Conquering Horse

by Frederick Manfred

  Dancing Sun left off grazing and re-entered the ocher river. He drank long and deep, nose under, bubbles rising. Once he lifted his head and trumpeted a short winning neigh at his wife Twinkling Feet.

  No Name waited. He scanned the green horizon to the north, looking out as far as the enveloping purple haze would permit. He saw no sign of Rough Arm and his wild men.

  He almost fell asleep. Clopping steps jerked him wide awake. Looking down, he saw Twinkling Feet and Dancing Sun come stepping up the trail. They came heavily, water-logged, stiffened. Quickly No Name positioned the sorrel so the pull on the ground loop would not throw him. He held the rope in hand, ready to jerk.

  His pulse beat painfully in his wound. His head came up. He sniffed in anticipation. His fierce black eyes glittered. Red passion glowed in his brain. A cold-blooded green-eyed predator writhed in old darkness in his belly. He licked his lips, once, already wildly happy that he had seized the white one.

  The heavy mare stepped over the waiting loop. Her hoof touched the edge of it. She paid no attention to it. She waddled heavily on.

  Then the white stallion stepped into it with his forefeet. He also paid it no mind.

  In that instant No Name moved. He gave the lariat a flip. The flip undulated down the lariat and lifted the loop off the ground under the stallion. Again No Name moved, this time giving the lariat a powerful jerk at the same time that he quirted the sorrel under him. Just as he had planned in mimicry, the rope jerked high and the loop caught the white one well up on the forefeet. It threw him. The stallion hit the ground with a loud whumpfing grunt. Black dust puffed up. The mare ahead heard the crash of bones behind her and with a startled snort came up out of her self-absorption. She lumbered heavily up the bluff and out of sight.

  Dancing Sun lay stunned a moment; then, with a scream of astonishment, of outrage, at the great indignity suffered, tried to rise. His head arched gracefully up, his forefeet came part way up, even his belly rolled.

  No Name quirted the sorrel again, viciously. The sorrel leaned until the quivering rawhide threatened to snap.

  Once more No Name quirted the sorrel. This time the rope rolled Dancing Sun completely over. The sorrel kept digging, began to drag the white one across the ground.

  “Hehan!” No Name leaped to the ground, second lariat in hand. He gave the sorrel another whack on the rump to make sure he understood he was to keep the rope taut, then went hand over hand down the rope. He approached the wild one carefully, going in from the side. He placed his knee on the great arched neck, tried to catch up the stallion’s near back leg. Dancing Sun felt the knee, kicked violently, and No Name missed his grab.

  “Hold him!” No Name cried back at the sorrel. “Hold him tight!”

  One Who Follows understood. He leaned back so far he looked like a great dog sitting down.

  Again No Name reached for the back leg. Dancing Sun shuddered. Suddenly he came around at No Name with his head and tried to bite him. His eyes were blazing. Mysterious sounds gurgled in his belly.

  “Ho, I have a horse who likes to bite Yanktons! Well, all you shall have for your teeth is empty air.”

  At last No Name got the other loop around the back leg. He pulled it tight. Then, as the stallion once more tried to bite him, he also caught the lower jaw in a half loop. This too he pulled up tight. Then he flipped another loop around the head and had him bridled as well as lashed down. He pushed the rawhide down the nose until it lay exactly in the right place, so that the slightest pull would put painful pressure on certain nerves.

  Dancing Sun tried to move; couldn’t. He groaned; lay still. Slowly the look of a trapped eagle came over his bluish eyes.

  No Name stood up. “I have you, mighty white one!” he cried, exultant. “Wait until my father hears of this. I shall be known. Hey-hey-hey! I feel the power of it in me all the time.”

  There was a great clap of thunder behind them, then a cracking echo off the cliff. He looked up and around. There, all along the horizon behind them, from the southwest all the way to the northwest, almost on the ground, lay a low, angry green cloud. He had been so busy catching the wild one he had not noticed the sky suddenly becoming overcast.

  Ahead of the low green cloud were still other wild clouds, raggy, boiling, darting. The wild gray shrouds seemed to be rushing toward a common center above him. Listening, he heard a sullen roar descending.

