would set a soul to quaking. It pierced Manuel’s dreams and he muttered
in his sleep a prayer for protection from the Evil One. The jack pranced
around and around his victim, and up and down the pasture, wild with the
joy of battle, magnificent in his superb strength and the pride of
victory. Toward dawn he abandoned the carcass and drove off the
terror-stricken mares as the just spoils of the conqueror.
Big white clouds boiled up back of the mountains that afternoon, with a
stiff wind from the southeast behind them; and at sunset the heavens
opened of their blessed treasure. Manuel and Tommy lay in the bunkhouse
listening to the thunder of rain on the sod roof. A burro came to the
door and poked his patient head inside, seeking warmth and a friendly
dry spot.
“Come in!” cried Manuel cheerily. “Take a chair. Tommy, give him your
bed. Ain’t that music, though? Hark! Oh, the cattle! Can’t you see them
soaking in it, boy?”
A yellow mongrel ousted the doubtful burro from the doorway and began
nosing about for a place to rest his uneasy rump. The roof was leaking
in strong, hearty streams, and Salazar sprawled on his back, letting the
water run on to his chest. He was smiling placidly. Tommy snuggled into
the blankets and pictured to himself a new land of much grass, and
clear-eyed, contented cows and high-tailed calves.
“The curse is lifted,” Manuel observed piously. “Yes, sir. The dear God
sent the jack to kill that stallion. How else could it be? What do you
think, Tommy, boy?”
“I reckon so,” said Tommy.
IX
NEUTRIA
My name is Neutria. It means Beaver, and they gave it me because I tuck
my tail. Nobody but Chappo ever called me a pretty horse, but Chappo
once said in my hearing that my ugly roan hide covered more beauty than
all the girls of Sonora possessed; and Chappo really knew everything
worth knowing.
He was not my first master. There was another, to speak of whom is
pain--a tall man, with only one eye, and a long, sandy mustache, stained
of the tobacco he chewed perpetually. This person owned my mother and we
lived in a small pasture among the lesser hills of the San José range.
What he did to sustain life was never quite plain to us, because the
land he held remained uncultivated and he spent much time by himself in
his dirty shack, drinking from a demijohn which he kept hidden under
some sacks in a corner. Oftentimes he would come from his drinking and
drive us into a corral he had constructed of ocatilla. There he would
beat my mother, and chase us about and about. I was very young then and
he spared me. She was terribly afraid of him, and whenever he roared at
her, even though it was in the sixty-acre field, where he could be
evaded, she fell to trembling and would walk falteringly to the halter
he held out.
There were nights when he forgot us entirely and left us in a small
wooden pen, without anything to eat or drink. Occasionally a calf was
dragged up and shoved in with us, and it would bawl for a day and a
night for the mother from whose side it had been torn. After a while he
would brand the little creature with his own mark of the inverted
pitchfork. In this manner he gathered a respectable bunch of cattle,
though I know of two cows only which he ever bought.
This is not the place to tell how he broke me to the saddle. He made me
obey him, but he did not break my spirit, even though my sides were
bloody from his savage anger. Although Sloan branded all else he could
get, on me he never put the iron.
“What for you haven’t got the Pitchfork on that li’l’ horse, Sloan?” a
cowboy asked him one day at Buzzard’s Feast.
“He don’t need it, this hoss don’t. He’s so doggone ornery nobody’d
steal him,” said my master.
Later I heard the other--a roaring, swaggering boy, with a kind eye and
soothing hands--tell a friend that the only animal Sloan did not brand
was the one which he owned legally.
Whenever the strength was in me, I fought him. He was a powerful man,
with a punishing knee-grip and a poise that was almost unshakable,
whatever his condition. But oppression begets cunning, and ride as he
might, there were times when I could hurl him off. If a horse take
thought when he starts his pitch, instead of bucking in blind, raving
anger, there is a chance that he will have the victory. I mastered a
trick of rocketing straight into the air and whirling about back under
the rider, before my feet touched the ground. This is difficult, but
imparts a really terrific shock; even Sloan could not withstand it. Of
course he would beat and spur me almost to death when he was able to
walk again. If that method of fighting him failed, there was another,
dangerous to horse and rider alike. I would rear high, with my head
thrown back, whereupon Sloan would kick his feet free of the stirrups
lest he be caught under me when I toppled. Then, before he could
recover, my head would shoot down between my forelegs and once more I
would go to pitching. It was very efficacious, this stratagem, and the
pleasure of it was much enhanced if the ground was rocky or there were
cactus and mesquite into which he could be flung.
