Stolen Stallion (11 page)

I
N THIS SINGULAR SCENE, IT WAS FELT THAT BOTH MEN
had come through the crisis with undiminished reputations. Silvertip, without lifting a hand or speaking a single word by way of threat, or doing anything that would have, in a court of law, more weight than a puff of smoke, had quietly defied the sheriff and all that the sheriff represented.

The sheriff, on the other hand, had endured the strain of a superior force without weakening, and a great deal of sympathy and respect were felt for him, accordingly.

After that meeting, half a dozen men went to the man of the law and quietly suggested that they would make themselves into a committee to look after Silvertip while he was in Parmalee. The sheriff promptly swore them in as deputies, and they went off to find their man.

They found him where the rest of Parmalee was to be found — out at the rodeo grounds where Parade was to be ridden this day by Jaurez. Everyone in town knew by this time that the stallion had suddenly gone wild again, and that the real Parade was now to be seen, as he had been when he reigned over the Sierra Blanca. And the six deputies, ranging quietly up beside big Silvertip, found him staring toward the shed out of which the stallion would be brought into the big inclosure. He was rapt. The coming of the deputies seemed to mean little or nothing to him.

And now all other matters were forgotten by every man and woman and child in that crowd, for out of the shed, and through the gate into the rodeo grounds that occupied all the ground inside the race track, burst Parade.

He came as if he wished to exemplify his name, rearing, plunging, swerving like a bright sword blade. Two cow-punchers with strong lariats and competent horses were controlling him, but he seemed to be dragging them along as though they were stuffed toys. He was a thunderbolt newly forged and polished, and every heart shuddered, and every heart leaped, at the thought of sitting on the back of that monster.

Lefty was one of the cowpunchers. He had Parade take the complete circuit of the field, inside of the big fences, and when he came opposite the benches which had been built under a shed and which were called the “grandstand,” he made a little speech.

“This here hoss,” said Lefty, “has pretty near killed my partner. When I seen him skyrocket, I figgered that there was hardly no other man that would be able to set him out. But Jaurez thinks he can do it. He’s bet me a hundred dollars that he can; and I’ve bet him three hundred that he can’t. Jaurez, if you’re anywheres about, step out and show yourself, because Parade is plumb ready!”

It seemed as though Parade exactly understood that speech, or perhaps it was because he could see the far-off peaks of the Sierra Blanca shining like spear points against the sky. At any rate, his head went high, his tail swept out in a loftier arch, and his neigh sounded like a trumpet of challenge across the field.

There came to answer it a tall Mexican, who slithered through the bars of the fence, and went on, carrying a saddle and a bridle. His face would have been handsome, but smallpox had ruined it as life had ruined the soul of the man. Existence was to him a sneer. The years had battered him. He walked with a slight limp, but in his mouth and in his eyes he expressed his contempt for the world.

At this moment, he made a splendid picture for mind and eye, as moved out across the field toward the savage beauty of the golden stallion. For an instant, everyone forgot what was known about Jaurez the savage, and saw him only as Jaurez, the peerless horse breaker. Some men were accustomed to say that after Jaurez had broken a horse, not even a veterinary surgeon could put the poor beast together again. He was known to have ridden twenty famous outlaws until their hearts were gone, and though he had had his falls, as his limping proved, still in the end he was always the conqueror. But it was felt that now he was going to meet as fair a test as ever would be found.

It was the sort of a contest that the West has always loved — man against nature, with the dice loaded on nature’s side, for when the Mexican had reached the side of the stallion, he looked a mere wisp, a mere stripling beside the glory of Parade.

Parade was blindfolded by Lefty; the saddle and bridle were slipped on, and in a moment Jaurez was smoothly up and in the saddle. Lefty, his hand on the blindfold, was seen to speak for an instant to the Mexican. No doubt he was rehearsing the terms of the agreement — that the attempt would be limited to three falls. If by that time the stallion had not been mastered, then Jaurez lost his bet.

Jaurez was seen to agree to those terms with a slight gesture. Lefty, leaning from his own saddle, jerked off the blindfold. Parade sprang like a released fountain into the air.

There was something more than the hands of Jaurez to control him, in the last emergency, for with a sixty-foot rawhide lariat, Lefty still had a hold on the horse. But now he kept that rope slack, and allowed Parade to fight as though for freedom.

And Parade went mad.

Have you seen a cat fly into a passion because it loses the mouse with which it has been playing? Have you seen it bound here and there, striking, and leap into the air, and hurl itself down, rolling over and over? So Parade turned his great body into the body of a cat, and seemed to grip the earth with claws.

