The Conquering of Socorro

by Roy Norton

 

THE CONQUERING OF SOCORRO

By
Roy Norton

TURKEY BILL. That's what they called him, because he looked like that graceful bird. Had the same innocence of eye, same craning of skin-bedecked neck, and same general air of curiosity. When Socorro was young there were but four inhabitants to witness the incoming of the Overland; Bill, being a visitor, went along, and that's why he happened to see her first.

When a man gets in the habit of fixing his gaze on nothing more than sand, and plenty of it, the sight of a “Sweet Young Thing” is apt to stun him for a moment. When she alighted, Turkey was stunned into a stolidity in comparison with which a canned sardine would have seemed highly active. That kind of an immobility wherein the lower jaw droops and exposes the back filling of teeth, if there are any. He watched the “Sweet Young Thing,” and she having small heed for his inspection or threatened paralysis, watched the train pull out.

“Here, you,” she said. “Where's the hotel?” That awoke him. He removed his hat, inspected the sweat-band, made four distinct attempts at speech, then fell to scratching his bald scalp in lieu of hair, that ornamental but useless covering having disappeared in partnership with the fleeting years. He was divided between an insane desire to expectorate and a wish to straighten the knotted handkerchief around his neck, and then bolted into words.

“Ain't no hotel nowhere here,” he replied. “Ain't nothin' much, nohow. P'raps you might git put up over at Hank Williams' cabin. He's got a woman that sometimes hands out a snack for the boys.”

Acting as a guide, he carried her baggage to the Williams abode. And in these incidents were the momentous beginnings of Socorro.

Her name was Mary Brown. A very uncommon name, too, and one that did credit to the direct simplicity of Arizona. Why she came no one knew; what she was there for no one knew. But that wasn't a secret very long. She was taking orders for a hair-restorer that was guaranteed to grow fuzz on anything, from Turkey Bill to a Mexican dog. All that was necessary was to buy and apply enough.

To one on the inside, business wouldn't have looked very flattering when Mary came. As a matter of historical fact, Turkey Bill was the only bald-headed man within a hundred miles, and he didn't belong to Socorro. He was a cattleman from thirty miles away, and hitherto had never particularly bemoaned the loss of nor hankered for more hair. Baldness had been a blessing, because it saved combing.

Mary was a retiring sort of girl, but she didn't have to work overtime to impress Turkey, because he was at the old tin-can age where his affections were dented. He was touched by the gentle confidence with which she told him that she was an orphan and the only support of a large family of brothers and sisters away back East. Of course, as she admitted, she wasn't a very good business woman, but she had been told that all around Socorro were men who were crying for hair-restorer.

Turkey ordered a couple of cases, and when he rode back to the valley that night wept unrestrained tears over the big family of orphans that must starve unless all the range bought freely of the remedy.

“If she'd been an agent for tick dip,” he said to himself, “she might make good; or even dope for sheep. But hair-restorer? Humph!”

In rather a halting way he explained the situation to his men when he arrived home, and if his reputation for keeping his word and being a gentleman of surprisingly good aim had not prevailed, it is probable the Star Ranch outfit would have had funerals to attend the next day. As it was, the grins were all of the furtive sort. Then curiosity got the better of the men, and from that time on the trail to Socorro began to show signs of wear.

As a heart-breaker, Mary Brown, sweet, retiring, and coy, would have made Cleopatra seem a mere blacksmith. Her fame spread for many a day's ride, and it was astonishing how many men there were on the range who were in direful apprehension of losing their sunburnt locks, although most of them could have sported signs: “Hair to Let.”

They came in cavalcades, and bought hair-oil by the gross. After the first shipment the whole range became odoriferous, and there wasn't a Piute in the country who hadn't drank quarts of it, donated by overstocked cowmen. Had it contained alcohol it could have been no more popular, even in a country where cologne was regarded as a fair beverage.

Mary liked the country, so she built a cabin of great dimensions, not a barbaric thing of adobe, but with lumber shipped in from the West. It cost eleven hundred dollars, Turkey said, and he ought to know, because he loaned her the money. It was a one-eyed cabin, because the man who shipped it forgot to fill the order for glass, and it looked bow-legged, because the section-hands weren't well up on carpentering.

