by Max Brand
CHAPTER 15
This remark, which could not be considered by the sheriff as other than extremely inopportune, caused him to ride most thoughtfully back to the town, but he had no sooner reached the village of Larramee than he was encountered by news which was so exactly in the same vein with his own thoughts and the recent suggestion of the rich man, that he was filled with amazement and could hardly believe his ears. Neither, for that matter, could the rest of Larramee.
For the astonishing tidings were as follows: Mr. Doone, the owner of the terrible Clancy, had been formally challenged that evening to submit, his horse to the test the next day and live up to his promise to give the stallion away to any man who could ride it. This was exciting enough. But the excitement was trebled by the fact that he who had challenged was none other than, of all the men in the world, the mysterious and terrible cripple, Tom Holden!
The first general comment was that of the rich rancher. They had not thought of it before, while Holden was being accused of careering abroad from one end of the country to the other, robbing here, murdering there with a red-handed abandon. But when they considered the problem of such a cripple mastering the great Clancy, they were aghast. How could he sit the saddle with that withered leg?
Mr. Doone held a consultation of his friends. “Him that can ride Clancy fair and square,” said he, “gets that hoss, and heaven knows I’m proud to see the gent that can do it. But it ain’t in Tom Holden to be that man. No, sir. If he aims to ride my Clancy, then it means that he’s got some manner of trick up his sleeve.”
This idea was considered highly sensible. The next thing was to arrive at what sort of trick might be available to a man who wanted to ride a dangerous horse.
“Dope!” said some one. “He’ll dope Clancy and make him so dog-gone down-headed that any kid could manage him.”
This suggestion was considered highly probable. Indeed, it was hardly suggested before it was taken for granted that this must be the plan of the mysterious cripple, and muttering curses to one another and promising Mr. Holden eternal bad luck for his wickedness, a guard of half a dozen men volunteered to stand guard over the corral of the stallion that night and see that he was kept untampered with for the morning of the trial. Others hurried away to inform their friends in the countryside that the great duel between Clancy and mankind was about to see the writing of another chapter and the fighting of another bout. And the contestant was to be Tom Holden himself, the robber, the gun fighter, the man of mystery.
Wickedness is always attractive. It was doubly attractive to have two very wicked characters opposed to one another. Here was a villain among horses staked against a villain among men, and the town of Larramee and all of the surrounding countryside told itself that it would not miss the contest. Word even came out to Mr. Larramee, and he could not avoid the test. He started in for town, and his daughter rode beside him. And every road to Larramee was thick with hurrying travelers, all fearful that they might miss a single vital chapter in this strange tale.
When poor Tom Holden sat down at the window of his room that morning and looked down upon the throng, he found that a full thousand men and women and children were already gathered there about the corral in spite of the early hour. Twice the crowd that had come to watch even such a famous buckaroo as Al Morton. And, on the outskirts of the crowd, sitting in a buggy with a fine span hitched in the traces, he saw the square shoulders and the handsome face of Mr. Larramee himself, with Alexa at his side.
A sort of sad courage poured into the body of Holden, at that, and into his heart. He went down at once, and when he appeared, there was a general muttering of hatred and of astonishment—astonishment that he was actually coming to make the trial of himself against the horse! And how small he seemed, and how infinitely mighty seemed the stallion!
Another thing that boded ill for poor Tom Holden—the stallion all that night had showed himself strangely ill at ease. He had paced up and down and up and down the corral, sometimes striding toward one of the watchers as far as the fence would permit, and sometimes toward another, but always shaking his head and snorting his anger and disappointment.
At first they thought that he was merely trying to get out at them. Then they decided that the great animal was actually looking for something which it missed. What could that be? At least all were agreed that Clancy was wildly excited long before the morning came, and every person in the thousand who watched could see the visible devil in the eyes and in the quivering ears of the great horse. Clancy meant mischief and showed it. And here was not even a normal man—here was a cripple who had come down to engage him in hand-to-hand combat!
