Ananias Green (1910)by B.M. Bower
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PINK, because he knew well the country and because Irish, who also knew it well, refused point-blank to go into it again, rode alone except for his horses down into the range of the Rocking R. General roundup was about to start, and there was stock bought by the Flying U which ranged north of the Bear Paws. The owner of the Rocking R was entertaining a party of friends at the ranch; friends quite new to the West and its ways, and they were intensely interested in all pertaining thereto. Pink gathered that much from the crew. Sherwood Branciforte was down in the blacksmith shop at the Rocking R, watching Andy Green hammer a spur-shank straight. Andy was a tamer of wild ones, and he was hard upon his riding gear. Sherwood bad that morning watched with much admiration the bending of that same spurshank, and his respect for Andy was beautiful to behold. "Lord, but this is a big, wild country," he was saying enthusiastically. "Wild," said Andy. "Yes, you've got us sized up correct." He went on hammering, and humming under his breath. "Oh, but I didn't mean that," the young man protested. "What I meant was breezy and picturesque. Life and men don't run in grooves." "No, nor horses," assented Andy. He was remembering how that spurshank had become bent. "You did some magnificent riding this morning, by Jove! Strange that one can come out here into a part of the country absolutely new and raw——" "Oh, it ain't so raw as you might think," Andy defended jealously, "nor yet new." "Of course it is new! You can't," he said, "point to anything man-made that existed a hundred years ago; scarcely fifty, either. Your civilization is yet in the cradle — a lusty infant." Sherwood Branciforte had given lectures before the YMCA of his home town, and young ladies had spoken of him as "gifted." Andy Green squinted at the shank before he made reply. Andy, also, was "gifted," in his modest Western way. "A country that can now and then show the papers for a civilization old as the Phoenixes of Egypt," he said, in a drawling tone that was absolutely convincing, "ain't what I'd call raw." Andy decided that a little more hammering right next the rowel was necessary, and bent over the anvil solicitously. Even the self-complacency of Sherwood Branciforte could not fail to note his utter indifference. Branciforte was not accustomed to indifference. He blinked. "My dear fellow, do you realize what that statement might seem to imply?" he said. Andy, being a cowpuncher of the brand known
as a "real," objected strongly both to the term
and the tone. He stood up and stared down at the other
disapprovingly. "I don't as a general thing find myself
guilty of talking in my sleep. We ain't no
infant-in- "Indeed!" sneered Sherwood
Branciforte.
Andy clicked his teeth together, which was a
symptom it were well for the other to recognize but did not.
Then Andy smiled, which was another symptom. He fingered the
spur absently, laid it down and reached for his papers and
tobacco sack.
"Of course, you mean all right, and you
ain't none to blame for what you don't know, but you're
talking wild. When you tell me I can't point to nothing
man-made that's fifty years old, you make me feel sorry for
yuh. I can take you to something that's older than swearing;
and I reckon that art goes back a long ways."
"Are you crazy, man?" Sherwood
Branciforte exclaimed incredulously.
"Not what you can notice. You wait while
I explain. Once last fall I was riding by my high lonesome
away down next the river, when my horse went lame on me from
slipping on a shale bank, and I was set afoot. Uh course,
you being plumb ignorant of our picturesque life, you don't
half know all that might signify to imply." This last
in open imitation of Branciforte. "It implies that I
was in one hell of a fix, to put it elegant. I was sixty
miles from anywhere, and them sixty half the time standing
one end and lapping over on themselves.
"So there I was, and I wasn't in no mood
to view the beauties uh nature. I was high and dry and the
walking was about as poor as I ever seen; and my boots was
highheel and rubbed blisters before I'd covered a mile of
that territory. I wanted water, and I wanted it bad. Before
I got it I wanted it a heap worse." He stopped, cupped
his slim fingers around a match blaze.
Branciforte sat closer. He almost forgot the
point at issue in the adventure.
"Along about dark, I camped for the
night under a big, bare-faced cliff, made a bluff at
sleeping and cussed my bum luck. At sunup I rose and
wandered around like a dogy when it's first turned loose on
the range. All that day I perambulated over them hills, and
I will say I wasn't enjoying the stroll none. You're right
when you say things can happen, out here. Getting lost and
afoot in the Badlands is one.
"That afternoon I dragged myself up to
the edge of a deep coulee and looked over to see if there
was any way of getting down. There was a bright green streak
down there that couldn't mean nothing but water. And over
beyond, I could see the river that I'd went and lost. I
looked and looked, but the walls looked straight as a
Boston's man's pedigree. And then the sun come out from
behind a cloud and lit up a spot that made me forget for a
minute that I was thirsty as a dog and near starved besides.
