On the other side of the river the road whiplashed in long curves up the canon’s wall to reach the level of Callas prairie; I should say it was all of a thousand feet above the stream.
I offered to the driver comments on the weather, on the road: I offered him a cigar. I had stocked up with smokes with which to curry favor. The driver paid no attention to the comments and snarled his refusal of the cigar. Even with six horses leaping to their work under the lash, our crawl up the muddy slope was snail-like. The wheelers and swing team got the whip, and the driver heaved curses and little rocks at the leaders. He had nearly a peck of pebbles in a canvas bag at his side. When we were over the rim-rock at last and upon the prairie, I looked for more speed. But no such luck! The straining horses, half-way to their knees in the black mud, could barely move the heavy coach.
After a time the driver left what some flatterers might call a road and took to the open prairie, zigzagging here and there to find solid ground. Then intersecting gullies drove him back into the rutted road again. It was adobe mud—black as zip and as sticky as cold molasses. Every little while the driver was obliged to jump down from his seat and poke the clotted mud out between the spokes of the wheels. Otherwise the coach would have been anchored in spite of the best tussles of the horses.
“I should think they’d have to give up trying to run a stage across this prairie in mud-time,” I ventured to suggest to the driver when he came climbing back to his seat after a long assault on the mud-clogged wheels with his piece of joist.
“The mails have to go, but the damn fools that I haul don’t have to,” he retorted, sorting his reins between his muddy fingers. “If you ain’t satisfied with the way I’m running this thing, mister, you can tuck yourself into that plug-hat of yours and roll across to Breed City. E-e-oyah! Go ‘long, you wall-eyed, splint-legged goats of the Bitter Root, you!”
However, I was thankful I was on the outside; the sun warmed me and the warmth was grateful, for the breeze was chilly on that upland. I could see snow on the far-distant peaks to the south. The passengers inside the coach were plainly far from feeling any thankfulness whatsoever. They groaned and growled and complained. I glanced down over the side dining one stop for wheel-clearing, and found myself looking into the face of Judge Kingsley, who had stuck his head out of the window. His false mustache gave him the appearance of an angry cat.
“How much more of this devilishness have we got to endure?” he demanded.
“That’s easy figuring, sir! Sixteen miles, sixteen hours! It must be the regular running time on this road.”
“I don’t want no sarcasm from no one,” yelped the driver, straightening up and shaking his joist. “And if any gent reckons he can keep passing out his cheap slurs on this trip he’d better come down here now and get his card entitling him to.”
I kept my gaze on the distant mountains, but when the driver climbed back to his seat and kept on cussing me out, I reckoned we’d better have a little understanding for the rest of the trip. I closed my fingers around his arm. It was only a pipe-stem arm—and his eyes were of the sad, pale-blue kind. I said very near to his ear: “Your breakfast seems to be hurting you, son! The stage company pays you to drive and to be respectful to passengers. Mind your tongue after this.”