For some reason the desert scene before Lucy Bostil awoke varying
emotions--a sweet gratitude for the fullness of her life there at the
Ford, yet a haunting remorse that she could not be wholly content--a
vague loneliness of soul--a thrill and a fear for the strangely calling
future, glorious, unknown.
She longed for something to happen. It might be terrible, so long as it
was wonderful. This day, when Lucy had stolen away on a forbidden
horse, she was eighteen years old. The thought of her mother, who had
died long ago on their way into this wilderness, was the one drop of
sadness in her joy. Lucy loved everybody at Bostil's Ford and everybody
loved her. She loved all the horses except her father's favorite racer,
that perverse devil of a horse, the great Sage King.
Lucy was glowing and rapt with love for all she beheld from her lofty
perch: the green-and-pink blossoming hamlet beneath her, set between
the beauty of the gray sage expanse and the ghastliness of the barren
heights; the swift Colorado sullenly thundering below in the abyss; the
Indians in their bright colors, riding up the river trail; the eagle
poised like a feather on the air, and a beneath him the grazing cattle
making black dots on the sage; the deep velvet azure of the sky; the
golden lights on the bare peaks and the lilac veils in the far ravines;
the silky rustle of a canyon swallow as he shot downward in the sweep
of the wind; the fragrance of cedar, the flowers of the spear-pointed
mescal; the brooding silence, the beckoning range, the purple distance.
Whatever it was Lucy longed for, whatever was whispered by the wind and
written in the mystery of the waste of sage and stone, she wanted it to
happen there at Bostil's Ford. She had no desire for civilization, she
flouted the idea of marrying the rich rancher of Durango. Bostil's
sister, that stern but lovable woman who had brought her up and taught
her, would never persuade her to marry against her will. Lucy imagined
herself like a wild horse--free, proud, untamed, meant for the desert;
and here she would live her life. The desert and her life seemed as
one, yet in what did they resemble each other--in what of this scene
could she read the nature of her future?
Shudderingly she rejected the red, sullen, thundering river, with its
swift, changeful, endless, contending strife--for that was tragic. And
she rejected the frowning mass of red rock, upreared, riven and split
and canyoned, so grim and aloof--for that was barren. But she accepted
the vast sloping valley of sage, rolling gray and soft and beautiful,
down to the dim mountains and purple ramparts of the horizon. Lucy did
not know what she yearned for, she did not know why the desert called
to her, she did not know in what it resembled her spirit, but she did
know that these three feelings were as one, deep in her heart. For ten
years, every day of her life, she had watched this desert scene, and
never had there been an hour that it was not different, yet the same.
Ten years--and she grew up watching, feeling--till from the desert's
thousand moods she assimilated its nature, loved her bonds, and could
never have been happy away from the open, the color, the freedom, the
wildness. On this birthday, when those who loved her said she had
become her own mistress, she acknowledged the claim of the desert
forever. And she experienced a deep, rich, strange happiness.
Hers always then the mutable and immutable desert, the leagues and
leagues of slope and sage and rolling ridge, the great canyons and the
giant cliffs, the dark river with its mystic thunder of waters, the
pine-fringed plateaus, the endless stretch of horizon, with its lofty,
isolated, noble monuments, and the bold ramparts with their beckoning
beyond! Hers always the desert seasons: the shrill, icy blast, the
intense cold, the steely skies, the fading snows; the gray old sage and
the bleached grass under the pall of the spring sand-storms; the hot
furnace breath of summer, with its magnificent cloud pageants in the
sky, with the black tempests hanging here and there over the peaks,
dark veils floating down and rainbows everywhere, and the lacy
waterfalls upon the glistening cliffs and the thunder of the red
floods; and the glorious golden autumn when it was always afternoon and
time stood still! Hers always the rides in the open, with the sun at
her back and the wind in her face! And hers surely, sooner or later,
the nameless adventure which had its inception in the strange yearning
of her heart and presaged its fulfilment somewhere down that trailless
sage-slope she loved so well!
