Great American Horse Stories Page 7

  Jim Welsh turned with shy cordiality. Drunk or sober, and over half his time he was the former, his fellow creatures were welcome to him, even such as chose to camp instead of patronizing his roadhouse. Not that the latter thought occurred to him; keeping a roadhouse at all was too much of an accident to be taken seriously. It had been just a backwoods farm till the Janesville road cut past it, and stray travelers, wishing to stay there, stayed.

  “Glad to see you,” he said simply. He had been an educated man when first he buried himself in the wilderness, and when he was not drinking he was one still. “You can have all the salt you want. Athol—my niece here—has plenty.”

  Athol! The unusual name struck Eldon oddly: to have found her a real “Ethel-girl” would have suited him better. But as she turned he forgot the trifle of her name. Scarlett had merely realized that she was beautiful. Eldon took in her every point like a slave dealer.

  Her hair that was pure gold threaded with copper, her apricot-flushed skin, her arrow-straight figure, and her eyes, which were blue, set in black lashes. They met his—and checked them. For their glance was hard as a man’s and far more searching. Eldon realized with a shock that, however she came there, she was no roadhouse girl. He turned to Welsh with an effort.

  “New gun?” he drawled, glancing at the rifle.

  “Yes! Throws a trifle high. Want to try it?”

  Eldon could shoot, and he knew it. An angry impulse made him want the girl who had turned away from him with that one hard look to know it, too. Half an old bottle glittered in the sun, not too far off. Eldon took up Welsh’s rifle and fired the instant it touched his shoulder. The bottle shivered, and Welsh said something civil, but without the astonishment at his quickness and apparent lack of aim to which Eldon was used.

  “Your turn next, Athol,” he added to the girl; and it struck Eldon oddly that, so far, she had never said a word.

  “Oh, why?” she returned carelessly. “But if you like,” as Welsh’s face fell, “I’ll write my name on the fence.”

  It was fifty yards further off than Eldon’s bottle, and he smiled incredulously as she lifted the rifle—but the smile died. He was quick as men go—but he had never imagined such quickness as this girl’s. Five shots had rung out almost as one, and in the fence-rail stood an “A,” pierced with the five bullets. Looking at her shooting, Eldon liked still less her silence when she had put down the rifle.

  “It’s no sort of distance for her,” said Welsh with proud apology. “But there’s no chance of mistake in Athol’s shooting.”

  Eldon needed no telling. He was too sore at having been beaten by a girl. Oddly enough, it sowed in his mind the first seeds of a curious hatred for her that was to crush out all thought of her beauty. He stood wishing viciously that he could pick her up bodily and shake the truth out of her as to whether or not Sabarin’s stranger had been Scarlett when he saw her start past him, just as a horse might start under the sudden cut of a whip.

  With Welsh’s coming she had had no chance to keep the stable key and Welsh, going unnoticed behind her and Eldon, had flung the stable door wide open.

  “The salt’s in the house, Uncle Jim,” she cried sharply, “if Mr. Eldon wants salt!”

  As she spoke she had pushed the door shut, and in a breath was leaning against it, but it was too late. Inside the stable, clear in the hot light, Eldon had seen a chestnut pony, white on two legs from the hock down—the pony which had been bought in Janesville! It was no sham miner from Tabeak who had left it here, but Scarlett: and the girl with the hard eyes knew it.

  For there had been one—just one—half-second when Athol’s look had met his with fear, and—what was worse—comprehension. She had gripped herself to stolidity almost instantly, but the mischief was done. Eldon sucked in both cheeks between his strong teeth before he spoke. He had taken Jim Welsh in from head to heels, and Jim Welsh’s testimony should clinch what his niece’s face had betrayed.

  “I just need a little man’s salt, not horse’s,” he said mildly. “That chestnut yours, Mr. Welsh?”

  “No, it’s a stranger,” returned Welsh carelessly. He had heard nothing of Scarlett beyond the bare fact of an unknown man having stayed a night and was not interested. “A man left it here because it was sick. He’s coming back for it shortly.”

