by Max Brand
Nevertheless, he went on. He came in view of the house itself, long, low, thrown loosely together, with only three lighted windows in its length. These were open, and from one of them came the tumult of voices.
He stole to it and looked in. What he saw was a group of four men around a table, playing cards. Each man was flanked with a glass, and there were bottles behind the chairs from which, now and again, they poured a trickle of amber liquid into their glasses, drank, and played again. The talk came at intervals. Sometimes there was a solemn silence while the cards were sent flashing out around the table and the hands were picked up. Then they began to push out money toward the center of the table. Some of the cards were discarded. Others were drawn, and more money was stacked, all in a deadly seriousness. But Tom cast only an idle glance of wonder at their occupation. He gave his more serious attention to the faces of the players.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
PETER IS TAKEN
If he had traveled around and around the country, he could not have found four more repulsive faces. Greed, ferocity, cruelty were ingrained in each. It was no practiced eye with which Tom looked upon them, but instinct taught him all he needed to know. How different they were from John Parks. The surety grew in him that his father had been a different breed of man, a single exception. But the rest of the human race was evil, all evil. He felt his detestation grow, for how could all of these be compared in worth with that beautiful horse he had seen them torturing that day?
Here the man of the blue bandanna pushed back his chair. His pile of money was gone. “I’m busted, boys,” he said, “but who’ll stake me twenty?”
“On what, Hank?” asked another. “What’s your security?”
“On old Peter,” said Hank.
“Twenty dollars on that hoss?” murmured the other.
“Well?” asked Hank aggressively.
“I’ll tell you,” said the other, “Peter is worth something in the thousands . . . or else he ain’t worth a cent. And, speaking personal, I say he ain’t worth a cent.”
“Hey!” responded Bill. “He’s got the looks. There ain’t no doubt of that. But looks ain’t what a gent can sit a saddle on. Matter of fact, the man ain’t born that can ride Peter.”
“That’s fool talk!” cried Hank. “Why, anybody can lead Peter around.”
“Who’s talking about leading?” answered Bill. “What good does it do a gent to have a hoss that he can lead if he can’t ride it? And nobody can ride Peter. Look at Sam Dunbar. Didn’t he try his prettiest on Peter today? But after he got throwed, he had enough. He wouldn’t go back at Peter.”
“Dunbar’s nerve is gone,” said Hank sullenly.
“What about your nerve? Why didn’t you tackle him after he threw you?”
Hank sat silently and glared. He was plainly hunting for words but could find no retort.
“You take my advice,” said Bill. “Peter has a pile of looks, but that’s all. All the good he’ll do you will be to run up a feed bill. If I had him, I’d turn him into dog food pronto.”
Hank sprung to his feet. “Boys,” he said, “ain’t there a one of you what would advance me something on Peter?”
They shook their heads.
“Yet you all wanted him bad enough when he was running loose. When he was running through the hills with that gang of mustangs, you all sure enough wanted Peter bad. Every man here rode for him. But, when I creased him and got him, you say he ain’t worth nothing. Is that sense?”
“Talk for yourself, Hank,” they told him. “We don’t want him. All he’ll do for a gent is to bust his neck. He’s turning into a killer. That’s the worst kind . . . them that are quiet as lambs till they feel a cinch bite into them. They ain’t no use, ever. You got him rope broke easy, but you’ll never break him for the saddle. If you want some money, put up your gun. I’ll give you something for that!”
Hank sneered. “Give up my gat with Joe Saunders in town?” he said fiercely. “I ain’t that much of a fool!”
“Then use your gat to turn Peter into dog meat, if you want,” said Bill, “but don’t hold up the game no longer. Your deal, Sam.”
Hank regarded the others with a concentrated malevolence for a moment, but suddenly he jammed his hat upon his head, turned on his heel, and strode from the room.
“Wait a minute . . . ,” began Bill.
“Shut up,” said Sam. “If he wants to kill the hoss, let him do it before the hoss kills him. And that’s what it would come to one of these days.”