In spite of the endless cruelty to which Sloan subjected me, he taught
me much. Whatever else he might be, he was a cowman; but he knew and
practiced a lot that no honest cowman should know. Sometimes he would
reverse the shoes on my feet that the impress on the ground might appear
to be a trail leading in the opposite direction to his line of travel.
He rode much at night, so that I became expert at picking my way down
rock-cluttered declivities in the blackest of the dark. Once when he
fled before a body of horsemen which had discovered three calves hogtied
in a box cañon, I managed to distance them. Thereupon he alighted and
muffled my hoofs with gunny-sacks, that he might follow a stony
creek-bed without sound.
“Damn, but you kin climb out when you want to,” he said grudgingly, when
we were safe at home.
Because I learned quickly and never forgot, Sloan held his hand from
killing me in any of his outbursts of rage. At least a dozen times did
he tie me fast to a snubbing-post and belabor my head and neck and ribs
with a stout club, until I grew sick from pain and my glazing eyes
warned him that he had touched the limit of my endurance. Then he would
desist, for I was of value to him. These fits of frenzy were occasioned
by the most trifling happenings. Perhaps when he came to drive in my
mother and me, we did not move fast enough--she was growing very old--or
she exhibited a too great fear. Then he would rope us and proceed to
torture until his temper waned.
I come now to the time he killed my mother and I won a brief freedom.
The weather had been murderously hot. From January to July no drop of
rain fell and our hills grew sullenly naked and brown. Sloan’s spring
ceased its flow. He did not discover that for two days, being stupefied,
and we were terribly wasted when he turned us out to find water for
ourselves.
There was no grass. The earth showed gray as the rocks and as bare, and
the rocks gave back the heat in shimmering waves. Where the ground had
cracked under the sun, giant fissures gaped for the feet of the unwary.
Five miles from home we saw some cows stumbling hopelessly out of a
cañon and learned that there, too, the water had failed. Their dried
skins drew tight over their bones and the panic of desperation glared
from their eyes. One prodded at my mother as we passed, refusing to give
place as cattle do to horses, then sank weakly to the ground. Later she
stretched out on her side, and we knew that the end was near.
Turkey buzzards strutted everywhere, gorged to apathy. They would
cluster on a carcass, unwinking and insolent, and watch us nosing in
quest of a bite to eat. Fires had ravaged the lower ridges, and trees
and brush were stripped clean. To remain here meant slow death, and we
fared higher.
We met with cattle on the upper slopes, spent and picking their path
with care. A heifer slipped and rolled downward almost beneath our feet.
There were many orphan calves, bawling impotently against echoing
cañons’ walls, and carrion-crows hung soundlessly in flocks, their
shadows flitting swiftly over the earth in front of us. We came on the
body of a horse at a dried waterhole. He had plunged from a ledge in his
exhaustion, to die helplessly in sight of the place he sought. Crows had
torn out the eyes.
But I would not let my mother become disheartened. All these creatures
were moving downward, and some propelling force has always driven me
upward in time of stress. So I led her far among the peaks. It was
desolate enough, of a certainty--so barren that my poor, tottering
mother wanted to go back, though she knew well that the homeward stretch
was beyond her strength--but I urged her forward.
We came at last to four peaks, away up in those mountains, and threading
a defile, emerged into a cuplike draw among them; and there were
mesquite in profusion and many green things. And more precious than all,
a tiny spring bubbled behind a boulder at the north end. It would not
water more than four head, but it sufficed, and we tarried on its edge
all of one evening.
For forty days we stayed in our random home and gained in flesh and in
strength. Then, one hot, sticky evening, great banks of mist surged
upward and massed around our beloved peaks, and the rain broke from the
press and drenched the hills. We turned our backs to the driving
torrents, clamped our tails and let the cool water soak into our
crackling hides.
What a difference in the land when the sun showed again, clear and warm!
It was as a dead thing come to life. Tender shoots thrust their heads
above the hard ground; the trees stopped their complaints, and nodded
and rustled jauntily to a southwest breeze, for the sap stirred within
them and soon they would put forth new leaves. A ground squirrel emerged
from a hole, blinked impudently at us, and then dashed off across the
rocks, reckless from sheer joy of being alive. We sniffed of the good,
fresh wind and headed for the lower reaches, for there would be rare
grazing now that the rains had washed the valleys. Thus we came to live
close to our old home.
