THE AUTHOR
Rutherford Montgomery would rather write than do anything else in the
world. Most of his books are about animals and the wilderness he knows
so well. As a boy, Mr. Montgomery would listen to the tales told by
hunters, and his favorite sport then and now is going into the woodland
and sitting quietly on a log, observing the children of the wild. He is
a watcher, not a hunter.
Mr. Montgomery was born in North Dakota, and taught school for
ten years in Wyoming and Colorado after graduating from Colorado
Agricultural College. He saw service in the United States Flying Corps
in World War I. Later, he was a county judge in Colorado and held state
offices there. He now lives in Los Gatos, California.
* * *
Other Books by Rutherford Montgomery
Broken Fang[A]
Gray Wolf[A]
White Mountaineer
McGonigle’s Lake
Yellow Eyes[A]
Kildee House
Big Brownie
Ghost Town Adventure[A]
[A] _Available from Scholastic Book Services_
MIDNIGHT
RUTHERFORD MONTGOMERY
=SBS= SCHOLASTIC BOOK SERVICES
New York Toronto London Auckland Sydney
To Earl Hammock
who knows the value of
the lonesome places
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be resold,
lent, or otherwise circulated in any binding or cover other than that
in which it is published--unless prior written permission has been
obtained from the publisher--and without a similar condition, including
this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Copyright 1940 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. Illustrations
copyright 1949 by Pocket Books, Inc. This edition is published by
Scholastic Book Services, a division of Scholastic Magazines, Inc., by
arrangement with Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.
8th Printing November 1969
Printed in the U.S.A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
1. Pals 1
2. Wild Horse 10
3. Horse Thief 20
4. Desert Winter 25
5. Wild-Horse Drive 36
6. Midnight 45
7. The Way of the High Country 62
8. The Strong Survive 75
9. Prisoner 87
10. Escape 94
11. New Trails 108
12. Doom of the Band 120
13. Tex Takes the Trail 140
14. Beside the Castle Rocks 147
15. Home to Stay 151
[Illustration: Midnight tried to whirl but the ledge was too narrow.]
1. Pals
Sam was meditating. Tipped back in a chair made of river alder and
willow, he leaned against the log wall of his cabin. His shoeless feet
were swathed in wrinkled socks of the kind that come to a point at the
toe where a tuft of thread keeps the cotton yarn from unraveling. Sam’s
blue shirt was faded from too many washings in the creek below the
cabin. The only unfaded portions of the shirt were hidden by his wide,
yellow suspenders.
Sam’s tired, blue eyes stared out over his “stompin’ ground,” which
was a high mesa overlooking the blue depths of Shadow Canyon. Across
the mesa meandered a chain of castle rocks. This outcropping was red
and yellow in color. It stood on edge, silent evidence of the upheaval
which had formed the Crazy Kill Mountains millions of years before.
Sam’s toothless gums clamped down on the stem of his cold pipe. Keeping
the pipe right side up was the heaviest work Sam planned for that
morning.
Out in a lush meadow which crowded like a green carpet around the
castle rocks there was plenty of healthy contrast to the lazy
inactivity that filled Sam. He let his eyes wander fondly over the
scene. Up near the base of the biggest castle five fat yellowbelly
whistlers romped about among the rocks. A sixth sat like a round ball
of silver fur, perched on the top of a high rock. The old rockchuck on
guard was as relaxed and lazy as Sam, except for his beady eyes. Those
eyes saw everything that moved, as far away as the spruce woods which
bordered the upper side of the mesa.
Sam studied the yellowbelly whistlers with a spark of interest in
his faded eyes. They were yellowish animals with long, silvery hairs
covering their brown coats, giving them a shining appearance when they
romped in the sun. They had dark-brown heads and tails, and a whitish
band across their faces. They rolled through the grass and over the
rocks, front end up, hind end up, rocking along on their stubby legs.
Many smaller fellows courted the protection of the yellowbellies,
making good use of the sharp eyes of the sentinel whistler perched high
on his lookout. A dozen rockchips dodged about in the grass while as
many more sat on little rocks and stared away toward the snow-capped
peaks of the Crazy Kill Range. These potbellied little brownies of the
high country were well content with the crumbs from the great one’s
table. The keen eyes and the ready blast of warning from the high rock
removed their chief worries. The sentinel whistler was sure to announce
the arrival of the swift-hawk, the laughing coyote, the martens, or the
bobcat. There were many other enemies of the air and the forest and the
whistler watched for and spotted all of them.
Then there was the calico chip, a two-striped ground squirrel whose
vast energy always made Sam feel tired. The calico chips dashed about
with an energy which had undoubtedly been intended for some much larger
animal, but must have been misplaced when Mother Nature laid out the
blueprints of creation. The calico chips were always too busy chasing
bugs or gathering and storing seeds to pause for meditation. They
left foolish gawking into space to the potbellied rockchips. But their
little ears were always tuned to catch the warning blast of the big
whistler.
There was a sprinkling of lesser chipmunks, a dozen or more. Sam noted
with satisfaction that their number was increasing. He had brought
two pairs in with him several summers before. They were active, noisy
little fellows, dashing about, hoisting their tails like flags when
they came to a halt. Every so often one of them would dash to a rock
and jump on top of it. He would sit very straight and burst into song.