“But a hoss like Peter . . . ,” began Hank.
“I know,” said Sam. “A hoss like Peter looks like a picture, but that’s all the good he is. He might as well stay on the page of a book. All the good in him is to make a pile of talk.”
Tom recoiled from the window.
So that was to be the end of beautiful Peter—a bullet through the head and then the buzzards. He stole around the house just as the back door of it banged, and Hank stepped out into the night and walked straight for the corrals with the speed and the decision of a man bent on business. Like a moving shadow, Tom drifted behind him.
In the corral, Hank advanced with a rope, and Tom saw him go directly up to Peter. There was no mistaking the horse even in the darkness. That mobile and beautiful animal had a light of its own.
Tom wondered to see the great horse submit so calmly to the rope that was put around its head. Then Peter was led out from the corral and tethered to the fence. A gun gleamed in the hand of Hank.
“Now, damn your soul,” growled Hank, “you’ve got out to the end of your rope, and you’re going to be flopped. I’ve stood a whole lot from you. Take it by and large, I put in six months getting in a shot at you. And when that slug knocked you down without killing you, I sure thought I was going to make a pile of money out of you. I figured I had the fastest thing on four feet that was running through the mountains. But you ain’t done me no good. You’ve got me busted. I’m through with you. Here’s the end of your trail. I might turn you loose, but I ain’t going to let it be said that I had six months’ work for nothing.”
The gun raised in a steady hand. Tom slipped closer. His heart was hammering at the top of his throat. He could barely breathe, so great was his fear. There was the knife, to be sure. But he could not strike it into a human body—from behind. Something in his heart made that impossible. Yet, if he grappled that man hand to hand, how could he match that matured strength of Hank?
Desperately he set his teeth. There was no time to reflect. He leaped from behind and caught Hank in his arms. To his amazement the body of Hank seemed to crumple to water. Strength? He knew at a touch that he could break the man in two! But the sense of power made him gentle. There was only a strangled gasp from Hank as the revolver was torn from his hand and he was laid upon the ground. Peter snorted and stepped back.
“Now listen,” said Tom, while all his blood was in a riot from that easy victory. “Listen to me. If you try to call the others by yelling for them, I’ll send a slug into you. That’ll make one less to follow me. If you even try to stand up, I’ll shoot. And you can be sure that I won’t miss!”
There was not a word from Hank. His body merely stiffened. But in the meantime, the possession of that loaded gun meant a world of added power to Tom. He took off the heavy cartridge belt from his victim. He buckled it around his own hips. He dropped the revolver into the holster. Then he went to Peter. But there seemed to be no need for his soothing voice. The strength of a rope was a fact that the stallion had learned first of all from his contact with men, and, although he might be in terror for his life, he would not pull back against it. It had burned into his flesh too often before.
He stood patiently while Tom unknotted the rope. At the first tug of the rope against his neck, he stepped out to follow the new master. That act of obedience thrilled Tom with a sudden and strange gratitude, a wealth of tenderness. In his heart of hearts he vowed that Peter should never regret that step. He sent a last word to Hank.
“I’m still watching you!” he called softly, then broke into a jogging run. Peter came readily at his heels. Once around the edge of the corral, he increased the pace to his full speed, and still Peter followed without once drawing back on the rope. But, as Tom rounded the edge of the cliff from the top of which he had first had a view of the horse, he heard a sudden hubbub behind him, and voices shouting, carrying clearly through the mountain night. The alarm had been given, and in another moment the pursuit on horseback would begin!
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
FLIGHT FOR THE WOODS
The temptation was to strain forward still faster, but even the greyhound strength of those mountain-trained legs of Tom, even that almost exhaustless lung power, could not sustain a sprint for three miles, and it was fully that distance to the head of the cañon where the timber and the rough ground would help to slow up the pursuers. So Tom calculated the distance and diminished his gait, although it took all his willpower to enable him to do it.
