CHAPTER XXIII.RED THUNDERBOLT.
Buffalo Bill was in earnest when he said that he could not leave the Brazos while Red Steve was at large, and, after a day’s rest, the scout set out for Hackamore with his trapper pard. It was his intention to call on Sheriff Bloom and learn what, if anything, he knew about Steve.
The pards were riding quietly along the trail when Nomad suddenly drew rein.
“I’m a Piegan, Buffler,” he howled, “ef it ain’t thet thar Thunderbolt critter, ther demon o’ ther range, ther big medicine steer thet kain’t be captured er killed. Wisht we had er rifle!”
Thunderbolt was an outcast. In all that cattle country of the Brazos every man’s hand was against him.
Bred on the wildllano, he was early compelled to shift for himself, growing up into a wild and untrammeled freedom. He rebelled against authority and asked only to be let alone.
Grass and water were free. He took his forage wherever he found it. In the winter he starved more or less, fighting out the “northers” under the lee of hills, or in the leafless shelters of the Brazos thickets; but in the spring and summer he roamed at will, grazing wherever fancy led him and sniffing the air and watching keen-eyed for human foes.
When he was three years old, this maverick fell in with a bunch of cattle from one of the Brazos ranches.He experienced a desire for brute companionship, and when the cowboys came he was caught in a gully and hurried in the direction of the branding pen.
A rope was thrown. Imbued with the strength of a huge body and the unfettered years, he snapped the rope in twain, overset a horse and threw a cowboy sprawling. Then he raced for the great out-doors, bent only on getting clear of these human foes, with their ropes, and their fires, and their branding irons.
Six men on fleet horses took after him. One rider, his mount fleeter than the others, came near to running him down. Just as the noose was leaving the pursuer’s hand, the maverick whirled to an about face and charged.
A revolver echoed. Its puny report was almost lost in the immensity of the plain. The bullet bit into the maverick’s dusty side, ran like fire along his ribs and filled his heart with madness.
Like a thunderbolt he collided with horse and rider; and when he broke away and raced on to his hardly won freedom, he left a dead cow pony behind him, and a cowboy with a broken arm.
From that moment, the maverick was called Red Thunderbolt throughout the range. War was declared on him, and cunning traps were devised for his capture.
But never a trap closed upon Red Thunderbolt. His brute cunning was more than a match for the cunning of his foes.
But the maverick did not come off scatheless in his various encounters with mounted men. He broke more ropes than ever went wrong on that range before; and he broke more saddle cinches and injured more good saddle leather than natural wear and tear would have accomplished in half a dozen years.
Also, he killed a cowboy.
When goaded into frenzy by the pestering horsemen with their ropes and guns, Red Thunderbolt pitted his life against the lives of his enemies. He was playing the game, and the unfortunate cowboy had yielded to the fortunes of war.
From that time on, the nature of the campaign against Thunderbolt underwent a change. No further attempts were made to rope the unmanageable maverick, but all cowboys were armed with rifles and ordered to shoot him on sight, and to shoot to kill.
Again and again the longhorn was wounded. His red hide was scarred with bullet wounds. Nevertheless, he continued to live and to defy his enemies, and it seemed that he bore a charmed life.
Wild tales of what Red Thunderbolt had done and was capable of doing were noised up and down the Brazos.
It was gravely declared that he was seen at Portala’s, on the upper river, at noon of a certain day; and, at two o’clock in the afternoon of that day, he was also discovered racing across the range a hundred and fifty miles to the south of Portala’s.
From this it was argued that Thunderbolt, whenever he chose to “let himself out,” had the speed of a lightning express train.
The maverick, from accounts, was able to appear in two widely separated places at the same time.
His strength was talked of in awed whispers, and took on an aspect as incredible as his speed.
