MURDER
After they had seen him in battle it seemed to Alcatraz that there
might be some reason for the flight of the herd and yet now their
running was only half-hearted; he could have raced in circles around
them. There was one change in their arrangement. The grey mare was
second, as before, but before her in place of the black ran the bay
stallion who had stood down--wind from the rest when Alcatraz first saw
them. He, perhaps, might challenge the stranger as the former leader had
done. At any rate he should have the opportunity, for the fighting blood
of Alcatraz was up and he would battle with every horse in the herd
until he was accepted among them as an equal. He had a peculiar desire,
also, to be up there beside the grey mare. Their meeting had been,
indeed, only in the passing, and yet there was about her--how should one
say?--a certain something.
The moment he had made up his mind, Alcatraz flung himself about the
herd and advanced with high head and bounding gallop on the new leader;
but the latter had seen his former master fall and apparently had no
appetite for battle. He shortened his pace to a hand gallop, then to a
mincing trot, and finally lowered his head and moved unobtrusively to
the side with an absorbed interest in the first knot of bunch-grass that
came his way. To force battle on such a foe was beneath the dignity of
Alcatraz, but the whole herd had stopped, every bright eye watching
him; perhaps there might be others more ambitious than the bay. He put
up his head like the king of horses that he was and stepped proudly
forward. Behold, they divided and left a clear path before him; even the
mare who had kicked at him when he first came up now shook her head and
moved aside. He reached the rear of the herd unopposed and turned to
find that every head was still turned towards him with a bright
attention that was certainly not altogether fear.
This was very strange, and while he thought it over Alcatraz dropped his
head and nibbled the nearest cluster of grass. At that, as at a signal,
every head in the herd went down; it scattered carelessly here and
there. Alcatraz watched them, bewildered. This was what he had noted
when the black leader was among them; then he understood and was filled
with warm content. Truly they had accepted him not only as a member but
as a master! To prove it, he trotted to the nearest hilltop and neighed
as he had heard the black neigh. At once they bunched, looking warily
towards him. He lowered his head to nibble the grass and again they
scattered to eat. It was true. It was true beyond shadow of doubt that
from this moment he was a king with obedient subjects until, perhaps,
some younger, mightier stallion challenged and beat him down. Happily
for Alcatraz such forethought was beyond his reach of mind and now he
only knew the happiness of power.
He noticed a long-bodied colt, incredibly dainty of foot, wandering
nervously near him with pricking ears and sniffing nose. Alcatraz
extended his lordly head and sniffed the velvet muzzle, whereat the
youngster snorted and darted away shaking his head and kicking up his
heels as though he had just bearded the lion and was delighted at the
success of his impertinence. The mother had come anxiously close during
this adventure but now she regarded Alcatraz with a friendly glance and
went about her serious business of eating for two.
The grey mare was drifting near, likewise, as though by inadvertence,
nibbling the headed grasstops as she came; but Alcatraz shrewdly
guessed that her approach was not altogether unplanned. He was not
displeased. His quiet happiness grew as the cloud--shadows rushed across
him and the sun warmed him. It was a pleasant world--a pleasant,
pleasant world! His people wandered in the hollow. They looked to him
for warning of danger. They looked at him for guidance in a crisis and
he accepted the burden cheerfully.
Fear, it seemed, had made him one with them. All his life he had dreaded
only one thing--man; but these creatures of the wild had many a fear of
the lobo, the mountain-lion, the drought, the high flying buzzard who
would claim them, dying, and added above all this, man. Not that
Alcatraz knew these things definitely. He could only feel that these,
his people, were strong only in their speed and in their timidity, and
he felt power to rule and protect them. For he who had fought man, and
won, had surely nothing to dread from beasts. The great moment of his
life had come to him not in the crushing of the Mexican or the baffling
of the mountain lion or the defeat of the black leader but in the first
gentle kindness that had ever softened his stern spirit. He was used to
battle; but these, his people, accepted him. He was used to suspicion
and trickery but these trusted him blindly. He was used to hate, but
because they had put themselves into his power he began to love them. He
felt a blood-tie between him and the weakest colt within the range of
his eye.
