But Midnight did not want to fight. He had employed craft in stealing upon the man, and now he moved off sulkily, the whites of his eyes rolled back, a thin stream of blood trickling from his muzzle. Salazar longed to shoot holes through his shiny black hide, but contented himself with abuse instead. Was not the stallion worth five thousand dollars? Who was he--Manuel, a poor vaquero--to be considered in the same thought with so noble a beast?
“Tommy,” he said as he unsaddled at headquarters, “I’ve found who killed your pore father. Yes, and old man Greer, too. Don’t look so pale, Tommy.”
Tommy stalked into the manager’s office next forenoon, a very solemn and very determined, if a short and somewhat dirty figure. He was white under his freckles, and he talked through his teeth, jerkily, his eyes fixed unwaveringly on the manager’s face.
“Midnight!” the manager exclaimed. “Nonsense! Why, he wouldn’t harm a fly. That horse would never kill a man. He’s worth five thousand dollars. Since we got him from Kentucky, two years ago, a woman could handle him, Tommy, boy. Salazar must have been teasing him. You’ll have to look somewhere else, Tommy.”
“You mean you ain’t going to do nothing, Mr. Chalmers?” Tommy asked in a dry voice.
“Of course not. Midnight? Impossible. Why, that horse is worth five thousand dollars. He couldn’t have done it.”
Tommy went back home very slowly. That night he sat beside Manuel’s candle and cleaned and oiled a sawed-off .25-30 rifle, inherited from the man who slept on the hill. Salazar smoked lazily and watched him through drooping lids. The boy finished his task and leaned forward on the stool, staring at the tiny flame, the weapon across his knees.
Of what avail to shoot Midnight? Of course it would be easy. Tommy had acquired some degree of skill by blowing the heads off chickens whenever any were desired for the dinner-table, and he felt assured that at two hundred yards he could pick off the stallion with one pressure of his finger. It would be mere child’s work to distinguish Midnight from the mares, even on the murkiest night. But, after all--had the stallion done the killing? He had only Manuel’s experience and suspicions to go on. Moreover, if he took punishment into his own hands they might throw him into a jail. Midnight was worth five thousand dollars: assuredly Mr. Chalmers would cast Tommy out into the world to shift for himself. He put the rifle back under his bunk.
Very discreetly Tommy entered the horse pasture at sunup--he had been unable to sleep for scheming--and made his way down the mile-long fence toward the corner where the mares usually grazed at that hour. He had a six-shooter in his pocket for an emergency, but he hoped that he would not use it. Midnight sighted him and stood rigid a full minute, twenty paces in advance of the mares, gazing at the boy. He was a regal animal; Tommy thought he had never seen so glorious a horse. Then the stallion advanced with mincing steps, his head bobbing, the ears laid back. He sidled nearer, without haste, whinnying softly. The boy waited until he was a dozen feet distant, then threw himself flat and rolled under the barbed-wire fence. With a rending scream Midnight reared and plunged for him, his forefeet battering the ground where Tommy had fallen. He tore at the earth in discomfiture and wrath, and raved up and down on the other side of the fence, his nostrils flaring, his eyes a glare of demoniacal hate. Tommy surveyed him in deathly quiet.
The dark came warm, with puffs of hot wind, so that the Tumbling K men reviled the discomfort joyously, since it presaged rain. So long as the cold nights endured there could be no relief. Tommy slipped from the bunkhouse for a breath of air, though it was past bedtime and they had told him to turn in.