by Max Brand
“He could never have come up to her like that,” vowed José Rézan, “if she had had her strength at the end of the day.”
“I dunno,” Lucas said. “She’s tired, and she’s run a good many tens of miles today. But still, I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to bet on how fast that blue horse could run, even with a heavy man like that in the saddle. It’s got a stride made of rubber, that blue horse has. I never seen anything like the way it walked right up on Elena Blanca. I never seen nothing like it. I wouldn’t’ve believed that even a thoroughbred race horse could’ve closed up on her like that. But it ain’t just the running of the blue horse that has me wondering.”
“What is it, then?” Rézan asked.
“What I wonder at, is how did the gent that’s riding that horse know that Elena would be taking her run up this here cañon? How did he come to be waiting here so pat?”
José Rézan nodded. “Maybe,” he said, “the rest of these cañons are all blind…no easy way through them to the mountains behind. And so he waited here, thinking that she would know. Because that little white devil of a mare, she knows a great deal more than we think.”
“You can explain it,” Lucas muttered, “but I say that it’s strange, and ain’t likely. It’s as though he could’ve read the mind of that horse, friend. And that’s what I sort of believe.”
* * * * *
Elena Blanca had reached the high broken lands toward which the ravine pointed. There, with coverts on every side, she felt a greater security. There was still no escape, for the rider on the blue roan mare kept close at her side. When she wheeled, the blue horse wheeled likewise. When she dodged, she could not put any distance between herself and the pursuer.
Despair began to steal the strength of the white mare, more than had her heroic running of this famous day. The golden time of the afternoon ended, and the clouds in the west were masses of red flame when Elena Blanca, at last, came to a halt and stood upon wide-braced legs, her head hanging low, the fire gone from her eyes.
She waited patiently for the rush of the victor, the shout of triumph, and the stinging burn of the deadly rope around her neck. There was no charge, no shout, no hiss of the rope above her head. Instead, she saw the man dismount and come toward her with gentle words, his hand outstretched. The great blue roan was following him, willingly, with pricked ears.
Elena Blanca tossed her head and started off at a rickety gallop. Presently the blue mare and her rider were at Elena Blanca’s heels again. Elena turned and paused, and whinnied faintly, more in wonder than in terror and despair. Once more the stranger came toward her with a gentle voice and an extended hand.
Twenty-Three
The news traveled on wings, as a miracle accomplished. After all their labors, all their weeks and weeks of patient striving, here came a man who, in a single day, did what all their work had not been able to accomplish.
“But,” John Lucas said to half a dozen of his peers, the gloomy José Rézan among the rest, “what does it all mean? It ain’t as if he had come and run her down by himself. Here was me and José, yonder, that worked ourselves sick and burned up our best horseflesh. At the end of the day, when she couldn’t no more than raise a gallop…but when that gallop was more than our horses could match…just as she’s barely strong enough to run away from our horses, in comes this gent and pops a rope onto her, you might say. Now I say…who gets the real credit? Us that wore her down till one kid on a common range pony could’ve caught her, or him that happened to be handy at the right spot and the right time. I ask you?”
Of course their answer was what he wanted it to be.
The honor and the credit by right belonged to Rézan and to the formidable Lucas. As for this interloper, he was a mere thief in the night, who had slipped in between them and the proper reward of their labors.
“But,” said one of the listeners, “what you gonna do about it?”
Lucas thrust out his lean jaw, the fighting jaw of a bull terrier.
“All I want to know is if I got the right,” Lucas said, “because, if I’ve got the right, I’ll manage the way, well enough.” And he grinned and nodded to himself.
José Rézan called Lucas to one side. “You are going gunning for this man?” he asked.
“Why not?” Lucas responded. “I ain’t stealing no chances from you. You can do the same, and I say that finder’s keeper. And did you see the rest of the boys? They got the same idea. Look at Buck Chisholm, yonder, already saddling up his best horse. Where would he be going, I ask you? Why, he’s going out to find this same gent…and that’s all that there is to it. But I’ll beat him out, or I’ll eat my hat.”
