The Rogue (20 page)

The packhorse Diana was riding wanted to follow the other horses as they moved out with their riders, but she held it back. Rube and Guy split off to the left while Holt started for the herd.

From her vantage point, she watched Holt work his way slowly along a dry gully, letting the soft sand muffle the sound of his horse’s hooves. There was almost no breeze. As he neared the slope, she saw the stallion come to full alertness, small ears pricked in Holt’s direction.

When Holt came into the stallion’s view, the white horse did not snort in alarm and send the mares flying. Instead, he whistled a shrill challenge, his long ivory-colored tail standing straight out. In a prancing pace, the stallion came boldly toward his adversary.

“My God,” Diana murmured, her pulse leaping in fear. “He’s going to attack him.”

Holt had to be aware of the stallion’s unusual reaction, but he kept riding his horse forward, not
slackening its cantering stride. A hundred feet separated them when the stallion whirled, retreat becoming wiser than valor. Screaming and snapping at the mares, they leaped away as one, bunching together. Again the buckskin mare took the lead while the pacing stallion drove them from the rear.

The horses raced away from Holt as if he was standing still. His horse galloped, but Holt did not urge it into a flat-out run, but kept the wild band in view. They disappeared over the slope. Standing in the stirrups, Diana strained for a glimpse of them, waiting for them to come into view on the left where Rube had said the stallion would direct them. Within minutes, she saw them, the mares racing, the white stallion pacing effortlessly behind them.

Soon they were lost to her sight, only dust clouds marking their course. Diana waited, feeling her heart pounding with excitement and wishing she was part of the chase. An interminable amount of time passed, so much that Diana was beginning to wonder what had gone wrong.

Then, off to her right, she saw them, cresting a knoll and coming toward her. The buckskin mare was still in the lead, but running heavily now. Obviously tiring, the other two mares were being brutally driven onward by the stallion, baring his teeth and nipping savagely at the slightest sign of lagging. Rube came galloping steadily behind them, closer now than Holt had been.

The mares thundered past within fifty feet, lathered and blowing. The stallion’s pacing stride still seemed effortless as he relentlessly pushed his harem. His coat was wet and caked with dust, no longer a gleaming white. Large nostrils were distended to drink in the air in enormous gulps. He would not be run into the ground for a long time.

Approaching the slope where they had first been routed, they had to cross the gully Holt had used. It didn’t look more than four feet wide. The buckskin mare slowed, gathered herself, and leaped mightily
across it. The two blooded mares followed. The bank crumbled under one, sending it tumbling to the bottom. It was the young prize mare, Cassie. She struggled to get to her feet. The stallion hesitated on the other side, then glanced at the pursuing rider. With an angry shake of his head, he left the downed mare and streaked after the remaining two members of his herd.

“I’ll get the mare!” Diana shouted to Rube. “You go on!”

A wave of his hand indicated he had heard her. He didn’t attempt to jump his horse across the gully, but swerved into the dry wash, his horse plunging up the opposite bank.

When Diana reached the gully with the injured gelding in tow, the mare had just staggered to her feet, shaken but apparently unharmed. After a tired and half-hearted attempt to elude Diana, the mare stood quietly while Diana looped a rope around her neck.

She was leading both horses back to her vantage point when she heard a shout. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Holt and Guy cantering toward her. Holt motioned toward the fleeing band, calling something that she couldn’t understand. Diana turned in the saddle, standing in the stirrups.

As Rube had predicted, the white stallion had left the mares. Breaking his pattern, he had swerved off to the right with Rube giving chase. The wild buckskin mare was continuing the route, but the older Arabian mare, Nashira, was already slowing down.

Immediately Diana understood Holt’s signal and followed at a trot as he and Guy struck out for the mare. They caught her as easily as Diana had roped the other mare. When Diana reined in beside them, Holt had dismounted and was looping the rope around the mare’s nose, making a crude halter. He did the same with the rope around the other mare’s neck.

“Let’s catch up to Rube,” he said.

The white stallion was headed into rough country, still pursued. Rube was blind to those that followed
him as he continued after the horse. Diana’s arm ached from tugging on the rope and pulling the horses on, but she wouldn’t quit.