“Chock! Chock! Chock!” in quick succession, like the rattle of an old
alarm clock. Sometimes the song would be pitched higher and would go
“Check, check, check, chir-r-r-up!” No sooner had one chipmunk mounted
his song perch than all the others would dart to theirs, always the
same perches. The meadow would ring with their chorus.
Their round of music never failed to disturb the fat sentinel whistler.
He would shake his silver robe, stretch his neck, then blast three
short, sharp notes on his whistle, after which he would settle back
with a deep chuckle.
Sam’s pipe always rolled to the corner of his mouth and turned upside
down when the chorus began. One fumbling hand would pull out his
ancient, silver watch and he would fix his gaze fiercely on the second
hand. From the chorus he would select one voice and count the “chocks”
while he timed the singer. One hundred and seventy “chocks” per minute
was the best time he had ever recorded. The poorest, seventy per
minute, was made by a fellow whose little round belly hinted that he
might have a bit of rockchip blood in him.
From far down the meadow, where a clear stream foamed over ragged
rocks, came the eager whinny of a horse. Sam’s eyes lighted, and he
shoved the big, silver watch into his pocket. Up the meadow galloped a
trim black mare. Her mane flowed in the wind as she shook her head, and
kicked her heels recklessly.
“Purty, right purty,” Sam muttered as he took his pipe out of his mouth.
The trim mare slowed to a trot as she neared the cabin. With a toss
of her head and a playful leap to one side, she trotted up to Sam and
extended her soft muzzle, nickering eagerly.
“Mornin’, Lady Ebony,” Sam said affectionately. “Think mebby ol’ Sam’s
got a lump o’ sugar?”
Lady Ebony pawed and nickered.
Sam dug a hand into his pants pocket and brought out two dingy lumps of
sugar. He dusted off a grain or two of tobacco and a little chaff, then
held one of them out.
“Jest a bite, ol’ gal,” he said.
Lady Ebony picked the sugar from between his thumb and finger with a
dainty movement of her lips. She crunched the lump eagerly, and when it
was gone she pricked her ears forward and pawed.
Sam grinned widely. “Dang me, if you can’t count,” he said.
The other lump of sugar was extended and Lady Ebony took it. Sam let
the forelegs of the chair down and got to his feet stiffly. He patted
the glistening neck of the mare and talked softly to her. Lady Ebony
accepted the caresses. Sam sat down again and the mare nosed around the
cabin door a while before trotting out into the meadow where she set to
feeding on the tall grass.
The yellowbelly on the lookout perch paid no attention to the mare. The
calico chips and the chipmunks went on chasing bugs and hunting seeds.
They knew the black mare was a friend and that her enemies were their
enemies, the cougar and the gray wolf.
Sam sucked on his pipe. His eyes followed Lady Ebony. Ever since she
was a wobbly colt she had summered in this high pasture. She carried
the brand of Major Howard, an Easterner who had come west to raise
cattle and horses. He had many horses on the range and paid little
attention to any but his purebreds which he kept at the ranch in the
valley. But Sam knew a fine horse. He had owned many slim, tough
saddlers like the black mare. He was too old and stiff to ride but he
wanted to own the black mare, just to have her as a pal. He had babied
her and petted her until she was devoted to him.
Sam looked into the cold bowl of his pipe. He wanted to smoke, but
his tobacco was inside the cabin. It was a terrible nuisance the way
he forgot things like that. His eyes shifted to the fat sentinel on
the rock. The yellowbelly was sitting up very straight. Suddenly he
shook himself and whistled shrilly. Instantly the calico chips, the
rockchips, and the chipmunks vanished into the grass. The feeding
whistlers romped to their holes at the base of the biggest castle rock.
“Tarnation!” Sam muttered angrily. He reached back inside his door, and
dragged out an ancient single-barreled shotgun. Laying the gun across
his knees he squinted up into the sky.
“Thet durn hawk’s been askin’ fer it,” he muttered.
But the danger signal did not herald an air raid. Sam heard the
thudding of ironshod hoofs. He did not bother to turn around. A
horseman galloped up to his door and halted. The rider bent down and
greeted Sam.
“Morning, Sam.”
“Mornin’, major,” Sam answered. A slow grin parted his straggling beard.
Major Howard’s gray eyes roved over the meadow, and came to rest on
the black mare. The major was an energetic, hot-tempered person who
rode hard and drove hard bargains. The easy way of the western mountain
people irritated him. He respected Sam’s squatter rights to the mesa
and the old cabin because he had more grass than he needed.
“I was wonderin’, major,” Sam began slowly, “if you wouldn’t sell me
that black mare. I’d kind of like to have her. Got a feeling like she’s
a pal, havin’ her here so much.”
The major laughed and his gray eyes moved back to Sam’s face. “That
mare is purebred racing stock, Sam. I never paid much attention to her
until I saw her on the run the other day. She’s fast, the fastest thing
I have loose on the range. This fall she’ll clean up the cow-pony races
at the state fair.” The major chuckled.
“Me and the filly has hit it off right nice. I thought mebby you’d sell
her,” Sam said gently.
The major looked down at Sam and his eyes twinkled. “Tell you what,
Sam,” he said jokingly. “I never had anything I wouldn’t sell if I got
my price. I’ll sell you that black filly for five hundred dollars.” He
bent forward until the saddle horn creased his ample waistline. “But I
get to race her at the fair.”
Sam grunted. “Reckon I may take you up,” he said slowly.