"I was looking down on the ruins — and
yet it was near perfect-of an old castle. Every stone stood
out that clear and distinct I could have counted 'em. There
was a tower at one end, partly fell to pieces but yet enough
left to easy tell what it was. I could see it bad kind of
loopholes in it. There was an open place where I took it the
main entrance bad used to be; what I'd call the official
entrance. But there was other entrances besides, and some of
'em was made by time and hard weather. There was what looked
like a ditch running around my side of it, and a bridge. Uh
course, it was all needing repairs bad.
"I laid there for quite a spell looking
it over. It didn't look to me like it ought to be there at
all, but in a school geography or a history."
"The deuce! A castle in the
Badlands!" said Branciforte.
"That's what it was, all right. I found
a trail it would make a mountain sheep seasick to follow,
and I got down into the coulee. It was lonesome as sin, and
spooky; but there was a good spring close by, and a creek
running from it, and you can gamble I filled up on it
a-plenty. Then I shot a rabbit or two that was banging out
around the ruins, and camped there till next day, when I
found a pass out, and got my bearings by the river and come
on into camp. So when you throw slurs on our plumb newness,
I've got the cards to call yuh. That castle wasn't built
last summer, Mister. And whoever did build it was some
civilized. So there yuh are."
Andy took a last, lingering pull at the
cigarette stub, flung it into the blackened forge, and
picked up the spur. He settled his bat on his head, and
started for the door and the sunlight.
"Oh, but say! Didn't you find out
anything about it afterwards? There must have been
something——"
"If it's relics uh the dim and musty
past yuh mean, there was; relics to burn. I kicked up
specimens of ancient dishes, and truck like that, while I
was prowling around for firewood. And inside the castle, in
what I reckon was used for the main hall, I run acrost a
skeleton. That is, part of one."
"But, man alive, why haven't you made
use of a discovery like that?" Branciforte followed him
out, lighting his pipe with fingers that trembled.
"Don't you realize what a thing like that means?"
Andy turned and smiled lazily down at him.
"At the time I was there, I was all took up with the
idea uh getting home. I couldn't eat skeletons, Mister, nor
yet the remains uh prehistoric dishes. A man could starve to
death while he examined it thorough. And so far as I know
there ain't any record of it. I never heard no one mention
building it, anyhow."
Andy stooped and adjusted the spur to his
heel to see if it were quite right, and went off to the
stable bumming under his breath.
Branciforte stood at the door of the
blacksmith shop and gazed after him, puffing meditatively at
his pipe. "Lord! the ignorance of these Western folk!
To run upon a find like that, and to think it less important
than getting home in time for supper. To let a discovery
like that lie forgotten, a mere incident in a day's travel!
That fellow thinks more, right now, about his horse going
lame and himself raising blisters on his heels, than of —
Jove, what ignorance!"
Branciforte knocked his pipe gently against
the doorcasing, put it into his coat pocket and hurried into
the house.
That night the roundup pulled in to the home
ranch.
The visitors, headed by their host, swooped
down upon the roundup wagons just when the boys were
gathered together for a cigarette or two apiece and a little
talk before rolling in. There was no night guarding to do.
Sherwood Branciforte hunted out Andy Green where he lay at
ease with head and shoulders propped against a wheel of the
bedwagon and gossipped with Pink and a few others.
"Look here, Green," he said in a
voice to arrest the attention of the whole camp, "I
wish you'd tell the others that tale you told me this
afternoon-about that ruined castle down in the hills. Mason,
here, is a newspaper man; he scents a story for his paper.
And the rest refuse to believe a word I say."
"I'd hate to have a rep like that, Mr.
Branciforte," Andy said, and turned his big, honest
gray eyes to where stood the women-two breezy young persons
with sleeves rolled to tanned elbows and cowboy hats of the
musical comedy brand. Also they had gay silk handkerchiefs
knotted picturesquely around their throats. There was
another, a giggly, gurgly lady with gray hair fluffed up.
"Do tell us, Mr. Green," this
young-old lady urged. "It sounds so romantic."
"It's funny you never mentioned it to
any of us," put in the "Old Man"
suspiciously.
Andy pulled himself up into a more decorous
position, and turned his eyes towards his boss. "I
never knew yuh took any interest in relic hunting," he
explained mildly.
"Sherwood says you found a
skeleton!" said the young-old lady, shuddering
pleasurably.
"Yes, I did find one — or part of
one," Andy admitted reluctantly.
