CONCERNING FIGHTERS
The race-track had come into existence by grace of accident for it
happened that a lane ran a ragged course about a big field taking the
corners without pretense of making true curves, with almost an
elbow-turn into the straightaway; but since the total distance around was
over a mile it was called the "track." The sprints were run on the
straightaway which was more than the necessary quarter of a mile but
occasionally there was a longer race and then the field had to take that
dangerous circuit, sloppy and slippery with dust. The land enclosed was
used for the bucking contest, for the two crowning events of the
Glosterville fiesta, the race and the horse-breaking, had been saved for
this last day. Marianne Jordan gladly would have missed the latter
event. "Because it sickens me to see a man fight with a horse," she
often explained. But she forced herself to go.
She was in the Rocky Mountains, now, not on the Blue Grass. Here riding
bucking horses was the order of the day. It might be rough, but this was
a rough country.
It was a day of undue humidity--and the Eagle Mountains were pyramids of
blue smoke. Closer at hand the roofs of Glosterville shone in the fierce
sun and between the village and the mountains the open fields shimmered
with rising heat waves. A hardy landscape meant only for a hardy people.
"One can't adopt a country," thought Marianne, "it's the country that
does the adopting. If I'm not pleased by what pleases other people in
the West, I'd better leave the ranch to Lew Hervey and go back East."
This was extraordinarily straight-from-the-shoulder thinking but all the
way out to the scene of the festivities she pondered quietly. The
episode of the mares was growing in importance. So far she had been able
to do nothing of importance on the ranch; if this scheme fell through
also it would be the proverbial last straw.
In spite of her intentions, she had delayed so long that the riding was
very nearly ended before she arrived. Buckboards and automobiles lined
the edges of the field in ragged lines, but these did not supply enough
seats and many were standing. They weaved with a continual life; now and
again the rider of one of the pitching horses bobbed above the crowd,
and the rattle of voices sharpened, with piercing single calls. Always
the dust of battle rose in shining wisps against the sun and Marianne
approached with a sinking heart, for as she crossed the track and
climbed through the fence she heard the snort and squeal of an angry,
fear-tormented horse. The crying of a child could not have affected her
so deeply.
The circle was too thick to be penetrated, it seemed, but as she drew
closer an opening appeared and she easily sifted through to the front
line of the circle. It was not the first time she had found that the way
of women is made easy in the West. Just as she reached her place a horse
scudded away from the far end of the field with a rider yelling; the
swaying head and shoulders back. He seemed to be shrinking from such
speed, but as a matter of fact he was poised and balanced nicely for any
chance whirl. When it had gained full speed the broncho pitched high in
the air, snapped its head and heels close together, and came down
stiff-legged. Marianne sympathetically felt that impact jar home in her
brain but the rider kept his seat. Worse was coming. For sixty seconds the
horse was in an ecstasy of furious and educated bucking, flinging itself
into odd positions and hitting the earth. Each whip-snap of that
stinging struggling body jarred the rider shrewdly. Yet he clung in his
place until the fight ended with startling suddenness. The grey dropped
out of the air in a last effort and then stood head-down, quivering,
beaten.
The victor jogged placidly back to the high-fenced corrals, with shouts
of applause going up about him.
"Hey, lady," called a voice behind and above Marianne. "Might be you
would like to sit up here with us?"
It was a high-bodied buckboard with two improvised seats behind the
driver's place and Marianne thanked him with a smile. A
fourteen-year-old stripling sprang down to help her but she managed the
step-up without his hand. She was taken at once, and almost literally,
into the bosom of the family, three boys, a withered father, a work-faded
mother, all with curious, kindly eyes. They felt she was not their order,
perhaps. The sun had darkened her skin but would never spoil it; into
their sweating noonday she carried a morning-freshness, so they propped
her in the angle of the driver's seat beside the mother and made her at
home. Their name was Corson; their family had been in the West "pretty
nigh onto always"; they had a place down the Taliaferro River; and they
had heard about the Jordan ranch. All of this was huddled into the first
two minutes. They brushed through the necessaries and got at the
excitement of the moment.
"I guess they ain't any doubt," said Corson. "Arizona Charley wins. He
won two years back, too. Minds me of Pete Langley, the way he rests in a
saddle. Now where's this Perris gent? D'you see him? My, ain't they
shouting for Arizona! Well, he's pretty bad busted up, but I guess he's
still good enough to hold this Perris they talk about. Where's Perris?"
The same name was being shouted here and there in the crowd. Corson
stood up and peered about him.
"Who is Perris?" asked Marianne.
