VIIITHE MANKILLER
All this happened in the Bad Year, which was not so many months ago. The outfit issued daily from their camps--riding bog, skinning cattle and driving in the helpless to the home pastures to be fed on oil-cake and alfalfa. The cows were walking skeletons, wild of eye, ready to wheel in impotent anger on their rescuers; or sinking weakly to the ground at the least urging, never to rise again. Every creek was dry. Springs that were held eternal became slimy mudholes and a trap. A well-grown man could easily step across the San Pedro, oozing sluggishly past mauled carcasses.
Wherever one rode he found bones of hapless creatures, or starved cows stretched flat on their sides, waiting for death to end their sufferings. And the flies settled in sickening, heaving clusters. Each mire held its victim. Wobbly-legged calves wandered over the range, crying for mothers that could never come. And the sun blazed down out of a pale sky.
Even the saving mesquite in the draws and on the ridges was failing as sustenance; of grass there was none. The country lay bleak and gasping from Tombstone to the border. Not even a desert cow, accustomed to slake her water hunger by chewing cactus, could have long survived such blighting months. How we prayed for rain!
Manuel Salazar gave heed to the comet where he lay on his tarp, and crossed himself to avert the death-curse which was come upon the land. This weird luminary portended dire events and Manuel began, like a prudent man, to take thought of his religion. There might be nothing in religion, as Chico contended; but a man never knows, and it is the part of wisdom to be on the safe side.
Then, one evening, when the mountains were taking on their blue sheen and the beauty of these vast stretches smote one with a feeling akin to pain, Archie Smith rode up to headquarters and tossed a human hand on the porch.
“Found it in the far corner of the Zacaton Bottom,” he said.
Jim Floyd recognized it at once by the triangular scar on the palm. The hand had been gnawed off cleanly at the wrist. Floyd wrapped the gruesome thing in a sack, wishful to give it decent interment when opportunity should offer.
“It’s ol’ man Greer’s,” he said. “You remember ol’ man Greer? He used to dig postholes for the Lazy L. Where’s the rest of him, Smith?”
“I aim to go and see. Ki-yotes eat him up, don’t you reckon, Jim?”
“It sure looks that way. Pore ol’ Greer--he could dig postholes right quick,” the boss answered.
What Archie found of the digger of postholes established nothing of the manner of death. Both arms were gone and wolves had dragged the body; hence, there was no real argument against the theory that old man Greer, who indulged a taste fortequila, had sustained a fall from his horse and had perished miserably within sight of the ranch. Yet Archie found this hard to believe. Wolves do not crush in the skull of a man, and it was the cowboy’s conviction that anyone could fall off Hardtimes, the digger’s mount, twice or thrice a day with no other injury than the blow to his pride.
Two days later Manuel Salazar brought in Greer’s horse, shockingly gaunt and worried, and swelled as to the head. But what interested the outfit, when the saddle and bridle had been removed from Hardtimes, were long, parallel wales along neck and flank. Archie pronounced them to be the marks of a horse’s teeth.
“That don’t show anything. He wandered off and got into a fight with another horse,” Floyd asserted. “Yes, sir; it’s like that he done just that.”
After which he dismissed the unfortunate Greer from his mind. The outfit shook its head and expressed sorrow for the lonely digger, but opined that his fate surely went to show how injurious steady application totequilacould be, more especially in cruel weather. The Mexicans, and the nesters in outlying parts, were not satisfied with the explanation put forward. They discussed the mystery during protracted pauses in work and in the dark of the night. When two men met on a trail and halted to pass the time of day, old man Greer was the subject of talk. There were rumors of a snug fortune the digger had amassed and buried--sixty-six thousand dollars in gold, it was. Joe Toole, who made a nice, comfortable living by systematic theft of calves from the cattle company, did not hesitate to hint that Greer had died a victim to its professional gun-fighter for reasons best known to the rich corporation; but, then, Joe was prejudiced. Soon the death grew to a murder, and no man not of white blood would ride the Zacaton Bottom after nightfall.
Tommy Floyd talked of these and other matters to his father as the boss was feeding Apache.
“Pshaw!” Floyd said contemptuously. “Don’t you put no stock in them stories, Tommy, boy. Some people in this here country can smell a skunk when they sight a dead tree.”
“But what do you guess killed him, Dad?”
“I don’t know, son. I sure wish I did,” was the troubled reply.
He punched Apache in the ribs to make him move over. The huge jack laid back his ears and his tail whisked threateningly, but he gave place with an awkward flop, and Floyd laughed. Others might fear Apache, but he knew there was not the least particle of viciousness lurking in that hammerlike head. Of all the ranch possessions--blooded horses, thoroughbred Herefords and cowponies--he liked the jack best. It pandered to his vanity that others should avoid the monster, or approach him in diffidence, with suspicion and anxiety; and, in truth, Apache’s appearance was sufficiently appalling. Great as was his blue-gray bulk, it was dwarfed by the ponderous head; his knees were large and bulbous, and when he opened his mouth to bray, laying bare the powerful teeth, Apache was a spectacle to scare the intrepid. Horses would run at sight of him; an entire pasture would squeal with fear and flee on his approach. Yet there was not a gentler animal to handle in the million acres of the company’s range.
Toward the fag-end of a day Tommy was eatingpanochaon the steps of the porch, a favorite diversion with him. While removing some particles thereof from his cheek, in the region of his ear, he espied his father riding homeward from the Zacaton Bottom. Something in the way the boss swayed in the saddle brought Tommy’s head up alertly. Floyd was clinging to the horn and the reins trailed on the ground. The boy threw his crust away and ran to meet him. A dozen yards from the house the horse stopped, as though he knew that the end of the journey had come for his master.
“That black devil, Tommy!” his father gasped, and lurched outward and to the ground.
