Grey, Zane - Novel 27

by Wild-Horse Mesa

  “Aha there, old lion-mane,” he called, true even in that moment to his old habit of talking to horses. “You made one run too many! You run into a rope! Swim now! Heave hard! Dive, you rascal! You’re a fish. Ho! Ho! Ho!”

  But when Panquitch plunged round to make for his adversaries the tables were turned. Chane’s yell of exultation changed to one of alarm, both to frighten Panquitch, if possible, and to hold Brutus back. Both, however, seemed impossible. Brutus would not turn his back to that stallion. His battle cry pealed out. Chane hauled on the lasso, but he could not again pull Panquitch under.

  Despite all Chane could do, the stallion and Brutus met in head-on collision. A terrific melee ensued. Chane was thrown off Brutus as from a catapult. But he was swift to take advantage of this accident. A few powerful strokes brought him round to Panquitch, and by dint of supreme effort astride the back of the wild stallion.

  Chane fastened his grip on the ears of the stallion* to lurch forward with all his weight and strength. He got the head of Panquitch under the water.

  “Back! Back!” yelled Chane to Brutus.

  It was a terrible moment. Chane preferred to let Panquitch free rather than drown him. But if Brutus kept fighting on, crowding the stallion, Chane saw no other issue. Under him Panquitch was shaking in convulsions. Chane let go of his head. The stallion bobbed up, choking, snorting. But if terror was still with him it was one of fury to kill. He bent his head back to bite at Chane. His eyes were black fire; his open mouth red and dripping; his teeth bared. Chane all but failed to keep out of his reach.

  In his cowboy days Chane had been noted for his ability to ride bronchos, mean mustangs, bucking horses, mules, and even wild steers. The old temper to ride and conquer awoke in him. Fighting the stallion, beating Brutus off, keeping his seat, Chane performed perhaps the greatest riding feat of his career. He had, however, almost to drown the stallion.

  At length Panquitch, suddenly showing signs of choking, headed for the shallow water. His swimming was laborious. Chane loosed the tight rope, then plunging off he swam back to Brutus and got in the saddle. He urged Brutus faster and faster, to pass the sinking Panquitch. Not a moment too soon did Brutus touch bottom, and plunging shoreward, he dragged Panquitch after him. The stallion could no longer breathe, yet he staggered out of the shallow water, to the sand, where he fell.

  Chane leaped off Brutus to fall on Panquitch and loosen the lasso. The stallion gave a heave. He had been nearly choked to death; perhaps the noose had kept water out of his lungs. His breast labored with a great intake of air. Then he began to shake with short quick pants.

  “Aw, but I’m glad!” ejaculated Chane, who for a moment had feared a calamity. But Panquitch would revive. Chane ran back to the heaving Brutus, and procuring a second lasso from the saddle, he rushed again to the stallion and slipped a noose round his forelegs.

  “Reckon that’s about all,” he said, rising to survey his captive.

  Panquitch was the noblest specimen of horseflesh Chane had ever seen in all his wandering over the rangelands of the west. But in these flaming black eyes there was a spirit incompatible with the rule of man. Panquitch might be broken, but his heart would ever be wild. He could never love his master. Chane felt pity for the fallen monarch, and a remorse. He was killing something, the like of which dwelt in his own heart.

  “Panquitch, it wasn’t a square deal,” declared Chane. “I played you a dirty trick. I’m not proud of it. And so help me God I’ve a mind to let you go.”

  So the wild-horse-hunting instinct in Chane found itself in conflict with an emotion compelled into existence by the defeat and prostration of the great stallion. Chane missed that crowning joy of the wild- horse wrangler—to exhibit to the gaze of rival hunters a captive horse that had been their passion to catch and break and ride.

  “Wo—hoo! Oh—h, Chane, I’m coming!” called a girlish high-pitched voice, pealing along the narrow walls.

  Sue appeared at the mouth of the cleft, standing upon a boulder, with her hair shining in the sun. She had espied him and Brutus from afar, and perhaps had guessed the issue. Then Chess’s voice rang down the canyon.

  “What you-all doing, Chane Weymer?”