"A gent that come out of the north, up Montana way, I hear. He's been
betting on himself to win this bucking contest, covering everybody's
money. A crazy man, he sure is!"
The voice drifted dimly to Marianne for she was falling into a pleasant
haze, comfortably aware of eyes of admiration lifted to her more and
more frequently from the crowd. She envied the blue coolness of the
mountains, or breathed gingerly because the sting of alkali-dust was in
the air, or noted with impersonal attention the flash of sun on a horse
struggling in the far off corrals. The growing excitement of the crowd,
as though a crisis were approaching, merely lulled her more. So the
voice of Corson was half heard; the words were unconnotative sounds.
"Let the winner pick the worst outlaw in the lot. Then Perris will ride
that hoss first. If he gets throwed he loses. If he sticks, then the
other gent has just got to sit the same hoss--one that's already had the
edge took off his bucking. Well, ain't that a fool bet?"
"It sounds fair enough," said Marianne. "Perris, I suppose, hasn't
ridden yet. And Arizona Charley is tired from his work."
"Arizona tired? He ain't warmed up. Besides, he's got a hoss here that
Perris will break his heart trying to ride. You know what hoss they got
here today? They got Rickety! Yep, they sure enough got old Rickety!"
He pointed.
"There he comes out!"
Marianne looked lazily in the indicated direction and then sat up, wide
awake. She had never seen such cunning savagery as was in the head of
this horse, its ears going back and forth as it tested the strength of
the restraining ropes. Now and then it crouched and shuddered under the
detested burden of the saddle. It was a stout-legged piebald with the
tell-tale Roman nose obviously designed for hard and enduring battle. He
was a fighting horse as plainly as a terrier is a fighting dog.
Arizona Charley, a tall man off a horse and walking with a limp, moved
slowly about the captive, grinning at his companions. It was plain that
he did not expect the stranger to survive the test.
A brief, deep-throated shout from the crowd.
"There's Perris!" cried Corson. "There's Red Perris, I guess!"
Marianne gasped.
It was the devil-may-care cavalier who had laughed and fought and
whistled under the window of her room. He stepped from the thick of the
circle near Rickety and responded to the voice of the crowd by waving
his hat. It would have been a trifle too grandiloquent had he not been
laughing.
"He's going through with it," said Corson, shivering and chuckling at
the same time. "He's going to try Rickety. They look like one and the
same kind to me--two reckless devils, that hoss and Red Jim Perris!"
"Is there real danger?" asked Marianne.
Corson regarded her with pity.
"Rickety _can_ be rode, they say," he answered, "but I disremember
anybody that's done it. Look! He's a man-killer that hoss!"
Perris had stepped a little too close and the piebald thrust out at him
with reaching teeth and striking forefoot. The man leaped back, still
laughing.
"Cool, all right," said Corson judicially. "And maybe he ain't just a
blow-hard, after all. There they go!"
It happened very quickly. Perris had shaken hands with Arizona, then
turned and leaped into the saddle. The ropes were loosed. Rickety
crouched a moment to feel out the reality of his freedom, then burst
away with head close to the ground and ragged mane fluttering. There was
no leaning back in this rider. He sat arrowy-straight save that his left
shoulder worked back in convulsive jerks as he strove to get the head of
Rickety up. But the piebald had the bit. Once his chin was tucked back
against his breast his bucking chances were gone and he kept his nose as
low as possible, like the trained fighter that he was. There were no
yells now. They received Rickety as the appreciative receive a great
artist--in silence.
The straight line of his flight broke into a crazy tangle of criss-cross
pitching. Out of this maze he appeared again in a flash of straight
galloping, used the impetus for a dozen jarring bucks, then reared and
toppled backward to crush the cowpuncher against the earth.
Marianne covered her eyes, but an invisible power dragged her hand down
and made her watch. She was in time to see Perris whisk out of the
saddle before Rickety struck the dirt. His hat had been snapped from his
head. The sun and the wind were in his flaming hair. Blue eyes and white
teeth flashed as he laughed again.
"I like 'em mean," he had said, "and I keep 'em mean. A tame horse is
like a tame man, and I don't give a damn for a fellow who won't fight!"
Once that had irritated her but now, remembering, it rang in her ear to
a different tune. As Rickety spun to his feet, Perris vaulted to the
saddle and found both stirrups in mid-leap, so to speak. The gelding
instantly tested the firmness of his rider's seat by vaulting high and
landing on one stiffened foreleg. The resultant shock broke two ways,
like a curved ball, snapping down and jerking to one side. But he
survived the blow, giving gracefully to it.