Climbing a steep hill, she topped out on a plateau. Guy and Holt were not far ahead of her. Beyond them, she could see Rube and the white shape of the stallion. Rube finally looked behind him and stopped, waiting for them to catch up to him. When Holt and Guy reached him, there was an earnest conference. Diana frowned, not understanding why, until she joined them.

“The stallion’s trapped,” Guy told her. “There isn’t any way off this plateau except the way we came.”

She could see him pacing restlessly back and forth beyond them and turned to Holt. “What are you going to do?”

“Let him go,” he said. “We’ve driven him off his range. Maybe he won’t come back.”

“We could catch him,” Rube insisted. “He’s tired, I’m tellin’ you. Guy and me can rope him and you catch his heels. It’ll be easy as pie. We’ll never get another chance like this one.”

“What would you want with a wild stallion, Rube?” Holt asked grimly. “He isn’t any good to us. You’d have to kill him before you could break him. We have what we came for. Now let’s get the mares back to the ranch.”

“I’m tellin’ ya—”

“Look!” Guy pointed toward the stallion. “That’s suicide!”

The stallion disappeared over the edge of the plateau amidst a rattle of loose rock. They all rushed to the point where he had disappeared, reining their horses in short of the rim. Halfway down the almost perpendicular slope of shale-like rock was the white stallion, sitting on his tail and sliding. An avalanche of small rock wiped away what little balance the horse had. He fell, rolling the rest of the way to the bottom.

“If he comes outta that without a broken leg.” Rube muttered, “I’ll be goddamned if—”

The stallion lay at the bottom, motionless. “He’s dead,” Guy choked, and Diana swallowed at the tightness in her own throat.

Then his head moved, lifting up. A second later, his thrashing legs were kicking him up on his feet. With a vigorous shake that sent dust flying, the stallion stood. He took a few steps and swung into his rolling gait. His stride was slow and vaguely leaden, but the stallion was unharmed.

Diana let out the stunned breath she had been holding.

“Did you see that?!!” Guy exclaimed. “My God! How did he do it?!!”

“I didn’t see a scratch on that white hide of his’n!” Rube declared.

“I thought he’d break his neck for sure,” Guy added.

“It’s a pity he didn’t,” Holt said dryly, not at all impressed by the miracle he had just witnessed with them.

“You can’t mean that,” protested Diana.

“I do. I have a feeling that stallion will be back.” The way Holt was looking at the pacing white stallion reminded Diana of a hunter watching his prey escape him. There was a certain unconcern, a knowledge that he and the mustang would meet again. But that impression was ridiculous. Diana mentally shook it away. Holt had no interest in the stallion. He’d come only for the mares.

“Why did he do it?” Guy was still dazed by what he had seen.

“The stallion was trapped and he knew it,” Rube answered.

“But to go over the edge like that?” Guy shook his head.

“Mustangs have been known to do goddamned near anything to keep from bein’ caught. They’ll jump off cliffs or dive into swollen rivers. Some of ’em just flat prefer death to a cowboy’s rope.”

Holt turned his horse away from the rim and started
back the way they had come. The others followed with Rube still rambling on with his narrative.

“When I was mustangin’, I heard stories about wild horses that refused to eat or drink after they was caught. All the hay and water was right there before ’em and they died. A fella told me once about a time he’d roped this wild stallion. He and a couple other fellas were takin’ the mustang back to their place. They had to cross a little stream. The fella claimed there wasn’t more’n six inches of water in it. Well, he said that wild stallion buried his nose in that water and they couldn’t get his head up. He drowned, drowned in six inches of water. An’ another fella told me about a wild horse that got caught in a bog. H-”

Diana wasn’t listening to his tales. She was remembering that instant when the white stallion had gotten up after Guy had declared he was dead. Holt had said the stallion would come back. Would he?

The western sky was streaked with fuschia when the ranch buildings came into sight. The horses picked up their pace, hurrying toward the promise of oats and water and rest. Tired and hungry, too, Diana doubted if she had the strength to stay in the saddle another hour.

A welcoming committee of ranch hands greeted their return, questions flying. All of which Diana ignored, leaving it to the others to answer them. She smiled a weary thanks at the man who took her horse.

