Frontinspiece

Fools and Mules

[A Shorty McKay Story]

By Ray Humphreys

Author of “In the Wrong Pasture,” etc.

Snow, which had first capped the higher peaks of the Sangre de Cristos late in August, had unrolled its fleecy blanket down the slopes of the mountains, as the weeks went by, and had now smothered Monte Vista in huge crystal drifts that had all but buried the snug little town. The high roads that wound out of the village up to the various silver mines were hopelessly blocked for any sort of conveyance and open only to the most daring of horsemen, or the slow, plodding snowshoer.

So, when the First State Bank of Monte Vista found it necessary to get the three-thousand-dollar pay roll up to the Consolidated, back in the very heart of the snow country, it called upon Sheriff Joe Cook for two reasons: one, it wanted a suggestion as to the best method of procedure, snowshoes or saddle horses, and the other, it wanted an armed escort for the cash, for there were rumors that “Buck” Bancroft, road agent de luxe, who had been operating on the western slope in the autumn, had been seen on the valley side of the range, and the pay roll would be pickings for him.

“Blah!” snorted Sheriff Cook, when the possibility of Bancroft’s being in the vicinity was mentioned to him. “That jasper has a reward o’ five hundred berries on his head, and he ain’t venturin’ nowhere near my district, where law an’ order reign supreme, even ef I do say so myself, as shouldn’t, an’ further, what is thar to rob or hold up on this side o’ the Sangre? Nuthin’ but a few minin’ shacks an’ isolated ranches, where he might git bacon or git shot, but no dough. Don’t yuh worry none about no Bancroft. He’s plumb across the range!”

But the bank officials, as they were responsible for the pay roll until it was delivered at the Consolidated office, were mildly insistent that the sheriff furnish an escort and likewise suggest a responsible man to carry the cash itself, and the sheriff, having been driven out of his warm office that very morning by his deputy, “Shorty” McKay, who was endeavoring, out loud, to make certain strange words fit into a rhyme for a new “pome,” had up and suggested that the bank save money by letting Shorty go as their messenger with the money.

“But who’ll be his escort?” they asked.

“He’ll guard himself,” retorted the sheriff hopefully, “seein’ he’s a deputy an’ everythin’. The only thing he’ll have to look out fer is the mountain sheep, which are grazin’ low on account o’ the extra severe snows, and which may dispute the road with him, buttin’ him kerplunk into a drift somewheres!”

So, immediately after Sheriff Cook had nominated him, the nominations were closed and Shorty was elected to go up the lariat trail, through the dazzling white, to the Consolidated, where the miners were still digging in the soft “innards” of the earth and wanted their pay, snow or no snow.

“I’ve heard,” said the bank cashier, Bradley, who was putting in his first winter snowbound in the Rockies, “that a mule is the most sure-footed animal on a narrow, steep trail, and I expect that would be doubly true on a slippery, icy one. We had best acquire a reliable mule for this man McKay!”

“Second that motion,” said Art Robinson, the teller. “We don’t want that dough in the bottom of a ravine somewheres so that we’ll have to go out and dig for it. Get him a mule.”

“A mule,” said President Warren, in the judicious tones he took pains to cultivate as Monte Vista’s banker, “is just the thing for that man McKay—slow and sure, safe and sound!”

The president, it seemed, remembered McKay, and if memory was not at fault McKay was too speedy a rider for any good.

So when Shorty, informed of his election by Sheriff Cook, reported at the bank, they told him, gently, that he must go on a mule, so that the money would be sure to arrive on schedule.

“Mule!” whooped Shorty. “Not on yuhr tintype! No mule for me while I’m conscious! I’ll ride Lobo Loco, the smartest cow hoss in the San Luis. He can hang on by his lip, if necessary. No mule, gents, no mule—mules are for fools, thass all—for crazy prospectors, mebbe, but not for me!”

“Why,” spoke up President Warren, “that bandit and outlaw—curse him—that man Bancroft rides a big white mule, they tell me, and he should know what he’s doing.”

