by J. T. Edson
‘No, sir,’ Dusty replied. Once more he took a deep breath and went on. ‘Your back’s broken. You’ll never walk again.’
Ole Devil’s eyes closed as he lay still for a long minute. It was to be the hardest fight of his life and there was nothing anyone could do to help him. Dusty stood rigid, unmoving, hardly breathing, trying to think of words to say which might ease the blow. Finally the eyes opened and Hardin looked up at Dusty’s face.
‘It looks like you and young Red’ll be left to run the place for quite a spell, boy. Allow you can handle it.’
‘We’ll surely make a try, sir. Doc might be wrong about your not walking again.’
‘I doubt it, boy. He might not know sic ’em about handling a hound dog, but there’s not many who can touch him in the doctoring line,’ grunted Ole Devil. ‘Soon as I can get out of the bed we’ll get me a wheelchair and I’ll do all I can to help you run the spread from it. It might mean that you have to stay home and let one of the other men handle the floating outfit we were going to start.’
Dusty nodded his agreement. The floating outfit was something he and Ole Devil planned; a kind of mobile ranch crew, working away from the main spread, five or six men and a cook handling work which was too far from the home spread for the main crew to handle. Dusty thought he would lead the floating outfit while Ole Devil took command of the local work. Now it looked as if he would have to shelve the idea, or let one of the other men handle it.
‘How’s the paint?’ Ole Devil asked.
‘He’s all right. We took the saddle off and put him back in the breaking pen. There’s some of the boys who wanted to shoot him.’
‘Like hell!’ barked Ole Devil. ‘That hoss’s got to be whipped, Dusty. No hoss can lick our clan.’
‘I’ll tend to it, sir,’ promised Dusty.
‘Watch him when he goes up for the sixth jump, boy. He uses the other five to build himself up for that one,’ warned Ole Devil. ‘He’ll take some riding, boy.’
Dusty nodded then turned and left the room. One thing Dusty knew, he was going to ride and master that paint, or get killed trying.
~*~
On the following morning Dusty was early in the stable. His saddle hung over a burro, a structure shaped like an inverted A. The burro was a stand for saddles, for no cowhand would want to leave the most valuable item of his worldly goods laying on the ground where it might be damaged. If possible he would always try to leave the saddle over a burro and out of harm’s way. He did not take the double girthed saddle immediately, but examined it with care. First he checked the insides of the stirrup irons were smooth and there was nothing to prevent a speedy withdrawal of the foot from them. Next he checked the girths, changing one which was slightly frayed.
Red Blaze came in, watching the preparations and approving them. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
‘We’ve got the paint caught ready, Dusty. I’ll tote your saddle down for you.’
The big paint stood as the previous day, allowing men to saddle, bridle and blindfold it. Every hand from Billy Jack to the cook and his louse were lining the sorrel rails ready to give their vocal encouragement to Dusty in his ride. There was a considerable amount of money bet on the result of the ride, Dusty guessed, as he went forward. He checked the leatherwork of the horse, making sure everything was as he wanted it. Then he swung into the double girthed rig and settled down. His knees gripped the saddle and he felt the big horse tense. Dusty gave Red the sign to jerk away the blindfold, then get clear. He felt as if he was sat on a keg of gunpowder, with a fuse lit, waiting for the explosion. Any moment now, even as Red pulled clear the blindfold and dived from the corral, the explosion was going to come.
It did.
The big horse came up off the ground in a straight away buck which went higher than Dusty could ever remember going on a horse before. Dusty rode the high buck jumps with no great difficulty. He was a skilled horse-buster and possessed the rare sixth sense which enabled him to guess which way the horse was next going. His early riding training and his ju-jitsu lessons from Tommy Okasi caused him to lose any fear of falling and he knew how to light down rolling, landing with as little damage as possible. His quirt was on his wrist, his hat set firmly on his head and his Kelly spurs raking the horse at every jump as he concentrated on keeping the paint’s head up. He knew that the horse must not be allowed to take charge of the fight.
