Sheep Limit/Chapter 22
Peck was up at daylight next morning, whooping in high and exultant voice as he spread his sheep to graze in due and ancient form. He was in high feather when he came to the house for breakfast to find that his industry surpassed Rawlins', if early rising was to be taken as a measure. He found the homesteader sitting on the edge of his cot, yawning away the dregs of sleep.
Rawlins had chanced a surprise by sleeping in the house, going on the argument by which he had convinced himself last night that they were due to leave him alone. The peaceful morning, Peck's cheerful countenance in the door, the feeling of eagerness to be up and at it, all contributed to strengthen the belief that untroubled days were before him. He set Peck to making a fire in the sheet-iron stove while he assembled biscuit materials, designing to begin that felicitous morning with the first good meal in two days.
Peck stood on his knees before the little stove, regulating the damper to control the roaring fire he had made, chuckling to himself in what Rawlins took to be the excess of spirits in his unaccustomed liberty.—
"I was just a-thinkin', Rawlins," Peck said, twisting his long, spiny, dirty neck to look round, hand on the check-draft of the stove-pipe. "I fired you one time, didn't I?"
"You bet you did, Peck."
"Yeah. That was one thing I made stick with the old woman. But I was a new rattle to her then, the paint was shiny on me. Well, I tell you, Rawlins, I'm goin' to be a feller that can hire 'em and fire 'em as fast as they come in the future days to come. I'm done with that woman. She ain't got money enough stacked up to coax one leg back to that ranch."
It was best not to say anything to Peck about his wife's hot hunt for him on the range, or the mystery his disappearance had been to everybody outside. Peck would be better off for knowing nothing of the trip to the ranch last night; at least he would be easier in his mind.
"I was just a-thinkin', Rawlins, where I'd 'a' been if I hadn't fired you that time. And where you'd 'a' been, too. I give you a start by firin' you, and made a place for myself to light when I come to the jump-off. I'm darned glad I fired you that time, Rawlins."
"It does look like it was for the best, all around, doesn't it? Well, I never held it against you. I wasn't very much struck on working as a herder for your wife, or anybody else."
"Yes, it was best for me and good for you, as the song says. That bunch ought to clean me up thirty-five hundred, maybe four thousand, freight and everything paid. That'll put in as nice a line of suitings as you can find west of St. Louis, and I can pull in the business as fast as I can handle it, for I've got style to my garments, Rawlins. I give 'em personality."
"You do if you give them the same touch you put in your own, Peck. I saw a pair of your pants hanging on the line down at the ranch one day, and it was hard to believe you weren't inside of them."
"You did, Rawlins? Was it that pencil-striped pair?" Peck inquired wistfully, a tender look in his goggling eyes.
"I don't remember the pattern, but it looked like somebody had cut you in two and your legs kept right on going. You've got more than personality in your clothes, Peck; more than individuality. I think you might advertise it as spirituality. I never saw so much soul in a pair of pants in my life. There was a coat of yours hanging on Tippie's hook behind the kitchen door"
"Was it a light-blue worsted, shaped to the waist, full silk-lined, roll?"
Rawlins shook his head solemnly, his hands spread on the biscuit dough as he paused an impressive moment in patting it out.
"I didn't notice the color, Peck; I was so struck by the resemblance to you I didn't have an eye for anything else. You take off more and leave it inside your clothes than any man I ever met. I think your wife feels your essence in your garments, too, from the loving look she turned on that coat every little while."
"Yeah, she was thinkin' how she'd like to have me inside of it to slam around with a bed slat, I'll bet you, Rawlins. Any time that old girl takes her heart out of the moth balls for the man she's married to you can straddle the Missouri River."
"My opinion is you've got her sized up altogether wrong, Peck."
"What the doo—devil do you know about it?" Peck challenged, the heat of anger on having his authority questioned giving a ripe tint to the sheepmanly tan his weeks on the open range had spread on him. "You never got a thump on the side of your head with a five-pound law book, you never had her grab both hands a-hold of your moustache and pull you down and spit in your face. I tell you, Rawlins, you don't know what you're talkin' about."
"I guess not, Peck. I yield the floor; the argument's yours. How'll you have your beans—with grease, or plain?"
"I like 'em floatin' in it. That's all the inside dope a single man's got on this marriage business," Peck went on, carrying on his complaint. "He sees 'em when they've got company, he don't know nothing about the sessions they have off on the side. Well, a man can't kill 'em off; he can't go that fur to shake 'em, Rawlins. Arsneck and strickenine wouldn't have no more effect on that old girl than powdered sugar, anyhow. I don't believe there ever was a pizen made that'd fase her, but if she ever throws a leg over that fence to foller me in here, I'll stitch"
They both broke for the door, Rawlins dropping his breakfast preparations as Peck dropped his threats against the peace and dignity of his wife. There was a burst of shooting, an outbreak of yells, across the creek in the direction of Peck's sheep. Peck made it into the open first, where he turned, his face white, his crawfish eyes wild.
