Mustang: Wild Spirit of the West Read online

  I knew the Grafs prized their spotted stallion, whom they’d named Chief-Thunder-Rolling-in-the-Mountains and Chief Thunder for short. They planned to use him to breed up their cow ponies. “But why Hobo?” I asked.

  “Because it takes a smart mustang to catch a smart one.”

  “You may take Hobo,” I said grandly, “if I can go along.”

  Charley didn’t hide his irritation.” ‘Course you can go. But you’re not the best roper in Nevada, you know.”

  All the while we were arguing, Charley was straightening the saddle blanket, setting the saddle, tightening the cinch on Hobo, and I was doing the same to Foxy.

  We paced out slowly until we were dead certain of Chief Thunder’s trail. First readings were plain. He was heading for Idaho all right, and by the way his hindfeet were overstepping his front ones he must have been traveling fast as an antelope. Our horses broke into a long smooth lope.

  We passed the Painted Rocks where the river breaks out of the Truckee Canyon, then skirted the Indian huts at Wads-worth, and lined out across the sandy flats toward the Nightingale Range. I was content to bring up the rear, letting Charley and Hobo do the tracking. I meant to keep my mind on the runaway but I began day-dreaming about the Paiutes who had once lived here in peace. And in my dreaming I was on their side, an Indian girl, raging in fury at the white men who chopped down our piñon trees for firewood. How could we survive the winter without meaty pine nuts to grind into flour? And how could we hunt deer when the white man had fenced off the watering places for their stupid cows?

  Charley and I were traveling too fast for talk, but not as fast as my thoughts. It was a rough old road Chief Thunder had taken, and we flew in solitude in the sizzling summer sun, stopping only to make sure of the hoofprints.

  Whoa! A drift fence ahead with a cattle-guard! Chief Thunder knew what to do. He had detoured, gone down to the river for a splash and a drink, then up and around the end of the drift fence, and on his way. We let our horses do the same.

  Revived, we gave chase—across greasewood flats, around buckbrush and sage, over rocks and dry washes. Suddenly Charley pulled up. He signaled off to the right with his chin. And there, on a rise of rock, bold against the sky, stood Chief Thunder. His head and ears were pointed to Finger Wash Draw. Then we saw what he had his eyes on—a peaceful bunch of horses grazing. Even with the distance between them you could see the dotted line of fire running from Chief Thunder to the others. He was totally unaware of us, unaware of anything but the mares in the bunch.

  Charley and Hobo sneaked up on him, noiseless as smoke, Charley making his loop. The second that rope went sailing through the air the stallion reared and leaped half way to Heaven, but Charley had counted on that leap and all in an instant the noose settled over Chief Thunder’s shoulders. Hobo slammed on the brakes. The Chief went clean over and hit the earth with a thump. One brief struggle and he gave up. He had been caught before! Meekly he came along with Hobo and Foxy.

  I felt almost sorry we had found him. He had looked so free, standing there against the sky. But then I remembered how much the Grafs needed him.

  • • •

  All three horses were winded and leg-weary, so we slow-footed most of the long way home. Now there was time for talk, and Charley told me bits and pieces of his life. It came as a shock to learn that loneliness had been part of his childhood, too. His long-ago Delaware ancestor had given him blood that was full of restlessness. At sixteen he ran away to Mexico and joined in a drive to wage war on the cattle rustlers. Then alone he pushed northward, living on wild game, killing only what he needed.

  The shadows of the mountains lengthened across the flats as Charley talked on, remembering places and people and dangers—the rattlesnake who tangled with him over the same pigeon. “That daggone diamondback slid off a ledge and quick as lightning stabbed me in the shoulder.”

  “Whatever did you do?”

  “I rode fast for help, but everything began blurring, and I fell off my horse and got back on and fell off again. I don’t know how I reached that grizzled old wonderful doctor.”

  I felt a curious fascination for this life that was so different from my own. I was longing to ask him why he had run away from home, but he wouldn’t have heard me. His mind had already gone on. He was thinking out loud. The horses and I kept our ears pricked for every word.