The major kept his face straight. He was sure Sam didn’t have ten
dollars to his name. The old prospector always managed to scratch
together enough dust to buy a few groceries, but never had more than
that. He nodded his head. This would be a good joke to tell the boys
at the ranch. His eyes dropped to the ancient shotgun, and to keep
from laughing he asked abruptly:
“What have you been shooting?”
“Got her charged with rock salt an’ bird shot,” Sam explained
seriously. “Makes an ol’ gray wolf hit it lickety-split. And one of
them swift-hawks shore claws air fit to shake out his tail feathers
when I tech him up.” He grinned widely.
The major nodded. “Glad you keep that gun handy. It will keep wolves
and cougars away from the mare.” He recalled stories the old hands
on the ranch told about Sam’s youthful prowess with a carbine and a
forty-five Colt. He supposed the old prospector’s eyes were so bad he
had to use a scatter-gun.
“Got a shank o’ venison on the stove. Cold, but makes right nice
chawin’,” Sam said hospitably, but he didn’t move.
“Thanks, but I’ll have to be hitting the trail. I want to ride down
along the west drift fence today.” The major clicked his tongue, and
touched the flanks of his spirited horse with his spurs. He galloped
away over the meadow.
Sam sat looking out across the waving grass. Five hundred dollars. And
he hadn’t missed the amusement which greeted his offer to buy the mare.
Sam was irritated. He wanted the filly more than ever now. He smiled
and mumbled to himself.
“The major’s goin’ to be plumb surprised when I dish out that five
hundred.”
He got stiffly to his feet and moved into the cabin. Setting the old
gun just inside the door he took a muslin sack from the table and
filled his pipe. Then he absent-mindedly laid the sack back where it
had been. He shuffled about the room looking at the objects he had
hung on the walls, a worn horseshoe, a belt with a holster containing
a forty-five Colt of the frontier model, several bright pictures cut
from calendars. Finally he remembered he hadn’t lighted his pipe. He
shuffled to where a packing box was nailed to the wall back of the
stove and got several matches from a rusty tomato can. After lighting
the pipe he puffed contentedly.
That day Sam stirred around more than usual. He made up a pack of food
and small articles which he wrapped in a blanket roll. The pack was set
beside the door. The job took up most of the afternoon.
The next morning Sam was up early. Lady Ebony came galloping across the
meadow for her morning ration of lump sugar. As he gave it to her he
talked in a low, confidential voice to the mare.
“I don’t reckon nobody but you and me knows that ol’ Sam’s got him
a claim back under the rim.” He chuckled. “Reckon, Lady, it’ll take
ol’ Sam ’bout three weeks to pan out five hundred in yaller dust.” He
patted her sleek, black neck. “You jest stay around here an’ wait in
this medder where there’s good grass. The ol’ yallerbelly’ll keep an
eye out for wolves and cougars.”
The mare watched as he shouldered his pack and trudged slowly up the
slope. She did not follow him, but she nickered several times. At the
edge of the spruce Sam turned around and waved his arm.
Lady Ebony arched her neck and trotted out into the meadow. The fat
whistler on the high rock chuckled and his beady eyes twinkled brightly
as he watched her. The sun wheeled higher, warming the grass, drinking
up the dew. The black mare wandered down the meadow. She came to a halt
near a sharp ledge which broke off into Shadow Canyon. From the blue
depths rose the roar of Crazy River. Lady Ebony stirred uneasily. A
feeling of deep unrest filled her, an urge to run far, to seek other
horses. After a time she wandered back into the meadow and began
feeding, but she jerked up her head often, listening, staring into the
twilight of the spruce.
A few yards from where the black mare fed, a little hill lifted
semibarren, yellow clay. It stood in sharp contrast to the lushness of
the green meadow. On this round knob a prairie-dog town was located.
The main section of the village was a busy scene, with dogs moving,
bellies close to the ground, in quick sprints from one grass patch
to another or romping through the meadow grass. Sam had brought
several pairs of dogs to the mesa. He liked the busy little fellows
and had been lonesome until he had a town started. The dogs posted
sentinels but they could not see far. The dog sentinels depended on the
yellowbelly. They listened for his blasting whistle of warning.
One of the sentinels sat on a mound. His short tail jerked, but no
other part of him moved. Suddenly the air was split by the warning
whistle of the big sentinel on the high rock. The dog sentinels
repeated the warning in a wild chorus of “skr-skrr’s.” Dogs raced in
from the meadow. They paused for a moment to sit upright on their
mounds, then they went down their slides to the tunnels below the
ground. Out from the ground came their defiant voices, “squit-tuck!
squit-tuck!”
A lank coyote stepped out of a clump of rose brier close to the spruce
woods. He stood gazing disgustedly over the meadow, his green eyes
watching the yellowbellies as they romped to their dens at the base
of the castle rocks. The whistlers had warned the dogs and ground
squirrels of his presence. He ran at a lope across the meadow. Lady
Ebony snorted and shook her head as he passed. Her eyes followed the
glinting sun on his fur. When he had vanished down the trail which led
into Shadow Canyon she returned to her feeding.
2. Wild Horse
High up under the snow rims, where the grass was short but rich with
moss and lichens, lay a little lake. Its upper shore line was formed
by a barren rockslide which tumbled down from the naked cliffs above
timber line, its lower edge was fringed with spruce and balsam. Below
the lake nestled a little meadow. On this meadow fed a band of twenty
horses.
