Mustang (A John Cutler Western Book 5)

by H. V. Elkin

  Mesteño’s hoofs returned to the ground, and he stood still a moment, looking in disbelief at the rope. He shuddered, then reared again, doing a dance on his hind legs. Defeat was not in sight. Mesteño continued to struggle against his restraint, continued to make those awful sounds, for twenty minutes. Then he stopped, breathing heavily, and held his head low. He stood that way a moment, then began to chew the rope.

  Cutler, rope, hackamore and blind in hand, dropped to the ground. His knees buckled under him when he hit, and he staggered upright, ignoring everything but the mustang. Mesteño stopped chewing on the rope and reared up at the sight of the man, at first to get away from him. His instinct was to run, having forgotten for the moment that he could not. When the rope pulled him back to the ground, he reared again and attempted to hit Cutler with his hoofs. But still he was restrained. He turned and lashed out with his back hoofs as he might fight another stallion.

  Cutler evaded the blows by moving around the tree trunk. He held the second rope and made a noose in one end of it. He worked his way around to the front of the horse and stayed there so that Mesteño was forced to use his front feet to fight with. The stallion reared at Cutler, and Cutler threw the noose around the untethered hoof, then backed away out of danger.

  When the horse reared again, Cutler pulled on the rope and the mustang fell flat. The animal regained its footing, reared again and was again jerked to the ground. It went on that way for a long time and the pauses between rearings got longer, until Mesteño was trembling and covered with lather. Then the horse stood staring with bloody eyes at his captor, and Cutler stared back.

  Cutler spoke in soothing tones. “There, there, there. Easy, Mesteño. Easy, boy. We don’t want to hurt you none. Not the way men think of bein’ hurt, anyway. But men own your range now and they own the mares that once belonged to you. You have to give up your name to stay alive now. You have to be owned, too. I don’t like it anymore than you do. But it’s got to be. And I’m the one that’s got to see it happen. Easy, boy. Easy.”

  Mesteño continued to stare at Cutler and seemed to be listening. Cutler knew what he was saying did not matter. He knew that he could swear at the horse and, as long as he did it in a soothing tone, it would have the same effect. But to be soothing, Cutler had to fill his speech with content, and he had to talk to the horse like a man.

  “Even your lead mare belongs to somebody now. A man named Dave Baker. He understands. He knows about freedom. He knows that it has to find its way inside fences of one kind or another. Your medicine hat’ll be free that way, the only way she can be now. And maybe you’ll be owned by a man like that. Easy, easy. You got to learn a new way to be free now, Mesteño.”

  The mustang seemed quieter now. But when Cutler tried to touch its neck, it shied away. So Cutler sat on the ground nearby, and he and the horse looked at each other the whole day without either of them moving. And Cutler continued to speak to the horse throughout the night.

  The next morning, Cutler stood and walked slowly up to the horse, still speaking in soft tones that by now had become hoarse. “Easy, Mesteño. Easy, boy.” Now he was able to stroke the horse’s neck. He was able to pass his hand over the horse’s eyes and breathe into its nostrils, accustoming the mustang to the scent of the man. Mesteño accepted all this warily, and Cutler knew the horse could not be ridden that day.

  In the afternoon, he was able to put the hackamore on the mustang’s head. It was no sooner in place than the horse reared again, as though the thought of resisting had come late. Cutler backed away. An hour later he was able to approach again, rub his hand over the horse’s eyes, always speaking in a quiet voice that held no threat.

  The hackamore was not very threatening either. It was not as bad as a bridle and bit would have been, for it did not place a strip of metal in the horse’s mouth. There were reins and a head piece made up of a horseshoe-shaped piece of leather running along both sides of the horse’s head and up over the top. Two loops extended toward the front, one running above the mouth and the other around the brows. It was designed to act like a bridle and bit in controlling a horse but without the cruelty of the bit. Cutler knew it might take longer to break a horse that way, but he did not want to break the horse’s spirit in the process.

