Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  But Rooster was not going to rely upon anything as childish as mere speed. There were other spices in the dish which he could serve up for the delectation of the connoisseurs. At the end of the hundred yards he was going fast enough to turn himself into a blur; at the end of that distance he stopped himself in about the time that it takes an arrow to shoot into soft wood and come to a halt.

  Phil Slader was braced in the stirrups; he had settled back with a very reasonable expectation that the horse might attempt even such a maneuver as came to pass. But despite all his preparedness, he was snatched from his seat and thrown forward along the neck of the horse.

  Rooster spun about like a top. Being already well off balance, Phil Slader was hurled from the back of the stallion, landing upon the ground with such force that the dust spurted up like splashed water. He rolled head over heels through that dust cloud of his own raising.

  There was a wild shout from every throat in that crowd, terror in the women’s voices, to be sure, and in the voices of the children also. Yet even in these there was a note of exultation. There was something in their blood that was in the blood of the audiences who ringed the amphitheaters in the ancient days.

  Rooster wheeled again and charged for his victim, and the hands of Nell Newell flashed up before her face.

  “I told you!” she heard big Dick Chester saying. “I told you what Rooster would do — and he’s doing it, by Heaven! No!”

  The last was a shout of wonder, lost in the cry of the whole audience. Nell Newell jerked down her hands again in time to see Phil Slader rolling to his feet and lurching to the side in escaping the drive of the big gray horse.

  He was staggering — that much was sure. It looked so like a tragedy that the crowd was yelling:

  “Why don’t they get a rope on Rooster?” Or, “Shoot the horse! Shoot the gray before he kills Slader!”

  However, there was no one near enough to put a rope on the stallion or attempt such a thing. And there was no gun which was sure of hitting the horse without striking the man. So they saw the big animal deliver its charge and saw Phil Slader lurch out of the path of danger, as if by a miracle.

  “It’s not possible!” whispered Nell. “It’s not possible that he’s off the saddle so soon! If Phil Slader is not a man, who is? Who is?”

  “Nobody in this world . . . .” began Dick Chester.

  “Look!” cried Sammy. “The fool is going to try it again if he can.”

  As the gray horse shot past the man and saw that it had missed its charge, it threw itself back and reared in a wild endeavor to check its impetus and wheel again at its enemy. As it paused and reared to whirl about, at that very instant, young Slader leaped on its back like some crouched panther and thrust his feet into the stirrups.

  It brought a voice like pandemonium from the entire crowd. Rooster began to fight like a madman. Having downed his foe, it was surely strange that Fate should clap the same danger on his back again!

  He began, as Dick Chester expressed it, to tie himself into figure eights and untie them while he was still in the air. He rocked up and down, hitting heavily with forefeet and then with hind; he did the neatest bit of fence rowing that was ever seen in that part of the country, where everything connected with bucking horses was known by heart. Then he began to fish for the sun with a whole-hearted enthusiasm that brought every man and woman shouting to their feet.

  Even a little range mustang, with a build like a cartoonist’s effort at imagining a horse, looks very like a raging lion if it has the brain power and the physical strength to perform the feat known as sunfishing. Imagine Rooster, then, hurling his magnificent body into the air, until he was only a flash of silver, descending again with dreadful force, upon a single foreleg. It sent a convulsive wave through his body, and it jerked the rider like the curl of a whip. What was only a ripple in the horse, became an explosion in the man. It jerked him to the side; it snapped his chin down against his breast. At the very third jump there was a wild yell from a brown-faced savage of a cowpuncher near by:

  “He’s done! He’s done! Slader is finished!”

  “Why?” called Nell Newell to the wild man. “Why do you say that? He’s still riding and he’s riding straight up! And he hasn’t pulled leather as yet!”

  “He’s done,” said Dick Chester. “He’s done, well enough, but he’s given us the kind of riding that we’ve dreamed of and never seen before.”

