by John Benteen
As it turned out, he didn’t. Ahead, the locomotive blew a shrill blast. Fargo leaned closer to the glass, peered out, and, as the train rounded a curve, saw a kind of scab on the plain beyond. Thank God, he told himself. Dos Caminos at last.
Two highways; that was what the town’s name meant. One was the railroad; the other was nothing more than a cart track lined with a dozen houses and a few stores on either side. Except for that, there was nothing but the endless plain and a huge, cloudless sky of scalding blue. He had been in some remote and desolate spots in his time, but Dos Caminos was as close to nothing stuck up the back side of nowhere as any place he had ever hit.
As the train pulled away, the crowd of townspeople and gauchos who had come down to see it in broke up. Fargo tipped a huge mestizo a peso to carry the trunk into the station to store it. Knowing back country Spanish-American towns he looked at the agent with hard, cold eyes and was careful to tilt back his coat and show the butt of his pistol as he made the deal. Otherwise, he would come back to find the trunk gone and no one knowing anything about it.
The agent got the message. When he was sure of that, Fargo gave the man two pesos and promised him another five when he came to reclaim the trunk. Then he left the station and set out to see the town, stretch his legs, and buy a horse.
As he strolled down the dusty street, he was aware of eyes following him from both sides. The arrival of a stranger in Dos Caminos was an event that would provide the place with gossip for another month. Fargo knew enough about back country to be aware that the grapevine would carry the news of his coming far and wide in a matter of a day. By tomorrow, Hierro’s estancia—and whoever controlled it now—would have heard. But there was no help for that.
It did not take long to walk the town’s length. A shabby church, a pulperia, or general store and bar, a one-room schoolhouse, and a few miserable mud dwellings made up all there was of Dos Caminos. Before the store, a few saddle horses dozed; Fargo sized them up with practiced eye. They were small and wiry, like Texas mustangs. Only a couple showed signs of better blood. They would not serve for what he wanted; he hoped he could find a better mount.
He reached the end of the dusty street. Then he heard the voices, the whooping and yelling, and turned and stared, shading his eyes against the glare with his hand. A hundred yards out there across the flats, he saw the poles of a big corral with the colorful figures of gauchos perched on the top rail. Dust rose and swirled; and there was the snort and whinny and thud of hooves that meant a horse round-up. Maybe that was where he would find his mount.
As he neared it, he saw that it was actually two pens. In the larger one, what were apparently wild horses of the pampas, a good two dozen of them, ran around and around in terror and excitement at being penned. In the other, a horse had been roped and thrown and men were now cinching on a saddle.
When Fargo reached the fence, the dozen gauchos perched there turned and looked at him curiously. He returned their stare: never had he seen such a tough bunch of men. They were dark, lean and weathered, hard as rock, their gear stained from life on the plains, their unwashed odor rank and animal.
Yet they possessed a natural courtesy. When the tall gringo with the strange hat climbed up the fence, they made room for him, nodded politely. They took in the wide shoulders, narrow hips, long, slightly bowed horseman’s legs and recognized one of their own kind. Fargo settled himself between a pair of them and looked at the horse lying in the dust.
It was a magnificent animal, big, long-legged, the color of steel. A man sat on his head and could hardly hold him down. He recognized the thick, crested neck of a mature stallion. That, Fargo thought, is a horse and a half ...
In Spanish, he asked the gaucho next to him, “What’s going on?”
The man gestured, looking at him as if he were an idiot for not knowing. “Man, today is the greatest day in the history of Dos Caminos. At last El Cimarron has been captured and now Theo Braga prepares to ride him.”
El Cimarron: The Wild One. “That is a great horse,” Fargo said.
“Si. His dam was a wild mare of the pampa, his sire a blooded stallion gone wild from the Hierro estancia. For seven years, now, he has led his band and eluded capture, and no one knows how many men he has killed ... ”
“Killed?”
The gaucho nodded. “Si. A horse so big, so strong, can run down any ordinary mount. When this one saw a rider approaching, instead of fleeing, he attacked. He would run over the rider’s mount, and then pursue the rider himself. Those great hooves, those iron jaws ...”
Fargo nodded. A killer stallion was one of the most ferocious animals on God’s earth.