The herd drifted slowly down--wind until late afternoon, eating their
way rather than travelling, but when the heat began to wane and the
slant sunlight took on a yellow tone they began to show signs of
unrest, milling in a compact group with the foals frolicking on the
outskirts of the circle. The mares were particularly disturbed, it
seemed to Alcatraz, especially the mothers; and since all heads were
turned repeatedly towards him he became anxious. Something was expected
of him. What was it?
In case they had scented a danger unknown to him, he cast a wide circle
around them at a sharp gallop, but nothing met his nostril, his eye, or
his ear except the dust with its keen taint of alkali, and the bare
hills, and the vague horizon sounds. Alcatraz came back to his
companions at a halting trot which denoted his uneasy alertness. They
were milling more closely than ever. The brood mares had passed to a
sullen nervousness and were kicking savagely at everything that came
near. Decidedly something was wrong. The wise-headed grey mare loped out
to meet him and threw a course of circles around him as he came slowly
forward. Plainly she expected him to do something, but what this might
be Alcatraz could not tell. Besides, a growing thirst was making him
irritable and the insistence of the grey mare made him wish to fasten
his teeth over the back of her neck and shake her into better behavior.
By her antics she had worked him around to the head of the herd and she
had no sooner reached this point than she threw up her head with a
shrill neigh and started off at a gallop. The entire herd rushed after
her and Alcatraz, in a bound, ranged along side the grey and a neck in
the lead. While he ran he whinnied a soft question to which she replied
with a toss of her head as though impatient at such ignorance. In
reality she was guiding the herd. She knew it and Alcatraz understood
her knowledge, but he made a show of maintaining the guidance, keeping a
sharp outlook and turning the moment she showed signs of veering in a
new direction. Sometimes, of course, he misread her intentions and
swerved across her head and on each of these occasions she reached out
and nipped him shrewdly. Alcatraz was too taken up in his wonder at the
actions of the herd to resent this insolence. For half an hour they kept
up the steady pace and then Alcatraz literally ran into the reason.
It was a beautiful little lake, bedded in hard gravel and maintained by
a dribble of water from a brook on the north shore. Alcatraz snorted in
disgust at his folly. What had disturbed them was exactly what had
disturbed him--thirst. He controlled his own desire for water, however,
and followed an instinct that made him draw back and wait until all the
rest--the oldest stallion and the youngest colt--had waded in and
plunged their noses deep in the water. Then he went to the lake edge a
little apart from the rest and drank with his reflection glistening
beneath him.
It was a time of utter peace for the chestnut. While he drank he watched
the line of images broken by the small waves in the lake and listened to
the foals which had only tasted the water and now were splashing it
about with their upper lips. For his own part he did not drink too much,
since much water in the belly makes a leaden burden and Alcatraz felt
that, as leader, he must always be ready for running. A scrawny colt,
escaping from the heels of a yearling floundered against him. Alcatraz
gave way to the little fellow and warned the yearling back with a savage
baring of his teeth and a shake of his head. The foal, with head cocked
upon one side, regarded its protector with impish curiosity and was in
the act of nibbling at the flowing mane of the stallion when Alcatraz
heard a sharp humming as of a wasp; then the sound of a blow, and the
foal leaped straight into the air with head flung back. Before it hit
water a report as of a hammer falling on anvil burst across the level
pond, and then the colt struck heavily on its side, dead.
That bullet had been aimed for the tall leader and only the lifting of
the foal's head had saved Alcatraz. He recognized the report of a rifle
and whirled from the water-edge, signalling his company with a short
neigh of fear; the arch enemy was upon them! A volley poured in.
Alcatraz, as he gained the shore, saw an old stallion double up with a
scream of pain and no sound is so terrible as the shriek of a tortured
horse. No sound is so terrible even to horses. It threw the leader into
an hysteria of panic. Others of the herd were falling or staggering in
the lake; the remnant rushed up the slope and over the sheltering crest
of the hill beyond.
Every nerve in the body of Alcatraz urged him to leap away with arrowy
speed, passing even the grey mare--she who now shot off across the hills
far in the van--but behind him raced weaker and slower horses, the older
stallions and the mares with their foals. Instinct proved greater than
fear. He swept around the rear of his diminished company to round up the
laggards, but they were already laboring to the full of their power as
five horsemen streamed across the crest with their rifles carried at the
ready. They were a hardy crew, these cowpunchers of the Jordan ranch,
but to the sternest of them this was ugly work. To draw a bead on a
horse was like gathering the life of a man into the sight of the rifle,
yet they knew that a band of wildrunning mustangs is a perpetual menace.