"What were the relies of pottery
like?" demanded one of the cowboy-hatted girls, as if
she meant to test him. "I do some collecting of that
sort of thing."
Andy threw away his cigarette, and with it
all compunction. "Well, I wasn't so much interested in
the dishes as in getting something to eat," he said.
"I saw several different kinds. One was a big, awkward
looking thing and was pretty heavy, and had straight sides.
Then I come across one or two more that was ornamented some.
One had what looked like a fish on it, and the other I
couldn't make out very well. They didn't look to be worth
much, none of 'em."
"Green," said his employer
steadily, "was there such a place?"
Andy returned his look honestly. "There
was, and there is yet, I guess," he said. "I'll
tell you how you can find it and what it's like-if yuh doubt
my word."
Andy glanced around and found every man,
including the cook, listening intently. He picked a blade of
new grass and began splitting it into tiny threads. The host
found boxes for the women to sit upon, and the men sat down
upon the grass.
"Before I come here to work, I was
riding for the Circle C. One day I was riding away down in
the Badlands alone and my horse slipped in some shale rock
and went lame; strained his shoulder so I couldn't ride him.
That put me afoot, and climbing up and down them bills I
lost my bearings and didn't know where I was at for a day or
two. I wandered around aimless, and got into a strip A
country that was new to me and plumb lonesome and wild.
"That second day is when I happened
across this ruin. I was looking down into a deep, shut-in
coulee, hunting water, when the sun come out and shone
straight on to this place. It was right down under me; a
stone ruin, with a tower on one end and kinda tumbled down
so it wasn't so awful high — the tower wasn't. There was
a — a——"
"Moat," Branciforte suggested.
"That's the word — a moat around it, and
a bridge that was just about gone to pieces. It had
loopholes, like the pictures of castles, and a——"
"Battlement?" ventured one of the
musical-comedy cowgirls.
Andy had not meant to say battlement; of a
truth, his conception of battlements was extremely hazy, but
be caught up the word and warmed to the subject.
"Battlement? Well I should guess yes! There was about
as elegant a battlement as I'd want to see anywhere. It was
sure a peach. It was——" he hesitated for a fraction
of a second. "It was high as the tower, and it had
figures carved all over it; them kind that looks like kid
drawing in school, with bows and arrows stuck out in front
of 'em, threatening——"
"Not the old Greek!" exclaimed one
of the girls.
"I couldn't say as to that," Andy
made guarded reply, "I never made no special study of
them things. But they was sure old."
"About how large was the castle?"
put in the man who wrote things. "How many rooms,
say?"
"I'd hate to give a guess at the size. I
didn't step it off, and I'm a poor guesser. The rooms I
didn't count. I only explored around in the main hall, like,
a little. But it got dark early, down in there, and I didn't
have no matches to waste. And next morning I started right
out at sunup to find the way home. No, I never counted the
rooms. I don't reckon, though, that there was so awful many.
Anyway, not more than fifteen or twenty. Ruins don't
interest me much, though I was kinda surprised to run acrost
that one, all right, and I'm willing to gamble there was
warm and exciting times down there when the place was in
running order."
"A castle away out here! Just think,
good people, what that means! Romance, adventure and
scientific discoveries! We must go and explore the place.
Why can't we start at once — in the morning? This gentleman
can guide us there."
"It ain't easy going," Andy
remarked, conscientiously. "It's pretty rough; some
place, you'd have to walk and lead your horses."
They swept aside the discouragement.
"We'd need pick and shovels, and men to
dig," cried one enthusiast. "Uncle Peter can lend
us some of his men. There may be treasure to unearth. There
may be anything that is wonderful and mysterious.
Uncle Peter, get your outfit together; you've boasted that a
roundup can beat the army in getting under way quickly. Now
let us have a practical demonstration. We want to start by
six o'clock — all of us, with a cook and four or five men to
do the excavating." It was the voice of the girl whom
her friends spoke of as "the life of the
party" — the voice of the-girl-who- "It's sixty-five miles from here, good
and strong — and mostly up and down," put in Andy.
"'Quoth the raven!'" mocked
the-girl-who-does-tbings. "We are prepared to face the
ups and downs. Do we start at six, Uncle Peter?"
Uncle Peter glanced sideways at the roundup
boss. To bring it to pass, he would be obliged to impress
the roundup cook and part of the crew. It was breaking an
unwritten law of the rangeland, and worse, it was doing
something unbusinesslike and foolish. But not even the owner
of the Rocking R may withstand the pleading of a pretty
woman. Uncle Peter squirmed, but he promised.
"We start at six; earlier if you say
so."
