by Max Brand
Roger Lincoln laughed and kept a tight rein. With his free hand he slapped Ashur on the flanks.
“You might as well shake it out of yourself,” he said.
That blow seemed to rouse a hornet’s nest. Or perhaps it was that what Ashur had done before had been enough merely to warm his blood and give him a somewhat greater understanding of his powers. For now he went up into the air as though by the beat of wings, and he came down with head lowered, back humped.
The impact jarred the ground as far as where Torridon stood, and he could hear the gasp of breath driven from the body of Roger Lincoln by the shock.
But that was only the start. In that instant Ashur seemed to have learned all about bucking. He began to plunge high and come down on a stiffened foreleg, a double shock that snapped the head of Roger Lincoln heavily to the side, or down upon his breast. It was irresistible, like the snapping of a whiplash. And yet Roger Lincoln remained in the saddle!
“Ashur can kill himself, but he’ll never get Roger Lincoln off,” said someone.
Torridon turned his head.
It was Nancy who had said that, Nancy looking white and fierce, with her nostrils quivering.
With wonder Torridon saw that she was loving the battle. He turned from her, a little sickened, in time to see Ashur spin like a top to the left, halt with planted hoofs that gouged up several feet of earth, and spin again in the opposite direction.
Then Roger Lincoln was flung from the saddle with incredible force. His dignity dissolved in mid-air, so to speak. He was a whir of arms and legs, and then landed with a desperate thud, and rolled over at the very feet of Torridon
Paul, looking down, knew by one glance at that white, senseless face and the half-open eyes that this man was badly stunned—killed, perhaps.
Then he heard a shout of men, with a tingling scream of women rising over it. People fled from about him, and there was Ashur coming like a tiger, with gaping mouth prepared to finish his victim.
“I spoiled him . . . I did it!” cried Paul to his own frightened, sorrowful heart. And suddenly he was bestriding the fallen man and stretching out both his hands to ward off the resistless rush of the stallion. “Ashur, you fiend!” he shouted.
The great, shining black body reared itself high above him. He was looking up into a gaping mouth from which the foam flew, and the eyes of Ashur were like the eyes of a dragon, and the mighty forehoofs of Ashur, each like a steel sledge in the hands of a giant, were poised to beat him to a lifeless pulp.
Even then Torridon had time to hear—“Don’t shoot!”—shouted in the great voice of John Brett.
He had time to put the words together, added to an important thought—that his own life, even the added life of great Roger Lincoln, did not amount to the value of the life of Ashur, in the mind of John Brett.
Then the dreadful danger fell—but it swerved past him. The flying mane whipped his face with a hundred small lashes, and then the big horse swept away. He flaunted far off; he was a flash in the distance, with the reins tossing high above his neck.
A wave of people spilled around them. They brushed Paul aside, for of course the question was simply: what had happened to Roger Lincoln?
Torridon sank down beside a stump of a tree that marred the surface of the green pasture. He felt nauseated. When he opened his eyes, the landscape spun violently. When he closed his eyes, it spun with still more fury. And he felt sweat running down his face in rivulets of ice.
Voices sounded in the distance—how far in the distance they were, how hollow. They broke slowly, the sound vibrations rolling up through his body and roaring in his ears. Those were the voices of people thronging around Roger Lincoln.
At length they had picked him up and were departing toward the house. Women were scampering ahead, holding up their skirts so that they could run more rapidly. In the midst of his dizziness Paul looked after them and almost laughed, they were so like waddling ducks.
A shadow crossed him; someone dropped upon knees beside him.
“Were you hurt, Paul?” asked the voice of Nancy Brett.
It jerked one veil of the darkness from his eyes and he looked up at her amazed. She looked anxious and white. Her lips were parted.
“How is Roger Lincoln?” asked Torridon. “I think he broke his neck.”
“I don’t know,” said Nancy. “Do you feel pain, Paul?”
“I seemed to hear it,” muttered Torridon. “I seemed to hear the bone snapping. . . .” He clutched his face with one hand.