Two of the boys came running and bore Floyd to his bed. That he had contrived to ride home filled them with wonder at his endurance and fortitude--nearly the whole of his right side was torn away, one arm swung limply, and there were ragged cuts on the head. Tommy hovered near, crying to him to open his eyes.
The boss never regained consciousness, and died at midnight.
A Mexican doctor was summoned from a border village--his American competitor was off in the Dragoons, assisting at an increase to the population. After a minute examination the man of medicine announced that five ribs were broken. It was his opinion that Señor Floyd had met with an accident, from the effects of which he had passed away. Nobody was inclined to dispute this finding.
“Something done tromped him,” Dan Harkey asserted. “It’s like one of them bulls got into the Bottom and went for him when he got down to drink.”
“No,” said Archie positively; “a bull couldn’t have tore him up that way. It looks to me like teeth done that.”
Then Tommy awoke from the benumbed state in which he had moved since the tragedy and repeated his father’s dying words. They were very simple of interpretation. A black man had drifted into the country from eastern Texas, and lived, an outcast, on a place not fifteen miles from headquarters. It was well known that Floyd had had trouble with him, being possessed of an aggressive contempt for negroes, and twice had made threats to run the newcomer off.
“A nigrah could easy have beat him up thataway,” Dan declared. “A nigrah could do most anything. Yes, sir; he beat him to death--that’s what he done. It’s like he used that old hoe of his’n.”
Word of the killing flew over the land in the marvelous fashion news is carried in the cow-country. Within twelve hours men knew of it in the most remote cañons of the Huachucas, and a party of nine set forth from headquarters. But somebody had carried warning, for the lonely hut was untenanted and the door swung loose on its rawhide hinges.
They buried Floyd on top of a hill where the wind had a free sweep, and piled a few stones atop. Tommy fashioned a cross out of two rough boards; and the boss sleeps there to-day. The sheriff was deeply stirred and had notices posted throughout the territory.
$250 REWARDFor the arrest, dead or alive, of the man who brutally murdered James Floyd, boss of the Tumbling K, sixteen miles from here, some time yesterday evening. This man is supposed to be a negro; about forty years of age; black; about six feet in height and weighing close to two hundred pounds. Has a razor scar above the left ear.He has in his possession a .35 caliber autoloading rifle, No. 5096, and a .32-30 pistol. He may be riding a sorrel horse with a roached mane, branded 93 on left hip.This crime is one of the most dastardly in the criminal annals of the Territory, and I earnestly urge every officer and other person receiving this circular to do everything in his power to effect the capture of this human fiend.The above reward is only a preliminary reward, which may be increased later to one thousand dollars, when the governor, with whom the matter will be taken up, is heard from.Wire me if any suspect is arrested, or if any information is obtained whatever concerning this negro, at my expense.
$250 REWARD
For the arrest, dead or alive, of the man who brutally murdered James Floyd, boss of the Tumbling K, sixteen miles from here, some time yesterday evening. This man is supposed to be a negro; about forty years of age; black; about six feet in height and weighing close to two hundred pounds. Has a razor scar above the left ear.
He has in his possession a .35 caliber autoloading rifle, No. 5096, and a .32-30 pistol. He may be riding a sorrel horse with a roached mane, branded 93 on left hip.
This crime is one of the most dastardly in the criminal annals of the Territory, and I earnestly urge every officer and other person receiving this circular to do everything in his power to effect the capture of this human fiend.
The above reward is only a preliminary reward, which may be increased later to one thousand dollars, when the governor, with whom the matter will be taken up, is heard from.
Wire me if any suspect is arrested, or if any information is obtained whatever concerning this negro, at my expense.
“The lonely hut was untenanted”
“The lonely hut was untenanted”
Two months passed, and nothing was heard or seen of the black man. The rains held off. North and east the ranges were deluged. A blight appeared to have fallen upon the Tumbling K. The land grew a shade grayer, the dust spurts whirled in gleeful, savage dance, and the cattle gave up the effort of living and lay down to die. All that the boys could do was to distribute salt and feed and work frantically to maintain the water supply. The emaciated brutes would eat of the oil-cake and hay, and sweat profusely on the nose, then stiffen out and expire with a sigh. Those that clung to life carried swollen under-jaws from the strain of tearing at the short grass.
“Poor bastard!” Archie grunted, tailing up a cow he had already helped to her feet three times. “It fair makes a man sick at the stummick to see ’em. Here, you doggone ol’ she-devil! Why don’t you try for to help yourself? Up you come! That’s it; try to hook me.”
It was no use. He shot her where she lay, and skinned her. Then, with the wet hide dragging at the end of a rope and her calf thrown over the fork of the saddle, he set out for headquarters. The orphan was a lusty youngster, and Archie made him many promises, accompanied by many strange oaths.
“Li’l’ dogy,” he said, “I’ll find a mammy for you to-night if I have to tie up the old milch cow. Do you think you can suck a milch cow, dogy? Sure you can. Man alive, feel of him kick! He’s a stout rascal. You’ll be a fine steer some day, dogy.”
On a black-dark night flames leaped above the rim of the mountain, and the Tumbling K were roused from bed to go forth with wet sacks, and rage in their hearts, for the scum of humanity who would fire a range. Twenty-six hours in the saddle and six more fighting the leaping, treacherous enemy; then two hours of sweating sleep on saddle-blankets beside their hobbled horses, and back a score of miles on desperate trails for fresh mounts--three separate times they beat out the blaze with sacks and back-firing. Once more, rising heavy-lidded and dripping from the stupor of utter exhaustion, they saw it licking hungrily through the Gap. No unlucky cigarette-stub thrown amid parched grass, no abandoned campfire, had done this. It was the deliberate work of an enemy.
Orders came to move the cattle down into the valley, lest they perish to the last horn, to the last torn hoof.