“What!” roared Shorty, “an’ yuh want me to go wormin’ up through the snow past them lonely cabins an’ lonesome ranches, where the inmates are just waitin’ for a chance to crack down with a rifle on somebody just for diversion, an’ me whalin’ a mule along so they’ll think I am that Bancroft feller an’ try to keep me from freezin’ with some hot lead?”

“My point,” said the president patiently, “was this: If a mule is safe for Bancroft, a robber, to ride through the winter wilderness, would a mule not be safe for you, too?”

“It would not,” said Shorty decisively. “I want to be back here before Easter. Why, I’d get so impatient after the first mile I’d git off an’ begin carryin’ the mule and then them hillbillies would think I was plumb nuts!”

So, of course, Shorty had his way. And when he departed, with the pay roll, all in currency, in a leather case slung on a strap around his neck, he rode Lobo Loco, and he went out of town on a dead run, with the pony’s breath visible on the sharp air like steam from a locomotive. Shorty had elected to leave at once, although it was late in the day. In that matter, too, he had overruled the pleas of the banker, silencing opposition by saying it was safer at night, on a winter trail, than in the day, when, if there was a bandit within a hundred miles he’d be expecting a payroll messenger far more than he would in the depths of a cold night.

The road down the valley, nine miles, to Oro, was fairly well open. The mail team from Alamosa had done that. But at Oro, where once a pioneer mining town had stood, in the days before Monte Vista was settled, Shorty struck off at right angles, and almost immediately Lobo Loco, his tried and true mustang, dropped from a trot to a walk. It was all uphill from now on, and Shorty knew that he would find the going hard until he got to the top of Rabbit Ear pass, where, undoubtedly, the high winds had swept the trail clear of snow. Once there he would follow the trail along the spine of the mountain until he came to the short trail that led down to the Consolidated shacks.

“I should make it by dawn,” decided Shorty, as he rode, his eyes closed to protect them from the glare of the snow, dazzling in the last rays of the sun. “But, Lobo, yuh mind yuhr p’s an’ q’s, an’ ef yuh slip yuh an’ papa will be icicles till spring!”

Lobo twitched one ear knowingly, but that was lost on Shorty, who, blissfully confident in the horse’s judgment, was already dozing in the saddle. He had learned that trick on the Rio Grande and made good use of it whenever he had any hard riding to do. Lobo Loco, smart cow horse that he was, seemed to know when it was up to him to pick trail and he always took the responsibility seriously. He poked along, but he kept on going, and even a snail will get there if it sticks to the job long enough.

When Shorty awoke, gradually, with a stifled yawn or two, and the repressed desire to stretch, night had already fallen, and the surroundings were ghostly, especially where the wind had whipped the snow into the pine boughs, enameling everything in a dazzling white. Lobo Loco was swinging up the trail he knew so well, and Shorty, thankful that the night was unusually warm for those regions, slipped back into the arms of sleep.

When he awoke a second time, much later, he did so with a start and a sinking sensation that all was not right. When he rubbed his eyes open and forced his mind to function he found that Lobo Loco had halted, ears pointed forward, and nostrils aquiver—sure signs of trouble ahead. A glance showed Shorty that they had reached a dismal part of the trail just under the brow of Rabbit Ear pass, where the way wound around cliffs and through dense thickets. Lobo Loco began to tremble under the saddle.

“Thar, thar, boy!” soothed Shorty, stroking the glossy neck, “reckon it’s a cougar, or mebbe only a lynx. He won’t hurt yuh, Lobo. Let’s mosey up a bit.”

But the horse refused the invitation.

“Huh,” said Shorty, stiffening, “then it is cougar, is it? Well, we ain’t afraid o’ him, ol’ hoss.”

Shorty touched Lobo with a spur and the horse shook his head angrily, but started forward, straining up the incline. Shorty, still drowsy, steadied his gaze up the trail expectantly.

But he was not prepared for what he saw.

