the Outlaws Of Mesquite (Ss) (1990) (9 page)

The second day of the rodeo was a study in delay.

Despite his beating of the night before, Yannell Stoper looked good. His face was raw and battered, but physically he seemed in good shape and he was fast and smooth. Marty Mahan, working to absolute silence from the crowd, won the finals in the calf tying by bettering his previous time by a tenth of a second.

Stoper was second.

Stoper won the steer wrestling, and took the finals in the bareback bucking contest.

Marty came out on Old Seven-Seventy-Seven, a big and vicious Brahma bull who knew all the tricks. The bull weighed a shade more than a ton and had never had a stiff battle. He came out full of fight, bucking like a demon, swiveling his hips, hooking left and right with his short, blunted horns, fighting like mad to unseat the rider who clung to the rigging behind his hump. Marty was going and he was writing over both flanks, giving the big Brahma all the metal he could stand.

Old Seven went into a wicked spin, then suddenly reversed. The crowd gasped, expecting the speed of it to unseat Mahan, but when the dust cleared, Marty was still up there, giving the bull a spur-whipping he would never forget. The whistle blew and Mahan unloaded with a dive. But Old Seven wasn't through by a whole lot. He wheeled like a cat on a hot stove and came for Marty full tilt. Mahan swung around, and then the clowns dove in and one of them flicked the big bull across the nose and the maddened animal came around and went for the clown. Marty walked off the tanbark to the scattered cheers of the crowd.

"Quiet today, Marty," Carver said, hesitantly.

Mahan looked up, a queer half-smile on his face. "They are waiting, Red. They want to see ."

"Stoper's riding him. I lost out."

"You're lucky," Mahan said dryly. "That's no ordinary bad horse, Red. Take it from me."

Suddenly he saw Jeff Alien before him and he turned abruptly and walked toward him.

"Jeff," he said abruptly, "I want to be in the arena when Stoper rides Ghost Maker."

The older man hesitated, looking coldly at Mahan. "You had your chance to ride him," he said briefly. "Now let Stoper doit."

"I aim to," Mahan replied. "However, I don't want to see him killed!"

Alien jerked his head impatiently. "You leave that to Stoper. He ain't yellow!"

"Am I?" Marty asked quietly.

For a moment the eyes of the two men held. The hardbitten oldster was suddenly conscious that he was wearing a gun. It was only part of the rodeo trappings, but it was loaded, and so was the gun on Mahan's hip. The days of gunfighting were past, and yet ... Marty's eyes met his, cold and bleak.

"Why, I don't reckon you are," Jeff said suddenly. "It just seemed sort of funny, you backin' out on that horse, that's all!"

Mahan looked at him with hard eyes. "The next time something seems funny to you, Jeff, you just laugh!

Hear me? Don't insinuate a man is yellow.

Just laugh!" He turned on his heel and walked away.

Dick Graham looked after him thoughtfully, then said, "Jeff, I thought for a minute you were goin' to fill that long-time vacant space up in Boot Hill!"

Alien swallowed and mopped the sweat from his face.

"Darned if I didn't myself!" he said, relieved. "That hombre would have drawed iron!"

"You're not just a-woofin'!" Graham said dryly.

"That boy may be a lot of things, but he isn't yellow! Look what he did to Yannell last night!"

Yannell Stoper walked down to Chute Five. The Ghost Maker, a strapping big zebra dun, stood quietly waiting in the chute. He was saddled and bridled, and he made no fuss awaiting the saddle, having taken the bit calmly. Now he knew what was coming, and he waited, knowing his time was soon. Deep within his equine heart and mind something was twisted and hot, something with a slow fuse that was burning down, close to the dynamite within him.

At one side of the arena, white-faced and ready, astride his black roping horse, sat Marty Mahan. Time and again eyes strayed to him wonderingly, and one pair of those eyes belonged to Peg Graham. Yannell, despite himself, was nervous. He climbed up on the chute, waved a gloved hand, and settled in the saddle. He felt the horse bunch his muscles, then relax.