As for the danger of capture, he knew nothing of the unwritten law that makes horse stealing equally culpable with murder in the West, but no tale could have terrified him more than he already was. Dread of death kept him running. Now and again he would leap into a sprint involuntarily.
Behind him came a distant whooping, and then the beating of many hoofs again was audible. He cast a glance behind him. There came Peter, the stallion, his ears pricking as though he rejoiced in the running—there came Peter, rocking along at a lazy canter. Oh, to be mounted on the back of that king of horses! Then how he would laugh at pursuit. It would be like adding wings. But far away over the starlit cañon floor, he could see the horsemen beginning to loom.
They swept close and closer at a terrific speed. Yet, measuring the distance to the woods ahead of him, he knew that he must save his strength. There was still an open mile between him and the woods, and even in the woods he must still be prepared to run on, for they would spur ahead as fast as they could, weaving through the trees.
That last mile was an untold agony, for a gun barked behind him. It was a random shot, but it made Tom leap ahead. His driving legs were numb to the knees, to the hips. His lungs were filled with fire. There was not enough air in the universe to give him one sweet, fresh breath.
How those wild riders behind him were gaining! He began to dread to glance back, so much more clearly were they growing upon his eyes. And now he threw caution to the winds, and he cast all his power into the last spurt. The woods grew up, black and tall. They were like a promise of heaven to Tom, with those increasingly loud hoofbeats ringing in his ears. The pursuers, feeling that the race was close, opened with a rattling volley. But men cannot shoot straight from horseback, and the bullets flew wild, singing around Tom, while he raced on with head straining back, with mouth gaped wide, with eyes wild, with his long hair blown back from his shoulders.
He was lost, he told himself. He could hear the panting of their horses. Or was it the breathing of Peter, coming with such maddening ease behind him? Then suddenly his eyes cleared. The woods were only a step before him.
He leaped behind the first trunk. Peter swung into the shadow nearby. Tom jerked the revolver from the holster and fired blindly at the rushing forms. A yell of alarm answered him. The riders split to the right and the left, wheeled, and scurried away. He grew weak with relief and fired again— into the air. But it brought another volley of curses from the four riders.
They would circle back and steal into the woods to try to head him off. But that was a game at which they would find him hard to beat, unless he had lost his cunning in woodcraft. He started on again up the slope, with Peter dancing anxiously at his heels, sniffing and snorting at the strange shadows, then stealing along noiselessly as the spirit of the wilderness came heavily upon his heart with fear. The open hills, the wide plains were the domain of Peter, and, in this forest darkness, he was glad of company, even if that company had to be detested man.
In the meantime, the lungs of Tom had grown cool. His trembling knees regained their strength. Presently he was swinging along at a brisk gait, more himself every moment. He thought of Jerry. The ideal way would be to head straight for the upper mountains where horsemen could least easily follow. He should ride Jerry and lead the stallion. But he knew that the horse would be paralyzed with fear near the grizzly, for all things that lived and ran wild dreaded Jerry. How could he handle the two together?
Near the place where he had camped by the brook, he tethered Peter to a tree, and the horse cowered close to it, eying in terror the moving shades of the woods. Tom went on to the grizzly and found him rooting in the bank of the stream. He brought him back within view of the horse.
The effect on both was exactly what Tom had foreseen. Jerry heaved instantly on his hind legs and stood immense, growling. Poor Peter went back to the limit of his rope and there crouched like a great cat, overcome with nameless terror. If they were to become better acquainted, the night was not the time for it. Tom thought of another expedient. He loosed Peter from the tree and started on up the hillside briskly—for who could say when the pursuers would come upon his trail? He could not realize that the night that was such an open book to him was closed to ordinary men. Peter followed, knocking his fore hoofs against Tom’s heels in his eagerness to get away from Jerry, and Jerry came grumbling and rumbling in the distance, a very bewildered and angered bear. Yonder went his human friend—master, he could hardly be called. With Tom wandered what was to Jerry simply an ample store of food going on foot. Yet when Jerry pressed close, there came from Tom the whistle that to the big bear meant danger ahead.