  He caught up with Sue, and lending her a hand, came striding with her over the rock benches. He had lost his hat.

  Chane heard them talking excitedly, out of breath, wondering, tense and expectant. Brutus whistled. Then Chess and Sue came out of the shadow, into the strip of sunlit canyon. They saw Panquitch lying full length on the sand. Chess broke from Sue and came rushing up. One glance showed him Panquitch was alive.

  “Good Lord!” he screeched, beside himself with excitement, running to grasp Chane and embrace him. He was sweating, panting, flushed of face, wild of eye. “Panquitch! And you got him hawg-tied!”

  He ran back to the stallion, gazed down upon him, moved round him, gloated over him. “Hurry, Sue! Come! Look! Will you—ever believe it?—We chased—-Panquitch right—into Chane’s trap! Of all the luck! Hurry to see him! Oh, there never was iuch a horse!”

  Then he strode back to Chane, waving his hands.

  “We climbed that slope-—back there,” he went on. “Just for fun. Wanted to see. Then from up on top —I spied the wild horses. Sue saw Panquitch first. We ran down-having fun-—seeing how close we could get. Then Sue said: ‘Run down ahead, Chess. I’ll stay here. Turn them—chase them by me—so I’ll get to see Panquitch close.’ So I ran like mad. Queer place up there. I headed them. They ran back—up over that hollow—behind the big knob of wall. Right, by Sue ! I saw her run down the slope—this way. But I made for the canyon. Just wanted to see them run by. Couldn’t see them. I ran some more. Then the whole bunch trotted out of the cottonwoods. Panquitch lorded it round. He was prancing. He didn’t know which way to run. I heard Sue screaming at him. Then Panquitch bolted this way—and his bunch followed. ... Just think! You were here. You saw them. You must have hid. . . . You roped Panquitch! Chane, you owe it all to Sue. She drove Panquitch to you.”

  “I reckon,” replied Chane, conscious of unfamiliar riot in his breast. “Where’d the bunch go—when they ran back?”

  “Passed me—like the wind,” panted Chess, “Straight up the canyon!”

  “You don’t say!” exclaimed Chane, in surprise. “I thought they’d take to one of the slopes. Chess, these wild horses have more than one outlet to their burrow.”

  Sue had held back, and was standing some rods oft staring from the prostrate Panquitch to Chane. Her hands were pressed over a heaving bosom. Her eyes seemed wide and dark. There was something about her that made Chane catch his breath. This was not Sue Melberne as he knew her.

  “Come on, Sue,” called Chess. “Nothing to fear. Panquitch has ropes on him.”

  “Oh, it’s all my fault—my fault,” cried Sue, pantingly, as again she hurried toward them, keeping away from the fallen stallion. “Is he hurt? He breathes so—so hard.”

  “Reckon Panquitch’s only choked a little,” replied Chane. “You see, I roped him in the water. Brutus and I had to follow. Panquitch got mad and charged up. I couldn’t manage Brutus. He wanted to fight. So they had it hot and heavy. I was knocked off Brutus. But I swam to Panquitch, straddled him, and had to hold his head under water to keep him from drowning us both.”

  “You’re all bloody! You’re hurt,” replied Sue, coming to him.

  Chane had not noted the blood on his hands and his face. Evidently he had been scratched or barked in the struggle.

  “Guess I’m not hurt,” he said, with a laugh, as he drew out his wet scarf. “Here, Chess, hold the rope while I tie my cuts. If Panquitch tries to get up just keep the rope tight.”

  Chess received the lasso and drew it taut. “Hyar, you king of stallions,” he called out. “You’ve sure got tied up in the wrong family. We’re bad hombres, me and Chane. Just you lay still.”

  Chane became aware that Sue had come quite close to him.

  “Let me do it,” she said, taking th
e scarf. And without looking up she began to bind his injured hand. She was earnest about it, but not at all deft. Her fingers trembled. Chane, gazing down upon her, saw more signs of agitation. Under the gold brown of her skin showed a pearly pallor; the veins were swelling on her round neck. Her nearness, and the unmistakable evidences of her distress and excitement, shifted the current of Chane’s mind. How momentous this day! What was the vague portent that beat for entrance to his consciousness?