"All right," Stoper said. Then he yelled, "Cut her loose!" And then the lid blew off.

Ghost Maker left the chute with a lunge, sandwiched his head between his forelegs, and went to bucking like a horse gone mad. He was leaving the ground thirty inches at each jump and exploding with such force that blood gushed from Yannell's mouth with his third jump.

He buck-jumped wickedly in a tight circle, and then, when Yannell's head was spinning like a top, the maddened horse began to swap ends with such speed that he was almost a blur. Caught up in the insane rhythm of the pounding hoofs, Yannell was betrayed by a sudden change as the horse sprang sideways.

He left the saddle and hit the ground, jarred in every vertebra.

Drunken with the pounding he had taken, he lunged to his feet, to see the horse charging him, eyes white and glaring, teeth bared. The crowd came off its seats in one long scream of horror as the maddened horse charged down on the dazed and helpless rider.

In some blind half-awareness of danger, Yannell stumbled aside. At the instant, Mahan's black horse swept down upon the maddened beast and Mahan's rope darted for the killer's head.

Distracted, Ghost Maker jerked and the throw missed.

Like an avenging demon he hurled himself at Marty's black, ripping a gash in the black horse's neck. The black wheeled, and the crowd screamed in horror as they saw him stumble and go down.

Out of the welter of dust and confusion somebody yelled, "Marty's up! Marty's on him!"

In the nightmare of confusion as the black fell, Marty, cold with fear of the maddened horse, grabbed out wildly and got one hand on the saddle horn of Ghost Maker. With every ounce of strength he had, he scrambled for the saddle and made it!

Out of the dust the screaming, raging horse lunged, bucking like mad, a new rider in the saddle. In some wild break of fortune, Mahan had landed with his feet in the stirrups, and now as Yannell crawled away, blood streaming from his nose, and the black threshed on the ground, Marty was up in the middle of the one horse on earth that he feared and hated.

Ghost Maker, with a bag full of tricks born in his own hate-filled brain, began to circle-buck in the same vicious tight circle that had taken Stoper from the saddle. At the height of his gyrations he suddenly began to swap ends in a blur of speed. Mahan, frightened and angry, suddenly exploded into his own private fury and began to pour steel to the horse. Across the arena they went while riders stood riveted in amazement, with Marty Mahan writing hieroglyphics all over the killer's flanks with both spurs.

Pitching like a fiend, Ghost Maker switched to straightaway bucking mingled with snakelike contortions of his spine, tightening and uncoiling like a steel spring.

Riders started cutting in from both sides, but Marty was furious now.

"Stay away!" he roared. "I'll ride him to a finish or kill him!"

And then began such a duel between horse and man as the rodeo arena at Wind River had never seen. The horse was a bundle of hate-filled energy, but the rider atop him was remembering all those long years down from his lost riding horse on the desert, and he was determined to stay with the job he had shunned.

Riders circled warily out of reach, but now long after any ten-second whistle would have blown, Marty was up on the hurricane deck of the killer and whipping him to a frazzle. The horse dropped from his bucking and began to trot placidly across the arena, and then suddenly he lunged like a shot from a cannon, straight for the wall of the stands.

People screamed and sprang away as if afraid the horse might actually bound into the stands, but he wheeled and hurled his side against the board wall with force that would have crushed Marty's leg instantly. Mahan, cool and alert now, kicked his foot free and jerked the leg out of the way the instant before the horse hit.

As the animal bounded away, injured by its own mad dive, Mahan kicked his toe back into the stirrup and again began to feed steel to the tiring killer. But now the horse had had enough. Broken in spirit, he humped his back and refused to budge. For an instant Marty sat there, and then he dropped from the beaten horse to the ground and his legs almost gave way under him.

He straightened, and the killer, in one last burst of spirit, lunged at him, jaws agape. Standing his ground, Marty smashed the horse three times across the nose with his hat," and the animal backed up, thoroughly cowed.

Taking the bridle, Marty started back toward the chute, leading the beaten horse and trembling in every limb. Behind him, docile at last, walked Ghost Maker.

