The Max Brand Megapack (30 page)

“Let him go,” growled one of the cowboys. “He’s goin’ to hell making a gallery play.”

But taking the matter into his own hands Woodbury snatched the coat from the head of the stallion, which snorted and reared up, mouth agape ears flattened back. There was a shout from the man, not a cry of dismay, but a ringing battle yell like some ancient berserker seeing the first flash of swords in the mêlée. He leaped forward, jerking down on the bridle reins with all the force of his weight and his spring. The horse, caught in mid-air, as it were, came floundering down on all fours again. Before he could make another move, Woodbury caught the high horn of the saddle and vaulted up to his seat. It was gallantly done and in response came a great rustling from the multitude; there was not a spoken word, but every man was on his feet.

Perhaps what followed took their breaths and kept them speechless. The first touch of his rider’s weight sent the stallion mad, not blind with fear as most horses go, but raging with a devilish cunning like that of an insane man, a thing that made the blood run cold to watch. He stood a moment shuddering, as if the strange truth were slowly dawning on his brute mind; then he bolted straight for the barriers. Woodbury braced himself and lunged back on the reins, but he might as well have tugged at the mooring cable of a great ship; the bit was in the monster’s teeth.

Then a whisper reached the rider, a universal hushing of drawn breath, for the thousands were tasting the first thrill and terror of the combat. They saw a picture of horse and man crushed against the barrier. But there was no such stupid rage in the mind of the stallion.

At the last moment he swerved and raced close beside the fence; some projecting edge caught the trousers of Woodbury and ripped away the stout cloth from hip to heel. He swung far to the other side and wrenched back the reins. With stiff-braced legs the stallion slid to a halt that flung his unbalanced rider forward along his neck. Before he could straighten himself in the saddle, the horse roared and came down on rigid forelegs, yet by a miracle Woodbury clung, sprawled down the side of the monster, to be sure, but was not quite dismounted.

Another pitch of the same nature would have freed the stallion from his rider beyond doubt, but he elected to gallop full speed ahead the length of the arena, and during that time, Woodbury, stunned though he was, managed to drag himself back into the saddle. The end of the race was a leap into the air that would have cleared a five-bar fence, and down pitched the fighting horse on braced legs again. Woodbury’s chin snapped down against his breast as though he had been struck behind the head with a heavy bar, but though his brain was stunned, the fighting instinct remained strong in him and when the stallion reared and toppled back the rider slipped from the saddle in the nick of time.

Fourteen hundred pounds of raging horseflesh crashed into the sawdust; he rolled like a cat to his feet, but at the same instant a flying weight leaped through the air and landed in the saddle. The audience awoke to sound—to a dull roar of noise; a thin trickle of blood ran from Woodbury’s mouth and it seemed that the mob knew it and was yelling for a death.

There followed a bewildering exhibition of such bucking that the disgruntled cowboys forgot their shame and shouted with joy. Upon his hind legs and then down on his forefeet with a sickening heartbreaking jar the stallion rocked; now he bucked from side to side; now rose and whirled about like a dancer; now toppled to the ground and twisted again to his feet.

Still the rider clung. His head rocked with the ceaseless jars; the red-stained lips writhed back and showed the locked teeth. Yet, as if he scorned the struggles of the stallion, he brought into play the heavy quirt which had been handed him as he mounted. Over neck and shoulders and tender flanks he whirled the lash; it was not intelligence fighting brute strength, but one animal conquering another and rejoicing in the battle.

The horse responded, furiously he responded, but still the lash fell, and the bucking grew more cunning, perhaps, but less violent. Yet to the wildly cheering audience the fight seemed more dubious than ever. Then, in the very centre of the arena, the stallion stopped in the midst of a twisting course of bucking and stood with widely braced legs and fallen head. Strength was left in him, but the cunning, savage mind knew defeat.

Once more the quirt whirled in the air and fell with a resounding crack, but the stallion merely switched his tail and started forward at a clumsy stumbling trot. The thunder of the host was too hoarse for applause; they saw a victory and a defeat but what they had wanted was blood, and a death. They had had a promise and a taste; now they hungered for the reality.

