The Ramblin' Kid - Earl Wayland Bowman (snow like ashes series .txt) 📗

"Watch him!" Chuck said miserably.

The starter was standing with arm outstretched and flag ready to fall. The filly came down the track jumping nervously from side to side in short springing leaps. The starter paused, watch in hand. A shout of admiration and wonder went up from the crowd as the splendid creature dancing down the track was recognized. The next instant it was succeeded by a cry of horror that rolled in a great wave from a thousand throats.

"Th' Ramblin' Kid is drunk! He's drunk—the mare will kill him!" as they saw the slim rider weaving limply in the saddle, his head dropped forward as if he were utterly helpless.

"Rule that horse off the track!" Dorsey, who was standing with Mike
Sabota, in a box-seat just below the judges' stand, shouted as he saw
the Ramblin' Kid, even in his half-conscious condition, reining the Gold
Dust maverick with consummate skill into position, "her rider's drunk!"

The Ramblin' Kid heard the voice and—by some miracle of the mind—recognized it, although his eyes, set and glassy, could not see the speaker.

He turned his head in the direction from which the cry came and answered, slowly measuring each word:

"Go—go—t' hell—you—you—coyote!"

The next instant the starter dropped the flag. As it went down the filly crouched and reared straight into the air.

That one second gave the other horses the start.

Then the outlaw mare leaped forward directly behind Thunderbolt, running against the inside rail. Say-So, the Pecos horse, jammed close to the side of the black stallion; Snow Johnson, rider of Prince John, pushed the big sorrel ahead with his nose at the roan's tail; Dash-Away hugged against the heels of Prince John. The Gold Dust maverick was "pocketed!"

A breathless hush fell over the crowd in the grandstand after the first mighty roar:

"They're off!"

Black devils of torture clutched the throat, the mind, the body of the Ramblin' Kid. Streams of fire seemed to be flowing through his veins. He couldn't see—he was blind. "What th'—what th'—hell!" he muttered over and over. He was vaguely conscious of the thunder of hoofs around him—under him. Dimly, black shadows were rushing along at his side. He fought with all his will to master his faculties. Where was he? What was it? Was it a—a—stampede? What? Oh, yes, th' race—th'—th'— sweepstakes—that—that was it—Over and over the fleeting flashes of consciousness kept throwing this one supreme idea on the mirror of his mind!

Not a word was spoken by any of the party at the Clagstone "Six" as the five fastest horses ever on the Eagle Butte track swept past the car toward the first quarter-turn of the course.

Carolyn June's face was as white as marble. Her breast heaved and fell as if it would burst. Dry-eyed, every nerve tense, she stared at the straining racers. Unconsciously she gripped into hard knots of flesh and bone, both hands, while she bit at her underlip until a red drop of blood started from the gash made in the tender skin by her teeth.

"Drunk!" she thought, "drunk! Beastly drunk—and throwing away the greatest race ever run on a Texas track!"

Old Heck sat impassive as though carved from stone and said nothing.

Ophelia nervously chewed at the finger of her glove while her eyes moistened with sympathy and pity.

Skinny, Chuck and Bert sat gloomily, moodily, on their bronchos and watched Thunderbolt lead the quintette of running horses.

For the life of him Skinny could not keep from thinking of the five hundred dollars he had bet with Sabota, on the race, and the number of white shirts and purple ties he might have bought with the money!

Over in the track-field Parker, Charley and Pedro saw the start of the race and each swore softly and silently to himself.

Sing Pete, alone of the Quarter Circle KT crowd, in the jam of the grandstand, stretched his neck and followed with inscrutable eyes the close-bunched racers. The start had puzzled him, yet he murmured hopefully:

"Maybe all samee Lamblin' Kid he beatee hell out of 'em yet!"

The loyal Chinese cook had wagered the savings of a dozen years on the speed of the Gold Dust maverick's nimble legs and his faith in the "Lamblin' Kid."