Sloan came riding on an October day.
“Crackee, but you two is fat,” he shouted gleefully.
He had a new horse, a high, long-backed sorrel with the legs of a racer.
I knew the breed,--a steel-dust valley horse, built for speed and
helpless as a wagon among our crags. Sloan drove us in and got down to
put a halter on the mare.
My mother had never concealed her dread of him. It moved him always to
an excess of fury, but she had learned terror in youth and it held her
through all her years. Now she snorted, her limbs a-tremble, and drew
back. The sweat stood out on her muzzle and dyed her neck.
“What,” Sloan bellowed, “you ol’ she-devil, you ain’t learned to quit
dodging yet? Then, by God, I’ll learn you.”
He swung a breast-yoke with all his force, smashing my mother squarely
between the ears. The mare gave a moan, a long sigh, and sank slowly to
the ground, the eyelids flickering. I saw her legs stiffen.
He kicked her where she lay and started for me, but I rushed by him,
lashing with my shoeless heels as I went. They caught him full in the
chest. I can hear yet the grunt he gave at the impact; then over he
went.
He had put up only two bars of the corral gate. I took them with a rush
and headed for the high hills. Sloan scrambled to his feet, coughing and
swearing, and ran to the sorrel. In the saddle, he fired twice, but
though the bullets slashed the ground ahead of me, I never wavered. He
let out a shout and spurred after, making ready his rope as he came. It
made my blood dance to see these futile efforts. For a valley horse is
to a mountain horse as a house kitten is to a wild-cat. It is true that
an exceptional valley horse, if turned loose in the hills young enough,
may in three years’ time develop into a fair mountain pony--with good
schooling, that is. Even then he will lack something of our depth of
chest and perfection of feet. But put a valley horse, green, in the
mountains, and he will stand and shiver and sweat, not daring to
venture. So I was elated when Sloan came pounding behind, knowing full
well that the sorrel could never follow where I would lead.
The chase led up a rocky cañon filled with post-oak, along a mesa,
through a gap, skirted a summit, and dipped downward into another cañon.
Now we were straightened out for my familiar peaks. Suddenly I became
aware that the pursuers had dropped back, and, easing in my run, I saw
Sloan beating the sorrel over the head with his rope. He was ever thus,
blaming his mount on the least excuse.
Two days and a night I fled. Of course it was necessary to pause for a
few hours to eat grass and to drink, but fear of Sloan kept me moving. I
struck south, then westward. Fences delayed my flight considerably in
the valleys, but I had had experience with them, and roamed along until
I discovered a spot where the wires were partially down and could be
jumped, or until I found a watergap. I suppose I covered one hundred and
sixty miles, but not all in a straight line by any means, and at sundown
of the second day I was in a goodly range of hills. Here I rested.
A band of bronchos wandered into a draw where I fed that night, and I
joined them. We roved where we willed, and the rain fell abundantly and
the grass was green and plentiful.
Why is it one can never be entirely happy? If one be breast-high in
succulent zacaton, a fly will mar the feast. I have observed a mare in a
field of alfalfa, neglecting what she could have without effort, to
stretch unavailingly through the fence after a tuft of tough
Johnson-grass; in fact, I have done that myself. Here was I with
millions of virgin acres in which to wander; all I could eat; agreeable
companions. Yet I pined to hear a man’s voice. That sounds inexplicable,
but it is the truth. Even Sloan’s harsh bass tones would have been
welcome, after six months of freedom. Man’s companionship had been bred
in me, and though his presence might bring terror, yet I longed for it,
and the master-grip of his hand.
Winter passed and the long, dry season opened in a blaze of heat. A
horseman bore down on us one day, from the south, and we massed swiftly
for escape. Within a mile, two more riders appeared, and my companions
increased their pace to a gallop. Only I, of all the band, knew what
this meant. The others were bronchos who had never felt the rope and
they ran blindly, ignorant of the cordon closing in from every
direction. But I was cleverer. Suddenly darting from the herd, I sped
within sixty feet of a cowboy--not close enough for his loop--and gained
the mouth of a cañon. Up this I spurted, the rider in hot chase.
How often are pride and conceit confounded. The cañon narrowed--narrowed
to sheer walls fifty feet apart--and there ahead of me, blocking my
path, was a cliff of red-streaked rock. Water trickled down its face.