At the head of this band of wild horses ran a chestnut stallion, a
heavy-chested, thick-legged fellow with a splashed white star in his
forehead. His protruding eyes were set wide apart and his heavy jaws
and massive neck showed his battling qualities, while his wide chest
and thick barrel indicated great strength.
The chestnut stud moved restlessly as he fed, jerking up his head,
listening, testing the air with flaring nostrils. The mares with their
colts close beside them cropped the short grass, content to let him
keep a wary watch for danger.
And there was danger ahead on every trail. There was the lank cougar
whose desire for colt flesh was greater than any urge in his tawny body
except the hot flames that fired him when the mating call floated up
through the twilight under the high spruce. There was the wolf pack,
not so dangerous in summer but always ready to kill. The chestnut
stallion knew that at this season the old lobos would be running with
their sons and daughters in bachelor packs. They were training their
young to kill and would attack any colt or mare that strayed far from
the band. There was the bear gone killer, the brute who had deserted
his vegetable diet and turned killer. He was not a common enemy, but
one that was terrible in savage lust for slaughter. Lastly, there was
the most dreaded enemy of all, man.
The chestnut had learned that man was the most ruthless and dangerous
of the killers. He walked upright and his eyes were in front of his
head, not at the side as in animals who do not kill but are pursued by
the killers. The ranchers did not like wild horses because they ate the
range grass and often crossed with the ranch mares, who then brought
forth scrubby, worthless colts, mean and useless as saddle stock. The
chestnut stallion stole mares from the range when he could coax or
drive them from their pastures. With savage daring he led his band into
the tall-grass range in the summer. If the cowboys with their rifles
hunted him too persistently he faded away to a distant range down in
the desert. In this he was like the lobo wolf. When poison and traps
and guns become too evident an old lobo shifts his range.
The chestnut stallion had begun to feel that it was time for him to
lead his band out of the Crazy Kill country. He was being steadily
hunted. Rifles spat in the misty dawn, riders swooped down on the mares
when they came out into the open to feed. Major Howard had given orders
to kill or run the wild band off his range. He wanted no crossing of
his good stock. At first he had played with the idea of having the
chestnut stud brought in alive, but his riders could not trap or outrun
the big fellow in the rough, broken country. There were too many
avenues of escape, too many canyons and tangled mats of down timber. So
the major gave the order to shoot the big stud and to exterminate his
band.
The steady drives and constant ambushes had thinned the ranks of the
band from thirty to twenty mares. The big stallion was ready to leave
the tall-grass country. He jerked up his head and snorted shrilly, then
he circled the herd at a fast trot. When he had gone once around it he
halted and stood listening, rigid, his head up, his mane flowing in the
wind. He heard a rock rattle from a trail above; then he saw a man. The
man was on foot and he was toiling upward, a pack strapped on his back.
He did not seem to be interested in the band of wild horses, but the
wind carried a strong man smell to the meadow. The scent was rank with
the odor of an old pipe.
The chestnut stallion laid back his ears and bared his teeth. With a
shrill warning he lunged at the rump of the nearest mare. She whinnied
with fright as she galloped away. The stallion drove the other mares
into a thundering stampede. They charged across the meadow and into the
timber, the colts bounding along at their mothers’ sides.
As soon as they were in deep cover the chestnut took the lead. He
headed up a steep trail and did not stop until the band had reached a
saddle in the snow range. Here he halted to let the mares and colts
blow. The colts shouldered against their mothers, their pink noses and
lips reaching under sweat-streaked flanks in search of milk. Their
curly tails bobbed and jerked as they drank. The mares looked up at the
snow peaks out of big, calm eyes. They were used to the sudden frenzied
retreats of the big stallion, but they never became as excited as he,
except when rifles spat and men raced shouting upon them.
After the rest spell the chestnut led the band down along a wooded
ridge. He kept to deep cover so that an enemy posted on a peak or bare
rim could not see the moving mares and colts. Toward midafternoon he
halted the band in a little meadow to feed. The mares and colts began
pulling the long grass eagerly. They were aware that the rest period
might be short, and wanted to get their bellies filled as quickly as
possible. They were right. The big stallion allowed time for but half a
meal. He did not want them heavy and sleepy from overfeeding.
They moved down the mountain toward the deep, blue slash which was
Shadow Canyon. The chestnut halted at the edge of a wide meadow. His
protruding eyes had sighted a little cabin at the upper end of the
meadow. He was about to lead his band back into the spruce when he
saw a black mare standing with head up and ears pricked forward. He
heard the blast of a whistler sounding a general alarm, and his ears
flattened. The whistlers always annoyed him. He liked to move through
the woods unnoticed and unheralded. But he remained at the edge of the
timber watching the black mare, his nostrils twitching eagerly.
No one came out of the cabin. The stallion pawed and whinnied low. His
call was answered by the black mare. There was eagerness in her whinny.
The chestnut cast caution aside. Here was a sleek and slender mare he
could add to his band. He trotted out into the meadow, neck arched, red
mane floating in the wind.
Lady Ebony stood for a moment looking at the chestnut stallion, then
she arched her neck and kicked her heels high. With a toss of her head
she trotted toward him. They met in the center of the meadow with
the mares watching out of calm, uninterested eyes. The mares fell to
feeding while the colts bucked and bounced.
