Sunset Wins

by Max Brand

  He made a step toward Jim Orchard, paused, made another step, and then sprang away. The man had slowly raised his hand and now held it out in the immemorial sign of friendship and conciliation that even brute beasts learn sooner than any other human gesture. Jerico cocked his head and watched in amazement.

  Then a voice began over the silence of the hundreds, a smooth, steady voice. It was an oddly fascinating voice, and it instantly convinced him that this was a new species—not a man at all. Other men yelled and made harsh sounds of fury, while they beat him with quirts and tore his tender sides with spurs. Yes, this creature was not a man at all. The sound of his voice took hold of the nerves of Jerico and soothed them and gave him queer reassurance.

  But what was this? The creature was walking straight toward him.

  Jerico flung himself away into the farthest corner like a flash and waited again, very curious. Behold, the man came toward him again, always speaking steadily, softly, his hand extended.

  It was not altogether new. One other human being had seemed not dangerous to Jerico, and that was old Tom, the Negro. He had learned from Tom that it is not unpleasant to have a hand run down one’s neck, or across the velvet of the nose. And the approach of this stranger bore with it infinite promises of pleasure, safety, protection from that horde of white, mute faces beyond the fence.

  He began to tremble, more in curiosity than fear or, rather, with a mixture of both emotions. And now the man was close, closer. The hand moved out. Should he tear it with his strong teeth? No, there was no danger. There was no dreaded rope in those fingers. He waited, blinked, and then, as he had almost known, the fingertips trailed across his nose. A miracle!

  A miracle, indeed, it seemed to the waiting throng when, after some breathless moments, they beheld the black stallion actually drop his nose on the shoulder of Jim Orchard and stare defiantly at the faces beyond the fence.

  There was only one sound. It was the voice of old Tom, the Negro, saying in a sort of chant: “Glory be! Glory be!”

  And still the crowd was incredulous. They would not believe their eyes as they saw Jim Orchard work his way to the side of the animal, test the stirrup, and put weight upon it with his hand. The stallion winced and turned his head with the ears flattened. His great teeth closed on the arm of Jim and crushed the flesh against the bone but, in spite of the torture, Orchard did not vary the tone of his voice a jot. Presently the teeth relaxed their hold. There was a groan of relief from the crowd—a groan full of horror and tense excitement. In a way this was the most horrible horse-breaking that had ever been seen.

  Finally the foot of Jim Orchard was in that stirrup, his weight grew heavier, and at length he raised himself slowly up, and up, swung his leg over, and settled into the stirrups. That familiar burden for one moment drove the stallion mad with fear and rage. He hurtled in the air and gave for ten seconds a hair-raising exhibition of bucking.

  And then, with the shrieking of the delighted spectators in his ears, he stopped abruptly.

  He was right. This was some other creature and not a man at all. In spite of his frantic efforts, no tearing steel points had been driven into his sides, no stinging whip had cut his flanks, no hoarse voice had bellowed curses at him.

  Instead, the smooth, even voice had begun again—steadying, steadying, steadying. The sound of that voice fell like sleep upon the ragged nerves of Jerico. Someone near the fence yelled and waved a hat. Jerico tossed up his head and crouched for a leap.

  “Gents!” rang the voice of Jim Orchard. “Another stunt like that and I out with my gun and start spraying lead. I mean it! You’re going to give me and Jerico a fair chance to get acquainted. Show’s over for the day!”

  But before he dismounted, he glanced across to the door of the shack and saw the face of Sam Jordan convulsed with wonder and ugly malice.

  VI

  Until the very last act of that little drama Garry Munn had not stirred. For five minutes he had been praying silently. If Jerico had been susceptible to the influence of mental telepathy, he would certainly have smashed Jim Orchard to small bits. Instead, the miracle had happened, and Garry turned away and hurried back to the hotel. There he swung into his saddle, trotted to the outskirts of the town, and then rode at full speed out the road, deep in the dust which the unaccustomed traffic had churned up around the town.

