Mavericks Page 10

What had been the road along this stretch was now only rough small-gullied ground. Hank Harper stepped on the brake and the car slowed to a stop. He reached and pushed a button and took his foot off the brake and the car purred forward in low, easing over the rough ground. "There's been more to it," he said. "Every time I've bailed you out of one kind of devilment or another I've been paying on a debt I owe to myself. I'm a product of money and easy living. There's about as much firm substance to me as there is to a pillow and when I'm honest with myself I know it. You represent something I haven't got and wish I had. You stand up to life and spit in its eye. You believe in a few things and maybe they're cockeyed damnfool things but you really believe in them and you act on them and to hell with the consequences. You do the kind of things I'd want to do if I only had the guts."

  "Aw, shucks," said Old Jake. "You always could spill out crazy talk. When you was tellin' off that Myers mutt, that was Hardrock hisself talkin'."

  "Not quite," said Hank Harper. "I was talking about using money. Old Hardrock would have thrown him out the window."

  The ground ahead was smoother now with traces of the onetime road still visible. Hank Harper reached and pushed another button and the car eased forward faster. "What I don't understand," he said, "is why you keep on being so bullheaded about mustangs. All the good ones were taken years ago. There's nothing but a few scrub ones left that really aren't good for anything but dogfood and in a little while even those will be gone. Like those you let loose the other night. Just a matter of time before Simpson runs them down again. What do you think you accomplished?"

  "I gave 'em a few more days," said Old Jake. "An' mebbe they've learned somethin'. Mebbe they won't be so easy to catch again. Mebbe he won't get 'em all."

  "If he doesn't, someone else will," said Hank Harper. "It's inevitable. Nobody can stop it."

  "Iffen I was younger, I could keep tryin'."

  Hank Harper gripped the wheel hard, harder than was necessary. "And get yourself shot," he said. "Or locked up for good. No, Jake, times have changed. You're the last of your breed, Jake. Just as those poor little mustangs are about the last of their kind in this whole state. Something that was mighty good in its own way will be missing when you're both gone. But it's inevitable. There'll only be people like me left. But maybe my kind can do something. I found out just yesterday there's a movement been started to have the Federal government set aside a mustang sanctuary, some kind of a reservation for them. Up in Nevada where some fairly good ones are still running loose. I sent off letters to our New Mexican congressmen plugging for it."

  "So what?" said Old Jake, somehow suddenly bitter and aggrieved. "Iffen it goes through, it won't mean much. Keep some of 'em alive an' that's all." He felt small and old and defeated. He knew that the man beside him was trying to give him some comfort, had written those letters because of him and for him, and that he should be grateful and say so. But other words kept coming and he could not stop them.

  "Just bein' alive ain't enough. They won't be the same. Cooped up on a reservation. Might be a big one to start with, but it'll get whittled down as people get to grabbin' for land like they always do. Like what was done with the Indians an' you know what's happened to them. Squeezed down an' pushed around an' made to do this an' that. About as free an' independent an Indian-like these days as a bunch of tame puppy-dogs. It'll be with them broomies like with bear an' deer in them national parks. Get used to havin' limits where they can go. Get used to bein' took care of, like feedin' in winter an' such. Get so used to havin' people comin' around an' gawkin' they'll forget everythin' but cadgin' handouts. Get so they come up an' beg for it. Get so tame an' lazy they'd keel over iffen they had to run ten mile."

  What had been the road was rougher again, climbing the long slope towards the ranch mesa. Hank Harper was busy with the wheel. "Can't compromise, can you, Jake. I'm kind of glad you can't. All or nothing. Reach for the impossible. It's up to those like me, we pillow people, we compromisers, to settle for the picayune possible. But I'd like to know one thing. What the devil would you want us to try to do?"

  Old Jake Hanlon bounced on the fine upholstered seat of the fine big car. He stared straight ahead. He saw in his mind's eye the big new dual highway that sliced through the land only a few miles away, the symbol for him of the relentless onrush of what was called progress, of inevitable indifferent power driving forward regardless of what might be in its path, penetrating everywhere, conquering everything, taking over the whole of the world.

