Stolen Stallion, page 16
The shock of the bullet knocked him backward. He struck a chair. It went over with him. He turned a somersault and landed on his face with hands still clutching the gun he had drawn.
Richmond was still firing, and life was running out of the body of Lake with every throb of his heart. But he lay there stretched on the floor, making a rest of one hand to support the long barrel of the revolver. And from that rest he fired. After Richmond fell, he was not contented.
He wanted to get up and stand over the man and blow his face off. He wanted to crawl to him, and put in a final shot. But he knew that even the effort of getting to hands and knees would make the last of life burst out of him.
Even now, a dimness was being drawn across his face. The agony was entering his throat, closing off his breath. And still he fired.
Richmond began to shriek. He got to his hands and knees, screeching for help. Another bullet knocked him flat on his face.
There was no more firing, as the men broke in from the front of the saloon. Lake lay on his face, dead, smiling; and Richmond was two gasps from death, also.
It was only marvelous that he could exist long enough to speak words, and Jones and the barkeeper leaned over him.
There was an expression of stunned surprise on the face of Richmond. His lower jaw had dropped to his chest.
He kept saying, thickly: “Tha’s a’right. Tha’s a’right,” and a drool of blood spilled over his lip and kept sliding down on his coat.
Jones said, calmly, almost with enjoyment in his voice: “You’re a dirty dog. You’re dying like a dirty dog. But if you’ve got anything to put right, tell me, brother, and I’ll do it for you!”
Harry Richmond looked up at him with vague eyes.
“Old Charlie Moore,” he said.
Bubbles of blood formed and burst on his lips, snapping rapidly.
“Moore — he gets Brandy. I got Brandy away from him — and I got nothing but trouble. Give Brandy back to Charlie — and tell him — ”
He put his head on his shoulder as though he wanted to wipe his bloody lips on his coat, but the head kept on sagging down, for Harry Richmond was dead.
When justice is done, sometimes it is not done with a feeble hand, but with a certain flourish. That was the case with Charlie Moore. The whole story came out. It had been known before, but dimly. Now the long story of injustices stood up darkly against the bright light of the race and the tragedy that had followed it. And Charlie Moore got Brandy.
He got another horse, too, because when Brandy was led out of the corral, Mischief tried to climb the fence and follow him. Big Silvertip bought Mischief on the spot and presented her to Charlie Moore.
Charlie was leaving Parmalee. He was going into the Northwest, where a comfortable job had been offered him as timekeeper in a big mine.
“Because,” the mine owner had said, “the world’s given the simple old fellow a bad break. Now he can have his horse, and peace, to the end of his life.”
That mine lay on the edge of the Sierra Blanca, among the foothills, and Silvertip rode all the way with Charlie Moore to his new job.
What they said to one another made very little difference, but from horse to horse there was much talk. It was somewhat annoying to the riders because, while Mischief ranged here and there, without so much as a bridle on her head — it would be a simple thing to run her down, if she tried to bolt — the two horses insisted on walking shoulder to shoulder.
“You see,” said Brandy, “that we return to the old places.”
“We return,” said Parade.
He lifted his head, and looked at the white spearlike tips of the Sierra Blanca range.
“Some day,” he said, “perhaps we’ll run together through the valley again, and gather a herd behind us.”
“Never!” said Brandy. “To be free is a great thing; to be loved is a greater thing still. If there had been no whip on me, the other day, perhaps I would have beaten you, Parade, if I had loved my rider as you loved yours. Did he touch you with a whip, from the start to the finish?”
“A whip?” said Parade. “Why should he do that? A whip stroke only makes you twist to the side to escape from the pain. He never has touched me with more than the flat of his hand.”
“And that,” said Brandy, “I understand. But your mother never will. Where are you traveling now?”
“A great ways off,” said Parade. “All I know is that with my master in the saddle, I keep looking at the horizon, because I know that he always wants to be somewhere beyond it. Look at him, father. He is the Great Enemy turned into a friend.”
“Therefore,” said Brandy, “you will be of one blood and one bone with him, all your life. See the man who rides me. He keeps a loose rein. His eye wanders. He trusts me, my son. And the greatest joy in this life is to trust and to be trusted.”
And old Charlie Moore was saying to his companion: “Look at ’em rubbin’ shoulders as they walk, rubbin’ our knees together, too, the old fools. Now, I’ll tell you somethin’, Silver.”
“Fire away,” said Silvertip.
“You seen them in the finish of that race, boring their heads into the wind?”
“I saw them — and their heads twisted out the same way, when they were putting everything they had into the running.”
“D’you think that’s chance?” asked Moore.
“It was a queer thing,” admitted Silver. “What’s the answer?”
“When Mischief got away, long ago, she got away with big Brandy, here, and there’s no doubt in my mind — Brandy’s the father of Parade.”
“Hold on!” exclaimed Silvertip.
“It looks like a long shot, but I think it’s a true one. Two horses don’t run in a queer way like that, unless there’s the same blood in ’em, likely. And look, at the cut of Parade — and then look at Brandy. Years make a difference, but I can remember when Parade and Brandy would’ve been almost blood brothers at a glance. They got the same cut, but Brandy’s finer, and Parade’s bigger — and there you are!”
“You’ll be telling me,” said Silvertip, smiling, “that they know that they’re father and son, and that’s why they walk together, like this!”
“There’s strange things in this here world,” said Charlie Moore, “and that’s exactly what I believe.”
“All right,” answered Silver, good-humoredly. “I’m happy enough to believe anything, today.”
“Old son, where might you be bound?” asked Charlie.
“Over yonder!” said Silvertip.
He waved before him toward the shimmer of the desert, alive with the rising of the heat waves, and toward the rugged waves of the mountains, that gave back on either side from a pass.
“Over the pass?” said Charlie Moore.
“Yes, over the edge of the world, somewhere,” said Silvertip. “I’ve spent a life, so far, trying to find one thing that I really wanted. I’ve got it now, and I’m going to use it. I don’t know for what!”
Old Charlie Moore looked on his companion with dreaming eyes for a moment.
“Give a boy a sword, and the man will be a soldier,” he murmured. And then he added: “I’d need to be a younger man, and a stronger man, and Brandy a younger horse under me — but if I could follow you, Silver, I know that I’d find what you’re goin’ to find — the other side of the horizon, and the reason the sky is blue!”
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Copyright © 1933 by Frederick Faust. Copyright © renewed 1960 by Dorothy Faust. The name Max Brand is a registered trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and cannot be used for any purpose without express written permission. Published by arrangement with Golden West Literary Agency. All rights reserved.
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This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 10: 1-4405-4982-6
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4982-3
eISBN 10: 1-4405-4980-X
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4980-9
Brand, Max, Stolen Stallion
