"Sure, I suppose you do—now." Shannon’s eyes flickered again, this time to
the locked cupboard. "Heard tell—leastways Callie’s been spoutin’ it
around—that you was with General Forrest."
"Yes."
"You sure musta pulled outta th’ war better’n th’ rest of us poor Rebs.
Got you a couple of blooded hosses an’ a good heavy money belt. A sight
more luck than th’ rest of us had—"
"Don’t include yourself in the empty-pocket brigade, Johnny," Topham
rapped out. "I don’t see you going without eating money, drinking money
either, more’s a pity. And if you’re really looking for Rennie now, you’ll
find him down at the course."
Shannon’s smile was gone. He straightened away from the door frame which
had been supporting his shoulders. "Thanks a lot, Reese." He left with the
same abruptness as he had from the stable alley.
"So you’re riding yourself." Topham ignored the departure. "León Rivas,
Bartolomé’s son, will be up on Oro; he always rides for Rennie. He’s
younger than you, but I’d say"—the gambler studied Drew’s lithe body
critically—"you’re about matched in weight. I’d shuck that gun belt,
though, and anything else you can. And good luck, Kirby. You’ll need all
of it you can muster."
An hour later Drew followed Topham’s advice, leaving gun belt, carbine,
and everything else he could unload in Callie’s keeping before he swung up
on Shiloh. The big colt was nervous, tending to dance sideways, tossing
his head high. Drew concentrated on the business at hand, striving to
forget the crowd opening up to let him through, shouting encouragement or
disparagement. Ahead was the appointed track, a beaten stretch of earth,
part of the old road leading to the mines. The Kentuckian talked to Shiloh
as they went, keeping up a stream of words to firm the bond between horse
and rider.
There was a knot of men surrounding the golden horse, and as his rider
mounted, Oro put on a good show, rearing to paw the air with his forefeet
as if he wished nothing better than to meet his gray rival in an impromptu
boxing match. Then he nodded his head vigorously, acknowledging the shouts
from his enthusiastic supporters. Beside that magnificent blaze of color
Shiloh was drab, a shadow about to be put to flight by the sun.
They were to break at a starting shot, head to the big tree which made an
excellent landmark in the flat valley, rounding its patch of shade before
returning to the starting point. Drew brought Shiloh, still prancing and
playing with his bit, up beside Oro. The slim boy on the golden horse shot
the Kentuckian a shoulder-side look and grinned, raising his quirt in
salute as Drew nodded and smiled back.
Some of the noise died. _Don_ Lorenzo pointed a pistol skyward. Drew
strove to make his body one with Shiloh’s small easy movements. The big
gray knew very well what was in progress, was tensing now for a swift
getaway leap. And he made it on the crack of the gun.
But if Shiloh had easily outdistanced all opposition before on those
improvised tracks, he was now meeting a far more equal race. The gray
colt’s stride was effortless, he was pounding out with power—more than
Drew had ever known him to exert. Yet those golden legs matched his pace,
reach for reach, hoofbeat for hoofbeat.
"Come on, boy!" Drew’s urging was lost in the wild shouting of the
spectators. Some who were mounted were trying to parallel the runners. But
Shiloh responded to his rider’s encouragement even if he could not hear or
understand. Drew would never use quirt or spur on the stud. What Shiloh
had to give must come willingly and because he delighted in the giving.
They swept in and around the shade of the tree, made the arc to return.
That golden head with its tossing crown of black forelock; it _was_
slipping back! Oro was no longer nose to nose with Shiloh, rather now nose
to neck. Drew could hear Rivas’ voice encouraging, pleading....
A mass of men, mounted and on foot, funneled the runners down to where the
line of rope lay straight to mark the finish. Oro was creeping up once
more, inch by hard-won inch.
Drew’s head went up, his throat was rasped raw by the Yell which had taken
desperate gray-coated troopers down hedge-bordered roads in Kentucky and
steep ravines in Tennessee, sending them, if need be, straight into the
mouths of Yankee field guns. And the Yell brought Shiloh home, only a nose
ahead of his rival—as if he had been spurred by the now outlawed war cry.
Then Drew found he had his hands full trying to pull up the colt and
persuade him that the race was indeed over.
5
A black mule came up beside Drew as he slowly pulled Shiloh down to a
canter. Fenner, a wide grin splitting his beard, bellowed:
"That shore was a race! Need any help, son?"
