Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  Said Phil Slader, his heart in his mouth, “I’ll give you ten dollars for that horse, Sam.”

  Young Newell turned sharply around. “It’s Slader!” said he. “It’s Phil Slader!”

  Phil could hardly tell, by the manner of the speaker, whether or not there was pleasure or anger or fear or disgust in Sam Newell. But he himself held out his hand.

  “I’m glad to see you, Sam,” said he.

  Newell shook the proffered hand instantly.

  “Why, if you’ve forgiven me for what I did that night so long ago, I’m mighty glad of it. I’m glad to see you, Phil, too. There’s not a day that we haven’t talked about you in our house!”

  He offered a great resemblance to his sister, now that his face was lighted up. He had the same sunny hair and the same bright, happy eyes.

  “If you try to sell Rooster, I’ll never, never forgive you, Sammy!” Nell was crying.

  “Look here, Nell, don’t make such a silly fuss,” said her brother. “You know as well as I do that he’s no good to anybody the way he is. No good at all, and you know it! He’s laid up five men in his day; and he’d of laid me up today except that just when he was about ready to begin bucking, he got the idea of winning that race into his head, and forgot all about me. But if I tried him again, he’d spill me all over this rodeo and . . . .”

  “Look yonder!” cried Nell Newell. “There’s fellows out there who are not as cowardly as you are, Sammy Newell!”

  For a dense cluster of excited cowpunchers had been gathered about the gray stallion ever since the end of the race. Now the throng opened and the spectators could see that a man was firmly seated on the back of Rooster.

  The horse trotted gently forth, got himself into an open space, and then turned himself into a good imitation of an explosion. The cowpuncher lost his seat high in the air and sailed sprawling until he landed with a thump which, in the sudden silence which covered the crowd, was sickeningly audible even to the spot where Nell and Sammy and Phil Slader stood together.

  Some ran to pick up the fallen man. Others put their ropes on the stallion again, but he was not minded to submit tamely. He fought with a devilish intensity until a strong rope was noosed about his neck. At the first touch of it, he submitted as though realizing when a battle was lost beyond all hope. In the meantime, the fallen cowpuncher was seen staggering from the field, and there were no further volunteers to fill the saddle on the stallion’s back.

  “You see, Nell?” said her brother gloomily. “Of course I’d like to keep Rooster as well as any man. But what use will he be? Just standing around and eating his head off all day long, except when he breaks loose into a pasture and kills another horse, that don’t please his fancy . . . .”

  “I’m still offering you that ten dollars,” said Phil Slader.

  “Philip!” cried the girl, “if you buy that horse away from us, I’ll never speak to you again.”

  But Phil, looking up to her and then to the shining beauty of the horse, had already made up his mind.

  “That offer stands,” he said to Sam Newell.

  “Get the cash for me,” said Sam Newell, “and you can take the horse.”

  CHAPTER XIII

  SOMETHING ELSE WAS happening in the inclosed ground of the rodeo, but Phil Slader had no eye for it. He ranged through the crowd with the eye of an eagle, searching out faces, and heedless of the glances that trailed after him with constant disapproval.

  “Doc,” said he presently, drawing up at the side of Magruder, “I want ten dollars.”

  Magruder turned from earnest conversation with two long-whiskered gentlemen, with whom the leading idea had not been the affairs of the rodeo, but the possibility of working up a quiet little game of poker. When he heard the voice of Phil Slader he started violently and turned with a scowl upon the boy.

  “Ten dollars?” asked Magruder. “Ten dollars, kid? And what would you be wanting to do with all that money?”

  “I won’t be buying myself a hat,” said Phil Slader. “I won’t be doing that, old-timer, and you can rest easy on that point, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

  His smile turned Mr. Magruder’s face to ice. A violent shudder ran through his rather corpulent body. Instantly a ten-dollar bill lay in the palm of Phil Slader.