Suddenly, without any warning, the paint changed fighting style. The straight bucks became close-to-the-ground leaps. The paint went fast, not leaping high, but keeping close to the ground, kicking sideways with his hindquarters as he shook his head and appeared to be trying to explode himself into separate pieces. The savage fury of the horse carried it the length of the breaking pen, then it changed direction and came back, still fighting close to the ground. It was a fast moving, deadly effective way of fighting, the paint knew just what it aimed to do.
Then it did it.
For a brief instant Dusty lost all idea of which way the horse was going, the sudden change in fighting styles having taken him completely by surprise. He lost contact with the horse and knew what to expect next. Dusty took the easy way out. He’d lost the saddle and one stirrup, so he kicked the other foot free and was sailing through the air to land, rolling.
Dusty heard the scared yells of the hands and did not try to stop his roll. He went through the corral rails, hearing a smashing thud just over his head. Then he looked up at the, at first anxious, then grinning faces. He sat up, his eyes going to Red’s face as that worthy was looking at the fence rail. Getting up Dusty joined his cousin and looked down. Deep in the wood at the bottom rail was the imprint of the paint’s iron-shod hoof. His head must have been just underneath when the paint slashed down, only the stout timber saved him.
‘Wowee, Red!’ said Dusty, running his finger around the groove, ‘I tell you, that’s a tolerable fierce horse.’
Even though he had won twenty dollars betting Dusty got piled once, Billy Jack looked miserable as he walked up.
‘What are you doing down here?’ he asked mildly. ‘The hoss’s in thar.’
‘Why sure,’ Dusty agreed. ‘My hat came off and I got down to chase it.’
The other hands gave derisive whoops and laughs at the timeworn excuse for being thrown from a horse. Then Red and Kiowa went in to rope the big horse and move it back into the bronc stall where the blindfold was put on once more. Dusty tested his limbs to make sure they were all working then called:
‘Bring him out, Cousin Red, I’ll give him another whirl.’
The men knew Dusty would go right back and try again. To let a horse get away with piling his rider too often was bad. It gave the horse bad ideas. So any horse-buster worth his salt would, if not badly injured, get back on and have another try as soon as he could.
‘Reckon we should put a buck-strap on the saddle, Dusty?’ a cowhand yelled.
Dusty grinned and ignored the remark. The buck-strap was a strip of leather which was sometimes riveted to the saddle-housing, just below the base at the offside of the horn and used as a handhold to help stay mounted during the bucking. It was a thing which no cowhand worth his salt would use, feeling it was sissified. Dusty was a horse-buster of the first water and proud of it, he would never use a buck-strap. However, the suggestion was always made when a good rider was thrown and went back for a second try.
Once more Dusty swung a’fork the big paint and the blindfold was removed. The savage fight was resumed with the fury which marked the first bout. The big paint fought like a demon and changed his fighting style fast and regular in a way that not one horse in a thousand learned to do. It bucked straight away, then switched to close to the groundwork, but Dusty rode the wild pitching, raking with his spurs and encouraging the horse to greater efforts. Through the repertoire of bucking the big paint ran, showing more styles than two different horses usually knew. It changed styles, sun-fishing, twisting its body in a crescent, alternatively to the right then to t
he left, looking as if trying to touch the ground with first one then the other shoulder and letting the sunlight hit its belly each time: crawfishing, cowhopping, fence worming, the big paint did them all but Dusty kept in the saddle and his spurs raked home.
Up on its hind legs reared the paint, chinning the moon, forefeet flailing the air. Dusty reversed his quirt and brought the loaded end down between the horse’s ears and batted down. Cinch binding, rearing like that, was deadly dangerous to both horse and rider, for the horse was likely to go backwards, which would not do it any good. It wouldn’t make the rider feel too good either. The horse came down on all four feet, then started to fight again.
On the corral rails the OD Connected men were silent, watching a savage and primeval battle between a man and a magnificent horse. The hands’ excited cheers and yells were silent now, they just watched, trying to remember a horse ride to equal this battle.