Woodbury slipped from the saddle and gave the reins to Werther. Already a crowd was growing about them of the curious who had sprung over the barriers and swarmed across the arena to see the conqueror, for had he not vindicated unanswerably the strength of the East as compared with that of the West? Boys shouted shrilly; men shouldered each other to slap him on the back; but Werther merely held forth the handful of greenbacks. The conqueror braced himself against the saddle with a trembling hand and shook his head.

“Not for me,” he said, “I ought to pay you—ten times that much for the sport—compared to this polo is nothing.”

“Ah,” muttered those who overheard, “polo! That explains it!”

“Then take the horse,” said Werther, “because no one else could ride him.”

“And now any one can ride him, so I don’t want him,” answered Woodbury.

And Werther grinned. “You’re right, boy. I’ll give him to the iceman.”

The big grey man, William Drew, loomed over the heads of the little crowd, and they gave way before him as water divides under the prow of a ship; it was as if he cast a shadow which they feared before him.

“Help me through this mob,” said Woodbury to Werther, “and back to my box. Devil take it, my overcoat won’t cover that leg.”

Then on him also fell, as it seemed, the approaching shadow of the grey man and he looked up with something of a start into the keen eyes of Drew.

“Son,” said the big man, “you look sort of familiar to me. I’m asking your pardon, but who was your mother?”

The eyes of young Woodbury narrowed and the two stood considering each other gravely for a long moment.

“I never saw her,” he said at last, and then turned with a frown to work his way through the crowd and back to his box.

The tall man hesitated a moment and then started in pursuit, but the mob intervened. He turned back to Werther.

“Did you get his name?” he asked.

“Fine bit of riding he showed, eh?” cried the little man, “and turned down my thousand as cool as you please. I tell you, Drew, there’s some flint in the Easterners after all!”

“Damn the Easterners. What’s his name?”

“Woodbury. Anthony Woodbury.”

“Woodbury?”

“What’s wrong with that name?”

“Nothing. Only I’m a bit surprised.”

And he frowned with a puzzled, wistful expression, staring straight ahead like a man striving to solve a great riddle.

CHAPTER III

SOCIAL SUICIDE

At his box, Woodbury stopped only to huddle into his coat and overcoat and pull his hat down over his eyes. Then he hurried on toward an exit, but even this slight delay brought the reporters up with him. They had scented news as the eagle sights prey far below, and then swooped down on him. He continued his flight shaking off their harrying questions, but they kept up the running fight and at the door one of them reached his side with: “It’s Mr. Woodbury of the Westfall Polo Club, son of Mr. John Woodbury of Anson Place?”

Anthony Woodbury groaned with dismay and clutched the grinning reporter by the arm.

“Come with me!”

Prospects of a scoop of a sizable nature brightened the eyes of the reporter. He followed in all haste, and the other news-gatherers, in obedience to the exacting, unspoken laws of their craft, stood back and followed the flight with grumbling envy.

On Twenty-Sixth Street, a little from the corner of Madison Avenue, stood a big touring car with the chauffeur waiting in the front seat. There were still some followers from the Garden.

Woodbury jumped into the back seat, drew the reporter after him, and called: “Start ahead, Maclaren—drive anywhere, but get moving.”

“Now, sir,” turning to the reporter as the engine commenced to hum, “what’s your name?”

“Bantry.”

“Bantry? Glad to know you.”

He shook hands.

“You know me?”

“Certainly. I cover sports all the way from polo to golf. Anthony Woodbury—Westfall Polo Club—then golf, tennis, trap shooting—”

“Enough!” groaned the victim. “Now look here, Bantry, you have me dead to rights—got me with the goods, so to speak, haven’t you?”

“It was a great bit of work; ought to make a first-page story.”

And the other groaned again. “I know—son of millionaire rides unbroken horse in Wild West show—and all that sort of thing. But, good Lord, man, think what it will mean to me?”

“Nothing to be ashamed of, is it? Your father’ll be proud of you.”

Woodbury looked at him sharply.

“How do you know that?”

“Any man would be.”

“But the notoriety, man! It would kill me with a lot of people as thoroughly as if I’d put the muzzle of a gun in my mouth and pulled the trigger.”

“H-m!” muttered the reporter, “sort of social suicide, all right. But it’s news, Mr. Woodbury, and the editor—”

“Expects you to write as much as the rest of the papers print—and none of the other reporters know me.”