Bostil's house was a crude but picturesque structure of red stone and
white clay and bleached cottonwoods, and it stood at the outskirts of
the cluster of green-inclosed cabins which composed the hamlet. Bostil
was wont to say that in all the world there could hardly be a grander
view than the outlook down that gray sea of rolling sage, down to the
black-fringed plateaus and the wild, blue-rimmed and gold-spired
horizon.
One morning in early spring, as was Bostil's custom, he ordered the
racers to be brought from the corrals and turned loose on the slope. He
loved to sit there and watch his horses graze, but ever he saw that the
riders were close at hand, and that the horses did not get out on the
slope of sage. He sat back and gloried in the sight. He owned bands of
mustangs; near by was a field of them, fine and mettlesome and racy;
yet Bostil had eyes only for the blooded favorites. Strange it was that
not one of these was a mustang or a broken wild horse, for many of the
riders' best mounts had been captured by them or the Indians. And it
was Bostil's supreme ambition to own a great wild stallion. There was
Plume, a superb mare that got her name from the way her mane swept in
the wind when she was on the ran; and there was Two Face, like a
coquette, sleek and glossy and running and the huge, rangy bay, Dusty
Ben; and the black stallion Sarchedon; and lastly Sage King, the color
of the upland sage, a racer in build, a horse splendid and proud and
beautiful.
"Where's Lucy?" presently asked Bostil.
As he divided his love, so he divided his anxiety.
Some rider had seen Lucy riding off, with her golden hair flying in the
wind. This was an old story.
"She's up on Buckles?" Bostil queried, turning sharply to the speaker.
"Reckon so," was the calm reply.
Bostil swore. He did not have a rider who could equal him in profanity.
"Farlane, you'd orders. Lucy's not to ride them hosses, least of all
Buckles. He ain't safe even for a man."
"Wal, he's safe fer Lucy."
"But didn't I say no?"
"Boss, it's likely you did, fer you talk a lot," replied Farlane. "Lucy
pulled my hat down over my eyes--told me to go to thunder--an' then,
zip! she an' Buckles were dustin' it fer the sage."
"She's got to keep out of the sage," growled Bostil. "It ain't safe for
her out there.... Where's my glass? I want to take a look at the slope.
Where's my glass?"
The glass could not be found.
"What's makin' them dust-clouds on the sage? Antelope? ... Holley, you
used to have eyes better 'n me. Use them, will you?"
A gray-haired, hawk-eyed rider, lean and worn, approached with clinking
spurs.
"Down in there," said Bostil, pointing.
"Thet's a bunch of hosses," replied Holley.
"Wild hosses?"
"I take 'em so, seein' how they throw thet dust."
"Huh! I don't like it. Lucy oughtn't be ridin' round alone."
"Wal, boss, who could catch her up on Buckles? Lucy can ride. An'
there's the King an' Sarch right under your nose--the only hosses on
the sage thet could outrun Buckles."
Farlane knew how to mollify his master and long habit had made him
proficient. Bostil's eyes flashed. He was proud of Lucy's power over a
horse. The story Bostil first told to any stranger happening by the
Ford was how Lucy had been born during a wild ride--almost, as it were,
on the back of a horse. That, at least, was her fame, and the riders
swore she was a worthy daughter of such a mother. Then, as Farlane well
knew, a quick road to Bostil's good will was to praise one of his
favorites.
"Reckon you spoke sense for once, Farlane," replied Bostil, with
relief. "I wasn't thinkin' so much of danger for Lucy.... But she lets
thet half-witted Creech go with her."
"No, boss, you're wrong," put in Holley, earnestly. "I know the girl.
She has no use fer Joel. But he jest runs after her."
"An' he's harmless," added Farlane.
"We ain't agreed," rejoined Bostil, quickly. "What do you say, Holley?"
The old rider looked thoughtful and did not speak for long.
"Wal, Yes an' no," he answered, finally. "I reckon Lucy could make a
man out of Joel. But she doesn't care fer him, an' thet settles
thet.... An' maybe Joel's leanin' toward the bad."
"If she meets him again I'll rope her in the house," declared Bostil.
