Tharon of Lost Valley

by Vingie E. Roe

Bareheaded, slender, she was a thing of beauty, and there was a quiet command about her which subdued the great El Rey himself, the proudest horse in all the Valley, outside of Courtrey’s Ironwoods, Bolt and Arrow.

Between these three horses there was much comment and discussion, though they had never been tested out together.

She found a bridle on a corral post, a strong affair of rawhide, heavily ornamented with silver, its bit a Spanish spade. Without this she could not hold the stallion, and he was no pet to come at her caressing call of the double notes.

Only Jim Last himself had ever tamed El Rey to do his bidding by word of mouth. The horse had had one master. He would never have another.

Even now, when Tharon bridled him and 36 opened the big gate, promising him his long-desired flight, he seemed not to see her, his beautiful big eyes looked through, beyond her, as if he sought another. There was some one for whom he waited, listened.

From a block of wood set in the yard the girl gathered the rein tight in her hand, balanced a moment, and leaped up astride the shining back.

With a snort like a pistol shot El Rey flung up his great head, leaped into the air and was gone. Around the corner of the adobe house he went, out across the trampled yard, and away along the open to the south, running level and free. With the first sink-and-lift Tharon had slipped back a full span. Now she wound her fingers in the white cloud of mane that flailed her face and edged up, inch by inch. When her knees were well up on the huge shoulders that worked beneath them powerfully, she gathered the reins, one in each hand, leaned down along the outstretched neck and let the great king run. The wind sang by her ears in a rising whine, the green prairie was a flowing sea beneath her, the thunder of the pounding hoofs was stupendous music. Tharon shut her eyes and rode, and for the first time since Jim Last’s death a sense of joy rose in her like a tide.

She had ridden El Rey before, many times. She 37 had felt him sail beneath her down the open prairies and always it was so, as if the earth slid by, as if the note of the wind lifted minute by minute. She had wondered often about this––how long it would continue to rise with El Rey’s rising speed, how long before he would reach a maximum above which he could not go, a place where the singing note would remain fixed.

She had never known him reach that point. Always he could go faster. Always he had reserves.

Far out ahead she saw a bunch of cattle feeding. They were lazily circling in a wide arc, content under the beaming sun. Near them sat a rider on a buckskin horse, Bent Smith on Golden. This Golden was one of the prides of Last’s Holding. Bigger than Drumfire or Redbuck, he ranked next to El Rey himself in speed, for his slim legs, slapped smartly with the distinguishing finger marks on the outside of the knee, were long and shapely, his back short-coupled and strong, his withers low, his narrow hips high. Tharon bore hard on El Rey’s bit, leaned her body to the left, and they swung in toward Bent and Golden in a beautiful sweeping curve that brought the cowboy up in his stirrups with his hat a-wave above him.