Conquering Horse (34 page)

“Will he attack?”

“Perhaps. But this time it will be given you to capture him.”

“Yelo.”

Against the black earth and in the orange sunlight, the whiteness of the white stallion seemed more dazzling than ever. No Name had to shield his eyes to look at him. Dancing Sun seemed to scatter a whiteness like floating snowflakes on the air.

The valley of the River of Little Ducks at last appeared. Except for the taller cottonwoods and the deeper green meadows, everything south of the river was burned off. Only the north side remained strangely green.

No Name reined in his sorrel. He let the stallion and the mare go on by themselves. The white one did not stop to investigate from the height of the middle bluff as he usually did, but walked quietly, stolidly, down the trail into the ravine. The mare followed
him. Despite her gravid state, there were wide hunger hollows between her hipbones and her belly. She stumbled along, almost as one blind. Looking at her closely No Name saw that her dugs were waxy and had dropped.

While the two drank below, No Name slipped to the ground and let the sorrel have the last few swallows of spring water in his heartskin. The small amount would not founder the sorrel; if anything would freshen him greatly for the struggle ahead. Having drunk, the sorrel lowered his head and snuffed at the ashen grass on the fire-shaven earth. Every spear of growth had been seared off at the roots. No Name petted the sorrel. For the first time he saw how gaunt his faithful mount had become. He considered taking the sorrel across the river for a few bites of grass. Instead he went over and plucked a handful of green leaves from a dying cottonwood sapling in the ravine. The sorrel ate the dryish green leaves with relish.

No Name looked down at the white stallion below in the river. “Truly, he is wakan. He went without water for four days and yet has remained a lusty one.”

He watched Dancing Sun stalk out of the river and enter a small patch of green grass on the north side. Dancing Sun was so ravenously hungry, ate with such fury, that he tore up the grass, roots and all, even chunks of earth, as he grazed along.

No Name glanced west toward the cliff. To his surprise he saw that the fallen cottonwood still showed green where it lay across the opening to their cave. The prairie fire had missed it. “Ho, Leaf still lies hidden in our underground lodge.”

No Name rode halfway down the ravine. He got off his horse and spread the loop of his longest and toughest lariat across the narrow part of the trail. He did not bother to hide it. Dancing Sun was now familiar with his smell. He tied the end of the lariat to the sorrel’s belly band. He also readied the loop of his second lariat.

While the sorrel chewed the last of the dry cottonwood leaves, No Name sat on his heels in the black dust. In mimicry, a boy
again with a small stick-horse and two buckskin thongs, he pretended to be catching a stallion. To his satisfaction, the white one was roped and thrown and tamed.

He looked down at where Dancing Sun still tore angrily at the grass. He sang in a low private voice. “Friend, you are strong. Friend, you are fierce. But a certain Yankton brave has come to get you. Get ready. Something you will see.” He looked up at the strange orange morning sun. “Thank you for coming. Thank you. I can do anything when you are shining. I seem to have more power when you my father shine on me.” He turned to the southwest where the moon hung almost obscured by a thick haze. “Thank you. I see that it will all happen as the white mare promised. Soon I will tell this to your friend, Moon Dreamer.”

His bitten thigh began to throb under the rawhide bandage. He set his face against it. It was not a good thing to look at. It might weaken him for the struggle.

Dancing Sun left off grazing and re-entered the ocher river. He drank long and deep, nose under, bubbles rising. Once he lifted his head and trumpeted a short winning neigh at his wife Twinkling Feet.

No Name waited. He scanned the green horizon to the north, looking out as far as the enveloping purple haze would permit. He saw no sign of Rough Arm and his wild men.

He almost fell asleep. Clopping steps jerked him wide awake. Looking down, he saw Twinkling Feet and Dancing Sun come stepping up the trail. They came heavily, water-logged, stiffened. Quickly No Name positioned the sorrel so the pull on the ground loop would not throw him. He held the rope in hand, ready to jerk.

His pulse beat painfully in his wound. His head came up. He sniffed in anticipation. His fierce black eyes glittered. Red passion glowed in his brain. A cold-blooded green-eyed predator writhed in old darkness in his belly. He licked his lips, once, already wildly happy that he had seized the white one.