Drew shook his head, wanting to bring Shiloh under full control at a rate
which would quiet the colt before they headed back to the furor about the
finish line. And only now did he have time to relish his own excited pride
and pleasure.
Since he had first seen Shiloh on that scouting trip back to Kentucky in
’64, he had known he must someday own the gray colt. He had lain out in
the brush for a long time that morning to watch the head groom of Red
Springs put the horse through his paces in the training paddock. And
watching jealously, Drew had realized that Shiloh was one of those mounts
that a man discovers only once in his life-time, though he may breed and
love their kind all his years.
Drew would have been content with Shiloh as a mount and a companion, but
now he was sure that the colt was more, so much more. This gray was going
to be one of the Great Ones, a racer and a sire—to leave his mark in horse
history and stamp his own quality on foals throughout miles and years in
this southwestern land. Drew licked the grit of dust from his lips, filled
his lungs with a deep breath as Shiloh turned under rein pressure.
It was a long time before the Kentuckian was able to separate Shiloh from
his ring of new admirers and bring him back to the stable. Drew refused
several offers for the colt, some of them so fantastic he could only
believe their makers sun-touched or completely carried away by the
excitement of the race.
But when he found _Don_ Cazar waiting for him at Kells’, he guessed that
this was serious.
"You do not wish to sell him, I suppose?" Hunt Rennie smiled at Drew’s
prompt shake of head. "No, that would be too much to hope for, you are not
a fool. But I have something else to suggest. Reese Topham tells me you
are looking for work, preferably with horses. Well, I have a contract to
gentle some remounts for the army, and I need some experienced men to help
break them—"
Drew could not understand the sudden pinch of—could it be alarm? Here it
was: a chance to work on the Range, to know Hunt Rennie, and learn whether
_Don_ Cazar was to remain a legend or become a father. But now he was not
sure.
"I’m no breaker, suh. I’ve gentled, yes—but eastern style."
"Breaking horses can be brutal, though we don’t ride with red spurs on the
Range. Suppose we try some of the eastern methods and see how they work on
our wild ones. Do you think you can do it?"
"A man can’t tell what he can do until he tries." Drew still hedged.
There was a trace of frown now between Rennie’s brows. "You told Topham
you wanted work." His tone implied that he found Drew’s present hesitancy
odd. And—from _Don_ Cazar’s point of view—it was. Tubacca was still in a
slump; the rest of the valley held about as many jobs for a man as Drew
had fingers on one hand. The Range was the big holding, and to ride there
meant security and an established position in the community. Also, perhaps
it was not an offer lightly made to an unknown newcomer.
"I can’t promise you blue-grass training, suh. That has to begin with a
foal." He hoped Rennie would credit his wavering to a modest appraisal of
his own qualifications.
"Blue-grass training?"
As his father repeated the expression Drew realized the slip of tongue he
had made. And if he took the job, there might be other slips, perhaps far
more serious ones. But to refuse, after Topham had spoken for him ... he
was caught in a pinch with cause for suspicion closing in on either side.
"I was in Kentucky for about a year after the war. I went to stay with a
friend—"
"But you _are_ from Texas?"
Was Rennie watching him too intently? No, he must ride a tighter rein on
his imagination. There was no reason in the wide world why _Don_ Cazar
should expect him to be anyone except Drew Kirby.
"Yes, suh. Didn’t have anythin’ to go back to there. Thought I’d try for a
new start out here." There was the story of several thousand veterans.
Rennie should have heard it a good many times already.
"Well, come and try some blue-grass training on our colts. And should you
let this stud of yours run with a picked _manada_ of mares, I could
promise good fees."
"Suppose I said yes if the fees were some of the foals—of my own choosing,
suh?" Drew asked.
Rennie ran a finger across the brand which scarred the gray’s hide. "Spur
R—that’s a new one to me."
"My own. Heard tell as how there’s a custom of the country that a slick
this old can be branded and claimed by anyone bringing him in. I wasn’t
going to lose him that way should he do any straying, accidental or
intentional."
_Don_ Cazar laughed. "That’s using your head, Kirby. All right. It’s a
deal as far as I’m concerned. You draw wrangler’s pay and take stud fees
in foals—say one in three, your choosing. Register that brand of yours
with _Don_ Lorenzo to be on the safe side. Then you’re welcome to run Spur
R with the Double R on the Range."