  “Ay, and Rooster is nearly done too!” exclaimed Sammy Newell. “Look at him, Nell! The big boy is about done up from this work!”

  No horse could try to turn itself into a bird for minute after minute without feeling the strain, and Rooster, sweat-blackened, but flecked with snowy foam, was undoubtedly on the down grade.

  He gave proof of it by changing his tactics. That sunfishing was killing the rider, to be sure. But it was killing the horse, too. Now Rooster altered his form of battle and, rearing, flung himself down and rolled, with a suddenness that made every breath catch.

  There had been no warning, but Phil Slader was off the saddle in the flicker of an eyelash. As the stallion reared through the dust cloud, Phil was on his back.

  “Look!” screamed a big man near by, who had taken a hat from his gray head and was waving the sombrero frantically through the air. “Look at him! That’s the quiet boy that the sheriff likes so much! That’s the little lamb that ain’t never done anything! Watch him. Ain’t he a tiger? I ask you — ain’t he a tiger? Is it fighting that Rooster wants? Well, he’s getting it now!”

  Phil Slader, apparently maddened by this treacherous maneuver of the big stallion now clung in his place with biting spurs that gouged the side of the animal. With the biting lash of his quirt, he rained blows on the shoulders of the big gray.

  Rooster did not know what to make of this. He had been ridden before, to be sure, but almost always he was ridden only at moments when it was his imperial pleasure that he should be ridden. Those who dared attempt to ride him against his will — their hands were generally very well occupied in clinging to their places, with no thought of tormenting his proud self further. He forgot all his cunning for a moment, and burned up priceless strength, giving his foeman an equally priceless respite by leaping out and racing for a full half-mile at the top of his speed.

  On top of the things which he had been doing, one would have thought that a half-mile sprint, inspired by fear, would have been enough to drop the stallion like a bullet. But it seemed that Rooster grew greater by the use of his God-given speed. Every stride was faster than the one before. As he whirled around the rodeo grounds, he was given an ovation — an ovation for his fierce strength and beauty and for the man who was riding him out. They had come to see a grand show, but this was more than they had ever expected.

  The big man with the gray hair near the Newells could not be done talking. “They said that he was a bum copy of Jack Slader, eh?” he snarled. “They said that he was soft, eh! Just a farm hand? Well, look at the farm hand now! Ain’t those tiger claws that he’s using on the hoss? How could he ever of stuck on, otherwise? Yea!”

  He fairly screamed in a savage exultation. “Look hearty at him now, boys!” went on this gloomy enthusiast, “because the next time you see him, most likely it’ll be when you’re riding in a posse to catch him for the killing of your father or your son or your brother — as I used to ride to catch Jack Slader himself. I tell you that Jack never could of rode a horse like this! Look hearty at him, because the next time he may be stretching a rope!”

  The whole crowd fell into a noisy hysteria at this point, for Rooster, having raced like a track sprinter for the half mile, suddenly remembered that in this straightaway running he was simply burning up his own strength and allowing that of his cardinal foeman to be recruited. He left off bolting and began to buck again.

  It was his last effort. Just as a staggering, weary runner sees the goal in sight and suddenly picks himself up for a last valiant lunge at the barrier, running as though the race
were only begun, so Rooster gave all the might that was in him to shake off the slashing, spurring, clinging menace. He began to sunfish again, and under the sledge hammer strokes of that buffeting, Phil Slader began to reel and pitch in the saddle like a landsman on the deck of a sea-tossed, small boat.

  It was the last of Rooster’s strength and it was the last of his rider’s also. Twice and again he was unbalanced. He clung to the edge of a fall and scrambled back. There was no question of pulling leather now. With foot and hand and weakening legs he gripped at horse or saddle, and still he could barely maintain his place. He lost a stirrup — and regained it in barely sufficient time to meet the next ship-crack shock.

  That was luck, but luck could not be with him all the time. He lost a stirrup again. With the next leap, Rooster whirled himself in the air, and came down spinning. It flung Phil Slader clear of the saddle, outlined him for a moment against the sky and then pitched him headlong into the dust. He lay helpless, stunned, crushed, making no effort to rise.