  By evening, Cutler was able to pull the rope from the ground and tie it to the hackamore, restricting the horse’s movements but not keeping him as imprisoned as he had been before. He took the other rope that he had slipped over the horse’s other foot, tied it around the neck with a knot that would not let the noose tighten and choke the horse if it pulled away, and he tied the other end to the tree. That night they both slept, Mesteño on his feet, Cutler on the now-dry blanket.

  Mesteño was staring at Cutler when he plummeted out of sleep the next morning. Cutler ate some more beef jerky and continued to talk to the horse in soothing tones. When he was confident that Mesteño was not going to go anywhere, he went back up the hill and gave Apache the water he had left in his canteen. Then he moved the horse to better grazing.

  When he got back to Mesteño, the horse was also grazing. The mustang looked up as Cutler approached, sensing that the point of all his torment was going to reveal itself today. Again Cutler stroked his hand over the horse’s eyes and breathed into his nostrils. Mesteño seemed to accept these things placidly. The horse had accepted things as far as they went. But Cutler knew that did not mean the next part was going to be easy.

  Cutler picked up the blind from the ground. It was a three-inch-wide strip of leather. Cutler fastened this to the hackamore above the horse’s brows, then slid it down over the eyes. Now, for the first time since the hunt began, Cutler was concerned about his physical condition. He remembered the way his knees had buckled when he dropped from the tree after Mesteño was caught in the noose. He wondered if his legs would have enough strength, remembering how well Baker had held his seat on the medicine hat. Well, strong enough or not, he would not get any stronger by waiting.

  With the blind in place, Mesteño was quiet now. The horse did not move when Cutler removed the rope tied to the tree. Nor was there movement when Cutler took the hackamore’s noose from Mesteño’s hoof. Cutler ran the reins from the hackamore behind Mesteño’s neck, then jumped up on the horse’s back. Mesteño remained still. Cutler clamped his legs to the horse’s sides, then reached to the head and raised the blind.

  It was like raising a curtain on Hell. Mesteño reared high, as sudden as a lightning bolt. When his front feet hit the ground again, they seemed to bounce back up, the horse rearing higher than the first time. Cutler held his seat, his legs seeming to draw strength from the horse. When Mesteño’s front feet hit the earth a second time, they dug in, and he kicked with his back feet. Cutler jolted forward but held on with such determination that he gave the horse no hope of losing the huge parasite.

  So Mesteño began to run. Cutler had seen Mesteño run before. As the horse herded his mares to safety, he could never go faster than he could get them to go. When Cutler had pursued the mustang on Apache after the mares had been caught in the corral, he got a better idea of the mustang’s speed. But that did not begin to compare with being a part of that speed, of experiencing it. It was faster than a train going down a steep grade. Faster than a shot dove falling to earth. Faster than anything Cutler had ever seen before. In the first hour they covered an impossible distance, and the mustang showed no signs of tiring. And still the horse’s great strength and stamina flowed into Cutler, making the man the animal’s equal.

  Cutler forgot that his purpose was to tame the horse. He thought of nothing, his mind a peaceful emptiness, as he became a part of the horse and a part of the speed. There was no attempt to restrain the mustang, but with the pressure of his heels, Cutler encouraged the animal to go faster. If the horse had jumped into a deep ravine, Cutler would have gone with him, even to death. There could not be a better way of leaving the earth. Now there was no trouble, no dead wife, no grizzly to be caught. There was no time
, no space. There was only the experiencing of a fiery vitality that was the essence of life itself.

  Faster. And still faster. By dusk the horse had not slowed its speed. Not until the moon appeared did Mesteño slow down, gradually over a five-mile space, to a walk.

  Still feeling a tremendous exhilaration, Cutler reluctantly lowered the blind over Mesteño’s eyes, dismounted, then hobbled him short to the hackamore. Cutler looked around, getting back in touch with the earth, and did not know where he was. But it was unlikely that the mustang had left its range. Probably they had been circling all day. In the morning, Cutler should be able to lead the horse to water. But tonight they would stay put wherever they were.

  Mesteño slept. Cutler could not. Cutler wondered if he would ever have to sleep again. At the moment, it did not seem likely.

