Brazos

A Story of a Lonely “Bad Man”

by FREDERICK R. BECHDOLT.

EN called him Brazos. Even the outlaws with whom he rode had no other name for him. Whence he had come none knew save himself; he never spoke of home or of his people. But the observing ones noted a nicety in his speech which the other bad men did not own; and they marked that, while his companions frolicked in the roaring dance halls, he drank hard in silence, scourging himself with whisky as the Penitentes in the New Mexico mountains whipped themselves with cactus.

On the evening of Chiricahua's last big gun fight, he was—in years—still young; not yet thirty, slender of figure, graceful as a cat; he would have been handsome but for the saturninity which marred his features. Now, as the smoke wreaths lifted, disclosing the sprawling forms of the dead men and the dying in the wide main street, there was a Satanic light in his dark eyes.

From the first heavy explosion of the sheriff's sawed-off shotgun to the last sharp revolver report there had elapsed some thirty seconds. That was all. To the ears of the non-combatants, who had taken refuge within doors, it had sounded like a dozen enormous firecrackers set off in a bunch.

In sole possession of the field, Brazos looked about him, appraising the results of victory. A few moments ago he had owned three followers; now he had none. True, the sheriff and his two deputies were dead; but the law still lived. On the morrow a new sheriff would appoint new deputies and name a price on Brazos's head.

That was what it had come to. One more community arrayed against him. Another town which he could not enter on pain of death.

In days gone by the whole Southwest had been free to him. Now, from the Pecos to the Colorado, he was a fugitive.

The bolder citizens, emerging from the doorways on either side of the main street, saw Brazos riding out of Chiricahua. Now and again, as he passed through the stream of lamplight before the windows of a saloon or dance hall, one of these more venturesome spirits got a glimpse of his face. His lips were twisted into a sardonic smile.

Two mornings later he rode out of the gaunt gray mountains where he had extinguished his trail and came upon the valley flats far to the eastward. Here he drew rein.

Beyond the eastern skyline other valleys lay, and towns; he named them to himself: Socorro, Las Cruces, Tularosa. They knew him well. Before him and behind, his road was blocked by his grim misdeeds. He looked into the south.

The great plain stretched away and away between ranges of stucco mountains; wide beds of lava fragments lay across it, tawny streaks of red and purple throbbing in the sun; and faint with distance, near the meeting place of the hot earth and the hot heavens, the bed of a dried lake gleamed evilly. A savage land and waterless. Beyond, uplifted in the sky—a three days' ride from here—the spectral peaks of a Mexican sierra beckoned him invitation. There passed a moment when the threat of death which lurked between him and those mountains was like a lure. He shook it off and reined his pony to the north.

“I'll head for Bitter Wells,” he told himself, “and hole up there till I can get a stake and slip out of the country.”

It was the only sanctuary where he could lie, biding the opportunity to swoop down on some hapless victim and get the means for his long flight to places where he was not known.

Once Bitter Wells had been a stage station, but the mail route had swung to the northward to take in the new silver camps near the Mogollons and the coaches came by no more. Of travelers there were still a few, for the most part wagon outfits passing through to the west. The sale of feed and provisions at extortionate prices to these luckless strays, and a charge for water—which varied inversely with the sophistication of the customers—gave the place an excuse for existence. But the proprietors found their real pickings from hard-eyed guests who drifted in on horseback. Sometimes the communities from which these riders came did not want them any longer; sometimes these communities wanted them very badly. In either case it was the same; the guests paid high and did not bicker over prices. Now and again, when other business languished or when there was trouble brewing among the Jicarilla Apaches up Fort Bayard way, the proprietors sallied forth with laden pack-horses into the mountains, where cartridges often brought their weight in silver. So, take it all in all, the pair who held forth here were doing well.

Business was fairly brisk in Bitter Wells this evening. Gabe Means was dealing monte bank in the main room of the long one-story station where the lumbering Concords used to stop for the change of horses. Half a dozen players crouched about the outspread blanket on the earthen floor watching him narrowly as he dropped the cards, now from the top, now from the bottom; their faces were unlovely with suspicion. A little man, with hard round bird-like eyes and a tight mouth which looked as if the sun had dried it shut, he returned their glances with roving and distrustful scrutiny. His partner Bulltoad Jones was sitting on a broken chair beside the whisky barrel with hand clasped over his bloated waist-line, holding one eye upon the game, the other on the open door. He was the first to see Brazos.

