For a long while he gazed upon its awesome desolateness. He made out the thin ribbon of a river meandering through the deepest of all the canyons. It turned and twisted but had no movement from this height. And then his eyes, becoming more accustomed to the fading light and shadows, saw more than desolateness, and he became conscious of more than the great void and depth and space. He saw beauty in the bold domes and the gouged, gutted, uplifted rock of varied, startling colors … all reds and yellows and blues. He wiped his blurred eyes to see better and looked upon it all for a long, long time.
Finally he turned away. He had seen these lands, and now he would go back to look for hoofprints. But his gaze returned to the trail that led down the other side of the precipice. For a thousand feet it dropped sharply before becoming lost in the highest of the canyons. It was wide enough and safe. It had been used by animals and Indians long before the white man came to this country.
He was turning his horse away from it when in the loose shale, weathered to a fine sand, he saw the tracks! He left his saddle quickly and knelt on the ground. The hoofprints were large and oval-shaped. Moreover, they were clean-cut, and had been made recently. There were two sets but each was made by the same hoofs. A horse had come up this trail, and then gone back to the canyons below. He had traveled alone. If he was the stallion Allen feared, where was his band?
McGregor got to his feet, and looked down the trail. If it was the same stallion, he wouldn’t have left his mares very far away … and never for very long. Had they moved on again, or were they in the first canyon just a thousand feet below from where he stood?
His job was to go back, and tell Allen what he had learned. He looked again at the hoofprints. So large, so perfect. He stared at them for a long while. He was drawn to them as he had been to the nocturnal scream that had brought him here. They beckoned him from dark, lost time. He had no choice but to follow them. Leading his horse, he started down the trail toward that first canyon.
If the steepness of the descent frightened his horse, the animal gave no indication of it. He followed him with no hesitation, balancing and placing his feet with great care on the loose shale. Only once did he slip, and he drew himself quickly back on his haunches, his feet bunched together, sliding until there was a leveling off of the trail.
The worst part of the descent was behind them. The boy looked back, knowing that in a little while he’d have to retrace his steps. They’d made short work of the first five hundred feet. Going back would take longer, but would not be so difficult. The yellow walls of the first canyon were no more than another five hundred feet away.
Why had he come this far? What did he expect to find? A stallion and his band of mares. He had decided that while above. He felt certain they’d be in the canyon ahead. Then what more did he need to know? Why hadn’t he returned to the ranch? Just to look upon them and go back? He knew this wasn’t the answer. There was something else … something he did not understand or even try to understand … something that was making him go on, just as it had done all day. He knew only that he didn’t want to fight this impulse, and that he couldn’t turn back.
He kept going until the canyon walls hung over him. There were no hoofprints on the bare, worn rock. But ahead, about one hundred yards or so, brush-grass and sage grew. When he arrived there, he found the hoofprints again in the dry, red earth. There were many other prints beside those great perfect hoofs of the stallion. He needed no more proof than this that the stallion and his band were here.
He mounted and rode on, stopping only at a bubbling spring that gushed from beneath the walls. In the soft earth around the pool, the hoofprints were deep. There were also the tracks of mountain lions. A strange place. He felt for his gun to make sure he still had it, and then mounted and rode into the darkening canyon. If he had looked up at the golden spires of the top walls, he would have known it was almost sunset. But his eyes were on the ground, following the hoofprints.
He first became aware that he was nearing the band by the restlessness of his mount. The horse trembled and his head came up high with dilating nostrils. The breeze in the canyon was coming toward them, bringing scents with it. McGregor raised the hand holding the reins, and his horse came to a stop.
Not far ahead there was a twist in the canyon. He could not see what lay beyond. But he knew the stallion and his mares were there, and that they could not yet be aware of his presence. He looked around, then turned his horse back, riding to a scrub cedar growing out of the rocks. He dismounted and tied his horse securely. He didn’t want him to get away.
Now he proceeded up the canyon on foot, careful to make no noise. He kept close to the high wall on his right, and finally came to the twist in the canyon. He inched forward, staying in the shadows. Just a few feet beyond was a high cleft in the wall. The trail led through this deep pass, and the ground carried the tracks of many mountain animals as well as those of horses. Through the pass he saw distant mesas and cliffs, and the endless canyons he had looked upon from above. This pass led to the far country. But the stallion and his band had not yet used it to leave the canyon.
He saw the mares at the far end of the canyon, grazing on the brown grass. All about the band hung the great cliffs which afforded no escape from this walled fortress. If Allen and his men had come along, the stallion and his band would no longer run free.
But the stallion. Where was he?
McGregor went forward, and beyond the pass, going slowly and staying in the deep shadows. The mares couldn’t hear him or smell him because of the downwind. Finally he was able to distinguish their colors … bays, browns, grays, buckskins and palominos. Fifty or more of them, all sizes and kinds. Short-coupled quarter mares, lean and wiry mustangs, cow horses carrying their ranch brands, and long-limbed horses which had been used only for pleasure riding. They were all there. Some were in better physical condition than others because they had taken more readily to the wild life they had chosen, a life that had held many days without good grass and water and always constant movement.