That much I perceived, and then it rushed upon me that the race was run.
I turned short about and tried to go by him as I had passed Sloan, but
he threw his rope and caught me cleanly. Sloan had taught me the lesson
of the rope--taught it in bitter vindictiveness--and I followed my
captor without struggle.
“Done got a maverick,” he announced, when he rejoined his comrades.
“He’s been rode before, Chappo,” another said. “Look at the way he
follows. And there’s been a cinch sore on his left side. Look.”
“I cain’t see it,” Chappo said obstinately. “He’s a maverick, I’m
a-telling you. And he’s my horse, because I done found him.”
When he had me in the corral at headquarters, Chappo walked fearlessly
to my head. Of course I began to quiver, for well I knew what this
portended.
“You pore son-of-a-gun,” he muttered, and stopped. “So he done beat you
over the haid?”
He scratched my ears and rubbed my head lightly between the eyes. All
the while, he talked to me in a low tone, with a sort of laugh behind
it. Chappo was a small man, no higher than a fence post, but there was
something in his touch that made me fear and yet want him to keep on
rubbing. When he attempted to put the bridle on, I stood rigid,
expectant. Surely the beating would come now. It did not. Instead, he
said, “You ol’ rascal, you,” and jabbed me in the ribs with his thumb.
Now, here is a curious thing. A man can jab you with his thumb so that
it hurts, and he can jab you in the same place with the same force and
it will only tickle pleasantly. Everything depends on the spirit in
which it is done. Chappo’s thumb was very agreeable and I laid back my
ears and pretended to nip at him.
“I’ll top you,” he said, “and then I’ll put the Box C on you.”
It amused me vastly to hear this mite of a man tell so confidently how
he would ride me, when even the terrible Sloan could not keep the saddle
at times. Just to scare him, I bowed my back when he slapped the blanket
on. Then I rolled my eyes backward to note the effect. He was grinning,
actually grinning--and his hat did not show above my withers. Next, he
threw on the saddle, and the curve in my spine was unmistakable; but he
merely hummed a tune and began to cinch me tightly, with careless
freedom, just as if we had been friends all our years. It surprised me
so much that I suffered his impertinence in quiet.
There were some cowboys on the fence, watching.
“Want me to ear him, Chappo?” one asked.
“No-oo. Me and him’s friends already. Ain’t we?” He made me walk a few
steps, still grinning as he inspected the significant upward tilt of the
saddle. “Look at his tail, boys. We’ll shore have to call him Beaver.”
“Call him Neutria,” one cried.
My new master nodded and then stood directly in front. I tried to look
away, but his eyes drew mine in spite of me, and when he backed off, I
followed, though he exerted no pressure on the bit. There was nothing
hard and there was nothing mean in those eyes; a devil lurked in
Sloan’s. Chappo’s were clear and very good-natured, yet oddly
compelling.
“That’s all right,” he said. “Now we know each other, me and you,
Neutria.”
He pulled my head around by the cheek of the bridle and next moment was
atop. I remained motionless. The grip of his knees was curiously at
variance with his bulk: somehow that grip raised a doubt in my mind that
I could shed him.
Next second I was pitching, more from force of habit than from any wish
to hurt this youth. What was the matter? No spurs gored my sides; I felt
no sting of quirt. Instead, Chappo merely swayed in the saddle and he
whooped me on to further effort, hitting my shoulders gleefully with his
hat. This was too much--a wight of one hundred and twenty pounds to make
game of me! I paused for breath and to gather strength.
“Hey, you ain’t quitting?” he inquired. “Wipe her up, li’l’ feller. Fly
at it.”
After that it was imperative I should do my best--Sloan could never have
kept his seat when I let myself loose to his challenge. Every trick his
brutality had taught me I employed, and only once did Chappo waver. He
was riding on his spurs now, yet he had to grab desperately for the
horn; but he righted himself with a laugh and renewed his yelling. At
last I was compelled to stop.
“You’re shore a dandy, Neutria,” he panted. “Let’s call it an even
break.”
That suited me admirably. It would have been a shame to injure the boy.
I never pitched with Chappo again. He was always kind to me, save once
only. That was when he placed the Box C on my left hip with a red-hot
iron. It pained horribly, but I realized that all horses had to go
through this ordeal and that Chappo did not mean to be brutal.