  Sue finished binding his hand, and then she looked up into his face, not, it seemed, without effort. She was strained with the exertion and excitement of this adventure. But would that have accounted for a subtle difference in her?

  “There’s a cut on your temple,” she said, and untying her own scarf she began to fold it in a narrow band. Her blouse was unbuttoned at the neck, now exposing the line where the gold tan met the white of her swelling bosom. “Bend your head,” she added.

  Chane did as he was bidden, conscious of mounting sensations. The soft gentle touch of her hands suddenly inflamed him with a desire to seize them, to kiss them, to press them against his aching heart. Stem repression did not, however, on this occasion, bring victory. He had no time to think. It was like being leaped upon in the dark—this attack of incomprehensible emotion.

  “There—if you put your sombrero on carefully-—it will stay,” she said.

  “Thanks. You’re very good. Reckon I’m not used to being doctored by tender hands,” he replied, somewhat awkwardly, as he drew back from her. That was what made him unsure of himself—her nearness. Strange to him, then, and growing more undeniable, Was the fact that as he retreated she followed, keeping close to him. When she took hold of the lapel of his vest and seemed fighting either for command of herself or strength to look up again, then he realized something was about to happen.

  “I’m all wet,” he protested, trying to be natural. But he failed. It was not a natural moment or situation or position for them.

  “So you are. I—I hadn’t noticed it,” she said, and instead of drawing away she came so close that her garments touched him. Even this slight contact caused Chane to tremble. “Chane, come a little away—so Chess won’t hear,” she concluded, in a whisper.

  Chane felt as helpless in her slight hand as Panquitch now was in his. She led him back a few paces, in the lee of a slab of rock that leaned down from the wall.

  “What’s—all this?” he demanded, incredulously, as she pushed his back against the rock.

  “It’s something very important.” she replied, and then she fastened her other hand in the other lapel of his vest. She leaned against him. The fact was sa tremendous that Chane could scarcely force his faculties to adequate comprehension of it. Yet there came to his aid an instinct natural to him through all the strenuous and perilous situations of his desert life, and it was a kind of cool anger of self-preservation.

  “Yes?” he queried, doubtfully.

  She was quite pale now and the pupils of her dark eyes were dilating over deep wonderful shadows and lights. He felt her quiver. His response was instantaneous and irresistible, but it was a response of his heart, not his will. He would never let her know what havoc this contact played with him.

  “Would you do something great for me?” she whispered, her husky voice betraying a dry mouth.

  “Great!” he ejaculated. What little control he had when one word could throw him off his balance! “Why, Sue Melberne, I reckon I would—for you—or any girl, if I could.”

  “Not for any other girl,” she returned, swiftly. “For me!”

  “I’ll make no rash promises. What do you want?”

  “Let Panquitch go free.”

  Chane could only stare at her. So that was it! Sudden relief flooded over him. What might she not have asked? How powerless he was to refuse her most trivial wish! But she did not know that. This longing of hers to see Panquitch freed was natural and he respected her, liked her, loved her the more for it. Easy now to understand her white face, her soulful eyes, her quivering lips and clinging hands! She loved wild horses. So did he, and he could see her point of view. Alas for the strange vague rapture that her close presence had roused! But he could prolong this delicious moment of torment.

  “Are you crazy, girl?” he demanded.

  “Not quite,” she replied, with a wistful smile that made him wince. “I want you to let Panquitch go. It was my fault. I was his undoing. I longed to see him close—-to scream at him—to watch him run. So I drove him into your trap.”

  “Quite true. I’d never have caught him save for you. But what’s that? I don’t care. Once in my life I had a wrangler’s luck.”

  “Something tells me it’ll be bad luck, unless you give in.”

  “Bad luck ? Ha! I reckon I’ve had all due one poor rider,” he replied. “And the worst of it, Sue Melberne, was on your account.”

  “You mean—about Manerube?” she whispered.

  “Yes, and what went before,” he returned, darkly.

  “Chane, did something happen before that?” she asked, softly.

  “I reckon it did,” he answered, bitterly.

  “Tell me,” she importuned.

