Pale Horse, Robert L. Ross [beach read book .TXT] 📗

“neigh & snort”, letting his master and friend know he is up and ready for the adventure whispered into his ears of, just the night before.
With everything packed for the journey ahead, he whistles the familiar call, the stallion galloping up to the porch in joyous stride, eager with anticipation of what lies ahead. “Good morning, Spirit” he says upon stepping onto the oak log porch and into the crisp mountain air. “What a beautiful morning the Great Spirit has given us for the journey ahead.” With an acquired and great understanding of what Pale Horse says to him, due to the 20 years they've spent together, he paws at the ground with his hooves, and lets out a boisterous “neigh”. “My thoughts exactly,” he replies, as they both walk over to the stalls so he can saddle him and strap on the bed-roll, saddle bags and necessities he had prepared for their trip.
Like every morning before, Pale Horse bows humbly on bended knee to the Great Spirits to give them heartfelt thanks for watching over him and Spirit their entire lives, and then recite the Comanche prayer taught to him by his father many moons ago. Spirit, knowing the ritual well, stands quietly aside him and listens respectfully to the prayer he has heard many times before.
Pale Horse was a small boy of 9 years when his family was caught in a battle between the Comanche and the Apache tribes. His family being killed, and him, abandoned and afraid, left hiding in the tall prairie grass when he was found by Two Feathers, a warrior of the Comanche tribe, and hoisted with saving grace upon the painted mare of which he rode so valiantly. Two Feathers went on to explain to him later in his years, that although he never really knew why he had saved him on that fateful day, he was glad he had done so, for he had grown-up to be a fine warrior and a great son, to not only Two Feathers, but to the entire tribe of which he had been adopted and belonged to as well. He was raised with the sacred beliefs and mind set of the Comanche, and although pale in face, his heart was that of a true Comanche warrior, as reflected by the language he spoke, the clothes of which he wore, and the true manner of his being. Two Feathers had always encouraged his young son to never forget his given name, “Buck Rankin” or the English language which had accompanied it, knowing that someday in the future, he may want to acquire the white mans ways for himself, and he didn't want to be responsible for taking that away from him. As fate would have it, he never forgot the language of his white fathers, though he rarely chose to use it, and only did so when prompted by his mother, She of Summer Rain, the wife of Two Feathers, or when he was teaching it to his sister, Winter Crow, who constantly bugged him to do so, and usually wouldn't stop until he had taught her at least a few words and she had sufficiently learned how to pronounce and use them correctly.
Pale Horse lived among the Comanche tribe for 12 years before he decided he wanted to see new things and experience other ways of life. While telling his family of the decision he had made, his father looked calmly at the family gathered, and with the understanding in their hearts that this would one day surely come, they spent the rest of that evening enjoying each others company as if it might be their last. He made it clear that he had no laid-out plans, wanting only to “Head West”, to seek the adventure he had only imagined and dreamed of since he was a boy. After spending part of the next morning saying goodbye to the rest of the tribe, he saddled his horse with countless necessities given freely by them, and then, with much excitement and anticipation, rode off into the horizon.
Two years of drifting, fighting, and barely surviving came to an end one fateful day while he was staying in the foothills just outside Denver. Arriving in town to pick up the few rations needed, he saw a known outlaw walk into Sheriffs Gordon's office, then seconds later, heard the fatal gunshots that ended his life. The sheriff had been very kind to him whenever he was being harassed by the locals that didn't like that he was a white man that chose to dress like the savages they so despised.
After watching the bandit simply ride away, and nobody that had the fortitude or sense of justice to pursue him, including the Sheriff's deputy, Albert Curler, he quickly climbed onto Spirit, and raced after the man that had killed his friend. After chasing the culprit for what seemed a mile or so, he lunged for the outlaw and brought him crashing to the ground. As the desperado broke loose and hastily went for his gun, Pale Horse, with lightning reflex, kicked the pistol from his hand, and tackled him once more, slamming him to the ground again. Withdrawing his knife from its leather sheath, he menacingly smiled as he placed it at the throat of the murderous outlaw and said to him, “I'd just as soon lay you open to bleed as watch you swing, the choice is yours.” Before the vermin had a chance to make his fatalistic choice, Pale Horse, skillfully flipping the knife in his hand, hit him in the side of his head with the rigid bone handle, rendering him unconscious and assuring Spirit and himself a peaceful ride back into town.
As he entered Main Street, riding with noticeable pride towards the city jail, the very people that had taunted and harassed him in the past were now pointing at him, some even clapping as he threw the reins casually over the railing, then dragged the culprit off of his horse, feet first into the sheriffs office. Deputy Curler, now acting sheriff, couldn't believe his eyes when he saw that he had successfully apprehended the man responsible for the death of his friend, Sheriff Gordon. “You know who that is, dontcha”?, asked the deputy, as he reached behind himself and tore a wanted poster off the wall, and showed it to him. “That's Ricky “Blackjack” Martin!” Knowing nothing of wanted posters, bounties, rewards or the like, he shook his head and said, “Means nothing to me, I just want to see this man hung, or I will kill him myself here and now”. After dragging Martin into a jail cell, and explaining the legalities of the situation at hand, Sheriff Curler handed him a promissory note for $5000, and told him to go over to the bank and hand it to the bank president, where upon doing so, he'd be richly rewarded.
As he was opening the door, eagerly on his way to the town's bank, Sheriff Curler asked him,“The bounty business pays quite well, wouldn't you say”? Pale Horse, now fully aware of the small fortune he had just inadvertently acquired, replied with a smile and said, “Yes it does”, then proceeded to ask the sheriff if there were “Anymore of those posters like the one he had just shown him”?
He laughingly replied, “As many as you want, my pale faced friend, as many as you want”!. “After you've finished with your business at the bank, come back to my office, and we'll have a drink to toast your good fortune, and discuss the bounty business”. He walked out of the sheriffs office, and across the busy street, dodging a pack of riders on their mounts that either didn't see him as he stepped out into the roadway, or simply didn't care. As he found his footing, a swift moving stagecoach barely missed him as well. Entering the bank, he walked up and asked a confused and seemingly terrified bank teller if he could “See the president of the bank?” After receiving his just reward, and having had a long conversation and several drinks with Sheriff Curler, “Buck Pale Horse Rankin” entered the lucrative and dangerous world of professional bounty hunting.


