Bull Hunter - Max Brand
He rambled on with a growing enthusiasm.
"And think of a hoss like that being given away!"
"Given away?" said Bull with a sudden interest.
And then he remembered that horses were outside of his education
entirely.
He listened with gloomy attention while his host went on. "Yes, sir.
Given away is what I said and given away is what I mean. Old Chick
Bridewell has kept him long enough, he says. He's tired of paying
buckaroos for getting busted up trying to ride that hoss. Man-eater,
that's what he calls Diablo, and he wants to give the hoss away to the
first man that can ride him. Hal Dunbar heard about it and sent up
word that he was coming up to ride him."
"He must be a brave man," said Bull innocently. He had an immense
capacity for admiring others.
"Brave?" The proprietor paused as though this had not occurred to him
before. "Why, they ain't such a thing as fear in Hal Dunbar, I guess.
But if he decides to ride Diablo, he'll ride him, well enough. He has
his way about things, Hal Dunbar does."
The sketchy portrait impressed Bull Hunter greatly. "You know him,
then?"
"How'd I be mistaking you for him if I knowed him? No, he lives way
down south, but they's a pile heard about him that's never seen him."
For some reason the words of his host remained in the mind of Bull as
he went down the road that day. Oddly enough, he pictured man and
horse as being somewhat alike--Diablo vast and black and fierce, and
Hal Dunbar dark and huge and terrible of eye, also; which was proof
enough that Bull Hunter was a good deal of a child. He cared less
about the world as it was than for the world as it might be, and as
long as life gave him something to dream about, he did not care in the
least about the facts of existence.
Another man would have been worried about the future; but Bull Hunter
went down the road with his swinging stride, perfectly at peace with
himself and with life. He had not enough money in his pocket to buy a
meal, but he was not thinking so far ahead.
It was still well before noon when he came in sight of the Bridewell
place. It varied not a whit from the typical ranch of that region, a
low-built collection of sheds and arms sprawling around the ranch
house itself. About the building was a far-flung network of corrals.
Bull Hunter found his way among them and followed a sound of
hammering. He was well among the sheds when a great black stallion
shot into view around a nearby corner, tossing his head and mane. He
was pursued by a shrill voice crying, "Diablo! Hey! You old fool!
Stand still ... it's me ... it's Tod!"
To the amazement of Bull Hunter, Diablo the Terrible, Diablo the
man-killer, paused and reluctantly turned about, shaking his head as
though he did not wish to obey but was compelled by the force of
conscience. At once a bare-legged boy of ten came in sight, running
and shaking his fist angrily at the giant horse. Indeed, it was a
tremendous animal. Not the seventeen hands that the hotel proprietor
had described to Bull, but a full sixteen three, and so proudly
high-headed, so stout-muscled of body, so magnificently long and
tapering of leg, that a wiser horseman than the hotelkeeper might have
put Diablo down for more than seventeen hands.
Most tall horses are like tall men--they are freakish and malformed in
some of their members; but Diablo was as trim as a pony. He had the
high withers, the mightily sloped shoulders, and the short back of a
weight carrier. And although at first glance his underpinning seemed
too frail to bear the great mass of his weight or withstand the effort
of his driving power of shoulders and deep, broad thighs, yet a closer
reckoning made one aware of the comfortable dimensions of the cannon
bone with all that this feature portended. Diablo carried his bulk
with the grace which comes of compacted power well in hand.
Not that Bull Hunter analyzed the stallion in any such fashion. He
was, literally, ignorant of horseflesh. But in spite of his ignorance
the long neck, not overfleshed, suggested length of stride and the
mighty girth meant wind beyond exhaustion and told of the great heart
within. The points of an ordinary animal may be overlooked, but a great
horse speaks for himself in every language and to every man. He was
coal-black, this Diablo, except for the white stocking of his off
forefoot; he was night-black, and so silken sleek that, as he turned
and pranced, flashes of light glimmered from shoulders to flanks.
Bull Hunter stared in amazement that changed to appreciation, and
appreciation that burst in one overpowering instant to the full
understanding of the beauty of the horse. Joy entered the heart of the
big man. He had looked on horses hitherto as pretty pictures perhaps,
but useless to him. Here was an animal that could bear him like the
wind wherever he would go. Here was a horse who could gallop
tirelessly under him all day and labor through the mountains, bearing
him as lightly as the cattle ponies bore ordinary men. The cumbersome
feeling of his own bulk, which usually weighed heavily on Bull,
disappeared. He felt light of heart and light of limb.