A blanket might have covered the five horses as they swung around the first mile.

The speed-mad animals roared down the homestretch, finishing the first half of the race in the almost identical position each had taken in the getaway.

The Ramblin' Kid rode the mile more as an automaton than as a living, conscious human being. He had no memory of time, place, events—save for the instants of rationality he forced his will to bring.

Gradually, though, his mind was clearing.

But which was it—the first half?—the last half? How long had they been running? How many times had they gone around the track? He could not remember!

Down the straight stretch the racers came in a mighty whirlwind of speed.

"Thunderbolt is taking it!"

"The Y-Bar horse leads!"

"Th' black's got 'em!" roared from the throats of the crowd in the grandstand and the mass of humanity crushing the railing along the track.

Dorsey and Sabota leaped to the edge of the box as the horses thundered past the judges' stand. The voice of the owner of Thunderbolt shrieked out in a hoarse bellow:

"Hold him to it, Flip! Keep your lead—you've got the filly!"

The Ramblin' Kid heard again—or thought he heard again—the voice of the Vermejo cattleman. He caught, as an echo, a note of triumph in it. It was like a tonic to his drug-numbed faculties.

Suddenly he saw clearly. He had just a glimpse of Sabota standing by the side of Dorsey. He understood. In a flash it all came to him. The first half of the great sweepstakes race was behind them! Once more they were to circle the track. The glistening black rump of Thunderbolt rose and fell just ahead of the Gold Dust maverick's nose—at her side, crowding her against the rail, was another horse. Which one? It didn't matter! Back of it was another. He was "pocketed!" Hell, no wonder Thunderbolt was ahead of the outlaw mare!

Half-way around the quarter-turn he pulled the filly down.

She slackened ever so little. Thunderbolt—the horse at her side—all of them—shot ahead.

He was behind the bunch—clear of the field!

The crowd saw the filly dart to the right. It looked as though she would go over the outside rail before the Ramblin' Kid swung her, in a great arch, to the left clear of, but far behind, the other horses.

He was crazy! The Gold Dust maverick was getting the better of the
Ramblin' Kid. He had lost control of the wonderful mare!

So thought the thousands watching the drama on the track before them.

Away over, next to the outside fence, on the far side of the track, open now before him for the long outfield stretch, the Rambling Kid straightened the Gold Dust maverick out. The other racers were still bunched against the inner rail—lengths ahead of the filly.

Leaning low on the neck of the maverick, the Ramblin' Kid began talking, for the first time, to the horse he rode.

"Baby—Baby! Girl!" he whispered incoherently almost. "Go—go—damn 'em! 'Ophelia'"—he laughed thickly, reeling in the saddle. "Hell—_no—'Little—Little—Pink Garter!—that's—that's—what y' are! Little—Pink—Garter—" he repeated irrationally. "That's it—show 'em—damn 'em—show 'em what—what runnin'—what real runnin' is!" fumbling caressingly at the mare's neck with hands numb and stiff and chuckling pitifully, insanely, while his face was drawn with agony nearly unendurable.

Then the Gold Dust maverick ran!

Never had ground flowed with such swiftness under the belly of a horse on a Texas track.

"Good God!" Skinny yelled, "looky yonder! He's passin' them! Th'
Ramblin' Kid is passin' 'em!"

No one answered him.

His voice was drowned in the mighty roar that surged from five thousand throats and rolled in waves of echoing and re-echoing sound across the field.

"He's ridin' round 'em!"

"Th' Ramblin' Kid is goin' around them!"

"Great heavens! Look at that horse go!"

"She's a-flyin'! She's a-flyin'!"

The Gold Dust maverick closed the gap—she caught Dash-Away—she evened up with Prince John—she left the big sorrel behind—she passed Say-So—nose to nose for a few rods she ran opposite the black wonder—the Thunderbolt horse from the Vermejo.

Flip Williams, spurs raking the flanks of Dorsey's stallion, looked around.

