Mavericks

by Jack Schaefer

  He felt Jimmie Dun moving strong and steady under him and suddenly, out of nowhere, he wanted to do something he had not done for too many years. He wanted to cry, to blubber like a snot-nosed kid. And then, somehow, it seemed to him that Jimmie Dun was saying something to him, saying it in the ceaseless steadiness of stride, in the flex and flow of muscles under the dusty dun-colored hide, in the tireless rhythmic thuddings of hoofs. "Quit frettin'," Jimmie Dun was saying. "I'm adoin' this. You're all right for a man. A fool of a man as all men are. You're all right for takin' a tight leather feedbag off my head and for combin' the burrs off me after a hard day's work. You're even pretty good with that rope of yours when we're throwin' steers for brandin'. But you never could do what I'm doin' now. I can. So I'm fool enough in my turn to do it for you."

  And time passed and Young Jake began to feel better. He was a tough one too. He was straight in the saddle again, a true horseman helping his horse by the instinctive coordination and balance of his riding.

  The sign was nailed to a tree by the roadside. The legend was faded and worn. Young Jake could barely make it out in the dimness of dusk. "Omaha 90 Miles."

  In the clean dark of night, several hundred yards from a lonely stretch of the road, well screened by clumps of bushes and trees, Jimmie Dun munched on the last grains of the remnants of the meager contents of the bag and Young Jake chewed on his one remaining sandwich. "just about enough to make us hungrier'n ever," he said.

  He swallowed the last crumbs. He took the end of the rope trailing from Jimmie Dun's neck and tied this to his left arm. "Half an hour," he said. "Make it any longer an' I'll fall asleep sure." He leaned back against the saddle on the ground behind him and thoughts about a dun-colored maverick mustang and about three strong big horses somewhere along the same road in the dark of the same night chased themselves through his mind.

  Twenty feet away Jimmie Dun stood, motionless, head low. He was gaunted some along the ribs and sunk in some at the flanks. He was a dirtied clumsy-looking caricature of a horse that seemed dead on its feet. He looked finished, done for, ready to collapse into a heap of bones and hide. He was not. He was resting. He was relaxed all over, drooped, sagged, into absolute limpness. He knew. He was wasting no energy in twitchings or stompings or movings about. He was making the most of a brief resting. He was a smallish southwestern mustang who was just about ready to begin to fight.

  Young Jake struggled out of a doze and forced himself to his feet. "All right, Jimmie boy," he said. "Omaha the next stop."

  There was only the dark of night and the tracery of road ghostly in faint starlight and the wind of their own motion as they moved at a fast lope into the lonely miles. Houses were more frequent now, but these were nothing more than blank eyeless shapes along the way. Urgency talked along the reins, stretching Jimmie Dun's stride.

  Tiredness was an ache in Young Jake and hunger a hollowness in his belly. Giddiness took him now and again and he felt strangely light-headed. He would never remember the rest of this ride in clear sequence, only in snatches as if full awareness caught him only at certain intervals.

  It seemed to him that this supposedly short summer night would never end and suddenly he realized that objects by the roadside were sharper, more distinct, and somewhere a rooster was crowing and he could make out a sign on a fencepost: "Omaha 40 Miles."

  This little settlement showed activity in the morning sunlight. A dog ran out barking at Jimmie Dun's heels. Two wagons and a pinto saddlehorse stood by a tie-rail and half a dozen people were in front of the general store, four men and two women.

  "Here's another of them Black Hills buckaroos!"

  He held Jimmie Dun to a trot passing by, but he was ready to strike with spurs at any instant. He kept straight on, ignoring the people. After what had happened yesterday, he was in no mood even to wave at anyone, even to a pretty woman like one of those back there.

  He heard hoofbeats behind him and twisted to look around. The pinto was coming up fast. It came alongside and slowed to Jimmie Dun's pace. The man was lean and hard and a piece with his saddle and he had a sun-and-wind-tanned face with crinkles at the eye-corners from squinting into sun and distance. Young Jake relaxed some. One of his own breed.

  "What in holy hell you doin' without a hat?"

  Young Jake relaxed even more. He knew that tone too, an echo out of the distances of the cattle country. "Lost it," he said. "Ain't had time to steal me another."