For a moment the noses of the two horses met, then the black mare
whirled and lashed out at the stallion with her trim hoofs. He dodged
and whinnied shrilly. Lady Ebony broke and ran down the meadow with
the stallion thundering after her. He laid back his ears and charged
with all his speed, but the flying black mare was faster. She pulled
easily away from him and the sight of her slim body slipping away made
the big stallion scream savagely. Never before had a mare been able to
outrun him, to slip away from him with ease.
Seeing that she was leaving the big fellow behind, Lady Ebony whirled
and halted, her front feet on a little hummock of grass. She waited
until he was almost upon her, then she dodged past him and raced toward
the mares. Again she outran him easily.
The chestnut was filled with a wild desire to drive this fleet mare
into his band and lead her away. He swerved and charged. She dodged
and leaped past him. Lady Ebony was not trying to escape, she was
giving play to the pulsing life within her. The coming of the chestnut
stallion was something she had expected. She had been restless and
nervous; now that restlessness was gone and she was filled with surging
energy.
The chestnut raced around the meadow again, trying to overtake Lady
Ebony. He finally halted and stood with heaving sides. There was a
savage light in his protruding eyes. Lady Ebony trotted toward him
and stood nickering softly. She wanted to run some more. But the big
stallion knew he was beaten. He was aware that he had made a great deal
of noise, and noise was likely to bring riders with rifles. He turned
and began driving his band off the meadow.
As they trotted toward the narrow trail leading down into Shadow
Canyon, Lady Ebony tossed her head and trotted after the band. The big
stallion lunged at her with bared teeth. She humped her back and jigged
up and down, warning him that if he nipped her she would lash out at
him. He reached out to snap at her flanks and was met by two small
hoofs which smashed against his wide chest. With a snort he leaped
aside. He did not lunge at her again. She was much to his liking, a
fighter and a swift runner.
Lady Ebony fell in with the mares and the band moved down into the
deep, green twilight of the canyon. They kept going until they reached
the bottom. There they paused, crowding to the edge of the river,
thrusting their muzzles into the cold water foaming over the rocky bed.
When the horses had drunk their fill they moved on down the canyon.
Several miles of fast moving brought them to a high wall of red cliffs.
Here Crazy River turned east and the canyon deepened. The chestnut sent
the band up a trail which switchbacked and looped up out of the depths.
With bared teeth and smashing hoofs he shoved the band up the trail and
onto a mesa. Out on flat ground he let them rest. He was heading toward
the desert where they would be free of attack from armed riders.
The mares fed on the bunch grass which carpeted the mesa. They kept
well together and jerked up their heads, whinnying to their colts when
the little ones strayed. There was danger in each adventurous trip the
colts made, for they had not yet learned to watch and to listen. This
broken country was the natural home of the cougar. It was also the den
area for the gray wolves. When the colts trotted too far, their mothers
followed and herded them back.
Above the mesa towered the snow peaks of the Crazy Kill Range. The
snowbanks were not so close as they had been that morning, but seen
through the high, thin air they seemed to be brooding no more than a
short canter above the tableland. To the south, seen through a forest
of trees and leaves much lighter green than the spruce, lay the desert,
flat, eroded, purple in the evening light. The meadow was bordered
on the lower side by an aspen grove. When the wind came up out of the
canyon, the aspens seemed to shudder. A cross made of aspen wood had
once been lifted on Calvary, so the preachers and the circuit rider
said; possibly the aspens remembered. They quaked and their round
leaves rattled and rustled like a million tiny cymbals. Below the aspen
belt lay the scrub oaks, stunted trees with twigs as tough and hard as
iron.
The chestnut stallion felt safer here on the edge of the wild, high
country. A short run would take his band into the scrub oaks where no
rider could follow without dismounting.
The sun dipped downward and hung on the blue rim of the western
horizon. It looked like a huge ball of red fire. Slowly it settled
from sight. Then shafts of red and gold light radiated upward, filling
the sky and the air with a bloody haze. The wind died down and silence
settled over the aspen grove. For a short space the world was aflame,
then the sunset cooled and steel-blue dusk crept up out of the big
canyon. The round moon, which had been dimmed to faint paleness by the
sunset, flooded the mesa with soft light.
The chestnut moved close to Lady Ebony. He nickered low. She tossed her
head, and they were off on a wild gallop around the meadow. They ran
through the moonlight, disregarding rocks and gopher holes, leaping
over sage clumps and patches of buckbrush, their manes and tails
billowing in the wind, their rushing bodies surging with power. They
circled the meadow twice. Lady Ebony easily keeping ahead of the big
stallion.
After the second round, the black mare swerved and raced to a high,
jutting point. Here she halted and the chestnut charged up beside her.
He pawed and shook his head, then reared on his hind legs and his
powerful forefeet curved under him. When his forefeet settled to the
ground, Lady Ebony moved closer to him, her shoulder pressing against
his muscled chest. The chestnut nickered proudly.
From an aspen stand below the feeding mares leaped five shadowy gray
forms. They ran with long leaps, their black muzzles lifting and
falling with an even, graceful flow of motion. Red tongues lolled over
white fangs and yellow eyes flamed in the moonlight. From shaggy chests
came eager yelps. The chestnut blasted a shrill warning to the mares,
but the wolves did not swerve to attack the colts. They raced across
the mesa, running for the pure joy of giving play to their stringy
muscles.
