by Janet Dailey
“Don’t be attributing intelligence to something that was purely instinct,” Holt said. “The stallion knew he had entered the arroyo, and the entrance was the only way out. He charged you because, like the barricade, you were in his way. Our horses merely panicked in the confusion. There was no attack.”
“There is somethin’ in what you say,” Rube admitted. “But it ain’t necessarily true that a wild stallion won’t attack, ’cause he will. You talk about hell on four feet. You saw what he did to the Major’s stud.”
“As powerful as that white stallion is, why hasn’t he challenged one of the mustang stallions for his herd? Why raid our ranch? It doesn’t make sense when there are wild mares in these hills,” Guy said.
“Well, now, there just might be an answer to that.” Rube crouched near the fire, rocking back on his heels. “When I was mustanging as a boy, some of the old-timers told me that some of the finest, well-built wild stallions they ever saw ran without mares. They reckoned as how these rogue stallions figured they was too good for ordinary mares. Could be that’s how this white stallion figured it, too, until he got him an eyeful of the Major’s blooded mares. An’ there ain’t no wild stallion that won’t do a bit of stealin’ of domestic stock if’n he gets the chance.”
“That’s quite a theory,” Holt said with mocking skepticism.
“I never said it was a fact,” Rube defended. “But that’s what they told me. Could be just a tall tale, for all I know. I just passed it on for whatever it was worth. I never claimed it was gospel.”
“True or false, the fact remains we’re going after the mares at daybreak. There’s been enough talk and excitement for one night.” Holt said. “It’s time we tried to get some sleep.”
No one argued with his suggestion, least of all Diana. The saddles were positioned around the fire as headrests. Diana lay down as close to the radiating warmth as possible, draping the stiff and coarse saddle blanket over her shoulders. She exchanged good nights with Guy and Rube, but offered none to Holt when he remained silent.
Closing her eyes, Diana tried to sleep, but she couldn’t keep out the thoughts that were crowding in. Soon Rube was snoring, and the slow, steady breathing of Guy indicated that he, too, was asleep. For a long time, she lay there, the ground hard beneath her, the night chill creeping over her skin. Her eyes were tightly closed, but sleep wouldn’t come.
There was a movement, the sound of someone quietly rising. Her lashes lifted a fraction. Through their narrow slits, Diana’s eyes saw Holt add a few more limbs to the fire, then stand motionless before the flames. The flickering light threw his craggy features into sharp relief, a look of deep concentration toughening the lines.
Very quietly, Diana sat up. She hardly made a sound, yet his head jerked toward her. Undeterred, she joined him.
“Can’t you sleep, either?” she asked softly so as not to disturb the others.
“I was adding more fuel to the fire.” This didn’t answer her question.
Drawing the sweat-stiffened saddle blanket more tightly around her shoulders, Diana tried to ignore the decided chill in the atmosphere. “I haven’t thanked you for saving my life,” she said. And, at his blank look, she explained: “I mean when you pushed me out of the way of the stallion. I forgot to thank you for that,”
“Did you?” The insulting sweep of his gaze over her body seemed to say her thanks had been given by deed, not word. She was unable to control the shudder of hurt that went through her. “Cold?” Holt inquired with decided indifference.
“Of course.” It was an abrupt response, underlined by rigid pride that asked not a thing from him, not even sympathy or concern.
“You could always go lie down beside Guy. I’m sure he’d be delighted at the chance to keep you warm.”
Tears stung her eyes, anger and hurt mixing together. “How can you suggest that after I let you make love to me, I go sleep with your son? What kind of a woman do you think I am?” she questioned in taut demand.
“You’ve turned my son against me. Do you really want me to answer that question, Diana?” “Then why . . . out there, we. , . you . . ,” Holt knew the confusion she was trying to put into words, and he turned to face her. “Do you think I don’t wish now that when your horse fell, I would have put my hand around that pretty neck of yours”—as he spoke, his hand carried out the action he described, the cool touch of it on her neck paralyzing Diana— “and put my thumb under your chin. One little snap and I could have broken it and blamed it on the fall. With you dead, I might have a chance of getting my son back.”