  Dancing Sun and One Who Follows heard it too. Both horses whickered strangely, brokenly. They understood some sort of disaster was impending.

  “Helper,” No Name said in a low voice, “what, are you deserting me at this time? I have the white horse. Let us keep him. He is a good one. Send the storm along some other path.”

  There was another crackle of lightning. It hit the ground higher up the trail. Pinkish blue light dazzled all around them; stunned them. A tremendous boom of thunder exploded against the earth. The valley seemed to crack apart.

  No Name threw another look around behind them. The low green cloud came on, rolling down the valley. Even while he watched, it engulfed the yellow cliff, then the first fat bluff, then his grizzled lookout cottonwood across the river. Meanwhile above them the boiling gray shrouds concentrated into a churning black mass. A great droning roar as of some tremendous spinning top came pressing down upon them. His ears began to hurt with it. He could feel the blood beating in his dogteeth.

  A few hailstones the size of robin eggs struck around them. A moment more, then the swirling blast of a great wind whelmed over them. Hailstones and black smut and grayish water churned as one. He covered his head with his free hand against the striking hail. He could feel the sorrel tugging through the white horse. He looked around but could not see the sorrel. Hailstones the size of eagle eggs began to hammer around them. Then a hailstone the size of a baby’s skull plunked him squarely on the brow and arm. He saw fire. The arm over his head became numb. He changed arms. It too was hit, became numb. The roaring of the wind deepened. It began to whine hoarsely, like the terrible and continuous and reverberating roar of a lion. Under the pounding balls of hail the stallion beneath him struggled with wild frenzy.

  “Ai-ye!” No Name cried, coughing under the pummeling hail, “He will hurt himself.”

  He took his knife and boldly cut the rope from the white one’s forefeet. The sorrel, suddenly released, fell over. No Name next cut the rope from the wild one’s rear leg. Then suddenly, before the wild one could realize he was free to rise, No Name jumped on his back, clamping his slim legs tight.

  The stallion rose under him like a canoe overcoming two successive waves. No Name could feel the warm muscles gathering under him for a jump. Again he was struck how much it felt like riding a massive writhing snake. Then, risen, ducking his head to one side away from the falling hail, the stallion bolted heavily up the trail for the barren above. Once he slipped. Quickly he regained his step and beat on. Hailstones splattered around them in the mud. Dancing Sun squealed every time a hailstone hit him over the ears.

  “Run, great one,” No Name cried. “You are my god. I will take care of you.”

  Slipping, regathering himself, quartering away from the storm, Dancing Sun bounded up the trail.

  “Run, let us escape the Thunders who want to kill us. Would that my father Redbird were here. He would appease them with a powerful prayer of supplication.”

  When they reached the level prairie above, the stallion began to buck, sunfishing, trying to stand on his head. No Name was ready for him at every turn, at every twist. When the stallion dropped to the ground and rolled to get rid of him, No Name stepped to one side. When Dancing Sun got to his feet again, No Name quickly remounted him.

  Howling winds pressed down from the skies. Green hail thickened. The big stones raised blood blisters on both man and horse. Sheets of water rose over the ground, first hoof-deep, then ankle-deep. Soon islands of hailstones were floating to all sides.

  “A cloud has burst,” No Name cried. “My father once spoke of having seen
such a thing. There will be a flood in the valley and it will be fearful.”

  Then, abruptly, hail and wind slackened off. And the stallion quit his pitching.

  They drifted with the storm. It rained, rained. No Name did not dare to open his eyes except under a protective palm. The rain came down so sheeting thick he could scarcely make out the stallion’s white ears. No Name’s head and the backs of his arms felt like one solid bruise.

  Presently the rain let up too. Horse and man stopped. Both lifted their heads and looked wonderingly around. Ahead of them a solid gray wall of slanting driving rain moved swiftly on.

  There was no land to be seen. Even the black ashes of the prairie fire had vanished. The whole flat top of the hogback was covered with bubbling ice and water, all of it beginning to sheet off toward the low places to either side. It went with a slowly gathering rush. It had rained so hard so fast the water had not had time to run off.

  “It is my father’s friends, the Thunders. They sent the hailing rain to help me subdue the wild one. Thank you, thank you. I am happy.”

