The Devil's Dooryard

Author of “Figures of Speech,” “No Wonder,” etc.

“I has to disagree with yuh, cowboy. There is some romance left. A little barb-wire and a few sheep don’t cut the romance out of the cow-land. She’s there, Sleepy.”

“Where?” I asks politely. “Me and you ain’t found none of it, Hashknife. Since we shook loose from Willer Crick we ain’t done nothin’ more romantic than gettin’ bucked off or lettin’ a gun go off accidental. There ain’t a man left in the cow-country that would get ambition if somebody called him a liar, and the villains has gone plumb out of the female-stealin’ business.”

“Well, get off your bronc, Sleepy. Folks’ll think you’re a statoo on a horse. I’m too hungry to argue. Git off and look for romance, cowboy.”

“In this town? Shucks. False fronts, licensed gamblin’-house, livery-stable, general merchandise store and a barber-shop. Romance ----!”

“We-e-e-ll, get off. Some ham and eggs looks plenty romantic to me.”

I gets off my bronc, limbers up my legs and looks around. The sign on the store proclaims it to be the Sundown Mercantile Company.

“Sundown City,” says Hashknife. “She’s a cow-town, pure and simple.”

“Pure and simple ----!” says I.

“Why argue?” he says, sarcastic-like. “All day long you finds fault. You’d kick if yuh was goin’ to get hung, Sleepy Stevens. Ain’t nothin’ right in your eyes?”

“Pure and simple ----”

I reckon the argument had gone far enough, but that wasn’t no way to bust it up. A bullet splinters the top of the tie-rack, another one busts the glass in the store-window and another one scorches a lousy dog which was asleep in the shade of the saloon porch, and it went ki-yi-ing off down the street. Three punchers comes gallivantin’ out of the saloon-door, sifting lead back inside, while several more oozes out the back door, hunting for a place to get behind. I never seen so much lead wasted and nobody saturated. Somebody heezes more bullets in our direction, and I stands there with my mouth wide open until Hashknife kicks my feet from under me, drops a rifle in my lap and then does a dive across the sidewalk.

“Yuh might do a little somethin’ for yourself,” says he, as I sits there digging dirt out of my eyes from the last bullet. Then he yells:

“Sleepy, you ---- fool, get under cover! Ain’tcha got no sense?”

I crawls under the sidewalk and sprawls beside him.

“Yuh ain’t got the sense that ---- gave geese in Ireland,” says he. “Watcha settin’ over there for? You ain’t got no brains a-tall.”

“I never got hit,” says I.

“You never got-- Saya-a-y! Oh, you didn’t get hit, eh? Well, that’s too bad!”

“Well, what they shootin’ at me for?”

“We might ask ’em--some time. Dang yuh!”

That last wasn’t for me. A puncher raised up out of a wagon-box across the street and his bullet plowed a furrow in the sidewalk between me and Hashknife. Hashknife’s .45-70 spoke its little piece, and soon we seen that feller hop a circle plumb around the corner. Somebody else took a shot at him on the wing, but I reckon that he was so bow-legged that he didn’t get hit.

Another Johnny Wise got up on the roof of that gambling-house and begins to spin lead promiscuous-like, sort of protecting himself with the top of the false front, but he didn’t reckon on anybody using a rifle on his fort. He wasn’t shooting at us, but we didn’t mind that. Hashknife lines up on that false front and his first bullet kicked a hole in them old boards that you could shove your hand through.

Mister Johnny Wise just upended over the ridge of the building and took the high dive over the other side. Somebody creased the peak of the roof just a second after his panties got away from there.

“You keep on and you’ll hurt somebody,” says I. “’Pears to me that you’re horning into this shindig without knowing the facts of the case. You may be shooting at our side.”

“In a case like that, I ain’t got no side, Sleepy. I has been shot at and the same makes me angry.”

“Sa-a-ay,” says a voice kinda behind us, and we turns our heads to see a little bow-legged puncher hugging the side of the building.

“My ----!” gasps Hashknife. “Hello, Windy.”

The bow-legged hombre stares at us and then begins to laugh.

“Hashknife Hartley, yuh old son-of-a-gun! Where about in ---- did yuh come from?”

“Git down!” yells Hashknife, as the feller starts to come over to us.

“Thank yuh,” says he. “I plumb forgot them or’nery Bar 20 cow-burglars.”

He gets down on his belly and comes angling over to us, and him and Hashknife shakes hands laying down.

“Sleepy, meet Windy Woods. Windy used to be with the Hashknife.”

“Yore bunkie?” asks Windy, pointing at me.

“Yeah. Some human drawback, Windy. I has to tell him when to chaw and kick him when it’s time to spit. I shore has a lot of chores with that pelican.”

“Haw! Haw! Haw! Howdja ever get so far north, Hashknife?”

“Follerin’ Sleepy. Part Eskimo. Kinda hankers for home scenes. What’s gone wrong in the saloon?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Windy peers over the edge of the sidewalk and gets dusted with a bullet. Then he ducks down low and reaches for his cigaret-papers.

“Had a killin’ over there a while ago. My boss, old Mike Haley, mingles lead with Blazer Thorn, who own that ---- Bar 20, and they both cashes in.