It was related that before the killing of Dusenberry, two cowboys had roped Thunderbolt, and that he had pulled both men, saddles and all, over their horses’ heads. Thunderbolt had faded away with the saddles. Themissing gear had at last been found in a dry wash—with the ropes neatly coiled and lying over the saddle horns!
Such wonder tales, aroused by the remarkable prowess of Thunderbolt, filled every rider of the range with something akin to panic.
Cowboys no longer hunted the maverick by ones or in couples—they rather avoided him, or the haunts where he was supposed to be, unless they traveled in parties of three or more.
For two years Red Thunderbolt kept up the battle, spreading terror wherever he went and growing wise in the ways of the cowboy hunters. He was a veteran.
One day, he was feeding in the Whiplash Hills that bordered the Brazos. He was close to a trail, and the wind was in the wrong direction for him to scent the approach of a man on foot, who came suddenly into view around the base of an uplift.
Thunderbolt was less than a hundred feet from the man. The latter, recognizing the steer, gave a wild yell, and jerked a revolver from his belt.
There was nothing the man could climb and get out of the longhorn’s way, nothing he could get behind.
The maverick, seeing the glimmering thing rise in the man’s hand, realized that there was danger. Thunderbolt had learned that the safest way out of danger was by charging, not running.
So his head dropped, he gave a wild bellow, and started for the man like a red streak.
Crack!
The lead went wide. Another moment and the man was lifted clear of the ground and thrown a dozen feet, alighting on the earth with cruel force.
Red Thunderbolt, from the impetus of his first charge,passed on around the base of the hill. It was his intention to turn and repeat the charge, trampling and horning the man on the ground as long as he showed any signs of life.
But, when the trail beyond the hill’s base opened before Thunderbolt’s eyes, he saw a sight that gave him pause.
Two mounted men were coming toward him at speed—and they were not the sort of men with whom the maverick was familiar.
Their horses were larger than the usual cow pony, larger and stronger. And the men who backed them were clad differently than the human enemies whom Thunderbolt had heretofore encountered. Furthermore, they were thundering toward him, ropes in their hands, fiercely determined.
“Waugh!” howled one of the horsemen. “I’m er Piegan, Buffler, ef et ain’t thet thar Thunderbolt critter, ther demon o’ ther range, ther big medicine steer thet kain’t be captered er killed. Wisht we had er rifle!”
“That was a man’s shout we heard, Nick!” answered Buffalo Bill. “We’ll keep Thunderbolt busy while the man gets away, anyhow. Let’s see what we can do with our ropes.”
Again Thunderbolt made up his mind to throw himself headlong into the threatening danger, escaping the coil by either killing or crippling his foes.
“He’s chargin’!” whooped the old trapper. “Look out fer yerself, pard!”
The king of scouts needed no urging. He had already measured his peril.
Thunderbolt was almost upon him when, with a prick of the rowels, he whirled Bear Paw aside. The longhorntore on, the tip of one branching horn missing Bear Paw by no more than an inch.
Nomad’s rope shot through the air and the noose dropped on the steer’s head. It seemed as though it must surely close around the steer’s neck. Thunderbolt, however, by a flirt of the head, caused the menacing coil to fall into the trail.
Old Nomad roared in a strange outburst of disgust and admiration.
“Looket thar! Thunder an’ kerry one! Say, Buffler, did ye see how he got out from under? Tork erbout yore knowin’ steers, I reckon he heads the percession. Watch yer eye! He’s game, an’ he’s comin’ at us ag’in.”
Thunderbolt seemed to have settled on Buffalo Bill as the one foeman most worthy of his valor. Whirling around on his hind hoofs, he bellowed and started like a cyclone for the scout.
Then Nomad, watching with all his eyes, saw something he had never seen before.
The king of scouts, noose in hand, rushed at Thunderbolt. Both horseman and steer were going head-on toward each other, and neither seemed to have the least notion of dodging.
When they were almost together, Bear Paw, who had not his equal in all Texas for jumping, went into the air like a bird suddenly taking wing. He passed clean over the charging steer, and at the same moment the scout dropped his own noose.