The outlaw stood before the threshold regarding the scene in silence. There was something about him which suggested a gray wolf looking upon a group of coyotes who are snuffing over the bones of a dead horse; a lone wolf lean with hunger, but in no mind for such stingy pickings as these over which the meaner animals are bickering. The right hand of Jones twitched toward his revolver; then, recognizing the newcomer, he left his chair and hurried to the door.

“How's tricks?” he asked in a husky half whisper.

Brazos ignored the question. “Who's here?” He nodded toward the room.

“Feller from Silver; been drunk ever sence he come; them two young ones was run out of Shakespeare last week; the other two is short in Las Cruces over some killin'.”

“I saw a wagon outfit down by the corral: when I rode in,” Brazos went on-quietly.

“Oh, them!” The fat man's lips curled scornfully. “Them's tenderfeet. The rankest kind. They don't know nothin' nohow.”

“I reckon I'll put my hoss up, then,” Brazos told: him. “He's footsore. You can rustle me some grub while I am gone. I'm gaunt as a she wolf with pups.”

“The' was a party from Chiricahua rode through this mo'nin'.” Bulltoad Jones came a step closer as he delivered the information. “He says the's five hundred dollars on yuh, dead or alive. They figger yo're haided down acrost the line.”

If the tidings brought any emotion to the other he did not show it. His face remained steady in its somberness. “I may hole up here for a week or so,” was all the reply that he made.

He turned away and found his jaded pony waiting in the darkness. As he was leading the animal to the corral he heard the murmur of voices by the covered wagon which he had seen on riding in. A lighted lantern stood on the ground before the vehicle. Skirting the circle of its radiance he saw the two tenderfeet. Involuntarily he paused.

The wagon's seat had been so placed upon the ground that they could lean their backs against one of the front wheels. They were sitting side by side looking straight before them into the darkness toward the west. Scarcely more than boy and girl, these two. His big smooth young face had a curious half puzzled expression; somehow it suggested the idea of one who has unexpectedly been struck a blow and looks up bewildered, seeking the reason. The girl was wrapped round with blankets, although the night was only pleasantly cool, and emerging from the swathings her face was like a flower—a pale petaled blossom which did not seem to belong here in the desert at all. Evidently they had not heard Brazos coming, for the boy was saying:

“There, there. We will make it yet. Don't worry, dear. We will.” And as he spoke his arm stole around her.

Brazos moved away. In the corral, when he had fed the animal: “Bulltoad was right,” he told his horse. “Rank tenderfeet.”

With which he dismissed them from his mind. In that grim border country nature's first law was inflexible and none knew it better than Brazos. He was pondering on the problem of self-preservation when he returned from the corral. Five hundred dollars is five hundred dollars and the news of that reward would set others thinking besides himself. Sooner or later the time would come when some of these others might take a long chance. One cannot go on forever sleeping with one eye open. He must slip away before they got too hungry for the blood-money. But once he left this sanctuary he would have to travel fast and far to reach a region where he was not known; and when a man's resources consist of a jaded horse and fifty dollars he can go neither far nor fast.

The group of monte players were busy about the blanket late into the night. The chink of silver made a pleasant sound as the bets changed hands. Now and again one of the gamesters glanced up at Brazos, sitting apart in a corner of the long room, and found the outlaw's sullen eyes upon him. There was something sinister in his dark gaze; the same suggestion as when he had looked upon them through the door, of the big gray wolf sitting on his haunches outside the ring of feeding coyotes in half a mind to leap among them and scatter them, held back only because the bones over which they quarrel are not sufficiently tempting.

He slept alone. And where he rolled up in his blankets none of the others knew. Bfore the sunrise he had brought his bedding roll back to the station. While he was smoking a before-breakfast cigaret the young tenderfoot he had seen the night before beside the wagon came from the corral with a bucket in his hand.

“Mornin',” he greeted Brazos. “Fine day.” He smiled and in the smile there was an eager diffidence, which faded before the outlaw's curt “Howdy.”

Gabe Means came to the door; his bird-like eyes grew harder as they rested on the bucket.

“Two bits,” said he; his voice was as arid as the surrounding landscape. He took the coin which the boy handed him and the pair walked over to the pump by the water trough beside the roadway. Now Brazos noticed for the first time that the pump handle was chained down, and the chain was padlocked. The landlord unlocked the fastening and the tenderfoot pumped his bucketful. His face had taken on that bewildered look which it had worn the night before. When he had departed for the corral Means looked Brazos in the eyes and smiled. In a hushed voice the outlaw profaned his Saviour's name.