“The Major says he knows you’ll want to clean up first, but afterward you are all to go to the main house, Holt,” Floyd Hunt said. “And he said not to worry about eating. He’ll have all the food you want on the table.”

“Thanks.” Holt nodded. His eyes looked years older than his body when he glanced at Diana. “Tell the Major we’ll be up in less than a half-hour.”

“Yes.”

On saddle-weary legs, she walked to the main house. The Major was in the living room. He looked up and smiled when the screen door slammed shut behind her.

“How was the horse hunt?” He added ice cubes to a glass.

Diana took a deep breath, then answered simply, “Successful.”

“How about a drink?” he offered.

“A shot of whiskey on the rocks,” she ordered without hesitation.

Taking a crystal decanter from a tray, he splashed a measure of the amber liquor over the cubes in the glass. “You look awful,” he said, walking over to hand her the glass.

“Thanks.” A wry smile curved her mouth.

“When the boys told me you were coming, I had Sophie fill your bathtub with hot bubbly water. It’s waiting for you.”

“No wonder people accuse me of being spoiled.” Diana laughed briefly and kissed his cheek.

She sipped at the glass and started for her room, unbuttoning her grimy blouse as she went.

“Who says you are spoiled?” The Major followed.

Holding the glass in one hand, she struggled out of her blouse, tossing it on the floor of her room. Without stopping, she continued on to the private bath, steaming and scented from the water-filled tub.

“Holt, for one,” she answered. Setting the glass on the marble sink top, she began shedding the rest of her clothes.

“Do you want your robe?” her father called from the bedroom.

“Yes.” Diana stepped into the mound of bubbles atop the water.

“So Holt thinks I have spoiled you,” the Major commented as he carried her robe in and hung it on a door hook. “Were the two of you at loggerheads all the while you were gone?”

Up to her neck in bubbles, Diana closed her eyes, trying to shut out all the memories of what had been between her and Holt. “Do you mind? I’d rather not talk about him.”

“You were gone longer than I expected.” He changed the subject.

“Yes” Diana sighed as the hot water soothed her aching muscles.

“Are the mares all right?”

“Cassie has a couple of nasty-looking bites on her rump. They are both a little thin, but otherwise, they’re in good shape,” she told him.

“I thought I noticed a horse limping.”

“That was mine. Holt thinks he pulled a muscle. Nothing serious, though.”

“How?” he asked. “And how did you hurt your elbow?”

“I had a fall. My horse lost its footing and went down. I did a glorious somersault over his head.” Diana smiled at the frown of concern that appeared on her father’s face. “It isn’t the first time I’ve taken a tumble, Major.”

“No, I guess it isn’t,” he agreed.

“How was everything at the ranch while we were gone?”

“Fine. No problems at all.”

“And the stallion, Fath?”

“He’s recovering and doing very well so far. It’s too soon to tell how much use he’ll regain of his foreleg. He could be crippled, but we won’t know for some time. That’s enough talking.” He smiled. “You relax in that tub for a while. When you’re through, come to the dining room. Sophie is fixing a mountain of sandwiches.”

As he turned to leave, Diana remembered, “I forgot to tell you. Holt said he’d be up in half an hour.”

There was an acknowledging nod at the message. Then he left. Diana relaxed in the scented water, closing her mind to all thought and taking in only the sensual pleasure of the bath.

Afterward, Diana wrapped a towel around her freshly washed hair, securing it turban-fashion atop her head. Pausing in front of the mirror, she brushed mascara on the luxurious thickness of her dark and curling lashes and applied coral-tinted gloss to her lips.
She tied the sash of her robe and walked barefoot to the dining room.

The Major greeted her with a smiling and assessing look. “Much better.”

“I feel better, too.” But her reply was lost to the echoing thud of footsteps on the porch.

An instant later Holt walked in, followed by Guy and Rube. The gray eyes touched on her first before directing their attention to her father, and Diana felt the immediate tensing of her nerves. They had all taken the time to shower and change, and to shave the beard growth from their faces.

Holt looked fresh and vital, showing no evidence of having spent the better part of the last four days in the saddle. But Diana noticed the bruise on his jaw had turned a bluish color. The Major would have been blind not to see it.