  “Oh!” The hand that held Eldon’s cigarette jerked infinitesimally. “One of the Tabeak rush, I suppose! I hear there’s been a strike there.”

  “Tabeak rush!” Welsh stared. “There’s no rush in Tabeak,” he exclaimed, “it’s the deadest place I ever saw! I’ve just been there, and there hasn’t been a man made a dollar a day out of a claim. Don’t let anybody tell you differently, because it isn’t so.”

  Eldon had hoped it, if he had not dared to believe it. He had to keep his eyes on the ground to hide the triumph in them. Welsh’s niece might be a high and mighty, contemptuous lady, but Scarlett had been the man who had left the pony, and he knew it, if Welsh did not. And Scarlett, who would never come back for a woman, would come back twice over for a horse.

  It seemed to Mr. Eldon that even Inkster would not go home just yet, not without the Drowning Valley gold, and that he had made no unfounded boast himself when he announced his fingers were already on Red Scarlett. He looked up so suddenly that for the second time he caught Athol Gray with unguarded eyes full on his face—and for once Eldon stood taken aback, with a new light cast on his calculations.

  “It isn’t the horse Scarlett’s coming back for,” he thought, and it was pure intuition; “it’s the girl.”

  Then and there he gave up all intention of making love to her. Even if he had not really taken a dislike to her, she was not the kind who would listen to his speeches, and besides, the sight of the pack pony had put something else into his head. All he had to do now to get Scarlett would be to stay beside it and the girl, and wait till he came.

  But to the assortment of weapons that already adorned his body Mr. Eldon added that night, and thoughtfully, a rawhide rope—after he had tried a few experiments with it on Sabarin, whom, as was well known except by Scarlett, no rope could hold.

  Scarlett didn’t return for Athol. Instead, she went to him. Eldon did make good on his threat to capture Scarlett, if only briefly, but when the legendary floods of Drowning Valley finally arrived, Scarlett, Athol, and Halliday found a way out of the caves and survived the rushing water. The Eldon gang did not. The novel ends with Scarlett and Athol preparing for their journey out of Drowning Valley to return to the roadhouse and reunite with the chestnut pony.

  8

  Wildfire

  by Zane Grey

  For a man who became the most famous of the western writers, the Ohio-born Zane Grey began life with an improbable name and in unlikely circumstances. His parents named him Pearl Zane Gray. He dropped the “Pearl,” changed the spelling of his surname, and shed his career as a dentist as he began to sell stories to outdoor and hunting magazines.

  The turning point of Grey’s professional life came in 1905 when he traveled to California on his honeymoon. It was the first of many trips out West and provided him with his first look at a life and landscape that he had been only able to imagine. Before he was finished, Zane Grey produced fifty-six western novels, making him the first millionaire author in American publishing history.

  Although his westerns were filled with menacing villains and worthy heroes, most also included a charming heroine. A romance was often at the heart of a Zane Grey novel. Almost all included horses, usually as secondary characters. Sometimes a horse was at the heart of the story, as in Wildfire.

  Lucy Bostil is the eighteen-year-old daughter of John Bostil, a rancher who has made himself rich in the wild borderlands of Utah and Arizona. Bostil loves horses almost as much as he loves Lucy, but the enemies he has made over the years threaten both his horses and his daughter.

  The rival Creech family hov
ers nearby, with young Joel Creech hoping for Lucy’s attention and his father refusing to part with the one horse in the region that could challenge Bostil’s great racer Sage King. Also nearby is a horse thief named Cordts, who hopes to acquire Sage King, legally or otherwise.

  Lucy, one of the most competent riders at Bostil’s Ford, is out almost every day aboard the best of her father’s horses. One day, aboard Sage King, she comes across a beautiful wild stallion struggling against a rope, with cactus tearing his shiny red coat. She soon finds the man who roped him, the injured wild horse hunter Lin Slone. Lucy helps both man and horse.

  Over the next several weeks, Lucy returns again and again to help Slone break and train the horse they now call Wildfire. She decides that Wildfire will challenge Sage King in her father’s annual race day.

