The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

longer nose to nose with Shiloh, rather now nose to neck. Drew could hear Rivas’ voice encouraging, pleading.…
    A mass of men, mounted and on foot, funneled the runners down to where the line of rope lay straight to mark the finish. Oro was creeping up once more, inch by hard-won inch.
    Drew’s head went up, his throat was rasped raw by the Yell which had taken desperate gray-coated troopers down hedge-bordered roads inKentucky and steep ravines in Tennessee, sending them, if need be, straight into the mouths of Yankee field guns. And the Yell brought Shiloh home, only a nose ahead of his rival—as if he had been spurred by the now outlawed war cry. Then Drew found he had his hands full trying to pull up the colt and persuade him that the race was indeed over.
    CHAPTER 5
    A black mule came up beside Drew as he slowly pulled Shiloh down to a canter. Fenner, a wide grin splitting his beard, bellowed:
    “That shore was a race! Need any help, son?”
    Drew shook his head, wanting to bring Shiloh under full control at a rate which would quiet the colt before they headed back to the furor about the finish line. And only now did he have time to relish his own excited pride and pleasure.
    Since he had first seen Shiloh on that scouting trip back to Kentucky in ’64, he had known he must someday own the gray colt. He had lain out in the brush for a long time that morning to watch the head groom of Red Springs put the horse through his paces in the training paddock. And watching jealously, Drew had realized that Shiloh was one of those mounts that a man discovers only once in his life-time, though he may breed and love their kind all his years.
    Drew would have been content with Shiloh as a mount and a companion, but now he was sure that the colt was more, so much more. This gray was going to be one of the Great Ones, a racer and a sire—to leave his mark in horse history and stamp his own quality on foals throughout miles and years in this southwestern land. Drew licked the grit of dust from his lips, filled his lungs with a deep breath as Shiloh turned under rein pressure.
    It was a long time before the Kentuckian was able to separate Shiloh from his ring of new admirers and bring him back to the stable. Drew refused several offers for the colt, some of them so fantastic he could only believe their makers sun-touched or completely carried away by the excitement of the race.
    But when he found Don Cazar waiting for him at Kells’, he guessed that this was serious.
    “You do not wish to sell him, I suppose?” Hunt Rennie smiled at Drew’s prompt shake of head. “No, that would be too much to hope for, you are not a fool. But I have something else to suggest. Reese Topham tells me you are looking for work, preferably with horses. Well, I have a contract to gentle some remounts for the army, and I need some experienced men to help break them—”
    Drew could not understand the sudden pinch of—could it be alarm? Here it was: a chance to work on the Range, to know Hunt Rennie, and learn whether Don Cazar was to remain a legend or become a father. But now he was not sure.
    “I’m no breaker, suh. I’ve gentled, yes—but eastern style.”
    “Breaking horses can be brutal, though we don’t ride with red spurs on the Range. Suppose we try some of the eastern methods and see how they work on our wild ones. Do you think you can do it?”
    “A man can’t tell what he can do until he tries.” Drew still hedged.
    There was a trace of frown now between Rennie’s brows. “You told Topham you wanted work.” His tone implied that he found Drew’s present hesitancy odd. And—from Don Cazar’s point of view—it was. Tubacca was still in a slump; the rest of the valley held about as many jobs for a man as Drew had fingers on one hand. The Range was the big holding, and to ride there meant security and an established position in the community. Also, perhaps it was not an offer lightly made to an unknown newcomer.
    “I can’t promise you blue-grass training, suh. That has to begin with a foal.” He hoped Rennie would credit his wavering to a modest appraisal of his own qualifications.
    “Blue-grass training?”
    As his father repeated the expression Drew realized the slip of tongue he had made. And if he took the job, there might be other slips, perhaps far more serious ones. But to refuse, after Topham had spoken for him…he was caught in a pinch with cause for suspicion closing in on either side.
    “I was in