  But Rooster? He made no effort to lunge at the fallen foe. Now, in the moment of his victory, his last ounce of power was expended, and he stood with hanging head, legs braced far apart, foam dripping fast from his gaping mouth, the very picture of exhaustion.

  CHAPTER XV

  NO ONE SHOUTED for Rooster’s victory, not even those who had placed their lucky bets upon the horse. They knew how perilously close they had come to losing their money, just as those who had dared to venture their coin at long, long odds upon the son of Jack Slader now knew that they had not made a foolish bet.

  “And that,” said Sheriff Mitchel Holmer, “is the Slader kid, eh?”

  “Aye,” said one of his friends, grinning, “and what’ll you do about it, sheriff?”

  “Heaven knows what I can do,” said the sheriff, “except to oil up all my guns and then to start praying. Why, here’s a kid that has never entered himself in any riding contest. Here’s a kid that’s never showed himself. And what I wonder is: What is he saving himself for?”

  “For something worth while,” came the pat answer. “That’s what he’s saving himself for. He’s not going to be like Jack Slader — in for every kind of deviltry that comes to hand. He’s going to be extra special careful in what he does — this same kid! And when he makes his play, it will be for hard cash, you can be pretty sure of that! Hard cash and no small potatoes! That’s the style of this here new Slader!”

  Not all were busy in making their comments. Some of the men had picked up Phil Slader and poured a dram of brandy between his lips. When the brandy brought back his wits he sat up with a gasp and then lurched to his feet. His numbed legs would hardly support him, and yonder was Rooster, already regaining strength even faster than his late rider; already regaining strength and lifting his formidable head, while he stared ominously at Phil Slader.

  Young Slader had no idea of trying the saddle again on this day. He was beaten and he knew it — beaten, too, for the first time in his life, and in fair fight. All other enemies had shunned him from the beginning of his youth. There had been a stamp upon him — the name of that famous father. And on account of it, boys and men had avoided him always.

  Now that he had been beaten into the dust by a brute beast, he expected that he would find sneers and scorn around him. But there was no scorn and no sneers. Busy hands were still working about him.

  “Take this flask of brandy along with you, Slader,” said one.

  “Lemme brush off your back,” said another. “It’s a mite thick with dust.”

  “It was a grand job that you did, old son,” said another. “And the next time out, you’ll ride that hoss till he’s plumb blind — only, I’d like to be on hand to see the work that you do on him!”

  An old, white-haired cattleman came limping up and grasped his hand.

  “I’ve seen all the old-timers and I’ve seen all the young crop of ’em,” said he. “I’ve seen the game ones come and go, and nothing gamer than the ride you give to Rooster, was it every my luck to lay an eye on, Slader! You remember me, if you ever might be in the need of a friend. I’m ‘Pop’ Weston. You write that down in your books, and it may come in handy, one of these days — darned handy, m’son!”

  He kept nodding very gravely, as he made this little speech, and the addled brain of Phil Slader gradually cleared, letting in the light of the sun and the voices of these men. There was nothing but respect — respect even with a touch of awe in it, it seemed to him. He could have laughed.

  It was as though they did not know the thing that had been clear to him throughout the battle with the gray stallion. A dozen times he had been upon the verge of a crashing fall, and a dozen times something akin to luck had saved him. The difference was that he knew it was luck, and they attributed it to skill. That lost stirrup which had been regained, for instance — they thought that that was skill and not merest chance. But let them think what they pleased, he knew that the stallion was his master! So he looked around him with that faint smile which was in the mouth rather than in the eyes, and he took the stallion by the reins and limped away from the field.

  He went out past the buckboard where Dick Chester and the Newells were gathered. They gave him a smile and a nod, all of them; awe-stricken smiles befitting mere spectators, when they see one of the heroes of the arena go by them. There was only one gloomy face, and that the most important face of all, to Philip Slader. Nell, her chin dropped upon her small fist, looked vacantly upon him, full of her thoughts.

