Hell-for-Leather

LD Reuben James shivered at the door of a third-rate township pub, and railed on the man in the street. The man in the street was Tony Lascelles. He had called Reuben from his bed to a half-fledged morning blowing raw down the empty ways with a pallid sunrise behind it and a sinking mist that was chin to bare feet and the bare chest under Reuben’s coat.

Tony stood back on the curb, his mare’s bridle hooked into his left armpit, and the clay of twenty sidings and river-bottoms on his leggings. To the tail of a full day’s labor he had laid forty-one miles of saddle-work, and the swing of his body was still free and light, and his keen young eyes were eager.

Reuben had ridden to the beat of hot blood in his time; but he had forgotten, as men forget the days on their mother’s knees.

“You go ’ome an’ grow sense,” he said; “an’ nex’ momin’ as you wake me through the sleep-time fur a foolery’ as any sane man ’ud put ’is ’eel on, I guess I’ll know it.”

“You’re taking him up for Anderton to break. Don’t be an old chouse, Rube. I only want you to give me first show.”

Reuben had not the pride which makes a man care for the pride of his kind. He huddled his greatcoat about him, and wore round stiffly.

“Anderton’s the fust horse-breaker this side chance. I ain’t goin’ ter hev no bloomin’ Syracuse top o’ that colt. ’Is full brother died dumb-mad on the rein, an’ this one is outcast slap through. Near killed Jolly, he did, an’ Pat Barnes.”

Tony blocked the closing door with his foot. The sap of boyhood was hot in his cheeks, but his temper was under command. A man who would handle horses is schooled to that—first, last, and all hours in between.

“I’m better than Jolly—lumps letter. Let me up on him. Rube, Anderton can tackle him after.”

“What yer doin’ it fur? Been bettin’?”

“No.”

“Plain devilment, then?” Tony noddded.

“He’s thrown every rider in the district ’cept Anderton—and me.”

A quick red shot Rebuen’s dull eyes. Somewhere in the groping past he, too, had known a man’s lust for an equal fight.

“There was young fools back in my day”

“They’ve grown old since. Let me ride him, Rube. I won’t kill him.”

“Well, on yer own ’ead if ’e kills you. Mind that! We kin take ’im ter that empty section jinin’ Mother Marcock’s—but yer’ll hev ter saddle-up in the stall.”

Reuben heard the clatter of the mare’s swift hoofs down the stable alleyway as he climbed back to his room. He sat on the bed with his gray stubble head in hands that shook.

“Eh, my days; my days thet used ter be! Is it a cross in the breed somewheres makes a man guv ’is soul ter be cock o’ ’is own dung’ill, an’ a ’oss stan’ it out till ’e’s cut inter strips. Eh, eh; it’s good buildin’ stuff till the blood-cement rots!” He looked down at his stiff, bony knees; sighed, and rolled back to the pillow. “Messin’ wi’ my mornin’ siasters that away! Wonder will ’e put in some sleep fur ’isself.”

The wild track to windward was for Tony and such men of his make who judge their strength by no tape-measures, but go and find out for themselves. These are the good days before thigh-and-nerve strain take charge to weaken the back-muscles and stiffen the limbs.

Tony found Reuben’s colt in a loose-box. It would lead to the ends of earth unobjecting, and went into the bridle serenely. Tony’s bridle was plain, with straight bit and light curb. He whipped on a lip-strap, took up a last hole in the throat-lash, and talked the soft talk that all horses love while he cast up the points he could give and could take.

The colt was a raking light bay, standing seventeen hands. His crest and wither were plain and too low. Tony guessed how most men had left him. Behind he was mightily made, and the fall of his ribs was perfection. The Bairndale stock showed in his width of chest and in the long, clean, muscular forearm. The Imp temper was awake in his white-rimmed full eye and the proud sideways carriage of his flag.

“‘And she said, “I am glad I have found you, my lad,”’” murmured Tony, backing out into the light of day where fifteen loafers smoked with Reuben.

“Yer won’t saddle ’im in the section,” snapped Reuben.

“Don’t want a saddle. Open the gate, some of you fellows.”

“That ’oss needs more’n jes’ ridin’,” cried Reuben, hobbling after. “Yer needs grit, an’ secon’ sight, an’ the temper o’ a scurifim, an’ jes’ so much more devil’s ’e got ’isself ’at it won’t let yer tire.”