“It’ll take you three days to move ’em ten miles,” the manager said; “but never mind. Ease ’em. Ease ’em careful. The man who yells at a cow, or pushes her along, gets his time right there. The only real way to handle cattle is to let ’em do what they want and work ’em as you can. Think that over, boys.”
Manuel Salazar remembered this warning as he moved his tired horse at a snail’s pace behind a bunch of sick ones in the Zacaton Bottom. Manuel made twenty dollars a month with consummate ease, working only seven days in the week and only thirteen hours a day; and he would not throw his job away lightly. Therefore he permitted the gaunt cows to straggle as pleased them, humming to himself while they nibbled at tufts here and there. If one turned its head to look at him it fell from sheer weakness; therefore he held aloof. So the sad procession crept along.
It was in Manuel’s mind to save a mile by moving the bunch through the horse pasture. He put them through the gate with no trouble and was dreamily planning how he might steal back a hair rope Chico had stolen from him, when the quirt slipped out of his fingers. The vaquero got down to pick it from the ground.
“Hi! Hi!” he yelled in panic, and ducked just in time.
A black shape towered above him, striking with forefeet, reaching for the nimble Manuel with its teeth. Its mouth yawned agape; Salazar swore he could have rammed a lard bucket into it. The vaquero swerved from under the deadly hoofs and hit out blindly with the quirt. The stallion screamed his rage for the first time and lunged at him, head swinging low, the lips flicking back from the ferocious teeth. Manuel seized a stone, put to his hand by the blessed saints, and hurled it with precision, striking the horse on the nose. Midnight blared from pain and shook his royal mane in fury, but the shock stayed him and Salazar gained his horse.
“Now,” he yelled, pulling his gun and maneuvering his mount that he might be ready to flee, “come on, you! You want to fight? That’s music to me.”
But Midnight did not want to fight. He had employed craft in stealing upon the man, and now he moved off sulkily, the whites of his eyes rolled back, a thin stream of blood trickling from his muzzle. Salazar longed to shoot holes through his shiny black hide, but contented himself with abuse instead. Was not the stallion worth five thousand dollars? Who was he--Manuel, a poor vaquero--to be considered in the same thought with so noble a beast?
“Tommy,” he said as he unsaddled at headquarters, “I’ve found who killed your pore father. Yes, and old man Greer, too. Don’t look so pale, Tommy.”
Tommy stalked into the manager’s office next forenoon, a very solemn and very determined, if a short and somewhat dirty figure. He was white under his freckles, and he talked through his teeth, jerkily, his eyes fixed unwaveringly on the manager’s face.
“Midnight!” the manager exclaimed. “Nonsense! Why, he wouldn’t harm a fly. That horse would never kill a man. He’s worth five thousand dollars. Since we got him from Kentucky, two years ago, a woman could handle him, Tommy, boy. Salazar must have been teasing him. You’ll have to look somewhere else, Tommy.”
“You mean you ain’t going to do nothing, Mr. Chalmers?” Tommy asked in a dry voice.
“Of course not. Midnight? Impossible. Why, that horse is worth five thousand dollars. He couldn’t have done it.”
Tommy went back home very slowly. That night he sat beside Manuel’s candle and cleaned and oiled a sawed-off .25-30 rifle, inherited from the man who slept on the hill. Salazar smoked lazily and watched him through drooping lids. The boy finished his task and leaned forward on the stool, staring at the tiny flame, the weapon across his knees.
Of what avail to shoot Midnight? Of course it would be easy. Tommy had acquired some degree of skill by blowing the heads off chickens whenever any were desired for the dinner-table, and he felt assured that at two hundred yards he could pick off the stallion with one pressure of his finger. It would be mere child’s work to distinguish Midnight from the mares, even on the murkiest night. But, after all--had the stallion done the killing? He had only Manuel’s experience and suspicions to go on. Moreover, if he took punishment into his own hands they might throw him into a jail. Midnight was worth five thousand dollars: assuredly Mr. Chalmers would cast Tommy out into the world to shift for himself. He put the rifle back under his bunk.
Very discreetly Tommy entered the horse pasture at sunup--he had been unable to sleep for scheming--and made his way down the mile-long fence toward the corner where the mares usually grazed at that hour. He had a six-shooter in his pocket for an emergency, but he hoped that he would not use it. Midnight sighted him and stood rigid a full minute, twenty paces in advance of the mares, gazing at the boy. He was a regal animal; Tommy thought he had never seen so glorious a horse. Then the stallion advanced with mincing steps, his head bobbing, the ears laid back. He sidled nearer, without haste, whinnying softly. The boy waited until he was a dozen feet distant, then threw himself flat and rolled under the barbed-wire fence. With a rending scream Midnight reared and plunged for him, his forefeet battering the ground where Tommy had fallen. He tore at the earth in discomfiture and wrath, and raved up and down on the other side of the fence, his nostrils flaring, his eyes a glare of demoniacal hate. Tommy surveyed him in deathly quiet.
The dark came warm, with puffs of hot wind, so that the Tumbling K men reviled the discomfort joyously, since it presaged rain. So long as the cold nights endured there could be no relief. Tommy slipped from the bunkhouse for a breath of air, though it was past bedtime and they had told him to turn in.
“Apache!” he called in a low tone, gliding into the stall.
The jack cocked his monstrous ears and listened, knowing well the voice. Tommy put a halter over his head and opened the stall door. It was gnawed and scarred by Apache’s teeth and hoofs, and the boy wrenched it from the hinges and laid it aslant on the ground.
“You done bust your way out, Apache,” he whispered. “You hear me, you ol’ devil?”
He led him out into the corral and thence into the lane, talking softly as they went. Apache raised his nose and sniffed of the wind. When they reached the horse pasture the boy tore out the strands of wire at a spot near the corner of the fence.
“You was fond of my Dad, wasn’t you, Apache?” Tommy quavered, working with nervous fingers to unbuckle the halter. “Then go to it.”