  With that prize, Phil returned to the Newells. They seemed to have forgotten all about him and his offer. They had pressed their buckboard closer to the fence, and Sammy was yelling frantic encouragement to a cowpuncher who was then in the act of throwing and roping a steer against time. The instant that steer was tied, a ten-dollar bill was fluttering in the air in front of Sam Newell.

  He took it with an absent-mindedness which cleared at once. “You really want that horse, Phil?” he questioned. “Now, look here. The only other time that I met up with you, I served you a low turn. I don’t want to do a worse trick for you now. That horse is poison, old-timer. That Rooster horse is a plain devil, with all the looks and the points and the speed in the world, but with a plain bad heart. I’d hate to see you buy him and throw away your money.”

  “Besides,” put in Nell softly, “I know that you won’t want to take him away from me, Phil. I’d plain die if I couldn’t have a look at that horse, once in a while.”

  “Bah!” said her scornful brother. “What good does looking do, I’d like to ask you? What good does it do at all, silly? You can’t live on looking. You’ll never be able to ride him, that’s certain!”

  “If I were a man, I’d show you,” said the girl through her clenched teeth. “I’d master him — or I’d kill him — or let him kill me — but I’d never give up like one of you weak, cowardly, blustering, bluffing, sneaking men! I would . . . .”

  “What?” asked Sam Newell, amused.

  “Nothing,” said the girl rather weakly and lamely in conclusion. “I’m tired of talking about it!”

  Truth to tell, in the midst of her outburst her glance had fallen upon the stern, dark, face of Phil Slader, and suddenly she knew that no matter what truth there might be when her words were applied to other men, they were far, far from true when applied to this son of the mountains. More than that stirred her, too — for it seemed to her that her words were kindling a little fire in the slumbering blackness of Slader’s eyes.

  “All right,” said Phil Slader. “I like you a lot better for giving me this warning and I take it very friendly of you, Sam. But I want the horse.”

  “Then take him — and I hope you have some luck with him — though I doubt it a lot, I got to say. Are you an extra good rider?”

  “I’m fair,” said Phil, “but I think that I’ll try gentling Rooster.”

  “Gentling him!” exclaimed Nell Newell. “You should be ashamed, Phil Slader. You should be ashamed! Are you afraid of Rooster, like the rest of them seem to be?”

  She felt, by the way he jerked up his head, that she had laid her whip upon a too-wild horse.

  “All right,” said Phil, “I’ll try my hand with him, to please you, if you want me to!”

  “Oh, I’m not asking you to go get your neck broken!”

  “Will you tell me one thing?” asked Phil earnestly. “If you were a man, just what would you do?”

  “Be free!” said the girl, throwing out her arms. “I’d be free! I’d ride where I pleased, call no man my boss, and eat cake instead of bacon,” she concluded, chuckling. “But I’m not a man,” she went on with a strain of seriousness. “I’m only a girl. So I’ll marry money and be the next best thing to a free man — the wife of a rich one!”

  “And that’s about it,” said her brother with a savage air. “You’ll wind up by marrying some rich old crook!”

  “Why not?” cried the girl. “I don’t care where the money comes from, so long as I get it. Life without money is like trying to fly without wings. There’s no fun and there’s no happiness. There’s nothing but grinding, all day and every day, wishing for something around the corner that never shows up. I’d sooner be a sneaking coy
ote than a man and live the way that most men have to live. If I were a man, I’d be a wolf and no coyote. And I tell you something more. Money is beautiful for its own sake; it doesn’t make any difference where it comes from. Steal a million and give a hundred thousand to charity. That makes you good — and leaves you nine hundred thousand. Isn’t that business, Sammy? I ask you that?”

  She laughed as she slapped her brother on the shoulder. But Phil Slader was not laughing when he turned away.

  Sammy said to his sister: “You’ve got to watch the way that you talk to folks. You’re pretty hard even on mother and dad and me. It’s hard to follow you. But a stranger hearing the way that you talk — why, he don’t know where to write you down, Nell. He wouldn’t know that at heart you’re the safest and the best girl in the world!”

  “Am I?” asked Nell. “Am I?”

  And she flashed a challenge at him.