"It's them fence fellers—they're killin' my sheep! Git your gun and come on!"
Peck streaked away like a hound with the last word, never looking back to see whether Rawlins was going to support him in the battle or leave him to the defence of his flock alone. He was out of sight under the creek bank when Rawlins came out with his rifle.
Four men were stirring confusion among the sheep, the witless animals contributing to their own destruction by crowding together in bunches. Rawlins believed these were the four men whom he had repulsed two days ago, come back to adjust the account. He hurried on to overtake Peck, not so much because he counted on him to be of any use, but to keep him from making a rash exposure of himself and getting killed the first rattle out of the box.
Peck was across the creek, loping up the gravelly shore where he had bedded his flock the night he arrived. The fence-riders who were clubbing and shooting the sheep had not seen Peck, although he was making no effort at all to conceal himself, tearing towards his abused flock, gun out, his concern for his property so great he had no thought of danger.
Rawlins paused on the high bank, where he had a vantage from which he could have worked great and sudden damage among the slaughterers of the flock, holding his fire on account of Peck. The new flockmaster, suddenly grown valiant in his liberty and property rights, was at least a hundred yards in the lead, but still far more than a pistol-shot distant from the nearest rider working havoc among the sheep. Rawlins knew the raiders carried rifles; it would be a small matter to knock Peck flat at that distance with one well-put shot.
Down the bank, through the shallow stream and after Peck the homesteader charged, heavy with the water that filled his boots, sagged down by the ammunition he had loaded every available pocket with, yelling to Peck to lie down and wait. If Peck heard, he didn't even look back. Straight toward his abused flock he went charging, his long legs straddling sageclumps or taking them in clean leaps, at least sense enough in control above his roused and boiling anger to know he couldn't do any damage with his gun that far away.
When Peck came within what he calculated as shooting range, he stopped, braced himself with legs straddled wide, lifted his gun, gripping it in both hands, and cut loose. The roar of that ancient rim-fire forty-five drew the first notice of the fence-riders to the defenders of the flock. If they had seen Peck and Rawlins before that moment they evidently had thought them still too far away to be taken into account. They had been clubbing and shooting, and riding into the huddling little bunches of sheep as if bound to do as much destruction in the flock as possible before turning their attention to whoever was responsible for this insolent invasion.
They probably had concluded that Rawlins, or whoever was herding the sheep, had cut for safety at their approach. It was likely they had not counted on anybody but Rawlins having the effrontery to bring sheep inside the fence. A homesteader who would shoot a man exercising the feudal prerogative of burning his shanty might do something else equally dishonorable, even to driving a band of sheep inside the long-respected limit.
At the sound of Peck's gun the man at whom he had fired whirled around from his atrocious slaughter, yelling warning to his friends. He threw down the club he had been mauling the sheep with, jerked his rifle from the scabbard under his leg, pinged a bullet so near Peck's head that Rawlins saw him jerk it, and duck as if a hornet had come at him.
That only appeared to make Peck hotter. On he went, slinging his long legs over brush and gully, waving his gun, yelling in high-pitched, rage-shaken voice: "Let them sheep alone! Dan your hides, let them sheep alone!"
Rawlins tore along after him, going with more caution and considerably less speed, crouching like an Indian as he dodged from bush to bush, ready to pitch in a shot the moment he saw he could do any good. The others began to peg away at Peck, who stopped again, legs braced wide as before, gun steadied in both hands, head to one side a little as he deliberately squinted and aimed.
To the surprise of Rawlins, and no doubt to the astonishment of the other side—for it was a long pistol-shot—Peck's careful aim was good. The man who was pushing forward in a bearing of contemptuous security, rifle raised to throw down in a one-handed shot, jerked back in the saddle as if he had ridden into a rope stretched across his way. He rode on that way a little distance, rifle and reins dropped, slumped off to one side, and fell.
Peck's pause had brought Rawlins up within a few yards of him. He made a spring and came alongside as Peck was throwing his feet for another charge. Rawlins made a grab and caught the back of his jumper.
"Get behind something, Peck! Here—down with you—quick!"
Rawlins was down on elbows and knees behind a clump of sage, with its little wart of earth heaped and held around its deep-striking, wide-spread roots. Old Peck stood looking down at him curiously, both hands gripping his gun, as if he did not understand the reason for a man whose valor he never had doubted up to that moment being in such a sweat to get something between himself and trouble.
