Santa Fe's Partner Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town

Allibone Janvier Thomas

Description

I've been around considerable in the Western Country - mostly some years back - and I've seen quite a little, one way and another, of the folks living there: but I can't really and truly say I've often come up with them nature's noblemen - all the time at it doing stunts in natural nobility - the story-books make out is the chief population of them parts. Like enough the young fellers from the East who write such sorts of books - having plenty of spare time for writing, while they're giving their feet a rest to get the ache out - do come across 'em, same as they say they do; but I reckon the herd's a small one - and, for a fact, if you could cross the book brand with the kind you mostly meet on the ranges the breed would be improved.

Sujets

• Short story

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 23 octobre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819908098
• Langue: English

Extrait

I
P ALOMITAS
I've been around considerable in the Western Country– mostly some years back – and I've seen quite a little, one wayand another, of the folks living there: but I can't really andtruly say I've often come up with them nature's noblemen – all thetime at it doing stunts in natural nobility – the story-books makeout is the chief population of them parts. Like enough the youngfellers from the East who write such sorts of books – having plentyof spare time for writing, while they're giving their feet a restto get the ache out – do come across 'em, same as they say they do;but I reckon the herd's a small one – and, for a fact, if you couldcross the book brand with the kind you mostly meet on the rangesthe breed would be improved.
Cow-punchers and prospectors and such don't looklike and don't act like what tenderfoots is accustomed to, and sothey size 'em up to be different all the way through. They ain't.They're just plain human nature, same as the rest of us – only moreso, through not being herded close in. About the size of it is,most folks needs barbed wire to keep 'em from straying. In a roughcountry – where laws and constables ain't met with frequent – agood-sized slice of the population 's apt to run wild. With themthat's white, it don't much matter. The worst you can say against'em is, they sometimes do a little more shooting than seems reallyneeded; but such doings is apt to have a show of reason at thebottom of 'em, and don't happen often anyhow – most being satisfiedto work off their high spirits some other way. With them that's notwhite, things is different. When the Apache streak gets on top itsends 'em along quick into clear deviltry – the kind that makes youcussed just for the sake of cussedness and not caring a damn; andit's them that has give some parts of the Western Country – like itdid New Mexico in the time I'm talking about, when they was bunchedthick there – its bad name.
In the long run, of course, the toughs is got rid of– being shoved out or hung out, at first by committees and later onin regular shape by sheriffs and marshals – and things is quieteddown. It's the everlasting truth, though, that them kind ofmavericks mostly is a blame sight commoner in parts just openedthan the story-book kind – that's always so calm-eyed andgentle-natured and generous and brave. What's more, I reckonthey'll keep on being commoner, human nature not being a thing thatchanges much, till we get along to the Day of Judgment round-up –and the goats is cut out and corralled for keeps.
For certain, it was goats was right up at the headof the procession in the Territory in my time – which was the timewhen the railroads was a-coming in – and in them days things wasrough. The Greasers living there to start with wasn't what youmight call sand-papered; and the kind of folks found in partsrailroads has just got to, same as I've mentioned, don't set out tobe extry smooth. Back East they talked about the highercivilization that was overflowing New Mexico; but, for a cold fact,the higher civilization that did its overflowing on that sectionmostly had a sheriff on its tracks right along up to the Missouri –and the rest of the way done what it blame felt like, and used agun.
Some of them native Mexicans wasn't bad fighters.When they went to hacking at one another with knives – the way theywas used to – they often done right well. But when they got upagainst the higher civilization – which wasn't usually less 'n halfdrunk, and went heeled with two Colt's and a Winchester – theyfound out they'd bit off more'n they could chew. Being sandy, theykept at it – but the civilizers was apt to have the call. And inbetween times, when the two of 'em – the Greasers and thecivilizers – wasn't taking the change out of each other, they bothof 'em took it out of anybody who happened to come along.
Yes, sirree! – in them days things was a good dealat loose ends in the Territory. When you went anywheres, if you wasgoing alone, you always felt you'd better leave word what trail youtook: that is, if you was fussy in such matters, and wanted whatthe coyotes left of you brought in by your friends and plantedstylish – with your name, and when it happened, painted on aboard.