The heavy mare stepped over the waiting loop. Her hoof
touched the edge of it. She paid no attention to it. She waddled heavily on.

Then the white stallion stepped into it with his forefeet. He also paid it no mind.

In that instant No Name moved. He gave the lariat a flip. The flip undulated down the lariat and lifted the loop off the ground under the stallion. Again No Name moved, this time giving the lariat a powerful jerk at the same time that he quirted the sorrel under him. Just as he had planned in mimicry, the rope jerked high and the loop caught the white one well up on the forefeet. It threw him. The stallion hit the ground with a loud whumpfing grunt. Black dust puffed up. The mare ahead heard the crash of bones behind her and with a startled snort came up out of her self-absorption. She lumbered heavily up the bluff and out of sight.

Dancing Sun lay stunned a moment; then, with a scream of astonishment, of outrage, at the great indignity suffered, tried to rise. His head arched gracefully up, his forefeet came part way up, even his belly rolled.

No Name quirted the sorrel again, viciously. The sorrel leaned until the quivering rawhide threatened to snap.

Once more No Name quirted the sorrel. This time the rope rolled Dancing Sun completely over. The sorrel kept digging, began to drag the white one across the ground.

“Hehan!” No Name leaped to the ground, second lariat in hand. He gave the sorrel another whack on the rump to make sure he understood he was to keep the rope taut, then went hand over hand down the rope. He approached the wild one carefully, going in from the side. He placed his knee on the great arched neck, tried to catch up the stallion’s near back leg. Dancing Sun felt the knee, kicked violently, and No Name missed his grab.

“Hold him!” No Name cried back at the sorrel. “Hold him tight!”

One Who Follows understood. He leaned back so far he looked like a great dog sitting down.

Again No Name reached for the back leg. Dancing Sun shuddered. Suddenly he came around at No Name with his head and tried to bite him. His eyes were blazing. Mysterious sounds gurgled in his belly.

“Ho, I have a horse who likes to bite Yanktons! Well, all you shall have for your teeth is empty air.”

At last No Name got the other loop around the back leg. He pulled it tight. Then, as the stallion once more tried to bite him, he also caught the lower jaw in a half loop. This too he pulled up tight. Then he flipped another loop around the head and had him bridled as well as lashed down. He pushed the rawhide down the nose until it lay exactly in the right place, so that the slightest pull would put painful pressure on certain nerves.

Dancing Sun tried to move; couldn’t. He groaned; lay still. Slowly the look of a trapped eagle came over his bluish eyes.

No Name stood up. “I have you, mighty white one!” he cried, exultant. “Wait until my father hears of this. I shall be known. Hey-hey-hey! I feel the power of it in me all the time.”

There was a great clap of thunder behind them, then a cracking echo off the cliff. He looked up and around. There, all along the horizon behind them, from the southwest all the way to the northwest, almost on the ground, lay a low, angry green cloud. He had been so busy catching the wild one he had not noticed the sky suddenly becoming overcast.

Ahead of the low green cloud were still other wild clouds, raggy, boiling, darting. The wild gray shrouds seemed to be rushing toward a common center above him. Listening, he heard a sullen roar descending.

Dancing Sun and One Who Follows heard it too. Both horses whickered strangely, brokenly. They understood some sort of disaster was impending.

“Helper,” No Name said in a low voice, “what, are you deserting
me at this time? I have the white horse. Let us keep him. He is a good one. Send the storm along some other path.”

There was another crackle of lightning. It hit the ground higher up the trail. Pinkish blue light dazzled all around them; stunned them. A tremendous boom of thunder exploded against the earth. The valley seemed to crack apart.

No Name threw another look around behind them. The low green cloud came on, rolling down the valley. Even while he watched, it engulfed the yellow cliff, then the first fat bluff, then his grizzled lookout cottonwood across the river. Meanwhile above them the boiling gray shrouds concentrated into a churning black mass. A great droning roar as of some tremendous spinning top came pressing down upon them. His ears began to hurt with it. He could feel the blood beating in his dogteeth.

