Читать книгу Cinchfoot - Thomas C. Hinkle - Страница 4

THE day had suddenly turned dark as night, as one of the worst rain storms of the West roared across the open valley. The small herd of range horses ran with all their might before the driving wind and rain. They were led by a big black gelding with a white face, known as Blaze Face. Close on the heels of this big leader ran a yearling colt, destined to be known as Cinchfoot. He was of a striking color, being coal black with white, or what was called silver, mane and tail. It is true he did not as yet have much mane and tail, but it was growing and he was already big for a yearling. It was plain enough, also, that he could run. Blaze Face led all the others, but Cinchfoot had no trouble keeping up. He was right on the heels of the big horse and it seemed to him they should go faster still. Here and there, as the lightning glared, stood tall pine trees, their branches moving and battling with the driving storm. Frequently deafening crashes of thunder sounded, and as the horses rushed past the scattering timber, a tall pine was struck and knocked into splinters by a lurid streak of fire. It was a storm of unusual severity for this time of the year.

Suddenly, only a few yards ahead, a glaring bolt of lightning struck the ground, making the earth quiver and tremble. A deafening blast followed and the horses were almost knocked down. They stopped suddenly, the big gelding, Blaze Face, going back on his haunches in the effort. Cinchfoot also stopped suddenly and in the blackness that followed he felt a pain in his head and small stars seemed to be glimmering before his eyes.

He and all the other horses were dazed, but the cold rain pelting down on them brought them to their senses. Blaze Face leaped forward again, trying to find shelter from the driving rain, and they all followed. He had led them but a short distance when another blinding flash of lightning showed him he was almost on the verge of a river at the flood. A cloudburst had fallen upstream and the river rushed down madly at this point, its banks overflowing. Had the horses run into the river here the seething torrent would have picked them up like so many corks and carried them down between the high rocky walls where they would all have been drowned. Blaze Face stopped, then in the black darkness that followed the blinding flash, he turned and ran eastward through the driving sheets of rain. But again he stopped suddenly. The river made a sharp turn here and again he had stopped the range horses just in time. This time Blaze Face whirled and led his small band of followers for some distance into the face of the storm, when he stopped and turned his tail toward the driving wind and rain. The other horses all clustered around him, including the yearling colt, Cinchfoot. He stood close against Blaze Face. In fact he was always close to the big gelding. As the two stood here, side by side, Blaze Face put his nose to Cinchfoot’s and in some way let him know they would have to stay here and “take it.” This was enough for Cinchfoot. From the time the colt was very small Blaze Face had taken a strange liking to him and when Cinchfoot’s mother stumbled into a badger hole one day and broke her leg, dying where she fell, Blaze Face took the whole responsibility of looking after the little colt. Cinchfoot was hardly three months old when the accident happened. Blaze Face was one of those unusual geldings seen now and then in the West that, as the cowboys expressed it, “liked the little fellers.”

The wind and rain at times drove down so hard that the horses jerked up their heads and jostled each other about, each trying for a better place, but it was no use. They had to take the full force of cold rain as it drove against them. At times Cinchfoot could hardly breathe as the rain drove into his eyes and nostrils and even his mouth, but he only stood closer to Blaze Face and snorted to get the water out of his nose. Now and then he would shake his head and stamp the ground in his impatience. The other horses crowded close to Blaze Face and stood with their tails toward the storm, their heads held low. Cinchfoot stood between Blaze Face and another big horse, so that he was a little protected.

The small herd of horses that stood in the driving storm on this day were range horses and therefore they were used to saddles on their backs and cowboys in the saddles. But there were two unusual horses among them. The big black gelding with the white face, known as Blaze Face, didn’t like to have anybody on his back. He wanted to run wild and be free, and at the same time take a small herd of other range horses with him. So every spring he got a number of horses that didn’t like tame life to run off with him and, as the cowboys said, “look for new country.” But he would no more than get his new grazing place picked out than the cowboys would come riding along and drive him and the others back to the ranch for the spring work. Blaze Face, at this time, was seven years old. He seemed to like the yearling colt that stood beside him here in this storm more than any of the “little fellers” he had ever known.

The other unusual horse was this colt, Cinchfoot. Blaze Face stood right beside him and twice, in the driving rain, put his nose on the trembling colt as if he were trying to say, in cowboy language, “Don’t be too much troubled, little feller, because I aim to take care of you and we’ll get out of all this by and by.”