Tony laughed. His shoulders showed confidence, and the morning sun was clear in his eyes. He jammed the hurdle of the railed section behind the colt’s tail, and led out to the center. A drabbled woman throwing water from a back-door paused, her hand on her hip, to watch. Seven children and a tramp climbed the fence beside Reuben’s squad, and a voice said from somewhere:

“Picks up his feet like a bally-dancer, that colt.”

“’E’ll pick up more’n ’is feet d’rectly,” growled Reuben. “Chuck ’isself over like a skippin’-rope, ’e can. Scuppered three chaps a’ready.”

Tony ran a light, firm hand along the crest, gathered the reins, and sprang. The colt shivered, drew two breaths, and began to buck. He bucked four times round the section, with a rattle of broken tins and refuse underfoot, and half the township wide-eyed on the fence-rail. He pig-jumped, kicked mule-wise, struck out with swift, savage fore feet. Tony sat him from ears to rump, and perceptibly under the barrel. It was not pretty riding, but it made the men on the fence hold their breath.

“Mout as well try to buck out ’r his skin be appearances. That chap’s workin’ in a loose socket, but he won’t part. Who is he?”

A rabbiter told. He had been in to the township to knock down his check, and something of the keen, clean edge of life came back as he leaned over the rail to see.

“Eh, eh,” said Reuben. “Tony ain’t no bloomin’ onjonny, but this is cradlin’ ter what ’e’s goin’ ter git. Ah-h! Sulky!”

The colt propped suddenly; head down, legs bunched, and body humped like an anthill. Tony swung upright with the promptness of a steel-yard indicator; wrenched the rein in a cast-iron grasp, and brought his short green-hide whip along the quarter with a neat drawing stroke. The colt sprang from it, screaming, and the rabbiter straightened in a pride to which he had no claim.

“They’re going to get down to it now! Hy-ah, Tony; break his heart, break his heart! They’re none so blessed tough when you knows how.”

Tony had cast his hat and coat at the hurdle. The sun was cruel on his forehead, his shoulders, and the neck above the collar-band as the colt swung and twisted and fought; wicked, cunning, and untired. The sweat grew greasy on the hairy barrel, and Tony stuck by his knee-grip and spurs. He used the whip in unflagging continuance because clean through him he knew the defiance of the mad heart that thumped under his leg. In a two-yard circle the earth spun up in dust. It stung Tony’s eyes and gritted in his teeth. The colt gathered and shot up like a rocket, slinging round to land his hind feet in the marks of his fore. Tony had looked for that. He countered by blows on the quivering muzzle and a fiercer hook of the spurs.

Then the colt went blind-mad, and from the fence Reuben crowed loud approval.

It was a keen, quick battle of wills, with no mercy to give or to take. For each was glutted with hate, and the blood on the heaving sides was full paid by the blood on the reins that slipped and were caught again to rasp through the straining hands.

“Hammer an’ tongs,” said the rabbiter pensively. “Hammer an’ tongs, an’ the hot coals under. He’ll be filed an’ put by till the Trumpets come, d’rectly. But it’s wuth comin’ out for to see.”

The colt went up straight as a dying whale, and the backward thud in the dust-spume turned men sick. It was a clever fall, but Tony slung clear. He had been there before for the learning.

He came up on the colt, and a cheer rocked the fence. Then the thing grew automatical. The wild beat of hoofs on the breathless air; the flash of bared teeth and white eyes; the lead-weight shock shaking the earth. And always somehow and somewhere, rose Tony, unbroken and sitting still, as the great shoulders heaved themselves upright.

“’E’ll do it ten times yet,” said Reuben, “an’ twenty to back it. No man can stan’ it out that long. It’s a crool ’ard game ter play. ’E’ll git pinched in the endin’, an’ no fault o’ ’is either—by th’ Lord, ’e was near it that time!”

Tony carried no weight, and he kept his head cool. It is wise to do this when a hair breadth mistake in deduction may grind out the hot life in one gasp. But the strain tightened moment by moment. All his powers were flung forward on guard, and the colt met each move with a fury and a despair that were human. Sweat ran off the two, and once the lather of the wither smeared Tony’s mouth as he twisted free. This turned him giddy for an instant, but he came back with jaw clamped like a bulldog. For a man must go through with the thing he commences.