  By the time the sun rose, the energy had drained from Cutler and he felt a great stiffness in his muscles. He walked around to loosen them up. When it seemed hopeless, he unhobbled Mesteño, mounted, and raised the blind from the horse’s eyes.

  It was like yesterday all over again—the bucking and kicking, followed by the run. Once more it worked its magic on Cutler, as his stiffness disappeared and was replaced by energy and strength.

  After two hours, something changed. Mesteño was running as fast as yesterday, but it no longer seemed to be for the same reason. The horse was no longer interested in getting Cutler off his back. The oneness Cutler felt with the horse yesterday now seemed to be returned, and the running was only for itself, for the sheer joy of its freedom, a freedom the horse now shared with the man. They came to the rise overlooking the water hole where the saddle blanket still hung on the stick. The horse stopped and looked down.

  “Come on, Mesteño,” Cutler said softly. “We’re both thirsty.” The horse did not move. “Come on, boy. If we’re gonna get ourselves a drink, you got to come to terms with that blanket.” The horse looked north in the direction of the second water hole. “Won’t be no better there. There’s where it all started. There’s the place that leads to the corral.”

  Mesteño started to back away, and now Cutler used the reins and the pressure of his heels to guide the horse down to the hole. Mesteño balked at first and then gave in. He moved slowly, reluctantly down toward the water, Cutler speaking to him all the time.

  “You got used to the smell of me, boy. An old blanket’s just a soft job now.”

  Mesteño reached the bottom of the hill and moved gingerly toward the water. Cutler dismounted and hobbled the horse, and the horse drank. Cutler drank, too. Then he sat there awhile at the edge of the water and continued to talk to the mustang. After a while he took the blanket from the stick and brought it to Mesteño. The horse tried to arch his neck away from the blanket, but the tether did not permit it. Finally, the horse stood still and eyed the blanket.

  “After the rain, most of the man smell must be out of it.”

  Cutler threw the blanket over the horse’s back, and the back seemed to cave in under it, then straightened.

  “I know I’m pushin’ it a little, but maybe you’ll help me this time. You know as well as I do what’s got to be, don’t you?”

  Mesteño snorted, like he was answering the question.

  “Sure, you do, Mesteño. Sure you do. And I’m gonna push it even more this time. I’ll keep the blind up. Easy, easy.”

  Cutler removed the tether and led the horse to a rock.

  He stood on the rock, then mounted in one quick movement. Mesteño shivered but did not move. The worst part—or the best part—was over.

  Chapter Seven

  Cutler’s experience with Mesteño had been, while it lasted, like living in a separate world, one where history did not exist, nor did the rest of the world of man. Something like that could happen on a long trail, that sense of a great hand reaching down and wrenching him from his past and future. Training Mesteño had been so obsessive that nothing else existed. Now as he rode a saddled Mesteño back to the Harmon ranch, Apache following, it was like riding back into something as distant as his childhood. For some reason he did not understand, Cutler could not transport himself as easily from the one world to the other as he could travel from being asleep to being fully awake.

  Just as when he had ridden his wagon onto the ranch for the first time, there they all were, assembled outside the house near the corral and waiting for him. They watched him now like the stranger he was then, and he could see that they were talking to each other about what they saw.

  Lacking Cutler’s experience with Mesteño, the people on the ranch had continued to live in the time they knew. And none of them saw the same Cutler riding as the one who had come to them on that first day. He had given them each a different way of knowing him already, and now they saw him riding in on the wild horse that, in their minds, had become legendary in its ability to escape capture. Cutler was riding the animal whose name meant “ownerless.”

  “I’ll be damned!” Harmon said and pushed his hat back on his head in amazement. “The sonofabitch did it!” As far as he was concerned, it was all over now. The job had ended in the best way. Cutler had proved himself to be a superior man, and that finally justified Harmon having hired him. It was Harmon’s victory, he thought, more than Cutler’s. Harmon could not get it out of his head that Cutler was a hired hand and his greatest importance was in the way he reflected on his boss. Sometimes, as with Chase, Harmon had to wear blinders to justify the men who worked for him, to avoid thinking he might be wrong sometimes. When blinders were not necessary, as with Cutler, that was all the better. He felt great joy, wanted to celebrate and was already thinking how he might make a nice profit by owning that superior animal.