There, coming toward him, out of a black thicket, was a strange apparition that seemed to be floating through the air. As it neared him Shorty made out the outlines of a man, especially the black slouch hat, but the man, thought the dazed Shorty, must be walking on stilts. It was only when the thing got almost upon him that Shorty saw the darker form of the rider was atop a huge white mule—a white mule!

At that moment Shorty’s blood froze within him. Here, ahead of him, was undoubtedly Buck Bancroft, most feared of highwaymen, on whose head was a five-hundred-dollar reward.

The mule halted abruptly, and at that, just as Shorty himself had been awakened a few moments before, the stranger was roused into wakefulness. He wasted no time rubbing his eyes. There was a flash and Shorty was staring into the muzzle of a revolver, held on him over the mule’s head.

“Welcome, pard, to the lonesome spaces!” said the stranger, in not unpleasant tones. “How come, where go?”

Shorty, mad at himself for not taking advantage of the opportunity that had been manifestly his, before the mule had stopped and awakened its rider, was surly. “Yuh know well enough, Mister Bancroft!”

At that the road agent straightened in his saddle. “So!” he exclaimed. “Yuh know me, an’ seem to think I should know where yuh are goin’! If I should know where yuh are goin’ and don’t, then it proves I must guess. Ef I should be wise to yuh, as yuh say yuh must be good pickin’s.”

Shorty shivered.

“Huh,” said the stranger, “what’s that in yuhr leather case thar, counselor? Are yuh goin’ to court to help convict some client, or ——”

He reached for the case and when he jerked it away he almost took Shorty’s head with it.

“Shame on yuh for wakin’ me up,” said Bancroft. “I ain’t had a good sleep for a week. Feel drowsy.”

Shorty made no answer as Bancroft investigated the leather case.

“Dough, eh!” he exclaimed, after a hasty examination, during which he kept the worried Shorty still covered.

“Yuh said it,” admitted Shorty, ruefully.

“Waal now,” said Bancroft, well pleased at his luck, “I’m sure obliged to yuh, mister! Bringin’ this up to me on a cold night, through the snow! I’m sure enough grateful. But thar’s one thing, yuh must be my guest up to my cabin. I can’t let yuh go back to town to report I held yuh up, when the roads are so pore for travelin’. Now, yuh’ll just come with me, drop outta sight for a few days, an’ the folks will decide a snow slide has swallered yuh up, hoss an’ all, or else that yuh has flirted with temptation and she, yuh, an’ the coin has gone over the hill together, to some healthier climate.”

“Say,” began Shorty. But he found, after all, that he had little to say about it. His self-appointed host quietly disarmed him and then invited him to get off Lobo Loco, and Shorty did.

“Yuh’ll ride Rudolph, my mule,” exclaimed the bandit suavely. “He’s easy, an’ slow. Ef yuh should try to git away on him I’d overtake yuh in an eighth of a mile on this hoss o’ yuhrs. Besides, I’d rather ride a hoss.”

“Me ride that mule!” cried Shorty.

“Sure enough!”

“Mules are fools an’ for fools,” stated Shorty, “an’ I’ll not ride—I’ll walk.”

“Thank yuh, thank yuh!” said Bancroft politely, as Shorty finally did climb onto the mule. “Yuhr warnin’ is fully appreciated, mister, an’ just so yuh don’t try gittin’ off——”

With that Bancroft deftly snatched a rope from the mule’s saddle and before Shorty could figure it all out Bancroft had tied both of Shorty’s legs together, at the ankles, under the mule’s belly. Now he couldn’t get off. But to make it even surer, the bandit tied Shorty’s hands behind him.

“Yuh’re my guest, mine an’ Rudolph’s,” said Bancroft genially, “and a host must take good care o’ his company!”

Then they started, back up the trail from whence the bandit had so recently come. Shorty sat stiffly on the big white mule, and led the way, while Bancroft, astride Lobo Loco, pressed up behind, chirping and chatting in happy manner.

“I was goin’ down to rob a pore miner o’ four or five dollars an’ some grub,” explained Bancroft, “an’ then here yuh come, sayin’, ‘Please, Mister Bancroft, I’m achin’ to be held up an’ robbed’ an’ I accommodates. I always aims——’”

“Shut up!” said Shorty.

