Читать книгу Lucky Larribee - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 10

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Big Sky Blue, turning his head, took the stranger by the shoulder. He had the power of a lion in his jaws, and Larribee half expected to hear the sound of his own bones crunching. The agony was exquisite. But he merely said, playfully: “That shoulder is a joint, and not an apple, Sky Blue, old fellow.”

The stallion loosed his hold. He reached higher. With a kick of his upper lip, he knocked the hat from the head of the man and nibbled at his forelock. Suddenly Larribee laughed aloud. There was a ring of joy in his laughter which ran like quicksilver flashing through the crowd in that corral. They knew that Larribee was not afraid!

Poor Dan Gurry, overcome with excitement and hope, bowed his head in both hands and would not look again for a moment, lest he should be disappointed.

In the meantime, Larribee rubbed the nose of Sky Blue with his finger tips. The stallion nipped at the fingers, and Larribee slapped him soundly across the muzzle.

It brought a squeal from Sky Blue. He reared, towering above Larribee. But Larribee did not move from under the impending blow. He simply laughed at the monster and called out to him: “You old idiot, you!”

The stallion rocked lightly back to the ground and a gasp of relief came from the spectators. They would not have been surprised to see the daring fellow crushed to the ground, his life smashed out by the stroke of two massive sledge hammers.

Instead, Larribee tightened the cinches again. He laid a hand on the pommel of the saddle, and he put his feet into the left stirrup, but, miracle of miracles, he did not pay the slightest attention to the reins! He merely allowed them to dangle loosely over the horn of the saddle.

Someone screamed from the fence line of the corral: “Larribee, Larribee! Mind the reins, you fool!”

It was Wilbur Dent. Dan Gurry whirled about. His face was swelling and livid with passion, patched blue and grey. He spoke softly through his teeth, and yet every soul present heard him: “I’ll shoot down the first man that yips again! It’s brains and not reins that’ll ride old Blue!”

With his foot in the stirrup, Larribee paused for a moment, and then his right hand fumbled under the saddle, under the blanket, just at that point where there is most spring in the back of a horse, where the muscles are most supple, the long half-loop of power that hurls the horse forward. At that point he brought his hand to rest, and he felt the stallion’s flesh quiver beneath his touch. He felt the power crawl beneath the skin, stiffening to iron, and then the whole body of the great brute shuddered.

“Old Blue!” said Larribee, gently.

The horse turned his head. He looked back curiously and some of the fire left his eye, for the hand of the man lay on the very nerve centre of that old pain, that old agony of terror which he never could forget. Gradually he relaxed. He listened to the voice of the man, and that voice rippled and ran through his soul as the sound of spring waters that bubbled out of the side of the hill and all summer long ran down the thirsty slope.

“I understand,” that voice seemed to say. “I know all about everything. We’ve been a long time apart, you and I, but now we’re together.”

Sky Blue sighed; every cell of his great lungs distended, and when that mighty breath had been taken, he felt the pressure of the man as he lifted himself up.

There was no start, no sudden upward thrusting, no wrenching of the tender corners of his mouth. There was only a big weight just behind his withers, where a horse can stand weight the best, and always the good right hand upon that nerve centre, that centre of memory, under the rear of the saddle.

Sky Blue prepared to tremble. But the shudder was only a partial one. He flexed his knees a trifle and sank lower behind, ready for the first mighty bound into the air. The thousand tricks of the fighting game flashed through his cunning mind, that mind so trained and sharpened by his countless duels with clever riders. He had won them all, from the first pain-inspired combat.

He would win this, also, or die fighting! He would break this new tyrant.

Yet it did not seem the same as the other battles. The voice of the man went on soothingly, and always the head of the stallion was free. This amazed him more than any other thing. For he knew that man ruled by the reins and the grip of the bit across the under jaw. He knew, when his head was drawn back close to his breast, as had happened now and again, he had managed to stretch out his head once more. But here there was no effort to hold him in such a fashion. Here his head was as free as though he stood unbridled in the pasture.

Above all, the magic of the man’s hand was on the tender place beneath the saddle blanket. Gradually that hand was withdrawn, and the full weight of the rider slipped softly into the saddle. Sky Blue thrust out his head, and trembled like a racer ready for the start. But once more the hand of the rider reached under the blanket and reassured him.

It was very odd. There was no mighty gripping of his sides, and yet he felt surpassing strength in this fellow who had mounted him. There was not the usual quick, frantic fumbling for the stirrups. There was no stab from sharp spurs that cut into his flesh.

Instead, Larribee sat sidewise and slapped Sky Blue on the shoulder, and as he fumbled for the right stirrup his heel fearlessly, carelessly, rubbed and tapped against the sensitive side of the horse.

Sky Blue shook his head again, so that the bit and the bridle rattled, and again a faint gasp, like a sound of approaching storm, came from the crowd that watched.

Dan Gurry, his face now utterly grey, leaned back against a corner post of the corral. His lips moved. Those who stood near said that he was praying. Those who stood nearer declared afterwards that he had simply been cursing softly; but, in fact, cursing was the only kind of prayer he knew about.

Arabelle Ransome murmured to herself: “He’s not afraid! Look at him! He’s not afraid! He’s going to make that horse believe in him. I never knew a man could be like that!”

She had gripped, as she spoke, the arm of Mrs. Ransome, and that dignified lady was heard to remark: “Be still, you silly little thing!”

But out there in the centre of the corral, big Sky Blue stretched out his long, glorious neck and with his ears flattened he said as plainly as words: “Now, try me, you. Try to hold me. Try to crush my chin back against my breast. Try to master me, if you dare! Here I stand, for all to see. It’s a fair fight.”

He waited for the bite of the spurs and the rasp of a harsh voice, the grip of constricting legs and, above all, for the iron of the bit in his mouth and the electric currents of hatred and fear flowing in fast tremors down the leather reins.

Instead, Larribee slapped him on the shoulder, and then on the neck. “Are we going to wait here a while, Old Blue,” said he, “or are we going to move along presently?”

The stallion swung his head around and sniffed at the knee of his rider. And the hand of the man reached down and slapped him gently across the muzzle.

“We’re friends, Blue,” said he. “That’s what we are!”

The stallion was on the verge of plunging into the air, but the tap upon his nose had set it tingling. He paused to lower his head almost to the ground. He sneezed, and then he broke into a gentle trot.

Then the reins began to be gathered, gently, slowly.

But Sky Blue was not to be deceived. He felt that man was stalking him, attempting to surprise him and the moment the reins were straight, he thrust out his head suddenly, his neck stretched to its full length, and bolted straight ahead!

Behold, he had whipped the reins right through the hands of Larribee! There was no pull, either backward or to the side. He was allowed to gallop at his own sweet pleasure. From the very ends of the reins down to the iron bit between his teeth and thence upwards to his wise brain, there came to the stallion from the hands of the rider a rhythmical assurance that as the horse would have it, so would the man be pleased, and all was well with the wind of the gallop blowing upon them both.

They moved as one. The sway of the man in the saddle was as the sway of the horse in a long and easy rhythm. He heard Larribee laughing; his neck was slapped by the strong hand of the man.

Instead of bucking, instead of striving to knock holes in the pale sky above him, the stallion began to frolic as he had frolicked of old in the pasture fields. He threw up his heels, but only in joy; he swept around and around the big corral at a speed which not a man of all those who watched ever had seen before.

At last he dropped to a trot. A slight pressure on the bit told him to stop, and Sky Blue came to a full halt in the centre of the open space.