Mustang

      Copyright © 1942, 1970 by Thomas C. Hinkle

      All rights reserved.

      Published by Wildside Press LLC

      www.wildsidepress.com

      IT was a fine spring day in the cattle country of the Old West. Big Bay, the mother of Mustang, a two-month-old colt, walked along a trail that led up a steep slope toward a line of rocky cliffs beyond. Three old worn-out range horses walked behind Big Bay and Mustang.

      Big Bay had raised a number of colts. She was the kind of mother that watched for enemies and she was an unusual old mare in that she would fight for her colt. She would fight a wolf or a mountain lion, and once she had kicked a grizzly bear so quickly and so hard on his jaw that the grizzly was knocked back and Big Bay got away with her foal. That had been two years ago. She had a new colt now—this small prancing one that seemed to be so full of life he couldn’t stand still.

      She was an unusually big mare, weighing over twelve hundred pounds. She was tall, rangy, quick on her feet and quick to see her enemies as a rule, although at this time she was moving toward a dangerous one that she could not see, and unfortunately there was no wind to help her scent him. He was a big mountain lion crouched flat on a high rocky ledge just above the horse and cattle trail that passed right beneath him.

      Big Bay was not supposed to be way out here in the wild places, miles from the Horseshoe Ranch where she belonged. She had strayed away from the Horseshoe Ranch three days before with her little colt, Mustang, and before noon of that day Sam McSwain had missed her. Sam, a foreman of the ranch, was a young man of only nineteen, but he had native ability for his job. He was next to the head foreman, Jim Parkman, on the vast Horseshoe Ranch. And both Sam and Jim owned cattle in their own right. Fortunately for Sam, he was now the owner of Big Bay and Mustang.

      The colt had been born in a stable on the Horseshoe Ranch and Sam had petted him so much that at two months old he had learned to know Sam from all the other cowboys. Tall, raw-boned Jim Parkman had said one day to Sam, “If you keep on fooling with that colt, Sam, you’ll have him so daggone full of tricks you’ll plumb spoil him. Why, he’s got so now that we can’t throw a hat on the ground but what he carries it away!” And that was so. Mustang, to Sam’s delight, would come up when Sam was seated on the ground, and if Sam would seem to pay no attention to him, he would pull Sam’s hat off. Once when Mustang did this Sam had said to the other cowboys looking on, “This little colt is unusual. He’ll make a great horse some day.” “A great nuisance, maybe!” Jim had said, but Sam only laughed.

      And so while Sam rode and hunted in the wild places now for Big Bay and her fine little foal, he had all these thoughts about the colt. Out here in these days, when a cowboy like Sam got to liking a horse like that, that horse seemed like a true human friend.

      Sam had his field glasses, and now and then he would put his “lookers,” as the cowboys called them, to his eyes and scan the countryside. As yet, he had seen no sign of Big Bay and Mustang.

      If, at this minute, he had known what was happening across a high ridge beyond him, one that he couldn’t see over, he would have started his horse running toward that place with all his might and Sam would have started shooting his rifle to scare that “mountain cat,” as the cowboys called mountain lions. But, as it was, the big cat lay on the ledge, his mouth watering for that little colt prancing along beside his mother, coming nearer and nearer all the time.

      Sam was in a dip between two high ridges and he started his horse up the farther slope. It was a high ridge and it was not far from that rocky ledge where the big crouching cat lay waiting.

      Sam rode out of a cut in the ridge and came out in the open where all at once he saw one of the strangest fights in the Old West. As he rode into the open he saw the mountain lion leap, apparently for Mustang. But a strange thing happened to the big cat as he jumped. There was earth and loose shale rock on the ledge where he crouched and the lion’s hind claws slipped as he leaped. Sam saw the place later. The result was that the big cat missed Mustang wholly and fell right under the front hoofs of Big Bay. On the instant Sam saw one of her hoofs strike down. She struck the beast fair in the head. She uttered a wild shriek and rained blows upon him with her front hoofs. Then Sam saw Big Bay’s head shoot down and he saw her gleaming teeth as she grabbed the big cat by the neck and tried to shake it as a dog would shake a rat.

      Astonished and delighted with what he had seen, Sam rode up at a run. Big Bay was now pounding the dead beast with her front hoofs. She seemed wild with fear and rage. Sam saw one ugly cut on Big Bay’s shoulder where a claw of the lion had cut as the beast leaped down, and there was Mustang standing quivering but unhurt. Sam uttered an exclamation of awe and joy. He dismounted and affectionately patted the trembling but now unafraid Big Bay. He said to Mustang, “Say, little feller, you’re about the luckiest little colt that ever was! And if you are half the fighter that your mammy is you’ll be a great horse!”

      Mustang unhesitatingly came up close to Sam and Sam patted his shoulders and rubbed the hair smooth down his back. From the day Mustang had been born Sam had paid this attention to him. One of the chief reasons Sam was interested in this colt was because of Big Bay. She was the most beautiful horse on the ranch and she had, besides, unusual intelligence and a fighting spirit.

      Sam looked at her now and he talked to her as he patted her on the neck. Even though she sometimes wandered away from the ranch if she was loose, she would come up to any of the men she knew when they dismounted and talked to her. Jim Parkman, Charley Malone, Bud Allen, and all the men at the ranch had a great liking for Big Bay. While Sam talked to her he tied his lariat rope around her neck and said, “Big Bay, you’re the greatest horse on the ranch, but you must stay at home with Mustang or the next mountain cat will get him. If it’s not a mountain cat it might be a wolf maybe. Too much danger out here for this little feller even with you to watch him.”

      The wind that blows so frequently in the West lifted Big Bay’s long foretop and blew it to one side and her long flowing tail moved steadily in the breeze. Big Bay quit trembling. She put her nose down toward the big mountain lion, her eyes opened wide and she snorted, but Sam reassured her and she looked off in the distance. Presently she made an unusual sound that caused Sam to look at her eyes and he saw she was watching something in the distance. At first he could see nothing but some buzzards far away circling in the sky. But in a moment he was aware that Big Bay saw something that she was more concerned with than the circling buzzards. Sam saw the top of a horseman’s head in the distance. The man was riding in a low place on a rolling plain. Sam mounted his horse and saw a small cloud of dust, and then all at once he saw not one but three horsemen galloping along in his direction.

      As the horsemen came nearer, Sam saw that they were his three friends, Jim Parkman, the ranch head foreman, Charley Malone and Bud Allen. The three cowboys rode up at a gallop and pulled their horses to a stand. When Sam told them what had happened they looked at the dead mountain lion, then looked at Big Bay with something in their eyes that showed how much they admired her. They dismounted, rubbed Big Bay, and praised her in their typical language, and grinned with admiration while they talked.

      “Now ain’t Big Bay the daggonedest, fightingest horse!”

      “You bet she is. She’s plumb sour on mountain cats!”

      “It’s so, and if she was hungry enough she’d likely eat one for breakfast.”

      “I expect when she was a-stomping this cat she was a-thinking, ‘Why daggone your hide! The idee—you a-trying to kill my little feller! I ain’t got no use for you! You can’t travel in my set—you’re that disgusting!’ ”

      “Yes, and likely she thought while she stomped him, ‘I suppose I ought