  "Sun's got muscles hereabouts," said the man. "You'll fry what few brains you got. Here, take mine. I'll get another at the store." He reined the pinto in closer, pulled off his high-crowned broadbrimmed hat that was battered by weather and work into the proper dirty greasy shape and general bedraggled consistency and reached to pop it on Young Jake's head.

  "Likely you don't know it," he said. "But one of 'em's in that barn back there. Mean-lookin' gent. Big gray of his gave out. Could be he'll be movin' on after a while but he won't get much more'n a walk out of that hoss. If he can sit a saddle hisself. He's done beat."

  Young Jake was adjusting the hat to firm position. A bit tight, but it had the right feel.

  "You ain't got exactly the look of a fresh-picked daisy yourself," said the man. "But them two on ahead look worse. Can't have more'n two-three miles on you. Go get 'em." He swung the pinto and headed back towards the settlement.

  Young Jake sat up straight in the saddle as a man should. Somehow he was not as tired as he had been. He waved at a farmer who was doing something with a hoe in a field off to the left. He reached to slap Jimmie Dun on the neck. "One down, Jimmie boy," he said. "Only two more. You heard 'im. Go get 'em." And Jimmie Dun, warmed through to the very marrow of his bones now, fully into this race if it should last through all eternity, leaned forward again into a fast long-reaching lope.

  There was plenty of activity along the way now. Houses and more houses between cultivated fields and people by the roadside shouting and waving and sometimes a man or two or even a boy on horses loping alongside for a while yipping advice and encouragement. Jimmie Dun ignored them all. He was intent on this day's work, strong and steady, eating the wind, gobbling the miles.

  "Win or lose," shouted a man on a stocky sorrel that was working hard to stay alongside, "I'll give you two hundred dollars for that horse!"

  "Go soak your head," shouted Young Jake. "There ain't enough money in the whole of the world to buy him!"

  They clattered over a wooden bridge and slowed some on an up-slope. Jimmie Dun shifted his lead from right forefoot to the left, sure sign he was feeling the strain. His eyes were beginning to show redrimmed. His chest heaved in long slow rhythm and sweaty lather dampened his flanks and stretched-out neck. But still that reassuring refrain came from his pounding rock-hard range hoofs. "Quit frettin'. I'm adoin' this. You want it done, so I'm doin' it."

  "Omaha 12 Miles," said the sign a small boy held up high over his small head.

  A dark shape blotted the road in front of them, moving slowly. They came closer and it was a big bay, lathered, gaunted, head hanging, reduced to a shuffling jogtrot. The black-bearded man in the saddle heard them coming and looked back and exploded into frantic action, slapping with his rein ends, raking with his spurs, and the big bay rallied some, trying, trying, and broke into a jerky gallop.

  Young Jake was debating with himself whether to use his own spurs or hold his pace and wear the bay down-and Jimmie Dun took charge. He shifted to right forefoot lead again and surged into full gallop, belly low, legs striving for distance in lengthening stride. Young Jake felt the power pulsing under him, the message of urgency suddenly reversed and coming back to him now along the reins from Jimmie Dun's hammering hammerhead. "Yahoo!" he yelled, leaning to throw his weight forward in the saddle. "Get 'im, Jimmie boy! Get 'im!"

  Closer they came. And closer. Alongside. Young Jake heard the blackbearded man cursing him and Jimmie Dun and the bay and then they were out in front, the gap between steadily widening.

  Young Jake looked
back. He saw the bay stumble and almost fall. He saw the black-bearded man yank savagely on the reins and the bay slow to a dragging walk.

  A puppy dashed out into the road directly ahead and a small boy, heedless, unseeing, dashed after it. Jimmie Dun swerved, braking, and the boy and the dog, tumbling together, seemed to be almost under the hoofs. Jimmie Dun reared, pawing at sky, tottering on hind legs, and the boy had the dog and was out from under the arching forehoofs and Jimmie Dun was down and in stride again. Young Jake heard cheers and shouts from the roadside. None of them meant anything to him except the shrill yipping from a lanky overalled farmer. "Yowee, cowboy! Five miles to go!"

  There was no break in the steady long-reaching lope, but Young Jake could sense the laboring in it. He could feel the extra jolting as the hoofs hit and the straining muscles no longer cushioned the shocks in instant springy response. Jimmie Dun's breath came in long sobbing gasps. Sweat drenched his dun-colored hide and a dingy froth dripped from the side-bars of the bit in his mouth. But there was no break, no falter in that steady stride.