The emotion-wracked crowd stared at this new spectacle, and then suddenly someone started to cheer, and they were still cheering and cheering when Marty Mahan stopped by the corral and passed the bridle of the horse to a rider. He turned and leaned against the corral, still trembling. For the first time he realized that his nose was bleeding and that the front of his white rodeo costume was red with spattered blood.

Yannell Stoper, his own clothing bloody, walked up to him, hand out.

"Marty," he said sincerely, "I want to apologize. You sure ain't yella, an" you sure saved my bacon! An' that was the greatest ride a man ever made!"

"You sure weren't afraid of that horse!" Dick Graham said. "Why, man ... to was "Afraid of him?" Marty looked up grimly.

"You're durned right I was afraid of him! I was never so scared in my life! I didn't get on that horse because I wanted to! It was the safest place there was! An' once up there, I sure enough had to stay on or be killed! Scared? Mister, I was never so scared in my life!"

Old John was standing nearby grinning at him.

"Nice goin', boy. An' by the way, I heard you an' the lady here"-he indicated Peg Graham-"were interested in my Willow Creek ranch outfit. If you still are, I would sell it mighty cheap, to the right couple!"

Peg was looking at him, wide-eyed and pale. "I ... I don't know if... ?" Her voice was doubtful.

Marty straightened and slid an arm around her.

"Sure thing, John! Looks like it would be a nice place to raise horses an...'"

"Cattle?" Red Carver asked, grinning.

"Kids!" Marty said. "Lots of kids! All rodeo riders!" He looked at Peg, grinning.

"Okay?"

"Okay," she agreed.

The Drift
Author's Note:

In the old days it was very common to see a cowboy with one or two fingers missing. Most likely there was a bad steer on the other end of the rope he had dallied around his saddle horn. His hand would get caught and a finger might get cut off or pulled off. So in every group of seven or eight cowboys you'd find one or two who had a finger gone.

S
moke Lamson came into the bunkhouse and Johnny Garrett cringed. The big foreman rolled his tobacco in his jaws and looked slowly around the room.

Nobody looked up. Nobody said anything. It was a wicked night, blowing snow and cold, so it was a foregone conclusion who was going to night-herd.

"You"-he turned suddenly to Johnny-"saddle up and get out there. An' remember, if they start to drift, make "em circle."

Johnny swung his feet to the floor. "Why me?" he protested. "I've been on night ridin" every night this week."

Lamson grinned. "Good for you, kid. Make a man out of you. Get goin'."

An instant, Johnny Garrett hesitated. He could always quit. He could draw his time. But how long would forty dollars last? And where else could he get a job at this time of the year?

Moreover, if he left the country he would never see Mary Jane again.

He drew on his boots, then his chaps and sheepskin. He pulled the rawhide under his chin and started for the door.

Lasker rolled over on his bunk. "Kid, you can take my Baldy if you want. He's a good night horse."

"Thanks," Johnny said. "I'll stick to my string. They might as well learn."

"Sure." Smoke Lamson grinned and started to build a smoke. "Like you, they gotta learn."

Johnny opened the door, the lamp guttered, and then he was outside, bending his head into the wind. By now he should be used to it.

He had come to the Bar X from Oregon, where he had grown up in the big timber, but he came to Arizona wanting to punch cows. After a couple of short jobs he had stumbled into the Bar X when they needed a hand. The boss hired him, and Lamson did not like that, but he had said nothing, done nothing until that night in town.

Everybody on the Bar X knew that Smoke was sweet on Mary Jane Calkins. Everybody, that is, but Johnny Garrett. And Johnny had seen Mary Jane, danced with her, talked with her, and then walked out with her. Looking for Mary Jane, Smoke had found them in a swing together.

He had been coldly furious, and Mary Jane, apparently unaware of what she was doing, told Smoke that Johnny was going to be a top hand by spring. "You wait an' see," Johnny had said.

And Smoke Lamson looked at Johnny and grinned slowly. "You know, Mary Jane," he said meaningfully, "I'll bet he is!"