Rafe

'What horses!' The fat puncher, cramming a fresh chew into him, worked his jaws, spat grimly and growled, 'You seen them pens! Only nags in sight is the ones we come in on. How far you figure we'd git on them?'

Luce knuckled her eyes. 'There's four of you. That's two to a mount, and Rafe—'

'I'm stayin' right here.'

'Don't be a boob!' Bunny flared, glaring at him. 'If you're going to stay we may as well all stay! Now get that silly grin off your face and, while Luce packs some grub—'

'No time fer that,' Brownwater cut in. 'That bunch ain't scarcely five minutes away.'

'These walls are thick,' Luce said. 'Why run? We've got food and water.'

While the rest were considering, eying each other, Brownwater said, 'Food can run out, and when our guns is shot dry what do we use? Time ain't goin' to be no help to us.' He put his meaningful stare on Bender.

'You're right,' Bunny sighed. 'Get that gate open. I'll not be a minute.' Whirling, ducking the well curb, she ran off through the pepper tree's green ferny lace, reappearing moments later tugging a big roan horse whose reins she thrust hurried into Rafe's hands. 'You take Roanie—he's freshest. I'll get up with your father.' Brownwater, dragging open the portal with Luce's nervous help, shouted, 'Never mind us—they're goin' t' take after you! Look for us where you lost the skewbald. Git goin'!'

Rafe, still reluctant, and showing it, climbed aboard Bunny's horse, meaning to argue this further. While his weight was yet on the stirrup, the big puncher, yelling, fetched the blue roan a clip with his hat. The horse took off like a bat out of Carlsbad, the swearing Rafe becoming too busy trying to stay with him to have any breath or time left for gab.

Off to his left as he sailed through the gate a bedlam of furious shouts went up, but he hadn't any attention he could spare them, either. When he got his seat firmly sunk in the saddle and had found his other stirrup he sneaked a quick look and gave the roan back his head. There was six or eight of them pouring in the steel and laying on the leather in a frantic attempt to cut him off before he could pass that tangle of pens.

But all the shouting and shooting only increased the roan's fright. Pinning back his ears he really stretched out and his few hours of rest began to pay off. He tore past the pens in a wild burst of speed. Slowly but surely he began pulling away, opening up his lead a little more with every stride.

The pursuit quit firing but they kept on coming, falling farther behind, painly determined not to quit until they had to. Duke had never given a damn about horseflesh. Rafe guessed Spangler was riled enough to chew carpet tacks. They would kill him, all right, if they ever glommed onto him.

It was obvious now it would not be today. Some of their crew had already pulled up and the most of the others were strung out half a mile. Only Spangler and Duke, on the best of their horses, were still in the race, still spurring and quirting with the fury of frustration; Rafe, with a laugh, gleefully pictured their faces.

He grew sober in a hurry when the rhythm of the roan's hard run commenced to falter. Rafe switched him into a gallop, then a lope. When the ride continued rough he dropped him into a jog. The reaching lunge of his breath was like a bellows. Greatly concerned—even worried, now—Rafe peered behind and, a mile away, saw the pair still after him, indomitable as death.

He was afraid for his lead to ease the horse any further. If they again managed to get within saddle gun range they would probably drop off, do their level best to nail him. He kept the roan going, talking to him now, pleading with him, coaxing, promising oats and turnip greens, anything and everything that came into his head. The lather, on chest and flanks, showed like soap, and Rafe could no longer doubt the horse was limping.

With bitterness he pulled up and jumped down, reaching for the scabbarded rifle. Then he stared, stared again. The day had considerably advanced, the sun being presently almost straight over head in the full powers of its strength, but astonishingly, and in spite of this brilliance, he could find no sign of Spangler or Duke. If they hadn't given up they had at least dropped out of sight.

Rafe picked up the roan's feet. When he got to the off front hoof he found the trouble. A sharp, three- cornered stone had tightly wedged in the frog. While it wasn't by any means a case for shooting, it was a cinch the roan would carry him no farther, not without Rafe irreparably ruining him.

Rafe dug the stone out. The animal would be of no use for several days. Rafe scowled about, trying to find some landmark that would fix his location. But this was all new country to him. Unknown. Haired over with last year's yellow grass it gently rolled toward a blue blur of hills back over his left shoulder which might be the ones that hid his father's headquarters. Where was the old man now? And the girls? Had Brownwater got them out of there?

Rafe's scowl deepened. Since he wasn't able to see any cattle it seemed a likely assumption he was probably still on Gourd and Vine range. And if those hills hid the ranch—he couldn't see any others close enough to matter— the rendezvous where he'd lost Bathsheba must be some place west, how far he had no notion. But a powerful long way for a man to have to go in high-heeled boots.

He picked up the reins, clucked to the roan and started walking.

The horse didn't balk but after an hour of increasing heat Rafe stopped to pull off the saddle and blanket; then with handfuls of grass he rubbed the roan down. Retrieving the rifle, he looked a long time at the saddle before abandoning it; he caught up the canteen, filled his hat with the tepid water and let the horse drink. Taking up the reins once more, he again moved west.

One thing he hoped more than anything else: that, at least, he was headed in the right direction. It wasn't himself he was worried about as much as it was the Old Man and the girls. If Duke and Spangler came onto them now things could get pretty sticky.

The sun heeled lower, the sharpening shadows dancing farther behind. Like romping dogs, Rafe wearily thought as, at ever-widening intervals, his reddened eyes sought the backtrail. His swollen feet ached miserably, then it got so they didn't seem part of him any more, more like something tied on he had to pull against his will. This got him thinking of horses, and he began to consider getting back on the roan. But this unaccountably clashed with some unexplainable ingrained concept he could neither unravel nor shake the shame out of; it surely did gravel him. 'What the hell's a horse for!' He heard himself shouting like some zany old fool. He also discovered he had finally quit sweating, and this scared him into some semblance of sanity.

He quit walking to think, but all he could think of was getting off his blistered feet. The only sensible answer was right behind him. He twisted his head and took a furious look. Abruptly—to make sure he bested temptation— he peeled the roan's bridle and pitched it away. When his eyes wouldn't leave it, he stomped the tooled leather out of sight in the sand.