The Ramblin' Kid leaned toward him:

"Hell—why—don't you—make that—thing run!" he sneered at the Y-Bar rider.

The next instant the Gold Dust maverick's neck and shoulders showed in the lead of the Y-Bar stallion.

At the turn for the home stretch the outlaw filly shot ahead of the wonderful black horse from the Vermejo, swung close to the inside rail, and like a flash of gold-brown darted down the track toward the wire.

The grandstand was turned into a madhouse of seething humanity. The immense crowd came to its feet roaring and shrieking with frenzy. Men smashed their neighbors with clenched fists—not knowing or caring how hard or whom they struck—or that they themselves were being hit. Women screamed frantically, hysterically, tears streaming from thousands of eyes because of sheer joy at the wonderful thing the Gold Dust maverick was doing. Even the stolid Sing Pete was jumping up and down, shouting:

"Come on—come on—Lamblin' Kid! Beat 'em—beatee hell out of 'em!"

Full three lengths in the lead of the "unbeatable" Thunderbolt the Gold
Dust maverick flashed under the wire in front of the judges!

Dorsey, shaken in every nerve, lips blue as though he were stricken with a chill, reeled out of the box from which he had watched his whole fortune swept away by the speed of the Cimarron mare. At his side, profaning horrible, obscene oaths staggered Mike Sabota.

Old Heck, white-faced, but his lips drawn in a smile of satisfaction, stood up in the Clagstone "Six" and watched the Ramblin' Kid—his eyes set and staring, his body twitching convulsively, check the filly, swing her around, ride back to the judges' stand, weakly fling up a hand in salute and then, barely able to sit in the saddle, rein the Gold Dust maverick off the track and ride toward the box stall.

Skinny drew a hand across his eyes and looked at Carolyn June.

Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

It was Monday morning, clear and cloudless, with a whiff of a breeze kissing the poplars along the front-yard fence at the Quarter Circle KT. On the sand-hills north of the Cimarron, Pedro was pushing the saddle cavallard toward Rock Creek, where the last half of the beef round-up was to begin. Parker and the cowboys were just splashing their bronchos into the water at the lower ford. Sing Pete, on the high seat of the grub-wagon, was once more clucking and cawing at Old Tom and Baldy as they drew the outfit along the lane and followed the others to the open range.

Old Heck, Skinny, Ophelia and Carolyn June again were alone at the
Quarter Circle KT.

The Eagle Butte Rodeo had closed, with one last riotous carnival of wildness at midnight Saturday night.

Once more the straggling town, its pulse gradually beating back to normal, lay half-asleep at the foot of the sun-baked butte that stood silent and drowsy beyond the Sante Fe tracks.

Tom Poole, the lank marshal, loafed as usual about the Elite Amusement Parlor, over which hung a sullen quiet reflecting the morbid emotions of Mike Sabota, its brutish-built proprietor, resulting from his heavy losses on Thunderbolt in the two-mile sweepstakes when the Gold Dust maverick, ridden by the drug-crazed Ramblin' Kid, darted under the wire lengths ahead of the black Vermejo stallion.

Friday evening Old Heck had met Dorsey in the pool-room.

Judge Ivory handed over to the owner of the Quarter Circle KT the Y-Bar cattleman's check for ten thousand dollars and the bill of sale he had recklessly given and which transferred to Old Heck all the cattle the Vermejo rancher owned.

Dorsey was game.

"You put it on me," he said to Old Heck "but the Ramblin' Kid won square and I'm not squealing!"

Old Heck turned the check slowly over in his hand and looked at it with a quizzical frown on his face:

"I reckon this is good?"

"It's my exact balance," Dorsey replied; "I saw to that this morning."

For a long minute Old Heck studied the bill of sale that made him owner of every cow-brute burnt with the Y-Bar brand.

"My men will gather the cattle within fifteen days," Dorsey said dully, noting the half-questioning look