[J. W. Gally, Shackle-foot Sam, The Overland Monthly, December 1874]

 

SHACKLE-FOOT SAM.

            HE had one leg shorter than the other, and he stepped with a hitch, and a twist of the shorter leg. He was a tall, good- looking, good -natured man, about twenty-seven years of age; but his good nature was not of that sort which "suffereth all things." On the contrary, while he would stand almost any chaff or nickname from his fellows, an attempt to patronize him, or as he phrased it, "put on dog over him," brought out the bitter word, soon to be followed, if necessary, by the more bitter blow, the knife, or the revolver.

            He gave himself the name by which he was best known. One night, when he was brushing himself up before the looking-glass, to attend a memorable dance in Montana, some one said to him, as he stood on his long leg before the mirror:

            "Hello, Sam ! going to the dance ?" "You bet your bottom dollar. May be you think I can't dance !"

            "Certainly, you can dance—why not ? "

            "Wall, some thinks as a feller can't dance, if his legs aint the same length ; but when I git onto a dance -floor, with a neat-steppin' gal, I can jest make this old shackle-foot git up and spin!" said he, swinging his short leg back and forth as he spoke.

            "Can you waltz?"

            "Wall, that does git me a little—to do it neat ; but, if the gal's a good one, I can swing round mighty lively, for a shackle-footed cuss."

            Thus, by often referring to his own infirmity, he became known as " Shackle-foot Sam."

            Several of us were out on a prospecting trip in south - eastern Nevada, and Sam was of the party.

            The mountains in this part of Nevada, as is now well known, are either dry and loose on the surface, or dry and solid naked rock—at all events, whatever else these mountains may be, they are usually dry; and the foot - hills, which lead from the valleys up to these mountains, are also dry—dry as powder—during most of the twelve months of every year. Yet, while this is commonly the condition of the mountains and foot-hills, there are, during some winters, deep snows, and during some summers, terrible dashes of rain — perfect cloudbursts; and the water from these snows and rains, in the course of centuries, has cut the mountains into cañons and plowed the foot- hills with long, dry, sand-bedded washes. The ridges between these dry washes are dotted over with a few trees of the short nut-pine and the sprawling juniper, and covered more thickly with the aromatic bitter Indian wormwood, or black sage, mingled with bowlders and loose fragments of rock.

            The foot -hills and the mountains are not pleasant riding-ground for any sort of conveyance, nor even practicable for any but a steady horse, mule, or jackass ; therefore, we were all walking toward camp, round the curved side of a steep, loose surface of mountain.

            Shacklefoot Sam was in front of the line of five persons, walking and talking as if the slippery side-hill was not troubling him in the least ; while the rest of us were struggling along, now sliding out of line with the movement of the loose, flat, small stones, and now climbing, by clinging to the sage-brush, back into line. Our leader, ahead by a few steps, called out, as he turned facing us:

            "Come on, boys! I'm hungry as a

1874]   SHACKLE- FOOT SAM.         525

wolf, and it's a good ways to camp yit."

            " O, yes ! Mighty easy to say, ' Come on !' —but everybody aint like you."

            "How do you mean ?"

            " Why, we aint all cut bias."

            "O ! you mean that my short leg is up-hill, this time. But you're mistaken if you have any idea that I was cut out for this style."

            "Wasn't you born that way ? "

            "Not much !" said Sam, as he trudged along in good humor. " Not much ! I was launched jest the purtyest pattern in five counties in old Indianner. I'll bet my old ma'am is tellin' it till yit, if she's alive —God bless her ! — what a purty baby I was."

            "How'd ye git warped so ?"

            " I'll tell ye, when we git to camp and git some grub—come on, boys !—but I'm too hungry for that old yarn now."

            So struggling along the steep slope, across the rocky heads of sand- washes, and climbing down the sharp rocks into the deep cañon, we got to camp, where, by the willow-fringed water that creeps from the high snowy summit, lay our blankets, saddles, and cooking utensils.

            "Here we are, boys !" said Sam, with a handful of dry "rabbit-brush." "Somebody give me a match, and we'll have some supper in no time. Pete, cut some bacon—and while we go after this hash, some o' the rest o' you'd better see where the stock is." He blew up the fire until it answered with a blaze; then, taking the coffee-pot, he hopped down the bank to the water and instantly back again with the pot filled, ready for boiling the universal decoction.

            "Doc.," he said to me, "did y'ever make bread ?"

            " Yes—a little."