The cattlemen and the cowboys over a wide range knew Blaze Face. He was a cow horse and one of the worst buckers that anyone had ever put a saddle on. But as one of the cowboys said, he was “plumb crazy about a little colt, him wanting to be more to it than the colt’s mammy.” And so Cinchfoot had a powerful friend in Blaze Face on this day when it seemed that the rain was surely trying to drown him. Cinchfoot did not know that his life had started out in an unusual way, because he had been born in the summer instead of the spring. He did know that he had about frozen during his first winter and that the world was certainly a place where he had had to fight to live almost from the start. But now that he had lived through the first winter he felt as though “he was all horse.” He knew what it was to fight generally. So, while he’d never been in a thing like this before, he went right on fighting as he had against so many other things, including cold and the deep snow drifts of winter. He snorted often as the rain drove down and, now and then, he tried to get his head away from the driving sheets of rain by putting his nose down between Blaze Face and another horse, but when he did that, it seemed that a small river ran down into his nose and tried to strangle him. So he raised his head a little and took the same position as the older horses did and he snorted and blew the water out of his nose and didn’t try to see, just shut his eyes as they did.

Now it happened that old Blaze Face and the small herd of range horses were not quite alone at this time. Two humans were only a little way off. Two cattlemen, Clem Brown, the owner of the ranch, and Sam Blades had been out looking for Blaze Face and the other horses when they saw the storm coming. Clem and Sam, knowing the range, had spurred hard to a shelter they knew about and got into it with their horses. This was an old abandoned mine hole in the hillside just above the plain where the horses now stood. Clem and Sam had taken their horses back into the mine hole, and now both riders stood inside the shelter and looked out at the storm, while the wind drove a fine spray of rain in upon them.

Suddenly, during a flash of lightning, Clem said, “Looky down there, Sam! There’s the range horses and Blaze Face!” Sam saw them and the two riders waited for another flash of lightning. After that first flash everything was black darkness, but when the lightning flared again, Clem and Sam saw the horses huddled together, and this time they saw the colt standing with the others. “A colt, and ain’t he a beauty!” Clem said, and all at once the small herd of horses below seemed very interesting to the two cowboys.

After a little time, as was usual with these storms of the West, the rain ceased. It didn’t quit by degrees—it stopped as suddenly as it had begun and soon the clouds began to roll away and the sky was as clear as if nothing had happened. The western sun shone fine and beautiful on the drenched earth, and it shone bright and warm on the shivering horses below.

Already Cinchfoot was walking around the herd and he was snorting—snorting and looking at the water tearing along in the stream not far away. He put his nose down to the ground, raised his head and stamped his foot on the wet ground. It was as if he were thinking, “Well! I can’t figure all this out, but somebody must be trying to be funny or something! I got about enough of this.”

But about this time Blaze Face walked up to Cinchfoot and these two nosed each other and seemed to be talking about the matter in their own language, for they made sounds to each other. Blaze Face looked around and snorted as if he might have told Cinchfoot that he, too, didn’t care to have much more of this sort of thing. And then, for the first time, Blaze Face, always alert, saw on the hillside a little distance up the slope, the two riders.

Clem and Sam had tried to be quick about it. They had already led their horses to the edge of the mine hole and were just ready to mount and try to “fog” the range horses home. They knew Blaze Face would try to run away. They would just let him go for they knew that, as Clem said, “We always have to run him in alone.”

The instant Blaze Face saw the men he began to prance in a small circle, his eyes wide, his tail high. Sam grinned. He said, “Look at Blaze Face! Look at his tail! Did you ever see a horse that could hold his tail as high as he can?”

“No,” said Clem, “no other horse could hold his tail that high.” And that’s all the time there was for words.

Down the rocky hillside Clem and Sam rode. They got into action so quickly they were on their way when Blaze Face shot out for open country. Here a queer thing happened. Clem and Sam spurred hard to get close and swing their loops over Cinchfoot. They figured they would have a pretty hard time driving him in with the other range horses. They knew colts his age that had never seen humans might run clear away.

But just at this time some help was seen not far off. This was three cowboys who had been caught in the storm and who now rode up on a ridge a little to the west of where Clem and Sam happened to be. When the three cowboys looked out and saw the herd of range horses, and at the same time Clem and Sam, they understood everything. But Blaze Face knew what to do, for he had now seen all the cowboys. With a loud snort Blaze Face started to run. The other horses followed him. Blaze Face kept well ahead of all the horses, but Cinchfoot kept right behind him and sometimes he was neck and neck with him. Probably Cinchfoot thought he would get away. Certainly he had, as the cowboys said, “uncorked an awful lot of speed, him being plumb determined to travel to new country.” But Cinchfoot had not yet learned the ways of cowboys. He did not know that no matter how he figured things out, they had a way of doing a better job of figuring than he did. And another thing Cinchfoot did not know was that while all five of the cowboys began to crowd in on each side and behind, they were all looking at him and admiring him. Cinchfoot heard loud yells coming from these humans but he did not know they were saying:

“Whoopee! There’s a yearling colt!”

