 | CHAPTER XXVII.
FULANO'S BLOOD-STAIN. John Brent |  |
27. CHAPTER XXVII.
FULANO'S BLOOD-STAIN.
“What a horse beyond all horses yours is!”
said Biddulph to me next morning, as we rode
along cheerily through the fresh, frosty air of
December. “I think, when your continent gets
to its finality in horse-flesh, you will beat our
island.”
“Think what training such a trip is! This
comrade of mine has come two thousand miles
with me, — big thought, eh! — and he freshens
up with the ozone of this morning, as if he had
been in the stable a week, champing asphodel.”
Fulano felt my commendation. He became
electrified. He stirred under me. I gave him
rein. He shook himself out, and began to recite
his accomplishments.
Whatever gait he had in his legs together, or
portion of a leap in either pair of them; whatever
gesticulations he considered graceful, with
toes in the air before, or heels in the air behind;
whatever serpentine writhe or sinewy bend of
the body, whatever curve of the proud neck,
mane, whisk of the tail, he knew, — all these he
repeated, to remind me what a horse he was, and
justify my praise.
What a HORSE, indeed!
How far away from him every lubberly roadster,
every hack that endures the holidays of a
tailor, every grandpapa's cob, every sloucher in a
sulky! Of other race and other heart was this
steed, both gentle and proud. He was still able
to be the better half of a knight-errant when a
charger worth a kingdom must be had, — when
Love needed his mighty alliance in the battle
with Brutality. He was willing now, in piping
times of peace, to dance along his way, a gay
comrade to the same knight-errant, riding homeward
a quiet gentleman, with armor doffed and
unsuspecting further war.
What sport we had together that morning!
We were drawing near the end of our journey.
Not that that was to part us! No, he was to be
my companion still. I had a vision of him in a
paddock, with a fine young fellow, not unlike
myself, patting his head, while an oldish fellow,
not unlike myself, in fact very me with another
quarter of a century on my head, told the story
of the Gallop of Three and the wild charge
down Luggernel Alley to that unwearying auditor,
while a lady, very like my ideal of a wife,
vision I had of Fulano's future.
But now that our journey was ending, he and
I were willing, on this exhilarating winter's day,
to talk it over. What had he gained by the
chances by flood and field we had encountered
together?
“I have not gone,” Fulano notified me, “two
thousand miles, since my lonely, riderless days
among the herds of Gerrian, since our first meeting
on the prairie and my leap through the loop
of Jose's lasso, — I have not gone my leagues of
continent for nothing.
“See what lessons I have learnt, thanks to
you, my schoolmaster! This is my light step for
heavy sand; this is my cautious step over pebbles;
my high step over boulders; my easy, unwasteful
travelling gait; my sudden stop without
unseating my rider; so I swerve without shying;
and so I spring into top speed without a strain.
Your lady-love could canter me; your baby could
walk me; because I please to be your friend, my
friend. But you know me; I am the untamable
still, except by love.”
And then he rehearsed the gaits he had studied
from the creatures on the plains.
“Look, upper half of the Centaur,” he said,
in the Centaur language; “see how an antelope
goes!”
He doubled his legs under him and went off
in high, jerky leaps, twice his length every one.
“Look! A buffalo!”
He lumbered along, shoulders low, head handled
like a battering-ram, and tail stiff out like a
steering-oar.
“Here 's a gray wolf.”
And he shambled forward in a loose-jointed
canter, looking back furtively, like a thief, sorry
he didn 't stop to steal the other goose, but expecting
Stop thief! every minute.
“And so go I, Don Fulano, the Indomitable, a
chieftain of the chiefest race below the man, —
so go I when walk, pace, gallop, run, leap, career,
tread space and time out of being, to show
the other half of the Centaurship what my half
can do for the love of his.”
“Magnificent!” applauded Biddulph at this
display.
“His coquetries are as beautiful as a woman's,”
said Brent. “One whose sweet wiles
are nature, not artifice.”
And I — but lately trained to believe that a
woman may have the myriad charm of coy withdrawal,
and yet not be the traitress youth learns
from ancient cynics to fear — accepted the comparison.
Ah, peerless Fulano! that was our last love-passage!
The day, after the crisp frostiness of its beginning,
was a belated day of Indian summer; mild
as the golden mornings of that calm, luxurious
time. We stopped to noon in a sunny spot of
open pasture near a wide muddy slough of the
Missouri. This reservoir for the brewage of
shakes for Pikes had been refilled in some autumn
rise of the river, and lay a great stagnant lake
along the road-side, a mile or so long, two hundred
yards broad. Not very exhilarating tipple, but
still water; the horses would not disdain it,
after their education on the plains; we could qualify
it with argee from our flasks, and ice it with
the little films of ice unmelted along the pool's
edges. We were fortified with a bag of corn for
the horses, and a cold chicken for the men.
We camped by a fallen cottonwood near the
slough. The atmosphere was hopeful. We picnicked
merrily, men and beasts. “Three gentlemen
at once” over a chicken soon dissipated this
and its trimmings. We lighted the tranquil calumet,
and lounged, watching our horses at their
corn.