“Did Ashur strike you with one of his hoofs?” asked Nancy. “Try to tell me, Paul.”
“He . . . he fell right before me, Nancy!” gasped Torridon.
“I don’t care!” she cried. “I want to know about you. Did he strike you?” She began to pass her hands over his head. Her fingers were trembling.
“I’m all right,” gasped Torridon. “But I feel awfully sick . . . at the stomach.”
“You’d better lie flat. Keep your eyes closed,” she ordered. She took him by the shoulders and pushed him down.
He tried to resist her. “I don’t want to be a baby. They’ll think I fainted,” protested Torridon, but, as he tried to struggle, a shuddering dissolved his strength and he collapsed along the ground.
She sat close beside him. With a handkerchief she wiped the perspiration from his face. Then she began to fan him.
“Put out your hands and take hold of the grass,” she said.
He obeyed.
“Is that better?”
“Yes, Nancy. It’s . . . it’s . . .”
“You don’t have to talk. Just lie still. Just close your eyes.”
He obeyed. Presently he said: “I can feel the strength coming back.”
“You’ll be all right in a moment more. Your color’s a lot better. It’s the touch of the ground that helps. I know.”
“No, it’s coming out of you into me . . . the strength, Nancy, I mean. I think I can sit up now.”
“You’d better not.”
“I don’t want them to see me like this. I’d rather die than have them see me.”
“There. I’ll help.”
She drew him up and put his shoulders against the stump of the tree. He could open his eyes. The landscape no longer was spinning, and in the distance the stallion was grazing.
“Who wanted to shoot? Was it Jack?”
“Yes.”
“Dear old Jack.” Weak tears ran into his eyes. “You’d better go away, Nancy,” he murmured, and he looked down with bent head lest she should see his trembling lip and the water in his eyes.
She said simply: “Uncle John wouldn’t let him shoot. He . . . he thought the horse was more . . . Paul Torridon, you’re crying like a baby!”
“I can’t help it. Nancy, please, please go away.”
She stood up. He heard the rustling of her dress as she left him.
VIII
Afterward he could sit on the stump, although he still was weak in the knees and in the elbows. He wished with all his heart that he had not seen the bright face of Nancy when she spoke to Lincoln that day, because, if he had not, he would not have cared for her opinion so much, but now he felt dreadfully disgraced. He was a man, and he had cried at the thought of the goodness of Jack Brett.
So, clasping his hands together and tearing them apart again, he sat in suffering.
Someone came out from the house toward him. It was Charlie Brett, who of all the young men in the clan had the least good feeling for him, since they lived in the same house. Young men cannot be near one another without forming a great attachment or a profound dislike. There is no such thing as indifference.
First it jumped electrically through the mind of the schoolteacher that Nancy must have told Charlie and that he had come to mock a grown man who cried like a girl.
So Torridon stood up and began to walk up and down. He made himself whistle, although he did not know the tune that puckered his lips.
But when Charlie came up, he said in a respectful
tone: “Dad wants to know will you come into the house, Paul? Roger Lincoln wants to talk to you.”
Torridon, in duty bound, went toward the house, and Charlie went beside him, although at a little distance, for he kept his head turned toward Torridon and watched him with an intensity of awe, like a child viewing a strange monster in a cage.
Torridon was more ill at ease than ever when he came into the house. He knew that many of the methods of John Brett were terrible. Now he might choose to shame him before the entire household. He was convinced something dreadful would happen when he found that almost the whole clan was gathered in the big central room of the house. There was Roger Lincoln, reclining in John Brett’s own chair, and John Brett stood behind him, looking more fierce, more sage, more patriarchal than ever before.
When Torridon came in with his light step, in place of the universal indifference that usually greeted him, he found that all heads turned suddenly toward him, and all eyes remained fixed upon him.
They were all waiting.
He halted near the door and waited, too tense and white, praying that the trembling in his heart might stop. But it did not stop. It grew greater. There was not even a whisper of sound. All stared at him except Roger Lincoln, who was looking down at the floor, his long hands folded in his lap.