Eight good men and true, each with desperation in his heart, rode out across the mountain desert to find the trail of Sandy Sweyn. He was not particularly hard to find. There was only one difficulty that hampered them, and this was the speed with which Sandy rode south toward the ranch of big Peter Dunstan.
Buck Chisholm found the trail first. He swore, afterward, that he rode for a whole day, following it south, but only twice did he have a fleeting glimpse of the pair of horses and the rider in the distance.
John Lucas came within half a mile of them. And John Lucas swore, afterward, that he saw the blue roan carrying its master along at a rapid, sweeping trot, while the white mare idled before and behind; sometimes she would pause to crop at the bunch grass, where she could find it in random spots, sometimes she would frisk far ahead of the blue roan. Of one thing Lucas was certain—that there was no rope on the wild white mare. She ran at her own free will, and her free will was to remain close to the blue roan and the strange rider.
After that Lucas gave up the pursuit. “Because,” he said, “there ain’t nobody on the range that I’m properly afraid of, as you might say. But there’s something spooky about this business and this here Sandy Sweyn, if it’s really him that got the mare.”
The news flew far and wide and far and wide. It came through the valleys, over the ragged heads of the mountains, and swung down softly into the valley where the house of Don Diego stood.
He called his daughter down into the windy patio, where the tall, gay hollyhocks nodded solemnly back and forth against the whitewashed wall.
“They have caught Elena,” he said to her.
“It is José!” cried Catalina, her eyes firing with a soft hope.
“It is not José.”
She grew blank.
“There is a young fellow with a dead eye and a blank face who lives alone in the woods…like a beast. He can talk to a horse better than he can talk to a man. He can make a dog understand him more easily than a man can understand him. His name is Sandy Sweyn. He has caught the mare, my dear.”
Pretty Catalina grew white enough, now. Then she asked fiercely: “Is this man a half-wit?”
“Not even a quarter-wit, my dear.”
“I shall not need to keep my promise, then.”
“Do you think not, Catalina? Now listen to me, and write down my words in black in your heart of hearts. You have given an oath that a million men have heard of. You have sworn that you will marry the man who captures Elena Blanca and brings her to you. So it has become a question of something more than the honor of a silly girl. It has become a matter of the honor of Mirandos. My honor, child. And my honor has been flawless. By heavens, Catalina, you shall marry the first man to bring Elena Blanca to this house, or I shall turn you out like a beggar…with bare feet…to be laughed across the mountains. Do you believe me?”
She looked up into his face and found a terrible and calm decision there. For once in her life, Catalina could not answer. Deep in her heart, the very roots of speech were frozen. She turned away, stunned, and felt her way into the house again, and so up the stairs to her room.
It seemed to Catalina, when she was in her room again, that she was looking forth upon a world as empty as a polished brazen bow
l.
* * * * *
It was not only in this direction that the news traveled. It swung far to the south. On an instant wing, it reached the town nearest to the ranch of big Peter Dunstan and sent a messenger carrying the rumor forth along the road toward the rancher’s house.
Dunstan was heavily occupied, on that morning. One of his oldest and best cowpunchers, Macfarlane, had just come in with a ringing complaint.
“How long might I’ve been working for you, Dunstan?”
“Nine years, Mack.”
“Am I reasonable or unreasonable?”
“Except when you’ve been hitting up the red-eye…mighty reasonable, Mack.”
“And what have I got that’s better than anything else?”
“Why, your old cutting horse, Sam, I suppose.”
“Would you mind coming out and having a look at Sam, now?”
Dunstan stepped to the door, and yonder was Sam, an ugly-headed bay horse, hobbling from one bunch of dead grass to the next, with a great limp in his off foreleg.
“What the devil has done that, Mack?”
