The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

you thought might be a runner to match Oro. Sí , that was a great pity, Don Cazar. Well, we shall try, we shall try this time to put that diablo under!”
    An hour later Drew was facing a diablo of his own, with far less confidence than Hilario Trinfan had voiced. Just how stupid could one be? Around him now were men trained from early childhood to this life, and he could show no skill at their employment. All the way out from Texas he had practiced doggedly with the lariat, and his best fell far short of what a range-bred child could do.
    Yet he had an audience waiting down at the corral. Drew’s mouth was a straight line. He would soon confirm their belief that Don Cazar had in truth hired Shiloh instead of his owner. But there was no use trying to duck the ordeal, and the Kentuckian had never been one to put off the inevitable with a pallid hope that something would turn up to save him.
    Only this time, apparently, fortune was going to favor him.
    “Which one you wish, señor? ” Teodoro Trinfan, rope in hand, stood there ready to cast for one of the milling colts. Why the boy was making that offer of assistance Drew had no inkling. But to accept would give him a slight chance to prove he could do part of the work.
    He had already made his selection in the corral, though he had despaired of ever getting that animal at rope’s end.
    “The black—”
    CHAPTER 6
    He worked in the dust of the smaller corral, with Croaker’s help, adapting his knowledge of eastern gentling the way he had mentally planned it during the days since he had accepted the job. With the excited and frightened colt roped to the steady mule Drew tried to think horse, feel horse, even be horse, shutting out all the rest of the world just as he had on the day of the race. He must sense the colt’s terror of the rope, his horror of the strange human smell—the man odor which was so frightening that a blanket hung up at a water hole could keep wild horses away from the liquid they craved.
    Drew talked as he had to Shiloh, as if this black could understand every word. He twitched the lead rope, and Croaker paced sedately about in a wide circle, dragging the colt with him. Drew then reached across the bony back of the mule, pressed his hand up and down the sweaty, shivering hide of the black. No hurry, must not rush the steady, mild gesture to the horse that here was a friend.
    The Kentuckian had no idea of the passing of time; it was all part of the knowledge that slow movements, not swift ones, would prevent new panic. The blanket was shown, allowing the black to sniff down its surface, before it was flapped back and forth across the colt’s back, and finally left there. Now the saddle. And with that cinched into place, theblack stood quietly beside Croaker.
    Drew mounted the mule and rode. The saddled black, loosened from the twin tie, followed the mule twice around the corral. The rider dismounted from Croaker, was up on the black. For perilous seconds he felt flesh and muscles tense under his weight; then the body relaxed.
    His hand went up. “Open the gate!” he called softly.
    Seeming to realize he was free of the pole walls, the black exploded in a burst of speed which was close to Shiloh’s racing spurt. Drew let him go. Three-quarters of an hour later he rode back, the black blowing foam, but answering the rein.
    He found Don Cazar, Bartolomé, and Hilario Trinfan waiting for him by the corral. The mustanger walked forward with a lurch, his head thrown far back so he could look up at Drew from under the wide brim of his sombrero.
    “This you could not do with a true wild one,” he commented.
    “I know that, señor . This colt was not an enemy, one who has already been hunted by man. He was only afraid.…”
    “But you have the gift. It is born in one—the gift. A man has it, and the horse always knows, answers to it. Ride with me, señor , and try that gift on the wild ones!”
    “Someday—” That was true. Someday Drew did want to ride after the wild ones. Anse’s stories of horse hunting on the Texas plains had first stirred that desire. Now it was fully awake in him.
    Don Cazar inspected the black closely. “Well, Bartolomé, what have you to say now?”
    “ Señor Kirby knows his business,” the Mexican admitted. “Though I think also that this was no true wild one.He will make a good remount, but he is no fighter such as others I have seen here.”
    Drew unsaddled and left the black in with Croaker; he fed