Rebel Spurs, Andre Norton [best free ereader TXT] 📗

He worked in the dust of the smaller corral, with Croaker's help, adapting his knowledge of eastern gentling the way he had mentally planned it during the days since he had accepted the job. With the excited and frightened colt roped to the steady mule Drew tried to think horse, feel horse, even be horse, shutting out all the rest of the world just as he had on the day of the race. He must sense the colt's terror of the rope, his horror of the strange human smell—the man odor which was so frightening that a blanket hung up at a water hole could keep wild horses away from the liquid they craved.

Drew talked as he had to Shiloh, as if this black could understand every word. He twitched the lead rope, and Croaker paced sedately about in a wide circle, dragging the colt with him. Drew then reached across the bony back of the mule, pressed his hand up and down the sweaty, shivering hide of the black. No hurry, must not rush the steady, mild gesture to the horse that here was a friend.

The Kentuckian had no idea of the passing of time; it was all part of the knowledge that slow movements, not swift ones, would prevent new panic. The blanket was[pg 069] shown, allowing the black to sniff down its surface, before it was flapped back and forth across the colt's back, and finally left there. Now the saddle. And with that cinched into place, the black stood quietly beside Croaker.

Drew mounted the mule and rode. The saddled black, loosened from the twin tie, followed the mule twice around the corral. The rider dismounted from Croaker, was up on the black. For perilous seconds he felt flesh and muscles tense under his weight; then the body relaxed.

His hand went up. "Open the gate!" he called softly.

Seeming to realize he was free of the pole walls, the black exploded in a burst of speed which was close to Shiloh's racing spurt. Drew let him go. Three-quarters of an hour later he rode back, the black blowing foam, but answering the rein.

He found Don Cazar, Bartolomé, and Hilario Trinfan waiting for him by the corral. The mustanger walked forward with a lurch, his head thrown far back so he could look up at Drew from under the wide brim of his sombrero.

"This you could not do with a true wild one," he commented.

"I know that, señor. This colt was not an enemy, one who has already been hunted by man. He was only afraid...."

"But you have the gift. It is born in one—the gift. A man has it, and the horse always knows, answers to it. Ride with me, señor, and try that gift on the wild ones!"

"Someday—" That was true. Someday Drew did want to ride after the wild ones. Anse's stories of horse hunting on the Texas plains had first stirred that desire. Now it was fully awake in him.[pg 070]

Don Cazar inspected the black closely. "Well, Bartolomé, what have you to say now?"

"Señor Kirby knows his business," the Mexican admitted. "Though I think also that this was no true wild one. He will make a good remount, but he is no fighter such as others I have seen here."

Drew unsaddled and left the black in with Croaker; he fed both animals a bait of oats. In the morning he would be at this again. And he still had not solved the problem of roping. He could not expect Teodoro to come to his aid a second time. He started slowly back to the bunkhouse.

"Señor—?"

Drew raised his wet head from the bunkhouse basin and reached out for a sacking towel. "Yes?"

León sat on a near-by bunk. "I have thought of something—"

"Sounds as if it might be important," Drew commented.

"Don Cazar, he has offered money—a hundred dollars in gold—to have off the Range that killer pinto stud. But that one, he is like the Apache; he is not to be caught."

"Can't someone pick him off with a rifle?"

"Perhaps. Only that has also been tried several times, señor. My father, he thought he had killed him only two months ago. But the very next week did not the pinto come to steal mares from the bay manada? It must have been that he was only creased. No, he is a diablo, and he hides in the rocks where he cannot easily be seen. But there is a plan I have thought of—" León hesitated, and Drew guessed he was about to make a suggestion which he believed might meet with disapproval.

"And this plan of yours?" Why had León come to him[pg 071] with it? Surely young Rivas had better and closer friends at the Stronghold. Why approach a newcomer?

"That pinto—he is a fighter; he likes to fight. He will not allow another stud on the ground he claims."

Drew was beginning to understand. Wild ones were sometimes trapped by a belled mare staked out to draw them in. But a stud to catch a fighting stud was another plan altogether.

"You would offer him a fight?"

"Sí, but not a real fight. Just allow him to believe that there would be one. Pull him so out of hiding in the rocks—"

"Using what stud for bait?"

"Señor Juanito—he said a stud that would fight too, like Shiloh."

"Shiloh!" Drew wadded the towel in his fist and pitched it across the room. "Shiloh!"

León must have read something of Drew's blazing anger in his face, for the Mexican's mouth went a little slack and his hand came up in an involuntary gesture as if to ward off a blow.

"It is a good plan!" His boy's voice was thin in protest against Drew's expression.

"It is a harebrained, dangerous scheme," began Drew; then he switched to a question. "Did Johnny Shannon suggest using Shiloh for bait, or was that your idea?"

"Señor Juanito—he said one must have a good horse, a fighter. But such a horse would not be hurt. We would wait with rifles and shoot the pinto quickly before he attacked. There would be no harm to Shiloh, none at all. Señor Juanito said that. Only a trick to get the diablo where we could shoot. Maybe—" Leon's eyes dropped, a flush rose[pg 072] slowly on his brown cheeks—"maybe it was very foolish. But when Señor Juanito told it, it sounded well."

"Did he tell you to ask me about it?"

The flush darkened. "He did not say so, señor. But one would not do such a thing without permission. Also, you should be one of the hunters, no? How else could we go?"

"Well, there won't be any huntin' of that kind, León. Trinfan knows what he's doin', and I don't think that pinto is goin' to be runnin' loose—or alive—much longer."

Drew pulled a clean shirt over his head. What kind of game was Johnny Shannon trying to play? Apparently he had almost talked León into using Shiloh as bait in this fool stunt. Had he expected the kid to take the horse without Drew's knowledge? Or for some reason had he wanted León to spill this? A trick to get Shiloh out of the Stronghold? But why?

He buckled on his gun belt, settled the twin holsters comfortably. Shannon—what and why, he repeated silently. Nothing sorted out in his mind. Drew only felt a prickle of uneasiness which began between his shoulder blades and ran a chill down his spine, as if rifle sights were on him.

But Shannon did not return to the Stronghold, and Drew was kept busy at the corrals from dawn to dusk. In a month of hard work it was easy to forget what might only be fancies.