When the crowd parted and opened a pathway for him to come up to Doone, the latter frowned down at the little man.
“Well,” said he, eyeing the crippled leg and the long staff, “is this here a joke?”
“A joke?” echoed Holden. “Certainly not.”
“Where’s your saddle, then?”
“This is it.”
He showed a light little English pigskin pad of a few pounds weight—a negligible thing compared with the towering structures which the cow ponies had to wear when they were being broken or when they were being worked. It was a badly worn second-hand affair, and the big man shook his head and smiled.
“You’re gunna sit on top of Clancy—in that!”
“In this,” said Holden gently but firmly.
“All right,” said he. “This is your own funeral. I ain’t payin’ the bills for damages, you know, old-timer. Go to it. I’ll tell the boys to get that there leather postage stamp that you call a saddle onto Clancy. Unless Clancy makes a pass at it and swallers it by mistake.”
“Thank you,” said Holden. “But I’ll manage my own saddling.”
“You will?” gasped out Doone. “You mean that you’ll saddle Clancy all by yourself? No help? No nothin’?”
“No, nothing,” said Holden, smiling. “Except that I’d like to have people a little farther back. Ten steps back from the fence will keep them close enough to see everything that happens. But it’ll keep ’em from scaring Clancy to death every time they lift a hand or speak.”
Nothing could have been a simpler request. But it was difficult to execute. Those along the fence had, many of them, waited for hours, standing there to keep their prize positions to wait for the fight to begin. Now they protested bitterly as they were worked back to the required distance. And finally all was prepared.
“The folks is standin’ back about the way you want, Holden,” said Doone. “And there’s Clancy waitin’ for you. I hope that they ain’t nothin’ holdin’ you back none?”
“Not a thing!” said Holden, and he advanced toward the corral.
“He may be a man-killer, but he’s mighty scared of that hoss!” was the comment of one buckaroo, and there was no doubt that he was right, for the complexion of Holden was a sickly thing as he advanced.
He reached the fence, and there he paused for a long time, waiting, leaning upon his staff and upon the fence. The crowd was perfectly patient. It was watching a man about to attempt the impossible. Therefore this long pause was filled with a heartbreaking tenseness of suspense, as when the players line up on the playing field, but the whistle has not yet blown.
The stallion, in the meantime, stood in the exact center of the corral, paying no apparent heed to anything, squarely facing the cripple, and with his ears flat along his neck. Then Holden, stooping, dragged himself through the fence, between the bars, and stood up, helping himself to an erect position with his staff, and the wretched little saddle dragging down under one arm.
There was a shrill-pitched gasp from the crowd. That breath of dismay came from the women, whose nerves had been brought to a fine edge of terror and horror.
And even Alexa, steady as a balance wheel as a rule, caught at the arm of her father.
“Dad,” she whispered, “that great brute will smash him to bits! I can see it in his eyes! Ready—to kill him—Dad!�
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For the stallion had lifted its head, suddenly, and arched its crest a little, a certain sign that it was about to come into action.
“Steady, Alexa,” said the father as calmly as he could, though his own heart was beating like a triphammer with the horrible excitement of the moment. “That youngster is not a fool. He’s a very clever young chap, and he won’t be in that corral unless he knows a way to get out safely.”
“But if he’s murdered—”
“It will be a grisly thing! However, I wish to the Lord that I hadn’t come to watch the affair—that boy can’t move fast enough to save himself from being ruined, in case Clancy goes bad. And he’s sure to go bad. And yet—heaven bless my soul!”
He uttered his last exclamation as the stallion, after advancing a step or two, suddenly paused again and shook his head. Then—a sign of peace as sure as a rainbow in heaven—the ears of the great horse pricked up and forward. And there was a sigh of breathless relief from the horrified watchers.
“Thank God!” breathed Alexa.
And then her father added, what was the thought of the entire group of the spectators: “What in thunder has happened to Clancy?”