In addition to her hair-oil business, Mary opened up a manicure shop, and at night she rented it for dances and such. But the manicure enterprise was the most successful thing ever opened in Socorro, because apparently all cowpunchers on the range had been in great distress for manicuring before she came.

Some of them were overly distressed. Skink Billings, when he first visited Socorro, had his nails attended to five times in one afternoon. Then he had a fight with Kentucky Smith on the sand in front of the place, because the latter alleged an unfair deal, and Skink reckoned “a feller could git his hands pruned just as soon and as often as he could dig up the price.”

Mary Brown separated them, took them inside, and an hour later sent them forth arm in arm, the best of friends, and each with pockets bulging with hair-restorer at one dollar per. That was only a mild example.

Things got so bad that there weren't a dozen punchers in the district who could tie a hog-knot on a steer. Their fingers were too sore from excessive manicuring; but they were a game lot. A man's hands might get too tender for work, but it was never a painful operation to have them held by Mary, although she never clutched palms except professionally. She was a real artist, all right, and believed in art for money's sake. But there came a time when the quick of the range began to be exposed, and to this calamity, also, Mary was equal. She opened a hair-dressing shop, and invented “Marcelling.”

Long before it had ever been heard of in the East there wasn't a cowman in that part of Arizona who felt himself equipped for a day's work with mere ordinary straight hair. A weary rider would turn in from his hard twelve hours' round, saddle a fresh mustang, and lope forty miles by the light of the moon, explaining his departure to the foreman by a curt “Got ter go ter Socorro ter git my ha'r and hooks fixed,” and that settled it.

It isn't commerce and manufacturing that makes a city. That was proven by Socorro. It's manicuring and Marcelling. Before Mary Brown came there were just three shacks in Socorro. Before she had been there six months there were thirty. Most every cattleman had his town cabin, and once a sheepman tried to break in. But he died.

Within six months there were five saloons, two general merchandise stores, and an undertaking establishment, in combination with a drug-store and doctor's shop. The railway put in stock-runs, because there arose a unanimous petition that this be made a shipping-station.

Before Mary came, Mrs. Hank Williams, wife of the section-boss, had been the natural social leader of the camp, but she lost her hammerlock on men's hearts and adulations when Mary came. Marcelling necessitates a half-Nelson on the subject, much better than a mere handhold, and there wasn't a man in the country whose heart had not palpitated beneath Mary's gentle touch, while he was getting his hair waved. It was advantageous, too, because, as Tex said: “It beats the devil how much hair will stand.”

Mrs. Hank was of a jealous disposition. She didn't know much about the manicuring game, having been a farmhand before she joined fates with Williams. But she was a mighty lucky woman. Once she drew a prize card in a can of baking-powder, and got a three-by-four camera. And from that she waxed prosperous, but no fatter. She always was fat, anyhow, so that didn't matter. She opened what she called a “High Art Gallery and Studio.” The boys laughed at it, because it wasn't so high, after all, being on the ground floor.

Mary acted kind of mean about that. She never had her picture taken, and when Turkey tried to act as a missionary in the cause she bucked outright; said she'd “be hanged if she would.” A bunch of people that want anything bad enough get it. So the people in this case bribed Mrs. Hank.

She snap-shotted Mary, and then surreptitiously bartered the photographs gained thereby, and added doby dollars to her sack. Nobody objected to the price, because five is always cheap for a “right strikin' likeness” of a loved one, and these sure were “strikin'.”

Mary didn't know about this, but she did know that the gallery was doing business, because nearly every customer presented her with his own picture. Most of them were mounted on brown paper, with an arrow-pierced heart, cut out of red tissue, pasted in the lower left-hand corner. Same of the boys played the game strong, and had two hearts pasted on the mounting. Mary didn't care. She always thanked them. But the price of hair-restorer, Marcelling, or manicuring never dropped.