            " Wall, there's the flour in the sack—and the salt; the yeast-powder's in a can in the flour-sack. You make some bread, and Dan and me'll git a lot o' wood to make a jolly fire after supper. The old man, here —he's tired; he can act as chairman." And away he went, hopping and twisting, with the axe on his shoulder and Dan at his heels.

            That supper, in a city or a well - regulated family anywhere, would have been a failure; but exercise and the open air make a compound sauce which renders "sad" bread, stale bacon, and black coffee, a very desirable feast.

            Their appetites appeased, each man reversed his tin plate, to keep the " deer-mice " and beetles out of it, and then — pipes. The man in the mountains who smokes not is a cause of especial observation.

            "Now," said Dan, "we've got a contract to hear how Sam got lopsided." "Yes, yes. Go ahead, Sam."

            " Wall, boys," said Sam, dipping a fresh coal of fire into his pipe, "this yarn I'm goin' to tell you aint no joshin'. It's true. But it aint very interestin' to you, if you never did any hard hoss-ridin' ; because in that sort o' case you can't see the pint."

            "If we don't see it, that's our fault."

            " Wall, to begin : I came to California when I was a chuck of a boy, and the fust job I got hold of was herdin' stock on the Waugh-keen plains, along with a lot o' Spaniards. Old Manuel took a likin' to me—showed me how to throw a rope and ride a broncho. I liked it, and got so well up to it that I was kind o' bashful without a hoss under me; and the more he showed the devil in him, the more I loved him. Manuel learned me all the fancy tricks : such as makin' and lightin' a cigarette, while your hoss is tryin' to git you off by jumpin' stiff-legged like a buck; or keepin' half-dollars between your shoe-soles and the stirrups, till the hoss wears himself out buckin'."

            "Vy," asks Dutch Pete, "how you git dem half-dollars in dem stirrups? Dat vot I likes to know."

            " There ! you see, I was afraid you wouldn't sabe. When a broncho is

526      SHACKLE- FOOT SAM.         [Dec.

lassed, he is fust choked down, then a hackamore is put on him. Know what a hackamore is, Pete ?"

            "No, I tidn't."

            "Wall, a hackamore is a Spanish halter, that is made so as to slip when a rider pulls on it, and draws a hoss's nostrils together and shets his wind off."

            "It's a jáquima," said the old man ; "an invention of the Moorish Arabs."

            "Then," continued Sam, "he is blindfolded with a leather blinder, and allowed to git up. As long as the blinder is on him, he will stand still to be saddled and fairly mounted ; then, when the rider is fixed in his seat, the blind is raised, and the fun commences. While the blinder is over the hoss's eyes, the half-dollars are put in the stirrups ; and, on a real devilish hoss, a feller has to look sharp if he keeps them there. I kep' on at the business as I growed up and got stronger, until I thought I was about as good a buckayro [vaquero] as ever swung a lass-rope at a rodero [rodeo].

            "I went to all the roderos I could git away to go to, and rode for fun or money. Once, I bet twenty dollars with a miner that I could ride a mule he had, for fifteen minutes, without gittin' off him. Stakes put up, and I mounted Mr. Mule. Wall, that mule did everything but fall backward. He jumped, bucked, kicked, bit, run backward, and at last laid down and rolled. But I stuck by. I was on top, whatever side was up. Then he got stubborn and laid still, and wouldn't git up. So I jest sot there till my time was out, and took the coin.

            "I tell you these things—and I kin prove them— to show you that I was a purty good rider. I liked the business, and I liked California ; but one day a man came down from Nevada, and bought the herd—hosses, brandin'-irons, and all, and brought the whole outfit over the Sierras into the sage - brush. Old Manuel and me come with him ; and I staid with him, till I got my ridin' spilt by this leg. Old Manuel went back the fust winter. Snow and sagebrush didn't suit his taste. But I got along fust- rate with the boss, and he made me boss No. 2.

            "One day he says to me, Sam, there's a lot of our big steers that I see are workin' up into the foot-hills too far to the north, and I'd like if you'd take a hoss and drive 'em down.' All right,' says I, 'but we haven't got a hoss fit to go up there; it's a mighty rocky place, you know, and there's none of our stock that's shod but your mare and Lightnin'.' 'Well, ride Lightnin',' says he. 'He'll break his fool neck, up there,' says I. 'Let him break it, then,' says the boss; for he was no slouch on a hoss himself, and set 'em deep, for an old man. 'All right,' says I ; 'Lightnin' goes' Now, this hoss Lightnin' was crazy."

