Mavericks Page 2

  Young Jake slumped lower in the saddle. He could feel the sorrel striving under him, giving all that it had in its willing rawboned frame. He reached to slap it gently along the straining neck.

  "You might as well be tied to a post," he said. He slapped again, friendly, forgiving. "Don't take it tough," he said. "You're carryin' weight an' he ain't."

  Young Jake tightened on reins to slow the pace and wait for Petey to catch up. Together they rode on, following, merely following.

  Through the late afternoon and the evening and on through the night with the waning moon rising late ten men and fifty horses, taking their turns in pairs, followed that ghostly glimmer of whiteness on the great circuit of the range that he would not leave.

  Young Jake Hanlon and Petey Corle, sleepless, hunched on heels by a small fire. They talked together and Young Jake saddled one of the horses picketed near and rode through the night to the next station back and talked to Ace Hogarty and Ansel Rak and they nodded their heads at what he said and he rode the return to Petey and their fire and by the first light of morning all was ready.

  There he came, out of the dawn, the dawn of the fifth day of the running, stride unbroken but head drooping at last, flecks of foam dropping from his muzzle along the way, pace lagging. Ace and Ansel behind him were not pushing hard. But they had been riding out to the right, crowding him more and more to the left along a ragged-edge row of hills. Now he was approaching the narrow entrance of a steep-walled canyon that cut back into those hills. In a moment more he would be past it.

  Out from their hidden post in juniper and clumped scrub oak rode Young Jake Hanlon and Petey Corle, cutting from the right across his path. He braked on sliding hoofs and wheeled to the left and in desperate spurt started in through the canyon entrance.

  Started. Stopped. He knew. He knew every mile and rod and yard and foot of this range that had been his. He knew that on ahead in the canyon was only steep-walled cramped space ending in sheer rising cliff. A natural corral. A trap. He turned and faced the rock-edged entrance and the two horsemen blocking it now with ropes ready in hands. He screamed once, high and shrill, defiance and the exaltation of battle in it, and drove forward.

  Petey first. Petey Corle, firm in saddle on a stout young gray, proud of his skill with a rope, spurring m to have first chance. There was no chance. Straight as a bullet leaving a gun, unswerving, the White Mustang crashed into the gray, shoulder to shoulder in shuddering impact, and the gray staggered and went down and Petey was rolling on the ground with the rope trailing from numbed fingers.

  Young Jake next. Young Jake Hanlon, deep-set in double-cinched saddle on a big-muscled dun, proud of his record in the taking of mustangs. He had swung the dun broadside to close off as much as possible of the canyon opening. His loop was ready for the cast as the ghost horse would race past through the narrow space remaining. But the White Mustang did not race past. Straight towards Young Jake he came and he reared on hind legs up up in the terrifying stance of the fighting stallion.

  Young Jake saw the sweat-stained dirt-streaked chest arching upward only a few feet from him. He saw the forelegs with their knife-sharp hoofs rising for the downward flailing strokes. He saw the foam-flecked lips drawn back from the big teeth. He saw the look of eagles in the red-rimmed bloodshot eyes. The rope was a forgotten thing in his hands. It fell from them and he grabbed at the reins to swing the dun away and the White Mustang struck. One forehoof snapped Young Jake's hat brim and raked down his side just back of the arm, slicing through leather vest and flannel shirt, drawing blood and cracking two ribs and knocking him from the saddle. The other cut a long gash in the neck of the dun. And even as he fell to the ground, Young Jake heard the snap of the big teeth like the jaws of a bear trap closing as they hit and slid on the hide of the rump of the dun as frantic in frenzy it leaped away.

  Young Jake lay on the ground, limp and bruised and bloody but with head raised, and watched the White Mustang moving into distance away and Ace Hogarty and Ansel Rak coming up.

  "So it didn't work," said Ansel with a wry weary grin.

  "It sure didn't," said Young Jake. He sat up, wincing at the pain streaks in his side. He managed a wry weary answering grin. "But you two keep right on goin'," he said. "Keep 'im movin'. Petey an' me, we'll patch each other up an' gather the others for a finish. We got him now."