The three sheep-killers were charging up, well spread out, their shots cutting the bushes over Rawlins' head. He pulled Peck's leg, wasting valuable time to get the old rascal, brave in a simpleton's ignorance of his danger, down out of that buzzing hot stream of lead.
While Rawlins' hand was still gripping Peck's bony shin, Peck's legs gave way as if he had been hamstrung. He sank down in a dazed, groping way to his knees, still holding to his gun with one hand; settled slowly, without a word or groan, and lay in a huddled bunch close beside Rawlins behind the little knuckle of earth.
Rawlins did not know whether Peck was killed or seriously wounded. There was no blood. He had heard the bullet strike Peck with a spat almost equal to hitting a stump with an axe. There was no time to investigate, or give Peck the assistance upon which his life, if life there was in him, might depend. The sheep-killers were standing off not above fifty yards, their guns quiet since Peck's disaster, spying cautiously around for sight of Rawlins, who had not fired a shot. It was likely they thought they had got him, too.
Now they came ahead, cautiously, to close in and finish it if anything remained to be done. Rawlins flattened down, and fired. They gave it back to him, hot and fast.
There was a confusion of striking bullets around him, an obscuration of dust, and smoke from his own gun. At the next sight he had, the middle saddle was empty. The horse was charging on straight toward him; it passed in terrified stampede, so near the earth flung up by its hoofs showered him where he lay.
The two remaining of the band had no intention of giving up the fight, for Hewitt was one of them, Rawlins saw. He had come to-day to close the matter; there would be no running away before a single man of the homesteader breed again.
They separated wider still, to flank him and drive him out. Rawlins shifted as the bullets began to cut in from the side, snaking himself on elbows, reserving something for the rush. He worked himself a few feet away from Peck, hoping the poor fellow might escape any further damage if there was an ember of life in him still.
Hewitt was on the right; he came pushing in with steady determination, holding his restive horse down to a slow walk. Rawlins resented his mean persistence. He slewed around, threw his gun across Peck's body, and fired. With the jump of his gun Hewitt threw in a shot that got Rawlins between elbow and wrist, twirling the rifle out of his hands.
Rawlins scrambled for Peck's pistol, Hewitt shouting to his companion, both of them rushing in for the finish. Rawlins was rising to his feet, Peck's gun in his left hand, to have it out in a whirlwind close, the chances all against him, as he knew too well. He was dazed; his right arm was numb and unresponsive. It was a bad corner for a man to be caught in; it was the end.
Hewitt was not twenty feet away, pistol lifted to throw down for the last shot, when a diversion was set up in the rear. Somebody began to shoot; somebody was riding in headlong charge through tall greasewood and sage, with a wild, high whoop that raised the hair to hear. Rawlins took a left-handed chance shot at Hewitt as he whirled his horse and galloped away.
Whoever it was that had charged in that desperate moment went on after the sheep-killers, the strident challenge, sharp as a steam siren, cutting over the noise of quick shooting. Rawlins stood on the little hump of earth to see what there was to be seen. The sheep-killers were hitting it up in a panic to get out of there. The one in pursuit pulled up and looked around, as if to see if there were any more.
Rawlins came down from the mound in amazement, which became double amazement on beholding Peck sitting up, looking very pale and sick, but far from a dead man yet. Peck was staring with the biggest eyes Rawlins ever had seen in a human head, hands pressed to his belly, breathing in sharp little puffs.
"It's your wife!" Rawlins said, wildly excited. "PeckPeck! I tell you it's your wife!"
He shook Peck, as if to wake him. Peck looked up weakly.
"She shot me!" Peck gasped. "She shot me through the guts!"
"No, no, Peck. She saved us—she saved us, I tell you. It's your wife!"
Peck had no time for comment or question, if he had the capacity or the interest for either. Mrs. Peck came tearing up, flinging herself from the saddle before the horse had answered her hard hand on the rein. She was on her knees beside Peck in a moment, his dazed head gathered against her pillowy bosom, groaning over him, tears streaming down her rangechafed face.
"Oh, Dowey darlin', you're all shot to slithers!" she moaned. "Oh, why didn't I git here sooner! Why—didn't—I git here—sooner!"
There was such a note of remorse and accusation in her wail as to verify Rawlins in the belief he had held all the time: that she was fond of Peck, and her harshness was only the rigor of her kind intention, her loving effort to reshape him to fit a place of honor in the land of sheep.
"Where are you shot, honey?" she asked, reclining Peck tenderly, his head on her lap.