Already the black leader had recruited his herd with more than one stray
from the Jordan outfit; and it was for the black, first of all, that
they looked. There was no sign of him, and in his place ranged a picture
horse--a beautiful red--chestnut with a gallop that made one's head
swim. Lew Hervey, who had kept his men in cunning ambush near the lake,
had chosen the new leader for a target but shot the colt instead. And it
was Lew Hervey, again, who swung over the crest of the hill and got the
next chance at Alcatraz.
The foreman of the Jordan ranch pitched his rifle to his shoulder just
as the leader, sweeping back to round up the rearmost of his company,
presented a broadside target. It was a sure hit. In the certainty of his
skill Lew Hervey allowed his hand to swing and followed for a strike or
two the rhythm of that racing body. The sunshine of the late afternoon
flashed on the flanks and on the frightened eyes of the stallion; mane
and tail fluttered straight out with his speed; and then he fired, and
jerked up his gun to await the crashing fall of the horse. But Alcatraz
did not drop. That moment of lingering on the part of the foreman saved
him, for through the sights of his rifle Hervey had seen such grace and
beauty in horseflesh that his nerve was unsteadied. Alcatraz knew the
stinging hum of a bullet past his head; and the foreman knew a miracle.
He could not believe his failure.
"Leave the chestnut to me!" he shouted as his men drove their ponies
over the hill, and pulling his own horse to a stand he jerked the rifle
butt hard against his shoulder and fired again; the only result was a
flirt of the tail of the chestnut as he darted about a hillside and
disappeared. Hervey made no attempt to follow but sat his saddle agape
and staring, thinking ghostly thoughts.
This was the beginning of the legend that Alcatraz bore a charmed life.
For the mountains were rich with Indian folklore which had drifted far
from its source and had come by hook and crook into the lives of the
miners and cowpunchers. Into such a background many a wild tale fitted
and the tale of Alcatraz was to be one of the wildest.
At any rate, the stallion owed his life on this day to the superstition
of Lew Hervey which kept him anchored on his horse until the target was
gone. A dozen times his men could have dropped the chestnut who
persisted with a frantic courage in running behind the rearmost of his
companions, urging them to greater efforts, but since Hervey had
selected this as his own prize his men dared not shoot.
It was a strange and beautiful thing to see that king of horses--sweep
back around the slowest of his mustangs, shake his head at the barking
guns, and then circle forward again as though he would show the laggard
what running should be. The cowpunchers could have shot him as he veered
back; they could have salted him with lead as he flashed broadside, but
the orders of their chief restrained them. Lew Hervey's lightest word
had a weight with them.
However, before and behind the leader of the herd their guns did deadly
work. Brood mares, stallions young and old, even the foals were dropped.
It was horrible work to the hardest of them but this horseflesh was
useless. Too many times they had seen mustangs taken and ridden and when
they were not hopeless outlaws they became broken-spirited and useless,
as though their strength lay in their freedom. With that gone they were
valueless even as slaves of men.
Before the slaughter ended, young or old there was not a horse left in
the band of Alcatraz save the grey mare far ahead. She was already
beyond range, and as the last of the fleeing horses pitched heavily
forward and lay still with oddly sprawling limbs, old Bud Seymour drew
rein and shoved his rifle back into the long holster.
"Now, look!" he called, as his companions pulled up beside him. "That
grey is fast as a streak--but look! look!"
For the red-chestnut was bounding away in pursuit of his last companion
with a winged gallop. It seemed that the wind caught him up and buoyed
him from stride to stride, and the cowpunchers with hungry, burning eyes
watched without a word until the grey and the chestnut blurred on the
horizon and dipped out of view together. The spell was broken in the
same instant by a stream of profanity floating up from the rear. It was
Lew Hervey approaching and swearing his mightiest.
"But I dunno," said Bud Seymour softly. "I feel kind of glad that Lew
missed."
He glanced sharply at his companions for fear they might laugh at this
childish weakness, but there was no laughter and by their starved eyes
he knew that every one of them was riding over the horizon in
imagination, on the back of the chestnut.