Cactus and pine: Songs of the Southwest

by Sharlot Mabridth Hall

WATCH

The Old Prospector’s Dog

What’s that ye say? That yaller dog
Ain’t killed with handsomeness, ye low?
Well, he ain’t travellin’ on his shape,
I tell ye that right here an’ now.
Ye wouldn’t have him follerin’ you,
Ner be ketched dead with him beside?
Well, I don’t want no better pard
When I tramp up the Great Divide.
The beauty club shied off I guess
An’ hit him pretty middlin’ light;
But looks don’t fill no empty tanks—
An’ plain old stay’s what wins a fight.
An’ that dog’s got the stayin’ powers
A long sight more’n the most o’ men;
He’s just clean grit an’ “stay there” mixed,
An’ don’t ask no odds how an’ when.
’Twas crossin’ of the Plomas Range;
I’d made a right big strike, ye see,
An’ ever’ loafer in the camp
Was hangin’ round an’ watchin’ me.
So thinks I: “You’d better pull your freight
Between two suns an’ cache that dust,
Unless ye want some knife to let
Th’ daylight in through your ol’ crust.”
Well, me an’ Watch an’ my ol’ mule
Jest humped ourselves fer three hull days,
An’ then, sez I: “We’ll rest, ol’ pard;
Nobody’s follered us this ways.”
So I just cooks a bit o’ grub
An’ lays right down an’ goes to snorin’,
An’ never knows another thing
Untell I hear ol’ Watch a-roarin’.
I jumped right up an’ into Hell—
A pair o’ Greasers chokin’ me,
An’ punchin’ of me with a knife—
Another’n fightin’ Watch—an he
Jest looks at me an’ keeps a-chawin’
The rascal’s throat, an’ growlin’ low
As if to say: “Hold on, ol’ pard—
I’m comin’ soon’s I git a show.”
I fit an’ scratched an’ dodged that knife—
An’ then my foot slipped on a stone
An’ things looked dark—but next I knowed
Ol’ Watch was playin’ it alone.
He dropped his man an’ tackled mine—
An’ when my head got clear agin
I see a pile o’ rags an’ truck
Where them three Greaser thieves had bin.
An’ that ol’ dog was guardin’ me,
An’ lickin’ of my hands an’ face—
An’ him just red with drippin’ blood—
There wasn’t nary yaller place
On his ol’ hide frum head to foot.
I’se most as bad—but I caught that mule
An’ somehow histed me an’ Watch
Up on ’er back—the night was cool—
An’ we lit out—an’ long near day
I hear ’way off a rooster crowin’—
An’ jest what happened after that
I haint no certain way o’ knowin’;
Fer next I knowed I hear a voice
That kep’ a tellin’ me: “Be still—
Jest swaller this here mighty quick,
An’ when ye’ve et an’ drunk yer fill
I’ll let ye talk. Th’ dog, ye say?
Oh! he’s all right—he saved yer skin;
Come howlin’ here ’fore break o’ day,
An’ we lit out an’ brung ye in—
Him leadin’ right to where you lay—
Down crost th’ wash an’ up th’ hill—
Live? Course he’ll live. Now you hol’ on—
This haint your talk—you jes’ keep still.”
So I lays still—an’ Watch does too—
Jest sort o’ laid up fer repairs,
Fer weeks an’ weeks—till last we got
As hearty as a pair o’ bears.
Then we lit out—a-headin’ straight
Back to th’ ol’ home in Mizzury—
An’ me an’ Watch’ll settle down
An’ take our ease, I jest assure ye.
An’ any feller that thinks our looks
Haint up to par, ner apt to mash
Th’ most o’ folks, kin have his say—
But me an’ Watch has got th’ cash.
An’ its cash that counts—clean cash an’ grit;
An’ Watch has got th’ grit, I low,
An’ me th’ cash—an’ we two’s pards—
But he’s th’ best I tell ye now.
An’ when Life’s fight is fit an’ done,
An’ we go crost th’ Great Divide,
W’y Watch an’ me has made it up
That we’ll be planted side by side.