But to do her justice one must admit she was real sympathetic. She felt bad when she got a note from Tex Grigsby, who had been lynched for lifting cattle that didn't belong to him. Cashiers of banks have been in the same plight, so it wasn't such a disgrace. Where it hurt Mary was that in his dying moments, as he faced the inevitable end, Tex confessed that his manicuring bills had driven him to theft. Manicuring always has been and always will be one of the greatest dangers to male humanity.

Mary showed philanthropy by buying a tombstone for Tex. It was a plain marble shaft, which, on one side, read:

Tex Grigsby. Who met death suddenly October 19, 1887.

On the other side it said:

Erected by his sorrowing friend, Mary Brown, who does manicuring and Marcelling in the latest fashion. Have you used Smith's Hair-restorer?

There was one modest thing particularly noticeable about Mary Brown. She never bragged of all the cities back East she must have seen, nor interpolated into a conversation “When I was in Wichita, Kansas,” or said “You ought to see the swell stores in Omaha. They're just grand.” There was nothing boastful about her in this regard. But, although she never even mentioned where she came from, men felt this superiority.

Turkey Bill resolved to travel and get a liberal education thereby. He got a chance, after much effort, to go through to Kansas City with a stock-train. He was a pretty wise sort, and knew that the widely traveled man always has an edge on the fellow who has never been out of his own territory.

But Bill didn't have a very good time. He wasn't quite sure what kind of a game would be braced on him in his absence. He saw all the big buildings in Kansas City, and rode on street-cars for a half-day, then bought a phonograph and a pair of gilt opera-glasses for Mary, and got ready to go home. Traveling wasn't what it was cracked up to be.

Turkey would have liked to stay longer, because there was a wax-works show he had missed, but he was lonesome, and wasn't used to these down-Easterners. He wanted to talk to some one, but they were all too busy. He finally found the freight-office, where he was to get a return stock pass, and by this time was so nervous that when the man who apparently bossed the railroad barked at him through a grating he was glad it was there. Bill was afraid the man would bite. When he tried to find his contract, he fumbled so much that he dropped all the papers and cigars and other things from his pocket on the floor.

That was the place where Turkey met the real kind man. He showed his kindness by helping Bill pick up the scattered documents, and, among other things, the Mrs. Hank photograph of Mary Brown.

“Likely-looking girl,” quoth the real kind man, as he handed the picture back. That warmed the cockles of Turkey Bill's heart, if it had any. Nobody seems to know what “'cockles” are, but, anyway, Bill had them, if anybody did.

The man seemed to be pretty well posted about the town. He took Turkey to a place on Union Avenue where they sold things to drink, and then they got to be real good friends. The stranger's name was Jones, but he wasn't a very formal man, and said he would allow Turkey to call him “Jonesy.” He had a real bad cough, which came on at intervals when Bill talked; not that Turkey ordinarily had a whole lot to say, but in his great loneliness and longing he told just how sweet a girl Mary Brown was. Jones didn't seem much interested; anyhow, not enough to cry in sympathy with Turkey, but agreed she must be a “hummer.”

Jones said he had consumption, but didn't have money enough to get to a warmer climate, although some of his best friends had recommended him to go there. He wanted Bills advice as to what a man in such a delicate state of health and. pocketbook ought to do. Jones had a good deal of money once, but had lost it doing good for other folks. Anyway, that's what he said.

The more things they found to buy in this Union Avenue place, the more sympathetic and sorry Turkey Bill became. He didn't have much money left, having paid cash for the phonograph, and being compelled to bid pretty high in the auction-store for the opera-glasses, because the other fellow knew they were such a bargain; but he was entitled to take another man back on his stock pass, and, having formed a real love for Jones, offered to take him along. Turkey reckoned if Jones wanted a warm climate, there wasn't but one hotter than Arizona; but he hoped Jonesy wouldn't have to go to that extreme.

They had a nice trip West, and Jones' cough kept getting better; but that hasn't anything to do with the story. Most of the boys were glad to see Turkey back, or pretended they were. They took Jones in because he seemed a pretty good sort of fellow, and, in spite of his being such a destitute sort of chap, he certainly was a liberal spender.