  “Oh, curse it,” said Newell. “I’m not going to argue with you any more. I can’t argue with that tongue of yours, because it’s double jointed. But no matter what you may be, really, I think that you’ve put a bee in the bonnet of that Phil Slader. He takes you seriously. And I’ll bet that the fool goes right out and tries to ride the horse now!”

  “I wonder!” whispered the girl.

  “It’d please you, I think,” cried Sammy, “to see a man even get killed, so long as it was for your sake or for the sake of one of your ideas!”

  “Don’t be so hard on me, Sammy. But — do you think that he would really do that?”

  “Would it please you a lot?”

  “Why,” cried the girl, “I could love a man that would do a thing like that!”

  “D’you mean it, Nell?”

  “Don’t I, though? I mean it every inch of me!”

  “Then that’s plain selfish.”

  “It’s not. Not for doing what I wanted him to — that isn’t what would make me love him — but doing one big, crazy, fine, foolish thing — like trying to ride a mad horse. I mean that I could love a man who would do things like that!”

  Sammy Newell stared at her with the eyes of one who has never charged a windmill, and who never will.

  “Well,” said he, “I hate to say that I believe you — but I almost do, and I’ll tell you what, I’ll be considerable relieved when I see you safely married to some good, steady rancher!”

  “Will you?” said Nell. “I’ll tell you what, Sammy. I may get married, but I’ll never get safely married. You can lay your odds on that about ten to one. Marriage? Why, it’s just a name to me. The man is what counts — and if he changes after I marry him — he’d better look out!”

  So said Nelly Newell, and she would have said more, no doubt, had it not been that her brother suddenly announced: “By the jumping jiminy, I think that he’s going to try it. Look at him now! He’s cutting straight through the crowd!”

  Nell Newell jumped up and stood stiff and straight.

  “If he does . . . .” she whispered.

  “Hello, Nelly!” called a fine, big youth, breaking through the crowd to come closer to her. “Hello, Nelly! I missed you at the . . . .”

  “Shut up, whoever you are,” said Nelly. “Something important is about to happen out there, if you’ll only keep still!”

  The youth relapsed into silence, sending a keen glance for explanation at young Sammy Newell, but Sammy merely shrugged his shoulders and made a motion with his fingers around his head, commonly used in schoolyards to signify addled wits.

  However, there was now a growing union of attention over the entire field. The bulldogging which was under way stopped suddenly. Men were seen running here and there and climbing into the best possible positions from which they could view the approaching event.

  And from all sides a universal murmur rolled toward them: “Phil Slader is going to ride Rooster! Can he do it?”

  And the universal answer was: “How can anybody ride that gray devil?”

  There was no doubt now, and Nelly Newell was clapping her hands again and again and saying in a voice half choked with joyous laughter:

  “He will! He will! He will! Oh, Sammy, he will!”

  “Ride Rooster? Never in a million years!” said Sammy.

  “Ride him! What do I care about that?” cried the girl.

  “What difference does it make whether he really sticks on the back of Rooster?”

  “Sis,” said her brother, “you plain beat me! Then why in the world should he try to ride at all?”

  “Just for the sake of the trying, itself. It shows that he has the nerve, while the rest of you men are half frightened to death! Look at him!”

  CHAPTER XIV

  THERE WAS PHIL Slader, marching through the center of the press of men who were gathered about the gray stallion. Now he stood at the side of the great horse and by his gestures it was plain to all that he intended to ride. It was no wonder that all other activities were instantly suspended to watch. The son of famous Jack Slader was to be seen in action at last! After so many huge prophecies had been made of him, after so many dreadful things had been foretold of what he was and what he could do, they were to see him undertake a little more than any one man could be expected to do.

  “He will ride the brute,” said John Newell, suddenly appearing at this stage of the procedure. “He will ride Rooster, I think. Do you know who it is, Nelly and Sammy? It’s that same wild boy that we know. It’s Phil Slader.”

  “You’re a yesterday’s newspaper, dad,” said his irreverent daughter. “Besides, you’ve only read part of the headlines. I’ll tell you the real stuff. Sammy, here, has just sold Rooster to Phil Slater for ten bucks! Can you beat that?”