And there was this blood-curdling factor of interest, that with every twist and turn and fall, he was continually striving to put teeth or hoofs on the Mexican. He wanted to get that burden off his back, and once off, he wanted to smash the life out of it.

The thing was appalling. The women began to look down at the ground. Children opened their eyes and their mouths. And even of the men who thronged the fences, there was hardly one who could find voice.

What gave point to the awfulness was that Jaurez himself seemed to be daunted for the first time in his reckless life. His whole face was as white as the ghastly silver pockmarks that were cut out of it. He kept on grinning, but there was no life in the smile; it was like the grimace of the punch-drunk boxer who still keeps stretching his mouth toward a smile of indifference, as the blows make the hair leap on his head, and cause his knees to sag.

Jaurez, plainly, was afraid. He was a dozen times out of the saddle and onto the ground as that huge wildcat flung itself down and turned and twisted. And always he was back into the saddle again at the critical instant as Parade lurched up to his feet.

Then came the end. Everybody could see that it was coming. Parade began to leap at the sky and come down on one stiffened foreleg. It was wonderful that even whalebone and sinew like his could withstand such frightful shocks. And every time, Jaurez was snapped like the lash of a whip. His chin came down on his chest, or his head banged over on his shoulder. His sombrero went off. His hair exploded upward with every shock.

And then the red flag of danger showed on his face, as he started bleeding from ear and nose and mouth.

He was done. Men began to hold their breath and stare as though they saw a man toppling on the brink of a cliff. Up in the grandstand a woman was screaming in a terrible voice, calling out to shoot the horse and save Jaurez.

That was what everyone felt. Once Jaurez struck the ground, Parade would finish him. Parade would turn him into red pulp in one second, unless Lefty with his rope and his cow horse could manage to hold the stallion.

Jaurez was holding by spurs and hands. He was “pulling leather” for all he was worth, but nobody blamed him for that. He was in the center of a tornado, and fighting for his life. The quirt which he had swung so gayly in the beginning now hung down, flopping like a dead snake from his wrist.

Then human nature could stand no more of that punishment.

He knew well enough what lay in store for him if he were flung to the ground, and he determined to shoot Parade dead beneath him. One wild yell burst from all throats together, like a shout from a chorus when a conductor strikes down his baton; for everyone saw the flash of the revolver as Jaurez drew it.

The stallion seemed to see it, also. Instead of leaping at the sky again, he dodged cat-like to the side, and Jaurez sailed out of the saddle, diving at the ground.

He put a bullet into the dust, and then his body struck on the same spot. It was something like throwing a stone into the water and then diving at it. People spoke about that, afterward.

And Parade?

As he whirled to dart back at the fallen man, Lefty did his part well and nobly. He threw his cow pony back on its haunches and jerked the lariat tight. The poundage of the stallion hit the end of that rope like a freight train going down a sharp grade. There was no more danger of that rawhide breaking than of a steel cable coming apart, but Lefty and his horse went over with a crash.

Lefty was flung far to the side, rolling; the horse rolled, too, and as the pommel of the saddle snapped, Parade came clear of the wreck with the length of the lariat streaming almost straight out from his neck.

That was the speed with which he was hurling himself forward, and he went straight at the fallen body of Jaurez.

No man would ever forget how Jaurez, stunned and broken as he was, turned like a worm that has been half crushed under foot. He still had his gun in his hand, and now he fired it twice, right at the charging stallion.

He missed. Almost of course he missed, for his hand must have been shaking and his eyes half blind. Then the Colt went wrong. The hammer dropped, and there was no explosion to answer its fall.

The stallion was almost on the fallen man by this time. Around the fence, perhaps a hundred men had drawn their guns, when a very odd thing happened. One voice broke out above the tumult in a great, wordless cry, and as Parade heard it, it seemed to strike-him like a volley of lead.

He plunged suddenly to the side, veered off in a circle, and then started once more for his victim.

Poor Jaurez had turned again. He was trying to drag himself on his hands toward the fence and safety. The lower part of his body dragged like a limp sack behind him. He had his face turned over his shoulder, watching the rush of Parade, and he was screaming. Other voices were shrieking, too, and all the screams did not come from women, either.

Those poised revolvers along the fence were about to come into action with a roar that would have blown Parade into kingdom come, but the shooting was stopped by a stranger thing than any man ever had seen before. For a big fellow with a bandage about his head came running out straight toward Parade.

It was suicide, but it was such dramatic suicide that people forgot even about Jaurez and fastened their minds on this madman.