  “Seems like Nature’s been my foster mother,” he said. “She taught me the important things, like the sense of wonder when an animal or a bird trusts you. And the friendly quiet of the hills where you can be alone, yet not lonely. And the everlasting joy of freedom.”

  It was the first time that anyone had ever spoken his heart to me. I had no words to reply. I could only jog on in complete happiness. By the time we reached home Charley had become a person, a friend; he was no longer just a piece of sun and sky.

  Right after that I asked Mom to put up her mirror again, and I began experimenting with my hair.

  7. Operation Rescue

  AFTER CATCHING the runaway, Hobo became a somebody. “Takes a smart mustang to catch a smart one” echoed all up and down the canyon. His reputation spread like rabbit brush. Two weeks later—on a blazing Sunday in August—his fame reached its peak. I was alone in the house. Mom and Pa had gone to a funeral in Reno. I had just wiped and put away the last dish and was pulling on my boots when I heard hoofs pounding hard up our road.

  I rushed out, one boot on, and through the cloud of dust made out the figure of Eli Pike, a neighbor. Elbows flapping, he was riding his old mule hell-bent for leather. At the gate he slid to a stop and hollered through the dust: “Annie! Get your Pa! My dang fool cows are caught in the bog below the railroad bridge and ———”

  “Pa’s gone!” I yelled back.

  He didn’t hear me. He hollered louder. “Two’s already kilt by the Californy express.” He was in whispering distance now, but he roared louder than ever. “The rest of ’ems scairt and wallerin’ in the bog.” And in the same breath, “My missus’s going to have a baby, and Doc’s gone away. I got to help her.”

  The old black mule was wheezing and sighing. I took hold of the rope-bridle and rubbed his steaming neck. Then I tried to calm Mr. Pike. “Don’t you worry, sir. You go home and help Mrs. Pike. I’ll get Hobo; he’s the best ropin’ horse anywhere around. We’ll save your cows.”

  “Not you!” Eli Pike shouted in disgust. Then he wailed, “I want your Pa!”

  Now I lost my temper. “I been telling you! He and Mom are gone!”

  At last he heard me. He jerked the mule’s head around, jabbed his heels into the bony ribs, and took off. Almost out of earshot he yelled back, “I’m goin’ fer Charley.”

  I thought, There’s no time to wait for Charley! He could be any place on Sunday, fly-fishing or hunting, or even prospecting up in the hills. I flew to the barn and pulled the dinner bell. The horses came galloping in, Hobo in the lead. With quick fingers I saddled up, trying not to show my haste. The Pikes needed those cattle! There were six children already, not counting the one unborn. With all of those children, they needed every single cow.

  I took Pa’s lariat out of the tin where he kept it carefully coiled and threw it over the horn of my saddle. I swung aboard Hobo and headed for the bridge. Pa had taught me how to rope. We’d practiced on Orphie, our stray hound, which I haven’t even mentioned until now because just when he got to feel at home with us, he was run over. He was a big gentle fellow, and every time I roped him we gave him a biscuit; so he just let himself be caught.

  But this was different! Even if I did rope each cow and Hobo pulled her to safety, what about the trains coming and going? This was the Southern Pacific Railroad and for fifteen miles it ran on a single track. Trains whizzed by as if the faster they flew the less likely they were to crash head on.

  Soon I reached the bridge high above the Truckee, and there below, trapped in the backwash of the river, I saw the cows. Hobo and I climbed the slope onto the cindery railbed. We stopped
just short of the bridge. It had an open floor with wide-apart ties through which you could see the flow of the river twenty feet below. No horse could walk on it.

  I held Hobo short-reined, figuring how to save the terrified creatures without Hobo getting hurt. The risk was not the open bed of the bridge, but the fast express trains. What were the chances of rescuing the cows with Hobo pulling them from a lariat-length away? I looked at my watch. We had barely a half-hour before the next train.

  The cattle were struggling below in their slimy mud trap. They were bawling and scared. One injured heifer lay at the foot of the embankment where a train had flung her. I was plenty scared too, until I heard hoofbeats and turned to see Charley riding up with two of the Pike girls holding on behind. From the way Charley’s eyes squinted I knew he was figuring things out. Right away he ground-tied his horse on firm footing beyond the bog. Then he scrambled up the embankment, pulling the girls along like rag dolls. He set them down on the track and barked out his orders.