CHAPTER 16
No one can look at a miraculous happening without turning to a neighbor for a confirming glance. So it was with the crowd which watched Tom Holden in the ring with the stallion. And by the time that stir and muttering of wonder had ended, Tom Holden slipped the saddle over the back of the great animal. Behold! He leaned far beneath the monster and caught the cinch which dangled from the farther flap of the saddle. Now what a chance for Clancy to rend this fragile bit of humanity to bits! No—he merely turned his head and sniffed the shoulder of Holden while the latter drew up the cinch as tight as he could. And if Clancy disliked the biting cincture of that girth, he showed it merely by shaking his head.
The bridle next. How would he put the bit between those teeth? Very simply! He took the man-killer by the mane and led it to the fence. Then he clambered up to the first rail, and he was then tall enough to reach to the ears of the great stallion. Yes, over those ears Clancy allowed the bridle to be slipped. And the teeth which had closed more than once on human flesh allowed themselves to be pried apart while the bit was inserted! The whole population of the town of Larramee stood by and groaned with astonishment. This was like walking on water or handling fire unscathed. Only, it was a greater miracle, for they knew more about Clancy than they did about water and fire as destroyers.
There was more to come. He must mount to the saddle, and this was quite a different proposition. Twice the cripple lifted his weak leg and put the foot in the stirrup. Twice Clancy, whirling suddenly, sent the poor youth reeling and staggering, but still he returned to the work. Not once did the suspense slacken. For now Clancy seemed to be wakening to the possibility of the situation. Before this, he had been as one drugged, indeed. Now the familiar gleam was coming back into his eyes and his ears flicked back and forth as the shadowy passions rose and ebbed in his soul.
But at length he permitted himself to be led up to the fence and waited there until the slender form of Tom Holden was safely ensconced on his back—like a pigmy on a mountain top. And very plainly Holden was afraid. That could be seen in his staring eyes and in his white, drawn face, and by the tremor of his hands. He was in deadly peril, and he knew it.
Clancy, in the meantime, though his ears had been up the moment before, as soon as this burden dropped onto his back, turned into a devil. His ears flattened, his eyes rolled wickedly, and he crouched to tenseness, ready for a spring. There was but one instant of wire-drawn tautness. Then he vaulted into the air and landed on his stiffened front legs. True sun-fishing!
It would have taken a good rider to sit through that single jump. It would have been very strange if a cripple could have withstood it. And Holden was not equal to this necessary miracle. He was snapped from the saddle like a pebble from a boy’s thumb. He landed with an audible thud and rolled over and over in the thick dust of the corral, while Clancy, whirling like a fiend incarnate, lunged after his late rider.
A dozen guns flashed in the sun at the same instant, but never a bullet could have been in time to stop that charge had not Clancy swerved at the last moment and leaped across the prostrate form. Then around the corral he whirled, his ears flat, his eyes full of hell fire, his tail lashing as an angry cat’s, his mighty hoofs shaking the ground. That would have been his last moment in life, for it seemed plain that he was working himself into a frenzy before smashing the cripple to bits, but at this instant, Tom Holden propped himself up on one shaking hand and raised the other.
The impact of the fall had started a stream of crimson from his nose, and his eyes were dull with the shock. They could hardly believe their ears when they heard him say: “No guns, friends! This is between Clancy and me!”
Between a dwarf and a giant, a lamb and a lion!
However, they stayed their hands. Yonder raged the stallion like a cat which has missed a mouse. Except that, in this case, the mouse had not escaped. No, though Holden dragged himself uneasily to his feet and staggered as he stood, he made no effort to escape from the impending danger.
Then Clancy charged. High above that frail form he reared, and Alexa covered her eyes.
“Look!” said her father.
She looked again. The man was not down. Clancy had changed his mind; the magic was working again, and yonder was Holden leading him toward the fence once more! Poor Tom Holden, covered with thick dust, his face smudged with crimson, leading the monster calmly toward the fence and leaning heavily on the mane of the stallion!