  He sat at ease.

  At that moment Dancing Sun exploded beneath him. Despite the mud, the wild one managed to rise almost twice his height in the air. At the top of the jump, his head and rump went down, his back up.

  No Name grabbed desperately for the scarlet mane, hung on.

  Dancing Sun hit the muddy ground on a slant, came down with such a jolt No Name’s head snapped like the head of a floppy grass doll.

  “Helper!” No Name cried, “what is this? He still thinks to be free?”

  A new and even stronger voice seemed to speak to him. “Take courage. This is a good day to die. Think of the children and the helpless at home who expect you to be valiant. Do not fear. What is to come has already been foreseen.”

  In anger No Name gave the bridle rope a hard jerk. The jerk pinched the wild one’s nose. He squealed. He rose off the ground like a great fish leaping free of water and standing on its tail. Again they came down, hard, both grunting.

  Red rage rose in the dark back of No Name’s head. “Cursed one, do you not know the gods have already foreseen what is to happen?” He whipped the stallion across the flanks with the end of his raw-hide rope, hard, on both sides, raising welts.

  Dancing Sun screamed. A whipping he had never had before. He lowered his head and bolted straight ahead.

  Slops of mud and drifts of gray-green hail still lay everywhere on the hogback. It made heavy going. Yet Dancing Sun sped over the ground as if it were hard and dry. He ran as sure-footed as a bighorn. He paced so smoothly, so swiftly, No Name had a vision of himself riding a white bird flying low along the ground in a gray-green dream. It was the same as having a nightmare while wide awake.

  The smoothness of the flight enraged No Name still more. He whipped the stallion again.

  Dancing Sun shivered, shuddered, let go a deep rasping roar, broke into a gallop.

  “He-han!” No Name cried. “I have won! I have broken you. You have galloped at last. You are now as all other mortal horses. Run, run, run! Ah, that my father could see this great thing! I feel like a man. I can feel the power of it with me all the time.”

  They leaped about on the hogback. They went in circles. The stallion was a great white crane trying to get rid of a weasel on its back.

  Between jumps, catching sight of the land below the three bluffs, No Name was startled to see that the whole valley had filled with a racing sheet of yellow water. Uprooted trees, ripped up bushes, dead bodies of half-burned deer, scuds of loose leaves and sticks, floated swiftly east.

  “Ei-ye! another Great Smoky Water has entered the valley.”

  Then he recalled something. When just thirteen, he had once helped his father tame a balky pinto. They had driven it into the River of The Double Bend at flood time. In deep water the pinto was suddenly helpless. The pinto hated getting its ears wet, had to swim for its life, had no time for fancy curvetting. By the time the pinto reached shore, it was docile. No Name remembered the time very well. What great sport it had been to sit on the pinto’s back in the racing water. He had thrilled to the warm feeling of the horse’s body between his legs, bunching and humping its big muscles under him, desperate, vigorous, yet always easy to control.

  No Name jerked on the bridle rope, pulling the white stallion around. Then, by slapping him over the eyes, first one side, then the other, smartingly, he headed him for the trail.

  In his frenzy the wild one did not seem to mind. He galloped in long mud-slopping strides straight for the river. Pellmell they went over the edge of the bluff and down the ravine past the green cedar, and then, with a spring, jumped into the roaring flood. They went completely under. After a moment they popped up, spilling water. And still the stallion wanted to gallop. He humped along in the water like a stumbler in a sticky dream, up and under, down and up. Like the balky pinto, the white stallion also hated getting his ears wet. All the while he humped and galloped in the flood, he somehow managed to keep them above water.

  The mad bobbing, the driving current, gradually made No Name lose his grip. Feeling himself sliding off, he decided to take to the water. To keep from getting kicked by Dancing Sun’s stroking hooves, No Name grabbed hold of the horse’s tail and swam along behind. Dancing Sun took the full shove of the current while No Name swam in gentled waters.

  Yet still Dancing Sun wanted to gallop in the water. He could not break out of it.

  “Helper!” No Name cried, gulping in the moiling waters, “what must I do? He is as one gone crazy. They of the underworld are stirring his brains with a stick.”