  He stared straight ahead. He was facing the fact at last that he had outlived his time, that he had lived on into an age when man's immemorial working partner, the horse, had been pushed aside, was being permitted to continue to exist only in pampered and penned special breeds as pawns in the racetrack business, as show-things and playthings and status symbols for people with the allimportant money to spend. He was facing the fact at last that the wild free mustangs of his youth were no more, not anywhere, and never would be again, and only a few pathetic shadows of what they once had been still dragged a precarious existence in a few far pockets of the west and they too were doomed, would endure, if they endured at all, only as exhibits in a restricted landscape called a sanctuary that would be exploited as a tourist attraction.

  He stared straight ahead and the realization sank into him that he too, in his time, all unknowing and unthinking, had been a part of that deadly creeping conquest called the advance of civilization. It was only so apparent now because it was rushing onward with such accelerating speed. But its beginnings here in the big land had been made in his own time and he had been a part of them and once begun what was happening now was inevitable. And he too, whatever his reasons and excuses, had helped thin those once-great free-roaming mustang herds, had helped dim the look of eagles in those wild free eyes.

  He stared straight ahead. "I ain't no different," he said. "I'm tarred with the same dirty stick." And suddenly he gripped Hank Harper's arm with fingers that hurt and when he spoke his old voice shook some. "I'll tell you what we can do. We can remember 'em. I reckon that's all we've left ourselves able to do. We can remember 'em like they once was.

  5

  0 UT OF SOMEWHERE INTO SOMEWHERE, the new dual highway stretches its ribbons of pavement across the big land. Along it, both ways, restless, relentless, unending, flows the traffic that is its reason for being. Today is flowing there, in motion, on its way, racing into the ever-recurrent mystery of tomorrow.

  Up the tall caliche and sandstone cliff to the mesa edge, on back beyond a quarter mile and more, the crumbling adobe ranch house drowses in its own quiet serenity. Yesterday lingers there, in the old walls that are slowly eroding and settling into the earth from which they were made, in the angled shape of the sagging barn, in the sparse outline of broken rails and leaning posts of the corral, and in the thin meager person of the old old man lying on a canvas cot in the one room whose ceiling still shuts out the sky.

  All that disturbs the silence of the room is the buzzing of a lone fly that has wandered in through the empty gap of the east window and apparently has forgotten the way out again. A deer mouse peers out of the small hole between the stones of the south-wall foundation which it has adopted as the home for the young ones to be born in a few days. Its prominent brownish-black eyes study the whole room. It comes on out, stepping daintily on tiny white feet, and crosses the floor to the shadowed area beneath the rickety table and hunts about for snitches of food. It stops, sitting up, big ears upright. It scurries back to the safety of the hole. Old Jake Hanlon has stirred on the canvas cot.

  He lies still, summoning awareness out of the nothingness that has held him. He is fully clothed except for his hat and there is no blanket over him. Yes. Along about noontime he has lain down for forty winks and now many times forty winks have passed and it is late afternoon.

  He stirs again and realizes that he is trying to get up, to sit up and shift his old legs over the edge of the cot and stand up, and he can not do it. Ther
e is no strength in his stringy old muscles.

  He lies still, listening to the slow erratic fluttering of his own heartbeat. It is saying something to him and he knows what it is saying. All the rest of him seems to be all but useless, but his old mind is clear and aware. It is facing at last the most final of all facts. Suddenly a tremor runs through him. "Not cooped up in here," he says and with a convulsive concentration of effort he is partway up and rolling over the cot edge and onto his hands and knees on the floor. Bracing himself with one hand, he takes his hat with the other and gets it on his head. In short spurts he crawls to the doorless doorway and by clutching at the door frame pulls himself to his feet. His legs are like sticks of wood, but they can prop him up if he has something to cling to. He works his way around the doorpost and a short way along the outside of the house. He can go no farther, but that is far enough. Slowly he slides down the house wall until he is sitting on the ground. There is no feeling left in the thin old legs stretched out in front of him. He reaches up and settles his hat more firmly on his head and his arms drop exhausted. It is as if his old muscles have decided for themselves that after nearly a century of doing what he has asked of them they have done enough and will do no more.