  "Whammed you on the head," said Ace. "You're plumb locoed. Five days. Us and the bosses about wore out. And he's still going strong."

  "No," said Young Jake. "You ain't noticed. Must of been when he piled into Petey. Limpin'."

  On through the morning and into the afternoon the White Mustang ran. That matchless pace was ragged now and he slowed often, looking back, and spurted on again only when those following were not much more than a double rope-length away. And along in late afternoon he topped out on a high rise and looked back and there were no horsemen following.

  For long moments he scanned the plain in every direction, head high, testing the wind. Nothing moved anywhere except a small herd of antelope miles away. He stood and slowly the heaving of his chest subsided. He stood and the weariness held at bay during the excitement and tension of the running crept through him and the muscles of his swollen shoulder tightened in a taut and painful stiffness.

  Hunger gnawed in him and he dropped his head to graze. Not for long. Thirst was a stronger command. Slowly, cautiouslv, limping, favoring the bruised shoulder, he worked his way downwind and in a wide arc towards a curving sweep of the riverbed. He came to a small shallow pool under the shelving bank. He drank. The water was cool and welcome down the dryness of his throat. He drank again.

  And still there was no message along the wind, no movement alien to his instinct anywhere around. he was turning away, full watered, when he heard the long-drawn whinny of a mare.

  One of his mares.

  The sound came from across the riverbed, up and over the low stony hill that sent the river in raintime on its sweep around. He stood motionless, head up, ears forward, listening. It came again, a long-drawn lonesome appeal. Silently, hoofs making no sound in the soft ground, he moved down river to the left, along the bank. The limp was very noticeable now, the stiffened shoulder muscles rebelling at movement, but he disregarded that. He crossed the riverbed where lowland on both sides gave wide vision and he moved on in an arc flanking the low stony hill. In the hollow behind it he saw her.

  He whistled softly and she turned and started towards him. And stopped, legs braced, head twisted at a strange angle. He whistled again and she answered strangely, breath wheezing in her throat. He advanced towards her and, advancing, saw the rope tight about her neck and taut to the stake in the ground and, seeing, heard the sound of hoofs to his right and, turning, saw the two horsemen pounding towards him. He wheeled and was off, racing hard, and two more horsemen topped out directly ahead of him. He wheeled again and was off again, angling away from the four of them dashing at full gallop to intercept him. Even so, heavy with water, lean and worn with the weariness of five days' running, agony striking upwards into his shoulder with each stroke of rock-hard hoof, he would have outrun them. But more horsemen appeared ahead of him, fanning out, and with those behind the circle was complete.

  He did not hesitate nor waste time shifting direction, seeking to dodge. Reckless of the pain beating in his shoulder, he drove on in that matchless power-drive pace. Big Jim Hawkins on a big longcoupled black blocked the way and at the last moment Big Jim spurred aside and Big Jim's rope flashed and the loop dropped over the straining white head. He drove on. The rope tightened with a snap to Big Jim's saddle-horn and the black was yanked off its feet and dragged and Big Jim floundered on the ground with an ankle sprained and the skin of one cheek scraped off and the cinch broke and the White Mustang drove on with the saddle bouncing at the rope-end behind him.

  He was through the circle and away - but the saddle caught in a low tough juniper and he spun about with the rope cutting deep into his neck. Instantly his big
jaws closed on it and grated together in grinding motion and the rope parted. Only a few seconds, but that was enough. Arnie Hall's rope was in the air and caught him as he whirled to start away again.

  He knew what a rope meant now, and as it tightened on his neck he did not fight it. Instead he plunged back along it towards Arnie, rearing to strike. But Young Jake Hanlon on a rough-built rawboned sorrel was racing in close and Young Jake had a small loop ready and this flipped through the air and took one of the rising forelegs and as the sorrel plowed on the White Mustang was pulled aside and off balance and crashed on his side to the ground.

  Two ropes were on him, neck and foreleg, pulling in opposite directions. Still he heaved to his feet and fought, lunging from side to side, striking at the ropes with snapping jaws. But now Petey Corle was there, clever with a rope and with yesterday's failure to avenge. His loop snaked out low to the ground and had a hindleg and the White Mustang was down again.

