The Boss of the Lazy Y, Charles Alden Seltzer [top 10 best books of all time .txt] 📗

"I'm reckonin' on ridin' him back to the Lazy Y," said Calumet.

Kelton grinned incredulously, and Betty looked swiftly at Calumet. For an instant she had half feared that this declaration had been made in a spirit of bravado, and she was prepared to be disagreeably disappointed in Calumet. She told herself when she saw his face, however, that she ought to have known better, for whatever his other shortcomings she had never heard him boast.

And that he was not boasting now was plainly evident, both to her and Kelton. His declaration had been merely a calm announcement of a deliberate purpose. He was as natural now as he had been all along. She saw Kelton's expression change—saw the incredulity go out of it, observed his face whiten a little.

But his former vindictiveness remained. "I reckon if you want to be a damn fool I ain't interferin'. But I've warned you, an' it's your funeral."

Calumet did not reply, contenting himself with grinning. He swung down from Blackleg, removed the saddle and bridle from the animal, and holding the latter by the forelock turned to Betty.

"I'd like you to ride Blackleg home. He's your horse now. Kelton will lend you a halter to lead that skate you're on. While he's gettin' the halter I'll put your saddle on Blackleg—if you'll get off."

Betty dismounted and the change was made. She had admired Blackleg—she was in love with him now that he belonged to her, but she was afflicted with a sudden speechlessness over the abruptness with which he had made the gift. She wanted to thank him, but she felt it was not time. Besides, he had not waited for her thanks. He had placed the halter on the horse she had ridden to the Diamond K, had looked on saturninely while Kelton had helped her into the saddle, and had then carried his own saddle to a point near the outside of the corral fence, laying the bridle beside it. Then he uncoiled the braided hair lariat that hung at the pommel of the saddle and walked to the corral gate.

With a little pulse of joy over her possession of the splendid animal under her, and an impulse of curiosity, she urged him to the corral fence and sat in the saddle, a little white of face, watching Calumet.

The black horse was alone in the corral and as Calumet entered and closed the gate behind him, not fastening it, the black came toward him with mincing steps, its ears laid back.

Calumet continued to approach him. The black backed away slowly until Calumet was within fifty feet of him—it seemed to Betty that the horse knew from previous experience the length of a rope—and then with a snort of defiance it wheeled and raced to the opposite end of the corral.

"Watch the gate!" called Calumet to Kelton.

He continued to approach the black. The beast retreated along the fence, stepping high, watching Calumet over its shoulder. Plainly, it divined Calumet's intention—which was to crowd it into a corner—and when almost there it halted suddenly, made a feint to pass to Calumet's left, wheeled just as suddenly and plunged back to his right.

The ruse did not work. Calumet had been holding his rope low, with seeming carelessness, but as the black whipped past he gave the rope a quick flirt. Like a sudden snake it darted sinuously out, the loop opened, rose, settled around the black's neck, tightened; the end in Calumet's hand was flipped in a half hitch around a snubbing post nearby, and the black tumbled headlong into the dust of the corral, striking with a force that brought a grunt from him.

For an instant he lay still. And in that instant Calumet was at his side. While advancing toward the black, he had taken off his neckerchief, and now he deftly knotted it around the black's head, covering its eyes. A moment later he was leading it, unprotesting, out of the corral gate.

He halted near the fence and looked at Betty, who was watching critically, though with a tenseness in her attitude that brought a fugitive smile to Calumet's lips.

"I reckon you'd better move a way an' give this here animal plenty of room," he said. "If he's as much horse as Kelton says he is he'll want a heap of it."

He waited until in obedience to his suggestion Betty had withdrawn to a safe distance toward the ranchhouse. Then with Kelton holding the black's head he placed the saddle on, then the bridle, working with a sure swiftness that brought an admiring glint into Betty's eyes. Then he deliberately coiled his rope and fastened it to the pommel of the saddle, taking extra care with it. This done he turned with a cold grin to Kelton, nodding his head shortly.

Kelton pulled the neckerchief from the black's eyes, let go of its head, and scurried to the top of the corral fence. Before he could reach it Calumet had vaulted into the saddle, and before the black could realize what had happened, his feet were in the stirrups.

For an instant the Black stood, its legs trembling, the muscles under its glossy coat quivering, its ears laid flat, its nostrils distended, its mouth open, its eyes wild and bloodshot. Then, tensed for movement, but uncertain, waiting a brief instant before yielding to the thousand impulses that flashed over him, he felt the rowels of Calumet's spurs as they were driven viciously into his sides.

He sprang wildly upward, screaming with the sudden pain, and came down, his legs asprawl, surprised, enraged, outraged. Alighting, he instantly lunged—forward, sideways, with an eccentric movement which he felt must dislodge the tormentor on his back. It was futile, attended with punishment, for again the sharp spurs sank in, were jammed into his sides, held there—rolling, biting points of steel that hurt him terribly.

