Stewart Edward White - The Killer

S >> Stewart Edward White >> The Killer

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

Seven ducks leaped into the air apparently from the bare, open, and dry
ground!

Every sportsman knows the scattering effect on the wits of the
absolutely unexpected appearance of game. Every sportsman knows also the
instinctive reactions that long habit will bring about. Thus,
figuratively, I stood with open mouth, heart beating slightly faster,
and mind making to itself such imbecile remarks as: "Well, _what_ do you
think of that! Who in blazes would have expected ducks here?" and other
futile remarks. In the meantime, the trained part of me had jerked the
gun off my shoulder, pushed forward the safety catch, and prepared for
one hasty long shot at the last and slowest of the ducks. Now the
instinctive part of one can do the preparations, but the actual
shooting requires a more ordered frame of mind. By this time my wits
had snapped back into place. I had the satisfaction of seeing the duck's
outstretched neck wilt; of hearing him hit the ground with a thud
somewhere beyond.

Marking the line of his fall, I stepped confidently forward, and without
any warning whatever found myself standing on the bank of an irrigation
ditch. It was filled to the brim with placid water on which floated a
few downy feathers. On this side was dry sod; and on the other was dry
sod. Nothing indicated the presence of that straight band of silvery
water until one stood fairly at its brink. To the right I could see its
sides narrow to the point of a remote perspective. To the left it ran
for a few hundred yards, then apparently came to an abrupt stop where it
turned at an angle.

In the meantime, my duck was on the other side; I was in my citizen's
clothes.

No solution offered in sight, so I made my way to the left where I could
look around the bend. Nearing the bend I was seized with a bright idea.
I dropped back below the line of sight, sneaked quietly to the bank,
and, my eye almost level with the water, peered down the new vista. Sure
enough, not a hundred and fifty yards away floated another band of
ducks.

I watched them for a moment until I was sure, by various small
landmarks, of their exact location. Then I dropped back far enough so
that, even standing erect, I would be below the line of vision of those
ducks; strolled along until opposite my landmarks; then, bolt upright,
walked directly forward, the gun at ready. When within twenty yards the
ducks arose. It was, of course, easy shooting. Both fell across the
ditch. That did not worry me; if worst came to worst I could strip and
wade.

This seemed to be an exceedingly unique and interesting way to shoot
ducks. To be sure, I had only two shells left; but then, it must be
almost breakfast time. I repeated the feat a half mile farther on,
discovered a flood gate over which I could get to the other side,
collected my five ducks, and cut across country to the ranch. The sun
was just getting in its work on the frost. Long files of wagons and men
could be seen disappearing in the distance. I entered proudly, only ten
minutes late.

CHAPTER V

QUAIL

The family assembled took my statement with extraordinary calm,
contenting themselves with a general inquiry as to the species. I was
just a trifle crestfallen at this indifference. You see at this time I
was not accustomed to the casual duck. My shooting heretofore had been a
very strenuous matter. It had involved arising many hours before sun-up,
and venturing forth miles into wild marshes; and much endurance of cold
and discomfort. To make a bag of any sort we were in the field before
the folk knew the night had passed. Upland shooting meant driving long
distances, and walking through the heavy hardwood swamps and slashes
from dusk to dusk. Therefore I had considered myself in great luck to
have blundered upon my ducks so casually; and, furthermore, from the
family's general air of leisure and unpreparedness, jumped to the
conclusion that no field sport was projected for that day.

Mrs. Kitty presided beside a copper coffee pot with a bell-shaped glass
top. As this was also an institution, it merits attention. A small
alcohol lamp beneath was lighted. For a long time nothing happened. Then
all at once the glass dome clouded, was filled with frantic brown and
racing bubbling. Thereupon the hostess turned over a sand glass. When
the last grains had run through, the alcohol lamp was turned off.
Immediately the glass dome was empty again. From a spigot one drew off
coffee.

But if perchance the Captain and I wished to get up before anybody else
could be hired to get up, the Dingbat could be so loaded as to give down
an automatic breakfast. The evening before the maid charged the affair
as usual, and at the last popped four eggs into the glass dome. After
the mysterious alchemical perturbations had ceased, we fished out those
eggs soft boiled to the second! One day the maid mistook the gasoline
bottle for the alcohol bottle. That is a sad tale having to do with
running flames, and burned table pieces, not to speak of a melted-down
connection or so on the Dingbat. We did not know what was the matter;
and our attitude was not so much that of alarm, as of grief and
indignation that our good old tried and trained Dingbat should in his
old age cut up any such didoes. Especially as there were new guests
present.