In the meantime the bare-legged boy had come to the side of the big
horse, still shrilling his anger. He stood under the lofty head of the
stallion and shook his small fist into the face of Diablo the
Terrible. And while Bull, quaking, expected to see the head torn from
the shoulders of the child, Diablo pointed his ears and sniffed the
fist of the boy inquisitively.
In fact, this could not be the horse of which the hotelkeeper had told
him, or perhaps he had been recently tamed and broken?
That, for some reason, made the heart of Bull Hunter sink.
The boy now reached up and twisted his fingers into the mane of the
black.
"Come along now. And if you pull away ag'in, you old fool, Diablo,
I'll give you a thumping, I tell you. Git along!"
Diablo meekly lowered his head and made his step mincing to regulate
his gait to that of his tiny master. He was brought alongside a rail
fence. There he waited patiently while the boy climbed up to the top
rail and then slid onto his back. Again Bull Hunter caught his breath.
He expected to see the stallion leap into the air and snap the child
high above his head with a single arching of his back, but there was
no such violent reaction. Diablo, indeed, turned his head with his
ears flattened and bared his teeth, but it was only to snort at the
knee of the boy. Plainly he was bluffing, if horses ever bluffed. The
boy carelessly dug his brown toes into the cheek of the great horse
and shoved his head about.
"Giddap," he called. "Git along, Diablo!"
Diablo walked gently forward.
"Hurry up! I ain't got all day!" And the boy thumped the giant with
his bare heels.
Diablo broke into a trot as soft, as smooth flowing, as water passing
over a smooth bed of sand. Bull ran to the corner of the shed and
gaped after them until the pair slid around a corner and were gone.
Instinctively he drew off his hat and gaped.
He was startled back to himself by loud laughter nearby, and, looking
up, he saw an old fellow in overalls with a handful of nails and a
hammer. He stood among a scattering of uprights which represented,
apparently, the beginnings of the skeleton of a barn. Now he leaned
against one of these uprights and indulged his mirth. Bull regarded
him mildly; he was used to being laughed at.
CHAPTER 14
"That's the way they all do," said the old man. "They all gape the
same fool way when they see Diablo the first time."
"Is that the wild horse?" asked Bull in his gentle voice. "That's him.
I s'pose after seeing Tod handle him, you'll want to try to ride him
right off?"
Bull looked in the direction in which the horse had disappeared. He
swallowed a lump that had risen in his throat and shook his
head sadly.
"Nope. You see, I dunno nothing about horses, really."
The old man regarded him with a new and sudden interest.
"Takes a wise man to call himself a fool," he declared axiomatically.
Bull took this dubious bit of praise as an invitation and came slowly
closer to the other. He had the child's way of eyeing a stranger with
embarrassing steadiness at a first meeting and thereafter paying
little attention to the face. He wrote the features down in his memory
and kept them at hand for reference, as it were. As he drew nearer,
the old man grew distinctly serious, and when Bull was directly before
him he gazed up into the face of Bull with distinct amazement. At a
distance the big man did not seem so large because of the grace of his
proportions; when he was directly confronted, however, he seemed a
veritable giant.
"By the Lord, you _are_ big. And who might you be, stranger?"
"My name's Charlie Hunter; though mostly folks call me just plain
Bull."
"That's queer," chuckled the other. "Well, glad to know you. I'm
Bridewell."
They shook hands, and Bridewell noted the gentleness of the giant. As
a rule strong men are tempted to show their strength when they shake
hands; Bridewell appreciated the modesty of Charlie Hunter.
"And you didn't come to ride Diablo?"
"No. I just stopped in to see him. And--" Bull sighed profoundly.
"I know. He gives even me a touch now and then, though I know what a
devil he is!"
"Devil?" repeated Bull, astonished. "Why, he's as gentle as a kitten!"
"Because you seen Tod ride him?" Bridewell laughed. "That don't mean
nothing. Tod can bully him, sure. But just let a grown man come near
him--with a saddle! That'll change things pretty pronto! You'll see
the finest little bit of boiled-down hell-raising that ever was! The
jingle of a pair of spurs is Diablo's idea of a drum--and he makes his
charge right off! Gentle? Huh!" The grunt was expressive. "And what
good's a hoss if he can't be rode with a saddle?" He waved the subject
of Diablo into the distance. "They ain't any hope unless Hal Dunbar
can ride him. If he can't, I'll shoot the beast!"
"Shoot him?" echoed Bull Hunter. He took a pace back, and his big,
boyish face clouded to a frown. "Not that, I guess!"
"Why not?" asked Bridewell, curious at the change in the big stranger.