  He pitched and thrashed but the ropes held and he could not rise. He seemed to sense the futility of further fight and lay still.

  Nine men in saddles and a tenth standing with weight on one foot looked down at the ghost horse of the plains. Not a one but knew horses as only men raised in the saddle could know them. Thin and gaunted he was from the long running with hollowed flanks and the ribs showing under the hide. Sweated and dirtied he was with the whiteness of him smudged into yellowish splotches and the luster of mane and tail lost back along the miles. Awkward he looked with fore-leg and hindleg stretched out and neck pulled awry by the third rope. But they had seen him in motion and action. They knew. They knew they were looking at more true horse than any of them had been that close to before through all the years of their lives.

  "I ain't so sure," said Big Jim Hawkins, holding his neckerchief to skinned bloody cheek, "that if I'd known what it took to take him, I'd of started out on this."

  "If any of you was to ask me," said Ace Hogarty, "I'd argue that old Barnum'll be getting his money's worth."

  Nine men were talking, letting the excitement of the last few moments ease out of them in words.

  Young Jake Hanlon said nothing. He sat slumped in his saddle staring down at the White Mustang he had followed through five days of riding and two cracked ribs. He saw the red-rimmed bloodshot eyes that were fixed now far off into limitless space, ignoring him and the other men, looking past them, beyond them, into the dimming distances of the big land.

  He shook himself a bit and straightened in the saddle, wincing as the movement revived the pain streaks in his side. He felt a strange anger deep in him, and he could not have said at what. "Let's get movin'," he said gruffly. "We ain't penned 'im yet."

  It took till dusk to get him, front legs hobbled and three ropes tight to his neck, to the small corral they had prepared before the running. A stout corral with stockade-style walls seven feet high. On his feet again he fought most of the way, lunging often against the ropes until each time the crosspull choked him into weakness and his legs faltered and his breath rattled and his eyes glazed. They threw him again and hobbled his hindlegs too before they let him struggle up again and they pulled him inside. When he was in there, alone, with the tall strong gate fastened behind him, he looked around at the high stout walls and his head drooped and he stood motionless. There was hay in a corner and he ignored it. There was water in a pail and he ignored that too. Only once while they watched in the deepening dusk did he move. Along one side of the corral a twist in one of the upright logs left a four-inch gap part-way up between it and the one next to it. He raised his head and shifted position in the hope that were all the hobbles permitted until he could see out through the narrow opening. And there he stood, motionless again except for the slow rhythm of his chest, looking through a four-inch space into the distances of what had been his range until darkness claimed it.

  They had a fire going and food and coffee warming. In the firelight after they had eaten Ansel Rak took a pack of greasy cards out of a pocket and shuffled them and they cut the deck, one after another, and the two high men swung into saddles and rode off into the dark. Sometime the next morning they would be back with a flat-bed hay wagon. No chances would be taken in getting the White Mustang to the rail town forty miles away. He would go there hogtied and lashed to the wagon bed.

  The darkness thickened and then the late waning moon rose, tinting the land with its thin ghostly traces of half-light, and seven of the remaining men slept in sprawled shapes on the ground. Not Young Jake Hanlon. He was as tired as the others, but he could not sleep. His side ached, and it seemed impossible for him to find a comfortable position on the ground. He pushed up to sitting position and stared at the dark shape of the corral. He rose to his feet and walked softly to the tall gate and stepped up on a crosspiece to peer over. The White Mustang stood where he had been, motionless, head low.

  Young Jake whistled softly and one ear twitched and that was all. Young Jake whistled again and there was no response.

  "It ain't agoin' to be so bad," said Young Jake gently. "They'll feed you regular an' fix you up fancy. Likely they'll not try breakin' you to more'n bein' led along in a parade. Might even give you some mares for breedin'. Easy livin', that's what it'll be."