It was fine riding, very fine; and the crowd hummed with appreciation.
"A handsome rascal, eh?" said Mr. Corson.
But she caught at his arm.
"Oh!" gasped Marianne. "Oh! Oh!"
Three flurries of wild pitching drew forth those horrified whispers. But
still the flaming red head of the rider was as erect, as jaunty as ever.
Then the quirt flashed above him and cut Rickety's flank; the crowd
winced and gasped. He was not only riding straight up but he was putting
the quirt to Rickety--to Rickety!
The piebald seemed to feel the sting of the insult more than the lash.
He bolted across the field to gain impetus for some new and more
terrible feat but as he ran a yell from Perris thrilled across the
crowd.
"They do that, some men. Get plumb drunk with a fight!"
But Marianne did not hear Corson's remark. She watched Rickety slacken
his run as that longdrawn yell began, so wild and high that it put a
tingle in her nose. Now he was trotting, now he was walking, now he
stood perfectly still, become of a sudden, an abject, cowering figure.
The shout of the spectators was almost a groan, for Rickety had been
beaten fairly and squarely at last and it was like the passing of some
old master of the prize ring, the scarred veteran of a hundred battles.
"What happened?" breathed Marianne.
"Rickety's lost his spirit," said Corson. "That's all. I've seen it come
to the bravest men in the world. A two-year-old boy could ride Rickety
now. Even the whip doesn't get a single buck out of the poor rascal."
The quirt slashed the flank of the piebald but it drew forth only a meek
trot. The terrible Rickety went back to the corrals like a lamb!
"Arizona's got a good man to beat," admitted Corson, "but he's got a
chance yet. They won't get any more out of Rickety. He's not only been
rode--he's been broke. I could ride him myself."
"Mr. Corson," said Marianne, full of an idea of her own, "I'll wager
that Rickety is not broken in the least--except for Red Perris."
"Meaning Perris just sort of put a charm on him?" suggested Corson,
smiling.
"Exactly that. You see?"
In fact, the moment Perris slipped from the saddle, Rickety rocked
forward on his forelegs and drove both heels at one of the reckless who
came too near. A second later he was fighting with the activity and
venom of a cat to get away from the ropes. The crowd chattered its
surprise. Plainly the fierce old outlaw had not fought his last.
"What _did_ Perris do to the horse?" murmured Marianne.
"I don't know," said Corson. "But you seem to have guessed something.
See the way he stands there with his chin on his fist and studies
Rickety! Maybe Perris is one of these here geniuses and us ordinary
folks can only understand a genius by using a book on him."
She nodded, very serious.
"There _is_ a use for fighting men, isn't there?" she brooded.
"Use for 'em?" laughed Corson. "Why, lady, how come we to be sitting
here? Because gents have fought to put us here! How come this is part of
God's country? Because a lot of folks buckled on guns to make it that!
Use for a fighter? Well, Miss Jordan, I've done a little fighting of one
kind and another in my day and I don't blush to think about it. Look at
my kid there. What do you think I'm proudest of: because he was head of
his class at school last winter or because he could lick every other boy
his own size? First time he come home with a black eye I gave him a
dollar to go back and try to give the other fellow _two_ black eyes. And
he done it! All good fighters ain't good men; I sure know that. But they
never was a man that was good to begin with and was turned bad by
fighting. They's a pile of bad men around these parts that fight like
lions; but that part of 'em is good. Yes sirree, they's plenty of use
for a fighting man! Don't you never doubt that!"
She smiled at this vehemence, but it reinforced a growing respect for
Perris.
Then, rather absurdly, it irritated her to find that she was taking him
so seriously. She remembered the ridiculous song:
"Oh, father, father William, I've seen your daughter dear.
Will you trade her for the brindled cow and the yellow steer?"
Marianne frowned.
The shout of the crowd called her away from herself. Far from broken by
the last ride, the outlaw horse now seemed all the stronger for the
exercise. Discarding fanciful tricks, he at once set about sun-fishing,
that most terrible of all forms of bucking.
The name in itself is a description. Literally Rickety hurled himself at
the sun and landed alternately on one stiffened foreleg and then the
other. At each shock the chin of Arizona Charley was flung down against
his chest and at the same time his head snapped sideways with the uneven
lurch of the horse. An ordinary pony would have broken his leg at the
first or second of these jumps; but Rickety was untiring. He jarred to
the earth; he vaulted up again as from springs--over and over the same
thing.
