“Hello!” he called. “How’s things down your way––water holdin’ out? Well, you’re in luck, then; I’ve had to dig the spring out twice, and you can see 395 how many cows I’m feedin’. But say,” he continued, “d’ye think it’s as hot as this down in hell? Well, if I thought for a minute it’d be as dry I’d take a big drink and join the church, you can bet money on that. What’s the matter––have you got enough?”
“I’ve got enough of cutting palo verdes,” replied Hardy, “but you just lend me that axe for a minute and I’ll show you something.” He stepped to the nearest sahuaro and with a few strokes felled it down the hill, and when Creede saw how the cattle crowded around the broken trunk he threw down his hat and swore.
“Well––damn––me,” he said, “for a pin-head! Here I’ve been cuttin’ these ornery palo verdes until my hands are like a Gila monster’s back, and now look at them cows eat giant cactus! There’s no use talkin’, Rufe, the feller that wears the number five hat and the number forty jumper ain’t worth hell-room when you’re around––here, gimme that axe!” He seized it in his thorn-scarred hands and whirled into the surrounding giants like a fury; then when he had a dozen fat sahuaros laid open among the rocks he came back and sat down panting in the scanty shade of an ironwood.
“I’m sore on myself,” he said. “But that’s the way it is! If I’d had the brains of a rabbit I’d’ve stopped Jasp Swope last Spring––then I wouldn’t 396 need to be cuttin’ brush here all Summer like a Mexican wood-chopper. That’s where we fell down––lettin’ them sheep in––and now we’ve got to sweat for it. But lemme tell you, boy,” he cried, raising a mighty fist, “if I can keep jest one cow alive until Fall I’m goin’ to meet Mr. Swope on the edge of my range and shoot ’im full of holes! Nothin’ else will do, somebody has got to be killed before this monkey business will stop! I’ve been makin’ faces and skinnin’ my teeth at that dastard long enough now, and I’m goin’ to make him fight if I have to put high-life on ’im!”
He stopped and looked out over the hillside where the heat quivered in rainbows from the rocks, and the naked palo verdes, stripped of their bark, bleached like skeletons beside their jagged stumps.
“Say, Rufe,” he began, abruptly, “I’m goin’ crazy.”
He shook his head slowly and sighed. “I always thought I was,” he continued, “but old Bill Johnson blew in on me the other day––he’s crazy, you know––and when I see him I knowed it! W’y, pardner, Bill is the most reas-on-able son-of-a-gun you can imagine. You can talk to him by the hour, and outside of bein’ a little techy he’s all right; but the minute you mention sheep to him his eye turns glassy and he’s off. Well, that’s me, too, and has been for 397 years, only not quite so bad; but then, Bill is plumb sheeped out and I ain’t––quite!”
He laughed mirthlessly and filled a cigarette.
“You know,” he said, squinting his eyes down shrewdly, “that old feller ain’t so durned crazy yet. He wanted some ammunition to shoot up sheep-camps with, but bein’ a little touched, as you might say, he thought I might hold out on ’im, so he goes at me like this: ‘Jeff,’ he says, ‘I’ve took to huntin’ lions for the bounty now––me and the hounds––and I want to git some thirty-thirtys.’ But after I’d give him all I could spare he goes on to explain how the sheep, not satisfied with eatin’ ’im out of house and home, had gone and tolled all the lions away after ’em––so, of course, he’ll have to foller along, too. You catch that, I reckon.”
Creede drooped his eyes significantly and smoked.