“To accommodate my pals,” went on Bancroft, ignoring Shorty’s outburst. “When we git to my cabin I reckon I’ll insist yuh stay a week, my dear Gaston. No, by golly, make it two weeks, my dear Alphonse. No, by golly, let’s make it three weeks——”

“Dry up!”

“Or perhaps a month would be better! A month in the great open spaces, where the winter begins, an’ where the snow is a little whiter an’ the nights a little lighter——”

Shorty groaned. There he was, on a mule, all trussed up like a turkey going to the oven, and a bandit behind, with his pay-roll money, and alarming him with visions of a long imprisonment in some isolated cabin, where all the searchers in the world couldn’t unearth him before the spring thaw.

“My dear man,” the bandit was saying, “I surely appreciate——”

The mule slipped, and Shorty’s heart pounded in his ears. They were crossing a shoulder of the mountain, where the snow was drifted across the narrow trail. There was a drop of a hundred feet or more immediately to the left.

“Thought mules never slipped,” began Shorty, but he stopped at a whoop from Bancroft.

“Stand still, yuh dog-gone cayuse!” Bancroft was ordering Lobo Loco. “Quit yuhr slidin’, confound yuhr hide!”

Sliding? Lobo Loco never slid anywhere. Just then the mule slipped again, and before Shorty could understand it all, he heard another yell from Bancroft.

“Ride, yuh nut!” came the shout. “It’s a slide—a snow slide. It’s just touchin’ us now. Ride, or——”

Shorty did two things simultaneously. He dug his heels into the mule’s ribs and he looked up the mountainside. That look satisfied him that he should have looked first and kicked the mule afterward. The whole white mountain seemed to be toppling down upon him, and the mule, aroused by the tattoo on his ribs, was plunging straight ahead, where the bulk of the slide would pass. It was too late to alter the program—besides, it was a mule. Shorty shot a quick glance over his shoulder to see Lobo Loco pivoting on his hind legs, his front legs thrashing the air. Whether the smart pony or the wise rider had decided, at that second, that rushing ahead would be fatal, Shorty couldn’t tell. But even as he looked, with the first rush of the snow sweeping under the mule’s belly, Shorty saw Lobo Loco get all four feet on the trail and head back down the mountain at breakneck speed, the pay-roll case flying out on the breeze from its place around the bandit’s shoulder.

Then the slide struck. Smothered in a fleecy, unreal substance, Shorty felt himself and the mule swept over the edge of the cliff, but the expected drop failed to materialize. Instead it seemed as if they were on a great toboggan and they rolled over and over, slowly, cushioned in soft snow, soft, wet snow, loosened above by the warm night and now seeking a level in the ravines far below. Over and over rolled Shorty and Rudolph together, for Shorty was securely tied to the white mule. The mule seemed to take the matter philosophically enough, and it was Shorty who opened his mouth to shout and got it full of snow.

On and on they rolled, to come up at last with a gentle thud against something hard and unyielding. Shorty, with his hands tied, worked his head and shoulders until he had wormed his nose and chin to the surface. The mule, feeling the necessity of breathing, too, thrashed around without footing until he managed to thrust his head up through the snow. That move elevated the hapless Shorty far enough for him to get his chin above the surface, but what a disappointment the view from there was!

They were in a pocket, beneath two saplings. The saplings were already creaking and groaning under the weight of the snow that was pushing down upon them from up the slope. Once those saplings cracked the avalanche would descend and when that happened——

“Mule,” said Shorty, briefly, “yuh’re a fool. Just like I always said. A fool! Now that Lobo Loco o’ mine, I reckon he’s beat it out safe with that derned thief and my pay-roll money.”