  Mr. Newell started, but he finally nodded his head and smiled, saying: “I really think that Phil will be able to ride the brute; I really think that boy will do it!”

  The tall, handsome youngster who had vainly attempted to get the attention of Nelly before, now answered this remark.

  “He never can do it, Mr. Newell. No other man will ever be able to ride Rooster, when Rooster doesn’t want to be ridden.”

  “Bah!” cried Nelly, flaring instantly as though the challenge were delivered to her in person. “Because Rooster threw you on your head half a dozen times — is that any sign? Not a bit! Not a bit! Why, there’s always been men who could ride any horse. And Phil Slader is one of them. You watch and see!”

  Mr. Newell and his son grinned sympathetically at their friend.

  “It’s up to you to tell her, Dick,” they said. “She wouldn’t listen to us. Tell her how many outlaw horses there are that never have been rode and never will be rode!”

  Handsome Dick Chester smiled quietly up at the excited face of the girl.

  “I don’t want to be told. I won’t be told!” cried Nell Newell.

  “You sulky baby!” said Dick Chester. “If you weren’t so pretty, I’d want to slap you, honey.”

  “Slap me! Don’t honey me, you rascal!” cried Nelly. “But oh, he will win!”

  “Well,” said Dick Chester. “I’ll tell you that I knew an old sand-colored horse down in Austin. He lived staked out in a back lot. So old that nobody could tell when his first birthday might of been. Well, anybody that wanted to put a saddle and bridle on Sandy could of rode him away. Same thing had been true for ten years. All that the owner of Sandy wanted to see was the fun when the riding began. He used to keep a sign tacked up on his front gate about Sandy being a free gift for the first man that could ride him, until the police threatened to prosecute him for manslaughter, y’understand? Then he had to let up a little. But the best riders in the West came to tackle Sandy. Not in the hope of riding him, but to see how long they could stick on his back.

  “Willie Armstrong had the record of one minute and forty-two seconds. He had the record for seven years, nearly. Then Pete Van Eyck come along and rode the horse for two minutes and fifty-four and two-fifths seconds, before he hit the sand. Some said that was only because Sandy was getting old. O
thers said that Sandy would never be old till he died, so far as bucking was concerned.”

  “What do I care about that Sandy horse?” asked Nell Newell with much indignation.

  “I just want to tell you,” said the big, impassive fellow, “that Rooster is no better at bucking than Sandy, but he’s just as good — when he gets his dander up. And he has his dander up today. He’s thrown one man already. And I’ll put up money that he’ll not only throw this Phil Slader, if Slader is fool enough to get into the saddle, but he’ll eat Slader when Phil hits the ground.”

  “Never!” cried Nell.

  “Very well,” said Dick. “You want to see him ride this horse. I’ll make a ten-dollar bet with you that Rooster throws him and breaks him up, besides! Will you take that bet?”

  “Is it really as dangerous as that for Phil Slader?” asked the girl, suddenly serious.

  “It is,” said her father, “every bit.”

  “Well,” said Nell. “I’d like to have the ride stopped — but there wouldn’t be any use trying. Nothing could hold Phil back now, I suppose. But, oh — I’d like to know one thing!”

  No one had a chance to hear what the one thing might have been. Indeed, she would not have expressed it in words. But she wondered with all of her heart how much of the will to ride the stallion sprang from the desire to master the brute, and how much it was rooted in an impulse to show his strength before her own watching eyes!

  A dull roar began with the shout in the center of the inclosure where the horse was held. It spread to the outskirts of the throng and rang deafeningly in the ears of Nell Newell and those around her. Then they saw Rooster dart out with Phil Slader on his back.

  For a good hundred yards it seemed that Rooster intended to try to run out from under the saddle. It even looked as though he might do it! The wind of his racing stride tore the hat from the head of Phil Slader and blew back his long hair as stiff and straight as though an invisible set of fingers had grasped it by the flying ends.