Instead, he had made love to her, and Diana could see how bitterly he regretted it. Looking into those hard, gray eyes, she felt fear. He was so completely controlled and in command of his emotions.
“Why don’t you do it now?” She had to challenge him.
The pressure of his thumb on her chin increased slightly, but Diana didn’t flinch or let her gaze waver from his. Something flickered in his eyes. Cynical amusement? Reluctant admiration? It was too fleeting to recognize. The pressure eased a second before his hand came away from her throat.
“You’d thumb your nose at the devil himself if he told you that you couldn’t have what you wanted.” Holt sighed tiredly, “Go to sleep, Diana.”
He turned away and walked back to his own makeshift bed, leaving her with little choice but to do the same. Curled in a tight ball, Diana stared into the flames. Holt made her sound very self-possessed. Funny, she didn’t feel that way.
An hour after sunrise, Rube was smothering the campfire coals with sand. The horses were all saddled. Since Diana’s horse still showed signs of favoring his left foreleg, the only horse that remained for her to ride was the pack horse. It was not a horse she would have chosen, but the only other alternatives were to walk or ride double with one of the others. Diana opted for the relative discomfort of the pack horse.
“What are we going to do?” Guy asked after climbing into the saddle. “Are we going back to the waterhole?”
“No. We have the stallion spooked, so we might as well keep him running,” Holt stated. “We’ll trail him from here.”
“Aren’t we going back to our camp?” Guy protested.
“We aren’t. Rube is,” Holt corrected and turned to the older man. “You take Diana’s horse and pack what you think it can carry, without putting too much strain on him. We’ll meet you—”
“For God’s sake, Holt!” Guy interrupted angrily. “We haven’t eaten since yesterday noon. We can’t go chasing after those horses with no food in our stomachs. We have to go back to camp and eat.”
Hesitating before making a response, Holt’s gaze swept over the three of them. Diana agreed with Guy. She was already beginning to feel slightly light-headed from hunger, but she didn’t say so.
“All right,” he agreed. “You three go back to camp, eat, and divide everything the horse can’t carry among you. Here’s the binoculars,” Holt gave the case to Rube. “I’m going to trail the stallion. Find a high vantage point and look for me. More than likely, his range is going to pivot around that waterhole, so I’ll be somewhere in your vicinity.”
With that, the party split up, three of them riding toward the canyon several miles away, and Holt searching the ground for the distinctive tracks of the wild stallion and his mares. The lame horse kept the pace slow for the trio of riders.
“Why don’t you two ride ahead?” Rube suggested after they had gone about a mile. “You can have breakfast cooked by the time I get there.”
“Good idea, Rube,” Guy agreed with alacrity and dug his heels into his horse’s flanks to send it cantering forward.
Diana’s pack horse lumbered after him, his rough gait not helping the queasy emptiness of her stomach. They cantered half the distance and trotted the rest of the way, an equally jarring experience for Diana. But it kept conversation to the minimum. Slowing as they entered the arroyo where they had camped, they both saw the destruction at the same time and reined in their ho
rses.
“My God! What happened?” Guy stared around him in stunned disbelief.
“Maybe it was coyotes,” Diana suggested as he dismounted.
“I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “Look at this.”
Diana swung down from her saddle to look at the tracks he indicated. They were made by horses, unshod, which meant wild. She stared.
“That wild stallion did this,” Guy declared.
“Why?” she asked. Then she insisted, “It’s impossible.”
“Is it?” he countered.
Diana shook her head in confusion. “Let’s see what we can salvage.”
The destruction was not as serious as it had first looked. The bedrolls had been kicked and scattered about. They needed to be shaken free of sand and neatly rolled up. The supplies, too, looked as if a whirlwind had struck them. Outside of a few dents, the cooking utensils were undamaged.
