Sun and Saddle Leather Part 5

G.o.d'S RESERVES

One time, 'way back where the year marks fade, G.o.d said: "I see I must lose my West, The prettiest part of the world I made, The place where I've always come to rest, For the White Man grows till he fights for bread And he begs and prays for a chance to spread.

"Yet I won't give all of my last retreat; I'll help him to fight his long trail through, But I'll keep some land from his field and street The way that it was when the world was new.

He'll cry for it all, for that's his way, And yet he may understand some day."

And so, from the painted Bad Lands, 'way To the sun-beat home of the 'Pache kin, G.o.d stripped some places to sand and clay And dried up the beds where the streams had been.

He marked His reserves with these plain signs And stationed His rangers to guard the lines.

Then the White Man came, as the East growed old, And blazed his trail with the wreck of war.

He riled the rivers to hunt for gold And found the stuff he was lookin' for; Then he trampled the Injun trails to ruts And gashed through the hills with railroad cuts.

He flung out his barb-wire fences wide And plowed up the ground where the gra.s.s was high.

He stripped off the trees from the mountain side And ground out his ore where the streams run by, Till last came the cities, with smoke and roar, And the White Man was feelin' at home once more.

But Barrenness, Loneliness, suchlike things That gall and grate on the White Man's nerves, Was the rangers that camped by the bitter springs And guarded the lines of G.o.d's reserves.

So the folks all shy from the desert land, 'Cept mebbe a few that kin understand.

There the world's the same as the day 'twas new, With the land as clean as the smokeless sky And never a noise as the years have flew, But the sound of the warm wind driftin' by; And there, alone, with the man's world far, There's a chance to think who you really are.

And over the reach of the desert bare, When the sun drops low and the day wind stills, Sometimes you kin almost see Him there, As He sits alone on the blue-gray hills, A-thinkin' of things that's beyond our ken And restin' Himself from the noise of men.

THE MARRIED MAN

There's an old pard of mine that sits by his door And watches the evenin' skies.

He's sat there a thousand of evenin's before And I reckon he will till he dies.

El pobre! I reckon he will till he dies, And hear through the dim, quiet air Far cattle that call and the crickets that cheep And his woman a-singin' a kid to sleep And the creak of her rockabye chair.

Once we made camp where the last light would fail And the east wasn't white till we'd start, But now he is deaf to the call of the trail And the song of the restless heart.

El pobre! the song of the restless heart That you hear in the wind from the dawn!

He's left it, with all the good, free-footed things, For a slow little song that a tired woman sings And a smoke when his dry day is gone.

I've rode in and told him of lands that were strange, Where I'd drifted from glory to dread.

He'd tell me the news of his little old range And the cute things his kids had said!

El pobre! the cute things his kids had said!

And the way six-year Billy could ride!

And the dark would creep in from the gray chaparral And the woman would hum, while I pitied my pal And thought of him like he had died.

He rides in old circles and looks at old sights And his life is as flat as a pond.

He loves the old skyline he watches of nights And he don't seem to care for beyond.

El pobre! he don't seem to dream of beyond, Nor the room he could find, there, for joy.

"Ain't you ever oneasy?" says I one day.

But he only just smiled in a pityin' way While he braided a quirt for his boy.

He preaches that I orter fold up my wings And that even wild geese find a nest.

That "woman" and "wimmen" are different things And a saddle nap isn't a rest.

El pobre! he's more for the shade and the rest And he's less for the wind and the fight, Yet out in strange hills, when the blue shadows rise And I'm tired from the wind and the sun in my eyes, I wonder, sometimes, if he's right.

I've courted the wind and I've followed her free From the snows that the low stars have kissed To the heave and the dip of the wavy old sea, Yet I reckon there's somethin' I've missed.

El pobre! Yes, mebbe there's somethin' I've missed, And it mebbe is more than I've won-- Just a door that's my own, while the cool shadows creep, And a woman a-singin' my kid to sleep When I'm tired from the wind and the sun.

NOTE.--"El pobre," Spanish, "Poor fellow."

THE OLD COW MAN

I rode across a valley range I hadn't seen for years.

The trail was all so spoilt and strange It nearly fetched the tears.

I had to let ten fences down (The fussy lanes ran wrong) And each new line would make me frown And hum a mournin' song.

_Oh, it's squeak! squeak! squeak!_ _Hear 'em stretchin' of the wire!_ _The nester brand is on the land;_ _I reckon I'll retire,_ _While progress toots her bra.s.sy horn_ _And makes her motor buzz,_ _I thank the Lord I wasn't born_ _No later than I was._

'Twas good to live when all the sod, Without no fence nor fuss, Belonged in pardners.h.i.+p to G.o.d, The Gover'ment and us.

With skyline bounds from east to west And room to go and come, I loved my fellow man the best When he was scattered some.

_Oh, it's squeak! squeak! squeak!_ _Close and closer cramps the wire._ _There's hardly play to back away_ _And call a man a liar._ _Their house has locks on every door;_ _Their land is in a crate._ _These ain't the plains of G.o.d no more,_ _They're only real estate._

There's land where yet no ditchers dig Nor cranks experiment; It's only lovely, free and big And isn't worth a cent.

I pray that them who come to spoil May wait till I am dead Before they foul that blessed soil With fence and cabbage head.

_Yet it's squeak! squeak! squeak!_ _Far and farther crawls the wire._ _To crowd and pinch another inch_ _Is all their heart's desire._ _The world is overstocked with men_ _And some will see the day_ _When each must keep his little pen,_ _But I'll be far away._

When my old soul hunts range and rest Beyond the last divide, Just plant me in some stretch of West That's sunny, lone and wide.

Let cattle rub my tombstone down And coyotes mourn their kin, Let hawses paw and tromp the moun'

But don't you fence it in!

_Oh, it's squeak! squeak! squeak!_ _And they pen the land with wire._ _They figure fence and copper cents_ _Where we laughed 'round the fire._ _Job cussed his birthday, night and morn._ _In his old land of Uz,_ _But I'm just glad I wasn't born_ _No later than I was!_

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_There's land where yet no ditchers dig_ _Nor cranks experiment;_ _It's only lovely, free and big_ _And isn't worth a cent._"]

THE PLAINSMEN