  “Clara! Run down to that bend in the track. Watch for the train coming from the east, but keep in sight of Annie and the bridge. Emma! You run across the bridge to where you can see the train coming from the west.”

  Both girls started to their posts, but Charley stopped them. “Wait! Listen! Here’s what you got to do. The moment you see smoke or hear a train whistle, signal to Annie. Scream like you’re being scalped. Pull off your neckerchief. Wave it like crazy in case your voice don’t carry.”

  He turned to me now and barked out more orders: “Annie! Sit tight on Hobo. Take a double dally around that horn. If the train comes, drop the dally, back Hobo like a bat out of hell, whirl him off the track and get down off that embankment, fast!

  “Now I’ll go down and hook onto one of the critters. With me pushing and Hobo pullin’ we’ll save all—all but that one on her side. ’Pears to me she’s broken her leg.” His mouth twisted as if he hated what he had to do.

  Then quickly he skidded down the bank toward the cows. In the way he worked now I began to understand Charley’s compassion for every living creature. He was like a vet on a battlefield, separating the hopeless from the strong. I watched him pull his gun, heard the crack of it, saw the suffering heifer go limp. There was a nervous shying of the cows, but Charley’s voice calmed them. Then he went to work, looping the rope around the neck of the nearest one. Now his upflung hand said, “Ready!”

  Hobo felt my signal. He veered sharply to the left. He braced himself for the pull, then hunkered down, squatting on his haunches, backing, straining, pulling the scrambling cow up and out of the sucking mud. There was no time to look at my watch. I could only pay attention to Hobo, see that he was on solid footing, keep the rope taut until at last the mud-wet creature stood on firm ground.

  I heaved a sigh. One was safe. Quickly I rode ahead to slacken the rope so that Charley could remove it to loop the next cow. I watched him rope another, and just as he gave me the signal an ear-splitting scream tore the air. Instantly Charley freed the cow. I remembered my orders. I dropped the dally, backed Hobo along the roadbed, whirled him off the track, and together we plunged down the embankment just before the fast express hitting eighty miles an hour hissed by in a swirl of dust and thunder.

  Not until the last car had passed did Hobo and I begin to tremble. I could feel his heartbeats thudding against the calf of my leg and my own heart pounding fiercely. There was no time to do more than stroke his neck and talk soft. Only forty-five minutes before the east-bound train! But now there was no need to worry about the blind turns; we could depend on our scouts.

  Charley, Hobo, and I worked like a team. Push, pull; struggle and sweat. Let the sweat run down your face, under your arms, down your back. No time to wipe it. No time to wipe the lather on Hobo’s neck. No time for anything but pull and push, and listen for screams and train whistles, and back and maneuver, and watch the train fly by with the staring faces in the windows and the waving hands. And we too weak to wave. Just the job ahead. And one by one the huddle of cows growing on firm ground.

  At last high noon overhead and the job done. And ten creatures safe. And Hobo a hero. And Charley my idol.

  8. Our Small Happy World

  THAT NIGHT I solemnly resolved I would someday marry Charley Johnston. Mom seemed to applaud my decision without a word spoken between us. First thing she did was to buy me my own mirror. It was one of those stand-up affairs with roses and daisies growing all over its frame, and right away I felt prettier. Mom and I practiced in front of it, first on my hair. Luckily I had a good healthy crop of hair, long and thick as a stallion’s mane. But, ugh, the color! In a horse we’d call it mouse-brown, and that’s just what it was. Mom and I overlooked the color. Night after night we took turns brushing—hard and fierce. Then Mom plaited it in tight little braids, and that’s how I slept. Mornings we shook it out and admired how it rippled and shone, like the tail of a pampered show horse.

  Then we practiced piling it higher on one side of my head to give an optical illusion to my out-of-line features. Optical illusion! This was a term I’d learned in school, meaning something that looks like something it is not. But now it meant something wonderful and special, like a life belt thrown out to save me from drowning in loneliness.