  Chapter 7

  Bostil slept that night, but his sleep was troubled, and a strange, dreadful roar seemed to run through it, like a mournful wind over a dark desert. He was awakened early by a voice at his window. He listened. There came a rap on the wood.

  “Bostil! . . . Bostil!” It was Holley’s voice.

  Bostil rolled off the bed. He had slept without removing any apparel except his boots.

  “Wal, Hawk, what d’ye mean wakin’ a man at this unholy hour?” growled Bostil.

  Holley’s face appeared above the rude sill. It was pale and grave, with the hawk eyes like glass. “It ain’t so awful early,” he said. “Listen, boss.”

  Bostil halted in the act of pulling on a boot. He looked at his man while he listened. The still air outside seemed filled with low boom, like thunder at a distance. Bostil tried to look astounded.

  “Hell! . . . It’s the Colorado! She’s boomin’!”

  “Reckon it’s hell all right—for Creech,” replied Holley. “Boss, why didn’t you fetch them horses over?”

  Bostil’s face darkened. He was a bad man to oppose—to question at times. “Holley, you’re sure powerful anxious about Creech. Are you his friend?”

  “Haw! I’ve little use for Creech,” replied Holley. But I hold for his hosses as I would for any man’s.”

  “A-huh! An’ what’s your kick?”

  “Nothin’—except you could have fetched them over before the flood come down. That’s all.”

  The old horse trader and his right hand rider looked at each other for a moment in silence. They understood each other. Then Bostil returned to the task of pulling on wet boots and Holley went away.

  Bostil opened his door and stepped outside. The eastern ramparts of the desert were bright red with the rising sun. With the night behind him and the morning cool and bright and beautiful, Bostil did not suffer a pang nor feel a regret. He walked around under the cottonwoods where the mockingbirds were singing. The shrill, screeching bray of a burro split the morning stillness, and with that the sounds of the awakening village drowned that sullen, dreadful boom of the river. Bostil went in to breakfast.

  He encountered Lucy in the kitchen, and he did not avoid her. He could tell from her smiling greeting that he seemed to her his old self again. Lucy wore an apron and she had her sleeves rolled up, showing round, strong, brown arms. Somehow to Bostil she seemed different. She had been pretty, but now she was more than that. She was radiant. Her blue eyes danced. She looked excited. She had been telling her aunt something, and that worthy woman appeared at once shocked and delighted. But Bostil’s entrance had caused a mysterious break in everything that had been going on, except the preparation of the morning meal.

  “Now I rode in on some confab or other, that’s sure,” said Bostil, good-naturedly.

  “You sure did, Dad,” replied Lucy, with a bright smile.

  “Wal, let me sit in the game,” he rejoined.

  “Dad, you can’t even ante,” said Lucy.

  “Jane, what’s this kid up to?” asked Bostil, turning to his sister.

  “The good Lord only knows!” replied Aunt Jane, with a sigh.

  “Kid? . . . See here, Dad, I’m eighteen long ago. I’m grown up. I can do as I please, go where I like, and anything. . . . Why Dad, I could get—married.”

  “Haw! Haw!” laughed Bostil. “Jane, hear the girl.”

  “I hear her, Bostil,” sighed Aunt Jane.

  “Wal, Lucy, I’d just like to see you fetch some fool lovesick rider around when I’m feelin’ good,” said Bostil.

  Lucy laughed, but there was a roguish, daring flash in her eyes. “Dad, you do seem to have all the young fellows scared. Someday maybe one will ride along—a rider like you used to be—that nobody could bluff . . . and he can have me!”

  “A-huh! . . . Lucy, are you in fun?”

  Lucy tossed her bright head, but did not answer.

  “Jane, what’s got into her?” asked Bostil, appealing to his sister.

  “Bostil, she’s in fun, of course,” declared Aunt Jane. “Still, at that, there’s some sense in what she says. Come to your breakfast, now.”

  Bostil took his seat at the table, glad that he could once more be amiable with his womenfolk. “Lucy, tomorrow’ll be the biggest day Bostil’s Ford has ever seen,” he said.

  “It sure will be, Dad. The biggest surprising day the Ford ever had,” replied Lucy.

  “Surprisin’?”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  “Who’s goin’ to get surprised?”