The jack required no bidding. He wrenched free and stepped carefully over the wire into Midnight’s domain. Apache never did anything in ill-judged haste. A blur, two hundred yards off, attracted him and he headed toward it eagerly. A moment, and he stopped; then went forward with caution.
Midnight had seen him coming. He trotted out from his band of mares and halted expectantly. Next instant he had recognized Apache for what he was, and shrilled a challenge. The jack brayed like a fiend and went forward slowly to meet him.
Now, a capable jack can whip any stallion that ever breathed. It is really an education to watch a jack like the mighty Apache fight. There exists the same difference between the methods of a stallion and a jack as between those of a nervous amateur boxer and the seasoned champion. A jack has no fear that anyone can detect, and is practically insensible to pain. One can see at a glance what an advantage this gives him over an opponent with any lingering predilection for longevity.
Also, a jack never fights for glory, never fights for the gallery. His sole object is to win. Wherefore, no idle and frivolous prancing about for him--no swift rush in, a blind striking with hoofs, a tearing with the teeth, then out again. A jack is not constructed that way. Fighting is a business--a serious, albeit a pleasurable, business; and he attends to that side of it with passionate singleness of purpose. He will watch his opportunity with the alert coolness of the professional, wasting not an ounce of energy. When the opening comes he goes to it like the stroke of a rattler, gets his grip and shuts his eyes and hangs on. There is considerable of the bulldog in a jack, and if he is to be gotten off at all, one must pry him off with a crowbar; in fact, next to a Shetland stallion, which is the darlingest little fighter that ever tore at an enemy’s ribs, nothing more instructive can be witnessed than a full-sized jack in a fair field and no interruptions.
Apache had fought before--many, many times. Therefore he made for the foe with circumspection, his head jerking sideways, his tail tucked, ears laid flat on his neck, and his feet barely touching the ground, so lightly did his tense muscles carry him. One evil eye measured the giant horse with venomous composure.
Vastly different was Midnight’s attack. The stallion had pluck to spare, but his temper was overhasty and his skill slight. Rage forever clouded his judgment in encounter. He had learned only one plan of battle and that was to rush and bear down his opponent. There was his rival. He would kill him. Midnight’s was a simple creed.
His harsh scream rent the night silence, and the fight was on. Another horse would have circled so formidable an adversary in an endeavor to create an opening, but the black’s temper was too imperious for delay. Straight was his rush. He bore down on the jack at the top of his speed, his wonderful, supple body a-quiver with eagerness and anger.
Then Apache did a remarkable thing--a thing almost human in ingenuity. What Apache didn’t know about fighting is best forgotten. Swerving ever so slightly as the black came, he lunged to meet him, crashing shoulder to shoulder with all the strength of his tough sinews behind the impact. Hit sideways, taken off his balance, the force of Midnight’s own charge contributed to his overthrow. Down he tumbled, scrambling with his feet as he fell. Before his body touched the ground, the jack whirled and lashed with both heels into his sides. With the same appalling speed, Apache drove for the throat of his prostrate enemy, secured his grip and shut his eyes, wrenching frenziedly from side to side and upward.
It is well not to tell further what Apache did to the mankiller. A jack has about as much sense of mercy as he has of fear, and he has never been taught any rules of warfare. When he gets his enemy where his enemy would like to get him, he does his utmost to obliterate him from the face of the earth. So it was that next day the Tumbling K men were barely able to recognize the Kentucky stallion in the torn, broken, black pulp they found in the horse pasture.
All night long Apache brayed and screeched. The noise of his triumph would set a soul to quaking. It pierced Manuel’s dreams and he muttered in his sleep a prayer for protection from the Evil One. The jack pranced around and around his victim, and up and down the pasture, wild with the joy of battle, magnificent in his superb strength and the pride of victory. Toward dawn he abandoned the carcass and drove off the terror-stricken mares as the just spoils of the conqueror.
Big white clouds boiled up back of the mountains that afternoon, with a stiff wind from the southeast behind them; and at sunset the heavens opened of their blessed treasure. Manuel and Tommy lay in the bunkhouse listening to the thunder of rain on the sod roof. A burro came to the door and poked his patient head inside, seeking warmth and a friendly dry spot.
“Come in!” cried Manuel cheerily. “Take a chair. Tommy, give him your bed. Ain’t that music, though? Hark! Oh, the cattle! Can’t you see them soaking in it, boy?”
A yellow mongrel ousted the doubtful burro from the doorway and began nosing about for a place to rest his uneasy rump. The roof was leaking in strong, hearty streams, and Salazar sprawled on his back, letting the water run on to his chest. He was smiling placidly. Tommy snuggled into the blankets and pictured to himself a new land of much grass, and clear-eyed, contented cows and high-tailed calves.
“The curse is lifted,” Manuel observed piously. “Yes, sir. The dear God sent the jack to kill that stallion. How else could it be? What do you think, Tommy, boy?”
“I reckon so,” said Tommy.
IXNEUTRIA
My name is Neutria. It means Beaver, and they gave it me because I tuck my tail. Nobody but Chappo ever called me a pretty horse, but Chappo once said in my hearing that my ugly roan hide covered more beauty than all the girls of Sonora possessed; and Chappo really knew everything worth knowing.
He was not my first master. There was another, to speak of whom is pain--a tall man, with only one eye, and a long, sandy mustache, stained of the tobacco he chewed perpetually. This person owned my mother and we lived in a small pasture among the lesser hills of the San José range. What he did to sustain life was never quite plain to us, because the land he held remained uncultivated and he spent much time by himself in his dirty shack, drinking from a demijohn which he kept hidden under some sacks in a corner. Oftentimes he would come from his drinking and drive us into a corral he had constructed of ocatilla. There he would beat my mother, and chase us about and about. I was very young then and he spared me. She was terribly afraid of him, and whenever he roared at her, even though it was in the sixty-acre field, where he could be evaded, she fell to trembling and would walk falteringly to the halter he held out.
