Bred of the Desert: A Horse and a Romance

by Charles M. Horton

Stephen continued slowly with his saddling. “It’s decent of you fellows,” he said, quietly. “And I don’t want you to think me ungrateful. It’s just a feeling I’ve got. I want to get this horse back where he belongs.”

Another of the group took up the attempt at persuasion. “But you’re sick, man!” he exclaimed, beginning to stroke Pat absently. “You won’t never make the depot! You owe it to everybody you’ve ever knowed to get right back into bed and stay there!”

But Stephen only shook his head. Yet he knew that what the boys said was true. He was sick, and he knew it. He realized that he ought to be in bed. And he wanted to be in bed. But already he had suffered too much, lying inert, not because of his arm and the fever upon him, though these were almost unbearable, but because of the haunting fear, come to him ever more insistently with each passing day, that since Pat had escaped from him twice thus far, he was destined to escape from him a third time. Sometimes this fear took shape in visions of a blazing fire in the stable, in which Pat was burned to a crisp; again it took form in some malady peculiar to horses which would prove equally disastrous. At last, unable to withstand these pictures longer, he had crept out of bed, dressed as best he could, and stolen out of the house, bent upon getting Pat to the railroad, and there shipping him east to Helen at whatever cost to himself. So here he was, about to ride off.

“You’re–you’re mighty decent,” he repeated, hollowly, by way of farewell. “But I’ve got to go. And don’t worry about my making the station,” he added, reassuringly. “I have the directions, and I’ll get there in time to make that ten-thirty eastbound to-night.” He clambered painfully up into the saddle.

A third member of the group, the round-faced and smiling cowpuncher, opened up with his pleasing drawl. “Why’n’t you stay over till mornin’, then?” he demanded. “The ranch wagon goes up early, and you could ride the seat just like a well man.”

But Stephen remained obdurate, and, repeating his thanks and farewells, he urged Pat forward at a walk because he himself could not stand the racking of a more rapid gait. The men sent after him expressions of regret mingled with friendly denunciations, but he rode steadily on, closing his ears grimly against their pleas, and soon he was moving slowly across the Arizona desert. His direction was northwest, and his destination, though new to him, a little town on the Santa Fé.

As he rode forward through the quiet of the afternoon he found his thoughts a curious conflict. At times he would think of the girl, and of his love for her, and of the long, still hours spent in the ranch-house brooding, especially the nights, when, gazing out at the stars, he had wondered whether she knew, or, knowing, whether, after all, she really cared. They had been lonely nights, fever-tossed and restless, nights sometimes curiously made up of pictures–pictures of a runaway horse and of a girl mounted upon the horse, and of long walks and rides and talks with her afterward, and of the last night in her company, outside a corral and underneath a smiling moon, the girl in white, her eyes burning with a strange glow, himself telling his love for her, and hearing in return only that she did not and could not return that love.

These were his thoughts at times as he rode forward through the desert solitude. Then he would awaken to his physical torture, and in this he would completely forget his spiritual distress, would ask why he had flung himself into this mocking silence and plunged into all this misery and pain. He knew why–knew it was because of the girl. But would it have been better to accept her dismissal and, returning to the East, let her pass out of his memory? In his heart he knew that he could not.

There followed the thought of his responsibility for Pat, and of what was left for him to do. He recalled the theft, and his weeks of futile riding to recover the horse, and the thrill accompanying risk of life when he finally recovered him. And after that the second theft, and another and more dreadful ride when he raced through the night after the cavalry–the torture of it, the agony of his arm, the shooting, and the grappling hand to hand, and Pat sinking with exhaustion, and the thrill again, his own, at having the horse once more in his possession. It was worth it–all of it–and he was glad–glad to have had an object for once in his life. And he still had that object, for was he not riding the horse on a journey which would end in placing Pat in the hands of the adorable girl who owned him?

Thus he rode through the afternoon and on into an early dusk. Suddenly awaking to the Stygian darkness around him, he gave over thinking of the past and future and turned uneasy thoughts upon the present. Above him was a black, impenetrable dome, seemingly within touch of his hand; around and about him pressed a dense wall that gave no hint of his whereabouts. Yet he believed that he was pursuing the right direction; and, forgetting that Pat, no more than himself, knew the route, he gave the horse loose rein. Thus for an hour, two hours, three, he rode slowly forward, when like a flash it came to him that he was hopelessly lost. He reined in the horse sharply.