Then it was over. The churned-up dust of the breaking pen began to settle down and the big horse stood with hanging head and sweat-soaked sides heaving. Dusty sat the saddle leaning forward and gasping for breath, he felt as if every inch of his body was pounded to a pulp but he’d won. To make sure he raked the horse with his spurs. The big horse made a game try at fighting again, then came to a halt and a further scratching with the spurs brought no response.
Dusty slid from the saddle, gasping for breath. The first stage of the training of the paint was over. The horse now knew one man was its master. Dusty stroked the big horse’s sweat lathered neck, gasping out derisive but kindly words which calmed the quivering horse.
Red came running forward and took the paint’s reins, to walk the horse until it cooled and Dusty walked slowly to the corral fence, sinking down to sit on the bottom rail. It was the hardest, toughest and most satisfying ride he’d ever had.
In the following days Dusty spent all his spare time with the paint. He was compelled to take the bedsprings out of the horse for the first three days after his original successful ride. Slowly kindness and firm handling showed their results and the paint accepted Dusty as its master. For a time Dusty rode the horse around the breaking pen, then started to use it on the circle, riding the range. He planned to make the horse his personal mount and, to show Red and the others they were wrong in their judgment of paints, to train the horse for cattle work.
Ten days went by. Ole Devil was still bedridden but getting slowly stronger. Word reached the ranch that Betty Hardin was finished with school and coming home to take charge of the house. The news was greeted with mixed feelings, for Betty ran the spread with an iron hand. Billy Jack groaned at the news.
‘If one of them ain’t enough we got to have two,’ he wailed in the bunkhouse. ‘What with that mean ole Dusty chousing us to work all day and Betty chousing us at night to keep the hawg-pen looking tidy we ain’t never going to have no peace.’
Billy Jack got little sympathy. He was always the same when caught for his turn on the blister end of a shovel, clearing water holes or digging stumps.
Ole Devil was resigned to the thought that he’d never walk again and looked forward. He planned to have a wheelchair, make his bedroom on the ground floor and save going up or downstairs. He received a report from Dusty every day on the running of the ranch and the progress in taming the paint. Ole Devil felt no resentment at Dusty’s breaking the paint, only pride at the youngster’s achievement. Dusty’s other news was in one way heartening, in another it gave Ole Devil a lot of worry.
Dusty had returned late from riding the circle on the eleventh night after riding the paint. Rather than disturb the house, he left the big stallion in the breaking pen, and went to bed. The sudden crashing bellow of the two hounds woke him shortly after one o’clock.
Dusty came off his bed, pulling one of his guns as his feet hit the floor. He went to the door, opened it and darted downstairs, hearing Red’s door open and bare feet pattering on the floor behind him. Dusty did not wait, there were only two things capable of making the hounds sing out in the night. A cougar on the prowl or a man doing the same thing. Neither cougar nor man should be prowling in the dark, Dusty knew that, so his gun was cocked as her jerked open the house door and went on to the porch.
The two redbone hounds went by him, their crashing song ringing into the air as they hurled for the breaking pen. Dusty leapt from the porch, he could see vague shapes by the pen. Shapes which could only be men. He heard a low thud as the bars of the corral gate dropped, then yells and shouts.
‘Hold it!’ Dusty challenged.
Flame lanced from the air as a man fired from the back of his horse. The bullet went nowhere near Dusty, for the man did not know much about shooting in the dark. Dusty did. He’d made plenty of practice firing in the darkness and his gun roared back as he hit the ground. He rolled over as he landed to prevent any of the men by the corral aiming at the gun flash and hitting him. He saw one rider reeling, then slipping down from the back of his horse. Then the others were moving fast, breaking in different directions and running. Dusty came up, running forward, but he was too late. The big paint, spooked by the noise, the clamor of the hounds the shouts of the horse-thieves and the shots broke from the corral and went streaking across the range, running wildly away from the breaking pen.
Dusty listened to the rapidly departing hooves as the horse-thieves came together again along the Polveroso trail and headed away from the OD Connected.
Men came streaming from the bunkhouse and Red ran up, now he held a lantern in one hand, a Colt in the other. He halted and looked at his cousin.
‘They get you, Cousin Dusty?’
‘Nope. I got one. He’s down by the breaking pen. The paint’s out and running.’