Jones wanted to go with Turkey to visit Mary Brown, but Turkey was a little selfish in that respect. He went alone, and took his presents with him. His new friend didn't seem to mind, though. He was becoming real popular for a tenderfoot, and before midnight every one called him “Jonesy.” He sang some, and the boys, to show good feeling, tried their best to help. Their voices weren't so very sweet, because most of the singing they had done was to sleeping steers, but they were real strong.

Looking back over those early days, it seems odd how every man, as soon as he landed in town, wanted something done to his hands or hair. Jonesy was no exception. He went around to Mary Brown's early the next morning, but early as he was, Turkey and nine others were ahead of him, so he went away fully decided to come back later. Having nothing else to do, he went to the next best place, and visited the art gallery of Mrs. Hank Williams.

The conversation drifted around very naturally to the town pride. Mrs. Hank could say some mighty mean things in the same way a flea jumps—feel it's there but can't quite put your finger on it. And when she had such a good listener, she preferred to discuss Mary to high art. Her memory for dates was something awful—something that would have made her an oroide nuisance in more staid communities, where people don't want all other folks to know on what day and hour they were born, or married.

She remembered the very day and train and time that Mary arrived, how she was dressed, what kind of luggage she carried, and what was in the luggage. This latter because Mrs. Hank got confidential with Jonesy and admitted having opened Mary's gripsack and scanned its contents. Jonesy listened attentively to all these details. He was like every other man that came near Socorro—got the Mary Brown bug as soon as he hit the camp. He bought one of Mary's photographs, and put it carefully in his inside pocket, thus confirming his initiation into the secret order of Mary Browns.

Mrs. Hank sighed and smiled as he departed, believing that she had added another steady customer, and began calculating how long it would be before he would appear to have his own picture taken, with a red heart at two bits extra. Then she fell to wondering how a bust photograph would look. All the others she had taken had been full-length, with either a cigarette or gun in hand. The only novelty she had was one of “Tennyson George”—so-called by the boys because he was a “poetical sort of cuss.” Tennyson had his taken with a little bow and arrow he rigged up for the occasion, a cute little grin, and a pair of turkey-wings. The boys said he was trying to look like some kind of an angel, but maybe that was because they were jealous.

But coming back to Jones—when he emerged from the art gallery he couldn't help but notice how everybody was headed for the station. Of course, he knew by that that the train was due. He hesitated between a desire to see the great daily event or Mary Brown. Finally he decided this was just his chance, as probably there wouldn't be any one at Mary's. He was pretty cunning.

Just as the last of a lot of empty beer-kegs were being put into the express-car, the spectators of the passing of the train were fairly petrified by the greatest sight ever seen in Socorro. It was Jones, calm and uncoughing, gently but firmly walking with Mary Brown toward the rear platform of the train. And, worst of all, Mary didn't look as happy as a June bride. Indeed, she seemed rather melancholy, and in tears.

The cowmen looked at each other, at Mary and at Jones. Etiquette forbade any interference, if the couple wanted to elope, but somehow it was all so sudden.

Turkey Bill recovered first, just as Jones and Mary started up the rear steps of the long, dusty Pullman.

“See here, Jonesy!” Bill called, in a half-pleading way. “In course, it ain't nobody's business if you and Mary is just runnin' away.”

“Yes, it is,” came a voice from the rear. “We ain't a-goin' to allow no dam, short-horned, sheep-herdin' tenderfoot from away back East in Kansas City to come rollickin' onto this range and run off with our Mary. She's got ter give her consent. We don't know but what you're kidnapin' of her to hold us up fer a ransom.”

Loud cries of “That's right! It don't go—it don't go!” came from the throng. Mary seemed pleased, and showed signs of regret and hesitancy at taking this rash step under the beguilements of a man who wore a boiled shirt. She seemed on the point of addressing her admirers, but a low word from Jonesy induced her to remain silent.