"Why not? What good is he?"
"Why--he's good just to look at. I'd keep him just for that."
"And you can have him just for that--if you can manage to handle him.
Want to try?"
Bull shook his head. "I don't know nothing about horses," he confessed
again. He glanced at the skeleton of standing beams. "Building a
barn, eh?"
"You wouldn't call it pitching hay or shoeing a hoss that I'm doing, I
guess," said the old fellow crossly. "I'm fussing at building a barn,
but a fine chance I got. I get all my timber here--look at that!"
He indicated the stacks of beams and lumber around him.
"And then I get some men out of town to work with me on it. But they
get lonely. Don't like working on a ranch. Besides, they had a scrap
with me. I wouldn't have 'em loafing around the job. Rather have no
help at all than have a loafer helping me. So they quit. Then I tried
to get my cowhands to give me a lift, but they wouldn't touch a
hammer. Specialists in cows is what they say they are, ding bust 'em!
So here I am trying to do something and doing nothing. How can I
handle a beam that it takes three men to lift?"
He illustrated by going to a stack of long and massive timbers and
tugging at the end of one of them. He was able to raise that end only
a few inches.
"You see?"
Bull nodded.
"Suppose you give me the job handling the timbers?" he suggested. "I
ain't much good with a hammer and nails, but I might manage
the lifting."
"All by yourself? One man?" he eyed the bulk of Bull hopefully for a
moment, then the light faded from his face. "Nope, you couldn't raise
'em. Not them joists yonder!"
"I think I could," said Bull.
Old Bridewell thrust out his jaw. He had been a combative man in his
youth; and he still had the instinct of a fighter.
"I got ten dollars," he said, "that says you can't lift that beam and
put her up on end! That one right there, that I tried to lift a
minute ago!"
"All right," Bull nodded.
"You're on for the bet?" the old man chuckled gayly. "All right. Let's
see you give a heave!"
Bull Hunter obediently stepped to the timber. It was a twelve footer
of bulky dimensions, heavy wood not thoroughly seasoned. Yet he did
not approach one end of it. He laid his immense hands on the center of
it. Old Bridewell chuckled to himself softly as he watched; he was
beginning to feel that the big stranger was a little simple-minded.
His chuckling ceased when he saw the timber cant over on one edge.
"Look out!" he called, for Bull had slipped his hand under the lifted
side. "You'll get your fingers smashed plumb off that way."
"I have to get a hold under it, you see," explained Bull calmly, and
so saying his knees sagged a little and when they straightened the
timber rose lightly in his hands and was placed on his shoulder.
"Where'd you like to have it?" asked Bull.
Bridewell rubbed his eyes. "Yonder," he said faintly.
Bull walked to the designated place, the great timber teetering up and
down, quivering with the jar of each stride. There he swung one end to
the ground and thrust the other up until it was erect.
"Is this the way you want it?" said Bull.
By this time Bridewell had recovered his self-possession to some
degree, yet his eyes were wide as he approached.
"Yep. Just let it lean agin' that corner piece, will you, Hunter?"
Bull obeyed.
"That might make a fellow's shoulder sort of sore," he remarked, "if
he had to carry those timbers all day."
"All day?" gasped Bridewell, and then he saw that the giant, indeed,
was not even panting from his effort. He was already turning his
attention to the pile of timbers.
"Here," he said, reluctantly drawing out some money. "Here's your
ten."
But Bull refused it. "Can't take it," he explained. "I just made the
bet by way of talk. You see, I knew I could lift it; and you didn't
have any real idea about me. Besides, if I'd lost I couldn't have
paid. I haven't any money."
He said this so gravely and simply that old Bridewell watched him
quizzically, half suspecting that there was a touch of irony hidden
somewhere. It gradually dawned on him that a man who was flat broke
was refusing money which he had won fairly on a bet. The idea
staggered Bridewell. He was within an ace of putting Bull Hunter down
as a fool. Something held him back, through some underlying respect
for the physical might of the big man and a respect, also, for the
honesty which looked out of his eyes. He pocketed the money slowly. He
was never averse to saving.
"But I've been thinking," said Bull, as he sadly watched the money
disappear, "that you might be needing me to help you put up the barn?
Do you think you could hire me?"
"H'm," grumbled Bridewell. "You think you could handle these big
timbers all day?"
"Yes," said Bull, "if none of 'em are any bigger than that last one.
Yes, I could handle 'em all day easily."
It was impossible to doubt that he said this judiciously and not with
a desire to overstate his powers. In spite of himself the old
rancher believed.