This place where the track got stuck – stickingpartly because there was trouble with the Atchison, and partlybecause the Company couldn't foreclose onto a year jag any more outof the English stockholders to build on with – was up on a bluffright over the Rio Grande and was called Palomitas. Being onlymostly Greasers and Indians living in the Territory – leaving outthe white folks at Santa Fé and the army posts, and the few Germansthere was scattered about – them kind of queer-sounding names waswhat was mainly used.
It wasn't never meant to be no sort of an Americantown nohow, Palomitas wasn't – being made to start with of 'dobes(which is Mexican for houses built of mud, and mud they was in therainy season) spilled around on the bluff anywheres; and when thetrack come along through the middle of it the chinks was filled inwith tents and shingle-shacks and dugouts – all being so mixed upand scattery you'd a-thought somebody'd been packing a town throughthem parts in a wagon and the load had jolted out, sort of casualover the tail-board, and stuck where it happened to come down. Theonly things you could call houses was the deepo, and the ForestQueen Hotel right across the track from it, and Bill Hart's store.Them three buildings was framed up respectable; with real windowsthat opened, and doors such as you could move without kicking at'em till you was tired. The deepo was right down stylish – having abrick chimney and being painted brown. Aside the deepo was the tankand the windmill that pumped into it. Seems to me at nights,sometimes, I can hear that old windmill going around creaking andclumpetty-clumpetting now!
Palomitas means "little doves" – but I reckon thenumber of them birds about the place was few. For about a thousandyears, more or less, it had been run on a basis of two or threehundred Mexicans and a sprinkling of pigs and Pueblo Indians – thepigs was the most respectable – and it was allowed to be, after thetrack got there, the toughest town the Territory had to show. SantaCruz de la Cañada, which was close to it, was said to have took thecake for toughness before railroad times. It was a holy terror,Santa Cruz was! The only decent folks in it was the French padre –who outclassed most saints, and hadn't a fly on him – and a Germannamed Becker. He had the Government forage-station, Becker had; andhe used to say he'd had a fresh surprise every one of the morningsof the five years he'd been forage-agent – when he woke up andfound nobody'd knifed him in the night and he was keeping on beingalive!
But when the track come in, and the highercivilization come in a-yelling with it and spread itself, Palomitascould give points to the Cañada in cussedness all down the line.Most of it right away was saloons and dance-halls; and the pressurefor faro accommodation was such the padre thought he could makemoney by closing down his own monte-bank and renting. Denver Jonestook his place at fifty dollars a week, payable every Saturdaynight – and rounded on the padre by getting back his rent-moneyover the table every Sunday afternoon. He'd a-got it back Sundaymornings if the padre hadn't been tied up mornings to his work. (Hewas a native, that padre was – and went on so extra outrageous hisown folks couldn't stand him and Bishop Lamy bounced him from hisjob.) Pretty much all the time there was rumpusses; and the waythey was managed made the Mexicans – being used, same as I've said,to knives mostly – open their eyes wide. It seemed really to jolt'em when they begun to find out what a live man with his back upcould do with a gun! Occurrences was so frequent – beforeconstruction started up again, and for a while after – the newcemetery out in the sage-brush on the mesa come close to having asbig a population as the town.
What happened – shootings, and doings of all sorts –mostly centred on the Forest Queen. That was the only place thatcalled itself a hotel in Palomitas – folks being able to get somesort of victuals there, and it having bunks in a room off thebar-room where passers-through was give a chance to think (bymorning they was apt to think different) they was going to have anight's sleep. Kicking against what you got – and against thethrowed-in extras you'd a-been better without – didn't do no good.Old Tenderfoot Sal, who kept the place, only stuck her fat elbowsout and told the kickers she done the best she knowed how to, andshe reckoned it was as good as you could expect in them parts, andmost was suited. If they didn't like the Forest Queen Hotel, shesaid, they was free to get out of it and go to one that suited 'embetter – and as there wasn't none to go to, Sal held the cards.
She was a corker, Sal was! By her own account ofherself, she'd learned hotel-keeping through being a sutler's wifein the war. What sutling had had to do with it was left to guessat, and there was opinions as to how much her training in hotelinghad done for her; but it was allowed she'd learned a heap of otherthings – of one sort and another – and her name of Tenderfoot wasgive her because them fat feet of hers, in the course of hertravels, had got that hard I reckon she wouldn't a-noticed itwalking on red-hot point-upwards ten-penny nails!
In the Forest Queen bar-room was the biggest bankthere was in town. Blister Mike – he was Irish, Blister was, andSal's bar-keep – had some sort of a share in it; but it was run bya feller who'd got the name of Santa Fé Charley, he having had abank over in Santa Fé afore Sal give him the offer to come acrossto Palomitas and take charge. He was one of the blue-eyed quietkind, Charley was, that's not wholesome to monkey with; the sortthat's extra particular about being polite and nice-spoken – andnever makes no mistakes, when shooting-