“Look yonder.” With a savage face, Mack indicated a little heap of black and white curled up in the shadow of one of the big posts of the nearest corral.
“It’s that new dog that you brung down from the north with you, Dunstan. It’s that Chris. He’s been seen hounding old Sam around the corral, and finally he run that horse ag’in’ a post…and there you see.”
“I’m sorry, Mack. I’m terribly sorry.”
“Sorry is one thing. But a sorry dog is what I want to see. A dead dog out yonder would be a heap of use to me, Dunstan.”
“You want me to kill Chris?”
“What use might he be here?” Macfarlane asked savagely. “Or maybe you’re gonna start drifting sheep on this here ranch?”
At this sarcastic proposal, even big Peter Dunstan winced. “I’ll never run sheep on this place. You know that. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Mack. I’ll tie up that dog till it gets a little sense. Only…I can’t shoot it. I’ve got a use for it.”
Macfarlane removed his hat and scratched his half-bald head. “If he runs that horse of mine ag’in,” he said, “I blow for another bunkhouse, and I take my Sam along with me. Dogs is all right, in their place. But their place ain’t never been in the running of horseflesh, and it ain’t never gonna be. So long, chief.”
Macfarlane retreated toward Sam and led the cutting horse back to the corral, while the rancher took young Chris by the collar and tied him with a strong length of new rope to a sapling beside the house.
He went back to his office to wade through a stack of bills with his checkbook beside him—a dreary task. His payments were always slow for the mere reason that he detested these clerical duties with all his soul. He had not removed more than the top of the pile when a sharp, mischievous barking sounded from the corrals. Rising to look out the window, he saw Chris, with a chewed-off rope end flying from his neck, in hot pursuit of Sam.
Poor Sam, crippled and staggering, dodged and kicked as well as he could. But the wisdom of old inherited craft was working in the brain of Chris, and he rounded Sam neatly into a corner, where the gelding made a frantic and vain endeavor to jump the fence. He merely crashed against the top bar and sprawled back again into the dust of the corral.
“Chris!” yelled Peter Dunstan. “Hey, Chris!”
Chris was far too delighted with his work to listen to any human voice. He circled Sam with a wild outburst of yapping.
“Chris! Will you hear me? Chris! I’ll kill you, you fool…Chris!”
The gun came into the hand of Dunstan. It was not a carefully aimed shot. It was rather a random try, directed by chance. But poor Chris leaped high into the air and came down with a death screech, flat upon his side, and lay still.
Dunstan did not wait to go through the doorway. He swung himself through the big window and reached the spot in an instant. He knew even before he started that it was useless to make an examination. Something in the mere yell of the dog had been enough to tell him that its life went out with the last of its cry. When he reached Chris, the lolling tongue in the dust and the glazed eyes were an unnecessary proof.
Macfarlane, at that instant, came on a galloping horse around the corner of the barn. “Did I hear that dog yelping again at the heels of my Sam?” he shouted.
“The devil with you, and your horse. Take this dog, and bury him…and bury him deep…and don’t let me hear another word out of you for a month.” Then Dunstan turned upon his heel, and Macfarlane was too astonished and overawed to protest against the shameful burden that was thus thrust upon his shoulders. He knew his own value, and he knew that his employer knew it, also. It was as though the heavens had fallen upon Macfarlane’s head.
Dunstan, as he strode gloomily back toward the house, saw a small dust cloud rising far down the road. “It’s the news,” he said to his gloomily prophetic heart, “that the kid has taken Elena Blanca and is bringing her south to me. And me with the kid’s payment lying yonder…dead as a doornail. Oh, to blazes with Macfarlane and his horse…and ropes that a fool dog can chew through.”
So said the rancher to himself, even before the figure of the messenger could be descried through the dust cloud.
For once, his prophecy was true.