The sun flared to midday, and passed it. Children gaped through the rails on their way from the schools, and half the fence-line went home to their dinners. The rabbiter pulled out his pipe, looked at it sadly as his gorge rose, and dropped it back in his pocket.

“Must a-bin worse’n I thought,” he said. “No smokin’ fur me this week—an’ I had the nerve o’ that boy onst! But he won’t break the horse. I seen men like him—lots. You can kill ’em by inches, but they’ll never be broke.”

Some one in authority was speaking to Reuben. The old man rocked on the rail and chuckled.

“Go an’ stop it yerself, then,” he said. “Man, I’ve seed a good fight this day. A full foot o’ rawhide ’e’s lost off of that whip, an’ the ’ide ’e’s lost o’ ’is own ain’t fur countin’.”

“It’s a brutal exhibition,” said some one in authority. Reuben grunted.

“It’s nat’ral. One must be master. Yer must break, or break others. But ’e ain’t goin’ ter squeejee th’ Ten Cantonments out’n that brute.”

A half-hour later he slid from the fence and went up the section. In the far corner, where all the grass was torn up, the colt was tying himself into reef-knots and unraveling with indescribable elaborations.

“You come off of there, Tony,” shouted Reuben. “Yer done yer possible, an’ more. ’E’s a devil, that’s what ’e is—an’ a Zebberah too, jes’ now. But yer mout’s well warp th’ bark off a tree. ’E’ll die ’fore ’e guvs it best.”

Tony was dead-white, and as near exhaustion as a man may well be. The snapping of his pride had stung him to recklessness, and his voice came charged with sobs.

“I’ll kill him, then. By the Lord, I will kill him! Stand back, you ass.”

He rained down the blows blindly, and the colt reached round, bringing away a legging-strap with his lathered buck teeth. Reuben grew angry.

“Come down out o’ that, yer young coleopsus. What? Anderton! I’ll not take ’im ter Anderton. Turn ’im loose on the ’ills agin—that’s all ’e’s fit fur. Let ’im run wi’ the mob an’ be darned. Tony, will yer come now, eh?”

Tony came. To them on the fence he said stoutly that he was beaten—drummed clean out of camp. Then he locked Reuben’s door against his prayers and curses, fell upon the bed, and shivered and cried with pure body-and-nerve ache. It is not nice to go out to fly a kite and then lose it when it has pulled you into the ditch.

Reuben saddled for home in the morning. The colt’s ribs were not pretty to look at, but he carried himself with the dignity of a conqueror. He stood at the rings by the bar door beside Reuben’s old hack, and the Hatter crossed the street zigzag to lean for balance on the colt’s quarter. Ten voices warned him off. The Hatter worked along to the colt’s neck, and kissed him beerily; and the colt nuzzled against the beard with his full eye kind.

“Nice hoss that,” remarked the Hatter, proceeding to the bar. “W-w-what yer want for him, you what b’longs him?”

“Ten pund,” said Reuben, smelling a joke.

“L-losht my hosses somewheres,” said the Hatter. “I’ll took him.”

He pulled his trousers pocket inside out on the bar, and made up the amount in half-sovereigns and coppers, borrowing three-and-fivepence from a musterer. Then he led the colt round to the stables. And eighteen men went with the Hatter, to see him load up his half-year’s stores on Reuben’s colt.

Tony came down the stairs as the two rode into the street-way. The Hatter swayed atop of clattering billies, bags of flour, and cooking-pots, and he was hauling the colt’s head about with a rusty bit in a broken green-hide bridle.

“Git ap,” he said, hitting the colt between the ears with an iron spoon. The colt broke into a long free trot, and passed in rolling dust over the bridge and up the hill. Tony sat down on the horse-trough.

“I had no hand in that,” he said. Reuben nodded agreement.

“’E’s a man, that colt, fur all ’e’s a outcast. ’E’ll fight ’is ekils knee ter knee, an’ no quarter. ’E’ll be tender as a woman wi’ the ’Atter what is a child an’ cud load ’im up wi’ the Tour o’ Babble an’ ’isself as roof. But ’e’ll ’ave no man ’is master. I seen that kind o’ thing afore.”

“And what the mischief is the sense of telling me that now?” asked Tony savagely.