  Chane felt as if about to fall from a height. What was this all about? His wounded heart probed! Yet did it matter?

  “You know,” he said, almost violently. “Chess gave me away.”

  “Then, what Chess said was—is true?”

  “Yes, God help me, it is. . . . But enough of talk about me. You wanted me to free Panquitch?”

  She did not reply. He had a glimpse of her eyes filming over, glazed, humid, before she closed them. Her head, that had been tilted back, drooped a little toward him, and her slender body now lent its weight against his. Chane had no strength to tear himself away from her, nor could he bear this close contact longer. The poor girl was overwrought, all because of sentiment about a horse.

  “Sue, what ails you?” he demanded, sharply, and he shook her.

  His voice, his rudeness, apparently jarred her out of her weakness. It seemed he watched a transformation pass over her, a change that most of all nonplused him. A blush rose and burned out of her face, leaving a radiant glow. She let go of his vest, drew back. And suddenly she seemed a woman, formidable, incredible, strong as she had been weak, eloquent of eye.

  “Something did ail me, Chane, but I’m quite recovered now,” she replied, with a wonderful light on her face.

  “You talk in riddles, Sue Melberne.”

  “If you weren’t so stupid you’d not think so.”

  “Reckon I am stupid. But we’ve got off the trail. You asked me to let Panquitch go.”

  “Yes, I beg of you.”

  “You’re awful set on seeing him walk off up that slope, aren’t you?” he inquired, trying to find words to prolong the conversation. He despised himself for longing to have her come close again, to appeal to him.

  Presently he must tell her that her slightest wish could never be ignored, that Panquitch was hers to free.

  “Chane, I’ll do anything for you if only you’ll let him go.”

  He laughed, almost with bitter note. “How careless you are with words! No wonder Manerube got a wrong hunch.”

  She flushed at that, and lost for a second the smile, the poise that so baffled him. But swiftly they returned.

  “I was a silly girl with Manerube,” she replied. “I’m an honest woman now. ... I said I’ll do anything for you, Chane Weymer—anything.”

  “Reckon I hear you, unless I’m locoed,” he said, thickly. “I’m not asking anything of you. But I’m powerful curious. If you’re honest now, suppose you tell me a few of the things you’d do for me.”

  “Shall I begin with a lot of small things—or with something big?” she inquired, in so sweet and tantalizing a voice that Chane felt the blood go back to his heart. She was beyond him. How useless to match wits with any woman, let alone one whom a man adored madly and hopelessly! Chane felt he must get out of this. One more moment, then she
could have Panquitch!

  '‘Well, suppose you save time by beginning with something big,” he suggested, in a scorn for himself and for her. It was a farce, this talk, all except her earnest appeal and her sweetness. He could not argue with her, nor follow her subtleties.

  She stepped close to him again. And then Chane shook with a sense of impending catastrophe. She seemed cool, brave, and honest as she claimed to be. But her dark eyes held a strange fire.

  “Very well. The biggest thing a woman can do is to be a man’s wife.”

  Stupefaction held Chane in thrall. It took a moment to recover from the shock of that blow. He had heard her speak. He was not out on the lonely desert, listening to the voices of the cedars. All about Sue Melberne belied that slow, sweet, cool speech. Suddenly a fury of bewilderment, of uncertainty, assailed Chane. Laying powerful hands on her shoulders he shook her as he might have a child.

  “You’d marry me to save that horse?” he demanded, incredulously.

  “Yes.”

  “You’d throw yourself away for Panquitch?” he went on, sternly.

  “Yes. But—I’d hardly call it that.”

  “Sue Melbeme, you’d be my—my wife!” The very idea of such fortune made Chane mad. He released her. He wrestled with himself. Thick and heavy his heart beat. It mattered not why or how he might possess this girl, but the fact that he might was maddening. Still he fought for the right. What a sentimental Inexplicable girl!

  “Yes, I will, Chane,” she said.

  “You love Panquitch so well. I remember you risked much to free the wild horses in the trap corral. But this is beyond belief. Yet you say so. You don’t look daft, though your talk seems so. I can’t understand you. To sacrifice yourself for a horse, even though it’s Panquitch!”