There were nights when he forgot us entirely and left us in a small wooden pen, without anything to eat or drink. Occasionally a calf was dragged up and shoved in with us, and it would bawl for a day and a night for the mother from whose side it had been torn. After a while he would brand the little creature with his own mark of the inverted pitchfork. In this manner he gathered a respectable bunch of cattle, though I know of two cows only which he ever bought.
This is not the place to tell how he broke me to the saddle. He made me obey him, but he did not break my spirit, even though my sides were bloody from his savage anger. Although Sloan branded all else he could get, on me he never put the iron.
“What for you haven’t got the Pitchfork on that li’l’ horse, Sloan?” a cowboy asked him one day at Buzzard’s Feast.
“He don’t need it, this hoss don’t. He’s so doggone ornery nobody’d steal him,” said my master.
Later I heard the other--a roaring, swaggering boy, with a kind eye and soothing hands--tell a friend that the only animal Sloan did not brand was the one which he owned legally.
Whenever the strength was in me, I fought him. He was a powerful man, with a punishing knee-grip and a poise that was almost unshakable, whatever his condition. But oppression begets cunning, and ride as he might, there were times when I could hurl him off. If a horse take thought when he starts his pitch, instead of bucking in blind, raving anger, there is a chance that he will have the victory. I mastered a trick of rocketing straight into the air and whirling about back under the rider, before my feet touched the ground. This is difficult, but imparts a really terrific shock; even Sloan could not withstand it. Of course he would beat and spur me almost to death when he was able to walk again. If that method of fighting him failed, there was another, dangerous to horse and rider alike. I would rear high, with my head thrown back, whereupon Sloan would kick his feet free of the stirrups lest he be caught under me when I toppled. Then, before he could recover, my head would shoot down between my forelegs and once more I would go to pitching. It was very efficacious, this stratagem, and the pleasure of it was much enhanced if the ground was rocky or there were cactus and mesquite into which he could be flung.
In spite of the endless cruelty to which Sloan subjected me, he taught me much. Whatever else he might be, he was a cowman; but he knew and practiced a lot that no honest cowman should know. Sometimes he would reverse the shoes on my feet that the impress on the ground might appear to be a trail leading in the opposite direction to his line of travel. He rode much at night, so that I became expert at picking my way down rock-cluttered declivities in the blackest of the dark. Once when he fled before a body of horsemen which had discovered three calves hogtied in a box cañon, I managed to distance them. Thereupon he alighted and muffled my hoofs with gunny-sacks, that he might follow a stony creek-bed without sound.
“Damn, but you kin climb out when you want to,” he said grudgingly, when we were safe at home.
Because I learned quickly and never forgot, Sloan held his hand from killing me in any of his outbursts of rage. At least a dozen times did he tie me fast to a snubbing-post and belabor my head and neck and ribs with a stout club, until I grew sick from pain and my glazing eyes warned him that he had touched the limit of my endurance. Then he would desist, for I was of value to him. These fits of frenzy were occasioned by the most trifling happenings. Perhaps when he came to drive in my mother and me, we did not move fast enough--she was growing very old--or she exhibited a too great fear. Then he would rope us and proceed to torture until his temper waned.
I come now to the time he killed my mother and I won a brief freedom. The weather had been murderously hot. From January to July no drop of rain fell and our hills grew sullenly naked and brown. Sloan’s spring ceased its flow. He did not discover that for two days, being stupefied, and we were terribly wasted when he turned us out to find water for ourselves.
There was no grass. The earth showed gray as the rocks and as bare, and the rocks gave back the heat in shimmering waves. Where the ground had cracked under the sun, giant fissures gaped for the feet of the unwary. Five miles from home we saw some cows stumbling hopelessly out of a cañon and learned that there, too, the water had failed. Their dried skins drew tight over their bones and the panic of desperation glared from their eyes. One prodded at my mother as we passed, refusing to give place as cattle do to horses, then sank weakly to the ground. Later she stretched out on her side, and we knew that the end was near.
Turkey buzzards strutted everywhere, gorged to apathy. They would cluster on a carcass, unwinking and insolent, and watch us nosing in quest of a bite to eat. Fires had ravaged the lower ridges, and trees and brush were stripped clean. To remain here meant slow death, and we fared higher.
We met with cattle on the upper slopes, spent and picking their path with care. A heifer slipped and rolled downward almost beneath our feet. There were many orphan calves, bawling impotently against echoing cañons’ walls, and carrion-crows hung soundlessly in flocks, their shadows flitting swiftly over the earth in front of us. We came on the body of a horse at a dried waterhole. He had plunged from a ledge in his exhaustion, to die helplessly in sight of the place he sought. Crows had torn out the eyes.
But I would not let my mother become disheartened. All these creatures were moving downward, and some propelling force has always driven me upward in time of stress. So I led her far among the peaks. It was desolate enough, of a certainty--so barren that my poor, tottering mother wanted to go back, though she knew well that the homeward stretch was beyond her strength--but I urged her forward.
We came at last to four peaks, away up in those mountains, and threading a defile, emerged into a cuplike draw among them; and there were mesquite in profusion and many green things. And more precious than all, a tiny spring bubbled behind a boulder at the north end. It would not water more than four head, but it sufficed, and we tarried on its edge all of one evening.
For forty days we stayed in our random home and gained in flesh and in strength. Then, one hot, sticky evening, great banks of mist surged upward and massed around our beloved peaks, and the rain broke from the press and drenched the hills. We turned our backs to the driving torrents, clamped our tails and let the cool water soak into our crackling hides.
