Rest and Be Thankful Read Free

meanwhile—”
    “Keep on for another six miles and you’ll reach the ranch. It might be an idea to hurry a bit. Looks as if a storm’s coming over these mountains.” He lifted his hand to his hat, touched the flank of his horse as he wheeled it round, and was off. At the rate he was travelling it would not be long before he overtook the horses.
    Sarah said, “Did you notice the spurs and the high-heeled boots?”
    “Where’s Jackson?” Mrs. Peel asked, trying to reassert herself. But she was in for another attack of bewilderment as Jackson’s square-set figure came scrambling down from the hillside on to the bank above them. He stood there, looking down at the rough slope, shaking his head. Then he walked along to the more sedate path by the natural gateway to reach them. In his hand he held a large bunch of wild lupines.
    “Horses!” He was still shaking his head. “Horses come down here.” He pointed to the bank. “In my country many horses. Many horses, cowboys. But ground is flat.” He waved the lupines in a horizontal line. “Flat. And grass. No this.” He looked with wonder at the bank, and then at the boulder-strewn hillside down which the horses had raced.
    “In your country? Cowboys? In Hungary?” In all her eighteen years of Jackson Mrs. Peel had never heard him mention a horse.
    “We’d better start moving,” Sarah said to him. “Keep on for another six miles. Looks as if a storm’s coming over these mountains.” But both women stopped smiling as the first roar of thunder reached the valley. As the jagged lightning struck down at the pinnacles of rock Jackson manoeuvred the car round without one reproving look for the shameful way it had been treated, and drove with all the abandon of a Hungarian cowboy along the darkening road. They passed groups of trees now, tracing the banks of a stream. At first they could hear the angry rush of water, and then the rising wind silenced it as the tall trees groaned and bent. The lightning encircled them, cracking like a whip. The thunderclaps echoed across the valley, rebounding from peak to peak.
    “Oh!” Mrs. Peel moaned, and put up her hands to her hat too late. Sarah laughed unfeelingly, for she had lost hers at the first blast of wind.
    “Jackson!” Mrs. Peel shouted. But she couldn’t compete with the thunder. And the rain had begun to fall, large, heavy drops changing to a stream of wind-swept water. Jackson, driving as if the hounds of hell had been unleashed at his heels, was obviously not going to stop the car to put up the hood, far less search for hats on a hillside.
    “Oh, dear!” Mrs. Peel said, and hung on to the rocking car with both hands. The lights in the ranch-house could now be seen, but at the moment they gave little comfort, for it would take another three minutes to reach their promised safety. And in this country, Mrs. Peel had learned, anything could happen in a matter of seconds.

2
FLYING TAIL
    The men came into the ranch-house kitchen, hooked their slickers on the wooden pegs at the door, shook their hats and threw them on the broad window sill, straddled the benches that stood on either side of the oilcloth-covered table, and reached unanimously for the bread. The full stew-plates began to empty rapidly.
    Mrs. Gunn waited until they had some mouthfuls of good hot meat and mashed potatoes inside them before she started asking questions. She had been brought up on a ranch. Now, as she added another half-pound slab of butter to the table and refilled the bread-plate, she looked round at the old-fashioned and cheerful kitchen with its large wood stove, then at the five wind-tanned faces enjoying her cooking, and felt content with her world. She was an elderly woman, big-boned and yet spare. Her movements were brisk and neat. Her red hair had whitened; her face seemed very pale in contrast to the men’s tanned skin. There was warmth and kindness in her eyes, frankness in her look.
    “Got the last horse into the south