After breakfast we wandered out on the verandah. Nobody seemed to be in
any hurry to start anything. The hostess made remarks to
Pollymckittrick; the General read a newspaper; the Captain sauntered
about enjoying the sun. After fifteen minutes, as though the notion had
just occurred, somebody suggested that we go shooting.

"How about it?" the Captain asked me.

"Surely," I agreed, and added with some surprise out of my other
experience, "Isn't it a little late?"

But the Captain misunderstood me.

"I don't mean blind shooting," said he, "just ram around."

He seized a megaphone and bellowed through it at the stables.

"Better get on your war paint," he suggested to me.

I changed hastily into my shooting clothes, and returned to the
verandah. After some few moments the Captain joined me. After some few
moments more a tremendous rattling came from the stable. A fine bay team
swung into the driveway, rounded the circle, and halted. It drew the
source of the tremendous rattling.

Thus I became acquainted with the Liver Invigorator. The Invigorator was
a buckboard high, wide, and long. It had one wide seat. Aft of that seat
was a cage with bars, in which old Ben rode. Astern was a deep box
wherein one carried rubber boots, shells, decoys, lunch, game, and the
like. The Invigorator was very old, very noisy, and very able. With it
we drove cheerfully anywhere we pleased--over plowed land, irrigation
checks, through brush thick enough to lift our wheels right off the
ground, and down into and out of water ditches so steep that we
alternately stood the affair on its head and its tail, and so deep that
we had to hold all our belongings in our arms, while old Ben stuck his
nose out the top bars of his cage for a breath of air. It could not be
tipped over; at least we never upset it. To offset these virtues it
rattled like a runaway milk wagon; and it certainly hit the high spots
and hit them _hard_. Nevertheless, in a long and strenuous sporting
career the Invigorator became endeared through association to many
friends. When the Captain proposed a new vehicle with easier springs and
less noise, a wail of protest arose from many and distant places. The
Invigorator still fulfills its function.

Now there are three major topics on the Ranch: namely, ducks, quail, and
ponies. In addition to these are five of minor interest: the mail,
cattle, jackrabbits, coons, and wildcats.

I was already familiar with the valley quail, for I had hunted him since
I was a small boy with the first sixteen-gauge gun ever brought to the
coast. I knew him for a very speedy bird, much faster than our bob
white, dwelling in the rounded sagebrush hills, travelling in flocks of
from twenty to several thousand, exceedingly given to rapid leg work. We
had to climb hard after him, and shoot like lightning from insecure
footing. His idiosyncrasies were as strongly impressed on me as the fact
that human beings walk upright. Here, however, I had to revise my ideas.

We drove down the avenue of palms, pursued by four or five yapping
dachshunds, and so out into a long, narrow lane between pasture fences.
Herds of ponies, fuzzy in their long winter coats, came gently to look
at us. The sun was high now, so the fur of their backs lay flat. Later,
in the chill of evening, the hair would stand out like the nap of
velvet, thus providing for additional warmth by the extra air space
between the outside of the coat and the skin. It must be very handy to
carry this invisible overcoat, ready for the moment's need. Here, too,
were cattle standing about. On many of them I recognized the familiar
J-I brand of many of my Arizona experiences. Arizona bred and raised
them; California fattened them for market. We met a cowboy jingling by
at his fox trot; then came to the country road.

Along this we drove for some miles. The country was perfectly flat, but
variegated by patches of greasewood, of sagebrush, of Egyptian-corn
fields, and occasionally by a long, narrow fringe of trees. Here, too,
were many examples of that phenomenon so vigorously doubted by most
Easterners: the long rows of trees grown from original cotton wood or
poplar fence posts. In the distance always were the mountains. Overhead
the sky was very blue. A number of buzzards circled.

After a time we turned off the road and into a country covered over with
tumbleweed, a fine umber red growth six or eight inches high, and
scattered sagebrush. Inlets, bays, and estuaries of bare ground ran
everywhere. The Captain stood up to drive, watching for the game to
cross these bare places.

I stood up, too. It is no idle feat to ride the Invigorator thus over
hummocky ground. It lurched and bumped and dropped into and out of
trouble; and in correspondence I alternately rose up and sat down again,
hard. The Captain rode the storm without difficulty. He was accustomed
to the Invigorator; and, too, he had the reins to hang on by.