It would eventually have become tiresome to watch had not both horse and
rider soon showed effects of the work. Every leap of Rickety's was
shorter. Sweat shone on his thick body. He was killing Arizona but he
was also breaking his own heart. Arizona weakened fast under that
continual battering at the base of his brain. His eyes rolled. He no
longer pretended to ride straight up, but clung to pommel and cantle. A
trickle of blood ran from his mouth. Marianne turned away only to find
that mild old Corson was crying: "Watch his head! When it begins to roll
then you know that he's stunned and the next jump or so will knock him
out of the saddle as limp as a half filled sack."
"It's too horrible!" breathed the girl. "I can't watch!"
"Why not? You liked it when a man beat a hoss. Now the tables are turned
and the hoss is beating the man. Ah, I thought so. There goes his head!
Rolls as if his neck was broken. Now! Now!"
Arizona Charley toppled loose-limbed from the saddle and lay twisted
where he fell, but it had taken the last of Rickety's power. His legs
were now braced, his head untriumphantly low, and the sweat dripped
steadily from him. He had not enough energy to flee from those who
approached to lift Arizona from the ground. Corson was pounding his knee
with a fat fist.
"Ever see a fight like that in your life? Nope, you never did! Me
neither! But Lord, Lord, won't Red Jim Perris take a mule-load of coin
out of Glosterville! They been giving five to one agin him. I was
touched a bit myself."
For the moment, Marianne was more keenly interested in the welfare of
Arizona Charley. Perris, with others following, reached him first and
strong hands carried the unconscious champion towards that corner of the
field where the Corson buckboard stood; for there were the
water-buckets. They were close to the goal when Arizona recovered
sufficiently to kick himself loose feebly from his supporters.
"What the hell's all this?" Marianne heard him say in a voice which he
tried to make an angered roar but which was only a shrill quaver from
his weakness. "Maybe I'm a lady? Maybe I've fainted or something? Not by
a damned sight! Maybe I been licked by that boiled-down bit of hell,
Rickety, but I ain't licked so bad I can't walk home. Hey, Perris, shake
on it! You trimmed me, all right, and you collect off'n me and a pile
more besides me. Here's my boodle."
At the mention of the betting a little circle cleared around Perris and
from every side hands full of greenbacks were thrust forward. The latter
pushed back his sombrero and scratched his head, apparently deep in
thought.
"It's a speech, boys," cried Arizona Charley, supporting himself on the
shoulder of a friend. "Give Red air; give him room; he's going to make a
speech! And then we'll pay him for what he's got to say."
There was much laughter, much slapping of backs.
"That's Arizona," remarked Corson. "Ain't he a game loser?"
"He's a fine fellow," said the girl, with emotion. "My heart goes out to
him!"
"Does it, now?" wondered Corson. "Well, I'd of figured more on Perris
being the man for the ladies to look at. He's sure set up pretty! Now he
makes his little talk."
"Ladies and gents," said Red Perris, turning the color of his sobriquet.
"I ain't any electioneer when it comes to speech making."
"That's all right, boy," shouted encouraging partisans. "You'll get my
vote if you don't say a word."
"But I'll make it short," said Perris. "It's about these bets. They're
all off. It just come to my mind that two winters back me and this same
Rickety had a run in up Montana-way and he come out second-best. Well,
he must of remembered me the way I just now remembered him. That's why
he plumb quit when I let out a whoop. If he'd turned loose all his
tricks like he done with Arizona, why most like Charley would never of
had to take his turn. I'd be where he is now and he'd be doing the
laughing. Anyway, boys, the bets are off. I don't take money on a sure
thing."
It brought a shout of protest which was immediately drowned in a hearty
yell of applause.
"Now, don't that warm your heart, for you?" said Corson as the noise
fell away a little. "I tell you what--" he broke off with a chuckle,
seeing that she had taken a pencil and a piece of paper from her purse
and was scribbling hastily: "Taking notes on the Wild West, Miss
Jordan?"
"Mental notes," she said quietly, but smiling at him as she folded the
slip. She turned to the stripling, who all this time had hardly taken
his eyes from her even to watch the bucking and to hear the speech of
Perris.
"Will you take this to Jim Perris for me?"
A gulp, a grin, a nod, he was down from the wagon in a flash and using
his leanness to wriggle snakelike through the crowd.
"Well!" chuckled Corson, not unkindly, "I thought it would be more
Perris than Arizona in the wind-up!"
She reddened, but not because of his words. She was thinking of the
impulsive note in which she asked Red Perris to call at the hotel after
the race and ask for Marianne Jordan. Remembering his song from the
street, she wondered if he, also, would have the grace to blush when
they met.