The roundup boss gave his employer a look of
disgust and walked away. The crew took it that he went off
to some secluded place to swear.
Thereafter there was much discussion of ways
and means, and much enthusiasm among the visitors from the
East, equalled by the depression of the crew, for cowboys do
not, as a rule, take kindly to pick and shovel, and the
excavators had not yet been chosen from among them. They
were uneasy, and they stole frequent, betraying glances at
one another.
All of which amused Pink much. Pink would
like to have gone along, and would certainly have offered
his services, but for the fact that his work there was done
and he would have to start back to the Flying U just as soon
as one of his best saddlehorses, which had cut its foot, was
able to travel. That would be in a few days, probably. So
Pink sighed and watched the preparations enviously.
Since he was fairly committed into breaking
all precedents, Uncle Peter plunged recklessly. He ordered
the messwagon to be restocked and prepared for the trip, and
be took the bed-tent and half the crew. The foreman he
wisely left behind with the remnant of his outfit. They were
all to eat at the house while the messwagon was away, and
they were to spread their soogans — which is to say
beds — where they might, if the bunkhouses proved too small
or too hot.
The foreman, outraged beyond words, saddled
at daybreak and rode to the nearest town, and the unchosen
half turned out in a body to watch the departure of the
explorers, which speaks eloquently of their interest; for
off duty cowboys are prone to sleep long.
Andy Green, as guide, bolted ahead of the
party that he might open the gate. Bolted is a good word,
for his horse swerved and kept on running, swerved again,
and came down in a heap. Andy did not get up, and the women
screamed. Then Pink and some others hurried out and bore
Andy, groaning, to the bunkhouse.
The visitors from the East gathered,
perturbed, around the door, sympathetic and dismayed. It
looked very much as if their exploration must end where it
began, and the-girl-who- "He says you needn't give up the trip on
his account," Pink announced musically from the
doorway. "He's drawing a map and marking the coulee
where the ruin is. He says most any of the boys that know
the country at all can find the place for yuh. And he isn't
hurt permanent; he strained his back so he can't ride, is
all." Pink dimpled at the young-old lady who was
admiring him frankly, and withdrew.
Inside, Andy Green was making pencil marks
and giving the chosen half-explicit directions. At last be
folded the paper and handed it to one called Sandy.
"That's the best I can do for yuh,"
Andy finished. "I don't see how yuh can miss it if yuh
follow that map close. And if them gay females make any kick
on the trail, you just remind 'em that I said all along it
was rough going. So long, and good luck."
So with high-keyed, feminine laughter and
much dust, passed the exploring party from the Rocking R.
"Say," Pink began two days later to
Andy, who was sitting on the shady side of the bunkhouse
staring absently at the skyline. "There's a word uh
praise I've been aiming to give yuh. I've seen riding, and
I've done a trifle in that line myself and learned some uh
the tricks. But I want to say I never did see a man flop his
horse any neater than you done that morning. I'll bet there
ain't another man in the outfit got next your play. I
couldn't uh done it better myself. Where did you learn that?
Ever ride in Wyoming?"
Andy turned his eyes, but not his head — which
was a way he had — and regarded Pink slantwise for at least
ten seconds.
"Yes, I've rode in Wyoming," he
answered quietly. "What's the chance for a job, up your
way? Is the Flying U open for good men and true?"
"It won't cost yuh a cent to try,"
Pink told him. "How's your back? Think you'll be able
to ride by the time Skeeter is able to travel?"
Andy grinned. "Say," be confided
suddenly, "if that hoss don't improve plumb speedy,
I'll be riding on ahead. I reckon I'll be able to travel
before them explorers get back, my friend."
"Why?" Pink asked boldly.
"Why? Well, the going is some rough,
down that way. If they get them wagons half way to the
coulee marked with a cross, they'll sure have to attach
wings onto 'em. I've been kind of worried about that. I
don't much believe Uncle Peter is going to enjoy that trip
and be sure does get irritable by spells. I've got a notion
to ride for some other outfit, this summer."
"Was that the reason you throwed your
horse down and got hurt?" asked Pink, and Andy grinned
again by way of reply. "They'll be gone a week, best
they can do," he estimated aloud. "We ought to be
able to make our getaway by then, easy."
Pink assured him that a week would see them
beaded for the Flying U.
It was the evening of the sixth day, and the
two were packed and ready to leave in the morning, when Andy
broke off humming and gave a snort of dismay.
"By gracious, there they come. My mother
lives in Buffalo, Pink, in a little drab house with white
trimmings. Write and tell her how her son — Oh, beloved! But
they're hitting her up lively. If they made the whole trip
in that there frame uh mind, they could uh gone clean to
Miles City and back. How pretty the birds sing! Pink, you'll
hear words, directly."