There at the fence he mounted once more. The sheriff himself thought fit to take a hand at this point.
“Holden,” he said, “you’ve done very well, and like a brave chap. But there ain’t no use goin’ any further. We’ve all seen you’re as game as they come. But this time he’ll murder you! Don’t try it again.”
Words seemed to fail Holden, or perhaps he was too weak to answer, for it could be plainly seen that the effect of the fall had told terribly upon his delicate body. There was still in his eyes a blank stare of concentrated agony and effort, and his body was bowed in the saddle.
Once more, as his weight slipped into the stirrups, Clancy crouched. He started a sudden step forward, and even that small jar unbalanced the rider and sent him sprawling along the neck of the giant horse. It was so absurd that a boy in the crowd burst into laughter. Something in that note of mirth shocked even that hardy lot of spectators, and a strong hand laid the merry youth in the dirt.
In the meantime the others saw the stallion stop short and turn his head, not to tear Holden with his teeth, but to sniff in kindly inquiry at the half-fallen form of his rider, as though wondering what could have unseated him. They saw, also, how Holden slowly, with a groan of effort, drew himself back into the saddle and sat there perspiring with anguish.
Then Clancy went on again, but softly, softly, with his head turned a little to watch every move of the man on his back. At the fence he was turned by a touch of the reins.
“What shall I do?” asked Tom Holden. “Is he ridden now?”
“Get off,” said Doone with some emotion. “That hoss is yours, son, and you’ve well earned him, and them that say you rode that hoss with dope in him lies. We’ve seen him work. Get off, Holden. Clancy belongs to you.”
Holden replied to that announcement and to the uproar of the crowd with a faint smile and a gesture. He took one foot from the stirrup and slid down. Only by gripping at Clancy did he save himself from falling. Then he clambered through the fence once more and picked up his staff. Men and children swarmed about him to shake his hand and shower him with praise, but Holden waved them back, and through their midst came a tall, gaunt form which they all feared: Aunt Carrie, striding like a man.
She put an arm around the sinking body of Holden. “Can you walk, child?” said she in her harsh voice.
“I can walk—fine,” sa
id Holden. “But keep ’em out of my path!”
She cleared them away with a few stinging words, and so she brought him to the hotel again and helped him up the stairs to his room. At the threshold he dropped suddenly to the floor, but Aunt Carrie waved back the dozen strong hands which proffered to raise him. She herself gathered him in her long, bony arms and bore him to the bed. Then she opened his shirt and felt his heart.
“He’s still living,” she announced to the crowd, “no thanks to you, the lot of you that would have seen him killed and laughed about it afterward. Now go get him the doctor, and get him quick!”
The doctor was brought; he was already hurrying to the spot, indeed.
Afterward, when he was gone, and Aunt Carrie was left alone in the room with the invalid, the doctor came out and talked to the curious crowd in the lobby of the hotel. He was a young doctor; he was succeeding in Larramee because he could handle a rope and a gun as well as a surgeon’s knife.
“Is he bad hurt?” asked the sheriff.
“Not a broken bone, and no internal injuries. It’s what I’d call shock,” said the doctor. “Not the shock of hitting the ground so much as a mental strain of some kind, which finally snapped. He’ll be all right by tomorrow morning.”
“What sort of strain, doctor?” asked one. “Kind of strain that comes from riding around at night and sticking up stray gents?”
There was deep, mirthless laughter, at this, but the doctor shook his head. “It looked to me,” said he, “as though that was the first horse he ever rode.”
“How did he do it, then?”
“I’m darned if I know,” said the doctor gravely. “I’ve never believed in the hypnotism of humans, let alone horses!”
In the meantime, Holden opened his eyes and found above him the cracked ceiling of the hotel room.
“Are you better, Tom Holden?” asked the voice of the witch.
