Andre Norton - Rebel Spurs

"What about the Pinto? If he's all you say, wouldn't he try to get at this band?" asked Drew.

"No reason if they are saddle stock—no mares among them," Anse said thoughtfully. "But would those hombres who put 'em there jus' leave—no guards or nothin'?"

"That is what we do not know," Hilario replied. "We took every precaution against being seen when Teodoro climbed to look into the canyon. And—this I believe—we were not suspected if there was any watcher. Otherwise, otherwise, señores , we would not have been alive to greet you when you rode in last night! This Kitchell, he is like an Apache—here, there, everywhere. Today I am easier because you have brought the Pima, because we have two more guns in this camp."

"Why didn't you pull out yourselves?" Anse asked curiously.

"Because, were we watched, that would have made our discovery as plain as if we stood out in the open and shouted it to the winds. For three days before we found that trail we had been building a pen for wild ones, casting about for the tracks and runs of the Pinto's band. Having done so, we would not leave without completing our drive. And, should those out there suspect"—Trinfan shook his head—"we would not have lived to reach the Stronghold, and that is the truth."

"This is also truth, padre ." Faquita came to the fire and picked up the coffeepot, pouring the thick black liquid into the waiting line of tin cups. "It is time for us to finish and be on the move—not to just talk of what must be done."

Drew looked up in surprise. The girl was wearing breeches, ready to ride. In addition, instead of the gunbelts which all the men wore as a matter of course, Faquita had tucked a pair of derringers in the front of her sash belt. Their small grips showed above the faded silk folds.

"She goin' with us?" the Kentuckian asked, as the girl kicked dust over the campfire and stowed the empty pot in the cart. "Ain't that dangerous—for her?"

Hilario got to his feet with a lurch that made his crippled state only too plain. " Señor , to hunt the wild ones is dangerous. You see me, twisted like a root, no? Not tall and straight as a man should be. This was done by the wild ones—in one small moment when I was not quick enough. Among us—the mustangers—it is often the daughters who are the best riders. They are quick, eager, riding lighter than their brothers or their fathers. And to some it is a loved life. With Faquita that is true. As for danger—is that not always with us?

"In war danger is a thing which one man makes for another. In this country the land itself fights man—war or no war. A cloudburst fills an arroyo with a flood without warning, and a man is drowned amidst desert sand where only hours before he could have died for lack of that same water. There is a fall of rocks, a fall of horse, a stampede of cattle, sickness which strikes at a lone traveler out of nowhere. Yet have you not ridden to war, and come now to live on this land? Sí , we have danger—but a man can also die in his bed in the midst of a village with strong walls. And to everyone his own way of life. Now we ride...."

They did indeed ride, following a trail which, as far as Drew could see, existed only in the minds of the mustangers. But the three Mexicans swung along so confidently that he and Anse joined without question or argument.

At a distance they circled the waiting pen with walls of entwined brush and sapling, ready to funnel driven horses into a blind canyon. The Pinto's band must be located, somehow shaken out of the rocky territory their wily leader favored, before that drive could begin. Water, Trinfan said, would be the key. Horses must drink and they were creatures of habit, never ranging far from some one hole they had made their own. Trinfan blankets already flapped about the Pinto's chosen spring. They had seen the horses approach several times in the past two days and shy away from those flapping things with the fearsome man scent.

"As long as La Bruja is with them," Faquita said, coming up beside Drew, "they will not come."

"La Bruja?"

"The Witch, as Anglos would say. We call her so because of her cunning. She is the wise one who keeps lookout. I say she is possessed by the Evil One. It is possible the Pinto is her son. Together they have always outwitted the hunters. But La Bruja is old—she runs more stiffly. Last time in the chase she began to drop behind. She is of no use, only a nuisance. It is the White One I wish to drop rope over!"

"The White One?"

" Sí. She is Nieve—the snow of the upper mountains. Among our people you will hear many tales of white ones, without a dark spot on them—the Ghost Stallions that run the plains and no man may lay rope over. But this mare is the truth! And someday—" Her eyes shone and she seemed to be making some vow Drew would be called to bear witness to. "Someday she will be mine! Not to trail south and sell—no—but to keep, always!"

"She must be very beautiful," he commented.

"It is not only that, señor . You have a fine horse, one which beat Don Cazar's Oro, is that not so?"

"Yes. Shiloh ..."

"And to you that one is above all other horses. If you lost him, you would be—like hungry ... inside you, is that not also so?"

"Yes!" Her earnestness triggered that instant response from him.

"So it is with me since I have seen Nieve. Men find such a horse; for years they follow the band in which it runs to snare it. They will suffer broken bones, as did my father, and hunger, and thirst, because there is one tossing head, one set of flying heels before them. Sometimes they are lucky and they catch that one. If they do not, there is in them a pinch of winter even when the desert sun is hot. Once I loved all horses—now there is this one which I must have!"

"I hope you get her!"

" Señor , last season I hoped. This season—this season I have belief that my hopes will come true. Ah, look, the Indio!"

She pointed with quirt and Drew glanced left. He saw what appeared to be an outcrop of rock among many others move, then rise on sturdy legs to meet them.

Running Fox, a brown blanket twisted over one shoulder, the rest of him stripped down to breechclout and moccasins, padded up to Hilario Trinfan and spoke in the guttural Pima. The mustanger translated.

"The horses are still there. But there is a camp of two men on the north slope above the canyon. Both men are Anglos. They are armed with rifles and take turns watching."

"Can we reach a place from where we can read the brands on the horses?" Drew asked.

Trinfan questioned the Pima.

" Sí. But you can not go there by day. You must go in at dusk, wait out the night, and then see what you could in the early morning. Leave before sunup. Otherwise the watchers may be able to locate you. He says"—Trinfan smiled—"that he could go at high noon and would not be seen. But for a white man is a different matter."

"Waste a whole day jus' waitin'!" Anse protested.

" Señor , when one balances time against death, then I would say time is the better choice," Hilario replied. "But this day will not be wasted. If any watch us—as well as those horses—they will see us about our business and will have no doubt that we hunt wild horses, not stolen ones."

So Drew and Anse joined the mustangers' hunting. To Anse this was something he had done before. Drew remembered that the Texan had been working with just such a hunting party when his family had been wiped out by the Comanches in '59. But to Drew it was a new experience and he was deeply intrigued by what he saw and the reasons for such action.

All they sighted of the Pinto's now thoroughly thirsty band was the stud himself and a black mare—La Bruja—looking down from a vantage point high on a rocky rim. And the hunters did not try to reach them, knowing that all the wild ones would be long gone before they could reach that lookout.