  On Grandma’s old sewing machine Mom made me some riding shirts of softest cambric in bright flower colors—buttercup yellow and nasturtium reds and orange. “These shades make your hair positively russet!” Mom said approvingly.

  Papa, bless his heart, noticed the difference. At supper one night he looked at me over his coffee cup, his deepset eyes smiling. “It’s like magic,” he said, turning to Mom. “Our ugly duckling has flown the coop. You’ve hatched out a swan.”

  I ran around the table and hugged him hard. His praise was all I needed to spur me on.

  Next I practiced walking, holding my low shoulder as high as I could without wincing, and my high shoulder low. All at once it came to me that if I didn’t stand face-to-face with a person but slightly at an angle, how could he tell that I wasn’t built straight as the Ponderosa pines?

  It worked! The mirror was better than any charm school. Each time I smiled into it, I seemed transformed. All the years of pain washed away. I couldn’t get over the miracle. Finally Mom had to trim my sails. She caught me spending too much time grinning at myself, laughing into the mirror, experimenting. Her voice was soft as a caress but the words had a bite. “Smiles are good as a tonic for giver and receiver alike,” she said, “that is, if given sincere. But take care you don’t become a Cheshire cat. The smile’s got to be from a deep-in, loving gladness.”

  Poor unsuspecting Charley! He never knew I was changing because of him. I wasn’t sure he even noticed until one day we were out riding, hunting Indian relics. Suddenly he reached over, snatched off my wide-brimmed cowboy hat and plopped it atop his own. “Annie,” he said gravely, “anyone with hair like brown sunshine oughtn’t ever to wear a hat.”

  It was enough happiness to last for a long time, and it had to. Months went by before Charley seemed to notice me again. Perhaps it was because we were all faced with the terror of change. Pa had been offered a job by the Dodge Transfer people back in Reno, and Mom just had to agree because the ranch wasn’t paying.

  It was on my eighteenth birthday that Charley came over for a kind of farewell supper. Mom had baked a cake with enough winking candles to make up for the sadness we were feeling. After supper, with dishes put away, Charley sort of steered me out onto the porch. It put me in mind of the way one horse will drive another to a certain spot. The moonlight was bright out there and it spilled down through our willow tree like a waterfall.

  “Annie,” he said with a touch of lostness as if already we’d moved away, “you’re so beautiful. In all ways.” There were great pauses between his words. “Outward, and on the inside, too.” Still he did not take my hand.

  “I?” My voice was a whisper of wonder. I wanted to say, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,”
but I couldn’t say anything. There was a crumb of cake on his cheek that needed brushing, and my hand went out of itself and brushed the crumb away.

  “Marry me, Annie,” he said, not putting a question mark after the words. His eyes were troubled as if all the lonely years were piling up behind them and might explode if I didn’t say yes.

  He searched my face and saw the answer, and knew too that I couldn’t talk for crying.

  Charley bought the Lazy Heart Ranch from Pa, bought the horses and all. That is, he made a down payment. And he applied to the registrar of brands to change the name so he’d feel a part of it. He added another heart to the brand and called it the Double Lazy Heart.

  Charley knew we had an uphill climb to make the ranch pay, but he didn’t dream how steep that hill would be. Late at night I’d wake up and find him at the kitchen table, chewing on a stub of a pencil, adding up columns of figures on the backs of our bills. Always he got the same chilling answer. “No matter how I reckon it, Annie—even if we get three crops a year—it won’t bring in enough.”

  Maybe it was Charley, or maybe it was me, or maybe it was one of those breathless moments when two people in love pounce on the same idea at the same time. Anyway, we figured there were a lot of lonely children in Reno, city children who had never been on a horse, who had never been friendly with earth and sky and birds and deer and lizards and rabbits.

  “Let’s have a weekend dude ranch for children!” one or the other of us shouted. “We can sleep them all over the place.”

  “‘Course we can.”

  Charley said, “The barn loft is a fine place to bed down.”

  “Ummm! Smells nice. They’d love it.”

  “And I could put up pup tents out in the fields for the adventure-loving boys.”

  “And I could sew up some mummy bags for timid girls who want to sleep in the house . . . even on the floor.”