At the lower edge of the meadow they startled an old doe who had come
out of the aspens to feed. One of the gray killers turned in along the
edge of the woods, the others fanned out and their eager yelps changed
to a chorus of savage howls. The old lobo at their head had sounded the
cry of the kill.
The startled mule deer doubled her slim legs under her and bounded. She
landed many yards down the slope, and bounded again. Her white rump
patch flashed in the silvery light as she fled. Three of the wolves
raced after her while two turned right and leaped away around the hill.
The doe reached the edge of the mesa and bounded down the steep slope
at a pace which rapidly outdistanced her pursuers. When they were out
of sight she swerved and ran around the hill. She intended to return to
her feed ground by doubling back, a trick used by both mule deer and
big rabbits. She broke out on the mesa a little below where she had
been feeding when the killers startled her. Behind her she could hear
the faint yelping of the three following lobos. She suddenly planted
her feet and tried to pivot so she could plunge back down the hill. Two
savage, grinning killers had appeared, one a little above her and one
a little below. They were cutting in on her as fast as they could leap
over the brush and rocks.
The doe whirled back down the slope, but before she had taken three
jumps she was met by the three killers who had stayed on her trail.
They were fanned out, running well apart. She slid to a halt and turned
to run around the hill, but she was too late. The killers swarmed over
her, the two attacking wolves leaping in at almost the same instant.
She went down bleating and kicking.
In a few minutes the night was filled with the snarling and growling of
the feeding pack. Up on the ledge Lady Ebony crowded closer to the big
stallion. He snorted defiantly and rubbed his head against hers.
That night the wild horses stayed on the mesa. The next day Lady Ebony
loped down into the desert, one of the wild band, a willing member of
the chestnut stallion’s harem. They traveled at an easy lope which
their tough bodies could hold for many hours. They halted in little
meadows to feed and sought streams and water holes when they were
thirsty.
As they moved into the canyon-slotted, eroded world of the desert they
left the clear streams behind, and had to depend upon the knowledge of
the chestnut stallion or one of the old mares for the location of pools
and springs. The grass was shorter, curly buffalo and gamma, growing in
clumps that defied shifting sand and hot wind.
The world changed quickly. The spruce, the aspens, and even the scrub
oak vanished and in its place there was juniper--dry, defiant of the
heat, sending its roots deep into the yellow earth, down cracks in the
sand rock. The canyons were walled with red and yellow sandstone. The
washes were bedded deep with sand instead of water, and the wind made
the sand creep along, piling it into the dunes on the mesas, knifing it
out in drifts from the ledges of rimrock. The days were hot and dry,
but the nights were cool to the point of chillness.
From sentinel buttes or rims they sometimes sighted copper-skinned
Navajos riding always at a gallop, on lean, bony ponies. The Navajos
were always hurrying, though they had no place to go and all eternity
to get there in. Once Lady Ebony sighted a summer hogan with two Navajo
women and four children sitting in the shade of a canopy of dry leaves
and cottonwood branches. The women were patiently slipping colored
thread across a loom, back and forth, back and forth, one thread above
another. Below the hogan a sad-looking band of sheep and goats cropped
at the short grass.
The chestnut stallion snorted angrily when he smelled the grass where
the sheep had been. He did not like sheep taint. He led the band far
from the pasture lands of that Navajo family.
3. Horse Thief
Sam’s claim was not a gold strike or a bonanza. It was a pocket, very
definite, and certainly limited in the amount of gravel and black sand
which carried much fine and some coarse gold. Sam knew its extent and
its possibilities. He had kept its location a careful secret. It was
not legally staked, for in staking it he would have brought a swarm of
gold seekers to the ridge, and he wanted this country to himself. He
would take out enough to buy the black mare plus enough to buy supplies
for the winter. When he finished there would still be gold left, a sort
of bank account to be hoarded against the coming seasons.
For three weeks Sam shoveled and panned. At last he had enough yellow
dust in his buck-hide pouch. He carefully buried his shovel, pick, and
pan under a pile of rocks, covered his workings, and faced down the
ridge.
As he trudged slowly through the fields of columbine and mountain
lupine, he smiled softly to himself. The major would be completely
flabbergasted. Sam laughed aloud, startling a cocky jay. The gaily
dressed fellow fluffed his feathers and his purple crest bristled. He
burst into a volley of angry chattering as he hopped about in a young
balsam tree.
“Got a right to ha-ha,” Sam said aloud. “The ol’ glory hole come
through with five hunnert an’ some extra fer grub. Left me a bit fer
seed, too.” He continued to chuckle as he tramped along.
He trudged on until he could see his mesa through the red trunks of
the spruce. Breaking out at the edge of the meadow he halted and
stood looking over the familiar scene. Every detail was so familiar
to him that he seemed to be entering a room where he had lived a long
time. The old yellowbelly whistler sounded a blasting warning and
plunged from his high perch. Ground squirrels romped to their dens.
On the semibarren little hill the dogs began scolding, “squit-tuck!
squit-tuck!” Sam grinned.
“Yuh ol’ fool, don’t yuh go makin’ me out no enemy,” he said aloud.
His eyes moved eagerly up and down the meadow, then he whistled a few
high notes. There was no answering pound of hoofs. The black mare must
be at the far end of the mesa.
“Must be off cattin’ around,” he mumbled as he shuffled to his cabin
door.