“Anyhow, yesterday Theo managed to capture him. Theo is the greatest domador, the finest horse-breaker, in the country. The stallion charged him, but Theo stood his ground, hurled his bolas.” The man lifted his own as he named it: two long ropes, weighted at each end with heavy, leather-covered rocks, attached to another rock, and another rope coming out from that, for use as a handhold. Fargo had seen one gaucho use it, whirling the weighted ropes around and around his head like a lasso, then throwing them. They had wrapped themselves around the legs of a fleeing cow, and brought her down. The gauchos used it in preference to a riata, were expert with it. “He brought El Cimarron down with it, then got ropes on him. And when he brought the stallion in, the mares and foals followed. Now, God willing, Theo will ride the beast and break him ...”
Blindfolded, now, a spade bit forced into his mouth, a padded saddle on his back, El Cimarron lay still stretched out, feet hobbled with loose loops so he could not kick. Fargo looked at the gaucho who was supervising all this: Theo Braga. His age was impossible to determine; maybe twenty, maybe fifty. Braga was stocky, massive in shoulders and chest, short in his powerful legs. He clamped his narrow-brimmed hat more tightly on a bullet-shaped head, adjusted huge-roweled spurs on his colt skin boots, whipped the air with the long braided quirt dangling from his wrist. Then he stood over the stretched-out stallion, seating one foot in an iron stirrup. He wiped his face with the red bandana around his neck, let the cloth drop. Fargo caught a glimpse of a broad countenance with glittering black eyes, a snub nose, a mouth like a wide slit. Braga hitched at his belt. Then, as everyone around the arena held his breath, he gave a signal.
One man whipped off the loop that bound the hind feet; another shook loose the one that wrapped the front ones. At the same time, a third jerked loose the blindfold. Braga seized the reins and, as El Cimarron came straight up, he landed squarely in the saddle and socked in the spurs.
The horse gave a mighty, end-swapping leap, at the same time whipping its head around to chop Braga’s leg with its powerful jaws. Braga drew back his foot just in time; Fargo heard the click of teeth, like the snap of a steel trap. Then Braga began to lash the animal with the quirt, rake it with his spurs.
The Argentine method of horse breaking was not gentle. The idea was to ride the animal into the ground, deal out enough abuse in the process to break its spirit. Braga’s spurs drew blood; so did his quirt, as the wild stallion screamed and grunted and soared high, thudded to earth, leaped again. Braga clamped its barrel, sat the saddle as if glued there, a superb horseman. He lashed the animal across the neck and face as it sought to get its head back to bite him. Fargo sat tensely: this man was one of the finest riders he had ever seen. He heard himself whoop encouragement as the wild stallion twisted, turned, and reared, went up, came down again with spine-jarring, stiff legged impact, and Braga kept lashing, roweling it.
No rodeo fancy stuff here; no ten-second whistle. Braga was committed; it was the horse or him. He must beat El Cimarron or the stallion would kill him; there would be no pick-up riders to save him if he were thrown. In such a situation, all rules went by the board; when he had to, Braga braced himself on the pommel, even seized a strap that held the padding to steady himself. Being thrown meant death. And it was evident that Braga did not intend to die. His quirt rose and fell without mercy; his spurs did
terrible work.
But the horse’s fighting spirit was the equivalent of its rider’s. It screamed with fury, snorted with rage, grunted deep in its chest. It reared and pawed and twisted; and still Braga stuck like a burr. It rushed toward the fence, trying to scrape him off; he swung up his leg as the stallion hit the poles and men fell backwards in panic, out of reach of the horse’s clicking, deadly jaws. Braga whipped it hard and turned it and it soared again into the center of the ring, with fantastic leaps that snapped its rider’s head back and forth and made blood trickle from his nostrils. Then it stopped, suddenly, hunched its back into a bow like that of an angry cat’s. Suddenly it gave one more massive leap, that carried it a full six feet off the ground.
The saddle girth broke. Saddle and rider alike kept on going up, sailing high. A cry went up from the gauchos around the ring. Braga and the saddle seemed to hang up there against the sky forever, while El Cimarron, sensing what had happened, reared and wheeled and turned. Then Braga came down, hitting hard in the dust and lay there stunned, and the big horse stretched its neck and bared its teeth and came after him, reins trailing.