  Young Jake stepped back down from the gate and walked slowly to his saddle blanket spread on the ground. He lowered himself down onto it. "Easy livin'," he murmured. "Who'n hell wants easy livin'." He lay still, staring upward, and slowly his eyes closed and he slept the sleep of tired muscles and tired mind.

  As the first pink flush of dawn crept over the great plain, it was Ansel Rak who first stretched long and slow and rose and strolled over to the gate and stepped up to look into the corral. His shouts woke the others and brought them running. The ghost horse was gone.

  There was nothing ghostly about it. White hairs and bloodstains on the top of the far side of the stockade walls showed where he had reared and got forelegs over and scraped and scrambled and floundered until he had fallen outside. The tracks led away, unmistakable in the soft earth, where he had crow-hopped in short leaps on hobbled hoofs and fallen often and struggled up to hop on.

  He could not have gone far, not so weakened and handicapped. They saddled fast and swung up and strung out along the trail. Straight towards the riverbed it led. There they found him at the edge of a shallow pool of water and mud, body crumpled down, lifeless eyes staring, muzzle buried deep in the watery ooze.

  "Drowned hisself!" shouted Ansel Rak. "In two inches of water! Did it deliberate!"

  Eight men in saddles looked down at what remained of the White Mustang, at five thousand dollars lost to them, and seven of them let their feelings loose in curses and bitter comments. Not Young Jake Hanlon. He sat tall in the saddle on the rough-built rawboned sorrel he had broken to the bit himself and his shoulders were up and his

  head was high and he rubbed one hand down his side where two cracked ribs sent twinges of remembrance through him. He looked around somewhat defiantly at the others. "I sure could of used my share of the money," he said. "All the same I'm kind of glad that one got away."

  2

  OLD JAKE HANLON stirs in his blanket on the canvas cot in the one room of the crumbling ranch house whose ceiling still shuts out the sky. The first light of the morning sun, slipping through the windowless window frame in the east wall, has found him and nudged him awake.

  "Nothin' partic'lar to get up for," says old Jake. "Could sleep the whole day iffen I had a mind to it." There have been countless times through the years, times when the voice of a trail boss or ranch foreman has summoned him at daybreak, when he would have given his eyeteeth to do just that. But the habit and discipline of those days is an ingrained part of him now. He flips the half-fold of blanket aside, revealing his bony old body in its patched underwear and scraggly socks.

  He lies still a moment, gathering determination. Then he props himself up to sitting position with arms behind and eases his thin old legs over the side of the cot. He reaches
to the nearby brokenbacked chair and takes his floppy wide-brimmed hat and settles it on his head. The oldtime cowhand's custom of undressing from the bottom up and dressing from the top down is an ingrained part of him too.

  He takes his frayed khaki shirt and fights the stiffness in arms and shoulders to get it on and fights again with the three remaining buttons to get them through the right buttonholes. He takes his greasy leather vest and with the aid of various snorts and grunts shrugs into it. He stands up and stretches, hearing yet not so much hearing as feeling the creakings in the joints of his brittle old bones.

  He takes his pants and nearly topples trying to get his right leg in and has to sit on the cot again and work the pantlegs one at a time all bunched over his feet and around his thin shanks before he can stand again and pull them up into position. He gives a grunt of satisfaction as he tightens his belt and fastens the battered silver buckle given him by an Indian girl so long ago that if she is still alive she is a great-grandmother now. Small things like managing to struggle into a pair of pants are what give him pleasure these days.

  "I sure ain't so young like I once was," says Old Jake while he battles his boots, stomping to push his heels all the way down inside them. "But I can still make it."

  Outside the sun is sending streamers of pink gold across the big land. In a few hours it will be beating more directly down, building layers of summer heat. Right now the night-cool of the high country lingers, fresh and sweet. Old Jake draws in deep breaths as he ambles towards the spring. The trickle from a crevice in the outcropping rock has filled the bucket he left there last night. The overflow is running into the small sandy basin which is all that remains of the wide pool that used to be known as Harper's Hole and before that to the Spaniards as El Ojo Azul del Cielo, the Blue Eye of Heaven, and long before that to the Indians by a name even they have forgotten.