Paul glanced around him. Yonder was Nancy Brett—the traitor who had told of his weakness. He thought at first that her faint smile was mockery, now, but then he saw that her eyes were big and tender.
Roger Lincoln looked up. He held out his hand. His handsome face lighted with a smile.
Irresistibly drawn, Torridon went up to him.
His fingers were taken in that strong and gentle clasp.
“Out yonder among the plains Indians,” said Roger Lincoln, “they have a habit of showing their friendship by giving you a teepee and everything that’s in it . . . by giving you an entire string of horses . . . by offering you their rifles and the scalps they’ve taken.” He paused, still smiling. “White men can’t offer things like that. It’s too much like buying friendship. What I can say, is that I love my life, Torridon. No one has a better time than I do . . . no one loves his life more. Well, you’ve saved it for me. To be killed by a horse? Bah! That’s worse than to die at the hands of Sioux. But, at any rate, I want to offer you before these people . . . so they’ll be witnesses if ever I break my word . . . I want to offer you my hand and everything that I have . . . my gun, my horse, my money, my heart, Torridon. I’m going to leave in a few moments, if I can ride. As to the black colt, you’re the man to handle him. I should have seen that at the first. In the meantime, if you ever should need me, send after me. This is my mother’s ring, and I’ll always go back with the bearer of it to find you.”
Torridon took it, feeling himself turn from cold to hot. He could not speak. There was not a word in the world that he could bring into his mind.
Then John Brett said: “The lad’s lost his tongue. But he feels what you say, Lincoln. He’s a good lad.”
That covered Torridon’s retreat as he stumbled back into the throng.
Or rather, he tried to get into it and hide himself, but he could not. They drew back from him a little in order that they could see him. Only old Aunt Ellen came and plucked at his arm with fingers like steel claws.
“The heart is the biggest half of the man,” said Aunt Ellen, and cackled at him like a hen.
He moved away. He found a door and escaped.
All the world was new, delightful, gentle, bright. He moved in an ecstasy the more violent because he felt that the appreciation he had met with was undeserved. It was something for nothing. His weak tears, surely, had more than balanced that withstanding of the stallion’s rush. But they were not noticed. Nancy had not said a word.
He went into the trees near the house and waited there, hot with joy, ashamed of seeing the faces of his fellows, until he saw Roger Lincoln depart, riding as straight as ever, but keeping gray Comanche at a walk. No doubt he was dreadfully hurt and shaken by his fall, but no one would have guessed it, except that the dashing rider went now so slowly. The heart of Torridon swelled with admiration and worship.
That was a man!
Some of the young men followed Roger Lincoln, making an escort for him, as befitted his dignity, but all the others came back into the pasture nearby. He saw several of the youngsters sent off by John Brett. Then the voice of the patriarch himself was raised.
“Paul! Oh, Paul! Paul Torridon!”
He came slowly out of the wood and toward them. They had smiles for him. They drew back and opened a lane to where John Brett was standing.
“Sneaked off and hid yourself, eh?” said that giant. “By God, you act like a girl, pretty near, Paul. Now, we all come here today to see Ashur rode. Are you gonna disappoint us?”
Paul blanched as he thought of the plunging black monster and the form of Roger Lincoln hurtling through the air.
“Go get that hoss and ride him here!” roared John Brett.
And the force of his voice blew Torridon away.
He crossed the pasture with shaking knees, but, when he was near, the stallion saw him and came trotting and tossing his head in the unaccustomed bridle. He had broken the reins. Torridon was glad of it and of the little delay that this excused as he knotted them securely once more. Ashur in the meantime was hunting at his pockets for carrots. And, finding none, he transferred his attention to Torridon’s head and began to push his hat about.
He merely turned his head curiously when Torridon put foot in the stirrup. But, when he drew himself off the ground, Ashur grunted and flinched away.
Heaven help me, thought Torridon.