However, their food supply had not been so fortunate. Diana was on her knees trying to save what she could of the flour dumped out of its sack when Rube and Holt rode in. She wasn’t surprised to see Holt, since he had been tracking the stallion.
“The stallion was here,” Guy announced. “He practically destroyed every bit of our food supply.” His attitude very plainly challenged Holt to explain that away if he could.
“How bad is it?” Holt directed the question to Diana.
“We were getting low on everything, anyway, so there isn’t much left now. Enough for two meals, maybe,” she answered.
Holt shifted in his saddle, looking around him as if he expected to see the white stallion looking down at them and laughing.
“Are you gonna fix breakfast?” Rube wanted to know. “I had my mouth all set for some flapjacks. I s’pose that goddamned stallion went and ruined that. Do you reckon he did it a’ purpose?”
“Man smell,” Holt said. “He brought the mares straight over here from the arroyo for water. Probably caught the scent of our things and connected it with the same smell that had trapped him.”
“Last night he tried to drive away our horses,” Guy argued. “Now he’s practically destroyed our food supplies. Are you trying to tell me the stallion didn’t know what he was doing?”
“Our horses panicked last night,” Holt reminded him. “They would have if it had been a herd of cattle stampeding out of that arroyo. The stallion didn’t single out our food. It just happened to be the most susceptible. It wasn’t cunning, Guy. It was instinct.”
“ ’Pears to me that Holt is right,” Rube agreed, and Guy pivoted away in disgust. “I’ve seen a wild horse trample to pieces the hide of a mountain lion. It didn’t matter to the horse that it was only the hide and not a flesh-and-blood cat. Looks like that white stallion did the same goddamned thing here.” Rube dismounted, shaking his head, and glanced at Holt with faint indignation. “Would you look at that? Here Guy was so all-fired hungry, and he ain’t even got a fire started. Seems to me like I’m the only one around here that knows how to start a fire. It never seems to get done less’n I do it.”
“Why don’t you start the fire and just shut up, Rube?” Guy muttered.
“Don’t you go growlin’ at me, you little pup,” Rube bristled. “It’s one thing for your pa, here, to be a-tellin’ me to shut up. He’s—”
“Yeah, I know,” Guy broke in bitterly. “He’s the head honcho around here.”
“That will be enough, Guy.” Holt’s voice sliced firmly through the air.
Diana glanced apprehensively from one to the other. It was the first time the shredded relationship between father and son had surfaced when someone other than herself was present. She held her breath, waiting to see if this exposure would lead to a full-scale explosion.
Guy turned away, mumbling, “I’ll help you with the fire, Rube.”
“You just hold on there a minute,” Rube said. “There ain’t no need in startin’ a fire ’til Diana tells us whether we’re gonna have some food. I ain’t gonna do it just for practice.”
“I think I have enough for a stack of flapjacks apiece,” she responded to the indirect question.
Holt swung down from his saddle. “Guy, let Rube start the fire while you and I pack up this gear.”
“See? What’d I tell you? I’m the only one around here that can build a goddamned fire,” Rube grumbled to no one in particular as he walked toward the blackened circle of ashes from their previous fires.
As hungry as Diana was, the food tasted like chalk in her mouth, but she forced it down, anyway, knowing she would need it before the day was over. She glanced around the circle at the others quietly eating. With all their gear left at this camp last night, neither Holt nor Guy had shaved this morning. Since they had returned, neither had taken the time. The shadows of a dark beard growth accented the bluntly chiseled features of Holt’s face, making him look tough and forbidding. Guy’s fair coloring made his short stubble less noticeable. As for Rube, he hadn’t shaved since they left the ranch. He scratched the salted dark growth almost constantly.
They were a disreputable-looking group, haggard and covered with trail dust. It made Diana conscious of what her own appearance must be—hair unbrushed, no makeup, as dusty as the others. The sleeve of her blouse was torn at the elbow. The only other blouse she had was the one Holt had ripped. With a sigh, Diana knew there was little that could be done about it even if she felt like it, not when Holt was so anxious to get on the trail.