What a difference in the land when the sun showed again, clear and warm! It was as a dead thing come to life. Tender shoots thrust their heads above the hard ground; the trees stopped their complaints, and nodded and rustled jauntily to a southwest breeze, for the sap stirred within them and soon they would put forth new leaves. A ground squirrel emerged from a hole, blinked impudently at us, and then dashed off across the rocks, reckless from sheer joy of being alive. We sniffed of the good, fresh wind and headed for the lower reaches, for there would be rare grazing now that the rains had washed the valleys. Thus we came to live close to our old home.
Sloan came riding on an October day.
“Crackee, but you two is fat,” he shouted gleefully.
He had a new horse, a high, long-backed sorrel with the legs of a racer. I knew the breed,--a steel-dust valley horse, built for speed and helpless as a wagon among our crags. Sloan drove us in and got down to put a halter on the mare.
My mother had never concealed her dread of him. It moved him always to an excess of fury, but she had learned terror in youth and it held her through all her years. Now she snorted, her limbs a-tremble, and drew back. The sweat stood out on her muzzle and dyed her neck.
“What,” Sloan bellowed, “you ol’ she-devil, you ain’t learned to quit dodging yet? Then, by God, I’ll learn you.”
He swung a breast-yoke with all his force, smashing my mother squarely between the ears. The mare gave a moan, a long sigh, and sank slowly to the ground, the eyelids flickering. I saw her legs stiffen.
He kicked her where she lay and started for me, but I rushed by him, lashing with my shoeless heels as I went. They caught him full in the chest. I can hear yet the grunt he gave at the impact; then over he went.
He had put up only two bars of the corral gate. I took them with a rush and headed for the high hills. Sloan scrambled to his feet, coughing and swearing, and ran to the sorrel. In the saddle, he fired twice, but though the bullets slashed the ground ahead of me, I never wavered. He let out a shout and spurred after, making ready his rope as he came. It made my blood dance to see these futile efforts. For a valley horse is to a mountain horse as a house kitten is to a wild-cat. It is true that an exceptional valley horse, if turned loose in the hills young enough, may in three years’ time develop into a fair mountain pony--with good schooling, that is. Even then he will lack something of our depth of chest and perfection of feet. But put a valley horse, green, in the mountains, and he will stand and shiver and sweat, not daring to venture. So I was elated when Sloan came pounding behind, knowing full well that the sorrel could never follow where I would lead.
The chase led up a rocky cañon filled with post-oak, along a mesa, through a gap, skirted a summit, and dipped downward into another cañon. Now we were straightened out for my familiar peaks. Suddenly I became aware that the pursuers had dropped back, and, easing in my run, I saw Sloan beating the sorrel over the head with his rope. He was ever thus, blaming his mount on the least excuse.
Two days and a night I fled. Of course it was necessary to pause for a few hours to eat grass and to drink, but fear of Sloan kept me moving. I struck south, then westward. Fences delayed my flight considerably in the valleys, but I had had experience with them, and roamed along until I discovered a spot where the wires were partially down and could be jumped, or until I found a watergap. I suppose I covered one hundred and sixty miles, but not all in a straight line by any means, and at sundown of the second day I was in a goodly range of hills. Here I rested.
A band of bronchos wandered into a draw where I fed that night, and I joined them. We roved where we willed, and the rain fell abundantly and the grass was green and plentiful.
Why is it one can never be entirely happy? If one be breast-high in succulent zacaton, a fly will mar the feast. I have observed a mare in a field of alfalfa, neglecting what she could have without effort, to stretch unavailingly through the fence after a tuft of tough Johnson-grass; in fact, I have done that myself. Here was I with millions of virgin acres in which to wander; all I could eat; agreeable companions. Yet I pined to hear a man’s voice. That sounds inexplicable, but it is the truth. Even Sloan’s harsh bass tones would have been welcome, after six months of freedom. Man’s companionship had been bred in me, and though his presence might bring terror, yet I longed for it, and the master-grip of his hand.
Winter passed and the long, dry season opened in a blaze of heat. A horseman bore down on us one day, from the south, and we massed swiftly for escape. Within a mile, two more riders appeared, and my companions increased their pace to a gallop. Only I, of all the band, knew what this meant. The others were bronchos who had never felt the rope and they ran blindly, ignorant of the cordon closing in from every direction. But I was cleverer. Suddenly darting from the herd, I sped within sixty feet of a cowboy--not close enough for his loop--and gained the mouth of a cañon. Up this I spurted, the rider in hot chase.
How often are pride and conceit confounded. The cañon narrowed--narrowed to sheer walls fifty feet apart--and there ahead of me, blocking my path, was a cliff of red-streaked rock. Water trickled down its face. That much I perceived, and then it rushed upon me that the race was run. I turned short about and tried to go by him as I had passed Sloan, but he threw his rope and caught me cleanly. Sloan had taught me the lesson of the rope--taught it in bitter vindictiveness--and I followed my captor without struggle.
“Done got a maverick,” he announced, when he rejoined his comrades.
“He’s been rode before, Chappo,” another said. “Look at the way he follows. And there’s been a cinch sore on his left side. Look.”
“I cain’t see it,” Chappo said obstinately. “He’s a maverick, I’m a-telling you. And he’s my horse, because I done found him.”
When he had me in the corral at headquarters, Chappo walked fearlessly to my head. Of course I began to quiver, for well I knew what this portended.
“You pore son-of-a-gun,” he muttered, and stopped. “So he done beat you over the haid?”
He scratched my ears and rubbed my head lightly between the eyes. All the while, he talked to me in a low tone, with a sort of laugh behind it. Chappo was a small man, no higher than a fence post, but there was something in his touch that made me fear and yet want him to keep on rubbing. When he attempted to put the bridle on, I stood rigid, expectant. Surely the beating would come now. It did not. Instead, he said, “You ol’ rascal, you,” and jabbed me in the ribs with his thumb. Now, here is a curious thing. A man can jab you with his thumb so that it hurts, and he can jab you in the same place with the same force and it will only tickle pleasantly. Everything depends on the spirit in which it is done. Chappo’s thumb was very agreeable and I laid back my ears and pretended to nip at him.