Shorty winced at the next thought, but he spoke it. “They’ll find us in the spring—an’ bury me!” He shuddered and spoke again. “Mebbe they won’t know which is me an’ which is mule. Like as not we look alike. We must be brothers—me ridin’ up that trail asleep with dough and bein’ took——”

Shorty stopped with a blissful sensation. He had worked his feet loose. He spread them and there was no restraint. The knot had slipped or something. Meantime the saplings creaked and complained of the burden they bore.

Dawn came, finally, but it found Shorty still on the mule’s back. The mule was dozing. He had thrashed and slashed in vain for secure footing and had found none. Shorty, taking the hint, decided that it would be unwise to get off the mule’s back, especially since there seemed to be no bottom to the snow. The saplings creaked and protested louder than ever.

Day, and the sun, brought Shorty courage. Besides, he was growing hungry. He slipped off, awkwardly, because of his tied hands, and he sank immediately.

But he was too hungry to die just then. He rolled and in a minute felt hard ground under him. He got to his feet and pushed up through the snow crust and emerged, covered with sparkling crystals, three yards below the struggling mule. The mule looked at him in a startled way.

“It’s just me!” explained Shorty.

The mule, at that, laid his long ears back along his quivering neck, raised his hideous upper lip from yellowed teeth, opened his mouth, sucked in a huge breath and then blared forth a bloodcurdling clarion of recognition.

The mighty hee haw echoed up and reverberated against the cliffs half a mile above, where the trail was.

“Good gosh!” cried Shorty, his ear drums splitting as he ducked under the snow.

When he came up again, from his knees, on which he had crouched, the mule eyed him again in astonishment.

“It’s me, yuh fool!”

And at that, in joyous enthusiasm, Rudolph laid back his velvety ears, bared his yellow teeth and sucking in plenty of air, gave Shorty another thundering salute.

“My ears!” yelped Shorty, ducking. He stayed under, then, for a minute or two, while he heard the muffled rejoicings of the blatant jackass, and when the outburst of mule music had ceased, Shorty came up for air.

Again the mule looked askance at him.

“Yuh crazy fool,” blurted the shivering Shorty, as he essayed a step, only to sink into yielding snow, “it’s me.”

And again Rudolph brayed his recognition.

Then the spirit of the thing came upon Shorty. He had explored in all directions and found nothing but deep snow. Evidently he was marooned on a huge rock and hemmed in on all sides. There was no escape. He could not see the trail from where he was. Besides, there would be nobody on it unless it was the bandit, who, due to Lobo Loco’s sagacity, might have escaped the slide. And if the bandit was on the trail he wouldn’t care about aiding his late victim. No, nothing to do but perish, decided Shorty, and what could be nicer, under the circumstances, than passing out with the asinine trumpeting of a jackass as a funeral dirge?

Shorty ducked, to pop up again in a second, and the movement was greeted by a reverberating bray from Rudolph. The mule seemed to enjoy the game, too. He brayed and he brayed, as Shorty ducked out of sight and then popped up again in a man-and-mule game of “I spy!” Rudolph seemed content to die proclaiming his amusement to the world of barren snow and ice.

“That’s right, yuh blamed fool mule,” cried Shorty, “laugh at me! I’m a fool, too, I reckon. Us fools must play!”

And with that Shorty resumed his jack-in-the-box antics, while Rudolph grew hoarse in his merriment.

An hour and Shorty’s movements had slowed down a bit, but not so Rudolph’s. He was wheezy now, and rather incoherent, but he still blared forth a husky bray at every opportunity.

“Hee-ee-ee haw!” he roared. “H-a-aaa-aw he-ee-e haw, haw, hee-ee-ee-ee haw!”

“Laugh, yuh fool!”

When Shorty ducked again he sat on his haunches longer than usual under the snow, scratching at the surface of the rock on which he was perched, endeavoring to discover the character of the formation, cliff, river rock, or what, and while so engaged he heard Rudolph blare forth another hoarse trumpeting, although he had not popped up. The mule was getting anxious, thought Shorty. Well, to ease his fears——

Up went Shorty, stiff, but playful. Then he rubbed his eyes quickly. Up the slope, coming toward him, along a rope, were three black figures. Rudolph had spotted them and had given them a welcoming bray and he brayed again now just in time to drown out Shorty’s hoarse shout of happiness.