Braga rolled over lazily, saw the steel-colored demon bearing down on him. He tried to scramble up, failed. In that instant Fargo moved.
It was not concern for a bronc-twister he had never met. It was the horse itself which challenged him. Something in him, wild as El Cimarron himself, could not resist that challenge. He was in the ring, shouting, before he knew what he was doing. His long legs carried him to the space between the horse and Braga. Startled by this apparition in the white suit, the stallion shied, faltered, and gave Fargo the chance he needed. As Braga sat up, Fargo’s hand whisked the quirt from his wrist. Then El Cimarron, recovering, was coming after him, black mane flying, eyes red, teeth bared.
Fargo hit him in the face with the quirt and the horse’s head jerked aside, and in that instant the reins flew free, and Fargo caught them with his left hand. He hit the horse again, slashing toward the eyes and jerked its head around with all his strength. El Cimarron reared and pawed, chopping with lethal hooves, but they struck only air, for now Fargo was by the animal’s flank, and, as it came down, he gave one great leap, the hand that held the reins braced on the withers, and then, bareback, he was astride the stallion.
A shout went up all around the corral. Braga scrambled to his feet, staring. Then he ran for the fence, as El Cimarron, disregarding Fargo on his back, charged him.
The stallion did not get far. Its rider hauled the reins; the spade bit chewed hard into its palate, and, in agony, the horse reared on its hind legs and pawed the air. Fargo grabbed a handful of mane, legs clamped tight. There was a moment when it seemed the stallion might go over backwards; he reversed the quirt and clubbed it between the ears with the butt. The horse grunted deep in its chest, came down on its forefeet, kicked up high with its rump. Fargo braced himself on neck and withers, clung tightly. He wore no spurs, but he knew how to use the quirt.
El Cimarron was lathered now from nose to rump with sweat and blood. Fargo could feel the pumping of the stallion’s lungs and the pounding of its heart. A kind of wild joy in this combat filled him; the stallion was tiring, but it had plenty left—enough to kill him if he let up for a second. As it soared high again, he had time to think disjointedly that this was no way to break a horse—he had learned the art of jinete from Sonoran and Californian vaqueros and had gentled broncos for the cavalry remount service. The way to break a horse was with patience and firm kindliness and discipline.
El Cimarron came down like a ton of bricks. Fargo lashed the stallion’s neck without mercy. No, this was no way to break a horse. But it was the way to ride a killer. The big jaws snapped close by his ankle; he hit the horse again. It bucked, a fantastic maneuver, rising toward the blurred, dancing dazzle of the sun, swapping ends, coming down with ferocious impact; Fargo’s knees slipped on the bare, sweaty flanks, and only his hand entangled in the mane saved him. El Cimarron gave a long, gusty sigh and suddenly his head fell and he did not buck again, but only stood there, exhausted, defeated, flanks pumping.
Fargo’s hand was savage on the reins. “Open the damned gate!” he bawled in Spanish. Then he kicked the stallion hard in the flanks and lashed it with the quirt and it came alive again and made for the sudden opening at top speed; and then Fargo and the horse were rushing across the pampas, at breakneck speed, the steady driving, rhythmic pounding of El Cimarron’s legs beneath him good, exhilarating. It galloped like the indomitable wild thing it was, and he lashed it mercilessly with the quirt and let it run. It could not keep up this pace long; one of two things had to happen. Either, exhausted, it must stop and acknowledge man its master, or it must keep on running until its heart broke and it went down in death. The high grass flashed by, the sky seemed to swirl above him; and still El Cimarron pounded on. Fargo yelled, with the sheer joy of living and conquering; he was four, five miles from town, now, out on what he’d heard called the hard-grass pampa, where the tall plumed seedpods waved and each blade was like a sword. If he lost control of El Cimarron now, it would be man and horse alone, with no one to help, as he’d helped Braga. Let himself be thrown and he was dead; Cimarron would have strength left enough to kill him.
Then the stallion lurched, went down on its knees. The sudden drop almost threw Fargo; he saved himself with a hand on the thick, crested neck.
The horse stayed like that for five minutes, head down, mouth dribbling foam, flanks heaving, heart thudding inside its ribs. Fargo ceased to quirt it. Instead, he began to rub its sweaty neck, scratch between the ears which were no longer tightly laid back. A kind of shiver went over El Cimarron. The horse snorted. Then, slowly, painfully, it lurched to its feet again, head down, body trembling.