The stout hempen coil encircled the steer’s neck. The scout had barely time to halt Bear Paw and turn and brace the horse for the shock that followed.
The impact, when the rope was all payed out, was terrific. Bear Paw’s hind hoofs were jerked into theair. What might have happened, had the rope held, is problematical. But the rope broke from the saddle and Red Thunderbolt raced on with the loose end flying.
“Waal, sufferin, whipperwills!” boomed the old trapper. “I never seen ye do nothin’ like thet afore, Buffler! Et was some great, et was so. An’ Thunderbolt got enough. He’s sizzlin’ erlong to’rds the open, an’ mighty glad, I opine, ter git erway from sich a jumpin’, rope-throwin’ pair o’ marvels as you an’ Bear Paw.”
“He’s got my rope!” yelled the scout. “Let’s follow him!”
With that, both riders raced around the foot of the hill.
The scout and the trapper were no more than a moment racing around the foot of the hill; but when the trail around the turn was before them, there was not a trace of Red Thunderbolt, and no sign of the man whose wild shout had first claimed the attention of the pards.
“Hyar’s a go!” muttered Nomad, pulling Hide-rack to a halt, and screwing up his face into a puzzled frown. “Whar’d thet steer hike ter, Buffler?”
“He’s made a getaway through some gully,” was the answer. “I reckon there’s no use hunting for him, pard. A steer as knowing as he is can be trusted to keep away from us. That was a good rope of mine,” he added regretfully. “Thunderbolt must have pulled on it like a locomotive to tear it away from the saddle.”
“An’ ther ombray thet we heerd a yellin’,” went on the trapper, “he ain’t eround, nuther. Must be he took ter his heels as soon as Thunderbolt begun payin’ attention ter us.”
“The man was on foot,” said the scout, indicating boot-tracks in the trail. “I don’t blame him for taking to hisheels. I’d have done the same, if I’d been in his place. Still, the fellow might crawl out of his crevice and say something to us, I should think. If we hadn’t interfered, the longhorn would have charged him again.”
“Ther feller shot at ther maverick oncet. I heerd the bark of er gun.”
“So did I. But what good is a revolver against Red Thunderbolt? There’s not enough powder back of a revolver bullet to get it through the longhorn’s hide. I’m beginning to understand, now, why Thunderbolt has made such a big impression on the Brazos cattlemen.”
“Same hyar.”
Nomad lifted himself in his stirrups and made a trumpet of his hands; then he yelled for the missing man who had faced the steer on foot, and fired the revolver.
No answer was returned.
“Don’t bother, Nick,” said the scout. “The fellow couldn’t have been hurt very much, seeing that he was able to use his legs and get away. We’ll ride on to Hackamore.”
The pards thereupon continued their journey in the direction of town.
The coming interview with Bloom was delicate business. Diplomacy would be necessary—diplomacy, backed by nerve.
As peacemaker, however, the scout felt that a truce must be patched up with Bloom.
Nate Dunbar was in Hackamore, hiring cowboys and buying supplies for the ranch. He had gone on this errand once before, only to be interrupted by a plot of Benner’s that had well-nigh turned out disastrously.
“How ye goin’ erbout et ter tork with Bloom?” askedOld Nomad, as he and the scout galloped onward, stirrup to stirrup.
“We’ve got to handle him with gloves, I reckon,” answered the scout.
“He ort ter be handled with the buckskin end of er quirt,” growled the trapper.
“That’s right, Nick. But now that Benner has been properly disciplined, I’m in hopes that Bloom will see things differently. We can’t leave this part of Texas until we patch up a peace between Bloom and the ranchers at the Star-A. There must be peace all up and down the Brazos when we leave the river.”
“I’m more of er hand fer distarbin’ ther peace, Buffler, than fer makin’ et. Thar’s er heap more excitement in diggin’ up the hatchet than in buryin’ et.”