He held out his hand, and Drew grasped it for a quick shake to seal their
agreement. He was committed now—to the Range and to a small partnership
with its master. But he still wondered if he had made the right choice.
Two days later he dropped bedroll and saddlebags on the spare bunk at one
end of the long adobe-walled room and studied his surroundings with deep
curiosity. It was a fort, all right, this whole stronghold of Rennie’s—not
just the bunkhouse which formed part of a side wall. Bunkhouse, feed
store, and storage room, blacksmith shop, cookhouse, stables, main house,
the quarters for the married men and their families—all arranged to
enclose a patio into which choice stock could be herded at the time of an
attack, with a curbed well in the center.
The roofs of all the buildings were flat, with loopholed parapets to be
manned at need. A sentry post on the main house was occupied twenty-four
hours a day by relays of Pimas. A loaded rifle leaned at every window
opening, ready to be fired through loopholes in the wooden war shutters.
The walls were twenty-five inches thick, and mounted on the roof of the
stable, facing the hills from which Apache attacks usually came, was a
small brass cannon—_Don_ Cazar’s legacy from troops marching away in ’61.
What he saw of the resources of this private fort led Drew to accept the
other stories he had heard of the Range, like the one that _Don_ Cazar’s
men practiced firing blindfolded at noise targets to be prepared for night
raids. The place was self-contained and almost self-supporting, with
stores of food, good water, its own forge and leather shop, its own
craftsmen and experts. No wonder the Apaches had given up trying to break
this Anglo outpost and Rennie had accomplished what others found
impossible. He had held his land secure against the worst and most
unbeatable enemy this country had nourished.
There were other Range forts, smaller, but as stoutly and ingeniously
designed, each built beside a water source on Rennie land—defense points
for _Don_ Cazar’s riders, their garrisons rotated at monthly intervals.
And Drew had to thank that system for having taken Johnny Shannon away
from the Stronghold before the Kentuckian arrived. Rennie’s foster son was
now riding inspection between one water-hole fortification and another.
But Drew was uncertain just how he would rub along with Shannon in the
future.
"_Señor_ Kirby, _Don_ Cazar—he would speak with you in the Casa Grande,"
León Rivas called through one of the patio side windows.
"Coming." Drew left the huddle of his possessions on the bunk.
The Casa Grande of the Stronghold was a high-ceilinged, five-room building
about sixty feet long, the kitchen making a right angle to the other rooms
and joining the smoke house to form part of another wall for the patio.
Mesquite logs, adze-hewn and only partially smoothed, were placed over the
doorways, and the plank doors themselves were slung on hand-wrought iron
hinges or on leather straps, from oak turning-posts. Drew knocked on the
age-darkened surface of the big door.
"Kirby? Come in."
Here in contrast to the brilliant sunlight of the patio was a dusky
coolness. There were no glass panes in the windows. Manta, the unbleached
muslin which served to cover such openings in the frontier ranches, was
tacked taut, allowing in air but only subdued light. The walls had been
smoothly plastered, and as in Topham’s office, lengths of colorful woven
materials and a couple of Navajo blankets served as hangings. Rugs of
cougar and wolf skin were scattered on the beaten earth of the floor.
There was a tall carved cupboard with a grilled door, a bookcase, and two
massive chests shoved back against the walls. And over the stone mantel of
the fireplace hung a picture of a morose-looking, bearded man wearing a
steel breastplate, the canvas dim and dark with age and smoke.
_Don_ Cazar was seated at a table as massive as the chests, a pile of
papers before him flanked by two four-branch candelabra of native silver.
Bartolomé Rivas’ more substantial bulk weighed down the rawhide seat of
another chair more to one side.
"Sit down—" Rennie nodded to the seat in front of the table. "Smoke?" He
pushed forward a silver box holding the long cigarillos of the border
country. Drew shook his head.
"Whisky? Wine?" He gestured to a tray with waiting glasses.
"Sherry." Drew automatically answered without thought.
"What do you think of the stock you saw down in the corral?" _Don_ Cazar
poured a honey-colored liquid from the decanter into a small glass.
As the Kentuckian raised it to sip, the scent of the wine quirked time for
him, making this for a fleeting moment the dining room at Red Springs
during a customary after-dinner gathering of the men of the household. The
talk there, too, had been of horses—always horses. Then Drew came back in
a twitch of eyelid to the here and now, to Hunt Rennie watching him with a
measuring he did not relish, to Bartolomé’s round face with its
close-to-hostile expression. Deliberately Drew sipped again before
answering the question.