  Two miles of hard galloping, and he swung from the road down a cattle trail which brought him, almost at once, to a right-angled bend, and then to a full view of a little shack. There was a broad, perfectly level meadowland stretching away to the left, and across this smooth ground a midget of a man was galloping a long-legged bay. Garry Munn drew his own horse down to a walk and watched with a brightening eye. Yet the bay was not a horse to win the admiration of the ordinary cowpuncher. He was too long in the back, too thin of legs, too gaunt of neck, too meager of shoulders and hips to please men who look at a horse with an eye for his usefulness on long journeys and the heart-breaking labors of the roundup.

  The bay was a horse that, it could be seen at a glance, needed the proverbial forty-acre lot to turn around in. Neither was his action imposing. He stood awkwardly. His trot was a spiritless shamble, his canter a loose-jointed, shuffling gait. But, when he began to run, there was a distinct difference. He thrust out his long neck, and the Roman-nosed head at the end of it. His little thin ear flagged back along his neck, the lengthy legs flung out in amazing strides, and the ground whirled under him with deceptive speed. He ran not with the jerky labor of a cow pony, but with jackrabbit bounds, and he was far faster than he looked. Garry Munn eyed him with distinct favor. When the midget rider saw him, he brought the bay to a jolting trot that landed him in front of the shack.

  “He’s coming into shape,” Garry said, joining the other.

  The only reply was a brief grunt. The little man industriously set about removing the saddle and then began to rub the bay. He continued his ministrations with a sort of grim energy for a full twenty minutes, then, having tethered the horse in the lean-to beside the shack, he gave some attention to Garry.

  “He ain’t in shape. Not by a lot,” he declared. “How do you expect me to get him in shape, running on plowed ground?”

  “Plowed ground?” asked Garry Munn. “Why, Tim, I picked this place out because it’s the smoothest ground around the town. You can’t beat it anywhere.”

  “Smooth, eh?” demanded little Tim. “It’s so rough that I ain’t dared to let him out. I ain’t been able to give Exeter his head, once.”

  “Wasn’t he going full tilt a minute ago?” Garry asked admiringly.

  “Him? Nothing like it! Now when Exeter …”

  “Cut out that name. He’s in this race as Long Tom. You’ll spoil everything if you let that name drop.”

  “He’s long enough, and the rules will find him a bit too long when he gets going. Only I wish I was down to weight.”

  “What’s your weight now?”

  “Clothes and all, maybe I tip the old beam around a hundred and fifteen.” He was well under five feet tall, with a withered skull face, a pinched neck, and diminutive legs. All his strength lay in the abnormally long arms and the sturdy shoulders.

  “Why, Hogan,” Garry Munn said, “that’s a good thirty pounds lighter than any other rider.”

  “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But Exeter … Long Tom, I mean … is cut out for fly-weight racing. Put him in with ninety pounds, and he’s a whirlwind. Stick more’n a hundred on him, and he don’t like it. He ain’t got the underpinning for weight.”

  “It’s only a mile,” said Garry eagerly. “He’ll surely last that?”

  “Easy, if I don’t have to stretch him out. How’s the black? What come of that Castor fellow?”

  “He’s smashed. One arm and both legs busted up.”

  The little man sighed. “You owe me a lot for that little piece of work,” he said gloomily.


  “You’ll find I’ll pay,” said Garry. “How’d you fix it?”

  “I just sneaked around until I found out what saddle they were going to use on the black. Then I fixed the saddle.” He grinned briefly with malicious pleasure, and then his expression sobered. “What happened?”

  “Jerico went mad. That’s all. He smashed Bud to pieces. I never saw such a devil when it comes to bucking.”

  “Well, now that we got the black out of the race, I ain’t worrying. I’ve timed the others, and they’re a cinch.”

  Garry delivered his bad news. “Tim, Jerico is in the race again.”

  Tim Hogan blinked. “A daredevil named Orchard rode Jerico just a while ago and got on with him, as if Jerico were an old pack horse. We’re in for it. How fast can the black go?”

  “How fast? Too fast!”

  “How far did you see him run?”