What they saw was Silvertip standing astride Jaurez, and Parade hurtling down on him. Silvertip put out a hand, and incredulous eyes saw that there was no gun in that hand. It was open. The palm was turned up. The fool seemed to be treating this equine tiger like a friend.

What actually happened was that Parade sheered off at the last instant. He turned around and around that motionless central group, where Jaurez now lay flat with his face in his hands, shutting out the sight of destruction, and where Silvertip kept moving just enough to face the wild horse.

Then Parade put on the brake by skidding all four hoofs through the dirt and coming to a halt in front of Silver.

The horse put up his head and sent his ringing neigh across the field and through the stunned brains of the spectators. They could see that the hand of Silvertip already was caressing the polished neck of Parade!

That was not all, but that was the picture which remained when everything else was finished.

There was the carrying of Jaurez off the field, and the long wait before the doctors announced that he would walk again — but never ride horses any more!

Then they had picked up Lefty like a limp sack, but all he needed was a dash of water in his face, and a slug of whisky down his throat. He came to, and could not understand, with his stunned mind, the strange story which men were trying to tell him.

These things had their interest, but what were they compared with the manner in which men saw Silvertip mount Parade and ride him with loose reins across the field, leaning forward in the saddle, keeping his hand on the neck of the great horse, while Parade turned his head a little, as he jogged softly on, and listened, and listened, and seemed to understand?

W
HAT BROUGHT BACK THE FULL USE OF HIS WITS TO
Lefty was the information that Parade had been ridden away by Silvertip. He cried out in an agony that the horse was gone forever, and rushed out to pursue the trail.

Six good citizens of Parmalee went with him, and the sheriff was also in the group. They had changed some of their opinions about Silvertip since they saw the manner in which he had handled the horse, but if he had stolen Parade — well, it might be a long trail, but they intended to undertake it.

What was their amazement when they traced Silvertip straight back to the corral where Parade always had been kept by Chuck and Lefty? And there stood Parade, now, with Silvertip beside him, rubbing the sweat out of his hide with twists of hay, and bringing up the true golden color.

They stood outside the fence, all of them, and stared. Then the sheriff went quietly away; his posse followed.

But before he left, the sheriff said to Lefty:

“You’ve been wrong about that hombre. There ain’t any killing in his head, or he would ‘a’ left Parade to polish off Jaurez and bash in your own head. We’re goin’ to watch him, still — but I guess you’re wrong!”

Lefty himself remained by the fence. He was trembling with excitment. He was terribly afraid, and yet he could not drag himself away from the spectacle of that horse which had changed so suddenly from tame to tiger, and back to tame again.

“Silvertip!” exclaimed Lefty.

“Well?” said Silver, without turning.

“It’s this way,” said Lefty. “Either you’re goin’ to go after my scalp, or you ain’t!”

Silvertip said nothing. Lefty wiped the water from his forehead and flicked the drops from his fingers into the dust. They fell in thin, straight lines of darkness.

“Silver,” said Lefty, “the fact is that that hoss waked up and got wild after seein’ you. Ain’t that the fact?”

Silvertip went on with the grooming of the stallion, silently.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Lefty, “after what I seen today, I ain’t goin’ to try, ever, to ride the devil. Nobody else will try, either. He wouldn’t be no good to me except as a show hoss, nor to Chuck, neither. What I wanta do is to make a proposition to you. You ride that Parade in the rodeo race, tomorrow, and you’ll sure win it. And if you ride, I’m goin’ to bet my socks on him. And if you win, Silver — why, you take the hoss, and that’s that! Is it a go? He wouldn’t be any good to me, anyhow!”

Silvertip, at last, raised his big head slowly. Then he turned toward the fence. With his hand, he kept on automatically stroking the stallion’s brightening side.

“Have you seen that mare, that ringer, that the tough little mug called Jones has brought into town, Lefty?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’ve seen her. She looks like she could split the wind,” agreed Lefty.

“And there’s old Brandy right here beside us. He can still move,” went on Silvertip.

“He can,” said Lefty, “but there ain’t nobody that seen Parade move today, that don’t think that he can beat the world, if there’s a man to ride him.”

“There’s two hundred pounds of me, Lefty,” said Silvertip. “Mind you,” he added in a different voice, “I’m going to have Parade one of these days. If I have to wipe out the murdering pair of you, I’ll do it. Because I’m going to have Parade.”

The calmness with which he spoke did not deceive Lefty, and the tremor of mortal fear went through him again. But he said, still sweating violently: “Look at it my way, Silver. You got an easy chance to get Parade, if you’ll do what I say. There ain’t no murder in it, if you’ll do what I say, and we’ll all have a chance to clean up. I’ll clean up the coin, and you’ll get Parade.”

