There had been a profound reason behind the sudden turning of Terry
Hollis's horse and his riding down the hill. For as he sat the saddle,
quivering, he felt rising in him an all-controlling impulse that was new
to him, a fierce and sudden passion.
It was joyous, free, terrible in its force--that wish to slay. The
emotion had grown, held back by the very force of a mental thread of
reason, until, at the very moment when the thread was about to fray and
snap, and he would be flung into sudden action, the booming voice of Joe
Pollard had cleared his mind as an acid clears a cloudy precipitate. He
saw himself for the first time in several moments, and what he saw made
him shudder.
And still in fear of himself he swung El Sangre and put him down the
slope recklessly. Never in his life had he ridden as he rode in those
first five minutes down the pitch of the hill. He gave El Sangre his head
to pick his own way, and he confined his efforts to urging the great
stallion along. The blood-bay went like the wind, passing up-jutting
boulders with a swish of gravel knocked from his plunging hoofs against
the rock.
Even in Terry's passion of self-dread he dimly appreciated the prowess of
the horse, and when they shot onto the level going of the valley road, he
called El Sangre out of the mad gallop and back to the natural pace, a
gait as swinging and smooth as running water--yet still the road poured
beneath them at the speed of an ordinary gallop. It was music to Terry
Hollis, that matchless gait. He leaned and murmured to the pricking ears
with that soft, gentle voice which horses love. The glorious head of El
Sangre went up a little, his tail flaunted somewhat more proudly; from
the quiver of his nostrils to the ringing beat of his black hoofs he
bespoke his confidence that he bore the king of men on his back.
And the pride of the great horse brought back some of Terry's own waning
self-confidence. His father had been up in him as he faced Slim Dugan, he
knew. Once more he had escaped from the commission of a crime. But for
how long would he succeed in dodging that imp of the perverse which
haunted him?
It was like the temptation of a drug--to strike just once, and thereafter
to be raised above himself, take to himself the power of evil which is
greater than the power of good. The blow he struck at the sheriff had
merely served to launch him on his way. To strike down was not now what
he wanted, but to kill! To feel that once he had accomplished the destiny
of some strong man, to turn a creature of mind and soul, ambition and
hope, at a single stroke into so many pounds of flesh, useless, done for.
What could be more glorious? What could be more terrible? And the desire
to strike, as he had looked into the sneering face of Slim Dugan, had
been almost overmastering.
Sooner or later he would strike that blow. Sooner or later he would
commit the great and controlling crime. And the rest of his life would be
a continual evasion of the law.
If they would only take him into their midst, the good and the law-
abiding men of the mountains! If they would only accept him by word or
deed and give him a chance to prove that he was honest! Even then the
battle would be hard, against temptation; but they were too smugly sure
that his downfall was certain. Twice they had rejected him without cause.
How long would it be before they actually raised their hands against him?
How long would it be before they violently put him in the class of his
father?
Grinding his teeth, he swore that if that time ever came when they took
his destiny into their own hands, he would make it a day to be marked in
red all through the mountains!
The cool, fresh wind against his face blew the sullen anger away. And
when he came close to the town, he was his old self.
A man on a tall gray, with the legs of speed and plenty of girth at the
cinches, where girth means lung power, twisted out of a side trail and
swung past El Sangre at a fast gallop. The blood-bay snorted and came
hard against the bit in a desire to follow. On the range, when he led his
wild band, no horse had ever passed El Sangre and hardly the voice of the
master could keep him back now. Terry loosed him. He did not break into a
gallop, but fled down the road like an arrow, and the gray came back to
him slowly and surely until the rider twisted around and swore in
surprise.
He touched his mount with the spurs; there was a fresh start from the
gray, a lunge that kicked a little spurt of dust into the nostrils of El
Sangre. He snorted it out. Terry released his head completely, and now,
as though in scorn refusing to break into his sweeping gallop, El Sangre
flung himself ahead to the full of his natural pace.
And the gray came back steadily. The town was shoving up at them at the
end of the road more and more clearly. The rider of the gray began to
curse. He was leaning forward, jockeying his horse, but still El Sangre
hurled himself forward powerfully, smoothly. They passed the first shanty
on the outskirts of the town with the red head of the stallion at the hip
of the other. Before they straightened into the main street, El Sangre
had shoved his nose past the outstretched head of the gray. Then the
other rider jerked back on his reins with a resounding oath. Terry
imitated; one call to El Sangre brought him back to a gentle amble.
"Going to sell this damned skate," declared the stranger, a lean-faced
man of middle age with big, patient, kindly eyes. "If he can't make
another hoss break out of a pace, he ain't worth keeping! But I'll tell a
man that you got quite a hoss there, partner!"
"Not bad," admitted Terry modestly. "And the gray has pretty good points,
it seems to me."
They drew the horses back to a walk.
"Ought to have. Been breeding for him fifteen years--and here I get him
beat by a hoss that don't break out of a pace."