  “Everybody.”

  Bostil said to himself that he had been used to Lucy’s banter, but during his moody spell of days past he had forgotten how to take her or else she was different.

  “Brackton tells me you’ve entered a hoss against the field.”

  “It’s an open race, isn’t it?”

  “Open as the desert, Lucy,” he replied. “What’s this hoss Wildfire you’ve entered?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” taunted Lucy.

  “If he’s as good as his name you might be in at the finish. . . . But, Lucy, my dear, talkin’ good sense now—you ain’t a-goin’ to go up on some unbroken mustang in this big race?”

  “Dad, I’m going to ride a horse.”

  “But, Lucy, ain’t it a risk you’ll be takin’—all for fun?”

  “Fun! . . . I’m in dead earnest.”

  Bostil liked the look of her then. She had paled a little; her eyes blazed; she was intense. His question had brought out her earnestness, and straightway Bostil became thoughtful. If Lucy had been a boy she would have been the greatest rider on the uplands; and even girl as she was, superbly mounted, she would have been dangerous in any race.

  “Wal, I ain’t afraid of your handlin’ of a hoss,” he said, soberly. “An’ as long as you’re in earnest I won’t stop you. But, Lucy, no bettin’. I won’t let you gamble.”

  “Not even with you?” she asked.

  Bostil stared at the girl. What had gotten into her? “What’ll you bet?” he queried, with blunt curiosity.

  “Dad, I’ll go you a hundred dollars in gold that I finish one—two—three.”

  Bostil threw back his head to laugh heartily. What a chip of the old block she was. “Child, there’s some fast hosses that’ll be back of the King. You’d be throwin’ money away.”

  Blue fire shone in his daughter’s eyes. She meant business, all right, and Bostil thrilled with pride in her.

  “Dad, I’ll bet you two hundred, even, that I beat the King!” she flashed.

  “Wal, of all the nerve!” ejaculated Bostil. “No, I won’t take you up. Reckon I never before turned down an even bet. Understand, Lucy, ridin’ in the race is enough for you.”

  “All right, Dad,” replied Lucy, obediently.

  At that juncture Bostil suddenly shoved back his plate and turned his face to the open door. “Don’t I hear a runnin’ hoss?”

  Aunt Jane stopped the noise she was making, and Lucy darted to the door. Then Bostil heard the sharp,
rhythmic hoofbeats he recognized. They shortened to clatter and pound—then ceased somewhere out in front of the house.

  “It’s the King with Van up,” said Lucy, from the door. “Dad, Van’s jumped off—he’s coming in . . . he’s running. Something has happened. . . . There are other horses coming—riders—Indians.”

  Bostil knew what was coming and prepared himself. Rapid footsteps sounded without.

  “Hello, Miss Lucy! Where’s Bostil?”

  A lean, supple rider appeared before the door. It was Van, greatly excited.

  “Come in, boy,” said Bostil. “What’re you flustered about?”

  Van strode in, spurs jangling, cap in hand. “Boss, there’s—a sixty-foot raise—in the river!” Van panted.

  “Oh!” cried Lucy, wheeling toward her father.

  “Wal, Van, I reckon I knowed that,” replied Bostil. “Mebbe I’m getting old, but I can still hear. . . . Listen.”

  Lucy tiptoed to the door and turned her head sidewise and slowly bowed it till she stiffened. Outside were sounds of birds and horses and men, but when a lull came it quickly filled with a sullen, low boom.

  “Highest flood we—ever seen,” said Van.

  “You’ve been down?” queried Bostil, sharply.

  “Not to the river,” replied Van. “I went as far as—where the gulch opens—on the bluff. There was a string of Navajos goin’ down. An’ some comin’ up. I stayed there watchin’ the flood, an’ pretty soon Somers come up the trail with Blakesley and Brack an’ some riders come up the trail an’ some riders. . . . An’ Somers hollered out, “The boat’s gone!”

  “Gone!” exclaimed Bostil, his loud cry showing consternation.

  “Oh, Dad! Oh, Van!” cried Lucy, with eyes wide and lips parted.