Directly Pink did.
"You're the biggest liar on earth,"
Sherwood Branciforte contributed to the recriminating wave
that near engulfed Andy Green. "You sent us down there
on a wild-goose chase, you fool."
"I never sent nobody," Andy
defended. "You was all crazy to go."
"And nothing but an old stone hut some
trapper had built!" came an indignant, female tone.
"There never was any castle, nor——"
"A man's home is his castle,"
argued Andy, standing unabashed before them. "Putting
it that way, it was a castle, all right."
There was babel, out of which —
"And the skeleton! Oh, you — it was a
dead cow!" This from the young-old lady, who was
looking very draggled and not at all young.
"I don't call to mind ever saying it was
human," put in Andy, looking at her with surprised,
gray eyes.
"And the battlements!" groaned
the-girl-who- "You wanted battlements," Andy
flung mildly into the uproar. "I always aim to
please." With that he edged away from them and made his
escape to where the cook was profanely mixing biscuits for
supper. All-day moves had put an edge to his temper. The
cook growled an epithet, and Andy passed on. Down near the
stable he met one of the chosen half, and the fellow greeted
him with a grin. Andy stopped abruptly.
"Say, they don't seem none too
agreeable," he said, jerking his thumb toward the
buzzing group. "How about it, Sandy? Was they that
petulant all the way?"
Sandy, the mapbearer, chuckled. "It's
lucky you got hurt at the last minute! And yet it was worth
the trip. Uh course we got stalled with the wagons the
second day out, but them women was sure ambitious and made
us go on with a packadero layout. I will say that, going
down, they stood the hardships remarkable. It was coming
back that frazzled the party.
"And when we found the place — say, but
it was lucky you wasn't along! They sure went hogwild when
they seen the ruins. The old party who acts young displayed
temper and shed tears uh rage. When she looked into the
cabin and seen the remains uh that cowcritter, there was
language it wasn't polite to overhear. She said a lot uh
things about you, Andy. One thing they couldn't seem to get
over, and that was the smallness uh the blamed shack. Them
fourteen or fifteen rooms laid heavy on their minds."
"I didn't say there was fourteen or
fifteen rooms. I said I didn't count the rooms; I didn't
either. I never heard of anybody counting one room. Did you,
Pink?"
"No," Pink agreed, "I never
did!"
Sandy became suddenly convulsed. "Oh,
but the funniest thing was the ancient pottery," he
gasped, the tears standing in his eyes. "That old dutch
oven was bad enough; but when one uh the girls — that one who
collects old dishes — happened across an old mackerel can and
picked it up and saw the fish on the label, she was the
maddest female person I ever saw in my life, bar none. If
you'd been in reach about that time, she'd just about clawed
your eyes out, Andy Green. Oh me, oh my!" Sandy slapped
his thigh and had another spasm.
Sounds indicated that the wave of
recrimination was rolling nearer. Andy turned to find
himself within arm's length of Uncle Peter.
"Maybe this is your idea of a practical
joke, Green," he said to Andy. "But anyway, it
will cost you your job. I ought to charge you up with the
time my outfit has spent gallivanting around the country on
the strength of your wild yarn. The quicker you hit the
trail, the better it will suit me. By the way, what's your
first name?" he asked, pulling out a checkbook.
"Andy," answered the unrepentant
one.
"Andy." Uncle Peter paused with a
fountain pen between his fingers. He looked Andy up and
down, and the frown left his face. He proceeded to write out
the check, and when it was done he handed it over with a
pleased smile. "What did you do it for, Green?" he
asked in a friendlier tone.
"Self-defense," Andy told him
laconically, and turned away.
Half an hour later, Andy and Pink trailed out
of the coulee that sheltered the Rocking R. When they were
out and away from the fence, and Pink's horses, knowing
instinctively that they were homeward bound, were jogging
straight west without need of guidance. Andy felt in his
pocket for cigarette material. His fingers came in contact
with the check Uncle Peter had given him, and he drew it
forth and looked it over again.
"Well, by gracious!" be said.
"Uncle Peter thinks we're even, I guess."
He handed the check to Pink, and rolled his
cigarette; and Pink after one comprehending look at the slip
of paper, doubled up over his saddlehorse and shouted with
glee — for the check was written: "Pay to the order of
Ananias Green."
"And I've got to sign myself a liar, or
I don't collect no money," sighed Andy. "That's
what I call tough luck, by gracious!"
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(End.)