A few hailstones the size of robin eggs struck around them. A moment more, then the swirling blast of a great wind whelmed over them. Hailstones and black smut and grayish water churned as one. He covered his head with his free hand against the striking hail. He could feel the sorrel tugging through the white horse. He looked around but could not see the sorrel. Hailstones the size of eagle eggs began to hammer around them. Then a hailstone the size of a baby’s skull plunked him squarely on the brow and arm. He saw fire. The arm over his head became numb. He changed arms. It too was hit, became numb. The roaring of the wind deepened. It began to whine hoarsely, like the terrible and continuous and reverberating roar of a lion. Under the pounding balls of hail the stallion beneath him struggled with wild frenzy.

“Ai-ye!” No Name cried, coughing under the pummeling hail, “He will hurt himself.”

He took his knife and boldly cut the rope from the white one’s forefeet. The sorrel, suddenly released, fell over. No Name next cut the rope from the wild one’s rear leg. Then suddenly, before the wild one could realize he was free to rise, No Name jumped on his back, clamping his slim legs tight.

The stallion rose under him like a canoe overcoming two successive waves. No Name could feel the warm muscles gathering under him for a jump. Again he was struck how much it felt like riding a massive writhing snake. Then, risen, ducking his head to one side away from the falling hail, the stallion bolted heavily up the trail for the barren above. Once he slipped. Quickly he regained his step and beat on. Hailstones splattered around them in the mud. Dancing Sun squealed every time a hailstone hit him over the ears.

“Run, great one,” No Name cried. “You are my god. I will take care of you.”

Slipping, regathering himself, quartering away from the storm, Dancing Sun bounded up the trail.

“Run, let us escape the Thunders who want to kill us. Would that my father Redbird were here. He would appease them with a powerful prayer of supplication.”

When they reached the level prairie above, the stallion began to buck, sunfishing, trying to stand on his head. No Name was ready for him at every turn, at every twist. When the stallion dropped to the ground and rolled to get rid of him, No Name stepped to one side. When Dancing Sun got to his feet again, No Name quickly remounted him.

Howling winds pressed down from the skies. Green hail thickened. The big stones raised blood blisters on both man and horse. Sheets of water rose over the ground, first hoof-deep, then ankle-deep. Soon islands of hailstones were floating to all sides.

“A cloud has burst,” No Name cried. “My father once spoke of having seen such a thing. There will be a flood in the valley and it will be fearful.”

Then, abruptly, hail and wind slackened off. And the stallion quit his pitching.

They drifted with the storm. It rained, rained. No Name did not dare to open his eyes except under a protective palm. The rain came down so sheeting thick he could scarcely make out
the stallion’s white ears. No Name’s head and the backs of his arms felt like one solid bruise.

Presently the rain let up too. Horse and man stopped. Both lifted their heads and looked wonderingly around. Ahead of them a solid gray wall of slanting driving rain moved swiftly on.

There was no land to be seen. Even the black ashes of the prairie fire had vanished. The whole flat top of the hogback was covered with bubbling ice and water, all of it beginning to sheet off toward the low places to either side. It went with a slowly gathering rush. It had rained so hard so fast the water had not had time to run off.

“It is my father’s friends, the Thunders. They sent the hailing rain to help me subdue the wild one. Thank you, thank you. I am happy.”

He sat at ease.

At that moment Dancing Sun exploded beneath him. Despite the mud, the wild one managed to rise almost twice his height in the air. At the top of the jump, his head and rump went down, his back up.

No Name grabbed desperately for the scarlet mane, hung on.

Dancing Sun hit the muddy ground on a slant, came down with such a jolt No Name’s head snapped like the head of a floppy grass doll.

“Helper!” No Name cried, “what is this? He still thinks to be free?”

A new and even stronger voice seemed to speak to him. “Take courage. This is a good day to die. Think of the children and the helpless at home who expect you to be valiant. Do not fear. What is to come has already been foreseen.”

In anger No Name gave the bridle rope a hard jerk. The jerk pinched the wild one’s nose. He squealed. He rose off the ground like a great fish leaping free of water and standing on its tail. Again they came down, hard, both grunting.

Red rage rose in the dark back of No Name’s head. “Cursed one, do you not know the gods have already foreseen what is to
happen?” He whipped the stallion across the flanks with the end of his raw-hide rope, hard, on both sides, raising welts.