"There they go!" said he, suddenly, bringing the team to a halt.

I looked ahead. Across a ten-foot barren ran the quail, their crests
cocked forward, their trim figures held close as a sprinter goes, rank
after rank, their heads high in the alert manner of quail.

The Captain sat down, jerked off the brake, and spoke to his horses. I
sat down, too; mainly because I had to. The Invigorator leaped from hump
to hump. Before those quail knew it we were among them. Right, left, all
around us they roared into the air. Some doubled back; some buzzed low
to right or left; others rose straight ahead to fly a quarter mile, and
then, wings set, to sail another quarter until finally they pitched down
into some bit of inviting cover.

The Captain brought his horses to a stand with great satisfaction. We
congratulated each other gleefully; and even old Ben, somewhat shaken up
in his cage astern, wagged his tail in appreciation of the situation.

For, you see, we had scattered the covey, and now they would lie. If the
band had flushed, flown, and lighted as one body, immediately on hitting
the ground they would have put their exceedingly competent little legs
into action, and would have run so well and so far that, by the time we
had arrived on the spot, they would have been a good half mile away. But
now that the covey was broken, the individuals and small bands would
stay put. If they ran at all, it would be for but a short distance. On
this preliminary scattering depends the success of a chase after
California quail. I have seen six or eight men empty both barrels of
their guns at a range of more than a hundred yards. They were not insane
enough to think they would get anything. Merely they hoped that the
racket and the dropping of the spent shot would break the distant covey.

We hitched the horses to a tree, released old Ben, and started forth.

For a half hour we had the most glorious sport, beating back and forth
over the ground again and again. The birds lay well in the low cover,
and the shooting was clean and open. I soon found that the edges of the
bare ground were the most likely places. Apparently the birds worked
slowly through the cover ahead of us, but hesitated to cross the open
spots, and so bunched at the edge. By walking in a zigzag along some of
these borders, we gathered in many scattered birds and small bunches.
Why the zigzag? Naturally it covers a trifle more ground than a straight
course, but principally it seems to confuse the game. If you walk in a
straight line, so the quail can foretell your course, it is very apt
either to flush wild or to hide so close that you pass it by. The zigzag
fools it.

Thus, with varying luck, we made a slow circle back to the wagon. Here
we found Mrs. Kitty and Carrie and the lunch awaiting us with the
ponies.

These robust little animals were not miniature horses, but genuine
ponies, with all the deviltry, endurance, and speed of their kind. They
were jet-black, about waist high, and of great intelligence. They drew a
neat little rig, capable of accommodating two, at a persistent rapid
patter that somehow got over the road at a great gait. And they could
keep it up all day. Although perfectly gentle, they were as alert as
gamins for mischief, and delighted hugely in adding to the general row
and confusion if anything happened to go wrong. Mrs. Kitty drove them
everywhere. One day she attempted to cross an irrigation ditch that
proved to be deeper than she had thought it. The ponies disappeared
utterly, leaving Mrs. Kitty very much astonished. Horses would have
drowned in like circumstances, but the ponies, nothing daunted, dug in
their hoofs and scrambled out like a pair of dogs, incidentally dipping
their mistress on the way.

In the shade of a high greasewood we unpacked the pony carriage. This
was before the days of thermos bottles, so we had a most elaborate
wicker basket whose sides let down to form a wind shield protecting an
alcohol burner and a kettle. When the water boiled, we made hot tea, and
so came to lunch.

Strangely enough this was my first experience at having lunch brought
out to the field. Ordinarily we had been accustomed to carry a sandwich
or so in the side pockets of our shooting coats, which same we ate at
any odd moment that offered. Now was disclosed an astonishing variety.
There were sandwiches, of course, and a salad, and the tea, but
wonderful to contemplate was a deep dish of potted quail, row after row
of them, with delicious white sauce. In place of the frugal bite or so
that would have left us alert and fit for an afternoon's work, we ate
until nothing remained. Then we lit pipes and lay on our backs, and
contemplated a cloudless sky. It was the warm time of day. The horses
snoozed, a hind leg tucked up; old Ben lay outstretched in doggy
content; Mrs. Kitty knit or crocheted or something of that sort; and
Carrie and the Captain and I took cat naps. At length, the sun's rays no
longer striking warm from overhead, the Captain aroused us sternly.