He swore again, but less violently and with less disappointment. He was
beginning to run his eyes appreciatively over the superb lines of El
Sangre. There were horses and horses, and he began to see that this was
one in a thousand--or more.
"What's the strain in that stallion?" he asked.
"Mustang," answered Terry.
"Mustang? Man, man, he's close to sixteen hands!"
"Nearer fifteen three. Yes, he stands pretty high. Might call him a freak
mustang, I guess. He reverts to the old source stock."
"I've heard something about that," nodded the other. "Once in a
generation they say a mustang turns up somewhere on the range that breeds
back to the old Arab. And that red hoss is sure one of 'em."
They dismounted at the hotel, the common hitching rack for the town, and
the elder man held out his hand.
"I'm Jack Baldwin."
"Terry'll do for me, Mr. Baldwin. Glad to know you."
Baldwin considered his companion with a slight narrowing of the eyes.
Distinctly this "Terry" was not the type to be wandering about the
country known by his first name alone. There were reasons and reasons why
men chose to conceal their family names in the mountains, however, and
not all of them were bad. He decided to reserve judgment. Particularly
since he noted a touch of similarity between the high head and the
glorious lines of El Sangre and the young pride and strength of Terry
himself. There was something reassuringly clean and frank about both
horse and rider, and it pleased Baldwin.
They made their purchases together in the store.
"Where might you be working?" asked Baldwin.
"For Joe Pollard."
"Him?" There was a lifting of the eyebrows of Jack Baldwin. "What line?"
"Cutting wood, just now."
Baldwin shook his head.
"How Pollard uses so much help is more'n I can see. He's got a range back
of the hills, I know, and some cattle on it; but he's sure a waster of
good labor. Take me, now. I need a hand right bad to help me with the
cows."
"I'm more or less under contract with Pollard," said Terry. He added:
"You talk as if Pollard might be a queer sort."
Baldwin seemed to be disarmed by this frankness.
"Ain't you noticed anything queer up there? No? Well, maybe Pollard is
all right. He's sort of a newcomer around here. That big house of his
ain't more'n four or five years old. But most usually a man buys land and
cattle around here before he builds him a big house. Well--Pollard is an
open-handed cuss, I'll say that for him, and maybe they ain't anything in
the talk that goes around."
What that talk was Terry attempted to discover, but he could not. Jack
Baldwin was a cautious gossip.
Since they had finished buying, the storekeeper perched on the edge of
his selling counter and began to pass the time of the day. It began with
the usual preliminaries, invariable in the mountains.
"What's the news out your way?"
"Nothing much to talk about. How's things with you and your family?"
"Fair to middlin' and better. Patty had the croup and we sat up two
nights firing up the croup kettle. Now he's better, but he still coughs
terrible bad."
And so on until all family affairs had been exhausted. This is a
formality. One must not rush to the heart of his news or he will mortally
offend the sensitive Westerner.
This is the approved method. The storekeeper exemplified it, and having
talked about nothing for ten minutes, quietly remarked that young
Larrimer was out hunting a scalp, had been drinking most of the morning,
and was now about the town boasting of what he intended to do.
"And what's more, he's apt to do it."
"Larrimer is a no-good young skunk," said Baldwin, with deliberate heat.
"It's sure a crime when a boy that ain't got enough brains to fill a
peanut shell can run over men just because he's spent his life learning
how to handle firearms. He'll meet up with his finish one of these days."
"Maybe he will, maybe he won't," said the storekeeper, and spat with
precision and remarkable power through the window beside him. "That's
what they been saying for the last two years. Dawson come right down here
to get him; but it was Dawson that was got. And Kennedy was called a good
man with a gun--but Larrimer beat him to the draw and filled him plumb
full of lead."
"I know," growled Baldwin. "Kept on shooting after Kennedy was down and
had the gun shot out of his hand and was helpless. And yet they call that
self-defense."
"We can't afford to be too particular about shootings," said the
storekeeper. "Speaking personal, I figure that a shooting now and then
lets the blood of the youngsters and gives 'em a new start. Kind of like
to see it."
"But who's Larrimer after now?"
"A wild-goose chase, most likely. He says he's heard that the son of old
Black Jack is around these parts, and that he's going to bury the
outlaw's son after he's salted him away with lead."
"Black Jack's son! Is he around town?"
The tone sent a chill through Terry; it contained a breathless horror
from which there was no appeal. In the eye of Jack Baldwin, fair-minded
man though he was, Black Jack's son was judged and condemned as worthless
before his case had been heard.
"I dunno," said the storekeeper; "but if Larrimer put one of Black Jack's
breed under the ground, I'd call him some use to the town."
Jack Baldwin was agreeing fervently when the storekeeper made a violent
signal.
"There's Larrimer now, and he looks all fired up."
Terry turned and saw a tall fellow standing in the doorway. He had been
prepared for a youth; he saw before him a hardened man of thirty and
more, gaunt-faced, bristling with the rough beard of some five or six
days' growth, a thin, cruel, hawklike face.