            " Grazy !" said Pete. " A hoss grazy! Mine Got !"

            "Yes, crazy. A regular ravin' maniac of a hoss, if ever there was one. He was afraid o' his own shadow, and everything else but a cow or a steer. But he was a good one to go, and he could stop at full speed, and turn quicker than a flash. But you couldn't git near him, if he wasn't blinded ; nor git off o' him without danger, if he could see you. If you put any sort o' bits in his mouth, he would rare up and fall back with his rider. But put a hackamore on him, saddle, mount, start up a wild steer, and Lightnin' would follow him a-flyin', and stay with him, over anything and everything, till the steer was lassed and let go agin. That's the sort o' hoss Lightnin' was ! He had jest that one sensible pint about him—what they call a minny-maniac, I reckon."

            "Yes, an inverted one," said the old man.

            "I knew for sure that hell would pop, if I went up in the brush, and rocks, and gulches with Lightnin'; but there

1874.]  SHACKLE- FOOT SAM.         527

was no show to go back on it; 'cause if I didn't go, the old man would look at me as if I was a yaller dog, and jest take the hoss and go along by himself. He was a good old man, but a little hard. Wall, I got ready with my hoss, and lass-rope, and canteen o' water. As I was puttin' my foot in the stirrup, I says to the boss : 'So-long. If you don't see me agin soon, you can jest say I'm struck by Lightnin'.' It won't be the fust hoss I've lost—with a man on him,' he hollered after me, as I lit in the saddle and throwed up the blinder. I felt in my bones what he meant, but I was flyin' away as fast as one hoss could make time with one man. It might be a joke, but the boss wan't much on the joke. I was hot—fitin' hot. ' D—n you and your fool hoss says I, grittin' my teeth and sendin' the rowels into poor Lightnin'. You'd ought to seen him go—seen him jest git up and git, like a skeared cat ! It was like ridin' a wild eagle through a thunder storm. I'm not, and never was, to my notion, one o' the kind that stays hot long, when I'm in the wrong. So I soon minded that it was not the critter's fault. He hadn't said or done nothin' more'n usual, afore I tickled him with the dew-claws. Then I was sorry. 'Whoa, boy—poor old boy !' says I, " pattin' him 'on the neck. I might jest as well pat the smoke-stack of a locomotive, a-comin' down to Truckee with a broken brake on a greased rail. He was no family hoss for a picnic ! If I hadn't been headed up hill, I'd been a gone fawn-skin over the first reef o' rock- croppin's.

            "So long as he was on the up grade, and not among the scraggy timber o' the foot-hills, I had a little the bulge on him; but we were headin' right straight for the meanest lot o' brush, timber, and bowlders in the whole range, and it would be a mighty short time, if some thin' didn't break, before we'd be into it. Into the brush we went, on ground a little if anything on the down grade —away went my canteen, like a bright fallin'star. I got a good-by glimpse of it jest as a lot o' dry twigs took me across the face and eyes —out went the light—on went the hoss, jumpin' right and left, round trees and over brush, makin' the blue jay-birds skirr out with a wail and a squawk from their homes in the trees. On and on went that palpitatin' devil under me, while I was tryin' to git the bark and pine-spills out o' my eyes. It was heavy work for both of us ; but it begun to tell on the crazy broncho, and he slowed down a little, as if he was about to let up and stop. I begun to git my eyes open agin, and could see far enough ahead, by glimpses through the trees, to know that we were coming near the cattle. I sabbed the hoss, and, knowed well that he would soon git his second wind; and then good-by, Sam, if he got near a steer that would run.  We struck a spot where the trees were only a few, on smooth ground. I reached out my hand to his ears, and dropped the blinder over his eyes. O' course, he made two or three crooked jumps, and stopped stiff-legged as a four-legged wash - bench. O-u-p-h ! ' says I, as I dropped off; I wish I was home !'

            " Yah, und py tam, I vouldt gone home, yoost as straight like a shinkle!" said Pete.  

            "Wall, I rubbed my eyes, and prospected my beauty for damages—pretty bad scratches, but no great injury. Canteen gone, and no water —sinch loose, and hoss in a foam. You know what a sinch is, do you, Pete ?"

            "Yah ! Dot big pelly- pandt, maidt out mit hairs und two iron rinks."