He wondered that they stayed in this canyon, foraging on the brush-grass when they could have gone on to better grazing lands. Then he remembered Allen’s quarter mares, and knew why their leader kept them here.
“But where is the stallion?” McGregor asked himself again.
He looked for him. His gaze turned to the pool, near the end of the canyon. Several mares were there, but not their leader. If the stallion was feared by so many because of his great intelligence, why was he not aware of an intruder in the canyon? Why was he not watchful? And why did he have his band grazing in a place from which they could so easily be prevented from escaping? The stallion’s natural instinct should have told him of the danger that threatened him and his band. Long ago his whistle of warning should have resounded through the canyon, starting his band on the move again.
A deep sense of disappointment came over McGregor. Why? Why had he expected so much more from this horse? And wasn’t what he found all to the good? Couldn’t he now return to the ranch and tell Allen of the simple job it would be to remove the marauding outlaw and his band from the range forever?
Yes, unless the stallion wasn’t in the canyon.
McGregor’s gaze left the band for the opposite wall. He looked into the deep shadows, and suddenly his body froze. He saw him! The stallion was only a short distance away, and he, too, stood as motionless as a statue. They looked at each other.
Coal black. A giant horse as they’d said. But not burly. Tall and long-limbed. His great body was scarred with long running wounds that had healed only to become reopened and closed again, crisscrossed and pitiful to see. His long tail trailed to the ground and, like his mane, was thickly matted with burrs. His mouth was red-raw from thistles. His head, very small, was held high, the great eyes alert and never shifting, never leaving him for a second!
How long had the stallion been there? And why? Why had he never uttered his shrill signal of warning to his band? Now, even now, the bla
ck horse didn’t move but stood still, without thinking of escape for himself and his band!
The boy’s hands clutched the flesh of his thighs. He found himself shaking, trembling. His eyes never left the stallion. Something stirred within him, and there came an inner voice from the deep, black recess of his mind. It commanded him over and over again, “Don’t move … wait … wait.” Even had he been able to move, he could not have denied this command.
Suddenly the black stallion stepped from the shadows into the last bit of light in the canyon. He came quickly to the boy, and stopped before him.
McGregor reached out to the stallion, and touched the raw mouth. As he did, words came to his lips that he did not understand, soft utterances that were meaningless to him. But the great stallion seemed to understand them, for he lowered his head still more.
McGregor sought release from the black barrier that kept him from knowing what had happened. His body trembled again. What were these utterances that came from the turmoil erupting within him? He had no control over what he said or did. Yet he knew he was talking to this stallion, and was being understood! He knew his hand was removing burrs from the long forelock, and that he had done all this before! He heard that inner voice again, that never-ending command, “Wait … wait … wait.”
For how long? How long must he wait? How long before he would know himself?
LONE RIDER
12
Once this horse had been his. That much he knew. No wild outlaw would have come and stood before him, nuzzling his hand, nickering, listening. The boy accepted this without question, and asked himself only, “When was he mine? Where? How long ago?”
The great stallion was familiar to him. His eyes had looked upon the wedge-shaped head with the small ears before. They knew the long, thin nostrils and the wondrous gaze that was fixed on him. They knew the slender neck with its high, mounting crest … the muscled withers, the great strength of back, the chest and shoulders and legs. All these his eyes had looked upon before. Just as his hands had known such touches, soft and gentle. Only his brain was the stranger.
The shadows from the lofty walls had met an hour before, and night had come to the canyon. Yet McGregor continued standing beside the stallion, his hands on the shaggy unkempt coat as if afraid to let go lest he lose him again. He thought how much he would like to brush him and make his coat glisten. Once before it had shone beneath his hands. He knew this, too.
The air became cold. A wind stirred, and then mounted in intensity until it was whipping the stallion’s heavy mane and forelock. Short neighs came from the far end of the canyon, and the stallion turned to look at the mares. But he did not leave the boy.
A low whistle and stomping of hoofs broke the stillness of the upper canyons, and McGregor remembered the horse he had tied to the scrub tree.
The black stallion turned, too, his head held high, his eyes afire. Every line of his gigantic body trembled. He was ready to go up the canyon, when the boy spoke to him in the language they alone understood. Sounds and words flowed effortlessly and without question from McGregor’s lips.
The stallion screamed his shrill clarion call of challenge but did not move. He stood still for several minutes, his body trembling in his eagerness to fight. As the boy continued to talk to him, and no answering challenge came from beyond, the stallion quieted. Finally he turned again to the mares, and a few moments later he left to join them.
McGregor stood alone in the darkness, pondering the things he had to do. There was feed in the saddlebags for his horse, and biscuits left over from noontime for himself. It would do him until tomorrow.
Tomorrow? What about tomorrow? He must return to the ranch. He must tell Allen that he had found no sign of the stallion and his band. Somehow he would return to the canyon, for here was his past. From the black stallion he would learn all he wanted to know. But he needed time.