  "Three miles!" shouted someone on the edge of vision.

  Strange, there was no one loping alongside, no mounted escort, and had not been for a mile and more. Houses clustered close along the way and people in front of them were excited, shouting, waving, jumping up and down, the sense of their shouts drowned in their own clamor. But there was no one on horseback.

  Around a sharp bend in the road-and there they were, twenty and more mounted men not fifty yards ahead, trotting forward in a group. And there, in the midst of them, the big black Thoroughbred known as Cannonball. Black no longer, streaked and discolored by dust and dirt and sweaty lather. Head hung low. Moving jerkily in a shuffling foot-dragging trot. But moving. Forward.

  The others scattered sideways, clearing the way, and Jimmy Dun swept past, holding hard to his fast lope. "Yahoo!" yelled Young Jake, forgetting the rawness of his throat and the tiredness bedded in him. "Omaha, here we come!" And the escort was with him now, pulling away with him and Jimmie Dun from a bitter cursing thin-faced man and a big black horse dropping ever further behind.

  "Two miles!"

  Young Jake was fighting himself now, fighting to hold himself straight in the saddle as a man should. He had this race won. He was intent on just one thing, to finish it in proper style.

  Suddenly he was aware that the escort was scattering again, was shouting at him, was pointing back along the road. He swung in saddle to see.

  The big black named Cannonball was coming up! The thin-faced man was lashing with a quirt, jabbing with spurs. Frenzied, foam-spattering, head high and tossing, wild-eyed, running on breeding and nerve alone, dragging the last burst of power and speed out of the great Thoroughbred heart in him, Cannonball was coming up fast!

  Jimmie Dun heard. Through the tangle of hoofbeats about him he heard. He turned his head to place the big black coming up and there for a flashing instant Young Jake saw it, the look of eagles in the red-rimmed bloodshot eye. And out of the long past of his kind in the wide stripped barren land of the far southwest, out of the stubborn endurance bred into him through the generations, came the surge of strength in lean hard gaunted flanks and rock-hard hammering hoofs.

  The big black, longer-legged, covering more ground with each frantic leap, crept up, was nose to flank. Alongside. Nose to nose they pounded on and the striving escort was left behind and Young Jake saw the bloody froth flying from the big black's mouth and heard its breath whistling and rattling in its throat. A rush of anger he could never have put into words stabbed through him that men should do such things to fellow creatures finer and nobler than themselves and then all that was forgotten and he was crouched forward jockeystyle in stirrups shouting encouragement at Jimmie Dun's hammering head.

  It was Jimmie Dun creeping out in front now, inch by inch, foot by foot, yard by yard. The big black broke stride and stumbled and caught itself and came on but the distance between was widening. Young Jake looked back and saw the big black stumble again and go down and the man be thrown free, rolling in the road dust.

  "Easy, Jimmie boy," he said, tightening on reins. "It's all over but the shoutin'. Easy does it. We got to come in proud."

  And Jimmie Dun came in proud, tired and worn and dingy-looking, but strong and steady in stride, head up, ears perked, listening to the cheers from the crowd lining the way as he breasted the string stretched across the street at the finish line.

  It was Buffalo Bill Cody, whose Wild West Show was in town, who stepped up to shake Young Jake's hand and give him a small slip of paper, a certified check for one thousand dollars.

  It was the pretty daughter of the man who ran the leading leather goods store who kissed him smack on his dusty unshaven cheek and made an equally pretty little speech presenting him with a fine new double-cinch A-fork high-cantle freeswinging-stirrup saddle whose silver-topped horn gleamed in the Nebraska sunlight.

  And in the evening there was a dinner in the Cattlemen's Room of the hotel. All manner of people were there in fine clothes and Young Jake, rested some, shaved and slicked some, full of good whiskey from drinks bought him by persistent admirers, was the guest of honor. He sat in his place at the speakers' table, embarrassed and drinking more to cover that, and the whole party became extra friendly and well oiled and noisy, and he responded to toast after toast to him by drinking even more.