"You see," explained Bull eagerly, "you said that you needed three men
for that work. That's why I ask."
"And I suppose you'd want the pay of three men?"
Bull shook his head. "Anything you want to pay me," he declared.
The rancher frowned. This sounded like the beginning of a shrewd
bargain, and his respect and suspicion were equally increased.
"Suppose you say what you want?" he asked.
"Well," Bull said slowly, "I'd have to have a place to sleep. And--I'm
a pretty big eater."
"I guess you are," said Bridewell. "But if you do three men's work you
got a right to three men's food. What else do you want?"
Bull considered, as though there were few other wishes that he could
express. "I haven't any money," he apologized. "D'you think maybe you
could pay me a little something outside of food and a place to sleep?"
Bridewell blinked, and then prepared himself to become angry, when it
dawned on him that this was not intended for sarcasm. He found that
Bull was searching his face eagerly, as though he feared that he were
asking too much.
"What would do you?" suggested Bridewell tentatively.
"I dunno," said Bull, sighing with relief. "Anything you think."
It was plain that the big man was half-witted--or nearly so. Bridewell
kept the sparkle of exultation out of his eyes.
"You leave it to me, then, and I'll do what's more'n right by you.
When d'you want to start work?"
"Right now."
CHAPTER 15
When Bull left the dining room that night after supper, Mrs. Bridewell
looked across the table at her husband with horror in her eyes.
"Did you see?" she gasped. "He ate the _whole_ pot of beans!"
"Sure I seen him," and he grinned.
"But--he'll eat us out of house and home! Why, he's like a wolf!"
Bridewell chuckled with superior knowledge. "He's ate enough for
three," he admitted, "but he's worked enough for six--besides, most of
his wages come in food. But work? I never seen anything like it! He
handled more timbers than a dozen. When it come to spiking them in
place he seen me swinging that twelve-pound sledge and near breaking
my back. 'I think it's easier this way,' he says. 'Besides you can hit
a lot faster if you use just one hand.' And he takes the hammer, and
sends that big spike in all the way to the head with one lick. And he
wondered why I didn't work the same way! Ain't got any idea how
strong he is."
Mrs. Bridewell listened with wide eyes. "The idea," she murmured. "The
idea! Where's he now?"
Her husband went to the back door. "He's sitting over by the pump
talking to Tod. Sitting talking like they was one age. I reckon he's
sort of half-witted."
"How come?" sharply asked Mrs. Bridewell. "Ain't Tod got more brains
than most growed-up men?"
"I reckon he has," admitted the proud father.
And if they had put the same question to Bull Hunter, the giant would
have agreed with them emphatically. He approached the child tamer of
Diablo with a diffidence that was almost reverence. The freckle-faced
boy looked up from his whittling when the shadow of Bull fell athwart
him, with an equal admiration; also with suspicion, for the
cowpunchers, on the whole, were apt to make game of the youngster and
his grave, grown-up ways. He was, therefore, shrewdly suspicious of
jests at his expense.
Furthermore, he had seen the big stranger heaving the great timbers
about and whirling the sledge with one hand; he half suspected that
the jokes might be pointed with the weight of that heavy hand. His
amazement was accordingly great when he found the big man actually
sitting down beside him, cross-legged, and he was absolutely stupefied
when Bull Hunter said, "I've been aiming at this chance to talk to
you, Tod, all day."
"H'm," grunted Tod noncommittally, and examined the other with a
cautious side glance.
But the face of Bull Hunter was unutterably free from guile. Tod
instantly began to adjust himself. The men he most worshiped were the
lean, swift, profanely formidable cowpunchers. But there was something
in him that responded with a thrill to this accepted equality with
such a man as Bull Hunter. Even his father he had seen stricken to an
awed silence at the sight of Bull's prowess.
"You see," explained Bull frankly, "I been wondering how you managed
to handle Diablo the way you do."
Tod chuckled. "It's just a trick. You watch me a while with him,
you'll soon catch on."
But Bull shook his head as he answered, "Maybe a mighty bright man
might figure it out, but I'm not good at figuring things out, Tod."
The boy blinked. He was accustomed to the studied understatement of
the cowpunchers and he was accustomed, also, to their real vanity
which underlay the surface shyness. But it was patent that Bull
Hunter, in spite of his size, was truly humble. This conception was
new to Tod and slowly grew in his brain. His active eyes ran over the
bulk beside him; he almost pitied the giant.