Silvertip looked aside at the horse, and the stallion turned his head and stared into the mysterious face of Man.

Silver sighed.

“It’s no use, Lefty,” he declared. “Suppose that I ride him? My weight would kill him. Besides, he’s not meant for sprinting. I wouldn’t shame him by letting him be beaten. If you want a match against Parade, take anything in the world out into the desert and then run ’em against Parade, and he’ll laugh. But a race track sprint, that’s a different matter. That chestnut mare — she can move. I know her lines, and they’re meant for speed. Jones is a featherweight in the saddle on her. And Lake is not much more on Brandy. Parade would be giving them seventy pounds. He couldn’t do it. No horse could do it.”

Lefty looked from the man to the horse. It seemed to him, suddenly, dwarfed and deformed as his soul was, that he could see a similarity, a sort of kinship between the two; the same lordliness about their heads, the same calm fearlessness in their eyes, and something formidably big and wild about them both. Now that he saw the picture from this angle, it seemed to Lefty not strange that the man should have won the horse, but that it would have been mysterious indeed if that kinship had not worked out.

“Silver,” said Lefty, “I ask you this here — ain’t it worth the try? Ain’t it worth it? I’ll make a few thousands if Parade wins, and you’ll get Parade himself. Look at it that way, and figure it for yourself!”

“And what about Chuck?” asked Silvertip. “How does he come into the deal?”

The narrow face of Lefty sneered.

“Never mind Chuck,” he said. “He got himself smashed up, and he ain’t in the game, no more.”

Silvertip looked the little man over carefully. Suddenly he nodded.

“I’ll take the chance of shaming Parade for the chance of owning him,” he said.

“Now you’re talkin’!” cried Lefty. “I’m goin’ to clean up on this. But listen to me, Silver — you gotta ride him till he’s right in the palm of your hand. You better ride him today. Get him ready for tomorrow. It ain’t long away — it ain’t hardly long enough away for me to get my money down.”

“I’ll have him in the palm of my hand when the race comes around,” said Silvertip. “Go off and lay your bets!”

He turned again to the grooming of Parade, which he continued till the big horse was dry.

He left, and again Parade began to move restlessly up and down behind the fence, whinnying, stamping at the ground, sometimes rearing and striking at the bars with his forehoofs.

The old mare, Mischief, came out of her corner of the corral, where she had been standing sullenly, and muttered at him:

“What’s the matter, now, Parade? Why are you stamping and raging? He’ll come back. You can depend on that. Men will keep on returning like winter. The great heavy brute! I’m thankful that I don’t have to carry him on my back. Why are you hysterical?”

“You have never found a man,” said Parade. “But I have found one. You’ve never had a hand on your shoulder that seemed to lie on your heart, also. And you’ve never had a touch on the reins that ran into your blood. You’ve never heard a voice that made you feel free, even under saddle and bridle. But I have heard that voice.”

Mischief began to nibble at one of the posts, breaking off splinters of the wood, and pretending that she had not heard, but she knew that her son had been taken away from her at last. She could dream of the great wild freedom of the Sierra Blanca, but she would have to dream of it alone.

And she remembered how the man had come down into the valley and taken Brandy away, by the mere sound of his voice.

The old stallion spoke suddenly from the next corral: ”
I
have heard a voice, also. I have known a touch, too.”

“Bah!” said the mare. “A fool will still be a fool when he’s old, and so are you. Who cares what you’ve heard and what you’ve felt? But my son has been king of the Sierra Blanca! Why do you compare yourself with him?”

“The Sierra Blanca? I know it very well,” said Brandy, patient under this abuse. “I’ve been there!”

“You’ve been there under a saddle or a pack,” said the mare. “Who cares where you’ve been? Who cares a whit? Not I!”

“I care,” said Parade.

He went to the fence and pushed his head a little between the bars.

“I’d like to hear what you did in the Sierra Blanca,” he declared. “I’d like to know what you’ve seen of it.”

“I have talked enough,” said Brandy stiffly. “There is an old proverb — when the mare is angry, never talk to the colt.”

He turned away as he spoke, and now the pleasant, husky voice of old Charlie Moore came toward him, singing, and the old stallion ran to the gate of the corral.

“A disgusting — shameful — degrading sight!” said Mischief. “To stand and wait for a man, like a dog! And you, Parade, storming up and down again, whinnying, dancing like a little fool in its first May days! What shall I think of you but shame?”