  “It ain’t what the clock told me. It’s what my eyes told me. That Jerico has a racing heart. You’ll find him doing about twice better in a race than he does in practice. Well, put Exeter on a good fast track with ninety pounds up, a little racing luck, and he’d trim all the Jericos that ever stepped on plates. But Exeter has to pack twenty-five pounds more’n he likes, and I don’t know what he’ll do. He may quit on me. Chief, you got to get Jerico out of the way, if you want to win that race!”

  Garry Munn cursed softly and fluently.

  “It can’t be done now. You don’t know this fellow Orchard. He has an eye like a hawk’s and, if he finds anyone around tampering with a bridle, or saddle, he’ll fill the man full of lead. That’s Orchard’s way. He shoots first and asks his questions of the coroner. But there’s one thing to help us, Tim. That’s the weight. Orchard is a big fellow. He must weigh a hundred and eighty … thirty pounds more than Castor.”

  “A hundred and eighty?” asked Tim Hogan cheerfully. “Why that’d anchor another Salvator.”

  “It’ll beat Jerico, then?”

  But Tim had grown thoughtful. “You can’t always tell about a horse,” he declared. “No way of figuring whether a horse will be a hog for carrying the weight or not. And Jerico looks like an iron horse. Never saw such legs. He could carry a ton, from his looks. A hundred and eighty would break Exeter’s back, but Jerico might dance with it. It ain’t likely … but then you never can tell. You got to fix that horse so’s he can’t run if you want to be sure of the race.”

  “I’ve got to win,” declared Munn. “They’ll give me odds of three to one against Long Tom, and I’ve raked together thousands for the plunge. They don’t like the looks of Tom. They think he’ll break to pieces when he starts running. I can get any odds I want against him.”

  “What’d happen if they knew Exeter was off a race track, with a record of wins as long as my arm? What’d happen if they knew I was a jockey, that I don’t own the horse, and that you brought me on for this clean-up? I’ve been sizing up the boys around here, guns and all, and I just been wondering what would happen to us both, Mister Munn, if they had a hunch about what’s happening.”

  “They’d string us up to the nearest tree and fill us full of lead,” said Garry quickly. “That’s their way.”

  Tim Hogan shook himself. “It don’t bother me none,” he declared. “I was in the ring before I started riding a string. I won’t get cold feet. But say, Mister Munn, why don’t you fix this rider … this Orchard … as long as you can’t fix the horse.”

  “Fix him? How?”

  “Get him to pull Jerico in the race.”

  Garry started, but then shook his head. “You don’t know Jim Orchard. Besides, I couldn’t approach him.”

  “You don’t have to. I’ll do it. I’ve done it before. They all got a price, if you can go high enough.”

  “I wonder,” Garry said, sweating with anxiety. “Nine chances out of ten he’d throw you out the window.”

  “I don’t pack much weight … I’d light easy.”

  “It can’t be done.”

  “It can be done. They all got a price. How high could I go with him?”

  His confidence was contagious.

  “You could go to the sky,” said Garry Munn. “Why, if Jerico’s in the race, the men around here will bet everything down to their socks. I know half a dozen ranchers who’d go ten thousand apiece on Jerico if they could find anyone to cover their money. There’s an idea around these parts that Jerico can’t be beaten by anything in the shape of horseflesh.” He became excited. “If Jerico runs, there’ll be a hundred thousand … maybe more … in sight to bet on him.”

  “Then cop it. Cop it, Mister Munn. But where do I come in?”

  “If you work the deal, Tim, it means a thousand flat to you, and ten percent of everything I make.”

  “And how’d I be sure you’d come through?”

  “I’ve never gone back on a promise in my life.”

  The little man watched him with a peculiar glance of scorn. “I guess you ain’t,” he admitted at last. “Besides, you don’t dare go back on me. How high with this Jim Orchard?”

  “A thousand, five thousand, ten thousand … anything you want. There’s a better way. Get him to bet his money on Exeter.”

  “Chief,” declared the jockey with a grin, “you learn fast.”