Before Sam entered the cabin the old whistler discovered his mistake.
He sounded an all-clear whistle and the meadow came to life. Sam
dropped down on his old chair to watch the busy scene. After a time
he got to his feet and pulled the latch thong. The door swung inward
protestingly. Everything was as he had left it, except that a wandering
cowboy had stopped and made himself a pot of tea and fried a snack of
bacon. Sam knew, because the skillet was carefully washed and polished
and the cracked teapot was washed and turned upside down on the table.
Sam shuffled about the cabin peering at the familiar things within its
walls. He finally built a fire. He was hungry for oven biscuits and
stove-cooked coffee.
He was poking the pine-knot fire to high heat when a voice from the
open door made him turn. His faded eyes lighted up eagerly as he saw
Major Howard standing there. The major had a grim set to his eyes and
his mustache bristled angrily.
“Come on out, Sam,” he said gruffly.
“Howdy, major,” Sam said. He began to chuckle. Might as well spring
the big surprise right away. Then he saw that there were two men with
the major, men wearing nickel-plated stars on the flaps of their wool
shirts. He blinked his eyes.
“Howdy, sheriff,” he said. He barely knew Sheriff Miller, had met him
only a couple of times.
“Now, Sam,” the major broke in harshly, “come clean. What did you do
with that Lady Ebony horse?”
“Me?” Sam stared at the major.
“Yes!” the major snapped. “You took an awful fancy to that filly,
wanted to buy her. You’ve been away a long spell. I brought the sheriff
up here, so you better talk and talk fast.” The major’s face was
beginning to redden as his anger rose.
Sam looked from one man to the other, slowly, his gaze searching their
faces. Yes, they were in earnest. A horse thief? Bony fingers pulled
at his straggling beard. This wasn’t the way men did, it wasn’t square
shooting. He did not pause to consider that Major Howard was not a born
western mountainman. He stared defiantly.
“So yuh came up here to make me out a hoss thief?”
The sheriff stepped forward and spoke gruffly to the major. “I’m not
here, Howard, to help you badger this old coot. You swore out a warrant
for his arrest. I’m here to serve it.” He turned to Sam. “Get whatever
you want to take along. This warrant calls for your arrest--charge is
stealing one black mare.”
Sam blinked and his eyes shifted to the sheriff’s face. In all his
life the law had never laid a hand on him. He had had some experiences
of his own with horse thieves. When he caught a man with the goods he
handled the affair himself. And claim jumpers were met and dealt with
according to a man’s rights. He rubbed his bony fingers together. He
could explain, he could even take the sheriff to his hidden claim, he
could produce the pouch of dust. But it wasn’t the right of any man to
ask where he had been or what he had been doing. Besides, the claim
wasn’t staked and if fools who didn’t know pockets and glory holes
saw that ground there’d be a rush and the whole ridge would be turned
upside down. His eyes glinted brightly as he turned toward his door.
He backed past the table and one hand lifted to the belt hanging from
its willow peg. His gnarled fingers closed around the familiar butt of
his forty-five Colt. The gun slid down and snuggled against his hip.
Then he shuffled toward the door.
“Get! Get--afore I blast yuh!” he whispered hoarsely as he stepped into
the sunshine.
The deputy saw the gun first. He came to life with a jerk and his hand
shot down to his own gun. Sam shot from the hip. His aim wasn’t steady;
the black muzzle wavered a little because Sam’s old eyes couldn’t see
clearly. Black-powder smoke billowed in a blue-white cloud, filling the
doorway. Through the smoke Sam saw the deputy double over, then pitch
forward. He was swinging his gun around to bring it down on the major
when the sheriff’s boot shot upward and sent it spinning from his hand.
The officer’s voice out through the smoke.
“Now you got something to answer for, you old coot!”
He stepped forward and a heavy hand dropped upon Sam’s shoulder. He was
jerked forward and in less than a minute his wrists were handcuffed
together. He stood silently watching the sheriff and the major plug
the deputy’s wound. The man was weak and sick, but he was alive.
The major straightened and glared at Sam. He had never intended to have
the old fellow jailed, he merely wanted to scare him into revealing
what he had done with the black mare. Sam’s reaction irritated and
puzzled him. Now the old fool could take whatever the law handed him;
the major made up his mind to that.
Sheriff Miller had a different slant on the affair. He was a
mountainman himself. All his life he had dealt with cowhands and
miners. He recognized that Sam was acting as most of them would act
under the same conditions. He blamed himself because he had thought Sam
too old to have any fire left.
“I’m not too proud of this job,” he said sourly to the major.
“You’d better do your duty,” the major snapped.
The sheriff nodded his head. He turned to Sam.
“Now get what you want. We’re going. I’ll go into the cabin with you
just to make sure you don’t try anything else.”
“I don’t reckon I need anything,” Sam answered.
4. Desert Winter
Life for the wild horses in the desert was a never-ending battle for
food, for protection, and for the chance to slip through the gray
dawn to a water hole where eager muzzles could be thrust into murky,
yellow water. The chestnut stallion was a hard but wise leader. He
knew that man controlled the best of the grazing lands, that mounted
riders patrolled the foothills and the deep valleys back against the
mountains. He had only savage disdain for the geldings and mares who
submitted to man’s saddle and steel bit. No patriot ever cherished his
freedom more than the chestnut stallion.