“Every little counts,” the other told him blithely. “Six bits a day off of them, an' they been here ten days. We get 'em comin' an' we get 'em goin'. Beats standin' up the stage or rustlin' cows in the long run.”

Brazos recovered his composure. “I'll bet it does,” said he. “And now, before you lock up that pump again, I'll have a half a bucketful or so on the house. I want to wash.”

After he had finished his ablutions he went to feed his horse. The pair from the covered wagon met him by the corral gate. They were walking slowly and the girl was leaning heavily on her young husband's arm. The pallid beauty of her face held something which puzzled Brazos, a look in which there seemed to be, curiously mingled, hope and fear and a weariness that was near to suffering. The blanket which had concealed her form the night before was gone now; and when his eyes read the tale of approaching motherhood they shifted quickly. She was smiling as she spoke to him and there was something brave in the way she held her lips.

“Good morning”—that was all she said. He lifted his hat and passed on with a muttered answer. While he was sorting out the miserable baled hay which his hosts kept in the stable he scowled at his pony. “This place,” he growled, “is getting too popular for us. We got to get out soon. We certainly got to get out soon.”

Leaving the corral he found himself again face to face with the young tenderfoot.

“My name,” the latter announced, “is Wilson.” There was no avoiding the boy's outstretched hand. Brazos took it with a scowl.

“That so?”

“Yes, sir.” There was a sort of helpless eagerness in the speaker's manner as he fell in beside the outlaw. “I wanted to ask you about the road west.”

“Road's good enough this time of year,” Brazos told him shortly.

Wilson smiled hopefully. “I'm glad to hear it. You see I'm sort of out of luck. Me and my wife, we come from Ioway; with a four-horse team; good horses every one of 'em. Well, sir, we was making it fine until we struck this here place ten nights ago. While we was camped here the Apaches run off our horses.” He laid his big hand on Brazos's arm, and there was a huskiness in his voice now. “I dunno whether you noticed. My wife. You see, she's going to have a baby. You know how women are—mebbe you're a married man yourself?”

Brazos made no answer; he was scowling straight before him.

“She's got a sister in Tucson,” the boy went on simply, “and we was figuring on my getting a job there and selling them horses. They was two good span. We didn't want that we should get hung up on the way. She figgers she would like to be with her own folks, you know.” He paused again. The look of hurt bewilderment was in his eyes. “Them two fellers that runs the place says they can sell us a span of horses for two hundred apiece. They ain't much good, but they might pull us through. And this ain't no place for her. What do you think?”

“I reckon,” Brazos answered grimly, “you had better be getting out as soon as you are able.” He shot a dark look at the other. “Those Apaches came at night?”

“At midnight,” the boy answered, “and they made an awful noise about it. The big feller there—the fat one, you know—he took out after 'em and he was gone three days. But he lost the trail where they hit the mountains north of here.”

Brazos smiled, and the smile made his face more saturnine than ever.

“I'm sure I'm much obliged,” the other told him, “fer your advice.”

“Don't mention it,” the outlaw answered sourly.

That night when the blanket was spread out on the earthen floor he watched the players from apart in silence. The game had changed to poker. Now and again a gold piece appeared among the bets. The drunken man from Silver was beginning to sober up; the others leaned over the blanket more avid than the night before. In his corner Brazos kept thinking of what the boy had said.

“Two spans; good horses all of them.” That meant at least eight hundred dollars in the mining camps to the north.

“Apaches!” Brazos said to himself. “And Bulltoad made him think that he was chasing them. It sure does take that breed of coyote to get the other fellow's money and make him like it.”

When the next dawn was reddening the easten [sic] sky, the creaking of the pump-handle brought Brazos out in front of the stage station. To him the methods of the proprietors of Bitter Wells had an uncanny fascination. He stood watching the spectacle at the water trough as if it were a play arranged. with the special purpose of appealing to his sardonic sense of humor, Wilson was giving drink to a pair of decrepit white horses; Gabe Means was sitting on the trough's edge twirling the key of the padlock in his fingers, The tenderfoot finished and started to lead the team away, Means rose.

“Hold on there, feller. You've fergot something, ain't yo'?”

Brazos smiled sourly. “Now I thought so,” he told himself.

The boy halted; the look of bewilderment was on his face.

“A dollar is our charge fer hosses,” Means announced dryly.

“But these here—why, they was your'n,” Wilson protested.

“They was.” The landlord's voice was crackling. “But they are your'n now. Yo' done paid for 'em, didn't yo'?”

The boy reached slowly into his pocket and handed over the money in silence.

