The English Horses

challenged them over the fence. Here it was easier to cut the rawhide, drop the rails. The band of mares slowly came out, walking at first, then a trot, and finally into a lope.

Burn spurred the gray, wondering about the depth to the horse as it ran past the stallion and scattered the mares. The mares circled, slowed; some of the more curious started toward the hole in their prison wall. Burn let the gray come to a jog while keeping to the back of the band, yelling and slapping his hand on his leg when a mare stopped to graze.

He reined in, listening for what he knew was coming. The stallion made several passes in front of the gate before the first mare ducked around him and escaped. The rest of the band followed, leaping the downed rails, disappearing through the natural break in the rock. The stallion turned on the bachelor colts and savaged them, furious that they would dare crowd him.

The first rifle shot came as the stallion leaped the poles. The colts milled in confusion at the break, distracted by the stallion’s charge, terrified by the rifle fire. Burn reined the gray around, looked across the valley. Two men were working together on the rails. A third sat on his horse, holding the other’s mounts. A fourth man held the rifle. He raised it again, and fired.

Burn saw the explosion of grass fifty feet short of him and the gray. He let the gray turn, catching sight of the panicked colts running the rock. More shots echoed behind Burn, and he felt the gray leap forward. If all the horses escaped, Meiklejon would have no more claim to them.

Burn rubbed his dry eyes, thinking of the dark bay colt, hobbled and helpless at camp. He had almost turned back when one of the frantic colts hit the fence. He heard the rail snap, heard the colt scream. Burn jammed his spurs into the gray.

Now the pack of four men rode close together. Then they slowed down and drew into a circle.

The gray bronco eased back. Burn drew out his old Spencer and fired, aiming carelessly. He didn’t care if he hit a man—hoped he didn’t kill a horse. The shot set the gray into a bucking fit, pushing the bachelor colts through the open fence. Two of the colts went down. Burn pummeled the gray, and the big horse shuddered into a gallop, not hesitating at the tangled rail, but jumping, landing, almost losing Burn. The mustanger kicked and yelled and the horse veered toward a patch of bright grass seen through the pines.

Burn saw the dirt ahead of him and to the left kick up in a thick puff. He slammed the gray hard with his spurs and the horse jumped. Two shots in quick succession, even more off target. Burn stood in the stirrups, lifted his hat, and hollered. When he looked back, one of the riders was out ahead of the rest. A skinny hand on a big-running bay. Davey Hildahl. Burn’s throat closed. A shot kicked up near the laboring gray. Damn Hildahl for shooting at a friend.

The colts scattered through the pines. The gray staggered between the trees. Burn’s right leg caught a branch, and he slid in the saddle, grabbed the gray’s mane, and hung on. A clearing showed—sunlight framing high grass. Burn could hear nothing but the outlaw’s harsh breathing.

Ahead, two of the bachelor colts went down. A third disappeared among the dark trees. Burn tried to slow the gray, but the gelding was numbed to the bit. The wire came up fast. The horse hit it chest high and rolled. Wire wrapped around its front legs—wire twisted high above torn hocks. The deep chest was opened. The gray rolled again, hind legs cut to the bone, tendon and muscle exposed. Asingle wire sliced the gray’s windpipe.

The wire tangled around Burn amidst the thrashing legs. Burn’s shoulders were pared, his neck opened. He clawed at the strangling wire. Blood sprayed from the gray’s wounds, blotting the gray’s soaked hide. The horse shuddered. A hind leg kicked back in reflex. Dark blood poured from the gaping throat wound. The gray coughed, blood spewing through bared teeth.

Burn lay tied to the gray carcass. He looked up through the tall pines to the blue sky. He heard the gray die, closed his own eyes, and felt nothing.