"Besides," pondered Bull heavily, "I guess there's a whole lot of
bright men that have seen you handle Diablo, but they couldn't make
out what you did. They tried to ride Diablo and got their necks nearly
broken. They were good riders, but I'm not. You see, Diablo's the
first horse I've ever seen that could really carry me." He added
apologetically, "I'm so heavy."
No vanity, certainly. He gestured toward himself as though he were
ashamed of his brawn, and the heart of Tod warmed and expanded. He
himself would never be large, and his heart had ached because of his
smallness many a time.
"Yep," he said judiciously, "you're pretty heavy. About the heaviest I
ever seen, I guess. Maybe Hal Dunbar is as big, but I never seen Hal."
"I've heard a good deal about Hal, but--"
He stopped short and stiffened. Tod saw that the eyes of the big man
had fixed on the corral in which stood Diablo. A puff of wind had
come, and the great black had thrown up his head into it, an imposing
picture with mane and tail blown sidewise. Not until the stallion
turned away from the unseen thing which he had scented in the wind,
did Bull turn to his small companion with a sigh.
Tod nodded, his eyes glinting. "I know," he said. "I used to feel that
way--before I learned how to handle Diablo." He interpreted, "You feel
like it'd be pretty fine to get onto Diablo's back and have him gallop
under you."
"About the finest thing in the world," sighed Bull Hunter. He cast out
his great hands before him as he tried to explain the mysterious
emotions which the horse had excited in him. "You see, Tod, I'm pretty
big and I'm pretty slow. Most folks have horses, and they get about
pretty lively on 'em, but I've always had to walk."
The enormity of this lack made Tod stare, for travel and horses were
inseparably connected in his mind. He shuddered a little at the
thought of the big man stalking across the burning and interminable
sands of the desert or toiling through the mountains. It seemed to him
that he could see the signs of that pain stamped in the face of Bull
Hunter, and his heart leaped again in sympathy.
"So when I saw Diablo--" Bull paused. But Tod had understood. Suddenly
the boy became excited.
"Suppose you was to learn to ride Diablo before Hal Dunbar come to try
him out? Suppose that?"
"Could you teach me?" the giant asked in an almost awed whisper.
The child looked over his companion with a vague wonder. It would be a
tremendous responsibility, this teaching of the giant, but what could
be more spectacular than to have such a man as his pupil? But to share
his unique empire over Diablo--that would be a great price to pay!
"No," he decided, "it wouldn't do. Besides, suppose even I _could_
teach you how to ride Diablo--with a saddle, which I don't think I
could--what would happen when Hal Dunbar come up to these parts and
found that the hoss he wanted was somebody else's? He'd make an awful
fuss--and he's a fighting man, Bull."
He said this impressively, leaning a little toward the giant, and he
was rewarded infinitely by seeing the right hand of the giant stir a
little toward the holster at his thigh.
"I guess I'd have to take my chance with him," was all Bull answered
in his mildest tone.
Tod was beginning to guess that there was a certain amount of mental
strength under this quiet exterior. He had often noted that his
father, who made by far the most noise, was more easily placated than
his mother, in spite of her gentle silences. The strength of Bull
Hunter had a strain of the same thing about it.
"You'd take a chance with Hal Dunbar?" he repeated wonderingly. He
trembled a little, with a sort of nervous ecstasy at the thought of
that coming encounter. "That's more'n anybody else in these parts
would do. Why, everybody's heard about Hal Dunbar. Everybody's scared
of him. He can ride anything that's big enough to carry him; he can
fight like a wildcat with his hands; and he can shoot like"--his eye
wandered toward a superlative--"like Pete Reeve, almost," he concluded
with a tone of awe.
A spark of tenderness shone in the eye of Bull. "D'you know Pete
Reeve?"
"No, and I don't want to. Ma had a brother once, and he met up with
Pete Reeve."
A tragedy was inferred in that oblique reference. Bull decided that
this was a conversational topic on which he must remain silent, and
yet he yearned to speak of the little withered catlike fellow with the
wise brain who had done so much for him.
"When I'm big enough," mused the boy with a quiet savagery, "maybe
I'll meet up with Pete Reeve."
Bull switched the talk to a more comfortable topic. "But how'd you
make a start with that man-eating Diablo?"
Tod studied, the question. "I got a way with hosses, you see," he
began modestly.
He played two brown fingers in his mouth and sent out a shrilling
whistle that was answered immediately by a whinny, and a little
chestnut gelding, sun-faded to a sand color nearly, cantered into view
around the corner of a shed and approached them. He came to a pause
nearby, and having studied Bull Hunter with large, unafraid, curious
eyes for a moment, began to nibble impertinently at the ragged hat
brim of the child.