The last of their gear was packed away when the meal was finished. Although the Arabian gelding Diana had been riding did not seem as lame, the packload he carried was decidedly light, the rest of the gear divided equally among them. And Diana was still astride the packhorse.
Rube had already left the arroyo camp to pick up the stallion’s trail when Holt handed her the lead rope to the gelding. “When we catch up with the stallion, keep up with us as best you can,” he ordered. “Don’t get lost because I don’t want to come looking for you.”
“I don’t want you to come looking for me,” she retorted, aware of the double meaning in her reply.
“Why does Diana have to lead the gelding?” Guy argued, seemingly ready to pick a fight over anything. “Let Rube have him.”
Holt’s mouth thinned. “In the first place, Diana’s horse is slower than ours, so a lame horse isn’t going to slow her down that much. Secondly, it could turn out to be a wild ride after those horses. And I don’t want to see her break her neck.”
“I wouldn’t think that would upset you,” Diana taunted. “In fact, I would have thought you’d be glad to be rid of me.”
It was a cool gray look he leveled at her. “I don’t like the idea of carrying your body home to the Major.”
“I see.” She sat rigidly in the saddle. “It isn’t me getting killed that would bother you. It’s facing the Major.”
“You got it,” he snapped and stepped into his saddle.
“Dammit, Holt!” Guy swore, but Holt had already started his horse in Rube’s direction.
“Leave it alone, Guy.” Now that Holt had moved away, all her stiff-necked pride left in a wave of tiredness.
“But—”
“I don’t mind bringing up the rear. After the fall I took last night, the last thing 1 want to do is go on another hellbent-for-leather chase across these mountains.” It had nothing to do with it, but it was an excellent excuse.
One that Guy accepted. “I wasn’t thinking,” he apologized.
“It’s all right.” Tugging on the lead rope, Diana clicked to the gelding to follow as they started after Holt and Rube.
The pace was slow and Diana had no difficulty keeping up as they trailed the band of horses. Shortly before ten o’clock, they spotted the small herd grazing on a slope clotted with junipers. The same as the first time, the stallion was to one side standing guard, alert yet relaxed.
“There he is,” Guy whispered, an excited, throbbing sound that matched the rapt look on his face.
“If that stallion sta
ys true to his pattern,” Rube began quietly, leaning in his saddle toward Holt, “when you jump him, he’s gonna run to the left an’ circle back to the canyon. We can run the herd in relays. Sooner or later, the stallion will abandon the mares an’ take off by his self, hopin’ to lead us away. That’s when we can get back our mares.”
“All right.” Holt nodded agreement with the proposal. “I’ll start them running here. You and Guy station yourselves three or four miles apart along the route you think the stallion will take. You stay here, Diana. If Rube is right, the stallion will be coming back this way.” Then his gaze was on the other two. “Whoever is running the herd when the stallion breaks away is to stick with the stallion. Keep him running while the others catch the mares.”
The packhorse Diana was riding wanted to follow the other horses as they moved out with their riders, but she held it back. Rube and Guy split off to the left while Holt started for the herd.
From her vantage point, she watched Holt work his way slowly along a dry gully, letting the soft sand muffle the sound of his horse’s hooves. There was almost no breeze. As he neared the slope, she saw the stallion come to full alertness, small ears pricked in Holt’s direction.
When Holt came into the stallion’s view, the white horse did not snort in alarm and send the mares flying. Instead, he whistled a shrill challenge, his long ivory-colored tail standing straight out. In a prancing pace, the stallion came boldly toward his adversary.
“My God,” Diana murmured, her pulse leaping in fear. “He’s going to attack him.”
Holt had to be aware of the stallion’s unusual reaction, but he kept riding his horse forward, not slackening its cantering stride. A hundred feet separated them when the stallion whirled, retreat becoming wiser than valor. Screaming and snapping at the mares, they leaped away as one, bunching together. Again the buckskin mare took the lead while the pacing stallion drove them from the rear.