“I’ll top you,” he said, “and then I’ll put the Box C on you.”
It amused me vastly to hear this mite of a man tell so confidently how he would ride me, when even the terrible Sloan could not keep the saddle at times. Just to scare him, I bowed my back when he slapped the blanket on. Then I rolled my eyes backward to note the effect. He was grinning, actually grinning--and his hat did not show above my withers. Next, he threw on the saddle, and the curve in my spine was unmistakable; but he merely hummed a tune and began to cinch me tightly, with careless freedom, just as if we had been friends all our years. It surprised me so much that I suffered his impertinence in quiet.
There were some cowboys on the fence, watching.
“Want me to ear him, Chappo?” one asked.
“No-oo. Me and him’s friends already. Ain’t we?” He made me walk a few steps, still grinning as he inspected the significant upward tilt of the saddle. “Look at his tail, boys. We’ll shore have to call him Beaver.”
“Call him Neutria,” one cried.
My new master nodded and then stood directly in front. I tried to look away, but his eyes drew mine in spite of me, and when he backed off, I followed, though he exerted no pressure on the bit. There was nothing hard and there was nothing mean in those eyes; a devil lurked in Sloan’s. Chappo’s were clear and very good-natured, yet oddly compelling.
“That’s all right,” he said. “Now we know each other, me and you, Neutria.”
He pulled my head around by the cheek of the bridle and next moment was atop. I remained motionless. The grip of his knees was curiously at variance with his bulk: somehow that grip raised a doubt in my mind that I could shed him.
Next second I was pitching, more from force of habit than from any wish to hurt this youth. What was the matter? No spurs gored my sides; I felt no sting of quirt. Instead, Chappo merely swayed in the saddle and he whooped me on to further effort, hitting my shoulders gleefully with his hat. This was too much--a wight of one hundred and twenty pounds to make game of me! I paused for breath and to gather strength.
“Hey, you ain’t quitting?” he inquired. “Wipe her up, li’l’ feller. Fly at it.”
After that it was imperative I should do my best--Sloan could never have kept his seat when I let myself loose to his challenge. Every trick his brutality had taught me I employed, and only once did Chappo waver. He was riding on his spurs now, yet he had to grab desperately for the horn; but he righted himself with a laugh and renewed his yelling. At last I was compelled to stop.
“You’re shore a dandy, Neutria,” he panted. “Let’s call it an even break.”
That suited me admirably. It would have been a shame to injure the boy.
I never pitched with Chappo again. He was always kind to me, save once only. That was when he placed the Box C on my left hip with a red-hot iron. It pained horribly, but I realized that all horses had to go through this ordeal and that Chappo did not mean to be brutal.
What times we had that summer and autumn! It was a year of frequent rains, and horses and cattle were sleek and fat and rollicking. Chappo and I would go out from camp twice each week and prowl the mountains the livelong day. Perhaps a long-eared calf would be roused up--he is one that has escaped branding--and my master would settle himself and take down his rope even as I flashed in pursuit, over rocks and brush, down cañons’ sides, up cliffs, shooting through defiles. It is something to be a mountain horse, though it is I who say it; no other horse in the world could have carried Chappo at full speed where I carried him after mavericks. And he never faltered.
“Wherever you put your doggone feet is good enough for me, Neutria,” he said once, at the bottom of a perilous descent.
Chappo was an excellent cowhand, more skilled than Sloan. He would seldom miss a throw in the wildest country, and when he had the calf roped, down he would jump and hogtie it before one could count thirty. Then I would fall to grazing while he built a fire, heated his running-iron and put the company brand on the captive. There were days when we caught four or five in this manner. It was glorious sport.
And then, of course, there was the fall roundup, when all our riders--twenty-two in number--swept the range in daily drives. We collected more than nineteen thousand head of cattle; some of the long-horned steers Chappo and I brought in had not set eyes on a man since they were suckling calves. It was good to chase these outlaws, they being stout and hearty on the rope, and it nerved me to see Chappo’s fearlessness and confidence. He would tie to one of the big brutes without hesitation, whatever the nature of the ground, trusting implicitly to me to throw it. If a steer had dragged me down, it would have meant maiming for Chappo and me, so I was ever on my guard. I always contrived to throw them, even though some weighed two hundred pounds heavier than I.
I was Chappo’s top horse--that is to say, his best saddler. Consequently it was me he rode to town on the rare occasions he could get there. I took the best of care of him.
On one occasion when he had spent an entire morning in town visiting various places of call with friends, Chappo bet fifty dollars I could throw an enormous bull they had in a feeding-pen. It was an intensely foolish wager; besides, he hadn’t the money, and was earning only forty dollars a month. The sight of this bull--a Hereford--appalled me for a moment, for he was a monstrous fellow, blocky and solid; but Chappo patted my neck and whispered to me, and when he let his noose fly, I darted off with taut muscles, unafraid, yet ready for the tremendous jar that would come with the tightened rope. What a giant he was! When he lunged, the girth nearly cut me in two, and for the fraction of a second I thought my feet would fly from under me and that Chappo would be ignominiously prostrated in the dust. Then, at the critical moment, we gave him slack, let him run to the end of it, wheeled like a striking snake, and with a cunning heave, flopped him ponderously on the ground. It broke his neck and they put Chappo in the calaboose. The boss got him out only after much ceremony and considerable loose talk and the payment of moneys.
Chappo dearly loved to go to town. He was always in excellent humor on these trips and would attempt feats that reflected more credit on his stoutness of heart than on his head. On a night, he tried to make me climb the steps of the hotel veranda and enter the bar. Had it been anyone but Chappo, I would have pitched him off without more ado, such was the childishness of this display. But because it was Chappo and I could feel from his legs that all was not right with him, I meekly ascended the steps and walked into the bar, taking heed where I placed my feet. A crowd of loafers cheered me and filled a large bowl, that I might drink, but Chappo would have none of this.