“Bosh!” laughed the scout. “Nick, you and I never went into a job yet without having for our end and aim the establishment of peace and security. Drastic measures are sometimes necessary in order to smooth the kinks out of law and order.”
“H’m,” muttered Nomad. “I reckon I think too much o’ ther fightin’ end. In smoothin’ out kinks, I’d ruther land on ’em with both feet, with a gun in each fist. Rubbin’ the tangles out with love pats an’ coo-coo words is some more’n I kin do. Thar’s erbout as much sentiment in me as thar is in er horn toad. Anyways, this hyar di-plom-a-cy—is thet what ye call et?—ain’t wuth er whoop ef it ain’t backed by narve. By ther same token, what good’s narve ef ye ain’t got a leetle hardware tucked away up yore sleeve?”
The scout laughed again.
“I reckon we’ll have excitement enough to please you before we’re done with the Brazos,” said he, “but it’sonly going to be incidental to the main question of peace.”
The trapper chuckled, fancying he was catching Buffalo Bill’s drift.
“We’ll make peace, Buffler,” he declared, “ef we hev ter shoot holes in every bloomin’ statute of ther State o’ Texas!”
“Not so bad as that. We’re backing up the law, Nick. Bloom hasn’t been looking after the law as he was sworn to do.”
“Nary, he hasn’t. Ef he don’t do his duty, we’ll climb his neck an’ choke him till he sees et right an’ promises ter be good. Oh, I dunno. I reckon bein’ peacemaker kerries plenty o’ blue-fire trimmin’s. I knowed er feller, up in the Niobrara kentry, called Piegan Charlie. Charlie went an’ took an’ got married. I was lopin’ past his wickiup one day, an’ I found him an’ Mrs. Charlie engaged in er argyment. Charlie was pushin’ Mrs. Charlie agin’ the side o’ the house, an’ argyin’ with a broomstick. I got all worked up with er fool desire ter be one o’ these hyar peacemakers. Thet’s what I did. So, like er ijut, I drapped off’n my hoss, caught Charlie by the scruff o’ the neck, an’ throwed him inter a rainwater bar’l. While I was prancin’ eround an’ yellin’ fer peace an’ domestic quiet, Mrs. Charlie come up behind me an’ rapped me over the head with er washboard. She screeched out thet I hadn’t no bizness meddlin’ with her husband er distarbin’ ther fambly. When Charlie got out o’ the bar’l, he begun shootin’ at me. So I loped on, sadder an’ a heap wiser.”
By the time the scout had finished enjoying his pard’s reminiscence, they were in Hackamore.
There was quite a crowd collected around the front ofthe Delmonico, peering curiously through the open door of the office and the office windows.
“Somethin’ goin’ on, an’ I’ll bet er blue stack,” muttered Nomad.
“Looks like it,” the scout answered.
“What’s up, Pinkey?” queried the trapper, as the man in charge of the corral came to look after their riding gear.
“Dunno,” answered Pinkey. “Thar’s so much goin’ on in this man’s town et’s hard ter keep track o’ all the doin’s. Mebby a dog fight, er a man fight—thar ain’t much diff’rence when it comes ter rowdyin’.”
At this point a lanky individual, who had seen the pards ride up to the corral, hurried toward the group by the corral gate.
“Buffler Bill! Buffler Bill!” the man cried.
“Et’s Sim Pierce, thet’s who et is,” said Nomad, recognizing the approaching man. “What’s agitatin’ ye, Sim?”
“Row on in the orfice o’ the Delmonico,” panted Sim Pierce. “Jake Phelps, Hank’s cousin er somethin’, is rowin’ it with Nate Dunbar. I reckon ye kin stop it, muy pronto, Buffler Bill. Hustle in an’ stop ’em afore they git ter drorin’ hardware an’ throwin’ lead.”
The scout started for the office at a run.