"You're a nice, energetic, able lot of sportsmen!" he cried with
indignation. "Have I got to wait until sunset for you lazy chumps to get
a full night's rest?"

"Don't mind him," Mrs. Kitty told me, placidly; "he was sound asleep
himself; and the only reason he waked is because he snored and I
_punched_ him."

She folded up her fancy work, shook out her skirts, and turned to the
ponies.

It was now late in the afternoon. We had disgracefully wasted our time,
and enjoyed doing it. The Captain decided it to be too late to hunt up a
new covey, so we reversed to pick up some of those that had originally
doubled back. We flushed forty or fifty of them at the edge of the road.
They scattered ahead of us in a forty-acre plowed field.

Until twilight, then, we walked leisurely back and forth, which is the
only way to walk in a plowed field, after all. The birds had pitched
down into the old furrows, and whenever a tuft of grass, a piece of
tumbleweed, or a shallow grassy ditch offered a handful of cover, there
the game was to be found. Mrs. Kitty followed at the Captain's elbow,
and Carrie at mine. Carrie made a first-rate dog, marking down the birds
unerringly. The quail flew low and hard, offering in the gathering
twilight and against the neutral-coloured earth marks worthy of good
shooting. At last we turned back to our waiting team. The dusk was
coming over the land, and the "shadow of the earth" was marking its
strange blue arc in the east. As usual the covey was now securely
scattered. Of a thousand or so birds we had bagged forty-odd; and yet of
the remainder we would have had difficulty in flushing another dozen. It
is the mystery of the quail, and one that the sportsman can never
completely comprehend. As we clambered into the Invigorator we could
hear from all directions the birds signalling each other. Near, far, to
right, to left, the call sounded, repeating over and over again a
parting, defiant denial that the victory was ours.

"You _can't_ shoot! You _can't_ shoot! You _can't_ shoot!"

And nearer at hand the contented chirping twitter as the covey found
itself.

CHAPTER VI

PONIES

Next morning the Captain decided that he had various affairs to attend
to, so we put on our riding clothes and went down to the stables.

The Captain had always forty or fifty polo ponies in the course of
education, and he was delighted to have them ridden, once he was
convinced of your seat and hands. They were beautiful ponies, generally
iron gray in colour, very friendly, very eager, and very lively. Riding
them was like flying through the air, for they sailed over rough ground,
irrigation checks, and the like without a break in their stride, and
without a jar. By the same token it was necessary to ride them. At odd
moments they were quite likely to give a wide sidewise bound or a
stiff-legged buck from sheer joy of life. One got genuine "horse
exercise" out of them.

The Captain, as perhaps I have said, invented these ponies himself. From
Chihuahua he brought in some of the best mustang mares he could find;
and, in case you have Frederick Remington's pictures of starved
winter-range animals in mind, let me tell you a good mustang is a very
handsome animal indeed. These he bred to a thoroughbred. The resulting
half-breeds grew to the proper age. Then he started to have them broken
to the saddle. A start was as far as he ever got, for nobody could ride
them. They combined the intelligence and vice of the mustang with the
endurance and nervous instability of the thoroughbred. The Captain tried
all sorts of men, even sending at last to Arizona for a good bronco
buster on the J-I. Only one or two of the many could back the animals at
all, though many aspirants made a try at it. After a long series of
experiments, the Captain came to the reluctant conclusion that the cross
was no good. It seemed a pity, for they were beautiful animals, up to
full polo size, deep chested, strong shouldered, close coupled, and
speedy.

Then, by way of idleness, he bred some of the half-bred mares. The
three-quarter cross proved to be ideal. They were gentle, easily broken,
and to the eye differed in no particular from their pure-blooded
brothers. So, ever since, the Captain has been raising these most
excellent polo ponies to his great honour and profit and the incidental
pleasure of his friends who like riding.

One of these ponies was known as the Merry Jest. He had a terrifying but
harmless trick. The moment the saddle was cinched, down went his head
and he began to buck in the most vicious style. This he would keep up
until further orders. In order to put an end to the performance all one
had to do was to haul in on the rope, thrust one's foot in the stirrup,
and clamber aboard. For, mark you this, Merry Jest in the course of a
long and useful life never failed to buck under the empty saddle--and
_never_ bucked under a rider!

This, of course, constituted the Merry Jest. Its beauty was that it was
so safe.