  Phil wanted to say something, but he hardly knew what. He was only sure that the sight of her displeasure was more to him than the buffeting which he had just taken from the stallion.

  “I’ll tell you,” said Phil Slader, “if you think that it ain’t fair for me to walk off with Rooster for a small price like ten . . . .”

  At that, she came suddenly back to herself and jumped up. “Do you think I care about the money?” she asked. “Or even about who owns him? No, I only want some one who can handle that horse to have him. That’s all that I want!”

  Phil Slader looked curiously and closely at her. She met his gaze again with more steadiness than any man had ever been able to show.

  “You’ve got your wish, then, Nell,” said John Newell. “Because Phil will have Rooster eating out of his hand in a couple of weeks — after a good first start, like this!”

  “I don’t think so,” said Nell, more grave than ever. “It all depends — in that first start. It all depends on who had the most taken out of him in this try — Phil or Rooster. And I don’t think that Phil will ever get anything but bumps from Rooster, not until he grows into a different sort of a man from what he is today.”

  “Nell,” cried her brother, “that’s out and out insulting, to say a thing like that!”

  She disregarded that remark as though it had never been made. “But oh,” said Nell, “I thought for a minute that you would win. I thought surely . . . .”

  She paused again, shaking her head slowly.

  “I’m not through with him,” Phil assured her. “I’ll have another try at him. You can bet on that!”

  “When you ride him,” said Nell Newell, “you ride him over to see me. Because you’ll be the biggest and the best man that I’ve ever seen, Phil. D’you understand me? The biggest and the best, and I’ll want to tell you that face to face!”

  A haze of rose obscured the eyes of Phil. Perhaps it was partly because he was very weak, and there was a roaring at his ears. Her voice came to him in waves, as if out of a great distance, and there was such a promise in it that he dared not put the thing into words. He felt more confident and stronger than he had ever felt before. Because there was only one thing for him to do in order to win from her — what?

  Ah, well, let the future take care of that! If the one thing had been the moving of a mountain, it would not have deterred him from a wild hope. Yet, he told himself, as he led the stallion away, that even the moving of a mountain might prove a lesser thing than t
he mastering of this stallion.

  The mountain could be attacked every day, a shovelful at a time, or what he could break off with the stroke of a steel pick. But patience and much labor would never affect the stallion. It would never be written that Rooster could be conquered until by some vast expansion of the spirit, Phil Slader met the big gray horse in another struggle and proved himself the greater of the two.

  He paused in the distance and looked back. Above the swirling crowds at the rodeo, a vast dust cloud was rising, white and sure in the center, fading to ghostliness at the edges — a phantom Doric pillar. Then another gust of wind tore the dream into shreds.

  So it was with this day of his. It had brought him close to the realization of a great thing. He had almost become that superman for whom the girl was looking. Oh, he knew what was in her mind as well as though she had taken him aside and spoken many volumes to him concerning what was in her heart of hearts. He knew and he wondered at her and her vision of what a man should be.

  All strength of will and all might of hand and mind — that was what she wanted — power, power, power, no matter how crude and raw its form. That was what she yearned for. And he, by the grace of good fortune, had come within hail of the masterpiece, on this day of days. A few more pounds of power, a little more courage of heart, a little more cunning of hand and body, and he would have mastered the stallion and Nell at the same instant.

  Then came disaster. As the phantom column had melted at a touch, so all of his chance had been blown to bits when he rolled senseless in the dust.

  He was not weak or childish enough to feel self-pity. He was man enough to wonder that he had ever come so close. But how marvelously well he had understood her — and how wonderfully well she had seen through him. She had known that it was a great day for him, that he was at a zenith, that he was laboring his best for her as well as for himself and for fame. Yet he had failed. Being beaten once, he would have to change from his very soul and grow greater, before he could master the big horse.