  "At least I've got my boots on," he says.

  Quiet and motionless, a part of the great silence around him, he sits there supported by the wall behind him and stares out over the big land.

  Off to his right the sun is dropping towards the upthrust reaching tips of the mountains. The few clouds floating above them blaze with deepening color. Off to his left the pink-gold glow of sunlight is a mantle of glory over the land, sending the flush of its presence into the shadows themselves, stretching on and on to the far horizon and the clear clean blue of sky beyond. The new dual highway is a forgotten temporary blemish below and hidden by the high mesa edge. There is only the land itself, strong and serene and indifferent to the petty doings of men, breathing its own stark beauty under the summons of the afternoon sun.

  "I always kind of liked the way it looks from here," says Old Jake Hanlon.

  Strange, how time has stopped, has ceased to be, and all that has ever happened exists at once and altogether. It is the sounds that he notices first. The old ranch is talking to itself in the timeless glow of the sun. Clear and distinct he hears the clatter of pans where the Mexican cook is preparing the kind of staying food hard-working men need, the ring of a hammer on iron on an anvil just beyond the barn, the sound of an ax biting into wood, the jingle of worn spurs on booted heels. That droning voice with somehow a chuckle in it is Petey Corle telling one of his interminable tall tales and the answering rumble, refusing belief, belongs to Ansel Rak. That hoarse shout that can almost scratch one's eardrums is coming from the leatherlined throat of Hardrock Harper bellowing at someone to snap to it and close the corral gate. Why, shucks, that other voice is his own arguing with young Stubby Pringle about the best way to rig a quick emergency hackamore with a short tie-rope.

  Strange, how he has not noticed before, but there are horses in the corral. Among them he can make out his own string, the ones he will be using in this fall's roundup. Mustangs every one. That longnecked big-jawed muddy roan is Limpy Galumpus, who always fakes lameness when first saddled and gives himself away by forgetting which foot he has been favoring. He will sulk all the way out to the day's work, but once into it he will be a working fool, as hot and intent and eager to get the job done and done right as the man in the saddle. That swaybacked long-legged bay is Tangle Legs, who has never quit trying to unseat his rider in the first cool of morning and until lately has had the silly habit, when bucking has failed, of simply crumpling his legs under and lying down. He has stopped that now ever since several bib roweled sharp-pointed spurs have been tied to the cinch to dangle under his belly and when he has gone down he has come up again in a hurry. He does not look like much, but out on the range he earns his keep all right, those same long legs never tangling even over the roughest rockiest ground and keeping him hard on the heels of the snakiest trickiest cow critter that has ever carried the Triple X brand.

  That crumpled-ear almost maneless short-tailed chestnut is Little Brown Jug, who may not be much above average as a cowpony, but has one superb redeeming virtue. He knows when his man is drunk and needs to be taken care of. Ride him into town for an evening of absorbing whatever liquid lightning is available, whether in celebration of something or to drown a grouch or a sorrow no difference, and if you can manage to wobble out to the tie-rail where he has been patiently waiting and climb aboard, you can fall forward, arms around his neck, and go to sleep while he ambles steadily along, never shying at anything, never varying that easy rocking gait, and deposits you gently in front of the ranch house. If you are too far gone to remember to untie the reins from the rail, he will chew through them and take you home just the same.

  That bony rat-tailed dun that no amount of feeding can fatten and no amount of currying can make look like anything but a skinny ragamuffin is Smilin' Joe, who has a scar on his upper lip that gives him the appearance of always smiling at something and perhaps he is too. No one would rate him anything special, just a fair-to-middling all-around ranch worker with a sometimes habit of jerking at the wrong time when a rope is in the air, but he is a positive pleasure to straddle on a dreary day. He so obviously regards life as well worth the living no matter what, work as worth the trying to do no matter how hard. He is concentrated good-nature wrapped in horse-hide - except when another horse tries to jostle him from his place at a feedtrough. It is misplaced kindness to take pity on his poor appearance and go easy on him. Even he will not appreciate that. Experience has proved it is plain impossible to wear down either him or his confirmed cheerfulness.