It was Sheriff Joe Cook and two Monte Vista men!

Down they came, floundering and skidding, but secure along the rope. They made their way slowly to Shorty, and Shorty saw that there were other men up on the trail, holding the rope and leaning over to watch the progress of the sheriff and his two aides. Shorty stifled a great sob, and tears welled up into his eyes as Sheriff Cook, navigating the great drift between the mule and Shorty, reached the rock. In a moment the other two men were on the rock.

“Thank goodness, yuh come!” cried Shorty, blubbering like a kid. “I sure had my mind all made up to die here in the snow, with nothin’ but a mule for company.”

“Yuh sure got inter a nice mess,” commented the sheriff, and Shorty realized that in the joyous prospect of being rescued he had forgotten that he had been held up and had lost three thousand dollars of the Consolidated mines pay roll. He wilted at the thought of it now.

“Yes sir,” admitted Shorty, “I sure did get into a nice mess. How did yuh happen to start up the trail?”

Sheriff Cook clutched him by the shoulders. “That hoss o’ yuhrs, Shorty, that Lobo Loco, he came tearin’ in afore dawn this mawnin’, runnin’ like the wind itself.”

Shorty’s face lit up. “So he got away, did he?” he cried. “Smart hoss. Blamed smart hoss—smarter’n any fool mule.” Shorty cast a contemptuous glance at Rudolph.

“He didn’t get away from the bandit, ef that’s what yuh mean,” corrected Sheriff Cook. “He brought Bancroft in. Guess Bancroft was asleep in the saddle, an’ Lobo scraped him off as he bolted under the door into the stable. The jolt stunned Bancroft an’ the rumpus aroused some folks, an’ we found Bancroft on the ground——”

“Get the dough back?” asked Shorty.

“Sure enough. Then, knowin’ something had happened to yuh we started out to look fer yuh, but——”

“Smart hoss, smart hoss!” cried Shorty, louder than ever now as he recognized Bradley and Robinson of the bank on the trail high above. “Blamed smart hoss—smarter’n any mule—any two mules—any three mules—as ever lived. Lobo Loco takes Bancroft in. Reckon we splits that five-hundred-dollar reward. An’ lookit this ol’ fool mule here—all he got me into was trouble. Lookit that empty-lookin’ mug, them ears——”

“Huh,” said Sheriff Cook solemnly, “yuh can thank this mule, Shorty, that we found yuh. We’d been clear up the trail to the mines an’ hadn’t spotted yuh, an’ we was headed back to town when we heard the foghorn o’ this ol’ mule. He kept signalin’ at intervals, an’ we follered his bray until we locates yuh an’ him.”

“He was laughin’ at me,” said Shorty. “The ol’ fool was laughin’ his head off at me.”

“Fool er no fool, that mule saved yuhr life,” said the sheriff, “an’ yuh’re a fool ef yuh don’t believe it. A fool that’s all.”

“I believe it, but I’m a fool,” answered Shorty, and there were tears in his eyes. “I’m just fool enough to insist, gents, that Rudolph be hauled up first. Mules first, is my motter; I refuses to be saved until my pal, Rudy, is saved first! An’ I’m hereby apologizin’ to Rudy an’ to all mules in general for anything I may have said agin’ ’em. My hoss Lobo Loco is smart, blamed smart, but here while I was duckin’ up and down in the snow, not havin’ sense enough to holler for help, wise ol’ Rudy here was broadcastin’ a distress call fer an hour an’ I didn’t know it. Up with him, gents, git a rope around him. Women an’ children—naw, confound it, guess I’m excited—mules first, by golly, especially a smart mule like Rudy. Rudy, I—I—well, I just can’t tell yuh how——”

And Rudolph, laying back his ears, raised a quivering upper lip over yellow teeth, sucking in a mighty breath.

“Haw he-ee-ee haw!” he brayed.

Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the December 27, 1924 issue of Western Story Magazine.