            "Jest so. Wall, I rested a minute— no use restin' long, for I knowed hell  was bilin' in that hoss—and sinched him  up tight. Mounted, lifted the blinder,  headed for the cattle, and away we went.  I tried to swing him round the stock

528      SHACKLE- FOOT SAM.         [Dec.

and I would have done it, if an infernal big, mouse-colored, long-horned, long-legged Mexican steer hadn't raised his wild head and tail, and struck in in front of us. 'Samuel,' says I to myself, very solemnly, 'it's time for prayers !' And I tried it on, but I got mixed, in the excitement, and made some bad breaks ; and the steer fell over a brush-heap, without stoppin', and Lightnin' after him, on knees and nose, also without stoppin'. The excitement ruptured my religious services so that I couldn't connect—and away we clattered. It was gittin' mighty interestin'. That steer was fresh and knowed the range for twenty miles, over foot-hills and gulches, up grade and down ; and Lightnin' froze to him, flank and shoulder, step and step, till the pair looked like two wild demons off on a spree. Turn and turn, over and under the scraggy brush, down banks and up, this way and that, and quick as thought. They kep' time so true to each other, that I minded afterward sayin' to myself what I heeard in the theayter once :

                        'Two souls with but a single thought,

                        Two hearts what beats as one.'

And jest then I noticed the steer gain on us very sudden, and I see the white end o' his tail go out o' sight, like a meetor behind the hills. Precipice, by — !' says I ; and then I didn't know nothin'.

            "After awhile, I don't know how long —but not long, though—I felt mighty comfortable and sleepy-like, but sort o' chilly ; and I was a-dreamin' o' coastin' down hill, with all the old home schoolboys, on sleds in the snow. Whoopee ! Go it, boys,' says I. Keep the railroad a-goin', and let's git warm. It's a derned cold night !' And then I laughed, because I see big Sandy McClaklan go heels over appetite down the track, slidin' on his lip—and his sled after him; and the laughin' warmed me, and I woke up. Wall, I stretched my arms, and opened my eyes ; then shet 'em agin mighty quick, for the big, round, afternoon Nevada sun was too many for 'ern. Then I went back over the ground to camp, and brought all the facts up to the last sight I had o' that wild steer's tail goin' over the cliff. Then I begun to feel sick ; but I heerd a snufflin' kind o' groanin' somewheres close by. 'That's old Lightnin',' says I, and I went to sleep agin, the purtyest kind. I remember sayin' to myself, ' If this is dyin', it's the downiest sort of a send-off.' I waked up agin, and opened my eyes ; the sun was behind the hill-tops, and I was cold as a clam.

            " I rubbed my hands together like dry biscuits, and listened—all still, but the crickets. I moved one leg—all right ! Then I tried the other leg — no go! Then I looked around, and leaned upon one elbow; for I was down on my side. I was below a forty or fifty -foot precipice, in the sand - wash, among bowlders o' quartzite as big as mules, and thick as punkins on rich ground in October. I was on one side of a big bowlder, and I could see, stretchin' past the other side, poor old Lightnin's head, with his eyes glazed over, and the blood oozin' out o' his nose ; about ten feet off was the steer, lyin' on his side, with his eyes movin' and his tongue out — moanin' about once in ten minutes. ' Wall,' says I, 'this train's off the track and down the bank, in a general average smash-up. Verdic'—nobody to blame.' But my leg begun to ache like a whole set o' bad teeth, and I knowed I had to git out o' that somehow, or somehow else. 'Down the wash,' says I, 'in the sand, I'd crawl, if I was headed that way ; but I'm not headed that way.' Then, says I, after I'd thought and groaned awhile, There's nobody holdin' you—you're boss o' this contract.' So I screwed round in the sand on my elbows, like a wounded sarpient, and started. I went about ten feet—weak- 

1874.]  SHACKLE- FOOT SAM.         529

ened on it, and passed into another o' them sweet little sleeps. Woke up agin, and reckoned up my progress. Umph ! ten feet, about. ' Wall, ten feet beats a dead man,' says I, and started up agin, crawlin' in the sand-wash. It was bully sand to crawl in!—dry and nice—if I'd been good on the crawl. This time I got on fust-rate for a new hand. I must have made as much as a hundred feet, or ever ; but I couldn't tell, because o' the bowlders and a bend in the wash.