Half a dozen times he heard that whistle as he drew near. Each time he lifted to his hind legs as a wise bear should and sniffed the air for the scent of an enemy, but found no trace. Finally he understood that, while Tom accompanied the horse, he wished Jerry to stay in the background. A bear will sulk exactly as a human being sulks. So when Jerry perceived the desire of his friend, he promptly turned around and melted into the forest.
Tom paused and looked back after him in great anxiety. But after a moment he went on. He was wise enough to know that it was foolish to attempt to read the mind of the grizzly. That cunning fellow might have disappeared in order to trail them closely at hand, but secretly. Or perhaps Jerry would get ahead of them in order that he might watch from cover as they passed. That was exactly what happened, for, when he paused at daybreak upon the top of a mountain, he found Jerry on the upper side, although the big fellow instantly dropped his head and began to dig in the ground as if he had gone there for the sole purpose of finding delectable roots.
But now, since daylight was come, Tom tethered the horse to a sapling around which the grass grew, thick and long, and, while the stallion ate, he stood back and looked at his prize for the first time. What he saw was more than he could have hoped. To be sure, the horse was thin. Every rib along his side could be marked, and on his flanks were still the crimson signs of whip and spur. He had been most cruelly handled. No wonder that he shrank from the lifted hand of Tom. No wonder that his great eyes blazed with terror when Tom came near.
Wild rage boiled up in the heart of the youth. For here was a creature intended by nature surely to be handled with affection alone, and they had tried to beat it into submission. He gloried with a sudden joy in the knowledge that at least men had failed to have their will of the horse. For his own part, how utterly contented he would be to have this king of the plains to watch, to talk to so that the sharp little ears would prick at the sound of his voice, to feed until he was sleek and round of barrel. Here was companionship. To be sure, if ever he could persuade the stallion to permit him to sit on its back— the heart of Tom jumped.
Then he sat down cross-legged on the grass and drew out from a pouch at his side the quantity of crushed, dry corn that he always carried when he traveled. He held out a quantity of it in both cupped hands. No matter that the stallion, not grown accustomed to the man-food given to horses, sni
ffed it and then backed away, his ears flattened against his neck. The patience of Tom was not that of the ordinary man. He had been taught in the school of the wilderness. He had learned the endless patience of Jerry, who would dig two hours for the sake of a single woodchuck. And if quiet and gentleness and unending endurance would win, Peter should be his horse in the end, body and soul.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SIX MORE YEARS PASS
“Of course,” said Gloria, “if you have made up your mind to believe, no one can dissuade you.”
“Don’t be disagreeable, Glory,” said her father with a frown.
“I’m trying my level best not to be,” said Gloria, “but, ever since you hunted in Africa, you’ve been entranced by fables,” and she smiled as her father bit his lip in vexation.
She was probably the only person in the world who refused to take her distinguished father altogether seriously. Others were mightily impressed by the reputation of this man who could shoot lions one day and write learnedly about them from a biological viewpoint on the next, and who, above all, had taken more folklore out of Africa than almost any other human being. But to Gloria, John Hampton Themis was first and foremost the father of Gloria. Besides, she had not wanted to take this trip into the mountains. At eighteen, Paris was infinitely more attractive. Although she had forced herself to be amiable when her father insisted that she learn something about her own country before she pried into “the truth about Europe,” she could not help taking out some of the disappointment in such petty badgering as this.
As a matter of fact, she had found the valley of the Turnbull far more interesting than she had expected. In her blood ran some of her father’s fiery love of saddle and rifle and the arduous hunting trails. At eighteen Gloria could walk down an average man when it came to mountain climbing, and she was a little proud of that fact. Yet Paris now and then swam back upon her ken, and, when it did, as at the present moment, she could not avoid being a little disagreeable.