Another clear-eyed rider drew Bostil's attention from the gray waste of
rolling sage.
"Bostil, look! Look at the King! He's watchin' fer somethin'.... An'
so's Sarch."
The two horses named were facing a ridge some few hundred yards
distant, and their heads were aloft and ears straight forward. Sage
King whistled shrilly and Sarchedon began to prance.
"Boys, you'd better drive them in," said Bostil. "They'd like nothin'
so well as gettin' out on the sage.... Hullo! what's thet shootin' up
behind the ridge?"
"No more 'n Buckles with Lucy makin' him run some," replied Holley,
with a dry laugh.
"If it ain't! ... Lord! look at him come!"
Bostil's anger and anxiety might never have been. The light of the
upland rider's joy shone in his keen gaze. The slope before him was
open, and almost level, down to the ridge that had hidden the missing
girl and horse. Buckles was running for the love of running, as the
girl low down over his neck was riding for the love of riding. The Sage
King whistled again, and shot off with graceful sweep to meet them;
Sarchedon plunged after him; Two Face and Plume jealously trooped down,
too, but Dusty Ben, after a toss of his head, went on grazing. The gray
and the black met Buckles and could not turn in time to stay with him.
A girl's gay scream pealed up the slope, and Buckles went lower and
faster. Sarchedon was left behind. Then the gray King began to run as
if before he had been loping. He was beautiful in action. This was
play--a game--a race--plainly dominated by the spirit of the girl.
Lucy's hair was a bright stream of gold in the wind. She rode bareback.
It seemed that she was hunched low over Buckles with her knees high on
his back--scarcely astride him at all. Yet her motion was one with the
horse. Again that wild, gay scream pealed out--call or laugh or
challenge. Sage King, with a fleetness that made the eyes of Bostil and
his riders glisten, took the lead, and then sheered off to slow down,
while Buckles thundered past. Lucy was pulling him hard, and had him
plunging to a halt, when the rider Holley ran out to grasp his bridle.
Buckles was snorting and his ears were laid back. He pounded the ground
and scattered the pebbles.
"No use, Lucy," said Bostil. "You can't beat the King at your own game,
even with a runnin' start."
Lucy Bostil's eyes were blue, as keen as her father's, and now they
flashed like his. She had a hand twisted in the horse's long mane, and
as, lithe and supple, she slipped a knee across his broad back she
shook a little gantleted fist at Bostil's gray racer.
"Sage King, I hate you!" she called, as if the horse were human. "And
I'll beat you some day!"
Bostil swore by the gods his Sage King was the swiftest horse in all
that wild upland country of wonderful horses. He swore the great gray
could look back over his shoulder and run away from any broken horse
known to the riders.
Bostil himself was half horse, and the half of him that was human he
divided between love of his fleet racers and his daughter Lucy. He had
seen years of hard riding on that wild Utah border where, in those
days, a horse meant all the world to a man. A lucky strike of grassy
upland and good water south of the Rio Colorado made him rich in all
that he cared to own. The Indians, yet unspoiled by white men, were
friendly. Bostil built a boat at the Indian crossing of the Colorado
and the place became known as Bostil's Ford. From time to time his
personality and his reputation and his need brought horse-hunters,
riders, sheep-herders, and men of pioneer spirit, as well as wandering
desert travelers, to the Ford, and the lonely, isolated hamlet slowly
grew. North of the river it was more than two hundred miles to the
nearest little settlement, with only a few lonely ranches on the road;
to the west were several villages, equally distant, but cut off for two
months at a time by the raging Colorado, flooded by melting snow up in
the mountains. Eastward from the Ford stretched a ghastly, broken,
unknown desert of canyons. Southward rolled the beautiful uplands, with
valleys of sage and grass, and plateaus of pine and cedar, until this
rich rolling gray and green range broke sharply on a purple horizon
line of upflung rocky ramparts and walls and monuments, wild, dim, and
mysterious.