  "Like people," mutters Old Jake. "Each one diff'rent. Each one hisself."

  But what or who is that small mottled sorrel standing beside and a bit behind Smilin' Joe with muzzle resting on his back? A mare. Almost ready to foal. Hardly ever a mare around the Triple X. It is not in the horse-breeding business. Of course.

  That is Little Minx Minnie. Sometimes she is here and sometimes she is not, but when she is she is usually as close as she can get to Smilin' Joe. They understand each other, those two. Theirs is an example of a fine enduring friendship. Three of the other horses in the corral (Little Brown jug is one of them) are her sons, but good mother that she is when they are small, each time she will have nothing more to do with them after they are about a year old. Perhaps that is because there is always another on the way. Fences mean nothing to her. When the urge is on her, she simply disappears and somewhere, somehow, probably in one of the high canyons, finds herself a stud. But always she is determined to have her colt at the ranch. Hardrock Harper has acquired her more or less by accident along with a batch of geldings he once bought. Three times he has sold her and seen her led away and three times she has laughed at locks and gates and fences and come back to the ranch to give birth to a foal which Smilin' Joe has promptly adopted and helped her look after as if it were his own. Just a few months ago she has been sold again and carted all the way up to a ranch in Colorado and yet, right now, right on schedule, this time thinned and weary and wire-torn, she has come back again.

  "Stubborn as any female," mumbles old Jake. His head rises a bit. Through the murmur of sounds and voices of the old ranch talking to itself he hears his own voice. "Dogdamn it, Hardrock. You ain't agoin' to ship her off ever again. I'm buyin' her this time. I'm apayin' you hard cash for her."

  The sun has tipped the mountains and is edging down behind them. Shadows are lengthening across the land. It is another kind of shadow that has crept over Old Jake Hanlon. His head has sunk until his chin rests upon his chest. There are no sounds, no voices. There is only a silence so deep and profound that it would seem as if no sound could ever penetrate it again. And yet there is a sound. Perhaps he hears it only in the last flickering recess of his own mind but he hears it. The sound of hoofs striking the ground in steady oncoming rh
ythm.

  Out of somewhere, anywhere, everywhere of the farthest reaches of the big land it is coming, a great gray horse, big and strong and splendid with noble head high on thick arched neck, and the stranger in the saddle is tall and lean in the range clothes of a working cowhand. No. There is something about him, a subtle sternness of carriage and manner, that suggests he is much much more than that.

  The great gray horse stops about ten feet away and looks down at Old Jake and whiffles softly at him.

  "Howdy, Jake," says the stranger. "I've come to take you riding with me."

  Old Jake is peering forward, trying to make out the features in the shadow of the wide hat brim. "I've seen you somewheres before," he says. "You look mighty familiar to me."

  "And why shouldn't I be familiar to you," says the stranger. "I have been close to you many and many a time, so close that if I had reached out, I could have touched you."

  Somehow it seems as natural as anything has ever been to be talking to this stern yet friendly stranger. "Ridin'," says Old Jake. "I'm real obliged for the invite. But I ain't got me a hoss any more."

  "And that is where you are wrong," says the stranger. "You have more horses than almost any other man who has ever gone riding with me. Let me call one of them for you." He waves an arm in a curious summoning gesture and gives a low penetrating whistle that seems to float on out into the ever-widening distances.

  Old Jake sits up straighter. Again he hears hoofbeats drumming the earth. Long long ago he has heard that same enthralling rhythm. Yes. There he comes, glowing in the last rays of the glancing sun, white, white as the snows of winter on the topmost peaks of the mountains, with head high and long mane flying and longer tail streaming in the wind of his own matchless motion. The final absolute of the wild free life. The king of the broncos! He slides to a stop on braking hoofs beside the gray and stands motionless, power and beauty pent in him beyond all comprehension.