On his way down to the corral a few moments later Brazos saw Wilson putting the harness on his newly purchased team:. A little fire was blazing near the covered wagon; the girl was bending over it. Their backs were towards the outlaw, and there was something near to misery in the young fellow's voice.

“Less'n ten dollars left,” he was saying. “I dunno how we're ever going to make it, Letty.”

“There now.” She left the fire and came swiftly to his side; her arm went round him: “We're going to make it, dear. Jest don't you worry. We're going to pull through. I'm feelin' fine.”

They kissed each other there beside the bony horses and Brazos was starting on when she caught sight of him.

“Good morning,” she called. “Wouldn't you like a cup of coffee?” He halted. “I'm sure it's better than they give you over there.” She smiled bravely at the surly stranger.

He shook his head, and with a curt “No thanks,” went into the corral.

A half-hour afterward he watched them pulling out. The white team shambled uncertainly; the wagon crawled over the flat; the boy was leaning forward on the driver's seat with one arm about his wife and Brazos saw that same brave smile on her lips. Thus, without farewell from anyone, they departed toward the range of mountains on the western sky-line.

“Reckon they'll make Tucson with them two crow-baits?” one of the pair from Los Cruces asked Bulltoad Jones. The fat man shook his head.

“Hell, no,” he answered cheerfully.

“There ort to be a law,” Gabe Means proclaimed, “ag'in sech fools a-leavin' home.” His voice was vibrant with self-righteousness.

Whatever thought Brazos might have been disposed to waste over the chances of the pair was interrupted by another incident which took place that afternoon. The man from Silver had sobered up entirely and was setting forth into the northward. He rode away, after the manner of most guests at Wells, without a word as to his intentions or his destination. Brazos gazed after him and his face was dark.

The road which he was taking passed through the mining camps up there in the gray, oak-dotted mountains. Tomorrow at this time the rider would reach the first of the settlements and with his arrival the news would go forth of Brazos's presence in this part of the country. There was but one chance—to get some money and to overtake that horseman before the trail into the north was blocked. As he thought, the outlaw's face grew heavier. Finally his lips went tight; he had arrived at a decision. That evening, after the others sat down at their poker game, he stole out to the corral and saddled his horse. He led it forth and tied it to the fence.

“We get 'em comin' an' we get 'em goin',” Gabe Means was saying when he came back into the room. “My deal.”

Jones laughed huskily. “Apaches!” He wagged his head. “Them two fools is too green to be away from home. They'll be lucky if they make the Gila.” He flung a gold piece on the blanket and drew his cards.

“How much did you get for their hosses, Bulltoad?” Brazos asked quietly.

“Eight hundred dollars in Shakespeare,” the fat man answered over his shoulder. “And sold 'em two buzzards fer four hundred more. Why don't you take a hand, Brazos? Mebbe yo' can git some of this tenderfoot money. Easy come, easy go.”

“Mebbe I can.” The outlaw smiled unpleasantly. “Anyhow I'm going to try.” He took his place beside the blanket. “Twelve hundred dollars you fellows made off of them. Well, easy come, easy go is right. I may as well have some of it, I reckon.”

“Ef yo' are lucky,” said Gabe Means.

“My luck,” Brazos drawled, “is usually good. Just deal me in.”

Apparently the favors of fortune were his tonight; and it was evident that while they lasted he meant to make the best of them. With his arrival the game lost all semblance of listlessness; and as the bets increased in size the faces about the blanket grew tighter with avidity. Within an hour he was sitting with two hundred dollars in front of him.

“This is too swift for me,” one of the pair from Los Cruces declared at last. “I quit.” His companion followed his example.

“Fifty dollars,” Brazos growled and shoved the money to the center of the table.

“An' fifty,” said Gabe Means.

If Brazos saw the swift look which the latter shot at his partner, he did not allow it to disturb his confidence. He met the raise and countered with another. Within five minutes there lay, in the middle of the blanket, a heap of gold. There was more than one thousand dollars in that little yellow pile.

“Calling you,” Brazos announced. The pair from Shakespeare had dropped out early in the betting. Gabe Means laid down his hand. It read three aces.

The outlaw glanced at Bulltoad Jones. The fat man smiled.

“Full house,” said he and showed them.

“Too bad.” Brazos placed his cards face up for them to see. “Aces on eights. I win.”

They looked up in astonishment at his words but the astonishment was wiped out by a more poignant emotion as they found themselves gazing into the muzzle of his six-shooter.

