Cactus and Rattlers
Here’s a real thriller for you—a double-action, big-caliber novelette ofadventure in the West, by a writing man who knows his business, thedistinguished author of “Sixteen Miles,” “Brome’s Luck,” “Shadows ofSaffron,” and other noted stories.
Cactus and Rattlers
by H. Bedford Jones
At least twice a year, when he came in to Stovepipe Springs to get hismail and flour, Sagebrush answered to the cognomen of George Beam. Thiswas one of the occasions. To his acute consternation, he had discoveredthat “The Springs” was crowded with life and gayety, for there was astrange female stopping at the hotel, and another pilgrim was coming in bystage this same afternoon.
Sagebrush presented a general vista of whiskers, red nose andnondescript garments, bleached by sun and white with alkali dust; yet itwas his proud boast that he was the only man between Death Valley and thebig bend of the Colorado who kept abreast of the times. Subscribing toseveral weekly magazines, he came in once every six months to get theaccumulated copies. Then he sat down and answered the advertisements,requesting circulars. Thus he had a burro-load of magazines to read forsix months, then a burro-load of circulars wherewith to while away thenext six months—an involved and vicious circle in which Sagebrush wasalways trying to catch up with himself. He kept the post office on themap, however.
“Now, dog-gone it,” he observed to his three patient burros, as he tiedon his grub and magazines and a bundle of postal cards, “you and me got tohike out again in order to git our correspondence goin’ in peace! Dadblame this dad-blamed town! What in hell is folks crowding in this countryfor, anyhow?”
Haywire Johnson, assistant postmaster and general utility man about thehotel, showed up in time to answer this query.
“Hi, Sagebrush! Aint you stoppin’ over in town? Things is pickin’ upright fast. We got a settler yesterday, and we got a tourist comin’today.”
“That’s jest it,” growled Sagebrush. “A feller can’t have no peace nomore. That makes three women in town now, not countin’ them females overto José Garcia’s shack.”
“Well, listen!” Haywire laid his hand on the desert rat’s arm. “Where’dyou get that dust you weighed in over to the store, eh? Let’s you and mego in and talk, Sagebrush. If you aint got no objections to wettin’ downthem whiskers with a mite o’ licker, s’pose we go inside and arbitrate.”
Sagebrush grunted, hitched his three burros to the rail, and vanishedin the hotel.
Once Stovepipe Springs had been a boom miningtown, but now it was dead and dried out. To west and north lay desert, tothe south lay more desert and the Colorado. To the east was the ChuckwallaRange—in it and beyond it rich cattle country with water galore. Here inStovepipe Springs, and over across the Chuckwallas, men talked differentlanguages, had different customs and were themselves different. No cow-mencame over this way unless they were well ahead of the sheriff; andStovepipe Springs, having its own railroad connections at a distance oftwenty miles, was supremely independent of the remainder of the county,and heartily despised all ranchers and cow-men.
Here, besides the hotel, were five inhabited houses and two stores, a bankand a garage. Had it not been for the literary enterprise of SagebrushBeam, even the post office would have long since been