He sang much on the road back to camp. It was dark as a panther’s lair. Chappo would hum and drone a few lines, then relapse into abrupt silences. I kept every sense alert, for his safety depended on me. Once, when he sagged in the saddle, I stopped until he got settled again. After that he rode with firmer seat, but his good humor seemed to have vanished. We reached a point where a cow trail, a mere thread so faint that it was barely discernible, led off from the main trail.
“Here, you,” Chappo said, jerking me about, “who’s running this show? Hey? Doggone your fat haid. This is a cut-off.”
The trail was new to me, but I took it obediently. It led in the general direction of camp, but became vaguer as we proceeded. Finally it merged into the brown of a hillside.
“Hell!” Chappo exclaimed. “Where’s that cussed trail gone to, Neutria? Well, let’s hit across country, boy. What’s twenty miles between two of us?”
We struck over a hill at a trot. Suddenly my heart gave a leap and every hair on my body seemed to tingle. Just in time I sat back on my haunches. Chappo swore and struck me sharply with the spur.
“What’s the matter with you, you ol’ rascal? I swan. . . . Seen a skunk?” he cried.
I began to shiver, and that sobered him. It was too dark to make out anything and he lighted a match. A gulf yawned beneath us, where the hill dropped away to a jumble of rocks. Chappo sucked in his breath and let the match fall. Then he turned me around.
“Neutria,” was all he said, but let his hand rest for a long minute on my withers.
We were following the Gap trail on a day in late autumn when, in rounding a bend, we almost collided with a rider.
“Hel-lo,” came in surprised accents. It was Sloan, on his sorrel.
“Howdy,” Chappo said. “Nice and cool, ain’t it?”
“Whose hoss is that?”
“He’s my horse. Finest cowhorse in these here mountains.” Chappo would often boast thus. It was unwise, but it made me very proud nevertheless.
“Huh-huh. And who might you be?”
“The Emp’ror of Rooshia.”
“Sure. You might be, but you ain’t. You got papers for this here hoss?”
“No, I ain’t got no papers for him. Don’t you see the Box C on him? That’s papers enough.” Chappo was careless and bold, but I knew he was anxious.
“You got to have papers in Mexico. That’s my hoss, son.”
“Yes?” said Chappo. “Where’s your papers, then?”
“I kin prove he’s mine,” Sloan said evenly. “I’ll be obliged for that hoss, pardner.”
My master thought a moment. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Sloan.”
“Yes? I’ve heard of you, Sloan. The company knows you, too. There ain’t no use in gitting mad. Let’s talk business.”
“All right, son. But that’s my hoss and I’ll be obliged for him.”
“Sloan, I’m going to tell you about Neutria here. I caught him with a bunch of bronchos. He was a maverick, so I done put my brand on him. What’ll you take for him?”
“I won’t take nothing.” I recognized that surly bass growl. He had been drinking.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do. To save trouble, I’ll buy him off’n you. Me and him is friends. So I’ll give you seventy-five dollars gold for this here li’l’ horse. That’s a good price, Sloan. I’ll raise the money in a week.”
“No, you won’t, young feller. You won’t give me seventy-five dollars, nor you won’t give me seventy-five thousand dollars. That’s my hoss. I won’t sell him. Him and me’s got a li’l’ account to square up, and--”
“Then it’s up to you to prove he’s yours,” Chappo answered. I scarcely knew his voice, it had gone so hard and cold.
“You don’t believe this hoss is mine?”
“Not me. You rustle calves, Sloan, and--”
“I love a thief,” Sloan said, “but I hate a liar.”
What happened then was beyond my powers of perception. I felt Chappo reach to his hip. There was a flash that singed my face, and Sloan sat his sorrel with a smoking six-shooter in his hand. My master tumbled sideways, twisting the saddle as he fell, and struck the ground on his shoulders.
“Don’t shoot, Sloan,” he begged, “I ain’t got my gun. You’ve done for me anyway. Don’t.”
But Sloan slued his horse that he might obtain a clear shot, and pulled twice on him with deliberate aim.
“Now,” he cried clutching my reins, “now I’ll settle with you.”
I reared straight up and plunged forward at him. The headstall snapped and the bit dropped from my mouth. With the smack of my shod hoofs on his flank, the sorrel began to pitch, and Sloan dropped his gun.
With that I ran--ran as I had never run before in my life. When utterly worn out, I slowed to a walk and endeavored to rid myself of the saddle, which galled me badly. For a long time it resisted every effort, but I did not despair. Chappo’s fall had turned it underneath my belly and there it was in reach of my hind feet. Before dawn I had kicked and torn the thing from my sides, and was free and unencumbered.
Why tell of my frantic wanderings during the next two days? The spot where my master had fallen drew me irresistibly. I could not leave; but I feared Sloan more than ever and spent the hours in cautious circlings of the vicinity of the Gap. At last I could bear it no longer.
The moon was shining as I lightly trod the Gap trail. Going warily as a coyote, I was brought to a standstill by a strong taint. I sniffed and was fearfully expectant, but still advanced. Something was swinging from the lowest limb of an elm. A rope creaked mournfully to the swinging. I snorted and made a circuit of the thing, approaching gingerly. A gust of wind turned the object, so that the moon lighted its every line.
It was Sloan.
A hundred yards beyond, I came on a small pile of rocks. They had laid Chappo where he fell. Above the rocks was a rude cross, fashioned of mesquite boughs.
I am a free rover now. Sometimes I run with the wild horses. Again I go off for solitary pilgrimages into the mountain fastnesses.
Often I steal back at night to the Gap trail. And there, beside the pile of stones and the cross, I whinny--whinny again. But Chappo never answers.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes:
Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been retained. Obvious typesetting errors have been corrected without note.
[End ofThe Untamed, by George Pattullo]