“Daggone his little hide!”

“Yes, how did he ever live through the winter?”

“Why, he’s tough as a pine knot, that’s how!”

“Certainly! And he don’t aim to be caught, not by considerable.”

And while the cowboys yelled, their faces were wide with admiring grins for the racing “little feller.” But they had no notion of letting him get away. On the contrary; his speed and his jet black coat and silver mane and tail, which now showed plainly, made it the more certain that Cinchfoot would have to go right along with Blaze Face and the other range horses to the big corrals at the ranch house.

Several times, while the race was on, Cinchfoot whirled and tried to run off to one side. It seemed to him that the thing to do was to go the way he wanted, but each time there was a cowboy on a running horse on that side to keep him with the others. And now, on his first meeting with humans, Cinchfoot showed them that his opinion was not the same as theirs. Cinchfoot wanted to stay free always! So did Blaze Face, and somehow on this day he was more determined than ever. He and Cinchfoot ran neck and neck and it was plain these two didn’t care where the other horses went; they would go off in another direction. All of a sudden Blaze Face saw his chance and he shot out on some level ground toward the west and Cinchfoot followed right beside him. Two cowboys spurred as hard as they could to head them off, but it was no use. They ran like the wind and got away. It seemed that Blaze Face had decided that since he had Cinchfoot for company he was going to take him away and stay away if his legs had anything to do with the matter.

Clem and his cowboys wisely let them go and drove the other range horses on and finally got them where they belonged, in a big corral at the ranch. After the snorting horses were in the corral and the gate was shut the talk was all about the new colt and Blaze Face. It was plain that Cinchfoot no longer needed a mother. Clem said, “He feels plumb growed up, having Blaze Face to teach him, but we’ll ‘fog’ ’em in here tomorrow.”

In the meantime Cinchfoot was, for the time, proud of himself. Night had come and the stars were shining out in the Buffalo Springs country where Blaze Face had led him. There was plenty of water and grass here, and after Blaze Face had stopped from his running he nosed Cinchfoot, as he had done since the first week Cinchfoot had been born. They were both hot and sweating, but they did not care about that. They were free and that’s all that mattered to them.

Blaze Face had tried, during all his seven years of life, to escape the spring roundup. And every spring he hated more than before to have a saddle and a man on his back. Once he had run miles away and thought he’d never come back to the range horses. He got away that spring and met some of the wild horses, but as Clem Brown said, “a big wild stallion there almost chewed Blaze Face up.” After he had gotten free he believed he had better hang around on the outskirts of the range and get such company as he could among the tame horses. He liked the company of these range horses, but he wanted them to stay away from the place where they had to be in the hands of the cowboys all summer. And he was so hard to catch one season that he managed to keep away until late June. Then Clem and his cowboys surprised him one day, roped him and brought him in. When they saddled him up he bucked like a wild cat, but it was no use. There were too many good riders. Sam Blades, who rode him that summer, bragged about him: “He’s the hardest bucker I ever got up on but he’s the best horse, too, him being that full of disgust, he don’t get tired at all.”

As to Cinchfoot, although he was hardly a year old, Blaze Face knew him pretty well already. Blaze Face could tell that Cinchfoot also had a fighting spirit and he was going to try to stay a long way off from the cowboys if he could. And while Cinchfoot did not know it yet, on this day he proved to the cowboys who chased him that he had two things above the average colt. He had great speed and great determination to go on his own. He wanted to be free, to get clear away from men and stay away. There was one just born that way now and then, and the cowboys liked this kind more than any other. They made the best cow horses if they could be caught. So at this time, Blaze Face and Cinchfoot had one thing in mind. They would watch out for the men and when it got light they would be ready to run again.

After Cinchfoot had eaten grass for some time he felt pretty well. The grass tasted sweet and good. Several times he went over to the springs here and drank beside Blaze Face. The sweat dried on his coat. Now and then, as the two of them bit off the green grass on the level valley, Blaze Face would raise his head and listen. At these times he would hear such sounds as a coyote yipping or maybe an owl hooting in the shadows of a pine woods north of them. Cinchfoot would toss his head up, too, and look in the direction Blaze Face did, but after a little, Blaze Face would put his nose on Cinchfoot’s and make some sounds as if he said, “It’s nothing—just sounds, nothing more. We can go right on eating and being comfortable.” And the two would go on biting off the grass.

Cinchfoot had forgotten about the cowboys. But Blaze Face hadn’t. He knew them. More would be seen of them. It would only be a question of when they would be seen. And under the starlight Blaze Face now and then raised his head and looked toward the ridges.