Bostil's cattle and horses were numberless, and many as were his
riders, he always could use more. But most riders did not abide long
with Bostil, first because some of them were of a wandering breed,
wild-horse hunters themselves; and secondly, Bostil had two great
faults: he seldom paid a rider in money, and he never permitted one to
own a fleet horse. He wanted to own all the fast horses himself. And in
those days every rider, especially a wild-horse hunter, loved his steed
as part of himself. If there was a difference between Bostil and any
rider of the sage, it was that, as he had more horses, so he had more
love.
Whenever Bostil could not get possession of a horse he coveted, either
by purchase or trade, he invariably acquired a grievance toward the
owner. This happened often, for riders were loath to part with their
favorites. And he had made more than one enemy by his persistent
nagging. It could not be said, however, that he sought to drive hard
bargains. Bostil would pay any price asked for a horse.
Across the Colorado, in a high, red-walled canyon opening upon the
river, lived a poor sheep-herder and horse-trader named Creech. This
man owned a number of thoroughbreds, two of which he would not part
with for all the gold in the uplands. These racers, Blue Roan and Peg,
had been captured wild on the ranges by Ute Indians and broken to
racing. They were still young and getting faster every year. Bostil
wanted them because he coveted them and because he feared them. It
would have been a terrible blow to him if any horse ever beat the gray.
But Creech laughed at all offers and taunted Bostil with a boast that
in another summer he would see a horse out in front of the King.
To complicate matters and lead rivalry into hatred young Joel Creech, a
great horseman, but worthless in the eyes of all save his father, had
been heard to say that some day he would force a race between the King
and Blue Roan. And that threat had been taken in various ways. It
alienated Bostil beyond all hope of reconciliation. It made Lucy Bostil
laugh and look sweetly mysterious. She had no enemies and she liked
everybody. It was even gossiped by the women of Bostil's Ford that she
had more than liking for the idle Joel. But the husbands of these
gossips said Lucy was only tender-hearted. Among the riders, when they
sat around their lonely camp-fires, or lounged at the corrals of the
Ford, there was speculation in regard to this race hinted by Joel
Creech. There never had been a race between the King and Blue Roan, and
there never would be, unless Joel were to ride off with Lucy. In that
case there would be the grandest race ever run on the uplands, with the
odds against Blue Roan only if he carried double. If Joel put Lucy up
on the Roan and he rode Peg there would be another story. Lucy Bostil
was a slip of a girl, born on a horse, as strong and supple as an
Indian, and she could ride like a burr sticking in a horse's mane. With
Blue Roan carrying her light weight she might run away from any one up
on the King--which for Bostil would be a double tragedy, equally in the
loss of his daughter and the beating of his best-beloved racer. But
with Joel on Peg, such a race would end in heartbreak for all
concerned, for the King would outrun Peg, and that would bring riders
within gunshot.
It had always been a fascinating subject, this long-looked-for race. It
grew more so when Joel's infatuation for Lucy became known. There were
fewer riders who believed Lucy might elope with Joel than there were
who believed Joel might steal his father's horses. But all the riders
who loved horses and all the women who loved gossip were united in at
least one thing, and that was that something like a race or a romance
would soon disrupt the peaceful, sleepy tenor of Bostil's Ford.
In addition to Bostil's growing hatred for the Creeches, he had a great
fear of Cordts, the horse-thief. A fear ever restless, ever watchful.
Cordts hid back in the untrodden ways. He had secret friends among the
riders of the ranges, faithful followers back in the canyon camps, gold
for the digging, cattle by the thousand, and fast horses. He had always
gotten what he wanted--except one thing. That was a certain horse. And
the horse was Sage King.
Cordts was a bad man, a product of the early gold-fields of California
and Idaho, an outcast from that evil wave of wanderers retreating back
over the trails so madly traveled westward. He became a lord over the
free ranges. But more than all else he was a rider. He knew a horse. He
was as much horse as Bostil. Cordts rode into this wild free-range
country, where he had been heard to say that a horse-thief was meaner
than a poisoned coyote. Nevertheless, he became a horse-thief. The
passion he had conceived for the Sage King was the passion of a man for
an unattainable woman. Cordts swore that he would never rest, that he
would not die, till he owned the King. So there was reason for Bostil's
great fear.