  Then the mayor of Omaha was on his feet, talking long and windily about the magnificent grit and endurance and downright courage of western men as demonstrated by this glorious race now concluded. He wanted to propose still another toast to and request a few words from the man who had demonstrated all this the most emphatically of all. Mr. Jacob Hanlon. He turned to Young Jake's chair and Young Jake was not there.

  Young Jake was outside in the dark of night staggering on weaving legs and wobbly feet along one street and down another. He was fumbling with a door and stumbling about inside a livery stable and into a stall where a smallish dun mustang was drooped in utter awkward-looking relaxation, munching slowly and thoroughly on good Nebraska hay. He was leaning against a dun-colored shoulder, one arm around a thick neck, pulling at one of the ears of an almost-too-big hammerhead.

  Whiskey-tinged tears streaked his face and he did not know it and he was saying over and over: "Them damn fools keep sayin' I did this an' I did that. I didn't do nothin' but just hang on. It was you that did it."

  3

  OLD JAKE HANLON sits at the rickety table in the crumbling ranch house and carefully measures canned milk into his third cup of morning coffee. It was always black coffee in the old days, black and strong and almost able to stand alone without the aid of a cup, but these last years he has taken to taming it with milk. To cool it to the right temperature has been his excuse even to himself, but the fact is he plain likes the taste. He lifts the old tin cup to drink.

  Pure gold of southwestern sunlight through the east-wall windowless window frame catches the metal of the cup that has been burnished by many a scrubbing with moist sand for scouring powder and bounces a golden patch onto the south wall of the room. Old Jake's hand stops in mid-air holding the cup. He moves the cup about a bit, shifting the angles, and watches the golden patch dance on the south wall. "What d'ya know," he says. "Ain't done that since I was a kid."

  He drinks, draining the cup, and sets it down. He pulls out his faded bandanna and wipes his mustache. He is folding the bandanna so it will fit back into his left hip pocket without raising a bump when suddenly he stops, suddenly alert. "That's funny," he says. "Thought I heard a hoss."

  He shakes his head at his own foolishness. It has been at least fifteen years since the last small-scale operations at the ranch, maintained more or less as a sideline hobby by Henry W. Harper, were closed out and the few remaining horses sold. It has been nearly ten years since Old Jake himself, who had stayed on as a sort of caretaker, was persuaded by Henry W. Harper to move into town and become a retired sometimes-paying boarder at Mrs. Wilson's b
oardinghouse. It is doubtful if at any time since then a single horse has been anywhere close to the abandoned ranch house. A few pickup trucks during the first empty years driven by scavengers always ready to grab anything worth grabbing, anything detachable, even windows and doors, yes. But a horse or horses, no.

  Old fake tucks the bandanna into the pocket. Suddenly he stands up so abruptly that the backs of his thin old legs knock against the chair. "Iffen that ain't a hoss," he says, "I'm a ring-tailed baboon."

  He steps to the doorless doorway and looks out. Sure enough, there is a horse by the sandy basin into which flows the trickle from the spring. Saddled too, but empty saddled. It is dipping muzzle to drink. It is nothing special, just a small sorrel, ewe-necked, cat-hipped, but he finds himself muttering an old saying: "Four white feet on a sorrel, good, very good." Something begins to nag far back in his mind. There is something familiar about this horse but he can not quite place it. Then he is not even trying. His old eyes have narrowed some. He has noticed several things. One of the reins is gone, broken off a few inches from the side-bar of the bit, and the stirrups hang short, quite short.

  Quietly he eases out through the doorway and towards the sagging remains of the barn. He tries to tread softly, but the horse hears and raises its head and sees him. He ambles on, looking in the opposite direction. The horse is used to having people around. It figures he is a safe distance away and is paying no attention and it dips muzzle again.

  Old Jake is in the barn. Hidden within, he moves quietly along to the far end, closer to the horse outside. He takes the worn old rope from the more worn and older saddle that sits on a wooden sawhorse and he shakes out a loop. Quietly, softly, he slips out of the barn and picks up a stone and throws this on beyond the horse. As the horse jerks up its head, looking away towards the sound of the stone hitting the ground, Old Jake runs forward as fast as his old legs will let him, the loop trailing from his right hand, and his thin old arm sweeps in a frantic echo out of the long ago days and the loop swirls forward, opening, and drops over the sorrel's head.