It is doubtful if an explanation had ever been given had it not been for the presence of mind of Skink Billings. The conductor had repeatedly shouted “ah-h-o-o-ad,” and was in the act of giving an exasperated signal to the engineer when Skink seized him. The conductor was a husky gent, having twisted brakes by way of education before they knew anything about hot air in railway matters. He gave battle vigorously, and with prospects of success, until Skink turned the tide by dragging out a big gun hitherto used on refractory steers.

Then the conductor arbitrated, and decided it was more healthy to wait a few minutes. He wanted to accommodate both the train-despatcher and Skink, but the latter was closer. The conductor accompanied Skink back to the rear platform, and Skink was so companionable that he held tightly to the conductor's coat-collar as the latter advanced in front of him.

Seeing this turn of events, Jones shoved himself forward and made a speech.

“You fellows are a set of suckers,” he said. “What do you care where Mary Brown goes?”

Turkey Bill's chest expanded as he broke in with an answer. “Care? Care? You un-Marcelled Piute! I may as well tell you this here Miss Brown”—with the emphasis on the Miss—“is ingaged ter marry me. I'm the bully boy that cares some.”

Every man on the platform turned a fiery gaze on Turkey. Some instinctively dropped hands on their holsters. Some were amazed. It looked tricky, and like an under-table deal.

The voice of Jones, in loud, full-lunged, derisive laughter, broke the silence.

“Engaged to marry you, eh? Well, that's good! That's one reason why she's going back East with me. She's under arrest. She ran a matrimonial bureau before she came here, has one husband living, and is engaged to fourteen other gents back there, from all of whom she's got money. And all the backwoods counties aren't heard from yet; but I'm closing the polls right now. I'm an officer, and reckon I'm due to get about three thousand dollars reward for this trip, and, by the way, I'm much obliged to you for the pass. It helped some!”

Jones opened the Pullman door and pushed Mary inside, politely bowing and lifting his hat to the Socorroans as he disappeared. The conductor, being forgotten, waved his hand high in the air, with two fingers closed in true conductorian Delsartism, and the wheels revolved while Socorro stood stunned and speechless in utter bewilderment.

They stood and watched the last vestige of smoke and dust as the train pulled out of sight. Then Skink Billings planted himself in front of Turkey Bill and said very gently: “Pard, was ye lyin' about that bein' ingaged?”

“Not by a hellufasight!” came the sturdy response. “An', what's more, although we was keepin' it a clost secret, bein' under promise, I give her two hundred dollars to buy a ingagement ring with.”

More blank amazement, and then loud voices in speech. A close tally disclosed the fact that of twenty-seven men present, nineteen had furnished various sums for the same purpose; nineteen had promised absolute secrecy, and the eight others outside the engagement guild had loaned sweet Mary Brown money with which to bring out her little brothers and sisters from the East.

Turkey Bill silently stepped to the edge of the platform, drew from a pocket in his shirt a three-by-four photograph of Mary Brown, which he tore to tatters and scattered to the winds. Twenty-six other men lined themselves up and followed his example.

Twenty-seven men filed—Indian fashion—to the “Cowman's Rest,” and prepared for the night which was to be the most memorable in Socorro's history, while a wise spider began weaving cobwebs over the window-panes through which Mary Brown had been wont to smile. And in the dawn, as he started for the ranch, Tennyson George, with a piece of charcoal, wrote upon her door:

Mary was a little lam,
And great upon the borrow;
She gathered all the fleece we had,
And dam near broke Socorro

There have been but two other exciting events in the history of Socorro. The first was when a man was hanged to a telegraph-pole for attempting to sell a new and wonderful hair-restorer; the second was when a newly arrived tenderfoot accidentally displayed a month-old paper containing the following:

Virginia Whalen, alias Katherine St. Clair, alias Mary Brown, can be thankful that matrimonial-bureau sufferers are of such forgiving natures that, when properly settled with, they decline to prosecute. Yesterday she was discharged from bond, and at the same time learned of the death of her husband, James Whalen. To-day she was joined in the bonds of real matrimony to one William Christian, formerly a resident of Socorro, where he was best known as Turkey Bill. The happy couple will make their future home in Alaska—far from the maddened crowd.