"I’d say, suh, if they’re but a sample of Range stock, the breed is
excellent. However——"
"However what, _señor_?" Bartolomé’s eyes challenged Drew. "In this
territory, even in Sonora, there are none to compare with the horses of
this hacienda."
"That is not what I was about to say, _Señor_ Rivas. But if _Don_ Cazar
wishes to try the eastern methods of training, these horses are too old.
You begin with a yearling colt, not three-year-olds."
"To break a foal! What madness!" Now Bartolomé’s face expressed shock.
"Not breaking," Drew corrected, "training. It is another method
altogether. One puts a weanling on a rope halter, accustoms him to the
feel of the hackamore, of being with men. Then he grows older knowing no
fear or strangeness."
The Mexican looked from Drew to _Don_ Cazar, his shock fading to
puzzlement. Rennie nodded.
"_Sí, amigo_, so it is done—in Kentucky and Virginia. But this time we
must deal with the older ones. Can you modify those methods, gentle
without breaking? A colt with the fire still in him, but saddle-broke, is
worth much more—"
"I can try. But you have already said, suh, that you don’t allow rough
breakin’ here." Drew’s half suspicion crystallized into belief. _Don_
Cazar had not really wanted another wrangler at all; he had wanted
Shiloh—and his foals. Well, perhaps he would find he did have a wrangler
who could deliver the goods into the bargain.
"No, but it is always well to learn new ways. I have been in Kentucky,
Kirby. Perhaps some of their methods would not work on the Range. On the
other hand, others might. As you have said—we can but try." He picked up
the top sheet of paper and began to read:
"_Bayos-blancos_—light duns—two. _Bayos-azafranados_—saffrons—one.
_Bayos-narajados_—orange duns—none——"
"There was one," Bartolomé interrupted. "The mare, she was lost at Cañon
del Palomas."
Rennie frowned, "_Sí_, the mare. _Bayos-tigres_—striped ones —three.
_Bayos-cebrunos_—smoked duns—two. _Grullas_—blues—four. Roans—six.
Blacks—three. Bays—four. Twenty-five three-year-olds. You won’t be
expected to take on the whole _remuda_, Kirby. Select any six of your own
choosing and use your methods of gentling on them. We’ll make a test this
way."
Bartolomé uttered a sound closer to a snort than anything else. And Drew
guessed how he stood with the Mexican foreman. Rennie might have faith, or
pretend to have faith, in some new method of training, but Rivas was a
conservative who preferred the tried and true and undoubtedly considered
the Kentuckian an interloper.
"Now, the matter of Shiloh..."
Drew finished the sherry with appreciation. He was beginning to see the
amusing side of this conference. Drew’s work on the Range settled, Rennie
was about to get to what he really wanted. But _Don_ Cazar’s first words
were a little startling.
"We’ll keep him close-in the water corral. To turn a stud of eastern
breeding loose is dangerous——"
"You mean he might be stolen, suh?" Drew clicked his empty glass down on
the table.
"No, he might be killed!" And Rennie’s tone indicated he meant just that.
"How...why?"
"There are wild-horse bands out there, though we’re trying to capture or
run them off the Range. And a wild stud will always try to add mares to
his band. Because he has fought many times to keep or take mares, he is a
formidable and vicious opponent, one that an imported, tamed stud can
rarely best. Right now, coming into Big Rock well for water is a pinto
that has killed three other stallions—including a black I imported back in
’60—and two of them were larger, heavier animals than he.
"The Trinfans are moving down into that section this week. I hope they can
break up that band, run down the stud anyway. He has courage and cunning,
but his blood is not a line we want for foals on this range. So Shiloh
stays here at the Stronghold; don’t risk him loose."
"Yes, suh. What about these wild ones—they worth huntin’?"
"They’re mixed; some are scrubs, inbred, poor stuff. But a few fine ones
turn up. Mostly when they do they’re strays or bred from strays—escaped
from horse thieves or Indians. If the mustangers here pick up any branded
ones, they’re returned to the owners, if possible, or sold at a yearly
auction. By the old Mexican law the hunting season for horses runs from
October to March. Foals are old enough then to be branded. Speaking of
foals, you left your mare and the filly in town?"
"Kells’ll give them stable room till next month. I can bring them out
then."
"We’ll have a delivery of remounts to make to the camp about then. You can
help haze those in and pick up your own stock on return."