"Want to ride?" asked the Captain.

"Surely," replied the unsuspecting stranger.

The Merry Jest was saddled, brought forth, and exhibited in action.

"There's your horse," remarked the Captain in a matter-of-course tone.

We rode out the corral gate and directly into the open country. The
animals chafed to be away; and when we loosened the reins, leaped
forward in long bounds. Over the rough country they skimmed like
swallows, their hoofs hardly seeming to touch the ground, the powerful
muscles playing smoothly beneath us like engines. After a mile of this
we pulled up, and set about the serious business of the day.

One after another we oversaw all the major activities of such a ranch;
outside, I mean, of the ranch enclosure proper where were the fowls, the
vegetable gardens, and the like. Here an immense hay rick was being
driven slowly along while two men pitched off the hay to right and left.
After it followed a long line of cattle. This manner of feeding obviated
the crowding that would have taken place had the hay not been thus
scattered. The more aggressive followed close after the rick, snatching
mouthfuls of the hay as it fell. The more peaceful, or subdued, or
philosophical strung out in a long, thin line, eating steadily at one
spot. They got more hay with less trouble, but the other fellows had to
maintain reputations for letting nobody get ahead of _them_!

At another point an exceedingly rackety engine ran a hay press, where
the constituents of one of the enormous house-like haystacks were fed
into a hopper and came out neatly baled. A dozen or so men oversaw the
activities of this noisy and dusty machine.

Down by the northerly cottonwoods two miles away we found other men with
scrapers throwing up the irrigation checks along the predetermined
contour lines. By means of these irregular meandering earthworks the
water, admitted from the ditch to the upper end of the field, would work
its way slowly from level to level instead of running off or making
channels for itself. This job, too, was a dusty one. We could see the
smoke of it rising from a long distance; and the horses and men were
brown with it.

And again we rode softly for miles over greensward through the cattle,
at a gentle fox trot, so as not to disturb them. At several points stood
great blue herons, like sentinels, decorative as a Japanese screen,
absolutely motionless. The Captain explained that they were "fishing"
for gophers; and blessed them deeply. Sometimes our mounts splashed for
a long distance through water five or six inches shallow. Underneath the
surface we could see the short green grass of the turf that thus
received its refreshment. Then somewhere near, silhouetted against the
sky or distant mountains, on the slight elevation of the irrigation
ditch bank, we were sure to see some of the irrigation Chinamen. They
were strange, exotic figures, their skins sunburned and dark, their
queues wound around their heads; wearing always the same uniform of blue
jeans cut China-fashion, rubber boots, and the wide, inverted bowl
Chinese sun hat of straw. By means of shovels wherewith to dig, and iron
bars wherewith to raise and lower flood gates, they controlled the
artificial rainfall of the region. So accustomed did the ducks become
to these amphibious people that they hardly troubled themselves to get
out of the way, and were utterly careless of how near they flew. Uncle
Jim once disguised himself as an irrigation Chinaman and got all kinds
of shooting--until the ducks found him out. Now they seem able to
distinguish accurately between a Chinaman with a long shovel and a white
man with a shotgun, no matter how the latter is dressed. Ducks, tame and
wild, have a lot of sense. It must bore the former to be forced to
associate with chickens.

Over in the orchard, of a thousand acres or so, were many more
Orientals, and hundreds of wild doves. These Chinese were all of the
lower coolie orders, and primitive, not to say drastic in their medical
ideas. One evening the Captain heard a fine caterwauling and drum
beating over in the quarters, and sallied forth to investigate. In one
of the huts he found four men sitting on the outspread legs and arms of
a fifth. The latter had been stripped stark naked. A sixth was engaged
in placing live coals on the patient's belly, while assorted assistants
furnished appropriate music and lamentation. The Captain put a stop to
the proceedings and bundled the victim to a hospital where he promptly
died. It was considered among Chinese circles that the Captain had
killed him by ill-timed interference!

Everywhere we went, and wherever a small clump of trees or even large
brush offered space, hung the carcasses of coyotes, wildcats, and lynx.
Some were quite new, while others had completely mummified in the dry
air of these interior plains. These were the trophies of the
professional "varmint killer," a man hired by the month. Of course it
would be only too easy for such an official to loaf on his job, so this
one had adopted the unique method of proving his activity. Everywhere
the Captain rode he could see that his man had been busy.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20