He went up the canyon to unsaddle his horse and to feed and water him. Later he returned to where he had left the stallion and started a fire. Sitting beside it, he ate the hard biscuits and waited impatiently for the hours to pass. Perhaps as early as tomorrow the door to his memory would begin to swing open for him, allowing light to penetrate the mystery of his past.
During the night he slept only for minutes and at long intervals. The stallion visited him often, his gigantic form silhouetted against the walls by the light of the small campfire. The boy never tired of feasting his eyes upon him. And when he could not see him, he heard the soft rhythmical beat of his hoofs. Through it all, he felt the great love he had for this horse. He could not sleep, knowing that the very nearness of the stallion stimulated an emotion that was strongly linked to his past. Soon, he thought, it’ll bring back everything I want to know.
Dawn came to the canyon with a wan grayness, and the movements of the band were vague and shadowy. McGregor waited for the black stallion to come. When he saw him, he felt uplifted with sheer joy and love. Through the pale path of light the stallion loped so beautifully that he seemed almost unreal.
McGregor had intended to look upon him just once more, and then leave the canyon. But he found he could not go. This feeling he had for the stallion was too stimulating. Would it not soon stimulate his very brain? And would he not, because of it, know everything about himself, his whole past, within minutes?
Sobs came from his lips when the stallion stopped before him. He threw his arms about the horse’s neck and waited for the elusive mental awakening to come. But nothing came. Screams suddenly took the place of his sobs. He was desperate. He refused to listen, even to hear the inner voice that kept repeating, “Wait … wait.” He knew no patience, only terrible frustration and fury at being repelled again.
He never could have told how he got on the stallion’s back. He knew only that he was riding as he had ridden this great horse so often before. He burrowed into the heavy mane as if to hide from a world that would not accept him. He lay low on the stallion’s back, urging him to run even faster. Here he belonged, this much no one could take from him! He let the stallion split the band of mares in two frightened groups, let him scream and whirl, bending with him while he turned and leveled out again. His own shouts echoed the stallion’s whistle. The band dropped behind them.
He rode lower and faster, up and down the canyon. The stallion kept running because he loved to run, scattering and chasing the mares in his great excitement. Finally, McGregor took him through the pass that led to the distant mesas and endless canyons.
He rode for hours, and the sun was high when he brought the stallion back through the pass and into the canyon. He was tense, glowing and excited. His blood was as heated as the stallion’s. He knew so much and so little. This horse was a part of him, and he a part of this horse. They were one, yet he did not know why this was so. He did not know the stallion’s name or his own. Where had they come from? Where had he ridden him as he had today … so many times, so long ago? Who was he? Who was the stallion?
His head was splitting. All the excitement, the hard riding had brought back the pain again. He slipped off the stallion, and put his hands to his head.
A deep depression swept over him. He knew he was not yet well, that all he could do was to wait and wait. In time the headaches would cease. In time he would remember everything.
He rubbed the stallion’s nose and told him to go back to his mares, that he would return soon, and that the horse should wait for him. He stayed there, watching the stallion, until the gigantic horse had reached the mares. Then he turned and walked up the canyon. He knew it would be late in the day before he reached the ranch, and already he was a night overdue. His steps came faster and with them a growing, gnawing fear that his long hours of riding might have put the stallion and himself in danger of being found in the canyon. What if Allen and his men had set out early this morning or even last night to look for him? Might they not find his tracks and those of the stallion on the crest of the upper range?
He burst into a run when he neared
his saddled horse. They must not find him or his stallion! They must leave them alone. He needed time, more time!
With frantic fingers he untied the horse. He had his foot lifted to the stirrup when he saw the riders coming down the canyon. A long line of men, they were led by Allen astride his dark bay, Hot Feet.
THE HUNTERS
13
He mounted and rode toward them, his jaw working. He told himself that he could stop them. They were looking only for him, and now that they had found him they would return to the ranch. But as he neared the line of men he realized how wrong he was.
He saw more than Allen’s grim face, concerned as it had been the day before for the safety of his mares. He saw more than the puzzled and trail-wearied eyes of Mike and Joe. For with them rode the hunters, men hardened by long years spent in the saddle, and their sun-blackened faces were still, disclosing nothing. But their eyes gave them away. To a man their eyes blazed with the excitement of the chase. He knew these men had found the stallion’s hoofprints.
McGregor’s gaze remained on Hank Larom, the ranch foreman. Here was a man, a good man, whose deep-set eyes shone blacker and brighter than any of the others. Looking into their great depths, McGregor believed everything he’d been told about him. It was said he had run so many wild mustangs through the uplands that he thought like one. Larom, more than any of the others, was a man to be feared. Larom knew the horse trails, the water holes, the gaps and canyons. He knew how to drive a band of wild horses, and to turn them into any one of a number of traps he had set. He had been a wild-horse hunter not for profit and sale, but for the thrill of the chase.
Allen said, “Where is he, McGregor?”
The boy tore his eyes from Hank Larom. He looked at Allen, and answered, “He’s gone. He and the mares have left the country.”
Perhaps, if only Mike and Joe had been with Allen, McGregor would have been believed. But Hank Larom was there.