BIG BEAR


The trek down the mountain would take most of the remaining day, but it was a path that he knew all too well. Steep slopes of barren ground gave way to difficult terrain littered with jagged rocks and steep, daunting cliffs. Over the many years that he had made this trip, walked this very path, mountain lions, grizzly bear, and creatures alike, seemed to give way with respect to the man they had come to know among the harsh conditions of the high lonesome where few seemed to venture.
As the dying sun begin to set upon the western face of the mountain, he was approaching the foothills, and decided to set up camp while daylight was still on his side, giving him the time, and light needed to do so. After unburdening Spirit from the load he had carried so far, he scoured the campsite for the dried branches and smaller kindling needed for the evening fire. Soon, the campfire was hissing and popping the green kindling and giving the welcomed sound of the warmth sure to follow.
Reaching into the saddle bags, he withdrew the remaining bacon and biscuits he had prepared earlier in the day, never hesitating to give Spirit his share of the bounty. Spirit loved bacon, flap-jacks, and was extremely fond of his home-made biscuits, a taste he had acquired from another “horse friend” of his, that answered to the same name. An old friend of Pale Horse's named Colt Mathews, another man of his same profession down in Texas, gave biscuits to his horse all the time. The first time Colt had given Spirit one as well, he made his approval known, and had been spoiled with biscuits ever since.
The sun was now moving languidly behind the mountain, as the wind began to whisper quietly thru the ancient pines that surrounded them. A hoot owl called out in the distance, and the faint sounds of creatures scurrying to their shelters for the summer's night was a welcomed sound for the two travelers, weary and worn from the trip thus far taken. Pale Horse summoned Spirit to stand closer to the fire to draw him closer to the light, more out of caution, than fear of something that may lie just beyond the dancing shadows cast by the evening fire. As the conversation between man and beast dwindled, he threw another couple of hearty logs on the fire to give them the comfort required to make it through the dropping temperature that was sure to come, even though the base of the mountain was but a quarter mile beneath them. The crackling fire gave way to evening starlight, and the starlight gave