The Brave Cowboy Read Free

core from his palm, holding her head against his chest and whispering into the tense ears. “That’s a girl, now you’re gettin the idea.” He rubbed her face and forehead and patted the strong nervous neck. “You’re a good girl, Whisky. You’re not so dumb, little girl. No sirree, you’re all right.” While he was murmuring into her ears he started slowly and stealthily to slip the bridle on; but she resisted, jerked her head up and tried to back away. Quickly he jammed his thumb inside her cheek, forced her mouth open and inserted the bit, pushed the headstall over her ears and fastened the throatlatch. “Easy, girl, easy,” he said as the mare laid back her ears again. He caressed her neck and thumped his fist on her powerful shoulder. After a moment he half-knelt to unbuckle the Mormon hobble around her shanks. The mare trembled when the strap slipped off but made no trouble. “That’s a girl,” he whispered. He straightened up, holding the hobble in one hand, passed the reins over her neck and quickly smoothly pulled himself up and astride her bare back.
    For a second the mare stood rigid, frozen in outrage;then before he could put a spur to her she leaped forward as if stung, stopped suddenly, arching her back with convulsive violence, and left the earth in another mighty leap, came back down and hit with braced legs, a sickening bone-jarring shock. The man on her back gasped through his grin, shook his head and leaned forward and clutched at the mane with one hand, twisting the strong hairs around his fingers and wrist. “Come on, you bitch!” he shouted, and whipped the mare across the flank with the leather hobble.
    She sprang forward again, bucked once, twice, then broke and ran; laughing and cursing, the man turned her with a touch of leather on the neck, kept her turning round and round in a tight circle until she began to tire a little, then brought her at an easy canter back to the campsite, stopped her short and slid off. He cradled the mare’s head in his arms and talked low-toned soothing nonsense into her quivering ears, while the dust they had raised went drifting by to settle again on different ground.
    When she seemed quiet enough he spread a pad on her back and threw on his saddle, an old worn all-purpose outfit with a double rig and rolled cantle. He caught the cinch ring swinging underneath on the other side and pulled it up and passed the latigo through it a half dozen times and jerked it tight. The mare was holding her breath: he deflated her with a pair of good driving punches to the belly, drew the latigo tighter and secured it on the tongue of the ring. After this he hung on the saddlebags and fastened them, tied the bedroll on behind the cantle, and looped his almost-empty government canteen close to the saddlehorn. He had still more gear to attend to, a guitar and a rifle laying on the ground in the shade of the juniper. The rifle, a thirty-two caliber lever-action carbine, went in the scabbard slung under the fender on the right side of the saddle; the guitar he slung across his back by its braided rawhide cord.
    All was ready now; the mare waited impatiently under her firm burden of metal and leather, waited for theman’s approach and the springy pressure of his long weight on her back. She had to wait; he seemed in no hurry now after completing his preparations. Instead of mounting he stood facing the east and the city, slouching comfortably over his backbone and pelvis, thumbs hooked in the pockets of his jeans, the black hat tilted forward over his eyes.
    The sun was now an hour higher in the sky, a good ten feet above the violet crest of the mountains. The shadows contracted, creeping back, and the first miasmic shimmer of heat waves began to obscure the detail of rocks and brush. Between the man and the river a spinning dervish of air and sand, like a translucent tornado, danced across the plain with the weightless buoyant grace of a moving spotlight; at its base the