“One or two of them might have.”

“But my dear fellow—won’t you take a chance?”

Bantry made a wry face.

“Madison Square Garden,” went on Woodbury bitterly. “Ten thousand people looking on—gad, man, it’s awful.”

“Why’d you do it, then?”

“Couldn’t help it, Bantry. By Jove, when that wicked devil of a horse came at my box and I caught a glimpse of the red demon in his eyes—why, man, I simply had to get down and try my luck. Ever play football?”

“Yes, quite a while ago.”

“Then you know how it is when you’re in the bleachers and the whistle blows for the game to begin. That’s the way it was with me. I wanted to climb down into the field—and I did. Once started, I couldn’t stop until I’d made a complete ass of myself in the most spectacular style. Now, Bantry, I appeal to you for the sake of your old football days, don’t show me up—keep my name quiet.”

“I’d like to—damned if I wouldn’t—but—a scoop—”

Anthony Woodbury considered his companion with a strange yearning. It might have been to take him by the throat; it might have been some gentler motive, but his hand stole at last toward an inner coat pocket.

He said: “I know times are a bit lean now and then in your game, Bantry. I wonder if you could use a bit of the long green? Just now I’m very flush, and—”

He produced a thickly stuffed bill-fold, but Bantry smiled and touched Woodbury’s arm.

“Couldn’t possibly, you know.”

He considered a moment and then, with a smile: “It’s a bit awkward for both of us, isn’t it? Suppose I keep your name under my hat and you give me a few little inside tips now and then on polo news, and that sort of thing?”

“Here’s my hand on it. You’ve no idea what a load you take off my mind.”

“We’ve circled about and are pretty close to the Garden again. Could you let me out here?”

The car rolled to an easy stop and the reporter stepped out.

“I’ll forget everything you wish, Mr. Woodbury.”

“It’s an honour to have met you, sir. Use me whenever you can. Goodnight.”

To the chauffeur he said: “Home, and make it fast.”

They passed up Lexington with Maclaren “making it fast,” so that the big car was continually nosing its way around the machines in front with much honking of the horn. At Fifty-Ninth Street they turned across to the bridge and hummed softly across the black, shimmering waters of the East River; by the time they reached Brooklyn a fine mist was beginning to fall, blurring the wind-shield, and Maclaren slowed up perceptibly, so that before they passed the heart of the city, Woodbury leaned forward and said: “What’s the matter, Maclaren?”

“Wet streets—no chains—this wind-shield is pretty hard to see through.”

“Stop her, then. I’ll take the wheel the rest of the way. Want to travel a bit to-night.”

The chauffeur, as if this exchange were something he had been expecting, made no demur, and a moment later, with Woodbury at the wheel, the motor began to hum again in a gradually increasing crescendo. Two or three motor-police glanced after the car as it snapped about corners with an ominous skid and straightened out, whining, on the new street; but in each case, having made a comfortable number of arrests that day, they had little heart for the pursuit of the grey monster through that chill mist.

Past Brooklyn, with a country road before them, Woodbury cut out the muffler and the car sprang forward with a roar. A gust of increasing wind whipped back to Maclaren, for the wind-shield had been opened so that the driver need not look through the dripping glass and mingling with the wet gale were snatches of singing.

The chauffeur, partly in understanding and partly from anxiety, apparently, caught the side of the seat in a firm grip and leaned forward to break the jar when they struck rough places. Around an elbow turn they went with one warning scream of the Klaxon, skidded horribly at the sharp angle of the curve, and missed by inches a car from the opposite direction.

They swept on with the startled yell of the other party ringing after them, drowned at once by the crackling of the exhaust. Maclaren raised a furtive hand to wipe from his forehead a moisture which was not altogether rain, but immediately grasped the side of the seat again. Straight ahead the road swung up to meet a bridge and dropped sharply away from it on the further side. Maclaren groaned but the sound was lost in the increasing roar of the exhaust.

They barely touched that bridge and shot off into space on the other side like a hurdler clearing an obstacle. With a creak and a thud the big car landed, reeled drunkenly, and straightened out in earnest, Maclaren craned his head to see the speedometer, but had not the heart to look; he began to curse softly, steadily.