He halted for a moment, to gather his wits and his strength, for his former experiences with this strange type of creature who clung so tenaciously to his back had taught him that he must use all his craft, all his strength, to dislodge him. To his relief, the spurs ceased to bite. But he was not misled. There was that moment near the corral fence when he had not moved, but still the spurs had sunk in anyway. He would make certain this time that the creature with the spurs would not have another opportunity to use them. And, gathering himself for a supreme effort, he lunged again, shunting himself off toward a stretch of plain back of the ranchhouse, bounding like a ball, his back arched, his head between his forelegs, coming down from each rise with his hoofs bunched so that they might have all landed in a dinner plate.

It was fruitless. Calumet remained unshaken, tenacious as ever. The black caught his breath again, and for the next five minutes practiced his whole category of tricks, and in addition some that he invented in the stress of the time.

To Betty, watching from her distance, it seemed that he must certainly unseat Calumet. She had watched bucking horses before, but never had her interest in the antics of one been so intense; never had she been so desperately eager for a rider's victory; never had she felt so breathlessly fearful of one's defeat. For, glancing from the corners of her eyes at Kelton, she saw a scornful, mocking smile on his face. He was wishing, hoping, that the black would throw Calumet.

At the risk of danger from the black's hoofs she urged Blackleg forward to a more advantageous position. As she brought him to a halt, she heard Kelton beside her.

"Some sunfisher, that black," he remarked.

She turned on him fiercely. "Keep still, can't you!" she said.

Kelton reddened; she did not see his face though, for she was watching Calumet and the black.

The outlaw had not ceased his efforts. On the contrary, it appeared that he was just beginning to warm to his work. Screaming with rage and hate he sprang forward at a dead run, propelling himself with the speed of a bullet for a hundred yards, only to come to a dizzying, terrifying stop; standing on his hind legs; pawing furiously at the air with his forehoofs; tearing impotently at the bit with his teeth, slashing with terrific force in the fury of his endeavor.

Calumet's hat had come off during the first series of bucks. The grin that had been on his face when he had got into the saddle back near the corral fence was gone, had been superseded by a grimness that Betty could see even from the distance from which she watched. He was a rider though, she saw that—had seen it from the first. She had seen many cowboy breakers of wild horses; she knew the confident bearing of them; the quickness with which they adjusted their muscles to the eccentric movements of the horse under them, anticipating their every action, so far as anyone was able to anticipate the actions of a rage-maddened demon who has only one desire, to kill or maim its rider, and she knew that Calumet was an expert. He was cool, first of all, in spite of his grimness; he kept his temper, he was absolutely without fear; he was implacable, inexorable in his determination to conquer. Somehow the battle between horse and man, as it raged up and down before her, sometimes shifting to the far end of the level, sometimes coming so near that she could see the expression of Calumet's face plainly, seemed to be a contest between kindred spirits. The analogy, perhaps, might not have been perceived by anyone less intimately acquainted with Calumet, or by anyone who understood a horse less, but she saw it, and knowing Calumet's innate savagery, his primal stubbornness, his passions, the naked soul of the man, she began to feel that the black was waging a hopeless struggle. He could never win unless some accident happened.

And they were very near her when it seemed that an accident did happen.

The black, his tongue now hanging out, the foam that issued from his mouth flecked with blood; his sides in a lather; his flanks moist and torn from the cruel spur-points: seemed to be losing his cunning and to be trusting entirely to his strength and yielding to his rage. She could hear his breath coming shrilly as he tore past her; the whites of his eyes white no longer, but red with the murder lust. It seemed to her that he must divine that defeat was imminent, and in a transport of despair he was determined to stake all on a last reckless move.

As he flashed past her she looked at Calumet also. His face was pale; there was a splotch of blood on his lips which told of an internal hemorrhage brought on by the terrific jarring that he had received, but in his eyes was an expression of unalterable resolve; the grim, cold, immutable calm of purpose. Oh, he would win, she knew. Nothing but death could defeat him. That was his nature—his character. There was no alternative. He saw none, would admit none. He found time, as he went past her, to grin at her, and the grin, though a trifle wan, contained much of its old mockery and contempt of her judgment of him.

The black raced on for a hundred yards, and what ensued might have been an accident, or it might have been the deliberate result of the black's latest trick. He came to a sudden stop, rose on his hind legs and threw himself backward, toppling, rigid, upon his back to the ground.

As he rose for the fall Calumet slipped out of the saddle and leaped sideways to escape being crushed. He succeeded in this effort, but as he leaped the spur on his right heel caught in the hollow of the black's hip near the flank, the foot refused