At last the whispered comparisons that had stirred under the speech of the Valley concerning the Ironwoods and the Finger Marks was to have justification. For the first and only time, in her knowledge, they were to run.
“All right!” cried Tharon aloud. “Come on, you bastards! It’s the king you come against an’ Jim Last’s blood! You’ll never put a hand on either.”
She struck her heels into El Rey’s flanks, leaned over her pommel, wished she was on the king’s bare back, reached her hands far out along the reins and began to call in his ear.
“Yeeoo! Yeeoo! Yeeoo!” she cried, a high, exciting note that keened in the singing wind. And El Rey, ever keen to run for no reason, finding himself called upon, stretched out his great body, dropped low to earth and began to run. The wind cut by Tharon’s face like a knife in the first few leaps.
It shut her eyes in a dozen. She rode and laughed with a half sob in her throat. The thunder of the king’s iron-shod hoofs was in her ears like the roar of the spring freshets when the empty cañons poured their temporary torrents down the Rockface into the Valley. 136
She knew he was running as she had never ridden before. She had never called upon him before. It was like being adrift upon the wind. She heard the note of his speed rising in her ears. It was as it had ever been, save that it was a higher note, thinner, sharper. There was scarce a sense of touch beneath her, a lack of jar, of vibration, so evenly and smoothly did the shining hoofs take the grassy plain.
Tears were in her eyes. Laughter was on her lips. This was speed indeed! She had a sick longing that Jim Last might see his two loved ones go!
Then she gathered herself to turn her head across her leaning shoulder and look back.
As her eyes swept into focus behind, the laughter slipped off her lips as if wiped by an invisible hand.
There, the same distance away as when they started, rode Courtrey!