"Here," said Peck, pressing his bread-basket, rolling his head from side to side as if the agony of his wound was beginning to make itself felt.
Mrs. Peck began to explore with tender hand, a doleful look of pity in her fat face.
"Why, there ain't no hole in you there, Dowey," she said gently, greater relief than surprise in her voice.
"Slammed clean through me—right there," Peck insisted, pulling his breath with a rattling sound.
Mrs. Peck began to lay his anatomy bare in her anxious explorations. Rawlins, partly through delicacy, mainly on account of the blood he was losing and the pain of his own wound, turned aside. He began making such repairs as a handkerchief would provide, relieved to see no artery was cut, although one bone was broken.
This gave him great concern, involving the probability, as it did, of losing part of his arm. His anxiety over Peck was subsiding as that notable's strength increased, and Mrs. Peck declared there was no bullet hole in any part of his body between neck and crotch. Peck resented this, declaring he knew very well he was shot through the place to which his hand returned with solicitous hovering. He closed his eyes and lay with his mouth open, groaning, making a noise with every intake of breath like an old hinge.
Mrs. Peck removed the brooding hand after a gentle struggle, and bent over for a closer inspection of the spot.
"There is a bruise there, honey—it's turnin' purple and blue over a place as big as my hand!" she said. "Wherever in the world could that bullet 'a' went to? What made it flatten out agin you, honey, do you suppose? I never heard of one doin' that before. You've got a charmed life, Dowey—sure as you're born you've got a charmed life."
"What did you have in the pocket of your jumper, Peck?" Rawlins inquired, managing to grin, although his arm hurt him as if it was under a wagon wheel.
"Did you have a rock or something in your pocket, honey?" Mrs. Peck asked with gentle solicitation.
Peck made a remarkable recovery when the investigation turned to the contents of his pocket. He sat up with a jerk, a red rush of resentment coming into his thin-edged face. He put his wife's hand away rudely.
"None of your dang business what I got in that pocket, or any other pocket," he said. "I'm my own man; I'm goin' to carry whatever I dang please in my pockets from now on."
"Why, of course you can, Dowey darlin'," Mrs. Peck said soothingly, looking at him with anxious uncertainty in her eyes.
"If anybody goes monkeyin' around my pockets hereafter in the future I'll stand 'em on their heads!" Peck threatened, his confidence in his position growing as he enlarged his articles of independence.
"Of course you will, Dowey, and you'll serve 'em right," said Mrs. Peck.
Peck glowered around, red veins in his big glassy eyes, looking savage and mean.
"Where in the hell's my gun, Rawlins?" he asked.
"There—your hat's on it, Peck."
"I'm goin' over to find that feller I shot," Peck announced, grabbing his gun, getting up with as much iron in his legs as he ever had. "If he ain't dead I'll finish him—comin' in here killin' off my sheep!"
Mrs. Peck looked at him with beaming admiration. She got up, proud of her husband's new importance, proud of the second place she had taken in that team.
"I'll go with you, darlin'," she proposed.
"You'll stay where you're at till you're called for, old lady," Peck put her in her place severely, turning on her as if he might begin a regimen of manual correction at any moment. "I'm goin' to stir my own kittle of mush from now on."
"All right, Dowey," she yielded meekly, happy in his mastery, Rawlins knew.
Peck went on about his vengeful business, Mrs. Peck turning to Rawlins as if to share her admiration, discovering his plight.
"Why, Ned, you're bleedin' all over the place!" she said. "Here—let me see your arm."
Rawlins told her there was nothing more to be done for temporary relief than what he had contrived already, but that he would be grateful if she would allow him to ride her horse to Lost Cabin to have the doctor attend his hurt, to which Mrs. Peck heartily agreed.
She brought the animal up, took the holster with her two efficient pistols from the saddle, and urged him to go at once. She was dressed as Rawlins never had seen her before, in complete male attire, her brown duck coat strained over her large back, a turn of more than a foot taken in the bottoms of her wide overalls.
Rawlins paused before mounting to thank her for her assistance in the moment of his extremity.
"It would have been all over with us in a minute more," he said.
"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner," she replied, with the modesty of true valor. "Edith left me a note that Mr. Peck was over here with you, but I didn't find it till after breakfast. I guess she went out lookin' for me, I guess she was worried when I was gone all night. Did he"—hesitantly, her eyes raised with a timid eagerness he never had seen in them before—"did he shoot one of them fellers, Ned?"
"He certainly did! He went after them like a hornet, left me so far behind I thought I'd never catch him. You've got a man now, Mrs. Peck; a man right down to the backbone."
"Yes," said Mrs. Peck serenely, sighing happily. "I've got a man at last!"