  VII

  As for Jim Orchard, when he swung down gently from the saddle on Jerico, there was a relieved groan of appreciation and wonder, but he paid no further attention to the crowd.

  “He’s just putting off your little party!” one of the men called warningly to Orchard.

  And perhaps he was, but something told Orchard that for the first time a man had stepped into the confidence of the black stallion. After all, had not many a stranger thing than this episode been told of horses? And was it not possible that Jerico, having battled and hated his would-be masters for so long, had finally decided that one, at least, might be accepted on trust? Jim Orchard decided to take the chance.

  All his life he had done nothing but play some such chance—whether he were gambling on the turn of a card, or the dependable qualities in a man. Deliberately he raised the stirrup and stirrup flap and put them across the saddle. Then he commenced to work at the knots of the cinches. The moment he had brought them loose and drew on the cinch straps to free them, the head of Jerico swung on him again. But this time the stallion merely bared his teeth without touching Orchard. The ears that were flattened against the horse’s neck pricked a little as he watched Orchard loose the cinches and remove the saddle.

  It was the first time that Jerico had seen this done. Hitherto he had been roped and blinded for saddling or unsaddling, to keep his murderous, striking hoofs still. Now he discovered that no matter what hateful agency put the saddle upon him, this man, this stranger of the gentle voice, could remove it. Jerico was not quite sure of any of this, but his misty animal brain was moving faintly toward the conviction that the man was at least not harmful. At the first suspicious move he was ready to scatter the brains of Jim Orchard in the dust of the corral. In the meantime, his would be a policy of watchful waiting.

  Orchard was keen enough to sense what went on behind the suspicious eyes of the horse. No matter how well he had succeeded so far, he took care to make every motion slow, gentle, and kept up a steady stream of talk. Then with the saddle over the crook of his arm, he walked calmly out of the corral, his back actually turned upon the man-killer! His hand was wrung on every side the moment the gate closed behind him.

  It was: “Good old Jim, I sure was saying good-bye to you for a minute or two.”

  “That’s the nerve, Jim.”

  “You win, old boy.”

  “Tame the lions, Orchard.”

  But Jim Orchard wondered if every one of them was not just a trifle disappointed. It would have been sufficiently thrilling to see either man or horse beaten, but this compromise, which left dig
nity and physical soundness to both man and beast, was a wretched compromise. Jim hung the saddle on its peg in the barn. The crowd had already scattered, now that the crisis had passed. There was only the grinning old Negro, Tom, and the fat bull terrier that trailed at his heels, almost bumping his nose against them. No matter where Tom turned, the dog made it an earnest practice to keep directly behind him.

  “I knowed it all the time, Mistah Orchard,” averred Tom. “Trouble with all them others was they was sure dead set on breaking Jerico’s heart. For why? Had poor ol’ Jerico done ’em any harm? No, suh, that he hadn’t. But I take off my hat to you, suh. It took a brave man to find out that Jerico weren’t no murderer, but jus’ an honest horse that had been taught all wrong.”

  “I hear you’ve got on pretty well with Jerico yourself,” said Jim Orchard.

  “Couldn’t be better, suh. When I first come, Jerico he takes a couple of swipes at ol’ Tom’s head. But he missed, praise the Lawd, and pretty soon he find out that Tom ain’t doin’ him no harm, jus’ foolin’ aroun’ and feedin’ him and bringin’ him out to water. He’s been mighty afraid, that’s all that’s been wrong with ol’ Jerico, Mistah Orchard.”

  “You broke the ice for me,” said Jim. “If it hadn’t been for what you’d taught him, he’d’ve busted me into little bits. I’m going to saddle him up myself later on, when there isn’t a crowd to watch, and we’ll try a canter down the road together.”

  “He’s a wise horse, Mistah Orchard. He’ll know you same’s if you raised him from a colt, by morning. All Jerico needs is just to make up his mind about sumthin’. Look at ol’ Glory, now. Jerico wouldn’t have my dog aroun’ for a long time. And now they’re jus’ plumb friendly. Go talk to Jerico, Glory!”