Fargo sat alertly, ready for any trick. None came.
El Cimarron bent his head around. Fargo drew back a booted foot, ready for the vicious bite.
It did not come. El Cimarron swabbed sweat from his eyes against Fargo’s boot. Then, gasping, he stood with head dropped low.
Fargo applied pressure on the reins. The stallion’s head came up.
Fargo’s hand kept on massaging the sweaty neck, rubbing the bump between ears now gone slack, one pointed right, one left, like fallen banners of defeat. Then he tried more pressure, leftward, on the reins.
The spade bit, pressing, brought Cimarron around. He began to walk, back toward Dos Caminos, panting with every step. Fargo hoped his wind had not been broken. He did not think it had; this horse was made of iron, just as its hide was the color of steel.
Five miles. He took his time. Did not push the stallion; caressed and talked to it, accustoming it to feel and touch. Reined it from side to side, familiarizing it with the bit. Once, when it wanted to halt and he knew it needed to blow, he let it. The second time, when it was only balking, he touched it lightly with the quirt and it moved on.
Now the town drew nearer. No riders, however, came out to meet him. They still had fear of El Cimarron, fear of his charging and overrunning their mounts.
He was half a mile from town, now. Then he saw the single horseman galloping toward him. Cimarron lifted his head, whinnied a challenge. Fargo struck the stallion’s rump hard with the quirt. The animal shivered and its challenge died.
Theo Braga, smeared with dust and crusted with dried blood from nostrils and a bad scrape on his cheek, reined in his spotted pony. He tipped back his narrow hat. His eyes were like glittering obsidian, his mouth a thin slit. “Señor,” he said. “I am Theo Braga. How are you called?”
“Fargo. Neal Fargo.”
Braga’s eyes went to the exhausted, docile stallion. “Until now, I have been the greatest domador in this whole country. But you are greater. I owe you my life. It is at your service.”
“Por nada,” Fargo said.
“For a great deal.” Braga’s gaze raked over the horse again. “My life means nothing to anyone but me, but to me, it means a lot. Will you accept this horse in payment? This grea
t stallion that you have conquered?”
“I can’t,” Fargo said, “He’s yours. You caught him.”
“Because I caught him, he is mine to give. I give him to you.” He edged his mount up closer, ready to jerk it away if Cimarron snapped at it. The stallion did not; its eyes were glazed, uninterested. Carefully, Braga reached out, touched the stallion’s head. The horse did not react.
“Beaten. Conquered.” Braga grinned at Fargo. “Man, you can ride.” He sobered. “A horse is poor payment for a man’s life. What else can I give you?”
Fargo grinned. “You can buy me a drink,” he said. “I need one.”
“I will buy you many.” Braga turned his mount around. Then he and Fargo rode stirrup to stirrup toward Dos Caminos.
~*~
A silent crowd watched them as they rode up to the corral and Fargo slipped down from El Cimarron. A kind of gasp of awe went up as he loosed the bridle, took the bit from its bloody mouth and still the stallion made no attempt to attack. Then Braga, still astride his paint pony, swept black eyes over the group. “The stallion belongs to this man,” he said, indicating Fargo. “Anyone who touches it will have to deal with me.” He kicked free a stirrup. “Come, behind me. We will ride to the pulperia and have a drink of carta.”
Fargo swung up behind him. Braga spurred the pony; it galloped toward the store. Just before they reached it, Fargo clutched Theo’s arm. “What’s that?”
Braga put the pinto around; and Fargo stared down at the corpse beside the store’s wall. The man’s body was covered with a poncho; only his booted feet protruded from beneath it. “That?” said Braga. “That’s nothing. Just Alfredo. I killed him a few minutes ago with my facon.”
Flies were crawling on the bloody poncho. “Your knife? Why?”
Braga’s chuckle was cold. “Because, when I got to my feet again, I looked at my saddle girth. It did not break; it was cut half in two by someone. And that someone could only have been Alfredo, whose china—sweetheart—I took away from him. He had not the nerve to face me with his knife! He tried to kill me in a different way. Well, Cuanto mas ancha es la herida, mas altiueo queda el muerto...”