  Dancing Sun seemed to have heard. He let out a great sigh; sank; came up sputtering. Then, calmer, he began to swim in a horse’s usual manner.

  No Name let go a great sigh, too. Taking a firm hold of the horse’s tail, he began to steer him through the sliding sudsing water. They turned in a slow circle and headed for shore.

  They drifted a long way down river before the stallion touched solid ground. It was at a place where the prairies sloped gently into the valley. As they emerged, No Name quickly slipped up on Dancing Sun’s back again. Both dripped muddy water. Froth hung from the corners of their mouths. The stallion’s dazzling white coat was now a soppy placked-down gray, almost the white- gray look of death; the red flame in his mane and tail was dowsed.

  They went slowly up the greasy rise. Standing water had by now mostly run off the plateau. Only irregular drifts of hail still lay over the ground.

  No Name guided Dancing Sun toward the bluffs. The horse went meekly, seemingly subdued at last.

  When they reached the middle bluff again, where the footing was fairly firm, Dancing Sun groaned and suddenly lay down. No Name had just time to jump to one side to keep from being crushed.

  Great head lying stretched out in the mud, worn out, covered with blood-tinged sweat, sobbing convulsively, the stallion lay as if about to die. Drops of blood gathering in the corners of his delicate bluish eyes ran down his long white face. A trickle of blood also ran out of his pink nostrils and stained the hail- studded sod.

  No Name’s heart melted within him. He let go of the bridle rein and knelt beside him. He caressed him, shushed him tenderly. He ran his hands gently over his ears and nose. He marveled to see the breadth of the great white forehead, that part where the horse knows all, marveled to see the deep arch of the neck, that part which shows the horse to be of noble birth.

  He massaged Dancing Sun’s neck and shoulders and back, working slowly. He grunted to him in gruff friendly tones. “Hroh. Hroh. Hroh.” He stroked the horse’s flanks, his legs. There was not one part of the horse’s body he did not touch. He worked into the horse his man smell, his touch, his spirit.

  He took the stallion’s head in his arms and exchanged breaths with each nostril. He took some of the blood dripping from his own nose and mingled it with the blood in the stallion’s nose. He also took some of the stallion’s blood and mingled it with the blood in his own
nose.

  “Horse, now you have my breath and blood and I have yours. We belong to each other. You are now my brother and I am your brother. We are brothers forever. We have lived through a great thing. We will return known to all as great ones. Let us have peace between us.”

  Dancing Sun suddenly snorted, shooting a spray of blood and froth all over No Name. His eyes blazed red hate. With a last supreme effort, his head came off the ground, then his forefeet.

  “Ho, what is this? What does my brother wish now?”

  Quickly, just as the horse got up on all fours, No Name leaped aboard again.

  Dancing Sun shuddered. Then a mad spirit seized him, and sobbing he ran in a pacing gait west down off the slope of the bluffs. Straight across a meadow he flew, then up to the top of the cliff. No Name hung on, grimly.

  A dozen leaps and they passed where the cottonwood lay fallen across the ravine. Looking over the horse’s scarlet mane, No Name saw the valley ahead and below approaching with sudden swiftness. No Name’s eyes bugged out in horror. He barely had time to realize that the flash flood had subsided some, that should the horse leap off the cliff there would not be enough water to break their long fall. Instead they would splatter onto the hard rock where the spring flowed past Leaf’s cave. With each rolling throw of his hooves, Dancing Sun gathered speed. No Name reached ahead and slapped the horse across the eyes, on the right side, again and again, trying to head him off to the left. Dancing Sun ignored the slapping. Obsessed, he drove on.

  Seeing it hopeless, that in the next couple of jumps they would both sail over the precipice, No Name let go of the scarlet mane and, sliding, bouncing, fell to the ground. He just had time to look up to see Dancing Sun take a final jump and then go soaring off, noble head up, neck arched, long scarlet mane snapping, lifted tail fluttering. Then, descending like a statue, Dancing Sun passed from view. A moment later there was a shrill scream, triumphant, derisive, and then came the crash of bulk and bones on rock.

  No Name hurried down. He arrived in time to see the great mystery slowly die out of the white one’s soft delicate bluish eyes.