Twenty-Four
When Peter Dunstan first heard that Elena Blanca was indeed taken, and that the captor, instead of traveling straight toward the home of Don Diego was coming south, he understood at once that in the mind of Sandy Sweyn there was no thought of claiming the girl for his. Sandy was coming to execute his half of the bargain and render the white mare and receive, in return, the little shepherd dog, Chris. Since the shepherd dog was dead, what other payment could be substituted? Money?
He thought again of the gloom of the evening in the forest, the dark bulk of Jim, the bear, and the snarling, skulking form of the bobcat. Money was not the stuff with which he could tempt Sandy Sweyn, but since he had taken such a liking to one dog, might he not accept another in its place?
Over that thought, Peter Dunstan lingered for a long time. He was too logical to be carried away by a first hope. It was not the mere fact that Chris was a dog that had interested Sandy Sweyn. There could not be any doubt that Sandy could have had a dozen dogs better than Chris, by far, if he chose to ask for them at any ranch house where the place was overrun by mongrels of one breed or another. No, what mattered to Sandy was that with his own hand he had killed the prowling mountain lion that had been drawn by the crying of the puppy. He had seen poor Chris cowering at the feet of the black-robed grizzly. That was what had moved the heart of the strange fellow. It was Chris, and Chris alone, that he would want.
What would he do, then, when he reached the ranch and found that Chris was not there to be given to him in payment for his work? Perhaps it would force into his mind for the first time the thought of going to the house of Don Diego Mirandos and asking there for the reward that, as the whole world knew, Catalina had offered to the captor of the white mare. That would be sheer ruin at once.
First of all, therefore, the rancher decided that he must get the white mare from Sandy as soon as he appeared with her. Then, while he put off Sandy with one excuse or another, he would head north and west toward the valley where Don Diego lived. If Sandy attempted to follow when he discovered the fraud—why, he must be prevented surely in one way or another. In one way or another, thought the rancher grimly, and fingered his revolver as the thought went home. He took out the picture of the girl and stared at it hungrily. Her beauty was his excuse, and a vague feeling that, get her how he could, all would be fair in the war for her.
Two things stood in his way. One was that it was known that the dog was dead. The other was that he was on his ranch where all men knew more or less about Sandy and Sandy’s prowess. If he tried to gather among them two or
three willing to confront Sandy in wrath, it would be a hard task to find them.
He made his decision on the spot. First of all, he went to find Macfarlane. He found him heaping up and trampling down the mound over the spot where he had buried poor little Chris. As Peter Dunstan looked on, something like remorse stirred in him, and a vague feeling of dread, lest the evil impulse that had destroyed the dog should bring unhappy consequences upon him in the future.
On the whole, Dunstan was as little given to remorse or to the pangs of conscience as any man in the world. He trampled on this tender gloom as Macfarlane was even then trampling upon the grave of the dead puppy.
“Mack,” the rancher said, “there’s nobody in the world that knows about the death of that pup except you and me. You understand?”
“Why, that’s straight enough,” answered the cowpuncher.
“And, just now, I don’t want any others to know. You hear?”
“You don’t want anybody else to know,” Macfarlane repeated, scenting a mystery with quivering nostrils. “Well, I’ll keep it dark enough, then.”
“Here’s the main point. I’m riding out and taking that dog along with me.”
“You’re riding out,” Macfarlane said, to get his lesson firmly in mind, “and you’re going to take the dog along with you. I get that. What’s next?”
“There’s nothing next, so far as any of the boys on the ranch are concerned. But somewhere inside of the next two or three days, Sandy Sweyn is going to come back here, riding his blue roan.”
“Sandy back!” exclaimed Macfarlane, and his eyes opened a little.
“You don’t like Sandy?” the rancher asked curiously.
“I don’t like nothing that I ain’t able to understand,” the sullen cowpuncher said. “Why?”
“You’re like me,” agreed Dunstan. “You don’t like anything that’s too ghostly. I’m with you on that. But now, old son, the point of this yarn is that Sandy is going to have something else with him…and that something is going to be Elena Blanca, that all the fuss has been made about.”