “Come on, boys! They's a herd at the ford!”

Instantly the room buzzed like a disturbed hive; like bees men swarmed to the door, by their very haste retarding their exit. The shrewish tones of the Widow McCoy screamed angrily above the clamor.

The vanguard made for the kitchen, escaped by way of the back door, and raced away to the stables. After them came the “Israelites,” a cursing, vengeful mob, headed by Bud and Patsy McCoy.

From out the far darkness came the splash of water churned by many fording animals, and the indefinable murmur of the herd climbing the slope beyond. Once the sharp tones of the foreman called out, and the words came, clear-cut, through the black: “Rush 'em, boys—the grangers are coming!”

“If we could keep 'em here ten minutes——” Hannahan groaned, anxiously.

“I turned a trick that I guess'll hold 'em for a while,” panted Beetle, in a discreet undertone.

Bud McCoy made for the nearest horse, which happened to be Dave Hadley's, and seized the stirrup. Up he went, a black shape against the starlit sky—hovered a breath and came down bewildered.

“What ails the damned saddle?” he demanded, of no one in particular. Nobody answered; other voices took up the question and repeated it in various forms. Horses began to circle and back away from their masters, snorting protest.

In the confusion somebody broke into laughter—the rollicking, boyish laugh of mischief that recks not of consequences. Bud wheeled upon him furiously.

“Shut up that laughin'! Somebody here's standin' in with the cowmen. Who was it switched all them saddles backward? Was it you, yuh damned, gigglin' little doll-face?” His voice became the snarl of an animal. His hand clinched and drew back ominously.

Beetle stopped laughing and straightened his slim height. His fist plunked solidly as he smote the surprised leader of the Israelites.

“Hand it to him, Beetle!” Hannahan called from behind. “My money's on you.”

Patsy McCoy danced in the background and howled weird threats until Parrot Tim, reaching out a long, leisurely arm, caught him by the collar and shook him violently. Then somebody detected Hannahan in the act of turning loose a horse, and after that the corral seemed filled mostly with arms, legs and unseemly language.

A few there were who wisely refrained from active warfare and contented themselves with removing the saddles, which, under Beetle's earlier manipulation, pointed their horns rakishly to the rear, and readjusting them in the position nature and the manufacturers intended. Since, without exception, each horse in turn developed an aggravated case of nerves, some time was consumed in the operation.

Parrot Tim wriggled himself free, with the loss of his coat, and felt under a squirming heap of humanity until he located what he shrewdly guessed was Beetle. That youth came to the top, with a little timely help, not so much the worse for wear as one might suppose. He observed, with much satisfaction, that the heap did not appear to miss him, but continued to pummel one another indiscriminately and with much energy.

Two minutes after, the vanguard, battered but triumphant, splashed through the once more peaceful waters of the Chiquita, and halted on the further shore to listen to the sounds of tumult in the corral of the Widow McCoy ere they galloped away.

“If old Jimmy Knauss don't give Jennie Conrad that little pinto pony to pay for this night, there'll be things doing,” Hannahan remarked, as they rode up the hill. “How do yuh stack up, Golden Hair?”

“Aw, shut up!” growled Beetle. “I bet Bud McCoy'll count ten million before he says 'doll-face' t' me again—the way I punched his'n for him.”

Parrot Tim rode for ten minutes with his chin drooped against his neck. Then he turned his head and looked back to where the Chiquita gleamed faintly under the stars.

“And the Philistines put themselves in array against Israel; and when they joined battle, Israel was smitten before the Philistines. . . . And the men of Israel rent their garments and wept aloud that they were smitten!”

“They rent mine, too, if anybody should ask yuh,” said Beetle.