What times we had that summer and autumn! It was a year of frequent
rains, and horses and cattle were sleek and fat and rollicking. Chappo
and I would go out from camp twice each week and prowl the mountains the
livelong day. Perhaps a long-eared calf would be roused up--he is one
that has escaped branding--and my master would settle himself and take
down his rope even as I flashed in pursuit, over rocks and brush, down
cañons’ sides, up cliffs, shooting through defiles. It is something to
be a mountain horse, though it is I who say it; no other horse in the
world could have carried Chappo at full speed where I carried him after
mavericks. And he never faltered.
“Wherever you put your doggone feet is good enough for me, Neutria,” he
said once, at the bottom of a perilous descent.
Chappo was an excellent cowhand, more skilled than Sloan. He would
seldom miss a throw in the wildest country, and when he had the calf
roped, down he would jump and hogtie it before one could count thirty.
Then I would fall to grazing while he built a fire, heated his
running-iron and put the company brand on the captive. There were days
when we caught four or five in this manner. It was glorious sport.
And then, of course, there was the fall roundup, when all our
riders--twenty-two in number--swept the range in daily drives. We
collected more than nineteen thousand head of cattle; some of the
long-horned steers Chappo and I brought in had not set eyes on a man
since they were suckling calves. It was good to chase these outlaws,
they being stout and hearty on the rope, and it nerved me to see
Chappo’s fearlessness and confidence. He would tie to one of the big
brutes without hesitation, whatever the nature of the ground, trusting
implicitly to me to throw it. If a steer had dragged me down, it would
have meant maiming for Chappo and me, so I was ever on my guard. I
always contrived to throw them, even though some weighed two hundred
pounds heavier than I.
I was Chappo’s top horse--that is to say, his best saddler. Consequently
it was me he rode to town on the rare occasions he could get there. I
took the best of care of him.
On one occasion when he had spent an entire morning in town visiting
various places of call with friends, Chappo bet fifty dollars I could
throw an enormous bull they had in a feeding-pen. It was an intensely
foolish wager; besides, he hadn’t the money, and was earning only forty
dollars a month. The sight of this bull--a Hereford--appalled me for a
moment, for he was a monstrous fellow, blocky and solid; but Chappo
patted my neck and whispered to me, and when he let his noose fly, I
darted off with taut muscles, unafraid, yet ready for the tremendous jar
that would come with the tightened rope. What a giant he was! When he
lunged, the girth nearly cut me in two, and for the fraction of a second
I thought my feet would fly from under me and that Chappo would be
ignominiously prostrated in the dust. Then, at the critical moment, we
gave him slack, let him run to the end of it, wheeled like a striking
snake, and with a cunning heave, flopped him ponderously on the ground.
It broke his neck and they put Chappo in the calaboose. The boss got him
out only after much ceremony and considerable loose talk and the payment
of moneys.
Chappo dearly loved to go to town. He was always in excellent humor on
these trips and would attempt feats that reflected more credit on his
stoutness of heart than on his head. On a night, he tried to make me
climb the steps of the hotel veranda and enter the bar. Had it been
anyone but Chappo, I would have pitched him off without more ado, such
was the childishness of this display. But because it was Chappo and I
could feel from his legs that all was not right with him, I meekly
ascended the steps and walked into the bar, taking heed where I placed
my feet. A crowd of loafers cheered me and filled a large bowl, that I
might drink, but Chappo would have none of this.
He sang much on the road back to camp. It was dark as a panther’s lair.
Chappo would hum and drone a few lines, then relapse into abrupt
silences. I kept every sense alert, for his safety depended on me. Once,
when he sagged in the saddle, I stopped until he got settled again.
After that he rode with firmer seat, but his good humor seemed to have
vanished. We reached a point where a cow trail, a mere thread so faint
that it was barely discernible, led off from the main trail.
“Here, you,” Chappo said, jerking me about, “who’s running this show?
Hey? Doggone your fat haid. This is a cut-off.”
The trail was new to me, but I took it obediently. It led in the general
direction of camp, but became vaguer as we proceeded. Finally it merged
into the brown of a hillside.
“Hell!” Chappo exclaimed. “Where’s that cussed trail gone to, Neutria?
Well, let’s hit across country, boy. What’s twenty miles between two of
us?”
We struck over a hill at a trot. Suddenly my heart gave a leap and every
hair on my body seemed to tingle. Just in time I sat back on my
haunches. Chappo swore and struck me sharply with the spur.
“What’s the matter with you, you ol’ rascal? I swan. . . . Seen a
skunk?” he cried.