The ranch crew expressed their anger at the words in whatever manner they favored best, Kiowa spoke up, saying more than he’d done in a month:
‘Want for us to take out after them, Dusty?’
‘Could you trail them in the dark?’ inquired Dusty.
‘Nope!’ Kiowa relapsed into his usual speech.
‘They went along the Polveroso trail,’ another hand put in.
‘Which same means they won’t stick on it,’ Dusty drawled, thinking fast and making his plans. ‘Time you get saddled they’ll be long gone. Red, see Jimmo and tell him you’ll be wanting food for three men. Then comes sun-up you take Billy Jack and Kiowa, I want the men who tried to steal the paint bringing back, or killed.’
‘We’ll do that,’ agreed Red. ‘You’d best go see Uncle Devil while I take a look at that hombre you downed. I’ll come up as soon as I’ve took a look.’
‘That’ll be best,’ Dusty grunted. ‘Tell Jimmo I’ll be wanting some food at sun-up. Make a separate bundle from yours. I’m going after the paint.’
Dusty turned and went back into the house, going upstairs towards his uncle’s room. There was a light showing under the door and he found Tommy Okasi already with Ole Devil.
The rancher lay back and listened to Dusty’s story, then growled. ‘You reckon young Red can handle them with only two men?’
‘Sure. There wasn’t more than five men and I got one. I reckon Kiowa and Billy Jack’ll be all the help Red needs.’
‘How about you?’ Ole Devil inquired.
‘I’m going after the paint.’
‘Where do you allow he’ll have gone?’
‘Way I see it, he’s scared and running. Most likely make back for the Ronde River country. He’s not been here long enough to make it his home.’
Ole Devil agreed with this. A range horse would always return to its home if free and running. The paint would not regard the OD Connected as its home yet, later it might, but at the moment the Ronde River bottoms was what the horse remembered as home and there the paint would be running.
‘It’s a big area, boy.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Dusty drawled. ‘I hope to run the paint down before he gets too far in. If not I’ll just have to start looking.’
Red came into the room at that moment
. ‘That hoss-thief you shot, Dusty. We recognized him. He was with the hombre who wanted to buy the paint. The tent-showman who came the day Trader brought the hosses in.’
‘That figgers,’ grunted Dusty. ‘Put the body in the barn, Red. We’ll send word to pappy in the morning.’
Red left to make the arrangements and Ole Devil looked at Dusty. ‘The Ronde River country’s wild, boy,’ he warned. ‘You ought to be taking more men with you.’
‘I’d rather play it lone-handed, sir,’ answered Dusty. ‘We need all the men on the spread.’
Two days later Dusty was riding towards the Ronde River bottoms. He rode the big black stallion he’d ridden through the War, this being the only horse he thought would be able to catch the paint in a race.
Chapter Three
The Ronde River bottoms were a new range to Dusty, beyond the boundary of the OD Connected ranch. He’d found the paint’s tracks earlier that day and was riding along what he hoped was the right line. The big horse was no longer running wild but moving at an easy, mile-eating lope. By holding his big black to a slightly better speed Dusty hoped to be able to catch sight of the paint, then move in on it.
The suddenly howling of buffalo-wolves brought Dusty’s horse to a halt. The young Texan reached down and loosened a Spencer carbine in the saddle-boot. He did not often carry a saddle-gun, having never found one which satisfied him, but for this mission thought the Spencer was advisable. Right now he was pleased to have the .52 caliber, seven-shot repeating carbine with him. The buffalo-wolves were big brutes, powerful, fast and dangerous. A single buffalo-wolf was capable of pulling down a young cow buffalo and the wolves always ran in packs of ten or so. The only good thing about them was that, when hunted regularly, they came fast to know what the sound of a rifle meant.
The wolves were hunting. It was five years since he’d last heard wolf baying but it was a sound a man never forgot. They were running some prey, driving it before them and travelling with that tireless loping speed which would bring down even the fleetest game in the end. Suddenly the sound changed, the pitch altered and the wolves were not chasing any longer, they were clamoring and baying as they cornered their prey.