MONTE BILL

As told by the old stage driver

See that big black zahuaro[1]
Out there alone on the hill,
With the sand piled up at its sun-bleached roots?
Well, there lies Monte Bill.
Rough? Well I reckon you’d think so!
A devil to cut an’ shoot;
He’d face all the men in Creation,
An’ the fiends in Hell to boot.
His business? Oh! that was the pasteboards,
They was just the whole o’ his game;
An’ he handled ’em like greased lightnin’—
That’s how he got his name.
(An’ a name is a durned poor measure
When you’re weighin’ th’ worth of a man;
An’ you can’t go all by his business
To git at his clean ground plan.)
Bill was stagin’ it up from Ehrenberg—
I was drivin’ the six that fall!
It was hotter’n all tarnation
An’ the desert shut in like a wall;
The mirage it was sloshin’ an’ shinin’
Like the water before an’ behind;
An’ the dust in your throat near chokin’,
An’ burnin’ your eyes fair blind.
They was only two other passengers
A-making the trip that day;
A little mite of a woman,
An’ a child like a bird at play:
She was goin’ up to Fort Whipple,
Were an officer’s wife, she said,
An’ the way her baby took to Bill
Just mighty near turned his head.
We was joggin’ along through a sand-wash,
An’ talkin’ an’ laughin’ the while,
An’ nobody s’posed an Apache
Was nearer’n fifty miles;
But the time that ye think yer safest
It’s good to be sayin’ a prayer,
An’ the yell that come from a patch o’ mesquite
Plumb raised the roots o’ my hair.
Bill gobbled the situation—
Took it all to onct at a glance;
An’ to save that woman an’ baby
He saw they was just one chance.
He yelled up the boot to warn me,
An’ out o’ the side he jumped,
An’ I swung the whip an’ swore for life,—
An’ I tell ye them six bronks humped.
Bill lit on his feet an’ runnin’
An’ down by a greasewood dropped—
He knowed he had nary a show to beat
But he wasn’t the breed that stopped.—
An’ the rest? Well, Cullin’s station
Was a long ten mile away;
’Twas a run with Death—but that baby
An’ woman wan’t hurt that day.
An’ Bill? Well, it’s no good talkin’—
You know what Apaches is!
An’ a man that they git their claws on
Had better take Hell for his
When the troop from old Camp Date Creek
Got to him they came too late—
Just a smolderin’ pile of ashes
Was left to tell his fate.
We dug out a grave on the hillside
An’ filled it with cactus an’ stones;
For we didn’t want the kiotes
To chaw what was left of his bones:
An’ that “giant” growed up above him,
An’ the wind piled the sand below—
But I reckon as how old Bill don’t care,
For he’s gone where brave men go.

[1] Giant cactus of the Southwest

BEYOND THE DESERT

THE GREATER FLAG

Fling out its folds to the winds of earth from every crest and crag,
Roll strong salute from a million throats to honor this greater flag;
The flag of a larger freedom, the flag of a wider trust,
From the Arctic snow-peaks circling to the sun-scourged desert dust:
Flower of the New World’s morning; noon promise and prophesy,
Spanning the reach of endeavor into the vast To Be:
Broadening its stripes that their shadow shelter a mightier brood,
A nation reckoned of nations, fearless of temper and mood.
Never the past forgetting, to the hope of the past still true;
But formed to a larger stature ’neath skies of a deeper blue;
Grown to a fuller being; wise with the price of the years;
The wisdom born of mistakes outwrought, the tenderness taught of tears;
Strong with the pain of the purchase, tense muscle and sweat of brow,
When Destiny over the nation’s heart drove deep its iron plow,
Fit with the brawn of battle for guarding the ways of peace,
That the factions of evil dwindle and the forces of right increase.
Hemmed no more in the cradle by the marge of the Eastern Sea,
No more for a home-hedged people the Stars of the West float free;
As the pine to its tall pride reaches, as the man to his power and prime,
So the life of the nation broadens, strong-souled, to its riper time:
With the might of a Titan impulse, a million hands at the wheel;
A million minds far-serving, a million hearts to feel;
Upborn as a ship sea-driven when the full tides sweep and roll,
In the track of the gods fore-destined to the one unchanging goal.
In the front of the great World-Shapers given to lead and mold,
Lining the course of the New to plumb with the tried of the Old:
On the broad foundation whose mortar was leavened with blood and tears,
Rounding the temple fore-tokened in dreams of prophets and seers;
Wide-domed as the vault of heaven; including as heaven includes;
Puny and strong alike, full-handed or bare of goods:
Holding no caste in justice, no fief of air and light—
Not flung as a bone to beggars but ceded a primal right.
No more shall the Grail of the ages for the few be sought and won;
But alike and alike the sharing when the strife is striven and done.
Each man by the flag above him bound to his bravest and best;
To full, free chance for his making, to room for his highest quest;
Bound by the flag above him to reckon his brother’s need;
Bound by the flag above him to hearken and help and heed
The voices crying in darkness, as the crying of kind and kin;
The call of the scourged and outcast, as the call of the housed within.
Unfurl its folds to the winds of earth from every crest and crag;
Roll strong salute from a million throats to honor this greater flag;
The flag of a larger freedom, the flag of a wider trust;
From the Arctic snow-peaks waving to the sun-scourged desert dust;
With the light of its starry halo out-tossed on the utmost seas,
And its stripes in the sunshine rippling caressed by the farthest breeze;
With the hope of the hearts that won it our torch and beacon still,
And the blood yet red for its keeping that flowed on Bunker Hill.