            "I knowed it must be about four miles to where the Pahranagat road crossed this wash down in the valley, and to that place I was bound to go, or die a-wigglin' for it. I begun to warm up a little, inside o' my clothes, and moved on. But I hadn't gone far, when I heerd, close by and in front o' me; that ' whizzer-izzer-izzer-iz-z-z ! ' that means pizen. 'Down brakes I' says I, because this train can't back.' Throwed a handful o' sand over the brush ahead o' me — 'whizzer -izzer- izzer!' says the snake. 'Git !' says I, and throwed more sand ; and he came out into the wash ahead o' me, and rared his head up. I rared my bead up. We looked at each other, and I tried to look as pizen as he did. ' Whizzer-izzer-izzer I' says he, swayin' his head from side to side, with his neck bowed up and his tongue forkin'. 'You be d—d !' says I ; but I missed him with the rock I throwed. Before I could git another rock, he moved off out o' the wash, to the right-hand side, still a-ringin' the bell in his back-action. I showered sand after him till I could hear no more o' his pizen noise, and then I moved on.

            "I didn't feel the pain in my broken leg any more for a long time after I fust heerd that snake, because I was more interested in rattlers than I was in the pain. But, you bet your life, I kep' a mighty sharp lookout for them fellers, until it got so dark I couldn't see. After dark I crawled on, showerin' sand ahead o' me, as a warnin' to snakes.

            " It was near midnight—afore it or after it—when I got to the road. O, wasn't I dry in the mouth, though—and sore all over ! Guess not !—it must have been some o' them old fellers whose picters I used to see at home, in Fox's Book o' Martyrs!

            "'Wall,' says I, when I landed in the road, 'here we are; but this aint no fust-class hotel. If som'n don't come along soon, we might as well have stayed and camped with Lightnin'. If I had a fire, I'd take the chances right here, o' gittin' out, yit; either as fust man in a funeral, or chief orator at a hangin'—anything's better than dyin' without society.' I rolled over on my back in the road, to give my tired arms a rest; but it was terrible work, gittin' the game leg turned. And there I laid, lookin' up at the stars and listenin' to a solemn old owl, till I fell into a mean sort o' sleep, from which I waked up cold and shiverin'.

            "This road was broken through the sage - brush, and right where it crossed the wash the brush was high and strong—about the biggest sage-brush I ever saw; but as sage don't grow close enough together for fire to run through it, I couldn't seta fire at the side of the road, and follow it up before the night-wind toward camp, as I allowed to. But a fire I must have, o' some sort. So I drew myself up in sittin' fashion, on one hip. I didn't git up the fust time I tried, nor for a good many times ; but I made it at last, though. Most any change o' posish was a comfort, when I'd got over the aches o' makin' it. I hunted through my pockets, and found a few matches that had been there a long time—there was plenty in my cantinas on the saddle —and scratchin' one to a light, I carefully fired a big dry sage. Then I had a fire, and was at home —as long as it lasted; but it didn't last long. It was about to go out, and I tossed a brand of

530      STUDIES IN THE SIERRA.                 [Dec.

it into the next sage, and gittin' over and down on my elbows agin, I crawled along the road after it. And so I worked on till sunrise ; and at sunrise, I went to sleep, like a snake, in my own trail. I would have jined church for a drink, or half a drink, o' water; and I knowed there was a big spring down in the middle o' the valley, about two miles away. But I knowed, jest as well, that I could never crawl there and back, over the brush ; and that anyhow it would be mighty unhealthy for me around that spring, when the cattle came to water.

            "I was sleepin', or tryin' to sleep, when I thought I heard some one talkin'. Not right off I didn't jump up ; but with all the soonness I was boss of I stood as nigh on one end as I could git, and listened. 'Bully for me ! It's Injuns—Shoshonee squaws,' I said. Then I listened a little more, and hollered: Hello-o ! Sequaw! Kim-ma! Me—one White-a-man—heap sick.' I listened agin—all silent. Jest as I was about to give a desperate howl, I heerd, 'Hoo-ee-ah !' I answered, 'Hoo-ee! Kim - ma!—me heap—h-e-a-p sick.' Then I waited till the squaws—three of 'em—came trampin' through the brush, into the open road, each with a willow-work bottle o' water on her back. 'Water—me heap now ketch 'em—quick !' I said to the one in front, and reached out my hands, like you do for a baby. She swung the bottle down off her back, and helped to hold it for me, while I swallowed the best drink, and the biggest, that ever I tasted.

            " I got the squaws to go for the old man ; and the old man came in a wagon for me. I laid in bed sixteen weeks, and came out with a pair o' crutches and the name o' Shacklefoot Sam."