Bred of the Desert: A Horse and a Romance

by Charles M. Horton

But with her in the saddle Pat was quite another horse. He snapped his ears at attention, wheeled to the gate, and cantered briskly out of the corral.

It was a beautiful morning. The air nipped with a tang of frost, and she rode swiftly through town and up the hill to the mesa in keen exhilaration. Once on the mesa, Pat dashed off ecstatically in the direction of the mountains. The pace was thrilling. The rush of the crisp wind, together with the joy of swift motion, sent tingling blood into Helen’s cheeks, while the horse, racing along at top speed, flung out his hoofs with a vigor that told of the riot of blood within him. Thus they continued, until in the shadow of the mountains–just now draped in their most delicate coloring, the pink that accompanies sunbeams streaming through fading haze–she pulled Pat down and gave herself over to the beauty of the scene. The horse, also appreciative, came to a ready stop and turned his eyes out over the desert in slow-blinking earnestness.

“Pat!” suddenly cried Helen. She pulled his head gently around in the direction of the mountain trail. “Look off there!”

Above the distant trail hung a thin cloud of dust, and under the cloud of dust, and rolling heavily toward town, creaked a lumber rigging, piled high with wood and drawn by a pair of plodding horses–plodding despite the bite and snarl of a whip swung with merciless regularity. The whip was in the hands of a brawny Mexican, who, seated confidently on the high load, appeared utterly indifferent to the trembling endeavors of his scrawny team. He was inhaling the smoke of a cigarette, and with every puff mechanically flaying the horses. The spectacle aroused deep sympathy in the girl.

“Only consider, Pat!” she exclaimed, after a while. “Those poor, miserable horses–half-starved, cruelly beaten, yet of God’s own making!” She was silent. “Suppose you had been born to that service, Pat–born to that oppression! You are one of the fortunate!” And she bent forward and stroked him. “One of the fortunate!” she repeated, thoughtfully.

Indeed Pat was just that. But not in the way Helen meant. For such was the whim of Fate, and such is the limit of human understanding, she did not know, and never would know, save by the grace of that Fate, that Pat had been born in just that service, born to just that oppression; that only by the kindness of Fate he had been released from that service, that oppression, that he had been guided out of that environment and cast into a more kindly, bigger, and truer environment–her own!

But Pat only blinked stolid indifference at the spectacle. He appeared to care nothing for the misery of other horses, nor to appreciate her tenderness when directed elsewhere than toward himself. After a time, as if to reveal this, he set out of his own volition toward a particularly inviting bit of flower, dainty yellow in the brown of the desert. Plucking this morsel, he fell to munching it in contentment, and continued to munch it till the last vestige disappeared. Then, again of his own volition, he broke into a canter. Helen smiled and pulled him down.

“You’re a strange horse, Pat,” she declared, and fell to stroking him again. “And not the least strange thing about you is your history. Sometimes I wonder whether you are actually blooded. Certainly you look it, and at times assuredly you act it; yet if you are so valuable, why didn’t somebody claim you that time? It is all very mysterious.” And she relapsed into silence, gazing at him thoughtfully.

Aroused by sudden faint gusts of wind, she glanced around and overhead. She saw unmistakable signs of an approaching storm, and swung Pat about toward home. As the horse broke into a canter the gusts became more fitful and sharper, while the sun, growing dim and hazy, cast ever-increasing shadow before her. Presently, as far as the eye could reach, she saw the landscape spring into active life. Dust-devils whirled about in quick eddies, stray sheets of paper leaped up, tumbleweed began steady forward movement, rabbit-like, scurrying before the winds, the advance occupied by largest growths, the rear brought up with smallest clumps, the order determined by the area each presented to the winds. It was all very impressive, but, knowing the uncertain character of the elements, and uncertain whether this foretold violent sand-storm or milder wind-storm, she was gripped with apprehension. She urged Pat to his utmost.

And Pat responded, though he really needed but little urging. With each sudden gust he became increasingly afraid. Holding himself more and more alert to every least movement about him, he was steadily becoming keyed up to a dangerous pitch. Rollicking tumbleweed did not worry him any more than did the swirling dust-devils. These were things of the desert, each the complexion of the desert. But not so with scraps of paper. Their whiteness offered a startling contrast to the others, and, whisking about frantically, they increased his fears. Then suddenly a paper struck him, whipped madly across his eyes. It was unexpected, and for an instant blinded him. Gripping the bit in his teeth, he bolted.