Davey Hildahl

Chapter Eleven

Davey yelled at the mustanger as the big gray jumped the fence rail. He yelled a warning about the wire that stretched through the pines, cutting off escape. As he called out, he knew English couldn’t hear him, probably wouldn’t listen. Still he raced ahead of the rest—Meiklejon and Souter, and the kid, Red Pierson. He drove the bay through rocks, across the churned ground. Davey held to his Winchester and hoped for a miracle.

He knew when the bay skidded and stopped. Davey sighted the Winchester and fired. The bullet’s heavy thump startled him and he came off the nervous bay, found he was talking to himself as he walked around the carnage. Talking gave him false courage for what had to come next.

He walked past the dead gray bronco to a mustang caught up in the torn wire. He shot the colt, directly into the brain. The colt sagged in the wire trap. It was all Davey could do to stand. The gray was more than likely dead when Davey’s bullet hit it, bled dry from terrible wounds. Davey walked back, each step digging into the pine-needle earth. Raw pine couldn’t cover the stink of blood.

The slight body was torn, covered with pineneedles and clods of dirt; flesh showed through fragments of cloth; blood shimmered in pools at the man’s neck, along his arms. Davey forced himself to kneel and close the obscene eyes. Those eyes blinked, shut, opened again. Filled with dirt and more blood, focusing on Davey’s face. The lips opened, tried to mouth words. Davey leaned in, shaking from the stench.

Then: “…Why…?”

Davey defended himself. “I tried to warn you, English…’bout the wire.” Here he shivered. “Tried to catch you before …this.” No more words; instead he sat back on his heels and swallowed hard. Helpless, the first time since he’d grown up. Never seen anything like this.

The mustanger’s eyes closed, and his small frame convulsed into the scarred ground.

Then Meiklejon and Souter and the kid rode up. Even Meiklejon was quiet. No man could see this wreck and be untouched, no man Davey would ever work for or call friend. Meiklejon flinched as English’s harsh eyes opened, staring at his accusers. Souter told Red to drop a rope on the gray’s head. The boy leaned over the side of his sorrel and vomited, then wiped his mouth, uncoiled his rope, and did as Souter told him. Souter caught the hind legs and backed his coyote dun, signaling to Pierson to back his sorrel.

Davey held English’s head as the bulk was pulled off him. Those eyes fastened on Davey, mestenero forced him to stay calm. Davey used a bandanna to wipe the mestenero’s face, revealing no cuts—the blood must have come from the horse. English didn’t look bad, until his right hand pickedat Davey’s sleeve and Davey saw the deep tear across the inside of the hand up to the elbow. Blood thickened, began to drip, a nd Davey heard a sound, looked up; it was Meiklejon. Man’s mouth was open, his eyes blank.

Davey spoke in fury, damning the Englishman. “This is what your wire does! Kills what it touches, that wire… look what it done.” The voice came from inside where he rarely ventured. Burn English was a good man, and he was dying.

Meiklejon choked as he tried to explain. “Mister Hildahl, this is indeed terrible, I agree. But he ran from us when we came only to talk. I am truly sorry, Mister Hildahl. What can I do?”

Davey began to straighten out Burn’s twisted legs. The man groaned lightly, and Davey bit his lower lip. He watched his own hand reach out to brush at the stained front of Burn’s shirt and saw blood smear his hand, saw the bleeding spread quickly across the one clean piece of material on the shirt, then drip down along the ribs and soak into the ground. Mestenero blood. It was everywhere now, bubbling out of each cut and tear.

His palm was red with another man’s life. He wiped that hand carefully on his pant leg, took a closer look. A long tear on the man’s neck spilled blood. Davey wadded up a bandanna and pressed it against the wound. English’s mouth lifted in what could be called a grin. Davey grinned back, awed by the force left in the mustanger.

Gayle Souter kneeled next to Davey and inspected the injuries. He ignored Meiklejon. “Hildahl, rig a travois. Miss Katherine will know what to do.”

Davey looked up, caught the edge of Souter’s pale blue eyes. They’d both seen wrecks not this bad, and still