In the desert there were Indian hunters to be watched for. The Navajo
people were not like the whites in their way of life. They were
wandering nomads, following their herds, never making a home in any
permanent spot. In summer they built branch-covered shelters. In the
winter they crowded into log and mud hogans. They were children of
the wild, untamed desert, as cunning as the gray lobo. The Navajo had
strange customs. Among them the women owned the sheep, the goats, the
hogan and the children. The men owned the horses, and the hunting
weapons, along with the turquoise jewelry they wore. Horses to a Navajo
were the same as gold to a white man, they were his measure of wealth
and standing. So the Navajo men stalked the wild bands, capturing colts
and mares to add to their wealth.
The Navajos knew every water hole in the desert. Like the tawny cougar
and the savage lobo, they knew the wild bands must drink, that sooner
or later they must slip down to the water hole. So they stalked them
near the water holes and swarmed after them, riding in relays, keeping
the band moving, keeping them from drinking or resting.
The chestnut stud considered all these things in his own way and met
the problems with sharp wits, keen eyes, and keener sense of smell,
keeping a constant, alert watch for enemies. He kept his band in the
broken country where mesas dropped away in sheer, steep slopes to the
depths of the sand washes. From the top of such a mesa the band could
easily thunder down into a canyon at a moment’s warning.
Lady Ebony accepted the hard life. She liked the sudden, wild charges,
the long runs under the white stars, the savage freedom which was so
costly. When the chestnut stallion sounded the alarm she always led
the rushing charge, flying ahead of the reaching, pounding hoofs of
the mares and colts, slowing her speed to allow them to overtake her.
The band foraged for grass at dawn or in the first grayness of dusk,
coming out of a canyon to spread over the mesatop. Then as she pulled
the scant grass she remembered the high mountain mesa where the grass
grew knee-deep and cold, crystal streams rushed over gleaming rocks.
She remembered the red and the yellow and the purple flowers, the solid
masses of blue lupine, the flaming orange of acres of daisies.
This silent, terrible land was in such sharp contrast to the mountain
country that the chestnut’s desire for it seemed foolish to her. Fear
of man grew but slowly within her. Man had always been her friend and
protector. Sam with his lumps of sugar and his petting, Tex riding up
in the fall with the rest of the major’s boys to take her down to the
winter pastures. The savage anger of the big stallion when he smelled
man scent, the mad charge down the rocky slopes, these were confusing
to her, but she accepted them and began to snort and shake her head
when the scent came to her.
The desert was a mass of broken mesas, eroded hills, and deep-gutted
canyons. There were many rivers, but no water. The eyes of the band
could see far, but the scene was the same always. And yet this vast
world was filled with a silence that was calm and restful. The desert
was a canvas of shifting, changing color. Under the white-hot glare
of the day the reds and yellows flamed. At dawn and at sunset it was
purple and mauve and steel blue. And always to the north stood the
shining mountains, etched blue against the sky, with the white snow
line gleaming like a crown above the deep blue of the forests. Lady
Ebony often stood and stared through the haze at the ragged outline of
the Crazy Kill Range.
Summer slipped past, and fall rains woke the short grass to life, a
brief and hurried growth before the cold and the snow came. The wild
ones cropped avidly, pulling the tender shoots from their crowns,
tasting them eagerly before swallowing them. The chestnut stallion
kept the band moving south, down off the higher benches to the deeper
canyons where blizzards would not rage so fiercely.
Indian summer slipped away and the purple mists lifted from the
cathedral rocks and the spires of the ship rocks. The air cleared and
the mornings were cold, with white frost covering the ground. The colts
frisked and bucked and raced in little circles until the sun warmed
their shaggy coats. Even the mares became spirited when the white
frost was on them. Lady Ebony slipped into the slower, less wild way
of the mares. She did not run except when the band took alarm, but she
still ran at the head of the thundering herd.
One day a wind came down out of the north. It carried fine snowflakes
which swirled along the ground and curled upward on the lee side of
rocks. Toward night the storm thickened until it became a driving
blizzard riding a shrieking wind. The horses turned their tails to
the lash of the storm and drifted slowly south, led by one of the old
mares. That night they bunched close together in a deep canyon. They
crowded under a projecting lip of sandstone where the wind and the snow
did not strike them. Fine white particles sifted down, covering their
shaggy coats and making them look like white horses as they stood with
their heads down waiting for the blizzard to blow itself out.
The shelter they had found had been formed centuries before by the
action of wind and water on the layers of rock forming the crust of
the desert. The upper layer was hard and did not weather away as fast
as the lower layers. Thus a great, projecting roof was formed with a
ceiling that sloped back under the cliff. A thousand years earlier,
brown men had passed that way. They had halted in the bed of the canyon
and looked up at the great cave. They had held a council and decided to
build a city under the rim.
Those brown cliff dwellers had built houses of hewn stone, room upon
room, like apartments. Their masonry still stood, back under the rim.
The ceremonial kivas built under the ground in circular form with laced
log roofs had caved in but the tiers of houses stood against the cliff,
their open windows staring into the canyon. The brown men had vanished,
down into the canyon, south toward the plains, and west toward the
great ocean, but their homes remained.
The wild horses saw the houses piled story upon story, the staring
windows and the heaps of broken pottery decorated with strange designs.
They were not afraid of the dead houses because the man smell had long
since vanished, carried away by the wind and the heat, toward the south
and the west.