Presently we began to fancy we heard, then to
think we heard, at last to be sure we heard the
baying of hounds through the mild, golden air.
“Tally-ho!” cried Biddulph, “what a day for
a fox-hunt! This haze will make the scent lie
almost as well as the clouds.”
“Music! Music!” cried he again, springing
up, as the sound, increasing, rose and fell
along the peaceful air that lay on earth so lovingly.
“Music, if it were in Merrie England, where
the hunt are gentlemen. A cursed uproar here,
where the hunt are man-stealers,” said Brent.
“No,” said Biddulph. “Those are fables of
the old, barbarous days of the Maroons. I can't
believe in dogs after men, until I see it.”
“I 'm afraid it 's our friend Ham they are after.
This would be his line of escape.”
At the word, a rustling in the bushes along
the slough, and Ham burst through. He turned
to run. We shouted. He knew us, and flung
himself, livid with terror and panting with flight,
on the ground at our feet, — the “pop'lar nigger”!
“O Massa!” he gasped. “Dey 's gone sot
de dogs on me. What 'll I do!”
“Can you swim,” said I, — for to me he was
kneeling.
“No, Massa; or I 'd been across thisyer sloo
fore dis.”
“Can you ride!”
“Reck'n I kin, Massa.”
A burst of baying from the hounds.
The black shook with terror.
I sprang to Fulano. “Work for you, old
his head.
“Take mine!” said my two friends at a
breath.
“No; Fulano understands this business. Chase
or flight, all one to him, so he baffles the Brutes.”
Fulano neighed and beat the ground with
eager hoofs as I buckled the bridle.
“Can't we show fight?” said Biddulph.
“There 'll be a dozen on the hunt. It is one
of the entertainments hereabouts. Besides, they
would raise the posse upon us. You forget
we 're in a Slave State, an enemy's country.”
I led Fulano to the brink. He stood motionless,
eying me, just as he eyed me in that terrible
pause in Luggernel Alley.
“Here, Ham, up with you! Put across the
slough. He swims like an alligator. Then make
for the north star, and leave the horse for Mr.
Richard Wade, at the Tremont House, Chicago.
Treat him like a brother, Ham!”
“Lor bress you, Massa! I will dat.”
He vaulted up, like “a sprightly nigger, one
of the raal ambitious sort.”
The baying came nearer, nearer, ringing sweetly
through the golden quiet of noon.
I launched Fulano with an urgent whisper.
Two hundred yards to swim! and then all
clear to Freedom!
Fulano splashed in and took deep water magnificently.
What a sight it is to see a noble horse nobly
breast the flood, — to see his shoulders thrust
aside the stream, his breath come quick, his eyes
flash, his haunches lift, his wake widen after
him!
And then — Act 2 — how grand it is to see
him paw and struggle up with might and main
upon the farther bank, — to see him rise, all
glossy and reeking, shake himself, and, with
a snort, go galloping free and away! Aha! a
sight to be seen!
We stood watching Act 1. The fugitive was
half-way across. The baying came closer, closer
on his trail.
Two thirds across.
The baying ceased. The whole pack drew a
long wail.
“They see him,” said Biddulph.
Almost across! A dozen more plunges, Fulano!
A crowd of armed men on horseback dashed
up to the bank two hundred yards above us. It
was open where they halted. They could not
see us among the bushes on the edge of the
slough.
One of them — it was Murker — sprang from
his saddle. He pointed his rifle quick and
close to the bank and the thicket of safety.
Ping!
Almost over, as the rifle cracked, Ham had
turned at the sound of his pursuers crashing
through the bushes. Fulano swam high. He
bore a proud head aloft, conscious of his brave
duty. It was but a moment since he had dashed
away, and the long lines of his wake still rippled
against the hither bank.
We heard the bullet sing. It missed the man
as he turned. It struck Fulano. Blood spirted
from a great artery. He floundered forward.
Ham caught the bushes on the bank, pulled
himself ashore, and clutched for the bridle.
Poor Fulano! He flung his head up and
pawed the surface with a great spasm. He
screamed a death-scream, like that terrible cry of
anguish of his comrade martyred in the old heroic
cause in Luggernel Alley. We could see
his agonized eye turn back in the socket, sending
toward us a glance of farewell.
Noble horse! again a saviour. He yielded and
sank slowly away into that base ditch.
But Ham, was he safe? He had disappeared
in the thicket. His pursuers called the hounds
and galloped off to chase him round the slough.
Ham was safe. He got off to freedom. From
his refuge in Chicago he writes me that he is
and has a most a bewterful black colt
a growin' up fur me.”
Ham was saved; but Fulano gone. Dead
by Murker's rifle. The brother had strangely
avenged his brother, trampled to death in the far-away
cañon of the Rocky Mountains. Strange
Nemesis for a guiltless crime! That blood-stain
for a righteous execution clung to him. Only
his own blood-shedding could cleanse him.
We three on the bank looked at each other forlornly.
The Horse, our Hero, had passed away
from the scene, a marytr.
We turned to our journey with premonitions
of sorrowful ill.
| CHAPTER XXVII.
FULANO'S BLOOD-STAIN. John Brent | |