But he was able to throw his leg over the saddle, and by kind fortune it fell exactly in the opposite stirrup.
Ashur, sprawled in a most awkward position, was reaching about and biting at the knee of his new rider. So Torridon in a shaking voice, reassured him.
“Get on,” whispered Torridon. “Good boy, Ashur. If ever I’ve given you carrots and apples, be a good horse today to me.”
Ashur tossed his head and walked a few steps.
A shout of triumph rang from the far side of the pasture and Ashur leaped a dozen feet sideways in acknowledgment of it. But Torridon, braced and ready, was not unseated. He kept the lightest touch on the reins. He made no effort to control Ashur; he merely wanted Ashur to control himself. And the colt turned his head again with a mulish expression, one ear back and one tilted forward. Then, unbidden, he broke into a trot, into a gallop; he bounded high into the air and a groan echoed heavily over the field—an expression of the boy’s heart, although spoken by the crowd. Yet he kept his seat by balance only, and with the reins he barely kept in touch with the stallion letting him have his head freely, but always talking softly, steadily.
Ashur suddenly began to fly. He had been galloping fast before, but this gait had wings to it. He headed straight for the fence.
A crash! thought Torridon, and set his teeth and tried to hope for heaven.
Ashur rose like a bird, floated, landed lightly, and went on in his stride.
Oh, noble Ashur . . . The heart of the boy began to rise.
They flew through the soft meadow beyond. Ashur was loving this run. They reached the brook, and, soaring high, the stallion cleared it and sped on beyond while Torridon shouted with a sudden joy. Fear had been snatched away from him. He understood now. To Ashur it was merely a frolic and the stallion rejoiced to have his old companion with him.
He pulled on the right-hand rein. The head came first. But then, understanding, Ashur curved with the pull and swung back. Once more the silver face of the creek shot beneath them. They winged the fence to the pasture, and now, at the draw of both reins, Ashur fell to a canter, to a trot, to a walk, and came to a stop fairly before John Brett.
A shout of triumph rang up again. Ashur leaped and whirled at the same time and Torridon found himself sitting on the ground. There had been hardly a jar. The colt simp
ly had twitched from beneath him.
“You fools,” groaned John Brett. “You’ve spoiled the chance with your damned yapping. Silence, there! Catch the horse, some of you.”
There was no need, for Ashur came quickly back and sniffed at the shoulder of Torridon, stood like a rock then, while Torridon sprang up and into the saddle again.
“He didn’t mean it,” said Torridon. “He goes like an old horse, without a fault. Look!”
And he began to ride Ashur in a figure eight before them all, at a trot, at a walk, at a canter.
IX
There had been three steps in the climbing of the ladder. Now, dizzy with joy, Paul Torridon found himself at the top—the most considered youth in the clan of which he was not a member.
That very night John Brett grew tired of bellowing the length of the table. He had Torridon come up and sit beside him, where they could converse about horses in general and particularly of that horse that was nearest to the heart of John Brett. He urged Paul to waste no time in other pursuits. The perfect breaking of the stallion so that even a child would be at home on his back was the thing for him to do now.
For a month Torridon had no other occupation. Except that he slept in the house, he was with Ashur every moment. He groomed him in the morning, fed him, watered him. Then exercise in the fresh cool of the day. Then a thorough rub-down and drying out. Then freedom in the pasture, where the teacher followed.
He was intent on rewarding John Brett for the home and the shelter that had been given to him by making an absolute masterpiece of this work that had been given into his hands. The patience that he had acquired during his wretched childhood and the added patience that he had gained by slowly grinding knowledge into the heads of young Bretts, whose brains were befogged with too much outdoors, now helped him in training the horse.
Already much had been done. Ashur had known the whistle and the voice of his master. He had formed the habit of absolute trust and confidence in Torridon, and, when an animal believes that a man can do no wrong, nine-tenths of the battle is over. But there were other things that had to be taught, many of them, and although Ashur was a wonderfully adroit equine pupil, still the allotted month was a short time.