  “Hot damn!” he yelled, and in an uncharacteristic display of affection and enthusiasm, he grabbed Ellen and gave her a big hug.

  “Let go!” she said, not ready to accept any sudden changes in her father, and she pushed herself away and went and leaned on the corral fence to watch Cutler coming closer.

  “What a magnificent animal!” she said. And she was not sure whether she was commenting on the horse or the man. In some ways, they were the same to her, both accustomed to roaming free, and now both finding ways to remain free within the restrictions men gave to the world. That was why Cutler understood her, her own need to stay free. And she knew one reason she loved him was because he posed no threat to her freedom. She had not thought about love before, though. Not until she saw Cutler riding in on Mesteño. It tended to put a new expression on her face.

  Chase saw that expression, and he was jealous that it was directed toward the interloper who had come in from the outside and done something Chase himself had claimed was impossible. Chase felt challenged as a man. Again. He had felt the same way when Cutler won the scuffle in the ranch house kitchen. That incident had coupled with the one later out by the waterhole where Chase was trying to shoot the stallion. Cutler had once more bested him in a fight, causing Chase the indignity of standing against a rock face and being a target for some gun across the valley. These things had festered when Harmon kept him away from the successful mustang roundup and they had become cancerous while Cutler was away after Mesteño. Now he lived with an abiding hatred for Cutler. And the way Ellen looked at Cutler touched the hatred with a knife and dug at it, turning it into madness. He decided he had to do something, something that would change the way people saw Cutler now. Whatever it was going to be had to be later. For now, the last thing he wanted was to be part of a welcoming committee, and he started to leave Harmon and Ellen.

  Harmon stopped him. “You see that horse?”

  “’Course I see that horse. What about it?”

  “Think you can ride him?”

  “He’s being rode now, ain’t he?”

  “Yeah, that’s true. But so far’s we know, Cutler’s the only man to do it. Got to get Mesteño used to others on his back before he’ll be much use to me.”

  “What are you sayin’, Ben?”

  “G
uess until I figure out what to do with Mesteño, you might’s well put him in your string.”

  “Okay.” He turned to go again.

  “Hold on, Tom. Where you goin’?”

  “Got work to do. Don’t want me standin’ around here if I got work to do, do you?”

  Harmon was torn. He could not say yes to that, but it bothered him that Chase did not share his own sense of celebration. For a moment, he saw himself facing the fact that they really were not very much alike. But before he looked down the road of that thought where he might also have to face a lot of other things about his foreman, he put the blinders back. “’Course not, Tom. You got work to do, get to it. This can wait. Don’t think Mesteño’s gonna be goin’ anyplace now.”

  Chase grinned. “That’s for damned sure. You just leave him up to me now, Ben.”

  “Okay then, that’s what I’ll do.”

  As Chase was leaving he snapped his fingers at two of the hands. The cowboys looked at each other. Their expressions did not change and they said nothing, but each of them knew what the other was thinking. They were sharing the thought that they had just about had it working on this ranch, job or no job. They had both tried to get on the right side of Chase, hoping that would serve to make things more bearable on the ranch. They remembered, too, the first time Cutler had ridden onto the ranch and how they had seemed to side with Chase in his disdain toward the man who drove the covered wagon pulled by mules. It had not been a hard thing to do then. But it had done no good in the long run. If anything, Chase became even more intolerable since Cutler came. It was not that the foreman drove them too hard. They would never admit they could not work as hard or as long as the next man without complaint. The problem was Chase had a way of using his authority to undercut their dignity. Joking about it behind his back only worked for a little while. Now it was getting to the point where they would have to ride out or give up any claim they had to self-respect. Each man consoled himself with the thought that if Chase snapped his fingers at him one more time, that would be the last time, and the man would just turn and walk the other way. This one last time the two men turned and followed Chase toward whatever work he wanted them to do.