“Just as you are,” he bade them quietly and raked the money up with his left hand. “Easy come; easy go.” His lips were ugly with the sneer. The light of deviltry was leaping from his eyes. He rose and passed around behind them, removing their weapons from the holsters. Some moments after he had backed out from the room they heard the receding hoof-beats of his pony.

“I might of knowed,” Gabe Means told his partner, “that he'd pull something after that feller left fer Silver. It was the only chanct he had.”

Where the road from Bitter Wells looped upward toward the pass which notched the summit of the ragged mountains in the west, there was a little amphitheater among the barren ridges. Here bunch-grass grew and a spring seeped out of the granite, to gather in a shallow pool before it vanished in the crevices between the thirsty rocks. When the first preface of the dawn was whitening the eastern sky-line a flame wavered beside the bit of water, revealing the wagon with its white cover, the strewn camp articles and the decrepit horses grazing near-by. The ruddy light shone on the faces of the two young travelers; it showed the lines of worry on the boy's brow, the dark circles under the girl's weary eyes.

“Crowbaits, the both of 'em.” His voice was flat with hopelessness. “They're played out already, Letty. Two or three days is all they're good fer.” His eyes sought hers. “I never should of took you to sech a country. It was all my fault,” he cried.

“There, dear. I'd like to see a man that could of done better than you have,” she told him quietly. “It ain't your fault because we come among such folks as those back there. You done the very best that any man could do. We'll make it through. I know we will.”

His arm went round her. For a moment they stood in silence while the light grew in the east. Then he kissed her gently.

“You are the best!” he said.

But when he left her to catch up the horses his heart was heavy and his young eyes hardened as he looked up the pass into the west. Two or three days at the outside and the worthless team for which he had paid so dearly would give out. While he was hitching up, his mind went back to the fat green prairie lands which they had left so eagerly last spring. He saw the level wheat fields reaching away toward the horizon, the little unpainted frame houses, the faces of neighbors whom they had known since childhood. Poor folk, who had struggled on through the years against crop failures and grasshoppers; but there was none among them who would have refused to help a stranger. He thought of Bitter Wells and the lines of bewilderment deepened on his young face. They were there when he climbed to the driver's seat beside the girl and released the brake.

“Well, we will do the best we can.” He sighed.

And so Brazos found them when he overtook them at the summit of the pass, sitting with their arms about each other and the weary team resting after the sharp climb. The outlaw's eyes were saturnine as he reined up his horse. There was no light of greeting on his sinister face.

“Howdy,” he bade them curtly. “I have got a little business to do with you.” He eased one foot in the stirrup and shifted himself in the saddle. The apprehension in their eyes did not escape him. He smiled unpleasantly, considering their helplessness.

“That team won't take you far,” he growled.

Wilson turned a despairing face toward him.

“Are you trying to make fun of us?” he cried.

But Brazos did not appear to heed him. “Two or three days,” he said grimly. “It's all they're good for. But the way they'll travel, you ought to make the Gila in two days. You'll strike the stage road there.” He was fumbling with a knot on his pommel strings. As it came untied he edged his pony closer to the wagon.

“Take my advice and stage it on to Tucson. This country is too raw for tenderfeet.”

With that he laid a burlap sack upon the seat beside the girl; the chink of gold was unmistakable. He touched the pony with his spur and before either of them could find voice:

“Your four hosses,” he went on glibly, “were found last night. I'm giving you two hundred and fifty apiece for 'em. I can get it back—and more.” He was riding away as he spoke the last words. He did not turn in the saddle as the girl called after him.

At the foot of the grade where the plain began he drew rein. Behind him to the west the road was blocked; and to the east. Now in the mountains to the north men would be looking for him. There was no sanctuary any more in Bitter Wells. He gazed into the south. The wide valley flats stretched away and away between the ashen mountains. He saw the beds of old dried lakes in the remote distance, glaring back toward the glaring sky. A savage land and waterless. It was the only route that he had left.

“If there is water in the sandstone tanks,” he told his pony, “we make it. If there is none” He shrugged his shoulders.

There was no water in the sandstone tanks. Those depressions in the living rock which stored the gatherings from winter rains were as dry as ashes when Brazos reached them. And so months afterward men found his body where he had died digging with his bare hands in the hard earth.

In Tucson, where the baby came, the Wilsons spoke of him sometimes. And the young mother's eyes would soften when she recalled how he had ridden on to overtake them and to pay them for the lost horses.

“The way he looked and acted,” she said, “you would not think he was so different from those other men at Bitter Wells.”